The Presbyterian journal [serial]

THE LIBRARY OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF
NORTH CAROLINA

THE COLLECTION OF
NORTH CAROLINIANA

C28£
S72p
v.31
1972/73

UNIVERSITY OF N.C. AT CHAPEL HILL

00042735629

FOR USE ONLY IN
THE NORTH CAROLINA COLLECTION

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VOL. XXXI, NO. 1

MAY 3, 1972

$4.00 A YEAR

the

/f 7.2/73

PRESBYTERIAN

4dvocating continuation of a Presbyterian Church loyal

to Scripture and the Reformed faith

Steady in a Crisis

Fearful people make other people afraid. On the other
hand, courage is contagious, too. When people stand steady
and untroubled in a crisis they communicate a calm and steady
spirit to others. We are to be encouragers of other people. As
Christians we have a moral obligation to demonstrate a spirit
of restful trust. This will encourage others to have the same
kind of spirit.

— Bruce Wideman

(See p. 9)

S. S. LESSON AND YOUTH PROGRAM FOR MAY 21

IHOO

ra^S OK TTTH ledteito
tio^oqtioo D M

MAILBAG-

NOT AN ELDER

My article entitled, "What's
Next," was in the March 29 issue of
the Journal.

I appreciate the promotion to el-
der but it is inaccurate. I am only
an assistant superintendent of the
Sunday school. If there is a way to
acknowledge this error, I will appre-
ciate it. I'm afraid some will think

this was intentional on my part.

— Horace O. Kimbrough
Tuscumbia, Ala.

GREATLY WEAKENED

I am upset at the strength of your
denunciation of Dr. Rose's state-
ment to the effect that the UPUSA
Church is a confessional Church loy-

the

PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL

Rev. G. Aiken Taylor, Ph.D., Editor
Rev. Henry B. Dendy, D.D., Managing Editor
Arthur H. Matthews, Assistant Editor

Circulation leader among independent publications in the Presbyterian-Reformed world

THIS WEEK — Vol. XXXI, No. 1, May 3, 1972

When Peace Stands Guard 9

The absence of strife is a sign of peace, but much more is
necessary By Bruce Wideman

Concerned Without Comfort 11

Some serious considerations have been overlooked in
Presbyterian actions on abortion By Richard G. Watson

Consider the Cause 12

Those who believe political issues have kept Presbyterians
apart should check history By R. McFerran Crov/e

De partments —

Editorials 14

The Laymn and his Church 1 5

Sunday School Lesson, May 21 16

Youth Program, May 2 1 1 8

Book Reviews 20

THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL, a

Presbyterian weekly magazine, devoted
to the statement, defense, and propa-
gation of the Gospel, the faith which
was once for all delivered to the saints,

is published every Wednesday by the
Southern Presbyterian Journal Co.,
Inc., in Weaverville, N. C.

SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: $4 a year

for individuals, $3 for members of
Every Family Plan churches. All cor-
respondence regarding subscriptions,
advertising or other business matters,
should be addressed to the business
office in Weaverville, N. C. 28787.
Second class postage paid at Weaver-
ville, N. C. 28787.

POSTMASTER: Send Form 3579 to
Presbyterian Journal, Box 635, Wea-
verville, N. C. 28787. Subscribers
should allow three weeks for change
of address in continental U. S. Change
of address notices should include both
old and new addresses (with zip
codes) .

NEWS AND EDITORIAL correspond-
ence should be addressed to P. O. Box
3108, Asheville, N. C. 28802. Editorial
offices located at 247 Charlotte St. in
Asheville.

TELEPHONES: (All area 704) edi-
torial office, 254-4015, 254-4016;
business office, 645-3310, 645-3962.

al to the Westminster Confession
You say, "We are sorry, Dr. Rose
but you are in error. The UPUS/
is not any longer a confessiona
Church." You base this opinion oi
the fact that our Church has ... "re
moved from its constitution th
element of subscription which i
what makes a Church confessional
(in Vol. XXX, No. 45, p. 13) .

You are stating this matter far tc«
strongly. Although Dr. Rose is no
telling the whole truth either, he i:
far closer to it than you. Th<
UPUSA's recent constitutional revi
sion did modify our vows with the ef
feet of greatly weakening them, bui
we have not removed subscription
from our constitution. We have onl)
changed its form.

There has always been consider
able debate among Reformed
Churches about what the best form
would be. Should officers be required!
to profess that every statement of the!
confession is sound, as professors all
Andover Seminary were? Should wel
rather have to subscribe to the sys-l
tem of doctrine which the confession!
represents, as United Presbyterians
used to do? Should we have to say
that there is nothing in the confes-
sion contrary to Scripture, as the
Christian Reformed do? Are we
bound to the confession in so far
as it summarizes Scripture or be-
cause it is a faithful summary (the
famous Dutch debate) ? Probably the
mildest form of subscription possible
is now practiced by the Hervormde
Kerk (Netherlands) which recently
amended its constitution to again al-
low for discipline for doctrinal rea-
sons. The officers must now profess
that they are "in community with"
or "in dialogue with" their confes-
sions. All these possibilities repre-
sent different forms that confession-
al subscription has taken in Re-
formed Churches.

Thus, you must not say that we
have eliminated subscription when
in fact our officers must profess that
they will be guided by our confes-
sions. Of the questions asked of
officers at their ordination, question
three states, "Will you be instructed
by the Confessions of our Church, and
led by them as you lead the people
of God?" (49.043) . The "duties of
a minister of the Gospel" are clearly
defined, and among them is that
of ". . . expounding, teaching, and
preaching the Word . . . ." (38.03) .
Thus we are required to promise
that we will expound God's Word
under the instruction and guidance

f our confessions.

To be sure, this form of subscrip-
on does not commit us to every

atement of the Book of Confessions
one of which is that Mary was
Ver virgin) , nor are we committed
> the system of doctrine which
nderlies them (for which some
f us can thank God when we
;ad the Confession of '67) , but our
ows do commit us to a close, posi-
ve relationship to these documents
and the Bible) which is surely one
f the many credible forms of sub-
:ription, is it not?

— Robert E. Ralston
APO New York

or the sake of comparison, here is
te second question for Presbyterian
IS ordinands: "Do you sincerely re-
eive and adopt the Confession of
aith and the Catechisms of this
hurch, as containing the system of
octrine taught in the Holy Scrip-
ares?"— Ed.

THERE WAS MORE TO IT

Reports of the "Ecumenical Wit-
ess for Peace" conference held in

• The Journal is in the over-30
lass now. Notice the new volume
lumber on page one. An editorial
n page fourteen looks at the ques-
ion of the trustworthiness of those
ver 30. While we take some notice
ach year of the ending of one vol-
ime and the beginning of another,
he big annual event is Journal Day.
/faybe some readers who have been
ubscribing through all these 30
ears can be there for the first time
n 1972. The date: August 9. The
dace: Weaverville, N. C.

• Managing Editor Henry Dendy
> the only staff member who has
ieen around all 30 of these years,
nd nobody really would be sur-
prised if he kept working 30 more.
)ne of his annual duties is to see
hat a number of the volumes are
>ound and sent to the Historical
foundation, seminary libraries and
»ur own office reference shelves,
leaders may order these bound vol-
imes for $9.00 each.

• Another of his happy duties is
o provide the beautiful King James
iward Bibles to those who have re-
ited the Shorter Catechism. We are
;lad to list in this first issue of a
lew volume the most recent recip-
ents. Congratulations to Gail

f

3

Kansas City in early January (Jour-
nal, Feb. 2) puzzle me in several
ways.

Does it not seem strange that the
21 members (mostly leaders) of the
Presbyterian Church US did not
seem to recognize that they were
calling upon the denomination to
consider a program which plainly
could have originated in Moscow,
Hanoi or Havana?

Does it not seem even stranger
that the Church's news media said
nothing about the several wild inter-
ruptions which took place, one of
which shattered the parliamentary
process, according to a national col-
umnist?

Does it not seem strange that the
Church's news media also failed to
mention the extreme leftist and radi-
cal groups that played a dominant
part both in the planning and the ex-
ecution of the conference?

When the top leadership of the
Church — in this case the executive
secretaries of all four program
boards — and others in leadership
roles, participate in such a confer-
ence, identify themselves with its

Moore, Freda McCorran and Sally
May King of the Bethany Church,
Bryson, Tenn.; Jennifer McNutt,
Roger Holbrook, Robert Holbrook,
Ronda Rogers, Renee Rogers, Chris
Barker, Stuart Bradley, Tina Mor-
rell, Mark Vance, Robin O'Neal,
Janice Flick, Brenda Mallicote and
Christy Lewis of the Fairmount
Church, Bristol, Tenn.; Anna Burt
Mulligan of the First Church, Tus-
cumbia, Ala.; Mary Louise Brown
of the First Church, London, Ky.;
Jean Christopher, Carolyn Toney
and Joel Hipp of the Mount Cal-
vary Church, Roebuck, S. C.

• One of the first lessons in jour-
nalism is "names are news." The
paragraph above is just one example
of our acceptance of this. Starting
on page six is another list. We
hope it will be interesting to many
readers. While many subscribers are
outside the Presbyterian Church
US, and while some Presbyterian US
readers may not know any of those

conclusions, commend its recommen-
dations to the Church for study and
even supplement those recommenda-
tions with a list of their own, is it
any wonder that a crisis of confi-
dence exists?

When our leaders sound their
trumpets with such uncertain sounds,
it is no wonder at all that thinking,
Christian people do not rally
around.

— Matsu Crawford
Greer, S. C.

MINISTERS

Jacob Eige 3d, graduate of Austin
Seminary, to the First Church,
Fordyce, Ark., and the Carthage,
Ark., church.

George B. Hutchins from Shreve-
port, La., to the First Church,
Marion, N. C.

E. Franklin Pyles from Rocky
Mount, Va., to the Shepherdstown,
W. Va., church.

Charles A. Taylor Sr., from Kil-
leen, Tex., to the First Church,
Lubbock, Tex., as associate pas-
tor.

listed, we believe it is a worthwhile
service each year to name Assembly
commissioners. The list is never 100
per cent accurate, partly because com-
missioners decide not to go and turn
their places over to alternates. How-
ever, we hope that publishing the
roll at this time (with a number of
changes already incorporated) will
give a nearly complete picture and
provide some names that other pub-
lications might have missed by start-
ing earlier. Various uses are made
of these rosters. One of the best, of
course, is to use it as a guide to
prayer for the Assembly.

• As promised last week, we pre-
sent the second part of R. McFerran
Crowe's timely historical article in
this issue. Concerned (take your
choice: spell it with a capital "C" or
small "c") Presbyterians who don't
know the facts in this presentation
are ill prepared for the upcoming
union debate. The installment
starts on page twelve. IB

PAGE 3 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 3, 1972

ACROSS THE EDITOR'S DESK

A

NEWS OF RELIGION

Churchmen Sign a New Anti-Bomb Bid

NEW YORK — Twenty-one leaders
in ten denominations have joined in
a statement opposing the bombing of
North Vietnam and have asked oth-
ers to join the protest. Among them
are prominent personalities in the
Presbyterian Church US, the United
Presbyterian Church USA and the
Reformed Church in America.

"We appeal to our fellow Chris-
tians to express with us opposition
to the escalation of the war in Indo-
china and the breakdown of negotia-
tions," said the religious leaders.

Ben L. Rose, moderator of the
1971 Presbyterian US General As-
sembly and a professor at Union
Seminary, Richmond, Va., was one
of the signers. Others included
George Chauncey, director of the
Presbyterian US Board of Christian
Education's office of Church and so-
ciety; William P. Thompson, stated
clerk of the United Presbyterian
Church USA; and Marion de Velder,
general secretary of the Reformed
Church in America.

The 21 said they supported an
earlier statement by leaders of the
National Council of Churches which
said, "In the name of God, the kill-
ing of Vietnamese by Americans
must be stopped by all means ex-
cept more killing. A peace or nego-
tiations produced by automated
mass bombing offends against hu-
manity and cannot be just."

Also signing were Presiding Bish-

GUATEMALA — When the Agua-
catec New Testament translation
was dedicated for the 11,000 mem-
ber Indian tribe in Aguacatan, the
Indians themselves planned the de-
dication ceremonies.

A crowd of about 1,500 Indians,
guests, and participating officials
witnessed the ceremonies which
climaxed 20 years of service by trans-
lators Harry and Lucille McArthur,
Canadian members of Wycliffe Bi-
ble Translators.

Among the guests were members
of the McArthur family and repre-
sentatives of the McArthurs' home

op John Hines of the Episcopal
Church, President Robert Moss of
the United Church of Christ, and
Thomas T. Liggett, chief executive
of the Christian Church (Disciples)
missions agency.

Blake Urges Americans
To Oppose Viet Bombing

GENEVA (RNS) — Eugene Carson
Blake, general secretary of the
World Council of Churches, has
scored the resumption of U.S.
bombing raids over North Vietnam.

The action, he said, threatens to
take the world "yet further down
the road of destruction."

World Council headquarters re-
leased the text of a letter Dr. Blake
sent to R. H. Edwin Espy, general
secretary of the U.S. National Coun-
cil of Churches, urging American
churchmen to "continue their ef-
forts to stop this senseless war."

Dr. Blake, an American and a
United Presbyterian USA clergy-
man, said the bombing of North
Vietnam "clearly makes impossible
the release of the several hundred
Americans being held prisoners of
war in Indo-China and of thou-
sands of political and military pris-
oners held in South Vietnam."

The World Council also an-
nounced the sending of a four-man

church. Others included officials
from Scriptures Unlimited and the
New York Bible Society, which fi-
nanced the publication, and a gen-
erous contributor to the Guatemala
printshop where the New Testa-
ment was printed.

The McArthurs went to Guate-
mala with the first group of Wycliffe
translators to enter that field in
1952. The only Aguacatec believer
became their language helper, Don
Chico, the barber. Don Chico's
nephew, Plas, served faithfully
through the years of Scripture trans-
lation, too. IS

team to Paris to meet with all fou
delegations in the suspended peaa
talks. 3

Fatal Crash Shatters
JAARS Safety Record

WAXHAW, N. C. — Seven person*
were killed in a New Guinea plant!
crash which ended the 24 year safety
record of the Jungle Aviation ant
Radio Service, air arm of Wycliffe
Bible Translators.

JAARS headquarters here saici
three Americans, two New Zealand
ers and two New Guineans wen
killed when the twin engine craft ex
ploded. It was seven minutes out o:
Lae, on the north coast of New Gui
nea, heading toward Ukarumpa ir
the interior highlands.

American translators aboard wen
Dr. Darlene Bee of Seattle, Wash,
and Mr. and Mrs. Oren Claassen ol
Potwin, Kan. Wycliffe, working
in New Guinea since 1956, has 368
staff members in 93 of the island's
tribes.

JAARS, flying its 37 planes on'
eight fields an average of 10,00C
hours annually, had never recorded
a fatality until the April 7 crash. E

First Church Challenges
Of Corporation Fails

NEW YORK (RNS) — The first
1972 Church challenge to the policies
of a major corporation went down
in overwhelming defeat.

A resolution asking the Goodyear
Tire and Rubber Company for a full
written report on operations in
South Africa was defeated 57,779,!
585 to 809,312, or 98.6 per cent
against 1.38 per cent.

The proxy resolution was spon-
sored by the American Baptist Board
of Education and Publication of Val-
ley Forge, Pa. That agency voted
about 3,000 shares. The only other
known block of Church stock sup
porting the measure was 8,00C
owned by the Women's Division ol
the United Methodist Board of Mis-
sions.

The Goodyear annual meeting was
in Akron, Ohio. The challenge on
South Africa was one of several an-
nounced earlier by a coalition of five
Protestant denominations. I

THE CHURCH OVERSEAS

PAGE 4 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 3, 1972

THE CHURCH AT HOME

ducation Unit Advocates
Restructure; OK's Grant

RICHMOND — Approval of its
xecutive secretary's decision to con-

ibute $1,500 toward the Florida
nti-busing campaign and advocacy
'f the proposal to restructure Pres-
yterian US boards and agencies
rere voted here by the denomina-
on's Board of Christian Education.

In its spring meeting tbe board
lso established a task force on
\ror\d peace and went on record in
'pposition to the General Council
ecommendation that the General
Assembly remove the World Council
If Churches and National Council
f Churches from the benevolence
udget.

Executive Secretary John B. Evans
bid policy makers of the education
gency that he stipulated the $1,500
snt to Florida before the March ref-
rendum "was for nonpartisan acti-
ity on the part of the governor and
he Committee of Citizens for Equal
Education, (and we) believe this
tipulation to have been honored."

He said the gift "was earmarked
or a film in which Governor
'Reubin) Askew and eleven reli-
;ious leaders in Florida made ap-
>eals to the citizens of Florida for
|uality education for all people."

The promotional campaign by the
;overnor failed, however, when only
!6 per cent of the voters agreed with
lis stand against the proposed
imendment. (Other details reported
m p. 5 last week. — Ed.)

On the subject of restructuring,
he board voted to express to the
General Assembly its advocacy of the
•eport of the Ad Interim Committee
m Restructuring Boards and Agen-
:ies. The expression will indicate
hat the board believes the proposal
provides an improved means for the
fulfillment of the functions which
lave been lodged by the Assembly in
he board. There will be no separate
educational agency named by the
\ssembly under the proposal. A

general executive board named by
the top court would assign various
educational and social action tasks,
now handled by the board, to units
within its five divisions.

In a related action the board asked
the Assembly to specify that during
the proposed transition process "ma-
jor program responsibility and con-
trol" of educational activities be
left with the existing board. It also
asked the denomination's governing
body to assign it the responsibility of
assisting members of its staff who
are not employed in the new struc-
ture.

Establishment of the peace task
force also involved recommendations
to the Assembly. In a supplementary
report (not included in the Assem-
bly commissioner's handbook) , the
board will inform the court of crea-
tion of the new interboard unit,
ask for an hour's special order for a
presentation to the Assembly, and
request the Assembly to encourage
all participating boards to provide
leadership for the effort.

The task force grew out of a re-
quest from the Council on Church
and Society, later endorsed by the
Executive Coordinating Committee
(board and agency executives) . Per-
sonnel named to the panel were not
immediately announced.

The board voted to tell the As-
sembly it was opposed to the Gen-
eral Council recommendations on
removing WCC and NCC from the
benevolence budget because of its
own ecumenical commitments.

In other actions the board:
— Approved a staff proposal, re-
quested at the November meeting,
for funding "innovation in local
church education," with all pastors
and professional educators to be
asked to make project suggestions.
Reserves in the amount of $25,000
in 1972 and $50,000 in 1973 were
earmarked for the program.
— Recognized, for purposes of par-
ticipation in educational grant and
loan programs, members of all
churches in union presbyteries. EE

Restructuring Decision
Postponement Is Asked

MOBILE, Ala. — Mobile Presbytery
has unanimously voted for a resolu-
tion opposing Presbyterian US Gen-
eral Assembly adoption of a proposal
to restructure denominational agen-
cies. The document took the form
of a resolution instead of an over-
ture to the Assembly since the dead-
line for overturing the 1972 Assem-
bly had passed.

The court expressed its opinion
that any action (adoption or rejec-
tion) should be postponed a year.
The document noted that "the final
draft of the proposed plan has been
available only since March 1972 and
has not been widely distributed, re-
sulting in a very fragmentary know-
ledge and poor understanding of it
on the part of the Church at large."

Another part of the resolution ex-
pressed the opinion that the ad in-
terim committee which produced the
proposal should be instructed "to
receive and respond to comments
and questions from any court of the
Church and to report again at the
1973 General Assembly." EE

E. Alabama Receives Man
On Second Examination

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — East Ala-
bama Presbytery has received the
Rev. Robert D. Miller after an
earlier vote to disapprove his the-
ological examination. He is moving
to the pastorate of Westminster
church here from St. Petersburg, Fla.

He was turned down 28-16 on his
initial theological examination. A
St. Petersburg newspaper which gave
extensive coverage to the presby-
tery's vote said the minister offered
this explanation: "Theirs is a very
orthodox form of faith, and I don't
speak the language of Zion." The
article also quoted the activist min-
ister as saying his social action views
did not come up in the examination.

At the second presbytery meeting,
a week later, Mr. Miller rephrased
some of his beliefs, and some who
opposed his admission at the first
meeting voted to receive him. The
vote to sustain the second examina-
tion was 40-28. EE

PAGE 5 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 3, 1972

World Missions Board
Appoints 18 Candidates

FLORENCE, Ala. — Eighteen new
missionaries were appointed by the
Presbyterian US Board of World
Missions at its spring meeting here.
Also approved were reappointments
for five, return from leave of ab-
sence for two, and extension of terms
for two.

The action here brings to 64 the
number who have been appointed
for commissioning in 1972. By the
time of the Montreat World Missions
Conference this summer, 72 are ex-
pected to be appointed. A special
meeting of the board's interview sub-
committee was authorized for June

so that others will be cleared for
attendance at the summer orienta-
tion of new missionaries.

Names of 14 of the 18 new ap-
pointees were released after the meet-
ing. The others are expected to be
announced later.

Newly appointed (listed with
hometown, term, type of work and
nation) are: the Rev. and Mrs. John
Jefferson Davis, Arlington, Va., four
years, educational-evangelistic, Zaire;
Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth W. Dodd,
Houston, Tex., four years, educa-
tional, Zaire; the Rev. and Mrs.
Thomas Nelson Elliott Jr., Black-
stone and Manassas, Va., four years,
educational-evangelistic, Zaire.

Mr. and Mrs. James Frederick

Ferry Jr., Harrisonburg and Suff
Va., one year seminary interns, Jaj
an; Mr. and Mrs. Dennis Bernar
Henderson, Memphis, Tenn., fou
years, literature distribution, Zaire
the Rev. and Mrs. Edwin EnHon
Kang, Harrisville, Ohio, four year
evangelistic, Taiwan; Miss Lind
Ruth Kimball, Beaumont, Tex., fou
years, medical, Zaire; and Miss An
Martin Rutherford, Charlottesville
Va., regular, medical, Zaire.

Reappointments were announce
for Miss Elinor Holland Mowbray
regular, educational, Brazil, and th
Rev. and Mrs. Lamar Williamsor
one year specialist service, Zaire

Returning from leave are Dr. an<
Mrs. Dick Nieusma, regular, medicaj
Korea.

Principal Commissioners to the 1972 Assembly

(Following is a list of principal commissioners to the 1972
Presbyterian US Assembly, as listed by the clerk. States are list-
ed with post office addresses only where the post office is in a
state other than that normally associated with the presby-
tery.)

ABINGDON PRESBYTERY — MINISTERS: Ben A. Rice, Vir-
ginia Beach, and A. B. Williford, Hillsville; RULING ELDERS:
Thomas B. Haller, Pulaski, and Ernest Martin, Hillsville;
YOUTH: Miss Debbie S. Drinkard, Glade Spring.

ALBEMARLE PRESBYTERY — MINISTERS: Woodson P.
Booth, Rocky Mount, and A. G. Courtenay, Wilson; RULING
ELDERS: Fuller Saulter, New Bern, and Charles M. Tyer, Foun-
tain; YOUTH: Miss M. Kenna Peters, Tarboro.

APPOMATTOX PRESBYTERY — MINISTERS: D. Ronald
Glover, Madison Heights, Everett A. Hellmuth Jr., Danville,
and C. Lawrence McRae, Richmond; RULING ELDERS: B. Cal-
vin Bass, Rice, Clyde S. Cassells, Danville, and Miss Eizabeth
Moseley, Rustburg; YOUTH: Miss Diane L. Crawford, La Crosse.

ASHEVILLE PRESBYTERY - MINISTERS: C. Grier Davis,
Montreat, and James L. Lyons, Swannanoa; RULING ELDERS:
L. Nelson Bell, Montreat, and William H. Stanley, Brevard;
YOUTH: Sam Thielman, Montreat.

ATHENS PRESBYTERY — MINISTERS: James F. Dickenson,
Athens, and A. A. Markley III, Gainesville; RULING ELDERS:
J. Leonard Bruce, Cornelia, and Worth McDougald, Athens.

ATLANTA PRESBYTERY — MINISTERS: Bonneau H. Dick-
son, Atlanta, Richard O. Flinn Jr., Carrollton, Edgar M. Grider,
Atlanta, Charles E. McGowan, Decatur, Max Milligan, Decatur,
Kirk N. Nesbit, Atlanta, George H. Smith, Decatur, John E.
Talford, Decatur, and Alex W. Williams, Atlanta; RULING EL-
DERS: Eugene C. Barrett, Decatur, William C. Candler, Villa
Rica, Henry L. Hills, Atlanta, G. L. Housworth, Lithonia, Dun-
can G. Peek, Atlanta, Mrs. Geraldine R. Pearson, Atlanta, F. Burt
Vardeman, Atlanta, Herbert J. West, Atlanta, and Luther C.
Young, Lithonia; YOUTH: Jeffrey A. Hollowell, Stone Mountain.

AUGUSTA-MACON PRESBYTERY — MINISTERS: Joseph C.
Eckstine, Macon, and Mark E. Gutzke, Perry; RULING ELDERS:
F. Silbey Bryan, Union Point, and E. M. Davis Jr., Wayside.

BETHEL PRESBYTERY — MINISTERS: Joseph W. Everett,
Rock Hill, William M. Gettys, York, and Herbert L. Laws, Wax-
haw, N. C; RULING ELDERS: Ralph G. Bryant Jr., Fort Mill,
Henry L. Clyburn, Kershaw, and K. H. White Jr., Chester.

BIRMINGHAM PRESBYTERY — MINISTERS: Richard D. Car-
ter, Birmingham, Donald L. Bell, Birmingham, Furman E. Jor-

dan, Bessemer, and Guy Newland Jr., Birmingham; RULIN(
ELDERS: Manning B. Eagles, Birmingham, Russell W. Harlar
Birmingham, and James D. Smith, Birmingham; YOUTH: Car
G. Speaker, Birmingham.

BRAZOS PRESBYTERY — MINISTERS: Allan C Anderson
Texas City, Walter T. Davis, Wellesley Hills, Mass., M. Dougla
Harper, Houston, S. W. T. Lanham, Houston, James E. Sim
mons, Houston, David L. Stitt, Houston, and B. Harrison Tayloi
Beaumont; RULING ELDERS: Edsel J. Burkhart, Bryan, Evai
Carpenter, Houston, Mark A. Freeman, Bellaire, Mrs. Rebecc;
Howard, Houston, D. M. Lyon, Houston, Ralph E. McMinn
Freeport, and Mrs. S. Cecil Stinson, Houston; YOUTH: Mis
Mary Ann Wright, Beaumont.

CENTRAL MISSISSIPPI PRESBYTERY — MINISTERS: Johi
Reed Miller, Macon, Donald B. Patterson, Jackson, and Willian
J. Stanway, Jackson; RULING ELDERS: Walter H. Gibbes
Learned, Frank C. Horton, Clinton, and Erskine W. Wells, Jack
son.

CHARLESTON PRESBYTERY — MINISTERS: T. Q. Johnston
Charleston, and F. D. Russell, John s Island; RULING ELDERS
M. L. Masche, Charleston, and Richard H. MacMillan Jr., Hamp
ton; YOUTH: Dickie R. Dingle, Summerville.

CHEROKEE PRESBYTERY — MINISTERS: James H. Nash
Marietta, and Billy F. Sosebee, Rockmart; RULING ELDERS
Lemon M. Awtrey Jr., Acworth, and John Stubbs Jr., Summer
ville; YOUTH: Mrs. David F. Hunter, Atlanta.

COLUMBIA PRESBYTERY — MINISTER: R. Neal Dean
Pulaski; RULING ELDER: Paul M. Fulton, Columbia; YOUTH
Jamie Dale, Charlottesville, Va.

CONGAREE PRESBYTERY — MINISTERS: Walter M. Crowe
Camden, John D. Holmes, Blair, and Harry T. Schutte, Colum-
bia; RULING ELDERS: John S. Graybill, Columbia, Donald M
Law, Aiken, and Frank R. Riley, West Columbia; YOUTH:
William D. Brearley, Columbia.

COVENANT PRESBYTERY (NORTH CAROLINA) - MIN
ISTERS: Malcolm M. Bullock, Woodleaf, Robert F. Davenport
Laurinburg, James R. Holshouser, Blowing Rock, John KimbriL
Lincolnton, S. D. Maloney, Davidson, Alan B. Wells, Lowell, and
Robert Wilson, Grover; RULING ELDERS: Louis A. Brown, States
ville, Willard Church, Lenoir, Mrs. Laird Jacob, Valdese, Nat K.
Rciney, Barium Springs, Mrs. Koyt A. Shields, Winston-Salem,
Justus Tucker, Winston-Salem, and J. B. Wilson, Belmont.

COVENANT PRESBYTERY (TEXAS) — MINISTERS: Stephen
L. Cook, Longview, David T. Evans Jr., Cleburne, D. Alan Far-
quhar, Texarkana, Robert F. Jones, Fort Worth, Snowden I.

PAGE 6 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 3, 1972

xKinnon, Dallas, James L. Moore, Dallas, Fred A. Ryle Jr.,
'eatherford, Roy T. Sherrod Jr., Waco, and Dan West, Sher-
an; RULING ELDERS: Mrs. Marguerite K. Adcock, Fort
'orth, Peter W. Baldwin, Dallas, Don Crim, Henderson, Dale
iwards, Texarkana, Lynn Fuller, Commerce, Fred Hamric, Dal-
s, Miss Averill Gouldy, Fort Worth, Billy B. McPhail, Kil-
en, and David B. Rothrock, Weatherford; YOUTH: Miss Nanci
Duff, Sherman.

■EL SALVADOR PRESBYTERY — MINISTERS: Henry O.
eund, Goliad, Daniel M. Garza, Edinburg, Edward D. Junkin,
ustin, Toney D. McMillan, Kingsville, Richard D. Poteet, San
ntonio, and Joseph T. Sheeler, San Antonio; RULING ELDERS:
en Canales, Austin, Mrs. Garland Lasater, Fulfurrias, J.B. Pena,
el Rio, Henry Schovajsa, LaGrange, William Thomas, San An-
■nio, and Mrs. J. H. Vetters, Corpus Christi.

AST ALABAMA PRESBYTERY — MINISTERS: John P. Clel-
nd, Troy, Adrian E. DeYoung, Prattville, and Robert Strong,
(ontgomery; RULING ELDERS: Charles W. Hightower, Mont-
jmery, Edward C. Ventress, Clayton, and W. Jack Williamson,
jreenviKe; YOUTH: Robert Watts, Jackson, Miss.

AST ARKANSAS PRESBYTERY — MINISTERS: C. Fitzhugh
Lpragins, Batesville, and R. M. Hudson, Wynne; RULING EL-
>ERS: Mrs. Mildred Elms, Jamestown, and Max B. Harrison,
lytheville; YOUTH: Brent Lee, Pine Bluff.

NOREE PRESBYTERY — MINISTERS: W. Henry Benchoff,
.oebuck, H. J. Keating, Spartanburg, and Gordon K. Reed,
reenville; RULING ELDERS: Wyatt Aiken, Greenville, M. P.
(iven, Greenville, and Carlos R. Townsend, Woodruff; YOUTH:
.obert P. Richardson VI, Hampden-Sydney, Va.

VERGLADES PRESBYTERY — MINISTERS: Ross A. Bair,
toral Springs, Ray W. Davies, Miami, John L. Fain, Miami, J.
^ayte Fulton, West Palm Beach, and Harry N. Miller, Ft. Lau-
erdale; RULING ELDERS: Donald E. Boerema, Coral Gables,
ohn V. Foyt, Coral Gables, Arthur F. Madsen, Plantation, An-
rew McDonough, Pompano Beach, and John Van Sweden, Del-
ly Beach.

AYETTEVILLE PRESBYTERY — MINISTERS: John A. Bro-
ilers, Maxton, C. E. Kirkpatrick, Fayetteville, James D. Mac-
kenzie, Robbins, Donald G. Miller, Laurinburg, and Robert L.
emple, Wade; RULING ELDERS: R. L. Campbell, Rowland,
Irs. Nathan Gibson, Laurinburg, John D. Gillis, Fayetteville,
>avid V. McMillan, Fayetteville, and Mrs. E. W. Rienecke, Fay-
tteville; YOUTH: Daniel Arthur Cheney, Fayetteville.

LORIDA PRESBYTERY — MINISTERS: William A. Hearn,
,ynn Haven, J. Trent Howell Jr., Quincy, and Charles N. Land-
eth, Tallahassee; RULING ELDERS: W. D. Bell, Quincy, Mrs.
.aurence Campbell, Tallahassee, and Hugh Hinely, Tallahassee;
OUTH: E. P. Nickinson III, Princeton, N. J.

GREENBRIER PRESBYTERY — MINISTERS: A. Emerson
ohnson, Huttonsville, and Arthur Vance Jr., Philippi; RULING
LDERS: J. M. Tully, Summerville, and Mrs. A. J. Walker, Beck-
:y; YOUTH: Nicholas B. Morgan, Richmond, Va.

rUYANDOTTE PRESBYTERY — MINISTERS: Hardin W.
.ing, Huntington, and Robert A. Pate, South Charleston; RUL-
NG ELDERS: Virgil B. Roberts, Huntington, and Russell R.
Uicker Jr., Huntington; YOUTH: Miss Pamela G. Rucker, Hunt-
igton.

IANOVER PRESBYTERY — MINISTERS: Louise H. Farrior,
Uleigh, N. C, J. Moody McDill, Richmond, George M. Ogilvie,
Uchmond, Harmon B. Ramsey, Richmond, and Jamie D. Stim-
on, Richmond; RULING ELDERS: John S. Grant, Richmond,
Cenneth Kidwell, Bowling Green, Miss Sarah P. Little, Rich-
nond, J. H. Scales, Fife, and T. B. Stewardson, Petersburg;
fOUTH: Miss Joan P. Bell, Richmond.

IARMONY PRESBYTERY — MINISTERS: Samuel T. Lipsey,
'Jew Zion, and Jack F. Spears, Sumter; RULING ELDERS: Hugh
A. McLaurin III, Wedgefield, and Lake E. Terrell Jr., Sumter.

-IOLSTON PRESBYTERY — MINISTERS: J. A. Aldridge,
iristol, Edward S. Berry Jr., Banner Elk, and Thomas C. Rhea,
Ungsport; RULING ELDERS: Jess T. Bellamy, Blountville,

George S. Hale, Jr., Morristown, and Jack Lowe, Kingsport;
YOUTH: Robert P. Rhea, West Point, N. Y.

JOHN CALVIN— UNION PRESBYTERY - MINISTERS: Jerry
M. Hilton, Aurora, P. Robert McCann, Eldorado Springs; RUL-
ING ELDERS: Mrs. Lincoln P. Greninger, Carthage, and Mrs.
W. T. Lawhead, Carthage; YOUTH: Miss Jan Avondet, Monett.

KANAWHA PRESBYTERY — MINISTERS: Conrad G. Crow,
Charleston, and Victor C. Scott, Fayetteville; RULING ELDERS:
William P. Patton, Spencer, and Mrs. Ross K. Snyder Jr., Charles-
ton; YOUTH: Miss Mary Jean Dorsey, Mt. Hope.

KNOXVILLE PRESBYTERY — MINISTERS: William R. Chil-
dress, Tellico Plains, W. Donald Munson Jr., Montreat, N. C.
Frank R. Sells, Athens, and Julian W. Spitzer, Knoxville; RUL-
ING ELDERS: Lee Anderson, Chattanooga, John Brady Jr., De-
catur, Ga., J. E. McShane, Corbin, Ky., and Ross Russell, Chat-
tanooga; YOUTH: William Melden, Lookout Mountain.

LEXINGTON PRESBYTERY — MINISTERS: Bernard E. Bang-
ley, Rockbridge Baths, J. Edward Gayhart, Staunton, Joseph T.
Sefcik, Harrisonburg, and Arthur H. Williams, Churchville; RUL-
ING ELDERS: R. Tate Alexander, Fairfield, A. G. Thomas, Char-
lottesville, Atwell W. Somerville, Orange, and G. S. Weeks,
Waynesboro; YOUTH: Douglas C. Chase Jr., Lexington.

LOUISIANA PRESBYTERY - MINISTERS: Roy L. McCown,
Maplewood, and James W. Sawyer, Port Allen; RULING EL-
DERS: Raymond Clawson, Lake Charles, and John Naylor,
Baton Rouge; YOUTH: Brant Copeland, Lake Charles.

LOUISVILLE-UNION PRESBYTERY — MINISTERS: Lawrence
W. Bottoms, Atlanta, Ga., Jack T. Goodykoontz, Louisville, and
Charles L. Stanford, Louisville; RULING ELDERS: Ernest Ed-
wards, Louisville, Henry B. Mann, Louisville, and Mrs. M. Jene-
lyn Wessler, Louisville; YOUTH: Ted Williams, Louisville.

MECKLENBURG PRESBYTERY — MINISTERS: Horace H.
Hilton Jr., Charlotte, Paul A. Home, Charlotte, David C. Ken-
nedy, Matthews, J. Cecil Lawrence, Charlotte, Thomas W. Mac-
Lean, Charlotte, Marcus B. Prince Jr., Charlotte, Ernest T.
Thompson Jr., Charlottte, and David E. Wilkinson, Charlotte;
RULING ELDERS: Robert P. Alexander, Charlotte, Calvin B.
Baird, Charlotte, Mrs. Henry L. Harkey, Charlotte, Leon Hoov-
er, Matthews, Mrs. Ernest B. Hunter Sr., Charlotte, Billy G. Mc-
Call, Charlotte, William D. Poteat, Newell, and George H. Ven-
able, Charlotte; YOUTH: David C. Verner, Richmond, Va.

MEMPHIS PRESBYTERY — MINISTERS: Lawrence E. Durr,
Memphis, David R. Freeman, Memphis, Fred W. Neal, Memphis,
and F. Ray Riddle Jr., Memphis; RULING ELDERS: Frank M.
Campbell, Memphis, Willie L. Jones, Memphis, Irby Seay, Mem-
phis, and Ray U. Tanner, Jackson; YOUTH: Linton Stone Weeks,
Germantown.

MOBILE PRESBYTERY — MINISTERS: John M. Crowell,
Mobile, and Roy M. Miller, Camden; RULING ELDERS: Monty
D. Hohonback, Mobile, and John A. Ward, Fairhope; YOUTH:
Miss Noel S. Merrill, Mobile.

MONTGOMERY PRESBYTERY — MINISTERS: Henry F.
Chesnutt, Salem, John T. Hayter Jr., Villamont, James M.
Hovland, Salem, and Burton J. Newman, Covington; RULING
ELDERS: L. Bane Coeburn, Roanoke, J. E. Moran, Radford,
Fred D. Smith, Ararat, and Mrs. W. A. Trolan, Salem; YOUTH:
Miss Kathryn L. Pritchard, Roanoke.

NASHVILLE PRESBYTERY — MINISTERS: Charles K. Gieser,
Murfreesboro, Joseph P. Holder, Nashville, and Hogan L. Yancey,
Nashville; RULING ELDERS: Mac W. Freeman Jr., Nashville,
Dortch Oldham, Nashville, and J. A. Reece, Clarksville; YOUTH:
Miss Martha Sue Carroll, Murfreesboro.

NATIONAL CAPITAL-UNION PRESBYTERY — MINISTERS:
Orville E. Chadsey, Washington, Jeanne Clark, Fairfax, Va., J.
Jey Deifell Jr., Gaithersburg, Md., Gerald W. Hopkins, Fairfax,
Va., J. L. V. Medina, Washington, and John R. Wilcox, Annan-
dale, Va.; RULING ELDERS: David P. Allen, Washington, Miss
Sally Duncan, Wheaton, Md., James F. Carver, Arlington, Va.,
Stanley Sherman, Gaithersburg, Md., Alton J. Wilson, Washing-
ton, and Miss Louise G. Winfield, Rockville, Md.

PAGE 7 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 3, 1972

NEW ORLEANS PRESBYTERY — MINISTERS: Lin D. Cross-
man Jr., New Orleans, Clarence C. Elrod, Amite, and Robert E.
Malsbary, Metairie; RULING ELDERS: Edward J. Dofter, Cov-
ington, L. H. von Cohren Jr., Metairie, and Walter Klentzman,
New Iberia; YOUTH: Mi;s Pat A. Powell, Decatur, Ga.

NORFOLK PRESBYTERY — MINISTERS: E. Crowell Cooley,
Norfolk, Jerry F. Helms, Newport News, Charles L. Landrum
Jr., Suffolk, David E. Ross, Seoul, Korea, and Stanton H. Size-
more, Virginia Beach; RULING ELDERS: D. Edward Hoffman,
Newport News, Lee Lively, Virginia Beach, John F. Moneymaker,
Williamsburg, Sheldon T. Peterson, Hampton, and C. J. Wright,
Chesapeake; YOUTH: Miss Carol A. Strickland, Virginia Beach.

NORTH ALABAMA PRESBYTERY - MINISTERS: Donald T.
Hubbard, Albertville, and William P. Maxwell, Hartselle; RUL-
ING ELDERS: Mrs. Philip R. Arello, Florence, and Buford J.
Green Jr., Decatur; YOUTH: Miss Patricia Lynn Motley, Mem-
phis, Tenn.

NORTHEAST MISSOURI-UNION PRESBYTERY — MINIS-
TERS: J. Joseph Trower, Jefferson City, and John H. Vanland-
ingham, Paris; RULING ELDERS: Mrs. Adelene M. Dixon, Ful-
ton, and Mrs. Leta King, Bellflower; YOUTH: Miss Carolyn
Clapp, Fulton.

NORTHWEST MISSOURI-UNION PRESBYTERY — MINIS-
TERS: LeRoy C. Felsburg, St. Joseph, Charles B. Marrs, Kansas
City, and James B. Rockwood, Butler; RULING ELDERS: Lycia
C. Martin, Chillicothe, Mrs. Roy M. Stubbs, Warrenburg, and
Howard Willoughby, Kansas City.

OKLAHOMA PRESBYTERY — MINISTERS: Sidney H. Cole-
man Jr., Oklahoma City, and Eugene L. Strickland, Idabel; RUL-
ING ELDERS: Mrs. G. R. Bowen, Oklahoma City, and Kenneth
Butler, Bennington; YOUTH: David C. Andres, Oklahoma City.

ORANGE PRESBYTERY — MINISTERS: William C. Bennett,
Durham, Robert R. Childs Jr., Siler City, Frank A. Davison,
Burlington, J. Bruce Frye, Laurinburg, Curtis P. Harper Jr.,
Raleigh, Zeb N. Holler Jr., Raleigh, Levi H. Humphreys, Fu-
quay Varina, Wilkes D. Macaulay, Asheboro, and Robert L.
Turner, Wentworth; RULING ELDERS: Paul G. Boone, Greens-
boro, Dennis Bullock, Durham, Reid Craig Sr., Asheboro, W. G.
Enloe, Raleigh, Mrs. Bernard J. Keating, Greensboro, James A.
McFarland, Durham, William D. Snider, Greensboro, Roy W.
Wagner, Reidsville, and Jack B. West, Burlington; YOUTH:
Miss Cathy L. Faver, High Point.

OUACHITA PRESBYTERY — MINISTERS: James S. Phillips,
McGehee, and George R. Stewart, Magnolia; RULING ELDERS:
Kim Y. Hedrick, Warren, and Everett Slavens, Arkadelphia;
YOUTH: David P. Crumpler, Davidson, N. C.

OZARKS-UNION PRESBYTERY — MINISTERS: Gary Hoffius,
Fort Smith, and Julian H. White, North Little Rock; RULING
ELDERS: Joseph A. Norton, Little Rock, and Jay N. Stanley,
North Little Rock; YOUTH: Joe H. Stallings Jr., Little Rock.

PALO DURO-UNION PRESBYTERY — MINISTERS: W. Ned
Hollandsworth, Wichita Falls, and Don G. Shepherd, Amarillo;
RULING ELDERS: Mrs. Joe D. Howell, Abilene, and David
Vigness, Lubbock.

PEE DEE PRESBYTERY — MINISTERS: Lane W. Erwin, At-
lanta, Ga., and Warren M. Wardlaw, Darlington; RULING EL-
DERS: Phil B. Brown, Dillon, and William Church Whittner,
Bennettsville; YOUTH: Miss Kathy L. Newton, Clinton.

PIEDMONT PRESBYTERY - MINISTERS: Robert H. Horel,
Westminster, and C. L. Letson, Walhalla; RULING ELDERS:
Joe M. Black, Anderson, and D. L. Hanvey, Seneca; YOUTH:
David R. Gillespie, Anderson.

RED RIVER PRESBYTERY — MINISTERS: John R. Brad-
shaw, Homer, and Kenneth L. Christy, Bossier City; RULING
ELDERS: J. N. Walpole, Ruston, and Jesse White, Frierson;
YOUTH: Miss Carol L. Davis, Monroe.

ST. ANDREW PRESBYTERY — MINISTERS: Henry C. Cal-
houn, Tunica, Gene E. Canestrari, Southaven, and William L.

Mosal Jr., Clinton; RULING ELDERS: A. M. Mitchell, Shelb)
William H. Moss, Oxford; and Jack J. Webb, Sumner; YOUTH
Wayne S. Rutherford, Kossuth.

ST. JOHNS PRESBYTERY — MINISTERS: Harvard A. Ander-
son, Orlando, Oswald Delgado, Winter Park, Basil V. Hicks, Oak-
land, and A. Milton Riviere, Decatur, Ga.; RULING ELDERS:
Mrs. C. W. Bemis, Satellite Beach, Earl Paul Cochran, Daytona
Beach, John A. Hague, DeLand, and Clarence C. Shaffer, De-
Bary; YOUTH: David L. MacKay, Maitland.

SAVANNAH PRESBYTERY — MINISTERS: Armando Rod-
riguez Sr., Blackshear, and John G. Taylor Jr., Swainsboro; RUL-
ING ELDERS: William G. Foster, Savannah, and O. C. Martin
Jr., Hinesville;, YOUTH: Mark Deaton, Savannah.

SOUTH CAROLINA PRESBYTERY — MINISTERS: A. L. Bix-
ler, Clinton, and W. F. Mitchell, Cross Hill; RULING ELDERS:
R. C. Wasson, Laurens, and A. C. Young Jr., Clinton; YOUTH:
S. Barry Eller, Greenwood.

SOUTHEAST MISSOURI PRESBYTERY — MINISTERS: Don-
ald L. Archibald, St. Louis, and Richard C. Lamb, Jackson;
RULING ELDERS: Mrs. Robert Hirsch, Cape Girardeau, and
Harry Wilson, Festus; YOUTH: Miss Kaye Orr, DeSoto.

SOUTH MISSISSIPPI PRESBYTERY — MINISTERS: Edward

A. Jussely, Hattiesburg, Larry C. Mills, Centreville, and O.
Palmer Robertson, Willow Grove, Pa.; RULING ELDERS: Arnold
Lee, Crystal Springs, A. C. McKinney, Ocean Springs, and Frank
Montague, Hattiesburg.

SOUTHWEST GEORGIA PRESBYTERY — MINISTERS: Wade
H. Bell Jr., Valdosta, and Raymon L. White, Columbus; RUL-
ING ELDERS: W. G. Hartline, Columbus, and E. A. Tomlin,
Americus.

SUWANNEE PRESBYTERY — MINISTERS: John B. Bittinger,
Jacksonville; William G. Katibah, Jacksonville, Frank C. King,
Lake City, and William E. Shea, Gainesville; RULING ELDERS:
Nelson Blocker, Lake City, Major B. Harding, Jacksonville, Fred
C. Jackson Jr., Jacksonville, and Mrs. Ernest Smith, Ocala;
YOUTH: Robert B. Heath, Live Oak.

TRANSYLVANIA-UNION PRESBYTERY — MINISTERS: Emett
H. Barfield Jr., Paris, and Jack E. Weller, Hazard; RULING EL-
DERS: Clarence Walthour, Flatwoods, and Miss Kate H. Woods,
Nicholasville; YOUTH: Miss Emily L. Egbert, Georgetown.

TRES RIOS PRESBYTERY - MINISTERS: G. F. Garlington,
Eldorado, and David M. Taylor, El Paso; RULING ELDERS:
Perry J. C. Byars, San Angelo, and A. C. Lively, Sterling City;
YOUTH: Mark Nicholas, Midland.

TUSCALOOSA PRESBYTERY — MINISTERS: John P. Sim-
mons, Aliceville, and J. David Simpson, Tuscaloosa; RULING
ELDERS: Curtis I. Eatman, Mantua, and C. E. Hornsby Jr., Cen-
treville; YOUTH: J. David Smitherman, Tuscaloosa.

WESTERN KENTUCKY-UNION PRESBYTERY — MINIS-
TER: George M. Cooley, Hopkinsville; RULING ELDER: Mrs.
Henry Anderson, Madisonville.

WESTMINSTER PRESBYTERY — MINISTERS: Joseph W.
Amory, Dunedin, Maurice E. Beery, Port Charlotte, Richard T.
Gillespie, St. Petersburg, William B. Heyward, St. Petersburg,
Irvine H. Williams, Tampa, and Jack J. Wolf, Bradenton; RUL-
ING ELDERS: Donald Ault, Tampa, J. Donald Bishop, Brandon,
Myron G. Gibbons, Tampa, Mrs. Robert C. Meacham, St. Pe-
tersburg, William Pamplin, Bartow, and Roger L. Spencer, Clear-
water; YOUTH: Peter R. Wallace, St. Petersburg.

WILMINGTON PRESBYTERY — MINISTERS: James E. At-
wood, Tokyo, Japan, B. L. Rose, Richmond, Va., and E.

B. Whitson, Atkinson; RULING ELDERS: Mrs. J. Neill Clark,
Clarktown, Woodward Dail, Mt. Olive, and B. E. Huffine, Wil-
mington; YOUTH: Miss Mary Marshall Clark, Clarkton.

WINCHESTER PRESBYTERY — MINISTERS: Samuel L. Hie-
bert, Winchester, and Bruce A. Macbeth, Moorefield; RULING
ELDERS: Miss Mary Baughman, Winchester, and P. Richard
Wolfe, Winchester; YOUTH: Miss Penny Borden, Woodstock.

I

PAGE 8 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 3, 1972

peace is not merely the absence of strife —

When Peace Stands Guard

The people of God are supposed
to have peaceful hearts. Jesus
said, "Peace I leave with you, my
peace I give unto you . . . ." The
Apostle Paul said, ". . . the fruit of
the Spirit is . . . peace . . . ." Again
ive read, ". . . let the peace of God
rule in your hearts . . . ."

Although God's people are sup-
oosed to have peaceful hearts, the
plain truth is that His people are
)ften fearful, just as fearful as peo-
ole who make no profession of know-
ing Him at all.

This state of affairs ought not to
=xist. Paul gave us a simple for-
mula that will guarantee peace with-
in: "Be careful for nothing; but in
svery thing by prayer and supplica-
tion with thanksgiving let your re-
quests be made known unto God.
And the peace of God, which pass-
eth all understanding, shall keep
your hearts and minds through
Christ Jesus" (Phil. 4:6-7) .

The famous Doctor Dale, of Bir-
mingham, England, once said near
:he close of his ministry that if he
nad the days of his life to live over
rie would preach more to comfort
troubled hearts. In the lives of any
assembled group of people there is
enough trouble and care to make
the angels weep. May God's Word
>peak and bring to our lives the
peace He promises and wants us to
have.

A Command

"Be careful for nothing . . ."

It is an old expression which
ought really to be translated, "Be
anxious for nothing," or simpler
still, "Don't ever be afraid."

The author is pastor of the War-
rington Presbyterian Church, Pensa-
cola, Fla.

Philippians 4:6-7

Now there are several very good
reasons why we should not fear.

Worry and fear are contagious.

You will remember the children's
fable about Chicken Little, upon
whose back an acorn fell one day.
Chicken Little, in panic, took off
on a dead run, screaming, "The sky
is falling! The sky is falling!" Pres-
ently the whole barnyard was in an
uproar, with a great screeching and
squawking, everyone crying out,
"The sky is falling!"

It is incredibly silly, of course.
But it illustrates a point. Fear is
contagious. Fear spreads.

Fear Begets Fear

In his farewell address to the peo-
ple of Israel, Moses said this, speak-
ing of a time when the people of Is-
rael would be forced to go to war:
". . . the officers shall speak further
unto the people, and they shall say,
What man is there that is fearful
and fainthearted? let him go and
return unto his house, lest his breth-
ren's heart faint as well as his heart"
(Deut. 20:8) .

What was Moses talking about?
He was talking about the fact that
in battle one frightened soldier can
communicate fear to the soldier next
to him, and in turn his fear will be
communicated to the one next to
him, and presently, the whole army
will be infected with fear — the line
will give way and the battle will be
lost!

Fearful people make other peo-
ple afraid. On the other hand, cour-
age is contagious, too. When people
stand steady and untroubled in a
crisis they communicate a calm and
steady spirit to others. We are to
be encouragers of other people. As

BRUCE WIDEMAN

Christians we have a moral obliga-
tion to demonstrate a spirit of rest-
ful trust. This will encourage oth-
ers to have the same kind of spirit.

Worry is harmful to health.

Every physician in this world is
familiar with the patient who has
nothing organically wrong with him,
but who is really and truly sick be-
cause of emotional problems.

Medical doctor S. I. McMillen in
his book, None of These Diseases,
says this:

"Peace does not come in capsules!
This is regrettable because medical
science recognizes that emotions
such as fear . . . are responsible for
the majority of our sicknesses. Emo-
tional stress can cause high blood
pressure, toxic goiter, migraine head-
aches, arthritis, heart trouble, ulcers
and other serious diseases.

Emotional Turmoil

"As physicians we can prescribe
medicine for the symptoms of these
diseases, but we cannot do much for
the underlying cause — emotional
turmoil."

He cites an example of being
called to a college campus to min-
ister to a student who, he was told,
was "dying with a heart attack."
When he arrived he found the lad
stretched out on the floor, almost
unable to breathe, with excruciating
pain over his heart, evidencing ev-
ery symptom of a severe attack, but
the student was in no danger what-
soever! He was a freshman. He
was away from home for the first
time. Homesickness and the change
to college life were a traumatic ex-
perience for him. The pain that he
suffered was real, but his problem
was wholly an emotional one. He
was in no danger at all.

If there were no reason other than

PAGE 9 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 3, 1972

the health reason, we must learn the
secret of inner peace. But we have
another reason why we should find
the secret of inner peace: Fear dis-
honors God.

The first question of our cat-
echism, with which we are all fa-
miliar, is, "What is the chief end of
man?" The answer is, that "Man's
chief end is to glorify God . . ."

Worry Denies God

I don't have to tell you that we
don't glorify God very much when
we deny His kindness and His faith-
fulness. This is exactly what worry
does — it denies the goodness of God!
Worry says, "God does not love me."
It says, "God is not concerned about
me."

Beyond that, worry makes God
out to be untruthful. Worry says,
"God has said that He will look af-
ter me, that He will care for me,
that He will provide my needs, that
He will protect me. But you can't
count on God. You can't really be-
lieve what He says."

What a slander upon God! What
a dishonoring thing to say about
Him! We are all familiar with the
little couplet,

"Said the robin to the sparrow

I should really like to know,
Why these anxious human
beings

Rush about and worry so.

Said the sparrow to the robin
I think that it must be,

They have no heavenly Father
Such as cares for you and
me."

A well-meaning person will often
say, "Don't worry, old man." Why
doesn't he tell him to jump up to
the moon? He can do that just as
easily as the other. He has to be told
how. You don't turn worry on and
off like touching a light switch, but
our text tells us how. It gives us a
formula. It shows us the way to
overcome worry and to acquire
peace.

Will you listen to what Paul
tells us?

First of all, pray. "Be careful
(anxious) for nothing; but in every-
thing by prayer and supplication . . .
let your requests be made known un-
to God."

We read in the Old Testament
of Hezekiah, the King of Israel, on
a day when the emissary of the King

PAGE 1

of Assyria sent him a letter. It was
a threatening letter, a letter that
promised destruction. It was the
kind of letter that would give a man
idcers, the kind of letter that would
cause a man sleepless nights.

What did the king do with the
letter? He took it immediately up
to the temple; he spread it out be-
fore the Lord, and he said, "Lord,
this is the threat they make. There
isn't a thing that I can do about it.
You will have to manage it. It is
in your hands." And God took care
of it. He did it in a hurry, too!
The answer came the very next
morning.

The Word of God says, "Casting
all your care upon him; for he careth
for you" (I Pet. 5:7) .

Why are you carrying around a
burden of care which God wants to
carry? How do you shift it? How
do you give the Lord your burden
and your care? Through prayer. In
prayer you drop the problem in
God's hands, and then you sit back
and relax. You let go of it because
now you know that it is in the hands
of the one who can manage it.

Something else Paul said is: Give
thanks.

"Be careful (anxious) for noth-
ing; but in everything by prayer and
supplication with thanksgiving . . ."

Paul was saying, "When you are
troubled, when you have been spend-
ing too much time reading the page
that lists your troubles, turn over
to another page — turn over to the
page where are listed your blessings
and start reading there.

Thank God for Trials

Ah, yes, when life is at its very
worst, there is always much reason
for giving thanks. When you are
going through a trial you can thank
God for the very trial itself. You
can thank God for the lessons that
you are going to learn through it.
You can thank Him for the assur-
ance that He is going to go through
it with you, and you can thank Him
that He is going to bring you to a
place of victory and deliverance.

Thanksgiving has an amazing re-
flex action, it causes darkness to flee
and the light to come in. It causes
the springs of joy and gladness to
well up within your heart once more.

A woman visited a friend. She was
terribly depressed in spirit. She be-
gan to pour out the tale of her woes.
This was wrong — that was wrong
— she had this trouble — she had

/ THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY

that trial. Her friend knew her well
She brought a piece of paper and ;
pencil. She said, "Could you thinl
of one thing that you could b(
thankful for today?"

The woman thought long, anc
then said, "Well, yes, I could giv< I
thanks for this."

"Well write it down. Could yoi
think of one other thing that yoi
could be thankful for?"

As she thought, there was on<
other thing that she could give thank:
for. Then, one after another, rea
son for thanksgiving came to hei
mind and she wrote them down un
til there was a long list. She said
"I can't quite figure it out. I wa:
so depressed and fearful when ]!
came here. I'm not afraid an}
more."

All Blessings

I read of a woman who hac
learned to help herself in times o)
darkness in her life by singing th«
Doxology. When her heart was
heavy she would begin to sing
"Praise God, from whom all bless
ings flow . . ."

The first line she had literally tc
force past her lips, but as she pro-
ceeded it grew easier until she was
able to sing the last line with a joy-
ful heart, and found that as she
praised God, the darkness fled awa)
and the sunlight of the Lord began
to shine in her life once more.

Blessed release comes through
thanksgiving. Try it, Christian!
Try it the next time things look so
bleak for you, start giving thanks.
See if your spirits are not lifted. See
if the sunlight doesn't come flood
ing in.

"And the peace of God, which
passeth all understanding, shall keep
your hearts and minds through
Christ Jesus."

When you have prayed, when you
have given thanks, then peace will
come. Let me give you our text in,
Moffet's translation: "God's peace
that surpasses all our dreams will
keep guard over your hearts and
minds." j

"God's peace," it is called. Mind
you, the peace that dwells in the un-
troubled heart of God Himself will
be yours. ". . . that surpasses all our
dreams ..." A peace so remarkable,
so wonderful, so blessed that you
will know instinctively that it had
to come from the Lord. ". . . will
keep guard over your hearts . . ."

3, 1972 i

1

'eace will stand outside the door of
our life like a soldier, like a sentry,
eeping anxious care from coming
n and destroying your tranquility.
The story is told by a minister of
little boy who was awakened very
uddenly from sleep in the middle
>f the night. A storm had risen.
The lightning was flaming, followed
>y peal after peal of crashing thun-
ler. The wind was rattling the
window and the wild movements of
he tree branches outside were mak-
ng grotesque shadows upon the win-
low pane. The little boy was terri-
ied.

He called out, "Mother!" In an
nstant he was out of bed. In an-
>ther instant he stood beside his
nother's bed, and he called out
igain, "Mother!" in great terror. In
he darkness his mother reached out,
jut her arms around the trembling
ittle boy, and said to him, so gently,
'It's all right, son, Mother's here.
Don't be afraid. It's all right."

When his heart had stopped beat-
ng so rapidly, and when he had

ceased his trembling, she took the
little fellow by the hand, led him to
his bed, tucked him in, kissed him
goodnight, and just like that he was
asleep.

The little boy grew to be a man.
One night he was awakened from
troubled sleep. Just as in that for-
mer day, he was afraid, terribly
afraid. He lay with his eyes wide
open, staring into the darkness, as
his troubles, one after another, pa-
raded through his mind. He was so
afraid, and he wished that as in that
former day he had a gentle mother
to whom he could go with his fears.
But he had learned to know God,
and he remembered that God is a
Father who has said, "As one whom
his mother comforteth, so will I com-
fort you . . ."

In the darkness he called out, and
said, "Father, I'm so afraid. Will
you help me now?"

In the depths of his soul there
sounded the answer, "My son, it's
all right. I'm here, I'm with you.
It's all right." His fears disappeared

and he fell asleep.

In that earlier day, it was trust in
a mother who, he knew, loved him
which took away his fear. In that
later day, it was the realization that
he had a Father in heaven ,who loved
him and was right near by, that took
away his fear.

Countless thousands of psychia-
trists are busy from morning until
night each day trying to bring some
peace to fearful and unhappy lives.
Hundreds of books on peace of mind
have come from the presses in recent
years, read by people trying to over-
come the worry habit. Millions are
trying in one way and another to
find inner rest. But the whole an-
swer is found in the few words of
our text:

"Be careful for nothing; but in ev-
ery thing by prayer and supplication
with thanksgiving let your requests
be made known unto God. And the
peace of God, which passeth all un-
derstanding, shall keep your hearts
and minds through Christ Jesus"
(Phil. 4:6-7) . ffl

Concerned Without Comfort

hile little publicity is being
¥ » given to abortions in this
:ountry, much is being done about
;hem. We have come to the day of
rlerod again with Rachel "weeping
or her children, and would not be
:omforted, because they were not"
(Matt. 2:18) .

Since the Presbyterian Church US
s significantly involved in promot-
ing abortions for both married and
unmarried women, all church mem-
bers should consider what is hap-
pening. They should then decide
whether or not they really can ap-
prove the abortion program, allowed
by the General Assembly, that helps
women through counseling and fi-
nancial support to have abortions
for social or economic reasons.

Suppose for a moment that the

The author is pastor of the Semi-
nole Presbyterian Church, Tampa,
Fla.

Church should be wrong in its
adopted position. Is it not then a
fatal error? Is this the kind of po-
sition to adopt for the whole Church
without convincing evidence? We
have felt critical of German people

Jesus Said So

The Jesus of the Gospels affirmed
over and over again, as one of the
central emphases of His ministry,
that the sacred writings of the Jewish
Old Testament were the unbreak-
able, imperishable and unimpeach-
able Word of God. Christ is the
key to the inspiration of the Old
Testament, since He unquestionably
affirmed it; one cannot assail the
authority of the Old Testament with-
out impugning the intergrity of
Christ. — Norman L. Geisler, in
Christ, the Theme of the Bible.

RICHARD G. WATSON

who sat by and allowed a segment
of their society to be quietly mur-
dered. Now we find ourselves in
the same position and are virtually
helpless to do anything about it.

A South Carolina newspaper re-
corded the account given by a young
coed who recently took an overnight
"abortion flight" to a New York hos-
pital. After receiving medication
this young girl paced the floor with
labor pains until she finally deliv-
ered her approximately six month
child in the toilet. She saw that it
was a boy before he was thrown in-
to the hospital garbage disposal. It
appears that, as others have re-
ported, some of the aborted
children live for a time after birth.

How can we reasonably maintain
that one who has his own audible
heartbeat, has after a fashion laughed
and cried, can sleep or be awakened,
and periodically fights off the hic-
cups, is no more a person or human
being than a diseased appendix?

PAGE 11 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 3, 1972

Yet, the stage of development is not
the issue. Free abortion not only
lacks Scriptural support, it is also
devoid of the support of plain rea-
son.

The supposed or pretended dis-
play of loving concern for the ex-
pecting mother is almost as merci-
less as the treatment of her child.
Granted that some of these will have
no conscience concerning the de-
struction of their children, others
will not be equally depraved. These
will suffer pangs of conscience which

an infinite number of follow-up
counseling seasons will not heal.

For the past three years I have
counseled often with one of these
mothers. At the time, she agreed
with the boy and others that abor-
tion was the only answer. Since
then, she has not been able to think
of the experience without a flow of
tears. All the Scriptural assurances
of pardon and the love of God have
been little comfort to her tormented
mind. Her appearance is one of de-
spair. She had the abortion at the

age of fifteen. She is now over six
ty years old. Her conscience would
not allow her to bear another child.
"Rachel . . . would not be com
for ted."

I am amazed that the liberal
churchman, who takes such pride in
his sympathy and concern for the
underprivileged, has adopted this
method of dealing with unwanted
children. The Church of Christ must
surely be able to come up with a bet
ter answer for our society's unwanted
people than utter destruction.

From the start, differences in US and UPUSA theology have been recognized —

Consider the Cause

As we have observed, (Journal,
April 26,) the northern and
southern presbyteries before the
Civil War had no major theological
problems. The purging action of
the General Assembly of 1837 had
been so thorough that the Presbyte-
rian Church during the ensuing 24
years enjoyed internal theological
peace to a marked degree.

There were disagreements socio-
logical and political, to be sure,
which brought mounting tension as
the clouds of war grew darker; but,
even as these boiled up into military
actions, wise heads both north and
south saw that the Church's theol-
ogy was not being called into ques-
tion.

However, by 1874 the picture had
changed for Presbyterians through-
out the reunited nation; for, in that
year, Missouri became a part of the
Southern Church, the second synod
within five years to leave the north-
ern Presbyterians and seek, and gain,
admission to the Southern Church.

Both overtures had been present-
ed to the southern General Assem-
bly of 1867, and in each case the

Dr. Crowe is pastor of the River-
rnont Presbyterian Church, Lynch-
burg, Va. This is the second of two
articles on the major issue in Pres-
byterian Church union, taken with
permission of the author from The
Open Letter of the Covenant Fel-
lowship of Presbyterians. The first
appeared last week.

synod itself, not a dissident minority,
sought the southern union. The
union with Kentucky was consum-
mated in 1869, and that with Mis-
souri in 1874.

Obviously, these synods were not
motivated by the slavery issue, nor
by the secession of the southern
states, nor by the other vexing po-
litical problems of the War Between
the States, for all of these questions
were by now settled; furthermore,
these problems had been before
them in 1861, and they had respond-
ed negatively.

While there were southern sympa-
thizers in both Kentucky and Mis-
souri, neither state had seceded, and
neither synod had had any part in
the formation of the Southern
Church in Augusta, Georgia, in De-
cember 1861. Yet both synods, at
a time when further division would
ordinarily have seemed pointless,
chose to leave the northern Presby-
terians to join the southern Presby-
terians.

Both synods made it clear that they
sought organic union with the
southern Presbyterian Church for
doctrinal reasons, the Kentucky re-
quest displaying a particular inter-
est in the southern doctrine of the
spirituality of the Church.

This is an important matter, one
that bears directly upon the deci-
sions before us today. Let me, there-
fore, pose the following proposition
for your consideration:

If the political and sociological

R. McFERRAN CROWE

problems of the period which
split American Presbyterianism into
two Churches, north and south, were
not sufficiently vexing to break the
ties between Kentucky and Missouri
and the Presbyterian Church USA
in 1861, what new motivation could
possibly have arisen in the ensuing
10 years to bring it about in the
context of peace and growing na-
tional self-consciousness?

1869 A New Union

Apparently, after the war was
over, the Northern Church felt keen
ly the loss of strength it had suf
fered by the separation of the 47
presbyteries in the south and deter
mined to recoup these losses as
quickly as possible. If they had
been patient enough to wait upon
natural healing of the deep wounds
of war, which time and forbearance
and love would have performed in
due course, there is little doubt that
the reunion would have been ac-
complished long before the begin-
ning of the 20th century, for there
were no major theological problems.

But they could not wait. In 1869,
the Northern Church consummated
a union with the New School
Church, which act had the effect
of reintroducing all the problems
of the 1830's, which had been so
painfully but effectively removed by
the General Assembly of 1837; in
its simple forthright abrogation of
the union of 1801.

PAGE 12 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 3, 1972

Immediately, the old tensions re-
appeared, theological battles at the

leetings of the northern General

ssemblies increased in frequency
,nd fury, and heresy trials became

ormal occurrences,
j Kentucky and Missouri saw this
laming, knew that theological com-
fatibility could ultimately be found
Inly in an Old School denomina-
|on, and consequently took the dras-
ic action noted here. (For a full
Iccount read The Broadening
Vhurch, by Lefferts Loetcher.)
; Let us remember: In 1861, the
leology north and south was the
ame; in 1865, it was the same; but
ince 1869, it has not been the same.
7hat union had the effect of estab-
ishing New School theology on a
national basis. In other words, the
bhurch from which we departed in
861, no longer exists. It has been
emade in the image of the Congre-
ational/ Presbyterian Church which
yas founded in 1838, (i.e., The New
chool Church) when the congrega-
ionalized Presbyterians established
heir own denomination.

New School dominance in the
lorth was not won immediately, nor
vith ease, but it was inevitable after
869. Northern Old School Cal-
dnism did not give up without a
truggle, of course, and it main-
ained control of Princeton Theo-
ogical Seminary for 65 ensuing
fears; but the New School victory
vas complete with the defeat of the
Did School faculty at Princeton in
he 1930's, and became constitution-
d, with the adoption of Confession
)f '67 in 1967.

During all these decades the
iouthern Church remained unin-
'olved, officially. We were the rem-
lant of the Old School, and the bat-
les in the Northern Church were
lot ours to fight. But unofficially
ve watched and listened and took
iides.

Many of our young men, as early
is 1900, thought it high time to be
ione with the division of 1861, fre-
quently overlooking the truly sig-
lificant data of 1869, and they un-
lertook to take the initiative in
eading our people out of their
'provincialism" toward a union
with the Northern Church which
hey considered a natural and prop-
er realignment. Consequently, into
:he northern seminaries of former
Vew School connections they went;
md, by the 1920's, these same New
School influences were being felt in
:he south.

The result is that today, 1972, the
Southern Church is officially Old
School in theology and polity but
often New School in the attitudes of
its leadership.

It is the thesis of this article that
only those who take the trouble to
understand and have the candor to
admit the real motivations of Ken-
tucky and Missouri in 1869 and
1874, will ever understand the re-
sistance to union with the Northern
Church that still persists in 1972.
Conversely, those who cannot admit
the validity of current resistance
cannot logically admit the validity
of the unions with Kentucky and
Missouri in 1869 and 1874.

What Does This Mean?

First, the Southern Church his-
torically is the heir of the Old
School Church. Initially, as we have
noted, both Northern and Southern
Churches were heirs of the Old
School position, but the union of
1869, in the north, left the south as
the sole heir.

Obviously, our Church has be-
come infected with the same theo-
logical heterodoxy. This is the root
of the unrest. But it came upon us
much more gradually, albeit from
the same sources, and entirely unof-
ficially.

Second, the divisions in the South-
ern Church are very deep because
they are theological. Some protago-
nists of all points of view make the
mistake of trying to deal with these
matters on the surface; but the in-
compatibility is deeper than the col-
ors of skins, broader than political

Nothing In My Hand

The cross is mystery. The cross is
imperialism. But there's a third
reason Gentiles reject the cross and
brand it foolishness. It is this — its
devastating of human pride. Every
religion of the earth that I know
about says, "Something in my hand
I bring" as it approaches God. The
New Testament faith alone says,
"Nothing in my hand I bring." For
all human effort, all our man-made
works, have to be passed by. It is
not by works of righteousness which
we have done, it is by grace we have
been saved through faith. — Wil-
liam Culbertson, in The Faith
Once Delivered.

allegiances, and far simpler than the
complexities of current sociology.

The differences are profoundly
theological, and the issue is the same
as it was in Calvin's day, namely, the
validity and integrity of the Bible;
and it finds its focus, for us, in the
reality and authenticity of the West-
minster Confession of Faith and
Catechisms, and the book of order
and worship, which flows from this
theological system.

Third, the very nature of a con-
fessional Church is involved. The
issue is not whether we are evan-
gelistic or sociological in method,
but whether we are confessional or
activist in nature. The 20th cen-
tury will take its place in history as
the century of theological fads, lit-
tle statements, half thought out, in-
variably dividing the Church of Je-
sus Christ, the more frantic the ef-
forts to unite her.

The fundamentalist formula of
1910, the Barmen Declaration of
Hitler's Germany, the preoccupa-
tion with reconciliation in the Con-
fession of '67, and endless other po-
sition papers, from every conceiv-
able corner, have literally flooded
us. All of these are partial, some
are legitimate and some are quite
inadequate; but they are not con-
fessions.

A confessing Church is one which
sits under the Word of God, in its
entirety, and willingly, eagerly,
builds her life beneath it. She does
not tell the world, or God, what she
will, or will not, believe. On the
contrary, she confesses that, through
Christ, God is her father, and she
waits upon Him, and Him alone, to
tell her what she must believe. Con-
sequently, no confession is a confes-
sion which does not embrace in
some systematic form the entire
Word of God.

Does it not all come to this:
What shall we do with the West-
minster Confession of Faith? After
all, is that not the real issue? Cal-
vinists can neither be satisfied with
the fundamentalist isolation of a few
doctrines, however basic, nor the
gratuitous substitution of program
and activity for theology by the so-
ciologists who all too often guide
the Church at all levels above the
congregation.

Consequently, let us discuss the
future of Presbyterianism in Amer-
ica with full candor and open rec-
ognition of the depth and character
of the internal divisions that have
been with us since 1801. 51

PAGE 13 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 3, 1972

EDITORIALS

What Do You Mean, 'Be Relevant'?

"In a time when the world cries
out for a relevant word from God
the most charitable thing that can
be said about the Church is that her
word remains utterly beside the
point."

So wrote a disappointed critic of
the Church and its traditional Gos-
pel. His complaint raises the valid
question: What constitutes rele-
vance? What must the Church say
in order to have an appropriate
word for our time?

The critic, by his complaint,
meant to say that the pulpit con-
tinues to prattle about heaven and
who's going there, the virgin birth,
the integrity of the Scriptures, the
doctrine of election, what is meant
by justification by faith and how
Christ is present in the Lord's Sup-
per, while out there on the streets
injustice is perpetrated and Church
people are frequently part of the in-
justice.

So the question of relevance ulti-

It is generally supposed today
that youth do not trust anyone over
30 years old. At least, that is what
some of the over-30 experts on youth
say.

Young people we know don't fig-
ure it that way. They are issue ori-
ented. No matter whether you are
13 or 73, they establish rapport if
they detect agreement with their
positions on certain issues or your
competence in their fields of inter-
est (even if you disagree with their
positions) .

While this approach has its short-
comings, we think it is better than
the one which arbitrarily cuts off
credibility because of chronology.
We hope it points to better com-
munications ahead as the youth
grow up.

We have a particular reason for
hoping that those over 30 can be
heard and trusted. The Journal
itself has reached that age, and we
would not want the binding of Vol.
XXX to mean that certain readers

mately boils down to this: When in-
justice is perpetrated, and even by
or within the Church, what is the
word that will prevail, that will cast
down injustice and make the oppres-
sor yield?

This much the evangelical Chris-
tian knows because he knows human
nature: You do not change injustice
into benevolence by crying, "You are
being unjust!"

You do not eliminate unrighteous-
ness by demanding righteousness.
You do not change the oppressor by
condemning oppression. And you
do not bring in the day of brother-
hood by demonstrations of force on
behalf of brotherhood.

Legal objectives of justice and
privilege can be gained by the use
of coercion and force. You can
shame, or make or compel the op-
pressor to yield, by means that are
both violent and nonviolent. But
force or compulsion in the attain-
ment of any objective is not the way

are automatically "turned off."

Our regard for the discretion of
our readers is too high for us to be-
lieve such will be the case, for they,
too, are issue oriented. They are
more interested in where we stand
than how long we have been stand-
ing there.

We have never claimed infallibil-
ity. We have tried, to be accurate.
Despite our best efforts we have
made mistakes. When errors became
known to us we have corrected them.

Readers who seldom agree with
our editorial stands have told us they
read the Journal not only to get
facts from our news stories, but also
to ascertain the thinking of those on
the other side.

If this is the way readers trust us,
then we are happy, and we pray that
we will continue to merit this con-
fidence. We are thankful for a
growing readership and ask any
reader who wants to give us a birth-
day present to pray that we may be
more trustworthy after age 30. II

of peace. And are there not voice
of every description raised agains
the principle of force or compulsioi
as a way of getting things done?

Anyhow, we are not talking abou
how to get things done by direct ac
tion or by manipulation, for that be
longs to the realm of law and of or
der. We are talking about the Wore
which the Church must have in or
der to be relevant. The only wore
which is relevant is that Word whicl
speaks accurately, according to th(
way of God, to the situation.

The Word of the Church whicl
creatively heals will never be a wore
of command or of compulsion, foi
human nature is not changed by1
being told that it is bad and that if
must improve. . Only the philoso
pher who mistakenly grounds his ap
proach to the human problem in th<|
belief that the needs of godly liv
ing are already present in human
nature will attack the superficial
symptoms of the deeper problem.

The evangelical Christian will
know that regardless of the symp-
toms, the basic illness is original sin
and the basic need is for a new birth
by grace through faith.

Just as the problem of alcoholism
is met by introducing the alcoholic
to a power greater than himself, so
the problem of injustice is met by
introducing the oppressor to a pow-
er greater than his selfishness.

The Church is most perfectly rele-
vant when it is talking about the in-
gredients of its spiritual prescription
for righteousness: the object of faith,
Jesus Christ, the manner and con-
tent of faith, and the Word by
which faith comes.

The irrelevant are those who de-
mand change of people helpless in
their own strength to change. 11

He Feared Only God

Church historians perhaps will
agree that the most thoroughgoing
Presbyterianism produced by the
Reformation was found in Scotland,
where the leader and molder of the
movement was John Knox.

Like the Apostle Paul, Knox was
a rugged, stalwart soldier of the cross
whose faithful adherence to the pur-
est Gospel amid persecution and
hardships remains as a strong testi-
mony and encouragement to war-
riors for God in all ages.

Knox, born almost 500 years ago,
sat as a young man at the feet of

About Trusting Those Over 30

PAGE 14 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 3, 1972

THE LAYMAN AND HIS CHURCH

The Spirit Works Wonders

ohn Major, one of the earliest
sachers to deny the supremacy of
ae pope. Later, Knox was befriend-
d by George Wishart, reformer and
lartyr.

When Wishart was burned at the
take in 1546, Knox began to preach
/ith great boldness, striking at
iie very root of popery, pronouncing
he pope to be anti-Christ and the
>apal system to be anti-Scriptural,
tome's fury was aroused. The re-
ormer was cruelly abused and im-
nrisoned as a galley slave in the
Yench fleet, but his allegiance to
Jod's truth was unshaken.

His exile continued on the con-
inent, especially in Geneva, where
jie studied under the theologian of
he Reformation, John Calvin. In
!'559, when the queen-regent pro-
claimed liberty of worship, Knox re-
urned to his beloved Scotland and
tnrepared in God's providence to kin-
He the bright flames of Reforma-
ion in his homeland.

He preached a flaming evangel-
sra with great eloquence and power,
rhough Queen Mary was a painful
thorn in the struggling Church's
flesh, Knox boldly carried the Gos-
pel even to her throne room!

He had a great compassion for in-
dividual souls. Constantly he sought
men out, whether princes, nobles or
peasants, and earnestly pressed the
claims of Christ upon them.

He cried, "O God, give me Scot-
land, or I die!" And he attacked the
evil in that land with the sword of
the Spirit, until, indeed, Scotland
was his — or better, the Lord's.

What was the secret of his power?
[t was said of him at his death,
'There lies he who never feared the
face of man." True. John Knox
[eared only God. Some men love
the praise of men more than the
praise of God. Not so with Knox.
He asked with Paul, "Lord, what
will Thou have me to do?" and that
alone determined his duty.

Christian, what is your duty to-
day? When the Church of Jesus
Christ thrashes about in theological
confusion and desperately needs men
who will fearlessly champion God's
eternal truth, no matter what the ec-
clesiastical consequences, whom do
you fear — man, or God? — Paul
G. Settle. IB

• • •

To become ordained is not neces-
sarily to escape from one's passion
for power. It may only serve to can-
onize it. — Ian Henderson.

Recently the Lord taught me some
important lessons about witnessing
and the power of His Word.

My father, a Roman Catholic, had
been rushed to the hospital. He
was seriously ill and wasn't expected
to live. I had just moved to a dis-
tant city and it was impossible for
me to go to his bedside and wait for
his impending death.

Because he trusted in his Church
for salvation, I knew that he didn't
know the way to heaven, so I decid-
ed to write to him and again explain
the way of salvation. (I had often
attempted to do this verbally in the
past, but always seemed to get
bogged down in a discussion about
the error of any Church which teach-
es a "works" salvation. The result
was always the same: hurt feelings
and alienated affections.)

Because my Dad was incapacitated
— he could neither read nor talk,
only mumble a yes or no in response
to questions — I asked my mother
to read the letter to him without
fail and to advise me of his response.
Before I wrote, I prayed and dedi-
cated my effort to the Lord's care,
knowing that it is the Holy Spirit
alone who quickens and convicts of
sin. Here is what I wrote:

Dear Dad, I have no way of know-
ing if this may be the last letter I
write to you. Just in case it is, I
want to write something, in love,
that can be very important to you.

Dad, the Bible (both your Bible,
the Douay, and mine, the King
James) is very clear about the way
to heaven. You will remember that
I tried to explain this to you the last
time we were together, but I don't
think you understood. I will try
again. Listen to this very carefully
because it gives you God's plan to
get you to heaven:

First, recognize that you, like all
men, are a sinner and are unworthy

Tom Rose, professor of economics
and political science at the Univer-
sity of Piano (Texas) , and acting
chairman of the division of econom-
ics, political science and history, is
the author of the Layman's column.

to enter into God's presence. The Bi-
ble says, "For all have sinned and
come short of the glory of God"
(Rom. 3:23) . "Except a man be born
again, he cannot see the kingdom of
God" (John 3:3) .

Next, realize that God loves you
and recognizes your plight as a sin-
ner; and that He did something to
save you: "God so loved the world
that He gave His only begotten Son,
that whosoever believeth in Him
should not perish, but have everlast-
ing life" (John 3:16). In other
words, Dad, eternal salvation is pro-
vided for you through the person
of Jesus Christ and only through
Him. "Jesus saith unto him, I am
the way, the truth, and the life. No
man cometh unto the Father, but
by me" (John 14:6) .

Last, Dad, understand that there
is only one requirement made of
you: You must believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ and call on Him to save
you. It's as simple as that. Once
you do this, you are guaranteed a
place in heaven. "Believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt
be saved, and thy house" (Acts 16:
31). "For whosoever shall call up-
on the name of the Lord shall be
saved" (Rom. 10:13). Dear Dad,
all you have to do to gain God's
promise is to pray a silent prayer
like this: "Dear God, I recognize
that I'm a sinner and that I'm lost
without your Son, Jesus Christ. I
put my trust in Jesus as my Saviour
and Lord. Please save me." If you
will pray that prayer, Dad, you will
instantly become a child of God, and
we will meet in heaven some day.
The Lord can be found now if you
will call upon Him to save you, but
it may soon be too late. "Seek ye the
Lord while He may be found, call
ye upon Him while He is near" (Isa.
55:6) .

A short time later my mother
wrote to assure me that both she and
my father had accepted Christ as
their Saviour.

After a short recovery, during
which he showed an inward peace

(Cont. on p. 22, col. 3)

PAGE 15 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 3, 1972

SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON

For May 21, 1972

The Church's Teaching Ministry

Rev. Jack B. Scott

INTRODUCTION: The princi-
ple of teaching in the church begins
at least as early as the time of Abra-
ham. The Lord established this
principle as a part of His very pur-
pose in dealing with Abraham and
his seed (Gen. 18:19). The Lord
said, "I have known him (Abraham) ,
to the end that he will command his
children and his household after
him, that they may keep the way of
the Lord to do righteousness and jus-
tice; to the end that the Lord may
bring upon Abraham that which he
hath spoken of him." Here we see
that in God's purpose the believing
father should teach his children
God's will and His way.

Later, in the time of the Exodus,
the instruction of the household is
again emphasized. Specifically, the
Israelites were taught to teach the
significance of the Passover to their
children (Exo. 12:26) . Then in
Deuteronomy 6:4 follows the com-
mand to teach God's Word (the
Pentateuch here, but applicable to
all the Word of God) diligently to
the children, not only by words but
also by example.

When this teaching was neglected,
as was largely the case in the time
of the Judges (Judg. 2:10), chaos
and defeat followed for Israel. But
thankfully there were exceptions —
witness the marvelous knowledge
Samuel's mother had of God, His
way and will (I Sam. 2:1-10) . Prob-
ably because of such exceptions (not
only Samuel's parents but also Da-
vid's were devout; see the book of
Ruth) , Samuel and David arose to
lead the people back to God.

In the New Testament, too, that
teaching was continued. Mary and
Joseph, Elizabeth and Zacharias were
all apparently well taught God's
Word by their parents. Their faith
seems to reflect this.

Therefore, an important Scrip-
tural principle comes forth regard-
ing teaching, namely, that teaching
begins at home. If the believing par-
ents do not teach the Word in their
homes, they cannot expect the
church to make up for that lack.
When children are taught the Word

Background Scripture: Matthew

28:19-20; I Timothy 4:6-16; II

Timothy 2:1-2; 3:10-17
Key Verses: I Timothy 4:6-12; II

Timothy 2:1-2
Devotional Reading: II Timothy 3:

14-4:2

Memory Selection: II Timothy 3:
16-17

by their parents' example, as well as
verbally, then a good foundation is
laid for a life to be lived to God's
glory.

I. THE SUBJECT MATTER
TO BE TAUGHT (Matt. 28:19-20) .
The closing words of Matthew give
the subject matter of Christian
teaching. Jesus said, "Teaching
them to observe all things whatsoev-
er I commanded you." What does
this include? Does it mean only
what is found of Jesus' teaching in
the Gospels? Certainly not!

Remember that Jesus Himself
taught the disciples all things con-
cerning himself from the Old Testa-
ment (Luke 24:44-47) . But further,
Jesus clearly established himself as
the God of the Old Testament.
Therefore, all He taught, which is
the Old Testament, is included in
the command of Jesus recorded in
Matthew 28. Jesus claimed to be
Abraham's God and this is why the
Jews in unbelief sought to kill Him
(John 8:56-59).

Beyond this, Paul wrote Timothy,
speaking of the Old Testament as
well as the New, that all Scripture
is profitable for teaching (II Tim.
3:16-17).

We have emphasized the scope of
the command of Jesus to teach all
that He commanded because many
ministers and teachers neglect or ig-
nore completely the Old Testament
teaching, to the detriment of the
Church today. Remember that the
Bible of the Lord and His disciples,
of Paul and other New Testament

The International Sunday School Lesson Out-
lines are copyrighted by The International
Council of Religious Education.

evangelists, was largely the Old Te
tament Scripture. They loved it an
studied it faithfully, freely quotin
from it to establish every Christia
doctrine. We neglect the Old Test;
ment only to our hurt. Christ had
plainly said it: "Heaven and eart
shall pass away but my words will
not pass away" (Matt. 24:35) .

As the Bible teaches that all Serif
ture is profitable for teaching, i
equally stresses that beyond Serif
ture we are not to go. Those wh<
introduce in the Sunday schoc
teaching what is not found in Scrip
ture, or who from the pulpit preacl
from any source other than God'
written Word, are equally guilty o
violating God's will. Nothing is U>
be taken from God's Word and noth
ing is to be added to it as the sub
ject matter for the Church's study
doctrine and belief (Deut. 4:2; Rev
22:18-19) .

II. PRINCIPLES OF SOUNL
TEACHING (I Tim. 4:6-16; 11
Tim. 2:1-2). Paul laid down severa
precepts for Timothy to follow ir
being a good teacher. They all have
application to us who teach today.

A. Put the brethren in mind ot
these things (I Tim. 4:6) . Th(
"these things" must mean what Pau
said immediately before. In 3:14
Paul wrote, "These things write ij
unto thee," referring to the conteni
of chapters 1 to 3. There he had
talked about the affairs and conducl
of the Church, but the principle we
gain is that the good teacher reminds
his pupils of what is important over
and over.

To "put in mind" is to remind, to1
go over the truth again and again.
We cannot assume that truth is easily1
learned at one time. As God put
it in the book of Isaiah, "it is pre-
cept upon precept, . . . line upon
line . . . here a little, there a little"
(Isa. 28:10) .

B. Be nourished in the words of
faith and of good doctrine which
thou hast followed until now (I
Tim. 4:6) . The principle here is
most important. No one can be a,

PAGE 16 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 3, 1972

oocl teacher who does not feed on
iod's Word. If we always read the
/ord to see what we can teach oth-
% we may never receive the Word

Jpr our own growth. The teacher
eeds to be nourished on the Word
imself. Many teachers think only,
What can I say to others from this
ord?" and neglect to ask, "What is
rod saying to me here?" Timothy

las nourished on the Word himself
II Tim. 1:5; 3:15) .

C. Refuse profane and old wives'
\ibles (I Tim. 4:7) . The teacher is
) reject all tradition, no matter how
ighly regarded by those he teaches,
'hen this tradition is plainly not in
rod's Word. This often takes cour-
ge. Old sayings and old traditions
eep cropping up in Bible lessons,
lany use them to get the teacher to
peculate in areas where God's Word
oes not speak (I Tim. 1:4; II Tim.
:4, etc.) . The teacher must be-
rare of vain speculations which can-
ot edify but only tickle the ears of
iie hearers.

D. Exercise thyself unto godli-
ess (I Tim. 4:7-10) . The teacher
> to teach not only verbally but by
xample. If the teacher fails to live
tie doctrine he teaches, his hearers
oon turn away from him. This casts

big stumblingblock before the
>hurch. It is better not to teach
iod's Word if you are not going to
ive by what you teach. Teaching
[oes not end when the class bell
ings.

E. Let no man despise thy youth
I Tim. 4:12). Paul's letter was
written to a young man but it has
pplication to all teachers whatever
heir age. We are not to teach or
onduct ourselves in such a way as
3 show ourselves immature. No one
hould teach who does not have a
ood grasp of Scripture. No one
liould teach who has not applied
cripture to his own life.

Timothy's knowledge of the Word
/ent back to his childhood. Though
ie was young in age at the time Paul
wote, he knew God's Word well.
m, because he was young-looking,
ie had to show by his spiritual ma-
urity his right to be a teacher.

F. Be an example to them that
relieve, in word, in manner of life,
n love, in faith, in purity (I Tim.
:12) . This is an expansion of para-
raph D above but it includes a
pecial exhortation to love those
/hom you teach and to keep your-
elf pure in all relationships with
hem. The teacher who lords it
ver those he teaches or speaks down

to them, or is impatient with them,
or who conducts himself toward any
of them in a manner unbecoming
to a Christian, can never be a good
teacher. Jesus himself taught His
disciples who were very slow to
learn. Patience in love is one of the
absolute requirements for the good
teacher.

G. Give heed to reading,
to exhortation, to teaching (I Tim.
4:13). Note the three aspects
of the teaching ministry. We
are to read God's Word first.
The Word is the basis of all we
shall teach. We begin there as
we saw Jesus begin (last lesson) . We
are to exhort the people, bringing
home God's Word to bear in their
personal lives. Then we are to teach
them the Word so that they may in
turn be able to teach others also (II
Tim. 2:1-2) .

H. Neglect not the gift that is in
thee (I Tim. 4:14). The ability to
teach is a gift from God, and not
everyone has that ability (Eph.
4:11). Since it is a gift from God,
it can be taken away as easily as it
was given. Like all gifts, it must be
invested for God or it deteriorates
and becomes useless. This seems to
have been Jesus' lesson in the Par-
able of the Talents (Matt. 25:14-
30) . God has given us whatever
gifts we have for His own glory. If
we neglect or misuse these gifts, then
both we and the Church suffer.

I. Be diligent in these things:
give thyself wholly to them (I Tim.
4:15) . Zeal is one of the important
aspects of being a good teacher. We
can teach methodically, without zeal
or enthusiasm for what we teach. We
can teach half-heartedly, giving only
the content but betraying the fact
that we ourselves do not take it
seriously.

Teaching God's Word demands
much attention and for the minister,
preparation for that teaching is a
full-time calling. Yet even the Sun-
day school teacher must remember
that it is perhaps his or her single
greatest task of service in God's
kingdom and demands not just a
Saturday night preparation but daily
thought and reflection to be ready
for Sunday morning.

J. Take heed to thyself and to thy
teaching (I Tim. 4:16). Attention
to self and to what you teach is ever
in order for the teacher. We must
continually measure ourselves by the
Word and be ready to apply it to

(Cont. on p. 22, col. 3)

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PAGE 17 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 3, 1972

^1

YOUTH PROGRAM

Scripture: Revelation 5:11-14; Mat-
thew 21:1-11
Suggested Hymns:

"All Hail the Power of Jesus'

Name"
"Crown Him with Many

Crowns"
"When I Survey the Wondrous

Cross"

PROGRAM LEADER'S INTRO-
DUCTION: In our two Scripture
passages we read an account of
Christ's kingly entry into Jerusalem
and also a description of His kingly
glory in the age to come. We live
between these two times. The Lord
is no less a king now than He was
on that day when He rode into Je-
rusalem. He is Lord now just as
surely as He will be in the future
age.

We sing "Crown Him with many
crowns," but do we really mean it?
Jesus said, "Why call ye me Lord,
Lord and do not the things which I
say?" Crowning Christ king means

For May 21, 1972

Crown Him Lord

Rev. B. Hoyt Evans

more than singing and saying pretty,
pious things about Him. Crowning
Him Lord is not so much a matter
of saying as of doing.

FIRST SPEAKER: We must make
Christ Lord of our wills. When a
ship is in distress on the seas it must
yield complete control when anoth-
er ship comes to its rescue. It is not
free to go it alone if and when the
time of danger is past, but remains
subject to the rescuing ship until it
is safe in the harbor.

Being a Christian is not just a
matter of convenience. It must not
be a matter of calling on Christ for
help when we are afraid and then
forgetting Him when we think the
crisis has passed. When we accept
Christ, we accept Him as Saviour
and Lord. If He is not Lord of our
wills, He is not Lord at all.

Can we make these hymn words
our prayer? "Take Thou our wills,
most high, hold Thou full sway;
have in our inmost souls Thy per-
fect way; guard Thou each sacred

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hour from selfish ease; guide Tho
our ordered lives as Thou do;
please."

SECOND SPEAKER: Crownin
Christ king means making Hir
Lord of our words. Sometimes it i
said that talk is cheap, and there i
a sense in which it is. Our speed
however, is indicative of what w
think. Words are the overflow
the heart. What we say gives a<
curate evidence of what we thinl
You can often listen to a person tal
for just a little while and gain
clear idea as to whether or not h
likes people and is sympathetic tc
ward them

If Christ is Lord of our lives, ou
words will be pure, kind, and true
Our words will reveal what we thinl
of Christ. If He is really our Lord
our words will bear witness
His saving, helping power. Art
other hymn suggests the way
should be: "Take my voice, and le
me sing, always, only, for my king
Take my lips, and let them be fillei
with messages from Thee."

THIRD SPEAKER: Crownin
Christ king means making Hinl
Lord of our hours. What does th
use we make of our time say abou
our regard for Him whom we cal
Lord? How much time each day d
you devote to the reading of the Bl
ble, which is His message to us? Ho\fl
much time do you spend in prayer!
How much time do you spend think!
ing about Him and working fo
Him?

Do you feel, as many people seen
to, that you have done more thai
your duty if you spend one or tw(j
hours in church almost every weekl
When you do engage in these activil
ties, is it done out of a sense of obf
ligation or because you really enjoj
having time for the Lord? If ai
impartial observer were to judg«
what is most important in our live]
based on the way we apportion ou;|
time, how would the decision goj
Would it be business, or pleasure, oil
something else, or would it b<|
Christ? Again the words of a hymrl
speak with relevance: "Take mi

PAGE 18 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 3, 1972

ornents and ray days; let them flow
ceaseless praise."

FOURTH SPEAKER: Crowning
hrist king means making Him
ord of our possessions. Our posses-
ms are a part of us.

Most of us will spend our lives
orking. In return for our work we
ill receive money. The money
presents our lives, and the way we
>end that money is in a real sense
ie spending of our lives. When you
ry an item of clothing or a record
• a book, the money with which
>u make the purchase represents a
action of your life.

Is the Lord taken into account in
iie way you use your money? If He
Lord, He certainly should be
|iken into account, shouldn't He?
o thrift and wholesomeness char-
cterize your spending? What does
lie proportion of your money that
du give to Christ's Church have to
ty about your devotion to Him
horn you call Lord?

How much of a king is Christ to
le person who spends more for cig-
rettes or entertainment than he
ives to the Church? If Christ is not
,ord of our possessions, can we say
rat He is our Lord at all?

PROGRAM LEADER: Crowning
Christ Lord is a familiar mode of
expression, but why should we talk
and think in this way? Why is it
claimed that He deserves first place
in all of life? We call Him Lord be-
cause His majesty merits respect. He
is the creator and sustainer of all
things, and His creation is subject
to Him. Only man has freedom to
reject His Lordship, but when he
does reject it, he is out of harmony
with all else.

We should crown Christ Lord be-
cause His sacrificial love calls for
gratitude. The majestic Creator God
humiliated Himself by becoming
man, by taking our sin upon Him-
self, and by suffering death for our
salvation. That great love calls for
a reasonable response, the kind of re-
sponse suggested by these hymns:

"King of my life, I crown Thee
now, Thine shall the glory be; lest
I forget Thy thorn-crowned brow,
lead me to calvary. Were the whole
realm of nature mine, that were a
present far too small; love so amaz-
ing, so divine, demands my soul, my
life, my all."

Closing Prayer. IS

Today's ministries are varied and
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Study at Covenant is not prepara-
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PAGE 19 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 3, 1972

BOOKS

THE KENNEDY EXPLOSION, by
E. Russell Chandler. David C. Cook
Publ. Co., Elgin, 111. Paper, 125 pp.
$.95. Reviewed by the Rev. Charles
W. McNutt, pastor, Westminster Pres-
byterian Church, Roanoke, Va.

This book about a leading candi-
date for moderator of the General
Assembly of 1971, who is also pas-
tor of the fastest growing church in
the denomination, should be of spe-
cial interest to members of the Pres-
byterian Church US. It only costs
95 cents. Get it!

It is the interesting story of D.
James Kennedy and "an idea whose
time has come." This "idea" is the
evangelism explosion that began at
Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church
and has spread not only in the Pres-
byterian denominations, but to
Churches as varied as Lutheran and
IFCA (Independent Fundamental
Churches of America) .

The life story of Jim Kennedy
contains interesting details about the
man behind the Coral Ridge pro-

gram. It is worth getting the book
to read of Jim's conversion, call to
the ministry, and call to evangelism.
The program itself is also presented,
although not in great detail.

One might wonder from the title
whether or not the book exalts the
individual unduly, but eternal life
is presented "as the free gift of God
through His Son." Evangelistic visi-
tors speak "as they feel led by the
Spirit," learn to say "I am only His
instrument," and "It's the Holy
Spirit using our availability." The
closing words of the book are "Soli
Deo Gloria."

As one who attended the annual
Ministers' Clinic in 1968 and who
profited thereby, I recommend this
book to the reader. No one can go
to Coral Ridge without realizing
that people are active and happy in
serving the Lord, that there is en-
thusiasm and power, and that God
is putting His stamp of approval on
the evangelism explosion at Ft.
Lauderdale. IE

BEFORE I FORGET, by Wilb
M. Smith. Moody Press, Chicago, I
304 pp. $5.95. Reviewed by the Re
Albert H. Freundt Jr., professor, R
formed Theological Seminary, Jac
son, Miss.

Most people who have heard
Wilbur M. Smith know of him
the longtime editor of the annu
volume of Peloubet's Select Notes o
the International Sunday School Le
sons. The dust jacket describes tl
present book as "the detailed aut
biography of this outstanding Chri
tian leader and his highly succes
ful religious career." Dr. Smith is
Presbyterian minister who earned
reputation as a great Bible teach(
and author. Some years ago he a
so served a short pastorate in th
Presbyterian Church US.

This book does not possess a co
orful style, nor does it offer a gre;
revelation of the author's inner lil
or spiritual struggles. Indeed, it coi
sists largely of matter-of-fact detai
and a record of the acquaintance
accomplishments, and aspirations c
the author. This is why, howevei
it is such an interesting book. It :
interesting because of what he r<
lates of the numerous evangelia
personalities, institutions, and pn

A CHRISTIAN CAMP

Dedicated to developing
young people into mature,
well-balanced Christian
citizens.

1972 DATES

SENIORS

(ages 15-18; rising
10th- 12th graders)
June 6-17

JUNIOR I

(ages 8-11; rising 3rd-6th graders)
June 20-July 1

PIONEERS

(ages 12-14; rising 7th-9th graders)
July 4-15

JUNIOR II

(ages 7-11; rising 2nd-6th graders)
July 17-28

Camp

Westminster

Located in a beautifully wooded area of 114 acres.
20 miles southeast of Atlanta, near Conyers, Georgia.

Presenting young people with the chal-
lenge to accept the Lord Jesus Christ as
their personal Saviour. Developing the
spiritual life of the camper. Seeking to
know his needs through the understand-
ing contact of dedicated counselors who
teach the Bible and lead in the devotional
life of the cabin. Developing a habit of
daily Bible study and prayer. Complete
facilities with a balanced program for
physical, social, intellectual and spiritual
growth. Founded by Dr. John R. Richard-
son. Owned and operated by Camp West-
minster, Inc.

FAMILY BIBLE CONFERENCE

(Families and Adults)
Sunday, July 30

— Sunday, August I

OUTSTANDING SPEAKERS
Dr. Henry Bast
Grand Rapids, Mich.

Preacher on
"Temple Time" Radio Broadcas

Dr. Robert Strong
Montgomery, Ala.

Pastor of
Trinity Presbyterian Church
Popular Camp Westminster
Bible Teacher

"More can be accomplished with a child in 2 weeks at camp than in 1 year at Sunday School."
WRITE TO: CAMP WESTMINSTER 1438 Sheridan Rd.. N.E.. Atlanta, Ga. 30324

PAGE 20 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 3, 1972

~ts with which he has been associ-
sd.

He has known many of the out-
inding conservative Christians in
e 20th century. He has been in-
>lved in the activities of the Inde-
■:ndent Board of Presbyterian For-
i*n Missions, taught at the Moody
ble Institute, been consulted in
|e origin of Christianity Today,
trticipated in the revision of the
ofield Reference Bible, helped to
tablish Fuller Theological Semi-
iry, and more recently contributed
the rise of Trinity Evangelical Di-
nky School to a place of promi-
mce and promise. Anyone who has

an interest in any of these things
will be fascinated with this book.

It would be a day well spent to be
able to hear Dr. Smith reminisce
concerning these topics, offer advice
about helpful books for the use of
pastors and teachers, and generally
give professional counsel for both
out of his long and useful life. This
book makes this experience pos-
sible, ffl

We cannot dare to prefer our own
opinions and standards to His and
still call ourselves Christians. — John
R. W. Stott.

"YE ARE MY WITNESSES"

Isaiah 43:10

Luke 24:48

EVANGELISM CONFERENCE

sponsored by

Presbyterian Evangelistic Fellowship

MONTREAL NORTH CAROLINA August 18-23, 1972

MAIN SPEAKERS:
Grady Wilson

Kennedy Smartt

Mariano DiGangi
Mario Rivera
James Baird

Robert Reymond
Ben Wilkinson

BIBLE HOUR led by William E. Hill, Jr.

Twenty six SEMINARS on EVANGELISM

MUSIC PROGRAM directed by Rev. and Mrs. Iner Basinger

Special and separate YOUTH PROGRAMS for all ages

coordinated by Carl Wilson of Campus Crusade

VESPERS each evening with:
Wilson Benton
Michael Schneider
John Sartelle
John Oliver
Carl Wilson

For Evangelism Conference brochures clip this coupon and mail to

PRESBYTERIAN EVANGELISTIC FELLOWSHIP
P. O. Box 808
Hopewell, Virginia 23860

Name

Address

City and state

.Zip.

Please send me_

-Evangelism Conference brochures.

AILING
SUNDAY SCHOOL?

IT COULD BE HEART TROUBLE!

It's foolish to treat an ailing heart with mere
tranquilizers. The trouble in your Sunday school
could require radical surgery.

Great Commission Publications is a new
name in Sunday schools. That makes it easier
for us to spot difficulties — and offer new
remedies. To show you how we see the prob-
lem and its solution we offer a totally new con-
cept in Sunday school curriculum — the Bible
in perspective. We've built it into a new course
for Juniors. Together with our courses for
Primaries, Junior Highs, and Senior Highs it
could give your Sunday school a new heart !

For your free consultation with our special-
ists, send today for samples. We think you'll
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□ Primaries O Jr. Highs □ Sr. Highs

PAGE 21 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 3, 1972

HOW TO BE A MINISTER'S WIFE
& LOVE IT, by Alice Taylor. Zonder-
van Publ. House, Grand Rapids, Mich.
118 pp. $1.50. Reviewed by Mrs. C. W.
McNutt, Roanoke, Va.

The author, the wife of a Episco-
palian rector, served as president of

". . . the book I've been
waiting for . . . " David Wilkerson

THE CHRISTIAN FAMILY

For many families, the book of the
year! Shows the way to family
renewal. $4.95

FROM YOUR BOOKSTORE bethany

-fellowship

books

on the ministry
and gifts of the

Spirit

LIKE A DOVE DESCENDING

Ian Macpherson
graphically discloses
the nature and work
of the Holy Spirit
in the lives of
Christians.
$1.00 paper

SPEAKING IN TONGUES

A clear, concise
presentation by Larry
Christenson of the
manifestation of this
gift as spoken of in the
Bible. 950 paper

RULED BY THE SPIRIT

A call by Basilea
Schlink to come awake
to the presence and
vitality of the Third
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Trinity. 95$ paper

FROM YOUR 800KST0RE

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the women of the Protestant Episco-
pal Diocese of Albany. While her
husband was rector of St. David's
Church, Baltimore, she started small
prayer study groups which have been
imitated in other churches.

Reading this book won't make you
love being a minister's wife, but it
might help. Many of the blessings
and more of the problems of the
manse or parsonage are alike. The
author gives advice on what to do
about many things, from too much
company to too little money. Hu-
mor, sorrow, weakness; it's all here
in this little paperback. El

GOD'S PLAN: PAST, PRESENT,
FUTURE, by Henrietta C. Mears. Gos-
pel Light Publications, Glendale, Calif.
342 pp. $4.95. Reviewed by the Rev.
Clinton C. Baker, pastor, Parma Park
Reformed Church, Parma Heights,
Ohio.

The late beloved Bible teacher
and founder of Gospel Light Publi-
cations, has set forth the full scope
of the Biblical message from the cre-
ation of the world in the beginning
to the final triumph of God's king-
dom at the end of history. She
traces through the Biblical story re-
lating man's fall; God's dealing with
the Jewish people in the Old Tes-
tament; and the story of Christ, His
crucifixion, resurrection and great
commission; the Church; and final-
ly a premillennial view of the second
coming of Christ.

The book is very simply written
and is full of modern day illustra-
tions to drive home the various life-
related points of Biblical truth. In
a real sense the book could serve
either as a layman's systematic theol-
ogy or a handbook to the Bible. Re-

gardless of whether one agrees wi.J
all the details of Henrietta Mea: I
interpretation of the return
Christ, ministers, Sunday scho I
teachers and other laymen can fir
helpful material for sermons, Bib
studies and Sunday school lessons.

Layman— from p. 14

never before evident (this inform
tion came from a sister-in-law son
months later) , my father died.

It warms my heart to know th;
I will see both my parents in gloi
now. It also warms my heart t
have learned these important lessor
for my future ministry here on eartl

First, witnessing for Christ mu
be done in love and not in the spir
of correcting the erroneous positioi
of our listener's Church, whatever
may be. A positive witness to th
person of Christ will displace errt
if there be any.

Second, and most important, th
Word of God itself is powerft
enough to call His elect to Him (Is;
55:11). We weak lamps need nc
worry about the light we shed fort
if we rely on God's Word. If w;
communicate His Word faithfull
we can rest secure that it will a»
complish His purpose. Praise Hi
name!

Lesson— from p. 17

ourselves first. We must ever tes;
our teaching by God's Word alsc
Are we inserting our thoughts whici
Scripture will not sustain? Are w
leaving out doctrines which we hav
difficulty with, although ScripturJ

Quality education focused on the individual

PRESBYTERIAN COLLEGE

Clinton, South Carolina 29325

FIRST MORTGAGE CHURCH BONDS

Registered as to principal and interest
Interest payable semi-annually

Call or Write CHURCH SECURITIES, INC.

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Phone (404) 451-5431 4095 Cloirmont Road Atlanta, Ga. 30341

PAGE 22 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 3, 1972

tidies them? We must ever test and
eamine ourselves by that Word
ijtidi we teach.

K.. Continue in these things (I
'im. 4:16). Teachers become dis-
aaraged. Surely Jesus must have
ran discouraged to see His disciples
egress so slowly. Look at Moses,
Ejah, Jeremiah and other great
:3phets of the Old Testament era.
^aching is a slow and tedious pro-
j,s. "Line upon line, precept up-
: precept, here a little, there a lit-
[," but we cannot become discour-
se!. If we are faithful, some will
;ar and believe and be saved and
ow spiritually and become witness-

and teachers themselves. This is
aat Paul exhorted Timothy to re-
^mber (II Tim. 2:2-3) .

III. THE PROFIT OF SOUND
EACHING (II Tim. 3:10-17).
mothy, who had learned from
ul, is a great example of what
and teaching will do. Paul taught
d Timothy learned (vv. 10-11)
d abided in what was taught (vv.
-15) , so Timothy became a teach-
of the Word, teaching others to
teachers of that same Word (II
im. 2:2) .

Paul wrote a marvelous statement
the profit which can be expected
come from sound and faithful
aching (vv. 16-17) . First, he af-
"med verbal inspiration when he
id that all Scripture is given by
spiration of God. The word ac-
ally means that all Scripture is
od-breathed. The Holy Spirit is
e author of all Scripture, inspir-
g and guiding what was written,
impare II Peter 1:20-21.
Then Paul enumerated the prof-
of teaching this inspired word:

A. It is profitable for teaching.
ripture and only the Scripture is
e proper subject matter of the
lurch's doctrine.

B. It is profitable for reproof.
od's Word convicts the hearer. It

used by the Holy Spirit to con-
ct of sin. It literally knocks the

If you are moving to an area where
there is no congregation of the
Presbyterian Church in the U. S.
you may find an Orthodox Presby-
terian Church nearby. A Directory
of Churches and Chapels of the
Orthodox Presbyterian Church
will be sent upon request. Please
address: Orthodox Presbyterian
Church Directory, 7401 Old York
Road, Philadelphia, Pa. 19126.

hearer over. It lays us low, showing
us what we really are.

C. It is profitable for correction.
Thankfully, God's Word does not
only lay us low, it also picks us up
again. That is, it sets us up, renew-
ing us by the Gospel of hope and
salvation. This is what God said to
Jeremiah when He called him and
told him what his ministry would
do. Read Jeremiah 1:10.

D. It is profitable for instruction
in righteousness. The word picture
here is the training of a person as a
child is trained from infancy to
adulthood. Scripture is like the
milk which a baby needs first, and
later also it is meat to him who is
mature (I Pet. 2:2; I Cor. 3:1-2).
From the time we are newborn
babes in Christ until we mature in
the faith, we need God's Word. Our
need for it never ends.

E. It leads us to a complete and
profitable life in Christ. God had
in mind here spiritual growth to ma-
turity, so that we can be in turn ef-
fective servants of Christ and do ev-
ery good work. This is what God
wants and the faithful teaching and
study of God's Word is a means to
that end. ffl

Bible teaching

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GENEVA
ANNUITIES

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your regular Sunday school supplier or

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investing in Christian higher education.
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PAGE 23 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 3, 1972

"...I. Nelson Bell
is by far the most
unforgettable
Christian
Ihaie ever known."

- BILLY GRAHAM

NMtEIGN IM2YIL

IK CHINA

the remarkable life story of
Dr. L Nelson Bell by John Pollock

All the courage and insight of this renowned Christian at last
are recorded in an inspiring biography that will long be treasured.
Focusing especially upon Dr. Bell's early years as a missionary surgeon
in China just prior to the communist take-over, author Pollock includes many little
known details about those tumultuous days shared now for the first time in
written form! A Foreign Devil In China — the engrossing, fully-up-to-date
life story of Dr. L. Nelson Bell, one of this century's best loved Christian
statesmen who now is executive editor of Christianity Today.
Available at area bookstores in Cloth, $5.95.

flow forty years ycunyf

ZONDBRVaN [zj

PUBLISHING HOUSE • GRAND RAPIDS, MICH. 49506

PAGE 24 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 3, 1972

OL. XXXI, NO. 2 MAY 10, 1972 $4.00 A YEAR

fie

PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL

dvocating continuation of a Presbyterian Church loyal to Scripture and the Reformed faith

No Grimes Without Victims

Is there really such a thing as a victimless crime? Is it
true that the violation of the laws of morality will do no sig-
nificant harm to society? Is man an island who sins by him-
self? Never forget that the person who engages in an illegal
and immoral act is a victim. He is the primary victim but not the
only one. Every transgression is like a pebble cast into the placid
waters of a lake whose ripples go on and on and on.

— Samuel A. Jeanes
(See p. 7)

>. S. LESSON AND YOUTH PROGRAM FOR MAY 28
:iRCLE BIBLE STUDY FOR JUNE

moo

OR tTTH IQdBqo

m ok jo Xiis^A-fun

MAILBAG

SOUND AND FURY

I have been receiving the Journal
for almost four years and I have al-
ways attempted to see the arm of
Christ in your work. This task has
become increasingly difficult through
the years and has now become al-
most impossible. The most difficult
thing for me to accept about your
writings is that in your anger, bitter-

ness and defensiveness, you have now
begun to ignore the Scriptures just
so that you can be "right." In other
words, your need to be right has
overcome your need to hear what
the Bible has to say to Christians
today. The painful thing about this
development is that there are a num-
ber of gullible and naive Christians
today who still listen to your false

the

PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL

Rev. G. Aiken Taylor, Ph.D., Editor
Rev. Henry B. Dendy, D.D., Managing Editor
Arthur H. Matthews, Assistant Editor

Circulation leader among independent publications in the Presbyterian-Reformed world

THIS WEEK

Vol. XXXI, No. 2, May 10, 1972

What Do We Confess? 7

Reviewing a draft of a proposed confession, with comments
on its contrasts i to accepted beliefs By the Editor

The Gift of Loneliness 9

What seemed to be a curse turned into a blessing after God's
love was revealed By Linda Prevost

Crimes Without Victims 10

Those who want to eliminate some criminal laws fail to
recognize some important facts By Samuel A. Jeanes

Departments —

Editorials 12

The Layman and his Church 13

Sunday School Lesson, May 28 14

Youth Program, May 28 16

Circle Bible Study 17

Book Reviews 22

THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL, a

Presbyterian weekly magazine, devoted
to the statement, defense, and propa-
gation of the Gospel, the faith which
was once for all delivered to the saints,

is published every Wednesday by the
Southern Presbyterian Journal Co.,
Inc., in Weaverville, N. C.

SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: $4 a year

for individuals, $3 for members of
Every Family Plan churches. All cor-
respondence regarding subscriptions,
advertising or other business matters,
should be addressed to the business
office in Weaverville, N. C. 28787.
Second class postage paid at Weaver-
ville, N. C. 28787.

POSTMASTER: Send Form 3579 to
Presbyterian Journal, Box 635, Wea-
verville, N. C. 28787. Subscribers
should allow three weeks for change
of address in continental U. S. Change
of address notices should include both
old and new addresses (with zip
codes) .

NEWS AND EDITORIAL correspond-
ence should be addressed to P. O. Box
3108, Asheville, N. C. 28802. Editorial
offices located at 247 Charlotte St. in
Asheville.

TELEPHONES: (All area 704) edi-
torial office, 254-4015, 254-4016;
business office, 645-3310, 645-3962.

teachings.

Your Bible must be as small
your world with a number of boo
obviously missing, such as Joh
Romans, I Corinthians and Eph<
ians, just to name a few. If you ha
the same Bible that I do, then yoi
minds are not closed, they are nail<
shut.

For example, several articles in i
cent publications of the Journal a
opposed to the concept that tj
Church has a physical as well
spiritual mission in the worl
("Five Days in Montreat," Sept.
"Nothing Else Matters," Sept. 1
and "When Theology is Corrupted
Feb. 9.) When your editor stat
that the concept of pleasing God ar
receiving a blessing by loving n
neighbor is false, I wonder if he (tl
editor) has ever read the 15th cha
ter of Deuteronomy? When the ec
tor says that it is false that "I 9
love my neighbor because Jesus p€
fectly loved men while He was here
I wonder how he can hide from Joh,
15:12? You say that to give priori
to the responsibility of man to tj
fellow man is "damnably false."
assume that Amos 5:21-24 does n<
apply to you, and I would like
hear your attempt to explain Ma
thew 25:31-46 as it applies to yoi
position.

Thank you for giving me exampl
of modern day false prophets art|
Pharisees.

— (Rev.) H. P. Hosey
Choudrant, La.

TIP OF THE HAT

Concerning your editorial quot
tion at length of Mr. Taft of tl
Miami Herald, let me say that
good number of thoughtful evai
gelicals also oppose the so-calle
"Prayer Amendment" for sour
reasons. We are never going to r
turn to the "good old days" of tl
courtesy tip of the hat to the Bib
and prayer . . . and perhaps w
should not want to, either.

— (Rev.) Louis Powell Long
Ellwood City, Pa.

PRAY FOR REVIVAL

"The Lord hath done great thinj
for us; whereof we are glad" (Ps
126:3) .

Many in the Southern Presbyt
rian Church are praying for a reviv;
in our midst, and the Lord has give
some of the members of the Wooi
land Heights Presbyterian Churc

j Selma, Ala., a real burden to pray
ir an outpouring of His Holy
liirit. We are taking Mark 11:24
id Matthew 18:19, asking that

osea 10:-12 be real for His glory

sa. 42:8) .

, If the Lord gives any reader a sim-
(ir burden, we would be happy for
i em to join us any time to pray for
ivival in our midst, especially at
i a.m. each day and on Fridays from
to 1. We want to know Jesus
(irist in the deepest possible walk
; can know Him in this life, so we
n bring the most possible glory to
im. We praise Him for raising up
is additional prayer support for
vival in our midst, and eventually
erywhere.

— (Rev.) Bill Rose
Selma, Ala.

THIS AND THAT

Lately, I've been trying to get rid
the clutter in my house — look-
g forward to the day when my
>or children will have to do it, if
don't. And I've tried to eliminate
me of my Presbyterian Journal col-

lection. I can't. Each issue has
something in it that I feel I must
keep within my reach, although I
probably never will find time to re-
read most of these things! Couldn't
you just put out a sorry, or even
mediocre issue once in a while, so I
could throw some away?

"Enhancing Ministerial Morale,"
by Dr. Mallory, is an outstanding
contribution. I appreciate your
publishing it, because it says some-
thing vital to both ministers and lay-
men. And Dr. Mallory's profession-
al training and experience give him
a voice of authority which certainly
would command the attention and
respect of his readers.

— Mrs. Henry M. Hope
Atlanta, Ga.

Some of our readers may have noticed
that the "other paper" has already
confessed to feeling threatened by Dr.
Mallory's masterful article. — Ed.

MINISTERS

Charles G. Burton from Shreve-
port, La., to the Memorial church,
West Monroe, La.

Richard T. Gillespie from St. Pe-
tersburg, Fla., to the Alachua,
Fla., church, eff. June 15.
Richard L. Hills, recent graduate
of Louisville Seminary, to First
Church, DeLand, Fla., as assistant
pastor.

William H. McCorkle, H.R., Ra-
leigh, N. C, will be interim sup-
ply pastor of the Bethel church,
Kingsport, Tenn., through July
23.

Joe W. Rigsby from Hattiesburg,
Miss., to the Washington Shores
church, Orlando, Fla.
Egbert G. Lineback, Umatilla,
Fla., has been honorably retired
by St. Johns Presbytery due to in-
firmity.

Lannie Parnell of Benton, La., has
been honorably retired by Red
River Presbytery and has become
interim pastor of Hewitt Me-
morial church, Mansfield, La., and
stated supply of Rocky Mount
church, Plain Dealing, La.
John F. Tolson from Shreveport,
La., to the Covenant church, Jack-
son, Miss., as assistant pastor.

ACROSS THE EPITOR'O DESK

* Obviously, everyone on the staff
working hard at his own tasks or
ey would never let me have a
ance at this spot. One of the perils
a part-time job is that you end up
ling the job of whoever is out of
icket at the moment. Lucky for me
:'re not in the same business as
USA or they'd send me to the
son for sure.

' Sociologists are fond of accusing
ult Americans of "spectatoritis,"
affliction characterized by liking
e passive role of watching better
an the active role of doing. This
ndrome is certainly not evident in
clesiastical circles, however. At the
rection of the Presbyterian US
sneral Assembly, a committee of
ir Church has joined the throngs
10 are writing "new and improved"
nfessions of faith. After studying
copy of a preliminary draft of the
oposed confession, (and kindly ob-
rve that we say a copy of a pre-
ninary draft) , our editor had some
oughts about it. Using longhand
id several different typewriters, he
ote the comments which appear
i p. 7 as he traveled by plane to
e West Coast, then to the Far East,

and sent the article back to us for
publication.

• Somehow the thought of the edi-
tor flying through the limitless skies
with a typewriter on his lap sug-
gests the answer to Lewis Carroll's
classic question, "How doth the lit-
tle crocodile improve each shining
hour?" This is not to suggest, of
course, that he closely resembles a
crocodile or that the staff will not
welcome his return.

• Elsewhere, two productions on
stage are finding lean times, and for
these and other blessings we are
grateful. "The Satanic Bible," a
rock musical production, was put on
recently in Indianapolis by a cast
supposedly versed in witchcraft and
satanism. Newspaper editorials of
that city say that by candid admis-
sion of one of the producers, it is an
authentic expression of Satan wor-
ship. It drew only a small number
of people and a large number of un-

paid bills. And the producers of
"Jesus Christ Superstar" have sued
assorted road companies for unau-
thorized performances of the show.
This should cap the stack of evi-
dence indicating that "Superstar" is
a whole lot less than Biblical theol-
ogy. Can you imagine God want-
ing royalties for the good news?

• Lest you think, however, that the
Bible and the Westminster Stand-
ards are treated everywhere like the
red-headed stepchild at the family
reunion, always neglected, frequent-
ly ignored, and sometimes both, let
us remind you that in the Journal
family we regard them as old and
valued friends and treat them as
such. We call our reunion Journal
Day and the family, growing like
the kudzu with all kinds of ecumeni-
cal in-laws and calabash cousins, will
gather August 9 at the North Bun-
combe School in Weaverville, N. C.
Y'all come! IS

PAGE 3 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 10, 1972

NEWS OF RELIGION

Methodists Take New Doctrinal Stance

ATLANTA — For the first time in
more than 150 years an entirely new
theological statement has been
adopted by American Methodism.
The quadrennial United Methodist
General Conference adopted by a
vote of 925 to 17 the 40 page set of
guidelines described by its chief ar-
chitect as "nonjudicial" and "non-
punitive."

Professor Albert C. Outler, chair-
man of the commission which drafted
the document, said the aim is to
help members of the denomination
make theological decisions based on
Scripture, tradition, and experience
and reason.

The guidelines will be included
in the Church's Book of Discipline,
but they will not have to be ap-
proved by the regional bodies (an-
nual conferences) since they will not
be legally binding. The denomi-
nation's judicial council (supreme
court) decided after the General
Conference vote that regional bod-
ies should not be given a voice on
the new doctrinal statement.

Dr. Outler, who has also been one
of the principal theologians in the
Consultation on Church Union
(COCU) , hailed the overwhelming
approval by the General Confer-
ence as the "most impressive con-
sensus" on any issue in recent his-

tory.

Evangelicals in the denomination
were not so enthusiastic. Leaders of
the "Good News" movement, for-
mally known as the Forum for Scrip-
tural Christianity within the United
Methodist Church, were critical of
the Outler commission's product.
Observers were surprised that they
did not influence more delegates to
vote against document.

Doctrinal Pluralism

The Rev. Leslie Woodson of Eliza-
bethtown, Ky., "Good News" board
chairman, said the doctrinal state-
ment would take the "teeth" out of
Methodist doctrine "so an individual
can believe anything from atheism
to fundamentalism and still be with-
in the Church's doctrinal position."

Divided into three parts, the docu-
ment first describes the historical
background of the early confessional
statements of the former Methodist
and Evangelical United Brethren
Churches, which united in 1968.
Part two includes the text of the doc-
trinal statements of the two denomi-
nations. The third section is a con-
temporary statement which pro-
ponents said is aimed at helping
Methodists make their faith relevant
to the modern technological world.

THE CHURCH OVERSEAS

MALAYSIA (RNS) — Stories about
persecution of Christians in Sabah
and expulsion of missionaries from
the East Malaysian state have been
few in recent months. However, a
Muslim-controlled government is ac-
complishing such an objective in a
less dramatic, but equally effective
way.

A missionary who asked not to
be identified reported continuing
harassment of the Christian com-
munity in Sabah, on the northeast
corner of the island of Borneo.
Government officials feel that Chris-
tians are an unwelcome foreign in-
fluence.

The zeal of Islamic associations to

convert everyone to Islam is putting
much pressure on Christians. The
missionary described threats of im-
prisonment if Christians continued
to operate schools and he told of
imprisoned Christians from whom
nothing had been heard in years.

In the past year, the Protestant
community in one area of heavy
Christian concentration lost between
400 and 500 members under Islamic
pressure. In the same period, how-
ever, 500 new ones were gained.

Missionaries, including agricultur-
al experts, teachers, nurses and pas-
tors, have been affected by the can-
cellation of work permits. ffl

Dr. Outler said the third sectk
embraced "theological pluralism"
keeping with Methodist and EU
history, but always in the framewoi
of the theology of John Wesley.

Social action is endorsed, "Chri
tian experience" stressed, and tl
"struggles for human liberation ar
fulfillment" emphasized. There
also strong endorsement of eo
menism, recognition of black thee
ogy, the theology of women's liber
tion and "theologies of huma
rights."

In commenting on the nonbim
ing character of the new theologic
guidelines at a press conference, D|
Outler said, "Nobody is going to sto
United Methodists from being ii
dependent."

The new doctrinal statement wj
only one of two major pieces of legi
lation approved by the General Coi
ference. The other and more wid»
ly publicized one was a new set c
social principles. Every conceit
able issue related to modern socia
and political concerns is coverec
observers said.

While the document covers
variety of subjects from alchohol t
war, the greatest debate came o:
the section on homosexuality. Floo
amendments altered some of th
original language, but the final
version calls for giving homosexual
"spiritual and emotional support
even though the Church does no
condone homosexual practice ant
finds it "incompatible with Chri!
tion teaching."

No one challenged the ReA
Robert Moon of Sacramento, Cal
who presented the original proposal
when he said there is no "Christiai
doctrine on homosexuality."

While the 1968 General Confei
ence had turned down a proposal t<
endorse conscientious objection I
a particular war, this General Con
ference voted to include the concep
in the new social creed.

There is also a paragraph approv
ing civil disobedience when in
dividuals are "acting under the con
straint of conscience and after ex
hausting all legal recourse."

Included in the document are ;
number of "Christian options.'
Among them are abortion, afte
"thorough and thoughtful considera
tion": abstinence from alcohol o:

■

PAGE 4 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 10, 1972

arijuana; and divorce when part-
j'irs are "estranged beyond recon-
liation."

A few delegates branded as "social-
:ic" a passage which says property
vnership is "a trusteeship under
od and is limited by the overriding
;eds of society."

Organized gambling is condemned,
id the rights of all workers to col-
ctive bargaining is endorsed.
Two of the more controversial
dicial cases decided here upheld
e right of an annual conference
bar a homesexual pastor from the
irish ministry on technical grounds
:ven though the case was not con-
Jered a moral judgment on homo-
xuality) and disapproved a second
>te by the national conference of
nited Methodists in India against
erger into a COCU type denomina-
m in North India. The decision
:re opened the way for union. El

lergy & Laymen Action
ai7s of Honeywell

INNEAPOLIS (RNS) — Two
areholder proposals aimed at get-
tig Honeywell, Inc., out of the man-
acturing of military weapons were
rerwhelmingly defeated at the
'mpany's annual meeting here.
Before the voting took place, com-
my officials spent almost two and
le-half hours listening to critics of
eir policies, mostly representatives
Clergy and Laymen Concerned.
James H. Binger, Honeywell chair-
an, thanked a number of the
eakers for their presentation and
rmed several of them "eloquent"
id "thought-provoking."
There were two main issues he-
re the meeting, held in the Min-
apolis Civic Auditorium where
■ingent security precautions pre-
iled. One was a proposal that the
mpany form a committee to plan
r conversion of the current weap-
is production to production of
vilian goods. This was defeated
' 246,664 votes in favor and 15,-
7,424 against.

The other proposal called for a
ritten report to stockholders on
oneywell's involvement in the
•utheast Asian war. This was de-
ated — 169,178 votes in favor, 15,-
'5,422 votes against. IB

Scots' Union Scheme
Includes New Office

EDINBURGH (RNS) — A draft
plan of union for six Churches in
Scotland has been issued here.
Among other things it envisions the
designation of superintendents in
roles similar to that of bishops.

Under the proposal, the six de-
nominations would merge into a
1,500,000-member United Church in
Scotland. The draft plan outlines
such proposals as enlarging parishes,
establishing the position of superin-
tendent for ministers and congrega-
tions, and pooling resources of build-
ings and manpower.

Participating denominations in-
clude the national Church of Scot-
land (Presbyterian) , United Free
Church of Scotland (Presbyterian) ,
Episcopal Church in Scotland (An-
glican) , Methodist Synod in Scot-
land, Congregational Union of Scot-
land, and Churches of Christ.

Neville Davidson, former modera-
tor of the Church of Scotland's Gen-
eral Assembly and chairman of the
unity discussions that led to the
draft plan, said, "Our report is
only an interim report but we feel it
is of great value to keep our con-
stituent Churches informed of our
progress and the lines along which
our thinking is moving."

The report is the latest phase in
what is officially known as A Multi-
lateral Church Conversation. It was
begun in 1967, and two years later
produced unanimous agreement on
a document entitled "Controlling
Principles for a Basis of Union."
After that report was received by
the governing bodies of the six
Churches involved, work began on
the document that has just been re-
leased.

One significant proposal in the
new "Basis and Plan of Union for
Churches in Scotland" is the estab-
lishment of a position of superinten-
dent, or bishop, to supervise the en-
larged parishes that would come
from union.

These officials would be similar
to existing superintendents in the
Methodist Church. They would be
elected by congregations and min-
isters in their parishes, but the
Church as a whole would have some

say in their appointments.

Dr. Davidson emphasized that this
official woul be "quite unlike the
pompous prelate of certain past
ages," serving as a pastor both to
his colleagues in the ministry and
to the people under his care. SI

Bishops' Endorsement
Of Key 73 Welcomed

MINNEAPOLIS (RNS) — Evan-
gelist Billy Graham said here he wel-
comes Roman Catholic participation
in Key 73, the massive interdenomi-
national evangelism effort planned
next year.

"We all ought to get behind it,"
Mr. Graham said in commenting
about the recent action of the Na-
tional Association of Evangelicals
in voting down a resolution to en-
dorse Key 73. Some NAE delegates
had objected to Roman Catholic
participation in the effort.

Mr. Graham, who recalled that he
was one of the original organizers of
Key 73 along with Carl Henry, said
his evangelistic association will co-
operate "100 per cent" in the effort.

"I think it's wonderful for Cath-
olics to come in and get involved in
evangelism," he said in an interview.
He said there are "thousands of
evangelical Catholics."

He noted that each denomination
is free to take part in Key 73 as it
sees fit. IS

Vatican Lists Number
Of Priests Who Left

VATICAN CITY (RNS) — A total
of 13,450 Roman Catholic priests left
the active ministry from 1964 to
1969, according to an official Vati-
can report.

The report said that the number
who left — averaging 2,241 in each
of the six years — was almost equal-
ly divided between diocesan (secu-
lar) priests and members of reli-
gious orders.

Highlights of the report were
published in L'Osservatore della
Domenica, the Vatican City weekly,
which commented that the clergy
loss statistics "are much lower than
the fantastic figures that are being
quoted by rumor." [±]

PAGE 5 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 10, 1972

THE CHURCH AT HOME

Bid To End War Signed
By Moderator, Council

RICHMOND — Moderator Ben L.
Rose of the 1971 Presbyterian US
General Assembly has joined the de-
nomination's Council on Church and
Society in issuing a pronouncement
calling for an end to the Vietnam
war.

Only one other moderator, Mat-
thew Lynn, has signed such a docu-
ment with the council between As-
sembly meetings. Usually, the coun-
cil proposes pronouncements for ac-
tion by the highest court.

The statement notes recent escala-
tion of the war and calls on the
government to stop all its aid by a
"date certain — no later than Dec.
31, 1972."

Signing the statement with Dr.
Rose, who is a professor at Union
Seminary here, were the council's
chairman, Mrs. Martha Grafton, and
the administrative officer, George
Chauncey. No meeting of the council
was held to approve the document.
Members were polled by mail and
telephone.

"Mindful as we are of our govern-
ment's commitment to the Saigon
regime," the statement said, "we be-
lieve that the time has come for our
government to recognize that the
death and destruction we have caused
in fulfilling that commitment are
so vast that the moral imperative
to stop killing outweighs the moral
claim of the initial pledge itself. We
realize that it is not within the power
of our government alone to stop
the killing in Indochina. However, it
is within our government's power to
stop our part in the killing. It is
precisely that which we believe our
government ought to do now."

In addition to asking Presbyterians
to push for government action to
stop the war, the paper also urges
prayers on behalf of peace and offer-
ings to aid "all victims of the
war." ffl

Leaves UPUSA Post

NEW YORK (RNS) — Gayraud S.
Wilmore Jr. has resigned as chair-
man of the United Presbyterian

Division of Church and Race to be-
come Martin Luther King Professor
of Theology at the Boston University
School of Theology. The noted black
clergyman has been executive head
of the United Presbyterian Church's
race agency since it was founded in
1965 as the denomination's primary
unit on all matters regarding race. EE

Commission of UPUSA
Proposes NY Location

CHICAGO — Offices of the major
national agencies of the United Pres-
byterian Church USA eventually
should be centered in New York
City, a restructure commission has
recommended.

The proposal will go to the de-
nomination's 1972 General Assem-
bly, meeting in Denver, Colo., May
16-24.

Major offices of the Church's
General Assembly agencies now are
housed in both New York and Phil-
adelphia.

It is anticipated that the move to
a single location will be a long-term
process, requiring many months to
complete, members of the Commis-
sion on Reorganization of General
Assembly Agencies said here.

The recommendation is based on
what was described as "the most in-
tensive and many-sided study under-
taken by the commission in all of
its work."

"The first concern," said the Rev.
W. Sherman Skinner, chairman of
the 11 -member Commission, "has
been what is best for the Church.
This is not, however, a concern to
be considered in the abstract. The
lives of hundreds of staff persons
are involved, as are matters such as
the effectiveness of operations, the
cost of moving and of maintaining
offices, and many, many other fac-
tors."

Assuming the General Assembly's
acceptance of the location recom-
mendation, the new agencies —
among which are a General Assem-
bly Mission Council and three mis-
sion agencies (program, vocation,
and support) will be housed in the
Interchurch Center at 475 River-
side Drive. EE

Women's Board Wants
Councils Left in Budget

ATLANTA (PN) — The Pre
byterian US Board of Womer
Work, in a brief, adjourned sessic
here, voted to ask the 1972 Gener
Assembly to include the Nation
Council of Churches and the Wor
Council of Churches in the regul
budget of the Assembly, "in ord
to witness to the fact that ecumer
cal cooperation is a part of oi
total program and a part of tl
Christian's witness."

In its statement, the Board
Women's Work said that in can
ing out the board's mandate (j
its manual) , "women's work in t]
Presbyterian Church US has alwa
been in the forefront of the ecume
ical movement."

The statement noted that tl
"Board of Women's Work has co
sistently interpreted ecumenical c
operation as an integral part of i
program . . . and has been par
cularly enriched through the rel
tionships, both with the Nation
Council of Churches and the Wor
Council of Churches and can :
afford to break these ties." It add<
". . . in this period of Church h
tory, more than ever, ecumenic
cooperation is not an option, but
necessity for the evangelistic witne
of the Church."

Mrs. Gene Barnard of St. Lou
chairman, appointed four boa:,
members to serve with the executi
secretary as the PCUS part of
joint committee, with comparah
representatives coming from tl
United Presbyterian Women.

They will meet in Atlanta M;
30-31 to discuss the work of worm
in union presbyteries and areas
future cooperation.

The PCUS women on the coi
mittee are Mrs. Marion F. Reynol
of New Orleans, Mrs. John g
Moseley, Austin, Tex.; Mrs. Geor;
L. Paris, Hopkinsville, Ky.; M
Mrs. Barnard; and Miss Evelyn |
Green, executive secretary.

Certificates of appreciation f
service on the board were present!,,
to six retiring members: Mrs. Bar^
ard; Mrs. Patterson; Mrs. Par|
Mrs. Moseley; the Rev. Charles
Raynal of Clemson, S. C; and Jol
J. Deifell of Atlanta.

What men say about the Lord J
sus and His claims upon them ope
a window into their spiritual stai
— Frank E. Gaebelein.

PAGE 6 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 10, 1972

J

the Church accepts this it will renounce the Biblical faith —

What Do We Confess?

hat would be your response
» » to the following as a state-
ent of the authority of Scripture?
. . As we acknowledge the words
Spirit-filled preachers as the Word
God, so we acknowledge the hu-
an writings of the Bible as the
rord of God."

Or this, as a statement of the au-
ority of the world: ". . . Indeed,
times secular critics are the most
ithentic mouthpieces of God's con-
:mnation of our failure to be what
2 claim to be."

Or this, as a statement of the vir-
n birth: "A son was born to our
thers who awaited in faith and
)pe the coming of God to deliver
is people: a Jew named Jesus . . .
man born of woman as is every
an, yet a man born of God's ini-
ative."

Or this variation upon the tradi-
Dnal description of the Bible as the
Tord of God written: "It is for us
e Word of God as no other word
ritten or spoken by man."
Or this, as belonging to the
(lurch's confession of faith: "Re-
gaining the luxurious consumption
the few, we are to make the good-
iss of creation available to the
any. Checking our runaway hu-
an production, we are to limit our
fspring to numbers that earth can
ipport in lives of meaning and dig-
ty."

Or this, as a definition of the Gos-
il: "God creates us in Christ a new
aople with a new relationship to
im, to one another and to His
orld .... God wills that all men
low Him and be drawn by faith
to His unfolding story of crea-
an."

Or this, as the Church's faith con-
rning life after death, heaven, hell
id eternity: "We know that no
ore than Jesus will we escape the
>mmon reality of death. Our hope

is not in our immortality but in Him
who raised Christ from the dead,
and promised that neither death nor
life nor anything else in all crea-
tion can separate us from the love
of God which is in Christ Jesus our
Lord. We do not know or need to
know either for ourselves or for oth-
ers just how God's final victory over
death will be fulfilled."

In this passage, and in others, the
context suggests that no supernat-
ural world is expected, but rather
the ultimate perfection of this
world. The language is religious,
but the ideas are secular and human.
The goal towards which the world
moves is said to be freedom from
pollution of the environment and
perfect brotherhood among men:

"We have no maps or timetables
of the final goal toward which God
moves — the goal symbolized by the
Biblical image of the return of
Christ and the coming of the King-
dom of God. But we confidently
look forward to the time when the
disorders that pollute and exploit
our natural environment will be
righted, when God's design for the
wholeness of the human community
will be realized — when there will
be a new heaven and a new earth."

Differs from '67

These are quotations from a pre-
liminary draft of the proposed new
confession of faith for the Presby-
terian Church US, produced by a
committee under the chairmanship
of the president of Louisville Semi-
nary, Dr. Albert C. Winn. Whether
the draft in our hands is the final
draft that will be presented to the
Church sometime this summer we
are not sure. Entitled "A Tenta-
tive Draft," it is notably different
from the UPUSA Confession of
1967.

THE EDITOR

The Confession of 1967 was of-
fered to the United Presbyterians
as a supplementary document major-
ing in areas of social concern. The
proposed confession for the South-
ern Church is drawn so as to sug-
gest that it is a comprehensive docu-
ment dealing with the fundamental
issues in theology. Chapter head-
ings are: God, God and His People,
God in Christ, The Spirit of God,
God and the Church, Scripture, God
and the World, The Mission of God,
God and The Future.

The implication seems to be that
here is the latest word concerning
the faith of the Church in these
primary areas. Thus, it would fol-
low that the committee (and the
Church) would not have the "out"
so readily available to the UPUSA
Church, namely the excuse that pri-
mary theology is covered by other
confessions in the Book of Confes-
sions, and that this one is intended
merely to clarify certain special is-
sues.

The document we have in hand is
notable, not only by what it af-
firms, but by what it omits. While it
is flagrantly modalistic in its view
of God, it also is silent concerning
the possibility of life beyond the
grave.

We say the confession is modal-
istic to contrast it with a trinitarian
confession. God is not seen as the
Trinity, but as a Unity who makes
Himself known in three (actually
the document only details two) ways.
More explicitly, the confession says
this:

"We believe that God really is
who He has shown Himself to be.
Therefore, we believe that the one
God is truly Father, Son and Holy
Spirit, having within Himself three
distinct ways of being God . . . .
To know the Father's presence, to
be in Christ, to be filled with the

PAGE 7 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 10, 1972

Spirit are the same experience. God's
love and justice are consistent in all
His threefold working in the world."
Here is one God who appears in
three "modes," or who plays three
roles. Here is not the Trinity: three
Persons.

Traditionally, the Church has said
that God reveals Himself in three
ways: nature, Scripture, and Christ.
The proposed confession makes the
following curious affirmation:

How Many?

"In His story with Israel and the
early Christian witnesses, the one
true and living God revealed Him-
self in a three-fold way. We confess
that in Jesus Christ we have met
God Himself, not a second God or
one who is only like God. In the
Holy Spirit it is God Himself who
is present and powerful with us, not
a third God or one who is less than
God."

This seems to suggest two ways in
which God reveals Himself: in
Christ and the Holy Spirit. How
we are to apprehend either is not
said.

The confession is totally silent on
a number of traditional Christian
doctrines. There is nothing of the
Biblical view of justification, of im-
putation, or of adoption. There is
no mention of the new birth (al-
though we get such references as
this: "The Spirit . . . enabled them
tthe first Christians! to change
their minds, to trust the good news,
to adopt a new style of life.")

Nothing of Repentance

Several affirmations mention
"good news" — presumably these
are to be taken as affirmations of
the Gospel. They are all pretty
much alike: "In such a world las
ours! we have heard good news —
the story of God moving in history
through the people Israel to estab-
lish His rule of justice, love and
peace in a world that is alienated
from Him. Through Jesus Christ
we have come to share in this story
as our own story." The meaning
seems to be that by a sort of "iden-
tifying" with Christ we count
ourselves in.

There is nothing explicit of sin-
fulness, of Christ dying for our sins,
or of the need of repentance from
sin. These themes presumably are
to be taken as implicit in such pas-
sages as these:

"At the cross of Christ we see the
depth and reality of human sinful-
ness. Men cannot tolerate the true
humanity U! which loves God and
fellow human beings more than per-
sonal success, good reputation, social
acceptance, religious propriety and
national security. Men reject God
when He comes to them, because
His love, compassion, power, justice
and authority call into question
their moral, religious and political
goals and practices. We share their
sinfulness with all men. We are
without hope if God does not for-
give and liberate us."

What is meant by "without hope"
is totally obscure. But it does not
really matter, and we need not fear,
God does "forgive" and "liberate":

"We do not understand this mys-
tery [the cross 1 which shows God's
power in weakness and His victory
in defeat. But because of the cross
of Christ we believe that God's just
wrath is always loving wrath, His
judgment is always loving judgment,
His rejection of our sinfulness al-
ways His forgiving of us sinners, His
power over us always His powerful
love for us. In the death of Jesus
all our ground for boasting is taken
away. There we find peace with
God and our fellowmen and our-
selves." Just how is not said.

The above passage, incidentally, is
just one of several which affirm a
universal salvation. In fact, by de-
nying the possibility of condemna-
tion and even by omitting any ref-
erence to what we must go through
in order to obtain salvation, the con-
fession clearly implies that every
concern pertaining to salvation for
all men is a past concern and we
need now only "celebrate" what is
over and done with. Says the con-
fession:

"We declare that God wills the
liberation of His people and that He
is still at work to set us and all men
free to be His. We acknowledge
the claim of His covenant upon our
lives and we discern in this claim
God's intent for all men and women
everywhere. We place our hope in
the Lord who makes and keeps such
promises."

And this:

"At times that gracious action
[God's action in Christ! is more
readily accepted and effectively
passed on in worldly quarters than
in the Church. What then distin-
guishes the Church from the rest of
the world? Simply this: God has
called us to stand before Him in

behalf of all mankind and to star
before all mankind in behalf .
God."
And this:

"Our hope for believers and u
believers alike is determined not 1
any picture of heaven and hell, i
by predictions and speculations co
cerning the final destiny of any i
dividual, but by our confidence th
God's future for every man will 1
both loving and just."

The Sacraments

After such overwhelming eviden
that the authors of the confession a
pretty confused about Christi;
truth, it is not surprising what th
have to say about the sacramen i
Here is the entire section on ba
tism:

"We rejoice that God gives
baptism as the effective sign of o I
dying with Christ to sin and risii
with Him to newness of lil
Through it we enter the fellowsh i
of believers, the body of Chri
God's Spirit is not bound to tl
mode or the moment of baptisi i
Since baptism is primarily God's <
tion for us, to which we are to ] I
spond the rest of our lives, the ba
tism of the children of believers
appropriate and full of meaning.

If there were evidence that t
authors believed in the supern;
ural, that reference to the effect th
we enter the body of Christ throuj
baptism could be taken as a stai;
ment of baptismal regeneration. B
because there is no sign that the a
thors have anything supernatural
mind, "fellowship of believers" a)
"body of Christ" can be assumed
mean one and the same thing.

As to the Lord's Supper: "Usii
ordinary food and drink as bear
and bestowers of His power ai
presence, He makes His life ava
able to feed and sustain ours."

That reference to "bearers and 1
stowers of His power and presence
without any qualifying, "in a spir-
ual manner," would have curled t|
hair of the Reformers. Here it real
doesn't matter because the whc?-
thing is merely a sort of humanis :
existentialism.

We could go on and on. T
confession calls on God's people
"eliminate warfare," to work
"a more equitable distribution
the world's resources," to "avoid
ternalistic ways of helping peoj
which rob them of freedom and d
nity," to "demonstrate in our li
His [Christ's! true humanity, to lc

PAGE 8 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 10, 1972

ch person as one for whom Christ
ed, to overthrow tradition and
ejudice which deny personhood to
hers."

Perhaps the best way to convey
e overall "flavor" of this stupefying
icument would be to quote in full
:entral paragraph from the chapter
i "God in Christ":
"Jesus was born into a poor fam-
■ in a land plagued by disease, im-
arality, ignorance, militarism, ra-
il discrimination, religious intol-
ance, and death. He grew to physi-
1, intellectual, and spiritual ma-
rity. He knew happiness and sad-
:ss, hope and despair, pain and

anger, strength and weariness, the
joy of friendship and the hurt of
being rejected. He prayed. He ex-
perienced every temptation we ex-
perience. He shared all the possi-
bilities and limitations of human
knowledge in His time and place in
history. His life came to an end in
suffering and death. He was one
of us, a real man who lived out a
real human existence in the same
world we live in. Therefore, noth-
ing genuinely human — in the arts,
in politics, in religion, in any sphere
— is alien to us, but is to be appreci-
ated and cherished in the name of
His humanity."

It would be an interesting exer-
cise to see how many perversions of
the truth concerning Jesus Christ
can be detected in that single para-
graph. It would be almost as in-
teresting as trying to decipher the
following:

"Remembering this [the experi-
ence of Israeli we affirm that God's
promises are sure, even when attest-
ed by defeated people. Through
Jesus Christ we share in this memory
and this hope. We too are invited
to risk obedience, prayer, praise, joy,
despair and wonder in present life
as signs of His presence in a frag-
mented world." S)

ow a deep longing was turned into a great blessing-

The Gift of Loneliness

suppose that to most people lone-
liness does not at all seem like
gift. I must admit it is a far cry
am the gifts enumerated by Paul
I Corinthians 12 — or is it really
far away?

For as long as I can remember, I
ive been a very lonely person.
rhen my older brother died, this
neliness really came to the surface
id I learned or rather experienced
e depths a person can sink to when
eling so alone.

Now, mind you, I was a Christian
this time, I knew that God loved
e, that He was always with me,
ould never fail me or forsake me,
id I could always turn to Him with
y problems — and I did, too. Every
ght as I cried I also prayed that
od would send me someone I
»uld talk to, who cared about just
e. Night after night I turned to
od with the same request — send
e someone, Lord. Then each day I
irned to this person and that one,
arching everywhere for the person
ho could fill my need, who could
tisfy my heart.

When I was a senior in high
hool it happened while I was at-

The author is a recent college
aduate now teaching English and
orking part time at Palmer Home
>r Children, Columbus, Miss.

tending revival services at my church
one night. The Holy Spirit was
working on my heart, and although
I didn't know exactly what was hap-
pening at the time, I was truly ex-
periencing the "joy of my salvation."
Whereas before I had been a Chris-
tian in name only, then I was a
Spirit-filled Christian who really
loved the Lord and wanted to scream
it out to the world.

From this experience I learned
many things and began to grow
spiritually. Among the things I
learned was how to understand my
gift of loneliness.

Abiding in God's Love

First of all, for me to ever really
experience man's love I must first
be willing to abide in God's love and
depend totally on Him. Does it
sound easy? No, and it seemed no
easier to put into practice either.

The Lord has won some battles
for me in this, but the war is still
raging. Anytime a problem occurs
I begin looking for a person to talk
to, someone to confide in. But it
seems that again and again for the
past five years, the Lord has put me
in such places and given me such
an introverted personality that I
can find no deeply spiritual person
with whom I can feel free to talk

LINDA PREVOST

about personal problems.

Again and again He has shown me
that I must confide all this in Him
and trust in Him for an answer.

"Sure, I know that, Lord, and I
do pray to You about these matters,
but, well, you know I'm only human,
and I need someone down here, in
the flesh, to talk to and to comfort
me. Please, Lord, oh, please, Lord."

And again and once again, the
Lord patiently has pointed to two
verses of His: "If any man come to
me, and hate not his father and
mother, and wife, and children, and
brethren, and sisters, yea, and his
own life also, he cannot be my dis-
ciple" (Luke 14:26) .

"No servant can serve two mas-
ters: for either he will hate the one,
and love the other; or else he will
hold to the one, and despise the oth-
er. Ye cannot serve God and mam-
mon" (Luke 16: 13) .

"Yes, Lord, I remember that you
showed me those two verses the last
time, and the time before that. But
Lord, I don't want to serve man, I
just want a person to listen to me
and to care about me."

"If any man come to me and hate
not . . . yea and his own life also,
he cannot be my disciple."

"Yes, Lord. Thank you."

Again the Lord has satisfied. Once
again a battle royal has been waged

L

PAGE 9 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 10, 1972

and God has won out over me or,
over Satan within me. He has re-
vealed His all surpassing love to me
again. I realize now that the battle
will probably have to be fought
again, but I also realize that I have
within me a mighty weapon to win,
the power of the Holy Spirit. He will
never fail me; I cannot lose while
trusting in Him!

But why me? Why should I have
to suffer such loneliness in the first
place? Why is it that every time I
find a new, wonderful, Spirit-filled
Christian, I have to experience the
old longing for someone to care for
me? Why do I begin depending on
this person? Why do I turn to him
to solve my problems rather than to
God? Why?

This is where my gift comes in.
Once I had only loneliness; now
I am acquiring the gift of loneli-
ness.

Two and a half years ago, while
still in college, I began to work part
time in a children's home, an or-
phanage. Youngsters in this home

have all the material things they
could need and most of what they
want. Since it is a Church spon-
sored home, they get good spiritual
training. Still these kids are missing
out on a normal home life, although
we try to simulate a family environ-
ment as much as possible for them.

Using His Gift

Here the Lord can use me. Here
the Lord can take those lonely years
He gave me in preparation, and make
me sensitive to the needs of these
children. I can appreciate their need
for love. I know how good it feels
to have someone listen to all the de-
tails of what happened at school. I
can see through the eyes of a seven
year old. I know so well how wonder-
ful it is to be hugged, for no reason
at all, by someone you care about.

I realize how very important it is
for me to express my love for and
interest in these kids as often as pos-
sible. I do love them dearly and by
the grace of God I can use the great

wealth of love that He has bet
storing up within me in a constru \
tive way according to His will ar i
His plan.

Did I say at first that my gift is
far cry from those Paul named?
feel I must retract my statemer
Paul says that the Spirit has given |
one "the word of wisdom." Hasr
God given me wisdom in unde |
standing the needs of these childrei |
To another He has given "the gifts \
healing." Isn't it, in a sense, a he< I
ing of hearts that love can do? 1 1
another "the working of miracles"- j
what a miracle to turn loneline J
into joy!

In it all I remember, "the grea ]
est of these is love." God has fille I
my heart to overflowing and h |
given me a place that my love mig] I
be used to work for Him that the J
boys and girls might learn of His lc
and grow up depending on Hi:
rather than seeking love and happ
ness among men.

Thank you, Lord, for the gift <
loneliness.

It is not possible to sin only against self; others are always affected —

Crimes Without Victims

Those who are calling for the
removal of "victimless crimes"
from the statute books of the states
should listen to a serious word
spoken by a comedian. He said, "If
Moses were alive today and fulfill-
ing his assignment from the Lord,
he would say to the people, 'Here are
ten demands from the Almighty and
they are nonnegotiable.' " He
might also add, "And God has said
nothing about amendments, either."

The debate over so called victim-
less crimes has been going on for
some time in legal circles. Now it
has come to the surface for public
attention, and the public press has
been discussing it freely. A member
of a publicly supported Legal Aid
Society in one New Jersey County

The author is pastor of the First
Baptist Church, Merchantville, N.
J., and general secretary of the
Lord's Day Alliance of New Jersey.

puts into the category of crimes
without victims these offenses: for-
nication, prostitution, gambling, the
use of marijuana, homosexuality and
other unnatural acts. Formerly the
definition only included vagrancy,
drunkenness, disorderly conduct and
minor sexual violations.

The National Council on Crime
and Delinquency is foremost in the
mounting effort to remove these
laws from the criminal statutes. This
organization defines as a victimless
crime one that is based on moral
codes in which there is no victim
apart from the person who com-
mitted it. This definition explains
a newspaper headline which reads,
"Morality Laws Produce Crime
Without Victims." This in turn leads
us to the thesis of those who would
penknife from the criminal code a
growing assortment of crimes. Their
cry has an old ring, though they ex-
press it by saying, "The time has

SAMUEL A. JEANE

come to stop regulating public m
rality."

Today we call this antinomianis:
which means anti-law or rebellic
against the establishment. "Eve:
man does his own thing" is the we
known expression of the seventie
However, in the eleventh century b
fore Christ, this spirit was define
as "every man doing what was rigl
in his own eyes" (Judges 17:6) .

Philosophers Will and Ariel Di
rant in their book, The Lessons <
History, rightly see the decline <
faith as the source of many of 01
current woes. Faith in what? We
for one thing, faith in our laws an
the origin of them. We are in f(
much trouble when laws which wei
rooted in the Judeo-Christian coc
of the Old and New Testaments ai
now considered nothing but coi
fused comments of fallible men.

We have drifted from that stron
and certain foundation of la\

PAGE 10 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 10, 1972

■elled out in Blackstone's Commen-
jries, which says, "As man depends
>solutely upon his Maker for ev-
ything it is necessary that he
iould, in all points, conform to his
aker's will." The will of his Mak-
; is called the law of nature. These
ws, laid down by God are the eter-
kl, immutable laws of good and
ril. The Creator himself conforms
\ these laws in all His dispensa-
ons. Furthermore, God has en-
ded human reason to discover these
ws so far as they are necessary for
ue conduct of human actions, that
e should live honorably, that we
iould hurt nobody and that we
iould render to every one his due.

Divine Law

Those who framed the Declara-
on of Independence of these Unit-
1 States of America reduced those
jneral precepts into the phrase,
Life, liberty and the pursuit of hap-
iness." This law of nature is die-
ted by God himself and is superior
t obligation to any other law
hether man accepts it or not.
In addition to natural law, how-
/er, the Almighty has given us di-
ne or revealed law. Man's reason
not always competent, consistent
r logical; often it is corrupt and
uman understanding is tainted with
ror and ignorance. Thus, human-
y is not safe when left only in the
ands of men. We need the guid-
nce and protection of the laws of
'Od. Our human laws must rest
pon the law of nature and the law
f divine revelation. No human
iws should contradict what God
as declared.

Not only are we the inheritors of
atural law and divine law found in
le Holy Scriptures, but we also pos-
'ss a third kind of law, the law of
ations, to govern the affairs of
len. In the family of nations there
i need to maintain some semblance
f order for the lives of the whole
ice of mankind. They may not all
abmit knowingly to the divine rev-
lation, still they must resort to some-
hing on which to base the many
ontracts, treaties and agreements
f the world community. The only
Iternative to anarchy, to every man
nd nation doing what one thinks is
ight in his own eyes, is the law of
ature. This law ultimately reverts
? the "will of God."

Any tampering, therefore, with
he laws of society that ignore, dis-
egard, neglect or violate the will

of the Creator may contribute to a
further erosion of mankind.

Is there really such a thing as vic-
timless crime? Is it true that the vio-
lation of the laws or morality will
do no significant harm to society? Is
man an island who sins by himself?
Never forget that the person who
engages in an illegal and immoral
act is a victim. He is the primary
victim but not the only one. Every
transgression is like a pebble cast
into the placid waters of a lake
whose ripples go on and on and on.

The act does not stop with the pri-
mary victim, but it goes on to afflict
society in general whose moral fab-
ric is diminished, dissolved and slow-
ly destroyed. The law is there to
protect the potential wrongdoer as
well as society. Removing the law
will neither improve nor strengthen
either.

There is no justification to re-
move any law that has moorings in
eternal wisdom simply because some
may choose to ignore the law or even
violate it. Condoning crime — vic-
timless or not — will encourage
more offenses. It will foster violence
against the public interest. The law
is like the sudden appearance of the
state trooper on the turnpike: His
presence immediately slows down
all vehicles which may have been
exceeding the speed limit.

One proponent of the repeal of
all laws dealing with so-called vic-
timless crimes argues that the pur-
pose of the fornication and prosti-
tution laws, dating back to 1898, no
longer exists. He says that the pur-
pose was to discourage acts that
could lead to illegitimate children,
and to prevent social disease. Of
course, the proponent seemed to dis-
regard the divine law upon which
current laws were founded.

Statistical Evidence

Statistics of the New York City
Police Department disprove the con-
tentions of the victimless crime ad-
vocates about laws governing prosti-
tution. In a few months time in the
latter part of 1971, the New York
Police apprehended 1,292 female
and male prostitutes. Forty per cent
of those arrested had a previous rec-
ord for other crimes ranging from
drug possession to homicides.

Our permissive attitude that disre-
gards our laws of morality is reap-
ing an ever increasing harvest of
venereal disease which in America
has reached epidemic proportions.

Venereal disease is caused by immo-
rality. The rate in America is sur-
passed only by permissive Scandi-
navia, a place heralded by those who
would repeal our moral legislation
and push us down the toboggan to
join those nations of ancient days
whose epitaph reads for all human-
ity to see: Ichabod — the glory has
departed.

Public Victims

Divine law in both the Old and
New Testaments has some strong
and easily understood pronounce-
ments about moral perversions in-
cluding homosexuality. Society
should not hate the victim of such
practices. It should help and not
hate, but it certainly should not con-
done for such perversions have vic-
tims — the primary victims, of
course, and the public victims, too.

Robert M. Nellis, an investigator
for the San Francisco Clinic, identi-
fies the victims in a Newsweek re-
port: "Promiscuity has certainly
played a part in the rising VD rate
among the burgeoning homosexual
population, male and female. Up to
forty per cent of new cases of syphi-
lis occur among male homosexuals,
according to some experts.

"It's not unusual," says Mr. Nellis,
"for them to have fifty to sixty con-
tacts a month." How ridiculous it
is to say that such acts are victim-
less. There are victims who, when
they least expect it, may be felled by
blindness, insanity or death.

A man may become sober by an
overnight stay in a cell, yet this will
not cure his drunkenness. Victims of
drunkenness include the secondary
victims. Congressman Fred B. Roon-
ey of Pennsylvania testified recently
before the House Appropriations
Committee in the nation's capitol
for funds to "assist 9,000,000 citizens
whose destiny is directly related to
the tragic problems of alcoholism
and the additional 36,000,000 of
their family members who are also
affected." The Congressman identi-
fies 45,000,000 victims, primary and
general, associated with drunken-
ness. There is no victimless crime
in drunkenness!

In a constructive way, organized
labor is recognizing the problem. A
growing number of contracts be-
tween the United Steelworkers of
America and various companies in-

(Continned on p. 20, col. 3)

PAGE 11 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 10, 1972

EDITORIALS

The Church Must Reject This One

We wish it were possible occasion-
ally to applaud a program or a
product of the institutional Church.
It is not as much fun as some may
suppose to be constantly viewing
with alarm the latest "religious" con-
tribution of some board, agency or
committee.

However, when it is recognized
that the widest possible divergences
exist under the Church's "umbrel-
la," it becomes understandable that
opposition is likely to greet almost
every major action taken. If the
action represents the convictions of
some, it probably does not represent
the convictions of others. And since
the Church's evangelicals have little
to do with any part of the decision
making process, they can count on
being almost constantly dissatisfied
with the results flowing from it.

Take, for example, the new confes-
sion of faith which 1969 moderator
Matthew Lynn's committee has now
developed to a tentative point for
the Presbyterian Church US. (See
"What Do We Confess?" p. 7, this
issue.)

Dr. Lynn said he saw no reason
to appoint to the committee a sig-
nificant number of persons who
would be opposed to the work of
the committee, so there has been
only one conservative on the panel.
That person's influence clearly has
been miniscule.

If the draft we have seen is ap-
proved finally, this will be the most
radical statement of faith ever pro-
duced by a denomination still pre-
tending to be Christian. A draft is
to be distributed shortly for a two
year period of study.

Not even pretending to merely
update previous confessions of the
Church, this one existentializes ev-
erything it professes, managing, in
the process, to abandon, pervert or
deny a very substantial proportion
of Christian truth.

The fact is that a horrible thing
may be in the process of being per-
petrated upon the Church. Unless
this so-called confession of faith is
decisively rejected by the Southern
Church, there will be little reason
for the denomination any longer to

call itself Reformed.

There may be one important ben-
efit to be derived from this upcom-
ing experience. A person willing to
remain with the PCUS after it has
adopted anything even resembling
this draft would hardly feel com-
fortable in a continuing Church
faithful to the Gospel of Jesus
Christ. EE

Another Sign
Of The Last Days

As the federal government con-
tinues to broaden the scope of its
involvement in private affairs, a
crisis looms in one area most recently
invaded: small, conservative schools
and colleges.

It now is the law that no one
may discriminate against anyone else
on account of race, color, creed or
national origin. If the latest amend-
ment to the Constitution is adopted
by the required number of states,
sex will be added to that list.

In application, the law has had
some interesting side-effects. Suits
have been entered against news-
papers for separating their classified
advertisements into "Help Wanted —
Male" and "Help Wanted — Female."
The military academies have been
sued and at least one will begin
admitting qualified women this year.

But of greatest interest to Chris-
tians is the fact that nonbelievers
have begun to take advantage of the
law to press for teaching positions
in Christian schools. And in more
than one instance the government
has shown willingness to press the
matter, although we do not know
of a case actually carried to court
as yet.

One Presbyterian US college got
an unexpected burst of publicity not
long ago when the issue of the pro-
priety of a Jew on the faculty was
raised.

This is not altogether a matter of
tax exemption. For quite a while,
now, Internal Revenue Service has
shown an inclination to lift a school's
status as qualifying for tax exempt

gifts if it discriminates on accour
of race, for example. But the "civ
rights" law, as written, makes
unlawful to practice any kind c
discrimination, whether tax exemp
or not.

It is an interesting commentar
on America today that the la^
shelters radicals, libertarians an
even anarchists, while denying t
institutions trying to maintain rel
gious distinctives the right to do s(
We already have reached the poir
where the Supreme Court has rule
that a teacher may not be barre
from his position simply because hi
is a Communist. We may not be fa
from the point where such a perso
may be supported in his demand t
the right to teach in a Christia
school.

We do not call attention to thi I |
latest development in order to suj
gest a remedy. We don't know of I
remedy. In several areas our moder:
culture seems to have passed th
point of remedy, unless the Lor<
should intervene in a miraculou
way.

The times simply underline th
urgency of the need for evangelical
Christians to make common causj (
together. G

How You Can Witness

For many Christians, especiall
young Christians, witnessing on be
half of Jesus Christ is difficuli
"How can I witness effectively?" i
a question asked over and over.

In Japan Harvest, a missionar
publication, a suggestive story c
Christian witnessing was told abou
a junior high school girl, Kawash;
ma-san, who became a Christian ii
Yokosuka:

"As a happy young believer, sh
went home to tell her father an<
older sister. The father was Bud
dhist; he ordered her to stop talk
ing about Jesus. She went to he.
room and prayed alone for her fam
ily, and an idea came to her there. I

"At meal times, she and her fam)
ily would sit together on the tatam.!
mat facing a picture of the mothe
of the home, who had died sonvj
years before. One morning wheil
her sister brought in the hot break'
fast and placed it on the table, K.2
washima-san stood up, faced the pic
ture of her mother, and read in ;
clear voice the first chapter of Mai
thew. Then, with no other word
she sat down and ate her breakfast

PAGE 12 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 10, 1972

J

"The father did not stop her from
ading, as he thought she was doing
for the mother. The next morn-
g she read chapter two. She con-
aued with one chapter each morn-
jg until she had finished the whole
Jew Testament.

; "By the time she had finished, her
fther and sister were both believ-
|s. The father is now an elder in
iie church. Both girls later married
ihristians and they are all active in
ie Yokosuka church.
"No missionary would have
tought of such a method, but the
.'oly Spirit used it in answer to
rayer." SI

Their Only
Consistency

There is only one consistency
ihich the liberal churchman prac-
ices. He is utterly consistent in his
ipport of leftist causes, even when
jich support puts him on record
> morally or spiritually inconsistent.
We thought of that when we saw
statement by a prominent left-wing
iember of the Presbyterian Church
fS. He was supporting a policy of
nlimited relations with Red China
nd the return of Taiwan to main-
md control.

Said he: "Political necessities in-
ariably call for modifications of
olicy. We cannot permit some
nagined, or even real disagreement
rith the moral principles to which
Ihina's leaders subscribe as prac-
icing atheists, to obscure the neces-
ity to permit the winds of freedom to
low through China's masses. This
an be accomplished only with free
nd unrestricted trade agreements."

The point of these comments is
lat we happen to know this selfsame
cclesiastic has been a strong sup-
porter of continued sanctions against
tie government of Rhodesia because
>f the government's "morals." He
idieves the recent law to ease re-
trictions against Rhodesia and per-
ait the importation of chrome ore
o be "immoral" and he has said so
rom his pulpit.

As we said: The only consistency
tracticed by leftist clergymen is their
onsistent support of anything which
/ill benefit leftist causes. IS

When the Church preaches moral-
ly, morals decline; when it preaches
Christ crucified and risen, morality
eigns. — J. Sidlow Baxter.

THE LAYMAN AND HIS CHURCH

With Reverence

"Wherefore we receiving a king-
dom which cannot be moved, let us
. . . serve God acceptably with rever-
ence and godly fear" (Heb. 12:28) .

The Bible continually emphasizes
reverence. God is portrayed as de-
serving and requiring man's deepest
reverence. For example, when Moses
was before the burning bush, he
was flatly told, "... put off the
shoes from off thy feet, for the place
whereon thou standest is holy
ground."

Again, when a careless workman
put his hand upon the Ark of the
Covenant, such desecration brought
instant death. Only the high priest
might enter the holy of holies in the
temple, and then only on special
occasions. The Hebrew word for
Jehovah was Jaweh, a name so
sacred it was almost never said aloud
except in religious context.

Reverence is not a matter of in-
dividual discretion, it is commanded
by God for himself and for those
things deemed holy. Let us be very
clear in our thinking at this point.
Reverence refers to something deep-
ly revered, which demands our pro-
found respect, even awe.

Naturally, "God-is-dead" men have
no one to revere, so they find no
use for reverence. The quality of
reverence is certainly lacking when
God is called by such terms as "The
Man Upstairs," "The First Cause,"
or "The Supreme Intelligence." And
try this one on for size, quoted in a
recent Reader's Digest: "God is the
sum of all possibilities." Whatever
that means, if anything, such a usage
neither rates nor receives reverence.

The Easter season has passed, that
wonderful time which commemo-
rates Christ's death on the cross and
His resurrection. Without the resur-

Author Hampton H. Irvin is pro-
fessor emeritus of insurance at the
school of business administration,
Wayne State University, Detroit,
Mich., and for 20 years an elder at
Westminster Church (UPUSA) in
that city. He now lives in Spokane,
Wash., where he is a member of the
First Church.

rection, there is no Christian faith —
Paul made this abundantly clear —
and we stand in reverent awe before
this divine mystery. When the famed
Dr. Joseph A. Vance was minister of
the First Presbyterian Church of De-
troit, his reverential approach to the
Easter events was clearly evident as
he preached a sermon which greatly
impressed me. Carefully and logically
he built up a scientific case for life
after death, emphasizing among
other things the indestructability of
matter.

Then he abruptly brushed all
these considerations aside and de-
clared, "And that's all I can tell you,
unless you are a Christian." As
Christians, through the grace of the
Holy Spirit, we know whom we have
believed and in reverence claim His
promises.

On another Easter we found not
even standing room at the First Pres-
byterian Church although we arrived
there very early. Across the street
was a Unitarian Church, so on the
spur of the moment we decided to
attend that service. There was plenty
of room and it was a dignified ser-
vice, but for us who view the re-
surrection event with reverence, it
was a shocking contrast. How hollow
it was against the brilliant promise
of Easter!

However, reverence need not wear
the frock coat and winged collar of
the old and old-fashioned, for some-
times a child can best show true
reverence. The story is told of a
crackpot holding forth in London's
Hyde Park, reviling Jesus in every
way he could. Finally he blurted out,
"Can anyone say anything good
about this Jesus?"

Two little girls had been listening
to his tirade and one said, "Please,
sir, we don't know anything about
public speaking but we like to sing
for Him." so they sang:

"Stand up, stand up for Jesus,
ye soldiers of the cross;

Lift high His royal banner,
it must not suffer loss."

(Continued on p. 21, col. 3)

PAGE 13 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 10, 1972

p

m

SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON

For May 28, 1972

The Church's Need for Renewal

Rev. Jack B. Scott

■

INTRODUCTION: This is the
last lesson in this quarter of lessons
on "The Church: Its Nature and Mis-
sion." It also concludes that section
of lessons on the mission of the
Church. In the light of what
we have studied about God's
purpose for His Church, it is im-
perative that all members examine
the Church through which they
serve Christ in order to determine
whether it conforms to the Word of
God.

As individuals also, we must ex-
amine ourselves to know whether we
fall short of God's purpose for us.
When we do see lacks either in our
Church or in ourselves, God's Word
calls us to renewal.

Before there can be renewal, there
must first be a testing of our spirit-
ual state and a repentance of the
evil we find in our lives. We will
look at these two needs first, then
study the way of renewal.

I. THE NEED: A TEST OF
OUR SPIRITUAL STATE (I Pet.
4:12-19). Peter told us to expect
a fiery trial (v. 12) , calling this a
trial of our faith (1:7). From the
Old Testament time fire has been
symbolic of God's judgment and
testing. Fire burns out the dross so
that the pure gold may be found and
seen. Paul said something similar
to this in I Corinthians 3:12-15.

The point is that God tests our
faith to see if it is genuine. Not that
God is in doubt about us. He sure-
ly knows, but the testing is for our
sakes. Testing real faith will make
it strong. Testing false faith will de-
stroy it. As Christians, we should
desire our faith to be tested and if
we are true, that will show clearly.
We have nothing to fear.

As Christians, we are privileged to
share in Christ's suffering (v. 13) .
When we identify ourselves and our
lives with Christ, we can expect the
world to oppose us, just as Job
felt the full opposition of Satan
when he identified with God. Be-
cause we are Christians and live like
Christians, the children of God, we
can expect the world to reproach us.

Background Scripture: Colossians
3:1-17; I Peter 4:12-19; Revela-
tion 2:1-7; 3:14-22
Key Verses: Colossians 3:1-17
Devotional Reading: I Peter 2:1-6
Memory Selection: Philippians 2:5

This is a part of our testing of faith.

Jesus taught this testing another
way in the Parable of the Sower
(Matt. 13) . All of the plants were
tested to determine whether they
were genuine or not. Cares of the
world and persecution were some of
the ways in which faith was tested,
according to this parable. That
which did not endure was not gen-
uine.

To suffer as a Christian is to be
expected. If the Christianity we
live does not bring suffering, then
we need to be concerned. If we are
not tested in our faith, it may be
because we have little faith. True
faith is challenged by the everyday
involvements of life. If we sense no
struggle, no testing daily, this is
strange indeed! When we really do
God's will, we run counter to the
world and the world will oppose us.
This is what Peter meant: We suffer
according to the will of God (v. 19) .

Here Peter warned against the
Christian's suffering because of his
own evil deeds. Some people will
say that they suffer for Christ, when
in reality they suffer because of their
own evil. They have acted foolishly
and they try to blame Christianity
for their troubles. Peter rebuked
such concepts. If we suffer in this
world, let it be because we live for
Christ so clearly and persistently
that we draw the fire of Satan and
the world against us.

Let us also remember that testing
comes to our faith every day in all of
our acts and relationships. For ev-
erything, there is a Christian way
or attitude, and a worldly view.
Which are we following? This is
our daily testing.

II. THE NEED: TO REPENT

The International Sunday School Lesson Out-
lines are copyrighted by The International
Council of Religious Education.

OF EVIL IN ORDER TO BE AC
CEPTABLE TO GOD (Rev. 2:1-';
3:14-22). In the series of message
to the Churches of Asia Minor give:
in Revelation chapters 2 and 3, w!
see how Christ tested each, scrutini;
ing its work and its attitude. H
states what pleases Him but point
out the dangers and evils that threal
en that Church.

The Church in Ephesus is a cas
in point. This Church was foundec
by Paul and was the recipient of on<
of his great letters. By its conten
the Epistle to the Ephesians show
that the people of that Church ha(
great spiritual perception. No lette:
is more heavily laden with doctiini
than this one. These were advancec
Christians.

John also served in this Church
for some time, teaching there. Th<
elders of that flock were outstand
ing and notable men (Acts 20)

The message to Ephesus which i;1
found in Revelation 2:1 reflects jusl
this kind of Church. Christ noted it;
works, toil and patience. It was an
active Church seeking to be doctri
nally pure. In short, it seemed to be
all that is expected of a great
Church, yet Christ saw in it a most
serious weakness. He warned the
Church that it had departed from its
first love (v. 4) .

What did this mean? In the Gos
pels, Christ had talked about the
first love, the first and greatest com-
mandment. We are, first of all, to
love the Lord God with all our heart,
soul and mind (Matt. 22:37-38).
Probably then, Jesus referred here to
the fact that in all of their doing,
and seeking purity of doctrine, the
people were nevertheless not acting
in this way because they loved the
Lord. Motivation does matter to
God. These people were called to
examine their motives. God judges
the heart, not just outward appear-
ance.

A Church which was active and
zealous of sound doctrine pleased
Christ only if that work and zeal
were motivated by a love of God. If
not, such a Church was in danger
of complete rejection by Christ.

PAGE 14 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 10, 1972

J

I'hat we consider important is not
.ways as important as we think, and
piat we may overlook, God does

>t. Every Church, every individ-
iil, must be examined by God's
.indards, His Word, not our own.

The only solution to the problem

Ephesus was to return to the for-
mer state of love of God. This

>uld occur only if the people first
i pented of their evil, recognizing

at they displeased God, and sought

correct the old error.

Repentance, or return to the for-
mer way of peace and happiness, is
; ways God's way of dealing with
hie Christian's sin. In I Samuel
|3, we are given the same formula
feat away the foreign gods . . . and
[irect your hearts to the Lord and
;rve Him only."

Again, when Israel in the Old Tes-
ament wandered after the Baalim,
weign gods, Elijah called the peo-
le to return fully to the Lord and
fie Lord's ways or else depart from
;.od altogether (I Kings 18:21-40) .

In message after message to the
jhurches in Asia Minor, Christ said
;pent, repent, turn from evil, back
pGod (Rev. 2:16-21; 3:3, etc,) .
\ In the message to the Laodicean
Ihurch, the warning is similar. This
ihurch, like Israel in Elijah's day,
j?as divided in mind and heart.
Jeither being hot for God or cold
award Him, but trying to straddle
he middle (Rev. 3:16). It was a
ery confident Church, boasting of
is riches (Rev. 3:17) , but in Christ's
udgment, it was a very poor Church,
taving nothing of the real spiritual
•lessings which Christ desired in His
church. Again the solution was to
epent (Rev. 3:19).

The lesson in these messages is
hat Christ does look closely at ev-
ry Church and while He notes what
)leases Him, Christ will not accept
iny imperfection. All imperfections
lemand repentance and correction
>r else that Church is unacceptable
md is in danger of being removed
rom the orbit of Christ's Church
iltogether.

Repentance is ever the only way
ve can deal with sin. We must
)ring sin out into the open and we
tre told how to deal with it (I John
1:17-20) . Christ died to cleanse us
rom sin. If we confess it, He will
brgive it and cleanse us from all un-
ighteousness. The tragedy occurs
vhen we refuse to repent or even to
icknowledge our sin and suppose
hat it will not hinder us. This trag-
c mistake has made shipwreck of

many great Churches and great in-
dividual lives.

III. THE WAY OF RENEWAL
(Col. 3:1-17) . Paul beautifully laid
out the way of renewal for every
Christian. The Church itself is re-
newed only when its several mem-
bers seek renewal in their own lives.
Revival comes in any Church when
its members individually commit
themselves to God.

The first thing we learn then
about renewal or spiritual growth
in the believer is that it takes deter-
mined effort. Spiritual growth is
always in terms of and in proportion
to our own willingness and effort.
This is that particular aspect of
Christian life in which God calls us
to cooperate. In addition to our de-
cision to believe in Christ, there is
the necessity for the additional de-
cision to commit our lives to Him.

After Paul had laid before the
Christians of Rome the wonderful
work of salvation wrought by Christ,
he called those who had believed to
an additional presenting of their
bodies to Christ as living sacrifices
(Rom. 12:1-2). Here Paul advised
those who are believers "raised to-
gether with Christ" (3:1) to seek
the things above, that is, to develop
a heavenly mind as opposed to the
carnal mind they once followed.
They are to set their minds on
things above. In other words, the
challenge is to live like and think
like the children of God they are.

Eternity will be spent in God's
presence. Now is the time to get
ready for that life. Now is the time
to prepare. If we're going to a for-
eign country to live and work, we
become interested in the language
and way of life of those among whom
we will be working and living. We be-
gin to try to think as they do. We
want to understand their life so that
we can be at home there. Many of
us would not presently feel at home
in heaven because we still have too
much of this world in us. Realizing
this, Paul challenged us to live as
citizens of heaven, our true home.

Before us is the glory that is to be
revealed. It dims the appeal of this
world. Giving up the vain glitter
of this ungodly world is easier if we
look to the glory that surrounds
Christ (vv. 3-4; see also Romans 8:
18).

Renewal comes in two parts: put-
ting to death of the old life (v. 5)
and habits, and at the same time put-
ting on the new life (v. 10) . By

the putting to death of old habits
and ways, Paul meant the sins in
which we once lived. He enumerat-
ed these in verses 5 and 6 and re-
minded us that these are the path-
ways we once all followed.

As we read then, we may well
think "but I don't do or never did
do any of these things," so in verse
8 he showed them by other names.
We may not have committed forni-
cation, but what about shameful
speaking? We may not have killed,
but what of anger or wrath or mal-
ice? The second group of sins listed
in verse 8 surely will convict us if
the first group does not.

Paul uses the term "old man" to
describe the old way of life we lived
in our state of sin and death before
we believed in Christ. Compare
Ephesians 4:22.

The second part, putting on the
new man (v. 10) , is equally impor-
tant. Spiritual growth is not simply
stopping some former evils in our
life. It is also beginning to do what
God's children ought to do. Our
goal is to be like Christ (v. 10) .
There can be no greater goal. Paul
himself described his constant striv-
ing toward that goal (Phil. 3:8-16) .

Paul specifically stated what he
meant by the new man (vv. 12-15) .
The terms he used are elsewhere
called the fruits of the Spirit (Gal.
5 :22-23) , and they are the character-
istics which God desires to see in ev-
ery one of His children. These
fruits come gradually and are the
real measure of our spiritual depth.
It is important to remember that Je-
sus said we bear much fruit only as
we abide in Him and in His Word.
Read John 15:1-10.

Therefore, Paul exhorted us to let
Christ's Word dwell in us richly.
The Holy Spirit, using the Word of
God in our lives, prunes us and
causes us to bear better fruit, that is,
to live lives that show the attributes
noted in verses 12 to 15. Above all
else, the Christian should strive to be
this kind of person.

When this becomes a reality in
our lives, then we are consciously
God's children and consciously will
bear the name of Christ in our lives.
We will do all we do for Christ's
sake, seeking to glorify Him by all.
The impact of that kind of life on
the world is beyond our ability to
measure. Furthermore, such com-
mitted Christians greatly aid the
Church and lead it toward revival
and renewal of purpose and service
in Christ's kingdom. IB

PAGE 15 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 10, 1972

YOUTH PROGRAM

Scripture: Acts 1:1-11
Suggested Hymns:

"More Like the Master"
"Take the Name of Jesus

with You"
"Wonderful Words of Life"

PROGRAM LEADER'S INTRO-
DUCTION: Down through the cen-
turies of Christian history, believers
have recognized that it is their re-
sponsibility to be witnesses for the
Lord. Sometimes the thought
frightens us. We suppose that be-
ing a witness is very difficult and
that only the most dedicated Chris-
tians can do it with any degree of
competence. If such thoughts have
come to us, we need to remind our-
selves of the basic meaning of the
word "witness."

In the courts of law, a witness is
one who has reliable knowledge and
who tells what he knows. The same
can be said of a Christian witness.
He is one who knows something
about Christ. Better yet, he is one
who knows Christ and who is willing
and ready to tell what he knows.

As far as we are concerned, the
implications are clear. If we are go-
ing to be witnesses, we must have
some specific Christian knowledge.
We learn about Christ in the Bible.

CHRISTIAN TEACHERS
Grade & High School

Calvary Free Academy
South Holland, Illinois

is seeking teachers
committed to the
Reformed faith.

FOR INFORMATION WRITE TO:

Headmaster
Calvary Free Academy

P.O. Box 403
South Holland, Illinois
60473

For May 28, 1972

How To Witness

Rev. B. Hoyt Evans

Having learned about Him, we put
our personal trust in Him and come
to know Him as our Saviour and
Lord. Being His witnesses means
sharing with others what we know
and what we have experienced.

FIRST SPEAKER: In the actual
business of sharing what we know
of Christ we should determine to be
positive and not argumentative. Wit-
nessing is not a matter of beating
people into submission with words
or overcoming them with the force
of our arguments or the impressive-
ness of our eloquence. If we call at-
tention to our own supposed bril-
liance, we are sure to fail in the work
of witnessing.

Again, we need to remember that
one who gives testimony does not
put on a performance, he simply
tells what he knows. The effective-
ness of his testimony will depend in
large part on whether he seems be-
lievable. If we really believe in
Christ, and if our sincerity shows in
what we say and do, then it is most
likely that our witness will be ef-
fective even though it may not be
impressive at all as the world meas-
ures impressiveness.

SECOND SPEAKER: One pitfall
to which young people are some-
times subject when they try to wit-
ness is that of appearing self-right-
eous. We need to be very care-
ful about setting ourselves up as ex-
amples or about calling attention to
ourselves at all. It is so easy to leave
the impression that we consider our-
selves superior to others because we
know Christ and that we are look-
ing down on them.

The way to avoid this danger is to
keep reminding ourselves that it is

God who saves and blesses. He i
the one who has saved and blesse<
us, and if others are saved an<
blessed, it will be by Him. Actuall)
it is a mistake to think and speak o
winning others to Christ. It is Go(
who does the winning. If we are con
stantly careful to direct the atten
tion to Christ when we witnes
rather than to ourselves, we shal
not likely give the impression of be
ing self-righteous.

THIRD SPEAKER : The opposifc
danger to appearing self-righteou:
is that we become so concernec
about giving that appearance thai
we neglect to witness altogether
Christ was not ashamed of us ever
to the point of taking our sin upon
Himself and dying for us. We must
not be ashamed of Him, and thi:
means taking every opportunity we
have to speak a word in His behalf.

Sometimes when we claim that we
are trying to avoid seeming self
righteous what we are really do
ing is excusing our timidity. Satan
will do his best to make our efforts
at witnessing seem embarassing. If
we have the courage to witness for
Christ our words will be used more
effectively than we think even if
they seem to come out awkwardly
at times. God will use those who are
willing to honor Him with their
words.

FOURTH SPEAKER: While we
cannot excuse ourselves when we fail
to speak for Christ, another way of
witnessing is by our actions. We
should seek to make the lives we
live consistent with the words we
speak. Sometimes we hesitate to
speak for Christ because we know so

8%

FIRST MORTGAGE CHURCH BONDS

Registered as to principal and interest
Interest payable semi-annually

V" w Call or Write CHURCH SECURITIES, INC.
(Formerly Church Investors)
Phone (404) 451-5431 4095 Clairmont Road Atlanta, Ga. 30341

PAGE 16 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 10, 1972

I

ell' that our actions do not cor-
:spond to our words.

We are not justified in postponing
iy witness by word until we are
isured that our way of living is as

should be. If we wait until we
re perfect we would never utter a
ord because there is always need
he improvement. We should speak
1 humility, asking God to use our
ords to His glory and to perfect

Do you think that as a true be-
iever you can do as you please and
till expect God's blessing? In our
?sson this month we will look at a
rue man of God who got what he
/anted from the Lord but who prob-
bly lived to wish he had not.

Up to this point in our study of
saiah, we have covered very much
he same material in the "general
urvey" portion of the lesson as in
he more specific portion dealing
vith the lesson in the Workbook.
rhis month the two sections will not
>nly deal with totally different sub-
ects, they also will deal with totally
lifferent crises.

In the time covered by the first 35
hapters of Isaiah, the crisis in Israel
ind Judah was produced by the
hreatening armies of Syria, a close
leighbor to the northeast of Israel,
beginning with chapter 36, the crisis
s produced by Assyria, an utterly
:ruel and pagan nation situated
nuch farther to the east, whose
:apital was Nineveh. At the opening
)f Isaiah 36, the northern kingdom,
Israel, had been conquered and car-
ied away captive. Assyria had crossed
J|e borders of the southern king-
lom, Judah, captured most of the
fortified cities, and besieged the cap-
ital, Jerusalem. It was a dark period
in the history of the remaining king-
lom, indeed.

Our lesson this month well be
taken from the historical account
covered by these chapters. It is the
itory of a good king, Hezekiah, and
what happened in the course of his
reign as a direct result of his trust
in God.

For a spiritual application of the
contemporary situation, we might

our lives so that they will underscore
our words rather than be a hin-
drance to them.

PROGRAM LEADER: The real
secret of effective witnessing is trust
in the Lord. If our witnessing is
successful, it will not be because of
what we have said and done, but be-
cause God has blessed and used our
efforts.

Manford Geo. Gutzke, D.D., Ph.D.

Isaiah 36-39; 28:14-29

compare the threat to the kingdom
during the Syrian crisis to any time
when the Church is threatened by a
leadership which is unworthy. Isaiah
told the people of God during the
Syrian crisis that it was the corrup-
tion of their spiritual leaders that
had brought them woe and he urged
them to turn to God for forgiveness
and for healing.

During the Assyrian crisis, the
threat was that of an outside pagan
force attempting to shake the con-
fidence of both the people and their
leaders. I think of the threat of sci-
ence which arose in western culture
about the time of the Reformation
and which seemed to threaten the
Bible and the Gospel from a purely
pagan viewpoint. Just as the safety
of God's people depended upon Him
in the Assyrian crisis, so today the
safety of God's people depends
upon Him when the Church is
threatened from the outside by
unbelief or any claims of science that
seem destructive to faith.

The Faith of the Man

Chapter 36 opens with Sennach-
erib, the king of Assyria, sending a
great army against Jerusalem. You
will want to read the entire four
chapters, if possible at a single sit-
ting in order to get the sweep of the
historical account. It is fascinating-
ly readable.

Arrayed before the walls of Je-
rusalem, Rabshakeh issued his ulti-
matum: surrender or die. Explicit
in the ultimatum was a blasphemous
taunting of the power of God: "Who

The Bible makes it clear that it
is our privilege and our responsibil-
ity to be Christ's witnesses. It is a
thrilling task and an awesome one,
but it can be done if we are faithful
to try, and if we will offer ourselves
anew to the Lord each day, asking
Him to use our words and our lives
for His glory.

Closing Prayer. El

are they among all the gods of these
lands, that have delivered their land
out of my hand, that the Lord
should deliver Jerusalem out of my
hand?" (36:20).

Hezekiah sent a messenger to
Isaiah asking for advice and for
prayer (37:2-4) . In reply, the proph-
et told him simply to stand still and
be not afraid.

Next the Assyrian sent a written
demand for the surrender of Jeru-
salem, embodying the same blasphe-
mous taunts that earlier had been
spoken in shouts outside the walls of
the city. Hezekiah took the letter,
went to the temple and spread out
the letter before the Lord.

That's what a believing man
would have done and if you notice
his prayer carefully, you will see that
he is saying, in effect, "In attacking
us, O God, they really are attacking
Thee. Save us, in order that the
kingdoms of the earth may know
that thou art God" (37:20) .

God answered the faith of Heze-
kiah and in one night a plague dec-
imated the army of the Assyrians
(37:36) . When Sennacherib re-
turned home, he was assassinated,
finally the victim of his own pride
and impudence.

And what of Hezekiah? He con-
tinued one of the most godly reigns
recorded of any king of Judah. He
was a good man and the record of
his career marks him as one of the
best kings in David's line. But the
record also goes on to reveal him as
very much a man and a foolish one
at that.

The account tells us that Heze-
kiah was taken with a mortal sick-
ness and the prophet came to tell

WOMEN'S WORK

Supplementary Circle Bible Study

June: The Alien Work

PAGE 17 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 10, 1972

him to put his house in order for he
would die. Being very human, the
king did not want to yield to this ex-
pression of the will of God and he
prayed earnestly "and wept sore"
(38:3).

Then a remarkable thing hap-
pened. God heard his prayer and
while it was not God's will, the Lord
granted Hezekiah what he wanted.
He gave him an additional fifteen
years of life. Moreover, he sent a
miracle to attest to the promise: The
sun moved backwards in the after-
noon ten degrees (38:8).

This part of the story is very so-
bering and you should linger on it
until the full import sinks in. Some
people are in such a relationship to
the Lord that they can pray with
the faith that their prayers will be
answered — and they are. Have you

known such people? I have. But the
interesting thing about the story of
Hezekiah is that we are specifically
told, and at length, that he would
have been better off if he had yield-
ed to the will of God.

If you did not know the rest of
the story you might be tempted to

For Discussion

Would you say that the hope
which is extended to sinful men
through the death and resurrection
of Jesus Christ is a possibility for all
men or a certain possession of all
men today? Explain.

say, "Wonderful! He got what he
asked for!" I would be more in-
clined to say, "Too bad! He got
what he asked for!"

Let me remind you that dm
the 15 years that followed, Ma
seh was born and Manasseh was
worst king that Judah ever had. Bi
that isn't all. Hezekiah sinned grea
ly during those years and, instea
of reaching the end of his life in sa
isfaction for having walked befo:
God in integrity, he reached the en
of his life with a rebuke in his ea
and the promise of God that
would be lost.

What happened? Hezekiah 1<
pride get the best of him!

The news of what had been dor
for him spread far and wide an!
reached all the way back to Bar
ylon. And the king of Babylon sen
a delegation to congratulate Hez<
kiah and, no doubt, to plead fc1
"peaceful coexistence." They sai
to him, in effect, "Your God ha

i

j

ADDRESSES

EVANGELISM CONFERENCE

DR. GRADY WILSON
Associate Evangelist,
Billy Graham Evangelistic
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REV. KENNEDY SMARTT
Pastor, West End
Presbyterian Church
Hopewell, Va.

DR. MARIANO DiGANGI
North American Director,
Bible and Medical
Missionary Fellowship
Ontario, Canada

REV. MARIO RIVERA
Missionary to Puerto
Rico and Part Time
Missionary-Evangelist
with ECOE

REV. JAMES M. BAIRD
Pastor, First Presbyterian
Church
Gadsden, Ala.

DR. ROBERT REYMOND

Assistant Professor of
Theology, Covenant
Theological Seminary
St. Louis, Mo.

REV. BEN WILKINSON
P.E.F. Evangelist
Decatur, Ga.

sponsored by Presbyterian Evangelistic Fellowship

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PAGE 18 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 10, 1972

en. good to you, hasn't He?" Heze-
Iih strutted in an exhibition of
■Tiself. "Yes, He certainly has."
[ 'Your God must have given you a
liat many things," pressed the emis-
lies from the enemy country,
riome with me and I'll show you,"
plied the king. The Bible tells
I (39:2) there was nothing of his
Issessions that he did not boast-
Illy show off.

[ But after the men left, Isaiah came
1. "Who were those men?" he
ik.ed. "Well, they came from a
|r country. In fact, they came from
i ibylon just to see me," the king re-
ied.

| "What did they see?"
"I showed them everything I
five."

; Then Isaiah delivered this sober
[dgment: "Hear the word of the
brd of hosts: You will lose every-
iing they saw. Nothing will be
ft."

The lesson here is so important
lat it is repeated in II Chronicles
!:24-31, and I trust that you will
xefully read that account too. It
the important lesson that even
le most godly man is liable to griev-
js sin.

There are not many people so
awerful in faith that they can pray
id have their prayers answered in
liraculous fashion. Such people are
>ecial in a way, but their spiritual
cperience does not put them be-
ind the possibility of judgment!

Hezekiah's sin was that of Moses,
nother who was powerful in prayer,
t the rock in the wilderness Moses
t pride gain the upper hand and
e took the credit for the water that
jshed forth. God told Moses that
ecause he had not given God the
raise for the miracle, he would not
iter the promised land.

We must never forget that even
le most devout Christian is still a
uman being and liable to sin. Not
iren a good man has it in him to
ve without fault. It should make
s specifically mindful of the words
f Scripture that tell us to put our
list in no man: "Cursed be he that
utteth his trust in man and maketh
ot the Lord God his stay."

The Alien Work

In the Workbook lesson for this
tonth, attention is focused upon
hat the author calls "the alien
ork" of God. The passage is
»aiah 28:14-29. By "alien work,"
le author means to focus attention

upon the fact that God did actually
propose to destroy those who were
identified as His own people.

It is so human for us to live in
the expectation that if we just do
the best we can, God will always
help us. In fact, it is most human
to avoid the subject of death as some-
thing to be reckoned with as a judg-
ment upon us. Because everyone
dies and we will one day die, we for-
get that death is the "wages of sin"
and that there is a spiritual cause
of death that must be reckoned with.

Most people put off thoughts of

(Continued on next page)

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Laymen
speak
out

In the May-June Lay Witness
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PAGE 19 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 10, 1972

death and concentrate on thoughts
of life, confidently believing that if
there is a God, He will surely take
care of the details. In this connec-
tion, most people also deny the re-
ality of hell as something to be reck-
oned with.

Even in church, people are seldom
reminded that the wages of sin is
death and the judgment of God is
sure. Hell is never mentioned in
a great many churches and even the
need to repent is often omitted. Too
often, in the church, we get the im-
pression that we have done some-
thing very fine just for going there.
The pastor makes us feel that we
have done him an honor by attend-
ing and that if we will just continue
to be as thoughtful we will be all
right.

In the passage before us, Isaiah
describes such attitudes towards re-
ality as "a covenant with death"
(28:15) , and as a reliance upon lies.
In effect, he charges: "You have tak-
en refuge in falsehood."

CUSTODIAN NEEDED: The Bayshore
Gardens Reformed Church, Bradenton,
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Street West, Bradenton, Florida 33507.

When the condition of men, the
demands of God and the truths
of the Gospel are omitted, glossed
over or glibly treated, then it might
be said that those responsible have
made "a covenant with death" and
have "taken refuge in falsehood."

This sometimes can occur with the
best intentions. For instance, today
it is popular to talk very glibly
about "walking with the Lord," as
though anyone could do it with no
precondition of repentance and no
prior experience of the new birth.
It isn't so! We can walk with the
Lord in confidence when we have
found forgiveness and acceptance in
repenting and when we have been
given new life through the new
birth.

The Gospel offers hope, but it al-
so speaks of destruction because of
sin. Christ died in order to offer
that hope and anyone who would
benefit from His death must deny
himself, take up his cross and follow
Him. If you want to live you first
must die.

It is not strange that there should
be death and destruction on account
of sin. That is so normal, so nat-
ural, that it is the universal truth
with which we all live — and which
we most often manage to ignore. If

an, ili

an

there is anything strange commai
ing our attention, it is the unspealusic
able offer of salvation through
pentance and faith in Jesus Chrisl
May this salvation be yours!

* * * * a;t
Dr. Gutzke is professor emeritus <
Biblical exposition, Columbia Sent)
nary, and broadcaster of "The Bib\ m
for You." This study is available o
tape recording, $3 per regular tap
containing 4 lessons ($9 the set, iVoJuts
71, 2, 3) and $3 per cassette contaii
ing 3 lessons ($12 the set, Nos. 71-A\
B, C, D) . Order from The Bible fct
You, Box 15007, Atlanta, Gt
30333.

Crimes— from p. 1 1

elude this clause:

"Without detracting from the ex
isting rights and obligations of th
parties recognized in other provi
sions of this agreement, this com1
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operate at the plant level in encour i
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program directed to the objective o: m
their rehabilitation."

Drunkenness is like the iceberg; bi
We see just the surface. The depth

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Montgomery, Ala.

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'More can be accomplished with a child in 2 weeks at camp than in 1 year at Sunday School."

WRITE TO: CAMP WESTMINSTER 1438 Sheridan Rd., N.E., Atlanta, Ga. 30324

PAGE 20 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 10, 1972

d breadth are immense. The pro-
ams to help the alcoholic are need-
and welcomed. However, the
juse of alcoholism, beverage alcohol
elf, must be restricted and ulti-
itely outlawed because it is a killer
th a tragic record of at least 87,000
aths a year, as well as being the
use of a massive and inexcusable
iman loss that costs the economy
nually 15 billion dollars. There
nothing "victimless" about drunk-
ness and alcoholism.
Public officials who are interested
■ short term dollar profits at the
pense of long term moral deficits
' human lives and society are look-
g with favor upon gambling as a
eans of supporting the ever rising
st of government. More and more,
ivernment is being locked in by
e horns of inconsistency and ex-
.diency as it tries to explain that
me gambling is legal and some is
»t.

The sparkling waters of the foun-
ins of charity have often dried up
lile the spirit of something for
)thing has been fostered. Gam-
ing has its victims — primary and
neral. Gambling, legal or illegal,
eeds crime and corruption in high
id low places, and contributes to
e philosophy of existing by luck
id chance instead of living by in-
lstry and hard work.
What a risk would be encountered
| lifting the ban on marijuana
id other narcotics by labeling
eir sale and use as "victimless"!
ow many primary victims of nar-
tics do we have? What commun-
is has not been touched by this
reat? The youth in our schools
id colleges are confronted by it.
ow many citizens have been beat-
1 mugged, robbed and even killed
I narcotic users in search of money
sustain their habit?
The London Sunday Telegraph
ports on a book by Mohammed
eikel which records a conversation
itween Chou En-lai and President
asser in 1965. It tells about the
Ian of Chou En-lai's regime to de-
oralize our American soldiers sta-
oned in the Orient with drugs. He
id, "The effect which this demoral-
ation is going to have on the Unit-
1 States will be far greater than
lyone realizes." We must not al-
»w our nation to be victimized by
diabolical scheme that is dedicated
» promote human debauchery and
epravity.

Our laws in America are tempered
ith mercy. Certainly it is our de-

sire to restore the offender to decent
citizenship in his community, but
our laws must also protect the law
abiding of all ages. No orderly so-
ciety can exist if we choose what laws
we will obey or if we write off those
statutes from our books which rest
upon divine commands. If we do,
our destination is not a regime of
good laws but ultimately a jungle of
no law.

With his tongue in cheek, James
Smart, in his Philadelphia Bulletin
column, "In Our Town," envisioned
a public hearing in 1984 conducted
at the Pennsylvania state capitol on
a bill to legalize burglary. He quotes
the mayor of Pennsylvania saying:

"People are going to steal —
they've been doing it for years. Legal-
izing burglary would reduce the flow
of funds now going into organized
crime; resources now required to po-
lice burglary could be reassigned to
combat more serious crimes. Bur-
glary is now publicly accepted and
police efforts to enforce burglary
laws are largely an exercise in fu-
tility. The state might as well li-
cense all burglars and get some bene-
fit from it."

Looking into his crystal ball, Mr.
Smart envisions the things his state
might have legalized by 1984. They
included all kinds of gambling, mari-
juana, hard narcotics and halluci-
nogens, abortion and prostitution.
He concludes his column by saying
that the 1984 Committee of the State
Legislature heard testimony from
a professor of sociology who suggest-
ed that the state could save millions
of dollars squandered on law en-
forcement by having no law at all.
He said, "If you made everything le-
gal, we wouldn't need policemen."

A Precious Thing

Liberty is a very precious thing —
but it is also very delicate. If it
is directed toward good, it will be
a blessing, but if it is directed to-
ward evil it will be a curse and will
lead to anarchy.

Pope Paul VI very wisely said in
one of his weekly audiences with vis-
itors, "If everyone wants to do as he
pleases on the pretext of liberty,
then we will easily come to the de-
cadence of civil society organized as
a state . . ." To those who would
break the divine tablets of God's
law, the Saviour would say again,
"Whosoever heareth these sayings of
mine, and doeth them not, shall be
likened unto a foolish man, who

built his house upon the sand; and
the rain descended, and the floods
came, and the winds blew, and beat
upon that house; and it fell: and
great was the fall of it." IS

Lay man— from. p. 13

Reverence? Yes! And what a mag-
nificent Christian witness.

The attitude of reverence can best
be fostered in the Christian home.
In substance, one of the vows taken
by parents as they present their
child for baptism is the promise to
pray with and for him, and instruct
him in the holy faith. Parents ex-
perience one of life's highest mo-
ments when they reverently dedicate
their child to God.

The Westminster Shorter Cate-
chism says it best, "God is a Spirit,
infinite, eternal and unchangeable
in His being, wisdom, power, holi-
ness, justice goodness and truth."
Before Him we bow in humble re-
verence. !B

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1118 Montreat Rd., Black Mountain, N. C.
Ph. (704) 669-8811.

FOR RENT: Montreat Cottage, Woodland
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spiration. Call or write: Norman Morgan,
209 Nighbert Ave., Logan, West Va. 304-
752-2864.

FREE SOUL WINNING tracts! Christ cen-
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provides. Write for sample packet. The
Cornerstone, Dept. T, 4751 Hwy. 280 So.,
Birmingham, Ala. 35243.

THE MT. OLIVE Presbyterian Church now
has the ministry of a tape library. In-
cluded are sixty hours of Al Martin, tapes
of Packer, Lloyd-Jones, and many others.
These tapes may be rented or bought
on a cost basis. If interested, ask for a
listing or other information by writing:
ML Olive Presbyterian Church Tape Li-
brary, P.O. Box 142, Bassfield, Mississippi
39421.

CANCER INSURANCE: Persons of all
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Robert U. Woods, General Agent, (Elder,
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28364.

PAGE 21 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 10, 1972

BOOKS

INVITATION TO JOY, by Eleanor
Searle Whitney. Harper & Row, Pub-
lishers, New York, N. Y. 195 pp. $5.95.
Reviewed by Mrs. Gerry Koontz,
Weaverville, N. C.

Even before the book has been
opened, the name o£ the author
seems to suggest money, position and
authority. For almost half of the
book, these three things seem to
dominate the undertone of the story
to the exclusion of much else.

Underlined by the contrast with
the first of the book, it is a thrill
when the last chapters awake, sing-
ing with the peace and joy which
Jesus Christ put into the life of this
well-known woman. The joy of
which she writes sustained her
through some of the most trying
hours of her life, hours that came
shortly after her discovery that
Christianity is more than, as she calls
it for reasons described, "Welsh
Rabbit religion."

From the commonplace, everyday
biography of the first of the book,
Mrs. Whitney graduates to thought-
provoking ideas that hold you to the
end, such as "Bible reading is a
must for every day's schedule; no
one ever graduates from Bible study
until he meets the Author face to
face, for all Scripture is the inspired
Word of God."

"Confirmation," she says, "is the
moment when we publicly accept
God's invitation to joy," "The born-
again Christian who has received
Jesus in his heart is transformed in
his whole being; it is as if he has
swallowed sunshine."

"We are different, set apart,
unique," she tells the reader, "but
unless we are recognized as different
from other people, we ought to re-
examine our lives, for it means that
our Christianity isn't showing."

KEEP ABREAST OF THE LATEST
DISCOVERIES FROM ARCHAEOL-
OGY. SUBSCRIBE TO:

A quarterly digest on Biblical
archaeology. $3.00 per year
($4.00 outside the U.S.). Write to:
WORD OF TRUTH, Department PJ
Box 2, Burnt Hills, New York
12027. A free sample copy will
be sent on request.

In spite of the fact that her own
marriage to Cornelius Vanderbilt
("Sonny") Whitney ended many
years ago, she expresses a beautiful
ideal of marriage when she says, "To-
day I find that I can take advantage
of my singleness to share freely my
love of Christ with others. But
should I marry again, I would
choose a mate who was first of all
a true believer, for I think of mar-
riage as a triangle whose apex is
God. Each marriage partner oc-
cupies one of the base angles. As
each grows closer and closer to God,
the couple grow closer and closer to-
gether. When a sorrow is shared
with someone else, it is halved;
when a joy is shared, it is doubled."

The reader will find it a joy to
share Eleanor Searle Whitney's
thoughts, and will find himself hop-
ing to be among her audience some
day when she is fulfilling one of her
many speaking obligations for
Christ.

Her last sentence in the book is
from John 15:11. Read her book,
and check how fittingly she fin-
ished. EB

HELPING FAMILIES THROUGH
THE CHURCH, revised ed ition, ed.
by Oscar E. Feucht. Concordia Publ.
House, St. Louis, Mo. 359 pp. $6.50.
Reviewed by Mrs. Charles J. Knapp,
Moultrie, Ga.

Offered as a symposium on fam-
ily life education, the book is de-
signed for strengthening the homes
of today, which are feeling the at-
tack of a great many difficulties on
every side, and stresses prevention
rather than cure. It is made up of
counseling programs and filled with
proven ideas which are resources to
leaders in every department of a
church.

A seminary professor of pastoral
theology says he found this book to
be a basic tool for seminary teach-
ing in pastoral theology: "The re-
vised edition promises even more
usefulness. A Gospel-oriented book
such as this will broaden and deep-
en a church ministry. When such
a book comes along, that is good
news for pastor and his people."

Every church library needs this
book, for the leaders of Christian
people can profit by reading and
studying it. EE

Pensacolc

A serious approach to theologic
study for ministers, students and
terested laymen during eight d
under competent scholars against
refreshing background of Flori
beach life and at a cost within rea
of all who want to come.

For the sixteenth consecutive yea
thoughful Christians of evangelicll
conviction will gather at the Mcllwafu
Memorial Presbyterian Church, PeiH
sacola, Florida, for a week of serloi
in-depth theological study, combine
with relaxation on the white sand
of the beautiful Pensacola Beach fc.
the cool waters of the Gulf of Mexic<]

The faculty and courses for th|
1972 Pensacola Theological Institul;
are shown on the opposite pag<
Morning sessions are devoted to th
courses and consist of lectures an1
question and answer periods. Ever
ing sessions are worship services
which Robert Strong will preach an
Henry Thomas Ford will direct th
Institute Choir.

The fellowship of Christians wh
love the Word of God and delight 1
the gospel of Sovereign Grace
one of the highlights most remei
bered by those who attend the I'
stitute.

Many types of accommodations arl iE!
available. Ministers, missionaries an p,
seminary students, alone or with thei to

wives, may secure free rooms i
private homes. Dormitory-style hous
ing is available on the beach. E>
cellent hotel and motel accommoda
tions are available, and there are op
portunities for families to rent ir
dividual beach cottages for their ow
use. Adult registrants can eat in th
church dining hall at very low cost.

A Junior Institute program fo
those from Kindergarten throug
Senior High includes Bible, music
missionary emphasis and recreatior
Nurseries are provided without cos
for infants and children under Junic
Institute age.

A brochure is available with de
tails. We will be happy to correspon
with any who have questions.

For information write:

PENSACOLA THEOLOGICAL
INSTITUTE
1220 East Blount Street
Pensacola, Florida 32503

PAGE 22 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 10, 1972

i,

heological Institute August 13-20, 1972

Faculty and Courses

Si

ROBERT STRONG

The featured spaker of the 1972 Institute is Minister of Trinity Presbyterian Church, Montgom-
ery, Alabama. He is a distinguished preacher, known for his abilities as a theologian and his gift for
teaching the doctrines of the faith from the pulpit. He has an A.B. (Phi Beta Kappa) from the Univer-
sity of California, M.A. and Th.M. from the University of Southern California, Th.B. and another
Th.M. from Westminster Theological Seminary, and S.T.D. from Temple University. He is a frequent
contributor to religious periodicals and many volumes of his sermons have been published. He
will proclaim the Word of God in every evening service and each Sunday morning at 11:00.

ORGE C. FULLER: The Mission of the Church

The Associate Professor of Preaching at Reformed Theological Seminary, Dr. Fuller serves

0 as a Ministerial Advisor to the Presbyterian Lay Committee, an independent organization of
ited Presbyterian men and women dedicated to urging their denomination to adhere to the primary
ssion of the Church. He holds Th.M. and Th.D. degrees in New Testament from Westminster
jological Seminary, has been Professor of Bible at Northwestern College, and has served churches
Alabama, Maryland and Minnesota. His course on the Mission of the Church grows out of his
olvement on the front lines of controversy over this issue. He will set forth biblical response
such questions as: Can the Church speak to society? If so, when and on what issues? What
tinguishes the mission of the Church from that of any other institution? and, What does God
nt us to do now?

ALBERT N. MARTIN: The Parable of the Sower

Best known as a speaker at pastors' conferences and seminaries, Mr. Martin is Pastor of The
Trinity Baptist Church, Essex Falls, New Jersey. He was Assistant to the Dean of Men of Columbia
Bible College, and then spent ten years in an itinerant evangelistic and Bible teaching ministry
prior to the ten years he has served his present congregation. He continues to devote ten or twelve
weeks each year to his conference ministry, and frequently speaks in Great Britain under the auspices
of The Banner of Truth Trust. His ministry has a strongly practical thrust. Like the Puritans, he
combines powerful theology with searching application. He will give a careful, verse-by-verse
exposition of The Parable of the Sower as it is found in the synoptic Gospels and show its pressing
relevance to the issues of our day In the Church.

MES I. PACKER: Highways and Byways in Theology Today

Principal of Tyndale Hall, Bristol, England (an evangelical Anglican theological college), Dr.
cker is best known in America for his writings including Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God

1 'Fundamentalism' and the Word of God. He translated and edited Luther's Bondage of the Will
i was Consulting Editor of The New Bible Dictionary. He was formerly Warden of Latimer House,
;tudy center for evangelicals, and is a noted exponent of the Reformed position in the Church of
gland. His B.A., M.A., and D.Phil, degrees are all from Oxford University. He has been a leader
the movement that has led to a renewed appreciation for the theology of the Puritans. Of his
urse for this year's Institute, he writes, "I'll look at some major doctrines, salvation among them
t starting with God, about which tempting mistakes are being made at this time."

JACK B. SCOTT: Problems in Old Testament Study

Chairman of the Old Testament Department and Registrar of Reformed Theological Seminary,
Mr. Scott served five years as an evangelistic missionary in Korea under the Board of World Missions
of the Presbyterian Church, U. S. He has pastored churches in Kentucky and Mississippi, done
graduate work in Hebrew at Hebrew Union College, and is presently at work on his dissertation
leading to the Ph.D. at Dropsie University. His course will include three lectures: "The Impossible
Commands" (the sacrificial system), "Faith and Works in the Old Testament" and, "How to Hate
in Love" (the imprecatory Psalms).

•NRY THOMAS FORD

Associate Professor of Voice and Director of the Concert Choir, Belhaven College, and Director
the Adult and Youth Choirs, First Presbyterian Church, Jackson, Mississippi, Mr. Ford is
knowledged as one of the distinguished choral conductors of the South. He directs the Institute
loir. Organist for the Institute Choir is William K. Wymond, who serves First Presbyterian
lurch, Jackson, as Minister of Pastoral Care, Collegiate Activities Sponsor, and Organist.

i

PAGE 23 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 10, 1972

JESUS SAID,

"I am the Way
the Truth,
and the
Life!

WHAT SAY WE?

Who in the world are we
and why must we reflect
Christ in the world? Why
must the church as His body,
proclaim the Truth, embody
the Life, follow the Way?

The editors of WHO IN
THE WORLD? have divided
the contemplation of
today's church into three
parts based upon Christ's
description of Himself as "the
Way, the Truth, and the Life."

The result is no facile
condemnation of the church,
no bringer of panacea to
a troubled institution. Rather
it pits the Word of God
against the basic problem
of self-identity. Paper $1.95

WHO IN THE WORLD?

Clifford Christians,

Earl J. Schipper,

and Wesley Smedes, Editors

"WHO IN THE WORLD? is an
excellent tool for Key 73
participants as they endeavor
more fully and more forcefully
to confront people with
the Gospel of Jesus Christ."
T. A. Raedeke,
Executive Director, Key 73

WM. B. EERDMANS
PUBLISHING CO.

Grand Rapids, Michigan

COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL
OF JOHN, by Leon Morris. Wm. B.
Eerdmans Publ. Co., Grand Rapids,
Mich. 936 pp. $12.50. Reviewed by
the Rev. William C. Robinson, Deca-
tur, Ga.

It is a delight to commend this
scholarly work by the principal of
Ridley College, Melbourne, Austra-
lia. The number of citations from
English, German and French schol-
ars makes this volume ideal for a
course in the Gospel of John. Mor-
ris is careful not to overtake his own
positions, and to recognize the dou-
ble meaning in many of John's ref-
erences. He presents a case for the
beloved disciple, John, as the author,
and the date shortly before 70 A.D.
He leans to Ephesus as the place
of its writing.

In this Gospel, Jesus is designated
as God three times. As the Lamb
of God, Jesus bears the consequence
of human sin that its guilt may be
removed. The wrath of God stands
for the settled and active opposition
of God's holy nature to everything
that is evil. "Unless we are saved
from real peril there is no meaning
in salvation." Verily, is a translation
of the Hebrew word amen, meaning
to confirm, to give one's assent. It was
often used by Jesus to mark the
words as uttered before God, who is
thus invited to bring them to pass.

Pastor, add this book to your li-
brary! Professor, use this book for
a course on the fourth Gospel! And
God will bless the Gospel of John
to you and your people. 51

INTERLUDES IN A WOMAN'S
DAY, by Winola W. Wirt. Moody Press,
Chicago, III. Paper, 160 pp. $.75. Re-
viewed by Mrs. C. W. McNutt, Roa-
noke, Va.

Some Christians have a gift for
seeing a spiritual lesson in every
little happening of life. Winola Wirt,
wife of the editor of Decision maga-
zine, is such a person. She shares
with the reader her thoughts, feel-
ings, and experiences as she looks
for opportunities to witness. At the
clinic, supermarket, bus or stamp
store she finds inspiration for a
better Christian life. She even be-
comes inspired through a "wrong
number" intrusion and ends by
making a study on the "wrong num-
ber" situations in the Bible. Fancy
that! ffl

• • •

God never blesses a Church that
willingly tolerates unbelief. — Un-
known.

in

QUESTIONS

PEOPLE ARE
ASKING ABOUT

REFORMED
THEOLOGICAL

SEMINARY

n

Q. What is the denominational
affiliation of the Reformed Theo-
logical Seminary?

A. The Reformed Theological Semi
nary as an institution has no
denominational affiliation. Individ
ual Faculty and Board members of
the Seminary represent at least four
traditionally Reformed bodies in
America. Students are welcomed
from any ecclesiastical background,

Q. Is the Reformed Theological
Seminary accredited?

A. The Reformed Theological Semi-
nary is accredited to grant degrees
in theology by the Board of Edu-
cation of the State of Mississippi.
Accreditation is being pursued ac-
tively by the Board of Trustees and
by the Faculty of the Seminary in
consultation with the American As-
sociation of Theological Schools.
Reformed Seminary became an as-
sociate member of the A ATS in
June, 1970.

1 '? REFORMED
THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY

5422 CLINTON BOULEVARD
JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI 39209
PHONE 601-922-4988

The Seminary has a racially
non-discriminatory admissions policy

PAGE 24 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 10, 1972

IL. XXXI, NO. 3 MAY 17, 1972 $4.00 A YEAR

le

'EESBYTERIAN JOURNAL

vocating continuation of a Presbyterian Church loyal to Scripture and the Reformed faith

AT A RECEPTION IN SAIGON, (left to right): Stuart C. Willcatz, World
Relief Commission staffer for Vietnam; Madame Nguyen Ngoc Le (see p. 3);
the Rev. Paul Fryhling, vice-chairman, World Relief Commission; and Journal
Editor G. Aiken Taylor, first vice-president of the National Association of
Evangelicals.

S. LESSON AND YOUTH PROGRAM FOR JUNE 4

dWOD

tl9LZ OR IITH ladBqo
ciri OK jo X^fsaoAiufi

MAILBAG

FOR A POSITIVE STAND

The issue of Dec. 8 (would you
believe it arrived here in April?)
carried a letter from a William R.
Wilson asking why there is so little
exhortation to Journal readers to-
ward truly Christian expressions of
social concern in the face of the
great human and social problems of
our time. Mr. Wilson, it appears to
me, bent over backwards to let you
know he understood your position in

opposing "social action" that is
merely humanism, or worse. His
very polite suggestion was that by
not adequately stressing legitimate-
ly Biblical Christian social concerns
in the Journal, you make it appear
that basic human concerns are of no
consequence to Christianity.

For several years I have shared
Mr. Wilson's feelings on this and, I
believe, a number of my missionary
colleagues do also.

the

PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL

Rev. G. Aiken Taylor, Ph.D., Editor
Rev. Henry B. Dendy, D.D., Managing Editor
Arthur H. Matthews, Assistant Editor

Circulation leader among independent publications in the Presbyterian-Reformed world

THIS WEEK — Vol. XXXI, No. 3, May 17, 1972

The House of Life 7

Some continue to live in the basement when they could enjoy
the whole mansion's grandeur By Cecil E. Burridge

Clear Channel to Heaven 9

It took a long time to get through, but this man now has
direct communication By Bill Cornelius

Changing Frequency 11

Some facts about heaven are clear, and it may not be as far
away as some think it is By Leighton Ford

De partments —

Editorials 12

The Layman and his Church 13

Sunday School Lesson, June 4 1 4

Youth Program, June 4 16

Book Reviews 1 8

THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL, a

Presbyterian weekly magazine, devoted
to the statement, defense, and propa-
gation of the Gospel, the faith which
was once for all delivered to the saints,

is published every Wednesday by the
Southern Presbyterian Journal Co.,
Inc., in Weaverville, N. C.

SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: $4 a year

for individuals, $3 for members of
Every Family Plan churches. All cor-
respondence regarding subscriptions,
advertising or other business matters,
should be addressed to the business
office in Weaverville, N. C. 28787.
Second class postage paid at Weaver-
ville, N. C. 28787.

POSTMASTER: Send Form 3579 to
Presbyterian Journal, Box 635, Wea-
verville, N. C. 28787. Subscribers
should allow three weeks for change
of address in continental U. S. Change
of address notices should include both
old and new addresses (with zip
codes) .

NEWS AND EDITORIAL correspond-
ence should be addressed to P. O. Box
3108, Asheville, N. C. 28802. Editorial
offices located at 247 Charlotte St. in
Asheville.

TELEPHONES: (All area 704) edi-
torial office, 254-4015, 254-4016;
business office, 645-3310, 645-3962.

I

i:.'

Your answer, a reference to tr
next letter plus a brief comment, w;
disappointing. Olin Coleman's letu
(the Colemans are personal frienc
doing a great job in a difficult are
of Brazil) obviously was not writte
as a reply to Mr. Wilson and it mer<
ly emphasized what Mr. Wilson ha
carefully allowed, namely that thei
is a type of social action whic
ignores Biblical principles and d
verts the Church from its main tasl

A Journal answer which I thin
would be appreciated by Mr. Wilso
and many other Journal readei|
would be for the magazine to begi
helping Biblically-moored Chris
tians to take positive, Biblical pos
tions and actions regarding the hi
man injustices and needs.

On occasion you have shown hoi
certain evangelicals have been an
are now involved in certain "social
projects. How about crying out rej
ularly for that kind of involvemen
from all of us as a Biblical mandate
It would incalculably strengths
your stand against the wrong kirn
of social involvement on the part c
the Church, and your contributioi
to the kingdom.

— (Rev.) Frank L. Arnold
Sao Luiz, Maranhao, Brazil

Our thanks for a candid suggestion
We are often misunderstood when w
say we honestly do not believe an ag
gressive social thrust is the way to ob
tain needed Christian social action. A
J. Sidlow Baxter says: "When th
Church preaches morality, morals dc
cline; when it preaches Christ cruci
fied and risen, morality reigns." A
a member of the social action com
mission of NAE, we agree. — Ed.

IN THE MIDST

Some kind soul saw fit to placi
my name upon your mailing list. A
a new reader of the Journal, al
though not a member of your de
nomination, I find myself right a
home amongst those who are con
tending for the faith that was onc<
delivered unto the saints. Let mc
add that the word "earnestly" mus
not be left out.

"The Occult: A Real Phenome
non" in the January 12 issue caugh
my eye. For years I have been watch
ing the phenomenon of the occul
with deep interest, and some of v
is frightening beyond words. Devi
possession is just as real today as i'
was in the days while Christ was here
upon earth. The only different

wm

(jms to be the manner in which it
tJnow presenting itself in the scien-
ce world.

[Whether or not we like the idea,
is rampant right in the midst of
ne who call themselves Christian
d this is the most frightening as-
ct of all. Truly, God's people are
stroyed for lack of knowledge and
ever there was a time when Hosea
and Isaiah 59 needed to be stud-
l with diligence and prayer, that
ne is now.

— Gerald H. Rentfro
Riverside, Cal.

iNISTERS

Frank A. Brooks from Brownfield,
Tex., to the Shepherd of the Hills
Presbyterian Parish, Bransfield,
Mo.

j Frederick L. Campbell from Ty-
[ler, Tex., to Dallas, Tex., as evan-
gelism associate of Covenant Pres-
bytery.

iLindsey Collins, recent graduate
of Columbia Seminary, to McCal-
lie School, Chattanooga, Tenn.,
as teacher.

Hugh N. Alexander from Acker-
man, Miss., to the Grace church,
Lancaster, S. C.

Joseph W. Berry Jr., from Eaton-
ton, Ga., to the Morningside
church, Columbus, Ga.
Fred Clark, H.R., from Athens,
Ala., to Uniontown, Pa.
F. Lionel Hallonquist Jr., from
Bonham, Tex., to the First
Church, Lewisville, Tex.
Charles C. Hendricks from Cole-
man, Tex., to the Central church,
Fort Smith, Ark., as associate pas-
tor.

Sam B. Hoyt Jr., from Conyers,
Ga., to the Olivet and Zion (Low-
rys) churches, McConnell's, S. C.
Herbert E. Kann, H.R., from Fort
Worth, Tex., to Fairfield Bay,
Ark.

C. Logan Landrum, H.R., from
Gulfport, Fla., to Southport, N. C.
Frank W. Langham, H.R., from
Austin, Tex., to Wimberly, Tex.
Stewart B. Lawrence, organizing
evangelist of the South Hills
church, Charleston, W. Va., has
been installed as pastor.

Robert McLeod from Crossett,
Ark., to the First Church, Duncan,
Okla.

Cecil B. Murphey from Atlanta,
Ga., to the Alexander Memorial
church, Decatur, Ga.

Freddie L. Powers from Petal,
Miss., to the Weir, Mt. Zion and
Bethlehem churches, Weir, Miss.
William F. Pruitt, on leave from
his missionary post in Congo, is
temporary member of the staff of
Highland Park church, Dallas,
Tex.

J. E. Toppins from Dallas, Tex.,
to Stillman College, Tuscaloosa,
Ala., as assistant director of devel-
opment.

Robert M. Matthews from Clay-
ton, Ga., to Clemson, S. C, as cam-
pus minister.

DEATH

Cecil V. Crabb, 82, died in Mem-
phis, Tenn., on Apr. 4. He served
churches in Oklahoma, Missis-
sippi, Kentucky and Tennessee
prior to his retirement in 1964.

* We're writing this on a Japan
irlines 747 over the Pacific on the
ly home from a tour of relief and
issionary work in Korea, Taiwan
id Vietnam — with stops in To-
o, Hong Kong and Bangkok. In
ch place the prime interest was
)rk associated with World Relief
>mmission of the National Associa-
m of Evangelicals. On the side
i had a chance to sit down with
esbyterian missionaries to discuss
e future of the Church in relation

their work. In Korea we watched
e prime minister decorate Dr. Ev-
ett Graffam, WRC executive, with
te of the nation's top awards (see

4, this issue) . In Vietnam we had
idiences with two of President
hieu's cabinet members whose re-
onsibilities include relief and wel-
re. We wish we could take several
ues of the Journal to tell you all
>out it — and to thank those of
u who made the trip possible. A
eliminary comment appears on p.

of this issue. We have scads of
des and movie footage that we
)uld like to share where it may do
e most good.

ACROSS THE EDITOR'S DESK

• The spirit of Vietnam was per-
sonified for us by Madame Nguyen
Ngoc Le (pronounced "lay") , the
widow of Vietnam's top general as-
sassinated several years ago. Ma-
dame Le has become Vietnam's Flor-
ence Nightingale, with most of her
time spent in veterans' hospitals and
in recruiting the wives of diplomats
and top military brass to do likewise.
She came to a reception held for rep-
resentatives of voluntary service agen-
cies working in that war time coun-
try. Smiling, gracious, beautiful,
one would never have suspected that
just the day before she had buried
her eldest son — the second to be
killed in action. When we man-
aged a moment with her privately to
express our sympathy, she said this:
"Before you can build with cement
and brick, you have to build with
blood. I am glad that I have had
sons to give to my country." What
a testimony!

• There is one sense in which the
Vietnam war seems to be immoral.
A top U. S. official, in a private con-
versation, put it to us this way: "I
am sick unto death of the way both
Russia and my country are making
these beautiful people do their fight-
ing for them. We are at war with
Russia for the freedom of the world,
but we are unwilling to pay the
price of freedom. Instead, we are
making these people pay that fear-
ful price while we go about business
as usual on the side. That is im-
moral." Amen. And the world
would be better off if every peace-
nik friend of Communism, every
protesting alleged "veteran" could
be shipped over, given a shovel and
put to work in the rebuilding that
must eventually be done.

• Oh yes. If you think the edi-
torial on p. 12 is significant, we
would be honored to have you send
it to your local newspaper. SI

PAGE 3 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 17, 1972

NEWS OF RELIGION

Government May Allow Church Lobbying

WASHINGTON (RNS) — The
Nixon Administration here endorsed
the "basic objectives" of a bill that
would allow public charities — in-
cluding Churches — to use a part of
their funds to lobby without losing
tax-exemption.

Testimony presented before the
House Ways and Means Committee
indicated, however, that the Admin-
istration would still impose consid-
erable limitations.

The bill in question, sponsored by
a bi-partisan group in Congress,
would allow privately supported
charities to spend up to 20 per cent
of their annual disbursements for
efforts to influence legislation.

Under current tax laws, exempt
groups may devote "no substantial
part" of their activities to lobbying.

Strong support for the measure
was voiced by Russell E. Train,
chairman of the President's Council
on Environmental Quality.

"Sympathetic" but less enthusias-
tic endorsement came from Edwin S.
Cohen, Assistant Secretary of the
Treasury for Tax Policy.

It did not seem likely that the Ad-
ministration would go as far as the
National Council of Churches has
asked in removing restrictions on the
attempts of churches and charities to
influence legislation.

KOREA — World Relief Commis-
sion programs in this country were
officially terminated in ceremonies
held during a visit of WRC repre-
sentatives from the U. S.

Full assumption of the wide-spread
relief and rehabilitation projects
was assumed by Christian nationals
and, where appropriate, by the Ko-
rean government, thus freeing WRC
resources for use in new areas of
need, such as Bangladesh.

At the time of the phasing out,
WRC was involved in a multi-mil-
lion dollar land reclamation project
at Honan, and in a host of lesser
efforts, including some 49 orphan-
ages, 13 baby homes, 2 schools for
the blind, 4 vocational schools, 280

Mr. Train and Mr. Cohen testi-
fied the day before the National
Council position was put before the
Ways and Means Committee by Wil-
liam P. Thompson, stated clerk of
the United Presbyterian Church
USA.

According to Mr. Cohen, there are
750,000 organizations on file as tax-
exempt charities. He said several
hundred thousand others have prob-
ably never sought an official ruling
but are also exempt.

The bill before the committee
would not apply to private founda-
tions. Nor would it allow charities
and churches to remain tax-exempt
if they used funds on behalf of po-
litical candidates. It would also al-
low no more than 5 per cent of the
20 per cent for lobbying at the
"grassroots."

Dr. Thompson said: "It is not the
province of government to define . . .
the purposes of Churches, nor how
they shall serve these purposes, nor
how much of that service may be ap-
plied to legislative issues, nor to
what public the churches' efforts . . .
must be directed."

"Fortunately," he added, "the
Constitution supports this view, we
feel, but we would adhere to it even
if the Constitution did not, since it
is the fruit of a tradition nearly 2,-

day nurseries, and the like.

Of unique value has been the day
nursery program, currently caring
for over 23,000 children of working
mothers. The program has sharply
reduced the number of abandoned
children in Korea, and helped intro-
duce Christianity into thousands of
pagan homes.

Signing on behalf of WRC in the
transfer of certain properties were,
Dr. Everett S. Graffam, executive
vice president of WRC; Dr. Paul
Fryhling of Minneapolis, vice chair-
man of WRC; and Dr. G. Aiken
Taylor of the Journal, first vice pres-
ident of the National Association of
Evangelicals, the parent body for
WRC. ffl

000 years old."

Dr. Thompson recommended th
Congress even delete the section
the code which now prohibits pu
lie charities from devoting any "su
stantial part of their activities" to «
tempts to influence legislation.

Churches qualify as charities u
der the tax laws. Dr. Thompsc
said that while the charitable pr
grams of Churches were once limitf
to direct aid to the poor, sick <
handicapped there has been a redel
nition.

"These agencies have come to s(
that such efforts do little more tha
provide band-aids for the hurts ii
flicted by society," he said. "The,
must also help to bring aboi
changes in society so that fewer pe<
pie suffer such hurts.

"They are no less 'public char
ties' than before; instead they hav
given fuller and more basic mear
ing to their concern for their fellov
man. The result is that today vii
tually every public charity is cor
cerned about public policy."

The fact that Churches and char
ties are supported by contribution
that are deductible from income ta:
should not disqualify them fron
public advocacy rights, the NCd
spokesman said.

"It should not be necessary t<
abandon the exercise of the right
guaranteed by the Constitution ii
order to qualify for tax exemption,'
he told the House committee. 3

Methodists Rejected
By Synod of Anglicans

LONDON (RNS) — The Genera
Synod of the Church of Englanc
(Anglican) has decisively rejectee
union with the Methodist Church ir
Britain.

To take the first major step to
ward union, the Synod's houses
Bishops, Clergy, and Laity — would
have had to endorse the plan
through the vote of 75 per cent ol
participating delegates.

The general average was 65.6 per
cent for approval, slightly more than
3 per cent less than the endorsement
received in the first Anglican vote
taken on July 8, 1969.

THE CHURCH OVERSEAS

PAGE 4 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 17, 1972

Methodist delegates, meeting in
mference in July 1969, provided
\ore than the required 75 per cent
> give their Church's consent to the
rst step toward union with Brit-
on's Anglicans.

The voting by the three Anglican
louses" of the General Synod:

- The bishops voted 85 per cent for
nion (34 to 6) .

-The clergy vote was 65.52 per cent
)r merger (152 to 80) .

- The laity vote (147 to 87) pro-
ided an endorsement that averaged
ut at 62.82 per cent. IS

Vithdraw Investments,
rom S. Africa-WCC Unit

1ENEVA (RNS)— The anti-racism
nit of the World Council of
Ihurches has urged Churches to

ithdraw all financial investments
jom companies operating in South
irica, according to a dispatch from
VCC headquarters here.

The commission of the Program
y Combat Racism also endorsed a
500,000 increase in the goal of a
pecial fund to support organizations
pposing racism and abiding victims
f racial injustice.

Proposals on investments and on
aising the fund goal from $500,000
o $1 million will go before the
VCC's policy-making Central Com-
littee when it meets in the Nether-
ands in August.

These recommendations were
drafted at a recent meeting of the
ontroversial commission in New
'ork.

The sessions were closed to the
iress and members of the commission
rere unavailable for interview.

What the commission is apparently
sking on investments is Church di-
estment of holdings in international
orporations or banks doing business
n South Africa. The target is the
partheid (racial separation) policy
if the white-dominated government
n that country.

Should the Central Committee en-
lorse such withdrawal, it would ex-
end and intensify a statement made
t the WCC's Fourth Assembly in
iweden in 1968. The Assembly said
hat investments should be with-
Irawn "from all institutions that

perpetuate racism."

While the commission seemed to
favor withdrawal of Church invest-
ments in firms doing business in
South Africa, it also said that stock-
holder action and confrontation is
a "stage prior to withdrawal."

One point of disagreement in the
movement to use Church financial
power against racism and in favor of
more "corporate responsibility" is
whether the Church should sever all
ties with certain companies or hold
stock as means to work for policy
changes.

The WCC anti-racism group re-
flected both sides of this question,
witli the weight of argument favor-
ing divestment.

The commission said some Church-
es and mission agencies that support
liberation movements in Africa and
political refugees continue to "con-
nive" with the "imperialistic and
racist activities of their countries and
of the southern African regimes." It
asked the WCC to "challenge" such
Churches and mission groups.

Some Churches, including several
U.S. denominations, argue that if all
participation is withdrawn from com-
panies with policies opposed by the
Churches, there will be no basis for
religious thrusts to improve opera-
tions.

An open issue is whether it would
be more productive for Churches to
wash their hands of companies
operating in South Africa or retain
investments and try to get those
firms to pull out — or at least do
more to improve the lot of blacks.

The commission of the Program
to Combat Racism rejected the lat-
ter — the so-called "Polaroid meth-
od" — as "legitimizing investment in
oppression."

The anti-racism program has a
broadly based mandate from the
WCC, composed of 255 Protestant
and Orthodox Churches. Included
is study of race relations and educa-
tion to overcome racism.

By far the most controversial part
of its work is the special fund to
support groups working against
racism. Of an initial goal of $500,000
— which has been surpassed —
grants totalling $400,000 have been
made to 32 groups.

Allocation of a part of that sum

to liberation movements in southern
Africa which reportedly use guerrilla
tactics caused an international storm
of protest. itl

Study Asks Ordination
Of Women of Two Faiths

WASHINGTON (RNS) — "Quali-
fied women" should be ordained to
the ministries of Roman Catholic,
Presbyterian, and Reformed Church-
es, a joint consultative unit has rec-
ommended.

The group's document will be for-
warded to the Churches for study.

The worship and mission section
of the Roman Catholic/Presbyterian
and Reformed Consultation, follow-
ing three years of study and research,
urged in a statement released here
that qualified women "be given full
and equal participation in policy
and decision-making, and voice in
places of power, in the Churches on
local, regional, national and world
levels."

In addition to ordination, the 10-
member worship and mission sec-
tion also recommended that:

— Seminary education in all the
Churches be open to qualified
women.

— Churches for which the ordina-
tion of women presents theological
difficulties, and which have not
made a theological study of the mat-
ter, establish a committee to investi-
gate the problem and make recom-
mendations.

The statement, directed to the
sponsoring agencies, called on the
North American Area Council,
World Alliance of Reformed Church-
es, and the Catholic Bishops' Com-
mittee for Ecumenical and Interreli-
gious Affairs to establish and fund
an "Ecumenical Commission on
Women."

Purpose of the commission would
be to "facilitate the fulfillment" of
the recommendations made by the
worship and mission section and "to
safeguard and extend the gains
made."

Bishop Ernest L. Unterkoefler of
Charleston, S. C, co-chairman of the
joint consultation, emphasized that
the document is a "study" report. II

PAGE 5 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 17, 1972

pi

THE CHURCH AT HOME

Silas M. Vaughn Named
President of Montreal

MONTREAT, N. C. — Silas M.
Vaughn, 46, chief business officer of
St. Andrews Presbyterian College
from 1959 to 1969 and since then
vice-chancellor for business affairs
for the University of North Carolina
at Charlotte, will become president
of the Mountain Retreat Association
June 1.

He will succeed C. Grier Davis,
who is retiring, in the association
post as well as in the companion
position of president of Montreat-
Anderson College. His selection was
announced here after a trustees'
meeting by Chairman James L. Mor-
gan.

Mr. Vaughn holds two degrees
from Austin College, Sherman, Tex.,
and has done graduate work at
North Texas State University and
the University of Kentucky. He is a
native of Collinsville, Tex.

He has been a staff member at
two other denominational colleges.
He managed the business office of
Presbyterian Junior College, a pre-
decessor of St. Andrews, and from
1954 to 1956 was business manager
of Davis and Elkins College in West
Virginia. He has also worked at
Gordon Military College, Barnes-
ville, Ga., and Southwestern Univer-
sity in Texas.

Mr. Vaughn has been active in
professional organizations and has
been a consultant to several institu-
tions. He and his wife, the former
Catherine Watts Stewart, are the
parents of two sons. He is a ruling
elder in Myers Park Church, Char-
lotte.

Dr. Davis, who was Montreat's top
officer for 13 years, will live in Ashe-
ville. ffl

Knoxville Rejects 44-46
Statement on Property

CHATTANOOGA — By a vote of
44-46, Knoxville Presbytery turned
down an overture that would have
put it on record in favor of uncon-
ditional congregational ownership of
property. Attempts to get a recount
or roll call of votes were unsuccess-

ful.

The proposed declaration includ-
ed this sentence: "If at any time any
local church ceases to be a member
of the Presbyterian Church in the
United States, the title and posses-
sion of the local church property
shall follow the congregation." The
overture from the First Church of
Soddy-Daisy also would have allowed
the congregation "to exercise any
privilege of ownership possessed by
property owners" under applicable
civil law. IB

Commissioners Are Sent
Supporting Materials

RICHMOND — Commissioners to
the 1972 Presbyterian US General
Assembly will not only receive the
official report and recommendations
from the denomination's Council on
Church and Society, but they will get
an extra mailing of background ma-
terials from the Board of Christian
Education's office of Church and so-
ciety.

George A. Chauncey, director of
the office, wrote in the introduction
to the 48 page book, "Most docu-
ments are generally supportive of
the positions recommended to the
General Assembly by the council,
but we have included some other
points of view also."

The council is asking the Assem-
bly's approval of papers on six con-
troversial subjects. They include
prison reform, Archbishop Helder
Camara of Brazil, reconciliation in
the school crisis, women in Church
and society, the war in Indochina,
and freedom of information.

Among the documents which do
not support the proposed pronounce-
ments is a 1971 letter from mission-
aries in Brazil. They opposed the
draft of the statement on the em-
battled Roman Catholic archbishop
of Recife. Since that letter was dis-
patched, other communications op-
posing such a statement have been
received from Brazil by the council.

Among the articles quoted in fa-
vor of the council's position on free-
dom is one from the conservative
magazine, National Review, and one
by North Carolina Senator Sam
Ervin. SI

Distaff Elders, Deacons
Passes 2/3 of RCA Classe

NEW YORK — Final approval mui
be given by the denomination
General Synod, but lower judic;
tories of the Reformed Church i
America have given the necessar
majority for passage of amendmeni
allowing ordination of women a
ruling elders and deacons.

The vote of the classes for the pre
posal was 30 to 14. A two-thirds mz
jority is required.

As has been the pattern in earlie
unsuccessful efforts, all the classes ii
the eastern part of the Church (22)
favored the change. In this year'
voting, 8 western classes also cast al
firmative ballots.

Ordination of women as minister
was not a part of the winnin;
amendment.

a

Board Starts Distributing
New Ecumenical Journa

RICHMOND (PN) — Each congre
gation in the Presbyterian Church
US will soon receive the first issuf
of Share, an ecumenical newspapei
for local church schools.

The new quarterly resource bean
the subtitle, "A Paper for Teachers
and Leaders," to highlight its intend
ed readership: church school teach
ers, superintendents, directors ol
Christian education, ministers and
congregational groups responsible foi
planning for church education.

A pilot edition of Share was pub
lished in August 1971 to test its use
fulness and viability. Readers were
asked by questionnaire to assess its
responsiveness to local needs. The
need for Share was affirmed "six to
one," and its news of resources and
the exchanging of ideas for church
education received particular sup
port from those who replied.

Mrs. Norma E. Koenig, United
Church of Christ, who edits the
ecumenical project, comments in the
first issue: "Share will try to be
practical and down-to-earth in some
articles, and then try to do some
'reaching and stretching' with a few
ideas and new models in others."

Since publication of the pilot issue,
Share has been endorsed as one pro-
ject of Joint Educational Develop-
ment (JED) in which national edu-
cational boards work together.

Eight of Share's 16 pages deal with
news and resources of interest to all
six denominations in JED. SI

PAGE 6 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 17, 1972

theological architect offers a blueprint for life —

The House of Life

UiT hen a man gives his name and
▼ » address, he sometimes adds a
rief description of his house and
ow to find it. In most cases, his
escription is sufficient, but it is not
le entire picture. It is true that a
lan may live at a certain address,
ut beyond that, every man lives in

world of his own making. Two
ten may live next door to each
ther, and yet live in different
orlds because they are interested
1 different things.

For example, take four men go-
lg to work on a bus in the morn-
lg. As they scan the morning pa-
er, each will open it to a different
lace. An ardent sports fan will
pen it to the sports page. The next
lan will turn to the financial page
d check on certain bonds. The
lird, being a political-minded per-
jn, hunts through the paper to get
le report of a precinct meeting that
let the night before. The fourth
lan, interested in the lighter side
f life, will turn to the comic page
Tst. And so, though the four men
ray be seated together, perhaps with
heir elbows touching, their minds
re not touching at all. Each is liv-
ig in a different world.

Each of us builds his own little
/orld and the house in which he
ives. We create a little world for
ourselves out of the bigger one, de-
igned and fashioned after our own
nterests and desires. Everyone,
Christian and non-Christian, builds
lis world to suit himself. The Chris-
ian, however, should be seeking
iod's instructions on how to con-
duct his house.

The author is the catechist of the
Iti Andrew's Presbyterian Church
fi Alberta, Canada, with home ad-
dress in Three Hills.

Under the direction of God, Noah
built a house three stories high.
"With lower, second and third
stories shalt thou make it" (Gen.
6:16). It was his house, his ark,
his world. It was a far different
world from the one the other peo-
ple of that day lived in. Noah
begged them to build and live as he
was living, but they preferred their
own world.

As in that day, every man's life
may be compared to a three-story
house, with a basement, first floor
and top floor. The things in life
which a man desires and enjoys the
most determine whether he is living
in the cellar of his nature or in the
upper stories. "The house of life"
is built like any other house — from
the basement up.

The Cellar

The history of the world is the
story of men working up out of
the basement into the top stories of
culture and civilization. The un-
civilized savage lives in the cellar of
life. His animal instincts and beast-
ly passions feed on the pleasures of
life, and so he lives in the dark base-
ment of fleshly desires.

The savage is not the only one
who lives in the cellar of life,
though. Anyone whose chief aim is
to eat, drink and be merry and satis-
fy the fleshly appetites and passions
of life lives in the basement. Jesus
gave us an illustration of such a per-
son in the parable of the farmer
who would build larger barns in
which to store his crops. He said
to himself, "Soul, thou hast much
goods laid up for many years; take
thine ease, eat, drink, and be mer-
ry."

1 he farmer lived in the basement
of the house. His desires were flesh-

CECIL E. BURRIDGE

ly and worldly. He lived for him-
self alone. "But God said unto him,
Thou fool, this night thy soul shall
be required of thee" (Luke 12:19-
20) . In this we see that it is quite
possible that those who live in the
basement are fools. The constant
search for worldly enjoyment de-
stroys the love and the sense of God
in the soul. A life made up chiefly
of pleasure is usually worthless in
the sight of God.

Burled in Pleasure

The Bible tells us "that in the last
days perilous times shall come. For
men shall be lovers of their own
selves . . . lovers of pleasure more
than lovers of God" (II Tim. 3:1-
4) . We need only look around us to
see what this maddening search for
thrills has wrought as far as sorrow
and shipwrecked lives are concerned.
The pleasures of sin are only for
"a season" and will leave one with
a bitter taste and eventually a ruined
life. On the other hand, the joys
of Christ are sweet, having promise
for this life as well as the next one.

We would do well to remember
what happened to the bee who found
a pot of honey. He decided to get
his fill of it, rather than go to all
the trouble of flying about the
meadows to gather honey the nat-
ural way from the flowers. Obliv-
ious to all else, the bee began to
sip out of the luscious dish of nec-
tar, reveling in its delights. But
when he began to get tired and full,
he found that his wings were all
clogged up. He could not open his
wings, nor could he drag himself
out of the sticky stuff. Eventually
he died — buried in pleasure.

There are many like that bee who,
unless they turn to Christ will find
death in overindulgence and illicit

PAGE 7 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 17, 1972

thrill seeking. We would call a man
a fool who had a fine house with
sunlit upper stories, but who persist-
ed in living in the cellar all the
time. Yet many men are content to
live like beasts in the basement of
life seeking to satisfy themselves with
the gratifications of the flesh.

The basement is the first part of
the house that is built, but it is not
meant for men to stay in. Though
useful, the cellar is meant to support
something better and higher. Alan
is created in the image of God, and
the psalmist says God has "made
him a little lower than the angels"
(Psa. 8:5) . Therefore, we are to
reach higher.

The Bible does not teach that we
are to be separated from contact
with evil in the world, or even in
the Church, but it does teach that
we are not to conform to the evils
of the world. It is only by living
"in Christ" and being "filled with
the Holy Spirit" that we can pos-
sibly lift the world, and ourselves,
to a higher level. It is only by being
separated from the evils of the
world that we can influence others
for good.

In the days of the early Christians,
there was quite a distinction be-
tween the lives of those who lived
under the world's system and were
dominated by satanic influence, and
those who lived for Christ. It was
a distinction so clear that a deep
impression was made on the pagan
world of that time.

Today, that distinction is to be
maintained. That is the way Jesus
meant it to be. Jesus once said,
"Seek ye first the kingdom of God,
and His righteousness, and all these
things shall be added unto you"
(Matt. 6:33). There are higher
stories of life than the basement,
and God would have us live in and
enjoy these higher rooms.

The Main Floor

The place in which we spend most
of our time, where we labor day af-
ter day, is the main floor. Here
most business is carried on and the
work done. Though some people
hate it, work can be a blessing to
man. God said to Adam, and to
all men, "In the sweat of thy face
shalt thou eat bread" (Gen. 3:19).

God is the great worker who cre-
ated man and the universe. He de-
creed that man should work too, and
thereby find happiness. Even Jesus
earned His living by the sweat of

His brow as a carpenter, until He
left for the ministry. God could give
us all we want or desire without ef-
fort on our part, but what would
be the result? We would not be as
happy as we think we would. Our
lives would be empty, purposeless
and hopeless.

Some who try to go through life
without working spend much time
dodging the bill collector. They
live at the other fellow's expense.
Often they go to jail. Once a crim-
inal, while exchanging his suit for
prison garb, remarked, "I never did
a day's work in my life." He was in
jail reaping the harvest of what he
had sown.

Work Is a Blessing

God knew what was best when
He made the main floor, the ground
story of life. He knew work would
be a blessing when rightly used. He
knew, too, it would be a curse when
used wrongly, so His Word speaks
to both the wicked and the righ-
teous, that they shall be rewarded
in kind for the evil and good deeds.
"The wicked worketh a deceitful
work: but to him that soweth
righteousness shall be a sure reward.
As righteousness tendeth to life: so
he that pursueth evil pursueth it to
his own death" (Psa. 1 1 : 18-19) .

One day a Communist agitator
rode into a city park on his bicycle.
There he leaned the bike against
a tree, mounted a soap box and be-
gan to address the crowd. "If you
want something," he shouted, "raid
a shop and take it. Pay no attention
to what anybody says. If your wife
hasn't got a good coat, pick the best
one you see. Ignore the law if it's
against your best interests."

After he finished his speech he
went to retrieve his bicycle and find-
ing it gone, he shouted, "Hey,
where's the bum who took my bicy-
cle?"

How true are the words of God:
"They that plow iniquity, and sow
wickedness, reap the same" (Job
4:8).

God wants us to step from the
lower stories of life to the top floor.
Only on this level can one find the
grandeur of life's mansion. If the
flesh is subdued and subjected to the
will of God, the upstairs of life be-
comes very beautiful. In this upper
story of "the house of life," God
may not put riches in our pockets
and gratify our physical desires, but
He will add joy to our souls.

I

Paul told us, "If ye then be rise ■
with Christ, seek those things whic
are above, where Christ sitteth o
the right hand of God. Set yoi
affections on things above, not o
things on the earth" (Col. 3:1-2).

As we study the Gospels we fin
that Jesus put great emphasis o
personal faith. He made it plai
that we can attain heaven on]
through Him; all other methods fa:
The Bible says we "must believe th;
He is," so after all the evidence :
in, we still have to take the fin;
step in faith. "If thou canst believi
all things are possible to him tin
believeth" (Mark 9:23).

Unless one accepts Jesus Christ a
He is presented in the Scriptures, h
is not a Christian. One must accep
Christ as his Saviour and be "bor: ;
again" of God's Holy Spirit. On
must accept by faith that Jesus wa
born of a virgin; that He was cruqi
fied, dead and buried for the salvj Ij
tion of believers; that He rose agaii I
from the dead in proof of the resui I
rection for all; that He went int< I
heaven from whence He shall com I
to judge the world; that when H I
returns He shall separate the sheej I
(the saved) from the goats (the ur I
saved) , the former to be given
place in heaven and the latter to h
cast into the lake of fire.

Stairway to God

These things are taught in th
Scriptures and anyone who denie
them or tries to change them is no
of Christ's flock. Men who insist oi
changing God's Word are warned
"As we said before, so say I nov
again, if any man preach any othe
gospel unto you than that ye hav >
received, let him be accursed" (Eph
1:9).

Anyone who tries to be a Chris
tian by bypassing the new birth i
living in the cellar of the house
The only way he can reach the toj
story is by climbing the stairway t(
God through Jesus Christ. Step b;
step he must come up out of th<
basement to the top floor.

The first step is conviction; man*
needs to be convicted of his sins
The second step is confession; h<
needs to confess he needs th<
Saviour. The third step is conver
sion; he needs to be convertec
through the new birth. The fourtl
step is commitment; he needs tc
commit himself, body, heart, sou
and mind to Christ. The last step
is continuance; he must continue tc

PAGE 8 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 17, 1972

rve the Lord as long as he is able
! do so.

When we move from one house
another, we collect our valuables
id transfer them to the next house,
he trash and dust are swept up and
^posited in the garbage can. What
j pity it is to see a man moving
om this world to the next still

burdened with the trash and filth
of sin. How sad it is to see him un-
able to reach heaven because he nev-
er allowed Christ to wash him clean
of all his guilt.

Like the men of Noah's day who
refused to repent and were lost in
the flood, so men today who refuse
Christ will forfeit their lives. We

can keep our filthy sin and ruin,
our souls lost for eternity, and stay
forever in the basement; or we can
have cleansing and salvation from
sin, with joy and peace and righteous-
ness and life eternal in the top story.
God has given us a free will and we
can choose which way we will go.
Which will it be? 11

became what I thought I was, a Christian" —

Clear Channel to Heaven

BILL CORNELIUS

'm really happy for that man. He

• sure had a messed up life. It's
onderful that he got himself
raightened out," I thought as I lis-
ned to the speaker at the CBMC

• nner.

' It wasn't the first time I had heard
\ovr Jesus Christ had delivered a
tan from sin and chaos, but it
idn't relate to me. My partner,
lilt Salomon, had been inviting me
> these dinners for some time. And

didn't take long to develop the
:eling that Milt didn't consider me
Christian. Nothing could be
irther from the truth, I thought,
lilt knew I was nothing like the
lan speaking; I was a good man.

I always answered a resounding
Yes" to the question, "Are you a
ihristian?" But the word Christian
)day has taken on a meaning that
oes not describe the same person
s described in the Bible, and God
as about to show me that my yes
nswer was a lie!

My basis for calling myself a Chris-
ian was that I had been baptized
nd confirmed. I was educated in a
eligiously oriented school for 12
ears. I went to church every Sun-
ay. I had participated in church
ctivities through the years. I came
rom a good home and I now had a
ood home. I provided well for my

The author is a partner in an elec-
ronics firm in Pittsburgh, Pa., and
he assistant secretary of the Pitts-
•urgh South Hills Christian Busi-
'ess Men's Committee. His testi-
mony is reprinted from CBMC's
Contact by permission.

wife and children. I had no big
sin in my life!

As I sat there listening, I won-
dered why I had come. It was the
same as the other dinners: men sing-
ing songs that belonged at a church
meeting, praying right out loud in
their own words and speaking to
Jesus Christ as though they knew
Him personally. It was all very em-
barrassing. I certainly wasn't overly
anxious to attend these dinners, and
yet, each time Milt invited me, I
found myself there.

We had been in business 11 years.
You get to know a man when you
work together that long. Milt and
I met at an electronics school. Up-
on graduation in 1954, he, I and an-
other graduate opened S.O.S. Elec-
tronics. Everything was against us.
It was a partnership begun with
three inexperienced businessmen. It
wasn't long until we realized our in-
come was barely sufficient to sup-
port the business, let alone three
partners. Since our partner had an-
other job, it was decided that he
would leave the business.

Some Changes

Partnerships are difficult and
where partners have grown families
and live in the same building,
chances of survival are even slim-
mer. God must have been watching
over us even then. The business
grew year by year, and so did our
families until now. Milt and I each
have six children.

I remember the day in 1962 when
Milt announced that we would have
to make some changes in our com-

pany due to the fact that his life
had been changed. I didn't under-
stand what Milt meant by a changed
life. But as the weeks went by, I
began to realize what he meant.

Milt informed our employees that
we would no longer tolerate vulgar
language, stories, jokes and such, in
the shop or office. He also objected
to company Christmas parties with
liquor and all the trimmings. He
began to open company meetings
with prayer. He became fanatical-
ly honest. Milt's reason for all these
changes was that he now knew
Jesus Christ and could no longer do
the things he had done in the past.

Milt and I had always had dif-
ferent religions, but they never in-
terfered with our business. I just
couldn't understand what had hap-
pened. As time went on, I became
less tolerant toward Milt's convic-
tions. He said he had had an ex-
perience with Christ and that I need-
ed a similar experience. I interpret-
ed what Milt professed as a type or
form of another religion.

He attempted on several occasions
to open the Bible to me. I never
permitted this since I was taught that
the interpretation of Scripture was
impossible by laymen. That was
left solely to the scholars and theo-
logians of my church. I simply re-
lied upon them to tell me what to
do, how to live and how to go to
heaven — maybe.

While this was going on in my
business life, my wife Nancy was
also experiencing some religious
frustrations. I was not aware of her
problem until one Sunday morning
as we started to leave church, I saw

PAGE 9 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 17, 1972

my wife turn back into church. My
children and I waited in the parking
lot for some time. When Nancy
came out, I asked her, "Why did
you go back into church?"

Her answer was, "I was trying to
find God." She explained she just
couldn't seem to "feel" God or get
through all the maze of pomp and
circumstance and ceremony. Nancy
told me that she had asked God,
"If You are really there, God, and
You can be known, then show me."

My attitude was about the same
toward Nancy as it was toward my
business partner — not interested.

Milt kept inviting us to CBMC
dinners. My wife and I attended
three couples' banquets from 1965 to
1968. As we associated more and
more with these CBMCers, I began
to notice that their lives were dif-
ferent. They called themselves
Christians, yet they were different
from the Christians with whom I
had associated for many years.

But the thing that began to give
me much unrest was the fact that
these men were actually living the
life they spoke about. They talked
openly about Jesus Christ. This was
something I had never witnessed in
any of my experiences with church
organizations. My experience in
church work was oriented to raising
funds, contributing time or just
plain entertainment. I began to see
that these people were not acting, but
really loved God and spoke freely
about Him.

Not Quite Comfortable

Why couldn't I do the same? 1
called myself a Christian, yet I
didn't feel comfortable in their pres-
ence. I just didn't fit. I never spoke
about spiritual things outside the
walls of a church building. Never-
theless, I had an urge to want to be
like them. I did nothing about it,
though, because it had occurred to
me that my social life would not be
compatible with their religion. My
social life and drinking were not on-
ly compatible with my religion, but
were included in our church socials.

One Sunday morning upon leav-
ing church, my family and I passed
by several tables set up at the park-
ing lot entrance where churchmen
were selling chances on a nice new
automobile on display. My oldest
daughter, 11 years old at the time,
asked me: "Dad, didn't Jesus chase
money changers out of the temple
once?"

I realized that a "no" answer
would negate the Bible and a "yes"
answer would require some explain-
ing. So I took the easy way and ad-
vised Amy to ask one of the men
who was selling the chances. When
Amy returned with her sister, Pam-
ela, who had gone to give her sup-
port, she told me the man answered,
"Go away, little girl. You must be
reading the wrong Bible."

This preyed on my mind the
whole of that Sunday. "Wrong Bi-
ble?" Is there a right and wrong
Bible?

Contradictions

Monday morning brought business
affairs that moved Sunday's thoughts
into the back of my mind. Yet I had
Milt's life witness before me every
day and an occasional CBMC dinner
meeting to keep the contradiction
active within me. This unrest be-
gan to gather more momentum week
by week.

I found myself objecting to truth
and plain common sense just for the
sake of objecting. Yet I claimed to
be a straight thinker, one who could
look at reality and deal with it. I
was never one to bury my head in
the sand — so I thought.

How could I claim to be a straight
thinker and object to honesty, even
if it were fanatical honesty? How
could I condone celebrating Christ's
birth with a booze party? Could I
say it's right for a Christian to wor-
ship God on Sunday morning and
then live the other days as though
there were no God? Could I agree
with the preaching from the pulpit
that alcohol is the destroyer of fam-
ilies, then attend a church social that
same evening which included drink-
ing? Could I tell my children not
to go to certain movies, then employ
a babysitter so I might go?

While I was experiencing these
conflicts within, these "other Chris-
tians" were before me. They ap-
peared to be successful. They
seemed to have the strong willpow-
er required to live a true Christian
life. They seemed to be happy even
when depriving themselves. Most
of all, it was apparent that they had
a deep peace I knew nothing of and
a confidence I longed for.

The spring of 1968 found my wife
and me at another CBMC couples'
banquet. This time we were both
more tuned in. The speaker, during
his testimony, kept quoting a verse
from Romans 10: "If you confess

with your lips that Jesus is Lol
and believe in your heart that G<
raised Him from the dead, you sh;.
be saved." Then he gave an
lustration of what it meant to i
cept, trust, and believe on Jes
Christ.

After the banquet that evening n
wife and I discussed the testimoi
we had heard, and the illustratic
that he had given. God wants us
identify ourselves with Jesus Chri
— just as we identify ourselves wii
one another on our wedding da
This shed some light on what Mi
had been saying for several yeai
Still, I couldn't see how it relate
to me in religious terms.

Several weeks after the sprirl
CBMC banquet, we were invited l|:
a church to hear a man speak whoi
I had met through Milt and CBM(
I admired and respected this mai
We visited the church on three coi
secutive Sundays. My wife and
were overwhelmed with the warmt
and concern of the congregatioi
The following Saturday one of th
leaders of the church called to as'
if he and another man might pa
us a visit that evening. I w£;
amazed to find that we had nc
made any plans for the evening. Sa
urday was usually the night out.

We invited them to visit us an
speculated upon the reason.
suspected they might be solicitin
for membership in their church o
for a contribution.

One to Remember

It was none of these. Rather, i
turned into an evening to be remeir
bered throughout eternity.

One of the men asked my wife i
she would like to receive Jesus Chris
as Saviour. After a short talk Nan
cy prayed. I began to feel embar
rassed and uncomfortable, so I re
moved myself from the living room
About ten minutes later I returned
My wife was asked to tell me wha
she had done.

Then I was asked if I, too, woulc
like to trust Jesus. The realizatior
of making a choice came over me.
thought of how I wanted to be lik(
those other Christians. I did no'
understand what it was all aboui
but for the first time I really wantec
whatever it was they had. So 1
prayed and asked Jesus Christ tc
come into my life.

The next morning, Sunday, we oi

(Continued on p. 20, col. 2)

PAGE 10 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 17, 1972

ot so much a different place as a different frequency —

Changing Frequency

[L_l ave you ever asked yourself what
|L people will do when they get
p heaven? You might, of course, be
'ne of the many who feel that the
ubject of heaven is irrelevant when
here are so many problems for us
o worry about here on earth.

Perhaps you think heaven seems
o far away, unreal and uninterest-
ng. Maybe some day I'll want to
;o to heaven, you might say, but
ight now life is so exciting. Perhaps
leaven brings to your mind pictures
if baldheaded ex-businessmen with
rings, strumming harps and sitting
m clouds. Or maybe you have the
ague notion of one long, old-fash-
oned Sunday where we sing dull
ongs and listen to boring sermons
orever.

I believe that heaven is a rele-
ant and exciting a topic as we can
hink about. Whereas earthly prob-
;ms of war, pollution, poverty,
ouch many lives, death touches
very life. And what happens then?

Heaven is not remote. Ephesians
:6 tells us that the Christian is al-
eady seated "in heavenly places in
Christ Jesus." Christ literally lives
n the believer, here and now, ac-
ording to Colossians 1:27.

A famous scientist who had popu-
arized the idea that matter is actu-
lly porous, that a solid wall, for
xample, is mostly space, has refuted
he possibility of a heaven way out
n space. In a conversation with Dr.
rwin Moon of the Moody Institute
if Science, the scientist argued that
f Abel, Cain's murdered brother,
tad traveled at the speed of light for

The author is an associate evange-
ist with the Billy Graham Evange-
istic Association. This is a condensa-
ion of a recent text for The Hour
>f Decision radio program.

6,000 years he would still have cover-
ed only a small portion of the space
which powerful telescopes have seen.
So Abel would still have thousands
of years to go before he reached
heaven!

Yet if one accepts the theory of
the porosity of matter, then it would
be possible for two earths to occupy
the same space at the same time and
neither be conscious of the other's
existence. In other words, Dr. Moon
concluded, "to get to heaven I may
not have to move an inch. All I
have to do is change to a different
frequency."

God's headquarters are probably
near us, but on a different frequency.
And when by faith we get on that
frequency, heaven makes a difference
in our lives right now, not just
when we die!

Heaven is not a ghostlike foggy
atmosphere where disembodied
spirits float around. I believe heaven
is as real, if not more so, than this
earth. Jesus told His men, "I go
to prepare a place for you" (John
14:2) . Paul taught that we would
have new bodies in heaven, superior
to those that we have now because
they will not be perishable (I Cor.
15:50).

Plenty To Do

Again, contrary to many popular
ideas, heaven is not dull. The things
that are killjoys on earth — selfish-
ness, greed, hatred, death — will all
be gone. Think of the most joy filled
moments in your life. Subtract the
sadness that comes when we realize
how fleeting our pleasures are here.
Add the full presence of God. Multi-
ply by infinity. And that's what
heaven will be like!

Heaven will not be a place where
we sit around with nothing to do.

LEIGHTON FORD

The Bible suggests that heaven will
be a place for dynamic, creative and
untiring activity. God will have work
for us, but without toil and fatigue.
In heaven all our creative powers
will find fulfillment as we offer
them to God in worship. Heaven
will provide us with the opportunity
to fulfill all those unexpressed cre-
ative urges that we have, be they
painting, writing or singing. Indeed,
in heaven you'll sing to your heart's
content and to God's glory.

We will also worship God. In the
book of Revelation, John wrote of
"a great voice of a great multitude
in heaven, saying, Hallelujah: Sal-
vation and glory and honor and
power unto the Lord our God"
(Rev. 19:1). Above all, we shall
serve God. Heaven will be a place
of rest from sin and suffering, but
not from service.

We shall also see God. Heaven
will be a place of intellectual stimu-
lation. Here we "see through a glass
darkly" but there face to face. Those
great questions about the Trinity,
about why God permits evil, about
predestination and free will, that we
discuss endlessly here, will be an-
swered. Heaven will be an eternal ex-
ploration of the greatness of God
and His creation. We will be able
to "love the Lord our God with all
our minds."

Maybe some of you are still skepti-
cal about heaven. However, I believe
the word of Jesus when He said
that He was going to prepare a place
and would come back and take me
there. He backed up His promise by
dying and returning from the dead.
No one else has ever done that!

Secondly, I believe it's true be-
cause I'm experiencing heaven now.
When we receive Christ as Saviour

(Continued on p. 20, col. 3)

PAGE 11 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 17, 1972

EDITORIALS

Is It the End for a Gallant Nation?

(Upon completion of his trip to the
Far East, the editor wrote the follow-
ing personal reflection on the situa-
tion in Southeast Asia.)

I have just returned from Viet-
nam. Five days are hardly enough
to qualify anyone as an expert on
anywhere, so I'm no expert on the
situation in that war time country.
But our group was there during
some of the war's worst fighting
(April 26-30) — a period the media
outdid themselves to describe as one
in which the United States reduced a
poor, peace-loving nation to man-
gled, bloody horror. Despite the se-
verity of the fighting, we found it
simply wasn't so.

I did not visit any scene of active
combat. But I did spend hours in
a DC-3 surveying several thousand
square miles of lush, green moun-
tains and plains, and I tramped all
over Da Nang and Hoa Khanh, some
400 miles to the north of Saigon. I
saw two (that's two) signs of the
war in addition to the military pres-
ence everywhere. One was a patch
of bomb craters about 50 miles from
Saigon and the other was a sudden,
single white puff of smoke on a
green hillside south of the mountain
resort city of Dalat.

The rest of the countryside looked
as peaceful and unmarred as the cit-
ies and towns I surveyed and photo-
graphed. No doubt many an enemy
lurked out of sight and sudden death
no doubt came to some in varied
ways. But the spectacle of a demol-
ished country simply did not appear.
Instead I saw much construction un-
der way in those places I was shown.
New buildings were going up in ev-
ery city, Christian schools were go-
ing up, Christian work was thriving,
missionaries were moving about
their accustomed routine with no
thought of leaving.

The war in the far north raged
in all its reported fury, but it was
almost as remote to the people of
Saigon or Da Nang as to those of
Tokyo or Taipei. Except for the
checkpoints and convoys, and aircraft
whistling away, one could easily per-
suade himself that he was in a grow-

ing nation at peace.

Off in the distant highlands the
awful tragedy of smoke and dust and
death engulfed a village here, a
mountain pass there, a long battered
border point. But the destruction
in Vietnam, until most recent days,
has been highly localized, however
intense at this or that place. To say
that some city was "cut off" by the
enemy, usually meant it would be
quite dangerous to travel the seem-
ingly peaceful highway leading out.
Only seldom did it mean that
frightened people could not sleep
for the noise of bombs and shells.

Perhaps the best way to picture
Vietnam as I saw it is to think of
the Revolutionary War in relation
to the colonies, or the Mexican War
in relation to the rest of the States.
Men died in fierce encounters in
Trenton and the Alamo, but life
went on pretty much as usual in New
York, Chicago and San Francisco.

If the military situation turns into
a disaster, it will be because the
"child" didn't learn to swim when
he was tossed into the water to fend
for himself — largely at the insis-
tence of American peaceniks and
friends of Communism.

Meanwhile, the present agony
(greatly intensified since I left) has
produced some unexpected devel-
opments: Both the national student
union, and organized labor, deeply
shamed at the behavior of the na-
tion's soldiers, have been reported in
the press as strongly in support of
President Thieu. The student union

— often anti-government in the past

— has now suggested that students
would be willing to have the univer-
sities closed down in order that they
might be sent to the front.

There's no such thing as a moral
war — all war is hell — but there is
such a thing as a moral cause for
which men are willing to go through
hell. If there is such a cause in the
world today, I now am convinced, it
is Vietnam.

I don't intend to stand still again
for the charge that America is doing
an immoral thing in Vietnam. That
charge, I now believe, is made by

those whose sympathies are with th
enemy, or by the uninformed wh
have been listening to the wrong pec
pie. No country, I now believe, ha
ever been slandered as Americ
lately has been slandered.

Two examples suffice: 1) It ha
been said that the Viet Cong repre
sent the true spirit of the people. L
every place I was told that the Vie
Cong, to all practical purposes, n«
longer exist as an organized move
ment to be reckoned with. Theri
are no Viet Cong reported in thi
present fighting. The enemy is al
together North Vietnamese.

2) It has been suggested that thi
country is full of children scarred b)
napalm. I heard of no childrer
scarred by napalm. The doctor ir
charge of the country's largest chil
dren's hospital said he had not treat

-

ed a napalm burn in the three year; I
he had been there. Gasoline burns
yes. Burns from playing with flares,
yes. But napalm burns, no. The
military says it has not used napalm
where civilian casualties were antici-
pated, and I believe it.

America has been sold a mon-
strous lie concerning the Vietnam
war. From now on I intend to let
my pride show, when the subject of
our national involvement in South
east Asia comes up. I am not proud
of some of the Americans I saw in
Vietnam, but as a country we need
apologize to no one.

The Message Is Power

Ideas do have consequences, and
what we believe does determine what
we do. These oft-repeated statements
are eternally true.

A quick answer by most Christians
to the question, "What is the Word
of God?" would be, "Why, the Bible,
of course." All through our lives
"word" meant the "written word"
or the "spoken word." In the area
of faith, too, we have probably un-
derstood generally that "the Word of
God" meant first the written Word,
the Bible as a book.

The message of the Bible is power.
By searching the Scriptures one can
be surest led to faith and a full
giving over to Jesus Christ. We cher-
ish the Scriptures, and once I heard
someone say, "Some of my friends
will not be happy when they arrive
in heaven if the Bible in book form
is not there."

We are pointed not to the Bible,

PAGE 12 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 17, 1972

THE LAYMAN AND HIS CHURCH

A Man Who Cared

rwever, but to Christ. We worship
rt inscripturated Word but the liv-
(jr Word. The Scriptures lead us
<r Him. They are absolutely au-
t Dritative but they do not comprise
2 of the Word of God.
Since they are inerrant and au-
oritative, what do they themselves
fc/ about it? "In the beginning was
It e Word" (John 1:1,3). Note that
(irist is mentioned before time ex-
ied, before any written Scriptures
l;re inspired. (See Rev. 19:13b:
\nd His name is called the Word
, God.")

These are mind-expanding mes-
ses. They cause us to enlarge our

sion of the faith, broaden our view
I Christ, of what He means for all

pects of life.

Because the humanistic philosophy
existence has become dominant
rough the last three centuries and
aterialism now runs rampant, even
e people of God have accommo-
(ited themselves to the sweep of
ings. The Church has narrowed
> concern and preaching. The faith
•metimes has been constricted to
jrsonal salvation, the Gospel mes-
ge to the individual, and study of
le Bible considered useful for these
temes only.

This is a tragic sin of omission,
hrist is infinite in power and in
emands for embracing all of life in
[im. So, too, the Word. It is in-
:nded to encompass all that we do
r feel. All of the societal affairs that
umans engage in are to be brought
nder the sway of the Word.

A major reason for the loss of
lany of our young people, even
Le Christian-reared ones, to escap-
m or hedonism or radical destruc-
onism is that they did not see in
it brand of Christianity meaning-
d answers for all of life. They are
eep-probing, these serious-minded
Jung people, and they want an all-
iswering philosophy. We have not
lown them that our faith is that
ind; we failed to personally live our
ay of life in Christ outside of
lurch and failed to so organize our
)cietal affairs.

Let us catch the large vision. Let
s be done with the narrow view of
ur faith. This can be done if we
tke the Word of God in all its
ower. — Robert M. Metcalf Jr. 51

The physical body is not the im-
ortant thing. The Bible says that
lis earthly tabernacle is not all
E life. — R. Earl Allen.

Jeremiah certainly never planned
to be a prophet, and after God called
him his message to repent or be de-
stroyed fell on deaf ears. It was ig-
nored. After all, were not the Ju-
deans God's chosen people? Had
not God given them the land? They
went on about their business with
the attitude, "God loves us, surely
He will not destroy us."

Israel had already fallen into cap-
tivity years before and God's judg-
ment would also fall on Judah, but
the people couldn't see they were
walking the same wide road to de-
struction. Although God's faithful
servant was trying to turn the tide,
Jeremiah met with despicable disre-
gard and ridicule. Being called a
prophet of doom pierced his soul.
Often discouraged, he was ready to
give up his task, but God's Word
burned in his heart and he could
not quit.

"Is it nothing to you?" Jeremiah's
voice did not hide the angry frustra-
tion he felt in his heart. "Is it
nothing to you, all ye that pass
by? .... From above hath He sent
fire into my bones . . . mine eyes do
fail with tears, my heart is trou-
bled."

Oh, how Jeremiah cared! His be-
loved land of Judah was in apostasy,
his people had wandered far from
God. When God spoke to this tim-
id, sensitive, tender-hearted young
man, "Before I formed thee ... I
ordained thee a prophet," Jeremiah
shrank from the task, saying, "I can-
not speak." But God touched his
lips and told him, "Behold, I have
put my words into thy mouth." Jere-
miah had to speak!

Jeremiah was imprisoned as a
traitor for prophesying against Jeru-
salem. His words were read before
kings, rejected and burned, only to
be written again, for he knew he
must warn his people. Some of the
most judgmental, yet some of the
tenderest, words in all the Scriptures

Mrs. David L. Coleman, formerly
of Slidell, La., brings this week's
thoughts of a layman. She now lives
in Paradise, Cal.

came from the lips of Jeremiah,
those lips which had been touched
by the finger of God.

But who listened? A faithful
scribe and a faithful friend who
once rescued him from a miry
dungeon, and that seemed to be all.
How utterly discouraging it must
have been to preach a message no
one would hear or heed.

With increasing momentum, the
nation headed for the inevitable
disaster. The Babylonians entered
Jerusalem, raided the temple, and
carried off many of the nation's fine
young men, but still the people did
not heed the warnings. God never
sends judgment without first sending
warnings, and He refrained from
destroying the people for 20 years,
giving them every opportunity to
repent.

Jeremiah continued to speak God's
words as long as he lived, but he
seemed to accomplish nothing. No
successes cheered his heart; he got
only failure, hostility and heart-
break. God has never said we must
be successful. He only asks us to be
faithful. Jeremiah never swerved
from his God-given task, and God's
grace was sufficient.

Jeremiah's voice still speaks from
the pages of our Bibles, and his mes-
sage still goes largely unheeded.
"Arise, cry out in the night; in the
beginning of the watches pour out
thine heart like water before the
face of the Lord: lift up thy hands
toward Him for the life of thy young
children, that faint for hunger in
the top of every street."

Is it Jeremiah's voice or the voice
of God himself, calling us to pray,
to pray fervently, even to lose some
sleep over the plight of the
children in our land? Pour out
your hearts, which must be melt-
ed and broken before they can
be poured out. Jesus wept over lost
souls. Will you? Lift up your
hands, not to help God, but to of-
fer them for service to let Him
work His way through you.

The children and youth of our
own land are fainting all around, on

(Continued on p. 19, col. 3)

PAGE 13 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 17, 1972

SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON

For June 4, 1972

What Is the Devotional Life?

Rev. Jack B. Scott

INTRODUCTION: In the new
quarter which begins today we will
be studying "The Bible and the De-
votional Life." The first unit dwells
particularly on the devotional life
itself, the second is concerned with
seeking answers through the devo-
tional life. The third unit is en-
titled "Expressions of Devotion."
Unit four will look at group devo-
tions and the final unit of study for
the summer quarter is on the topic
"Extensions of Devotion."

The word we use as "devout" or
"devotion" is in the New Testament
often translated "godly" or "godli-
ness." The term devout, as found
in the original Greek, occurs only
four times in the New Testament.
It describes Cornelius whom we shall
study later (Acts 10:2) and a soldier
who was with Cornelius (Acts 10:
7) . The term was also used by Paul
to describe Ananias (Acts 22:12).
Peter used the term to describe
God's children in contrast to the
unrighteous (II Pet. 2:9) .

The noun "godliness" or "devoted-
ness" is used frequently in the New
Testament. Paul used the term ten
times in writing the pastoral epistles
(I Tim. 2:2; 3:16; 4:7-8; 6:3, 5-6, 11;
II Tim. 3:5; Titus 1:1) . This shows
how important the devotional or
godly life is to the servant of Christ
for his ministry. Each of these pas-
sages could be studied with profit
in preparation for this lesson. You
will note the association with such
concepts as honesty, faith, love, pa-
tience and truth.

In II Peter 1:3, we find the term
used three times. Peter wrote that
godliness or the devout life comes
through the knowledge of Christ.
Compare Paul's passion to know
Christ (Phil. 3:8) . Peter further
elaborated to show that the devout
life (godliness) is developed
through virtue, knowledge, self-con-
trol and patience (II Pet. 1 :5-6) .
Godliness works love in the Chris-
tian life and Peter showed that holy
lives and godliness are related (II
Pet. 1:7, 11) .

These New Testament passages

Background Scripture: Psalm 63:

1-8; Acts 10:1-8; 30-33
Key Verses: Acts 10:1-8; 30-33
Devotional Reading: Psalm 63:1-8
Memory Selection: Psalm 63:1

indicate that the devout life em-
braces many of the spiritual fruits
of the Christian life and leads to a
life that is well-pleasing to God.

As an adverb, the term is used
two times, both in Paul's pastoral
epistles (II Tim. 3:12; Titus 2:12).
I think this says something for the
importance of the devotional life of
the minister of the Gospel. Above
all, he is to be concerned for a de-
vout life.

Ministers are prone to think in
terms of, "What can I say to my
people by this Scripture I am read-
ing?" All too often they neglect
to ask, "What does this Scripture
say to me about my life before my
Lord?" Therefore, the minister must
be particularly concerned to have a
time in his daily life when he opens
God's Word, not to study for a ser-
mon or a lesson, but to hear what
God says to him and to open his
heart to God. Without this, the
minister's spiritual life will dry up.

What is true for the minister is
equally true for the teacher of the
Word, that is, the Sunday school
teacher. We must study the Bible
for what we can say to others, and
also we must take time daily to lis-
ten to God speak to us, and then
respond by our own prayers. We
cannot neglect the devotional life.

We turn now to this lesson to see
what the devotional life is.

I. THE DEVOTIONAL LIFE
DESCRIBED (Psa. 63:1-8). Note
the words used here by the psalmist.
It can be readily seen as we read
this passage that he describes two
aspects of the devotional life; the be-
liever's seeking, his longing for God;
and the resulting praise that comes

The International Sunday School Lesson Out-
lines are copyrighted by The International
Council of Religious Education.

1 1.

from the lips of the believer.

First, the psalmist wrote of h I
own desire for God, describing th I
in such terms as earnestly seekir |
God, thirsting for God, longing fc |
God. He compared his experiem I
to one who is in a dry and weai I
land and who longs for water. Th I
psalmist often likened his desire fc I
God as a thirst (see Psalm 42:2; 8<5 1
2; 143:6, etc.). Do we thirst f c I
fellowship with God? I have ofte I
had people describe to me theil
spiritual life as dry and withering
They know they lack something an
they thirst for refreshing spiritual
ity.

I think that it is important to re
alize that a devout life can com
only when there is a genuine thirs
for fellowship with God. Paul in
sisted that Timothy must exercisi
himself unto godliness (I Tim. 4:7)
and he charged him to flee evil am
follow after godliness (I Tim. 6:11)

We can fill our lives with vaii
things and so not thirst for God
However, when we first cease thes<
vain pursuits, a vacuum is created
Suddenly we desire to fill that vacu
um with fellowship with God. Ii
may mean turning off the TV, put
ting down the book, or stop playing
that game or sport we enjoy, oi
whatever we are presently filling oui
time with.

One can drink soft drinks or even
hard drinks to such an extent that
he never thirsts for pure water. In
the process, he is destroying his body.
Just so, we can so fill our lives with
what is unprofitable to godliness,
that we destroy our spiritual lives.
Not only bad habits, but even so-
called good causes, can be used to
crowd out our time with God. We
must stop what is less important and
claim that time for God if we are
to be devout.

Redeemed souls need and desire
God, but if we keep "satisfying" such
a desire with what is less important,
we will never thirst for God as the
psalmist here described his life.

Second, the psalmist showed that
his devotional life resulted in his

PAGE 14 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 17, 1972

piisi'ng God. When he spent time
&h God, he broke forth in praise
l i thanksgiving (Psa. 63:3-4) . Con-
;<iplation of God's lovingkindness,
i he heard God's revelation in His
hrd, led him to a grateful
urt. He expressed blessings to
Od and lifted his hands in prayer
dHim.

-low often do we find ourselves

I oying our prayer life? Few today
jm to have a prayer life, not to

ak of enjoying it, but the psalmist
>ioyed his. His heart overflowed
\ih praise (v. 5) . This can only
; because he thirsted after God and
jind satisfaction.

The psalmist spoke of the satis-
)d life. This is the life of one
|io comes to the cool, pure water
|d drinks to full satisfaction. Soft,
jary drinks will not really satisfy
!r thirst. Neither can the substi-
tes for the devotional life satisfy
spiritually. The psalmist was sat-
ied because he thirsted after God
d found the time with Him re-
shing.

Let us examine our lives. Do we
irst after God? If not, what are we
ing with our lives in substitution
r our time with God? It can never
illy satisfy, no matter how impor-
it it may seem to be, or how en-
taining the pursuit may become,
iree hours in front of the TV may
ss away the time but it can never
isfy the soul of God's child. Turn
E the TV or whatever you may be
ing to crowd God out of your life,
the vacuum which is created, you

II begin to thirst for God.

II. THE PRACTICE OF THE
IVOTIONAL LIFE. I have se-
ted three examples of men of
)d whose practice of the devotion-
life is described in Scripture. It
a be assumed that many more were
nstantly devout and had devotion-
lives but these three are described

terms of their devotions.
The first is Job (Job 1:1-5). Job
described as perfect and upright,
e who followed God (was devout) ,
d turned from evil. True devo-
»nal life comes when we cease to

what interferes with our fellow-
ip with God. When can we best
me aside with God? When there is
I least interference from the world,
r Job, it was early in the morn-
l (v. 5) .

Perhaps most believers have found
is so. I have. In the morning he-
re the household stirs is the best
ne for me. For others, later in the

evening may be profitable. The im-
portant thing is that it must be a
time when the world and other du-
ties cannot crowd in. Job also did
his devotions to God continually (v.
5) , as a part of his regular life. It
must be so for us also. Sporadic de-
votions can never satisfy. To come
aside to hear God speak and to
praise Him only when it is con-
venient means that you really are
not thirsty for God. You still have
some things in your life by which
you seek to substitute for God.

The second example is Daniel
(Dan. 6:10). This verse describes
Daniel's practice of having devotions
to God three times daily. This was
his regular practice in spite of the
fact that the king of Persia warned
that any who worshiped someone
other than himself would die.

From Daniel's commitment to the
devotional life, we learn how very
important it is to the godly to have
a time with God every day. We of-
ten find little excuses for not hav-
ing a devotional. We have to call
on a sick person, we have to take
care of a family obligation, we have
to see a certain person or go to some
place before it closes, and so forth.
But Daniel, even when his life was
threatened, did not neglect his de-
votions. That is real thirsting after
God! It puts us to shame.

Finally, we have the perfect ex-
ample of our Lord. How often in
the Gospels we see Him go aside
from the disciples and from the
world and pray to His heavenly Fa-
ther (Matt. 14:23; 26:36, 39; Mark
1:35; Luke 9:18, 29; John 17) . Your
Lord, who was perfect and who was
the very Son of God incarnate, as a
man felt the need for devotional
time before His Father. How much
more, then, do we!

Jesus had a constant thirst for fel-
lowship with His Father, for life
with His Father was His whole life.
Nothing ever took the place of His
time with the Father. This should
speak to our hearts. If the Son of
God had this need, then how can
we expect to please God when we
neglect this time with our Lord?

III. THE FRUIT OF THE DE-
VOTIONAL LIFE (Acts 10:1-8, 30-
33) . We need first of all to point
out some facts about the man Cor-
nelius: He was a devout man who
feared God with all of his house. He
gave alms to the people and prayed
to God always. In short, Cornelius,
although not a Jew, was like the de-

vout of the Old Testament. He was
like Job (also probably not a Jew)
and like Daniel (one of the He-
brews) .

The God Cornelius worshiped
was the God of Israel, the true God.
This is made clear by the text.
Therefore, he had the same relation-
ship to God as those Old Testament
saints, but he was not at this time
a Christian, that is, he had not re-
alized that the God of the Old Tes-
tament was the Christ incarnate.

Like the devout Jews of the New
Testament time, he had to come to
realize and confess Jesus as Lord
(the God of the Old Testament,
Rom. 10:9) . He called on God, but
then he had to realize that God had
come and died for him and had
risen to give him eternal life. In
short, he had a devout life but with
spiritual lacks which needed to be
met. God whom he worshiped met
these needs.

To do so, God sent Peter to him
to tell him the Gospel (Acts 10:23-
43) . By this means, Cornelius and
his household became Christians,
confessing Christ as Lord and Sav-
iour (10:44) . His devotional life
was complete, his thirst was satis-
fied. Like the psalmist, he began to
praise God for all of his benefits
through Christ (v. 46) .

We learn several important facts
about the devotional life from Cor-
nelius and the episode about his life
recorded here. He, like those we
have studied before, was constant in
his devotions (vv. 2, 30) and his de-
votional life led him to a concern
for God and God's people (vv. 2,
31).

Furthermore, because of his close
relationship to God, God led him
to greater insight and spiritual
depth than he had known before.
The devout believer grows spiritual-
ly. Cornelius is an example of this,
but it is true for all who thirst after
God. God will see that they grow
from grace to grace and from truth
to truth. As Christ Himself said,
we grow in our spiritual life as we
abide in Him and His Word abides
in us (John 15:1-10) .

CONCLUSION: We have looked
at the devout life from three
points of view: that of the psalmist
whose life was devout, the saints of
God who practiced regular devo-
tions, and one who put all he knew
of God into practice in his daily de-
votional life and who was nurtured
by God to a deeper spiritual percep-

PAGE 15 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 17, 1972

tion, to a full knowledge of Christ
as his Saviour.

The devotional life is much like
learning to swim. We can talk about
swimming over and over and yet nev-
er learn to swim because we do not
get in the water. In the same way,

we can talk about the importance
of a devotional life but we will never
really learn to have one unless we
try.

If your devotional life has been
neglected and crowded out, then
push aside a place, make a place for

God in your life. Stop somethi i
which you are doing to claim
time for Christ. Open His
and listen to Him speak to you
His Word. Then you will respoi
by spiritual growth and by praisii
Him.

YOUTH PROGRAM

For June 4, 1972

The Righteousness of God

Scripture: Romans 10:1-17
Suggested Hymns:

"A Mighty Fortress Is Our
God"

"Faith of Our Fathers! Living
Still"

"Jesus, Thy Blood and
Righteousness"

PROGRAM LEADER'S INTRO-
DUCTION: Righteousness is a term
which we use very frequently in our
discussions of religion. What does
it mean? It is the quality of being
and doing what is right in the sight
of God.

Righteousness is "right-ness" with
God. We all recognize righteous-
ness as a quality which is much de-
sired. When you say a person is
righteous, you are paying him a com-
pliment. It is because we feel a need
for righteousness that we go to
church and are concerned about re-
ligion. Every religious person is
aware of the importance of
righteousness, and all of us know
that it is easier to sense the need for
righteousness than it is to be
righteous.

An old man from the backwoods
was asked if he was a Christian. He
replied, "No, but I'm a-gittin' thar."
By that answer he surely meant that
he was trying to be righteous, or
right with God. He wanted to be
righteous enough to go to heaven.
He was undoubtedly very much

Rev. B. Hoyt Evans

like the Jews of whom Paul wrote,
they were "going about to establish
their own righteousness" (Rom.
10:3).

Many people still seem to think
they can be righteous before God
by means of their own endeavors.
They are not all Jews or backwoods-
men either. Martin Luther had
this idea for many years. He tried
to make his life pleasing to God by
his religious zeal, by a pilgrimage to
Rome, and even by inflicting bodily
punishment on himself. He did not
find satisfaction in any or all of his
efforts. Instead, he came more and
more to the conviction that "all our
righteousnesses are as filthy rags"
(Isa. 64:6).

Luther found the answer to his
need in the Bible. There he learned
that the only righteousness accept-
able to God is God's very own
righteousness, the righteousness that
God gives freely to those who be-
lieve in His Son for salvation.
Armed with that rediscovered truth,
Luther determined to set the world
free from the legalism and fear that
characterized the Church of that time.

FIRST SPEAKER: The Bible
speaks of the righteousness of God
many times and in many ways, but
it is most clearly seen in Jesus Christ.
Born into the world of humanity
without sin, being the child of Mary
on the human side and of the Holy
Spirit on the divine side, He lived

under the same moral law as do z
other human beings, but he kept tl
law perfectly where all others ha^
broken it. He was "in all poin'
tempted like as we are, yet withoi
sin" (Heb. 4:15) .

Jesus Christ is the one exceptio;
to the statement that "all ha^
sinned and come short of the gloi
of God" (Rom. 3:23). Jesus den
onstrated the righteousness of Go
in a most conclusive way, and b
cause He was a human being, H
did it as our representative.

SECOND SPEAKER: Jesus n(
only lived righteously, He died fc
the unrighteous. "The wages of si
is death" (Rom. 6:23) , but Jesu
being sinless, did not deserve th:
punishment. He is the only possessc
of human nature who has not d<
served to die.

Every man who sins must answe
for his own sin. One sinner, then
fore, cannot substitute for anothe
in paying the penalty for sin. Th
only person who could die in th
place of sinners is one who had n>
sin. Jesus qualified because He is
person and because He is righteou.^
Because He loved us, He died in ou
place.

The Bible tells it in these words
"For when we were yet withou
strength, in due time Christ died foi
the ungodly .... But God com
mendeth His love toward us, in thai
while we were yet sinners, Chris
died for us" (Rom. 5:6, 8) . Pete:
wrote the same thing about Jesus
"who His own self bare our sins ii
His own body on the tree, that we
being dead unto sin, should live un
to righteousness" (I Pet. 2:24) .

THIRD SPEAKER: Our onh
hope of being righteous in the sigh;

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Call or Write CHURCH SECURITIES, INC.

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PAGE 16 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 17, 1972

c God is found in the righteousness
c Christ. As our representative, He
i;d the two things mentioned by the
1st two speakers: He lived perfectly
uder the law, and He gave Him-
» i as an acceptable sacrifice for our
lis. The Bible says, "For He (God)
{ th made Him (Christ) to be sin
Ir us, who (Christ) knew no sin;
tat we might be made the
sditeousness of God in Him" (II
Dr. 5:21) .

We become righteous, not by striv-
g to improve ourselves, but by put-
lg our trust in the Son of God as
ir Saviour. "But to him that work-
h not, but believeth on Him that
stifieth the ungodly, his faith is
runted for righteousness" (Rom.
5) . The Church, then, is not a
lf-improvement society, but a body
people who have put their faith
Christ to forgive their sin and to
othe them in His righteousness.
7or by grace are ye saved through
ith; and that not of yourselves: it
the gift of God: not of works, lest
ly man should boast" (Eph. 2:
9).

PROGRAM LEADER: Human
?ings are naturally inclined to seek
[dependence. We would like to
link we could become good enough
i please God without receiving help
om anyone. The Bible tells us
lis is not possible. The only way
e may become righteous is by ac-
ipting the forgiveness and right-

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eousness of God.

In one of His parables (Matthew
22:1-14), Jesus told of a man who
was put out of a wedding feast be-
cause he was not wearing a wedding
garment. Our required garment is
the righteousness of Christ which is
received by faith alone. If we want
to stand acceptable in the presence
of God, we must be clothed in the
righteousness of His Son. Jesus said,
"No man cometh unto the Father,
but by me" (John 14:6) .

Questions for Discussion:

1. If righteousness comes by faith

alone, what place is there for good
works in the life of a Christian?
2. John Calvin, one of the Reforma-
tion leaders, said: "It is faith alone
that justifies, but faith that justifies
can never be alone." What do you
think he meant by that statement?

Closing Prayer: (It would be ap-
propriate to sing or read the first
stanza of "My Faith Looks up to
Thee.") IE

• • •

The office of Gospel proclamation
is the central office in the Church of
Jesus Christ. — Harvie Conn.

"YE ARE MY WITNESSES"
Isaiah 43:10 Luke 24:48

EVANGELISM CONFERENCE

sponsored by

Presbyterian Evangelistic Fellowship

MONTREAT, NORTH CAROLINA August 18-23, 1972

MAIN SPEAKERS:
Grady Wilson

Kennedy Smartt

Mariano DiGangi
Mario Rivera
James Baird

Robert Reymond
Ben Wilkinson

BIBLE HOUR led by William E. Hill, Jr.

Twenty six SEMINARS on EVANGELISM

MUSIC PROGRAM directed by Rev. and Mrs. Iner Basinger

Special and separate YOUTH PROGRAMS for all ages

coordinated by Carl Wilson of Campus Crusade

VESPERS each evening with:

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For Evangelism Conference brochures clip this coupon and mail to

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PAGE 17 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 17, 1972

BOOKS

THE CAMBUSLANG REVIVAL, by
Arthur Fawcett. The Banner of Truth
Trust, London, Eng. 256 pp. $4.50. Re-
viewed by the Rev. Adrian R. Munzell,
pastor, Kendall Presbyterian Church,
Miami, Fla.

The author prefaced his book with
an indication of concern for the lack
of writings available about the Scot-
tist evangelical revival of the 18th
century. Armed with the Cambus-
lang Kirk records and the same from
Kilsyth Kirk, by permission of the
Presbytery of Glasgow, as well as
other documents from the libraries
of the University of Glasgow and
Trinity College, the author dived
into the 18th century Scottish
Church as though it were a matter
of life or death and has provided a
book that should delight history
buffs no end.

The appetite of the reader is
whetted early in the book in the
description of the religious situation
in Scotland in the early 18th century
and the schism concerning the oath
to "support, maintain, and defend

the succession of the crown." This
would have given support to the
episcopacy which many of the Pres-
byterian ministers could not support.
Tremendous controversy was experi-
enced, since at least one third of
the Scottish clergy rebelled against
the oath.

At one point in the controversy,
the voice of Thomas Halyburton,
professor of divinity at St. Andrews
in 1712 was raised from his death
bed saying, "with respect to the dif-
ference that is likely to ensue among
ministers, with the greatest of ear-
nestness I say, my dear brethren, dif-
ference is a hot thing. There must
be condescension, forbearance and
tenderness; we must not fly at the
ball." Later, the professor dictated a
note to his family saying in part,
"there will be ministers faithful on
both sides, and on either hand they
will act accordingly to their light
sincerely."

Much of the book could be con-
sidered an accurate account of the
history of Presbyterianism today and

the author is to be greatly con
mended for his diligence of attentio
to historical facts. Almost every pag
lists dates and data of the importai
events of the 18th century revival <
the Kirk of Scotland.

The credentials of the author ar
academic and pastoral which ei
able him to view that critical cei
tury with the combination of ii
telligence and compassion which, i
turn, present a very unusual histor
book. Not ordinarily excited abou
dusty records, I found the book e>
tremely interesting and suggest tha I
it would make an excellent add
tion to every minister's library an
in particular, every church library.'

The book is available througi
Puritan Publications, Inc., Carlisle!
Pa. 17013. E

I

JUSTIFICATION, by Markus Bartli
Translated by A. M. Woodruff Ilf
Wm. B. Eerdmans Publ. Co., Gram
Rapids, Mich. Paper, 90 pp. $1.95. Re
viewed by the Rev. George H. Kirker
pastor, Wiggins Presbyterian Church
Wiggins, Miss.

The reader of this book will ap
preciate the writing of Barth ancj
the translating of Woodruff. It is ar
inviting monograph that calls upor

A CHRISTIAN CAMP

Dedicated to developing
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1972 DATES

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June 20-July 1

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PAGE 18 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 17, 1972

ie time and thought of the believer.

Justification is presented as a
j'igle juridical event, related to the
• Id Testament background of the
L Jostle Paul, and narrated in drama-
■ : form. The drama appears in five
[its (or days) . God is the sole judge,
j^nvicting Gentile, and condemning

w, without exception. God chooses
| is people, and His mediator — Jesus
a irist, His Son. The act of justifica-
un is a free grace of God, offered
I sinful men who have fallen short
I the glory of God.

Jesus comes and confesses the sins
men. He intercedes for these
Ijiilty sinners and dies for their sins,
sing as the expression of the faith-
. lness of God to His obedient Son,
iid to His disobedient creation. God
fistifies His Son in the work of re-
fimption, and God justifies His
[eation in that same redemption,
jhe mediation is eternal in its ap-
iication, universal in its invitation.
,he resurrection justifies God in
,.is wrath against sin, and in His
>ve of His Son.

Barth writes that the verdict of
istification is carried out through
ie work of the Holy Spirit, in the
reaching of the Gospel, and in the
resence of the believers in the
hurch. But the final act awaits the
ist judgment, with judgment com-
litted to Christ, with creation anew
f the heavens and the earth, and
ith revelation and glorification of
tan, assured by the mediatorial
ork of the righteous Son of God. IS

HISTORICAL BACKGROUNDS OF
IBLE HISTORY, by Jack P. Lewis,
aker Book House, Grand Rapids,
lich. Paper, 199 pp. $3.95. Reviewed
f the Rev. Dan H. McCown, pastor,
if th Street Presbyterian Church, Ty-
r, Tex.

If the Bible is to be taken serious-
', one must recognize that Chris-
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ie serious Bible student must be-
>me familiar with the people and
rents, in and out of Scripture, that
ad some bearing on the Biblical
:cord. While everyone will not

HE MT. OLIVE Presbyterian Church now
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make an extended study of the sub-
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The author is professor of Bible
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This study, fascinating to anyone
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From his wide source of knowledge,
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Dr. Lewis has done an excellent
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every street. They are falling into
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PAGE 19 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 17, 1972

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Channel— from p. 10

course went again to the church.
All the people were happy and re-
joicing. One would think some
great thing had happened. Were
they rejoicing for my wife and me?
Yes they were — and so convincing-
ly sincere that I knew we had found
a home.

Monday was the first day of my
vacation. I made my first move
that morning toward a bookstore to
purchase a Bible. When I returned
home I headed for our patio and
there began what turned out to be a
whole week of vacation spent just
reading the Bible. I suddenly had
such a hunger and thirst to read the
Scriptures that I couldn't put the
Bible aside. I read and read, and
my wife did the same.

As I read through the Gospel of
John, I came upon a verse in chap-
ter 8: "You shall know the truth
and the truth shall make you free."

A Weight Lifted

That moment I experienced the
truth of salvation and actually felt
a weight of laws and ritual and cere-
mony lifted from my shoulders. I
began to read with more interest
and realized as I read the Bible for
the first time in my life that it was
possible for a layman to understand.
God was speaking to me. All I had
to do was to believe what He says.

As I read, I understood that I
"opened the door" and asked Christ
into my life, I became what I
thought I was — a Christian. I
learned that Christianity is not a re-
ligion but a relationship. I found
that the Christian life is not lived
by my power but by the power of
God. I also found God works in a
positive way. He took away the de-
sires for things I attempted to rid
myself of by suppression and reli-
gious abstinence. What a difference
there is between suppression of a de-
sire, which is religion at work, and
the elimination of a desire, which
is God at work.

The greatest desire I have now,
and it replaces all my old ones, is to
please the One who gave himself for
me. I possess that inward joy and

CHOIR DIRECTOR: An evangelical Pres-
byterian church is looking for a young
man with charisma to build up the choir.
Young people are available. Need only to
be motivated. A real challenge to ad-
vance the Lord's work through music.
Write: Box RU, The Presbyterian Journal,
Weaverville, N. C. 28787.

deep peace which I recognized
those CBMCers.

The head of S.O.S. Electronics
now our Lord. We strive throuj
prayer to make all our businej
transactions and policies "in the w
of the Lord."

My home now has a center in
person of Jesus Christ. Since 01
conversions, my children have a)
trusted the Saviour.

The Lord has given me an exti
blessing too. As a young man,
toured the country with a dan*—
band. When we started the tel 1
vision business, there was no tuu
left for my music. Regretfully,
retired my saxophone, but I'\
brought it out of retirement. Whe
God changes a person's life, He doc
a thorough job; my horn has bee;
converted, too. I use it to prais
the Lord as a member of a Gospe
singing group.

I am thankful to God for the pei
sistence of my business partner, Mil
Salomon, and for those CBMCer
whose lives were so convicting,
praise God for opening my eyes t(
the truth in the person of Jesu:
Christ out of the Scriptures, the On<
who gives meaning and purpose tc
life because He is life — eternal! I

Frequency— from p. 1 1

He sends His Holy Spirit to be in
our lives as a down payment on
heaven (Eph. 1:13-14). Even though
we're still living in an imperfect
world, the Holy Spirit gives us a
foretaste right here of the joy of
heaven, the fulfillment which comes
in serving Christ, in using our cre-
ative powers to worship God, in fel-
lowship with other Christians, in
learning more and more about God,
and in experiencing victory over sin.

All this starts not when we die,
but when Christ comes in. If you
want to know God, and that's what
heaven is really all about, then why
not talk to Him right now? Say to
Him: "Lord, I want to know You.
I realize my sin separates me from
you. Thank You that He died for
me, the innocent for the guilty, so
that I could come to You. I come
now in repentance, in faith, in com-
mitment. Give your kind of life to
me. And help me to live for You
and tvith You. I want to be eternally
Yours." SI

• • •

Some people tell us what to do;
some show us what not to do. — Ui

KNOWN.

PAGE 20 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 17, 1972

I 02?*

OL XXXI, NO. 4 MAY 24, 1972 $4.00 A YEAR

Die

PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL

ivocating continuation of a Presbyterian Church loyal to Scripture and the Reformed faith

A Vital Spiritual Lesson

When a situation has become impossible, humanly speak-
ing, God steps in to show us that with Him nothing is hopeless.
When we can do nothing, when our own frantic efforts and an-
imal heat have led only to failure, God may have to force us
to turn to Him in order to learn that it is He who gives us our
strength, and He alone. In appearing callous or indifferent,
even cruel, God often is testing us to be sure that we learn a
vital spiritual lesson: "Be still, and know that I am God" (Psa.
46:10).

— Edward A. Johnson
(See p. 7)

S. S. LESSON AND YOUTH PROGRAM FOR JUNE 11

JH00

bl<2LZ OK IITH TQdBHQ
m OK jo X^-peaaAjufl

UOI109TIOQ 0 M

MAILBAG

POSTSCRIPT dreds of back issues of die Presbyte-

May I add a postscript to the let- rian Journal received in the first

ter in the April 19 Journal from the mail following the fire.

Rev. John Chinchen, who wrote Mr. Chinchen does not know that

from the bush of Africa of the loss those packages were believed to be

of his entire library by fire. He in use in Liberia when a notice was

praised God for supplying the need received that they were being held

for materials with the gift of hun- in Customs for additional postage.

the

PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL

Rev. G. Aiken Taylor, Ph.D., Editor
Rev. Henry B. Dendy, D.D., Managing Editor
Arthur H. Matthews, Assistant Editor

Circulation leader among independent publications in the Presbyterian-Reformed world

THIS WEEK— Vol. XXXI, No. 4, May 24, 1972

The 'Cruelty of Christ 7

What seems good to fallible men is often not what is best for
them in God's sight By Edward A. Johnson

Such People! 9

The parable of the indifferent neighbor illustrates man's
attitude toward God By John H. Eastwood

A Time of Sacred Memory 10

Spiritual as well as national blessings should never be
forgotten by Christian citizens By Samuel A. Jeanes

An Epidemic Distemper 11

By John Caldwell

De partments —

Editorials 12

The Layman and his Church 13

Sunday School Lesson, June 11 14

Youth Program, June 1 1 '. 1 6

Book Reviews 18

THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL, a

Presbyterian weekly magazine, devoted
to the statement, defense, and propa-
gation of the Gospel, the faith which
was once for all delivered to the saints,

is published every Wednesday by the
Southern Presbyterian Journal Co.,
Inc., in Weaverville, N. C.

SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: $4 a year
for individuals, $3 for members of
Every Family Plan churches. All cor-
respondence regarding subscriptions,
advertising or other business matters,
should be addressed to the business
office in Weaverville, N. C. 28787.
Second class postage paid at Weaver-
ville, N. C. 28787.

POSTMASTER: Send Form 3579 to
Presbyterian Journal, Box 635, Wea-
verville, N. C. 28787. Subscribers
should allow three weeks for change
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of address notices should include both
old and new addresses (with zip
codes) .

NEWS AND EDITORIAL correspond-
ence should be addressed to P. 0. Box
3108, Asheville, N. C. 28802. Editorial
offices located at 247 Charlotte St. in
Asheville.

TELEPHONES: (All area 704) edi-
torial office, 254-4015, 254-4016;
business office, 645-3310, 645-3962.

We were extremely provoked aft<
having tried to follow shipping ii
structions implicitly, but sent add
tional postage immediately. Follow
ing the fire, we realized that tl
Lord does indeed work in mysterioi
ways, for had they been delivers
they would have been in the fire.
— Mrs. M. G. Johnson,
Indianola, Miss.

THE ABORTION ISSUE

As interested and concerned wit
the situation our Church finds i I
self in as I am, I have yet to be ;
moved by any article as I was wit
"Concerned Without Comfort
(May 3, Journal) .

We have been blessed with tw
daughters, but my brother and h
wife are unable to have childrei
Due to adoption, God has given ou
family the most wonderful little bo1
their son, our nephew, and a ligl:
of life for his grandparents.

How much happiness this c h i 1
generates! His mother did not choos
abortion. She did not "destroy th
fetus," as so many young women ar
urged to do. I note it is alwa)
called the "fetus" and not th
"child." But the fetus is a chil
and murder is still murder.

If young women who are with chili
only knew the happiness their chil
dren could be bringing, the lov
their child would receive, it coul<
make a difference. Aren't we beinj
most unfair to them not to let then
know?

— Mrs. Gordon H. Doss
Tuscaloosa, Ala.

HERS AND HIS

This comment would undoubtedl l
be more fitting if it originated witll
one of the fair sex instead of on<|
susceptible to being charged witl
male chauvinism. However, I can
not resist the urge to give thre<
cheers and a few robust Presbyteriar
hallelujahs for Mrs. David P. Mc
Brayer of Houma, La., (Mailbag
April 12) , who has resisted am
temptation to personal aggrandize
ment in favor of obedience to God':
Word. If the authority of the Scrip
tures means anything, it surely tell:
us that a woman cannot be an eldei
in an assembly with a Biblical forrr
of government.

Having received this assurance
that there are still those who wili
place obedience to God above all
else, I now wait with eagerness
though not holding my breath, foi
one of our professed Christian ath

]tes- to declare that after careful
: jdy of the Bible, he can no longer
ofane the Lord's Day by continued
irticipation in professional sports
a that day. I have been a sports
in about 30 years. Nevertheless, I
in convinced that only when we as
iiristians have turned away from
)ing our pleasure on God's holy
ly and learned to delight ourselves
• the Lord (Isa. 58:13-14) will re-
val genuinely be in progress.

— John H. Van Voorhis
Charlotte, N. C.

NO HOME REMEDIES

I have had the pleasure of read-
lg the Journal some 15 years and
'ave been lifted many times by the
'rticles therein, although some of

does not at times meet with my
pproval.

Knowing that our Church is in
reat pain at this time, I wonder

• As you will notice on p. 4 of this
ssue, the "gung-ho" boys are at it
gain — at your expense, of course
whether you are PCUS or UPUSA) .
rhey've been to Paris to talk to
ur enemies and they are persuaded
re are in the wrong. We've been to
'ietnam to talk to our friends and
re've concluded they (and the mod-
rator) don't know what they're
liking about. But it isn't just that
hey have chosen to side with the
nemy. It is rather that they have no
astification, Biblical or otherwise,
3 spend the benevolence gifts of
iod's people on trips to Washington
3 agitate against the government of
le United States. A few years back
/e would have been inclined to
lake a big deal out of this sort of
aolishness. Now we simply note it
i passing as another bit of evidence
tiat those planning for a continuing
Ihurch loyal to Scripture and the
leformed faith are on the right
rack.

• We're still full of the Far East
nd probably will be for yet a while.
Ve'll try not to bore you
3 distraction as we reminisce.
>ut some things need to be said
bout the Christian situation in
isia as well as the political and so-

how quickly the pain would subside
if we would go to the great healer,
our God, on our knees, instead of
using temporary "home remedies"?
— G. A. Gray
Pensacola, Fla.

THIS AND THAT

I want to thank you for covering
so thoroughly the matter of the pro-
posed new Confession of Faith for
the Southern Presbyterian Church.
I was interested to note that as your
issue of May 10 appeared and you
listed all nine chapters in the tenta-
tive draft of the confession, the May
issue of the Survey appeared and the
chairman of the committee said they
had not yet decided on the last four
chapters. Do you have a crystal
ball?

I think you could call attention
to this new confession if you would
print, in parallel columns, what the

cial situation in Vietnam, mentioned
last week. Our memory is a kaleido-
scope of impressions: the joy on the
face of the head nurse at World Re-
lief Commission's remarkable chil-
dren's hospital at Hoa Khanh, be-
cause her husband had accepted
Christ just the week before we ar-
rived; a sea of Christian student
faces for chapel at Christ College on
Taiwan; a flourishing Christian stu-
dent center in the heart of the uni-
versity district in Tokyo, where just
a year ago radicals pillaged and
burned; a sanctuary beautiful
enough to grace any affluent sub-
urb in the U.S., surrounded by the
mud huts of Korean lepers who
built it to the glory of God; the Ger-
man X-Ray equipment in the
Chunju Presbyterian hospital, so
modern that it is not yet in use in
the U.S.

• For the most impressive Chris-
tian "presence" in the Far East, Ko-
rea wins, hands down. A city such

present constitution says on any sub-
ject and what the new confession
says on the same subject. By the
comparison, we who have not seen
the draft would be able to notice
the importance of the differences.
— E. Eugene Jacobs
Atlanta, Ga.

MINISTERS

C. Richard Carlson, received from
UPUSA, to the Spindale church,
Louisville, Ky.

Bonnie C. Rateike, received from
UPUSA, to the First and Knox
churches, Albany, Mo.
Charles E. Raynal 3rd from grad-
uate study to the First Church,
Durham, N. C, as associate pas-
tor.

Joseph R. Woody from Louisa,
Va., to the Massanutten church,
Penn Laird, Va.

as Seoul has over 20 Presbyterian
churches of more than 1,000 mem-
bers each, including the largest Pres-
byterian church in the world; and
a host of smaller ones. Throughout
the countryside, the most prominent
buildings in many a village are the
Christian churches. At a single bap-
tismal service held in the capital a
few days after we were there, some
3,600 soldiers from military training
centers completed the rigorous in-
struction required of Korean Chris-
tians in order to be admitted to full
church membership. Korea has to be
the most Christian country (if there
is any such thing) in the world to-
day, what with some 10 per cent of
the population Christian in the real
sense of the word. It is almost over-
whelming to experience the contrast
between the exhuberant Christian
presence in that land and the painful
frustration which continues to
plague the Gospel effort in such
countries as Japan. IB

ACROSS THE EDITOR'S DESK

PAGE 3 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 24, 1972

NEWS OF RELIGION

Churchmen Start New Anti-War Drive

WASHINGTON— Some 40 mem-
bers of the Presbyterian Church US
were here for two days to help start
a new organized lobbying effort
against the Vietnam war. They heard
speeches by a number of anti-war
activists and then met with their
senators and representatives to urge
a halt to military appropriations.

Inviting them here and paying
their expenses was the office of
Church and society of the denomina-
tion's Board of Christian Education.
Participants came from 14 synods,
with some coming from as far as
San Antonio and Miami.

In a statement issued before the
gathering, the board's executive
secretary, John B. Evans, and the
Church and society office director,
George Chauncey, said the decision
to invite the group was based on
"three strategies approved and fund-
ed by the board at its November
1971 meeting." They specified that
those whose expenses were paid were
coordinators of the recently establish-
ed Congressional witness teams and
"others selected by them."

Officially, the invited Presbyter-
ians were participating in the Emer-
gency Convocation To End the War
sponsored by the Set the Date Now
campaign. Set the Date was a 1970
effort highlighted by a trip to Paris
by a number of religious leaders last

spring. Among the listed sponsors
are the Rev. William A. Benfield
Jr. of Charleston, W. Va., 1970 Pres-
byterian US moderator, and William
P. Thompson, UPUSA stated clerk.

Neither Dr. Benfield nor Dr.
Thompson was present at the con-
vocation. Another sponsor of Set the
Date Now, National Council of
Churches President Cynthia Wedel,
presided at the opening session at
the Church of the Reformation on
Capitol Hill.

The convocation program listed
eight leaders of national organiza-
tions as sponsors, in addition to the
principal sponsor, Set the Date Now.
They included: Allard K. Lowen-
stein, national chairman of Ameri-
cans for Democratic Action; Donald
Morrison, president of the National
Education Association; Jerry Wurf,
president of the American Federation
of State, County and Municipal Em-
ployees; Lay ton Olson, executive
director of the National Student
Lobby; Henry Niles, chairman of
Business Executives Move; former
Senator Joseph Clark, chairman of
the Coalition on National Priorities
and Military Policy; and the co-
directors of Clergy and Laymen Con-
cerned, Richard Fernandez and Mrs.
Trudi Young.

Senator Clark, Mr. Lowenstein,
Mr. Olson and Mr. Fernandez were

THE CHURCH OVERSEAS

KOREA (PN) — Dedication serv-
ices for the Soonchun Tuberculosis
Rehabilitation Center were held re-
cently with 300 guests from many
nations participating.

The ceremony officially opened
two new brick buildings which will
serve 80 terminal and contagious TB
patients. Cost of the new center is
$68,290, all of which was contributed
by concerned Christians in Norway.

Dr. Catherine Hambro, 82, one of
the dedication speakers, was respon-
sible for raising the money and send-
ing building supplies from Norway.

Tuberculosis is one of the major
health problems in Korea. Work

in that area of health care began
in 1960 as part of the outreach of
the Kwangju Christian Hospital.
Mrs. Hugh Linton, a missionary of
the Presbyterian Church US, found-
ed the TB clinic which now serves
thousands of people in Chulla Nam-
do province each month. It is the
only TB medical center in Korea
which has distributed drugs and
treatment entirely free of cost.

The new center will be a home
for patients who have no other place
to live. Through an occupational
therapy program patients will be
taught commercial embroidery and
poultry raising, and will raise some
of their own food. EE

among the speakers on the progran

Keynoter for the convocation w J
Congressman Robert Drinan
Massachusetts, a Jesuit priest. Aft
Mrs. Wedel had welcomed partii
pants "on behalf of the Nation
Council of Churches and many oth
Church people" and lauded him
her introduction, the Roman Cath
lie legislator said Churches hs\ I
never before been so united on a j
issue and "defied by the President

■

Rep. Drinan noted that he fir
spoke here at an "emergency coi
vocation on the war" in 1966. H
acknowledged weariness but claime
the "emergency" still existed. Toi
gue in cheek, some veteran anti-wa
lobbyists were describing it as th
"tenth annual emergency convoa
tion."

Mrs. Wedel agreed that the pre
testers had "been together man
times," but she explained there wa
new reason for the effort since th
situation has never before "been si
bad."

About 250 churchmen and other
came for the event the week o
President Nixon's announcement o
the mining of North Vietnam's har
bors.

Also speaking were New York':
flamboyant member of Congress
Bella Abzug and these other mem
bers of the House of Representatives
Henry Reuss of Wisconsin, Abnei
Mikva of Illinois, Don Riegle oi
Michigan, John Dow of New
York and Michael Harrington of
Massachusetts.

Senator Harold Hughes of Iowa
appealed to the group to pressure
Congress to stop the military ap-
propriations. He also urged atten-
dance the following morning at a
vigil on the Capitol steps in the hour
before the harbor mines were to be
activated. Many of the convocation
participants were there for the event
which included speeches by several
anti-war legislators.

William Sloane Coffin Jr., Yale
chaplain and UPUSA minister, was
the featured speaker at the conclud-
ing session. He urged participants I
to go home and recruit others to
come to Washington or otherwise
contact Congressmen in the weeks
before votes are taken on the appro-
priations bills. EE

PAGE 4 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 24, 1972

enied Appointment,
i Hit Nixon Policy

'ASHINGTON — Eight Church

aders who failed to get an ap-

>intment with President Nixon to

iticize his war policies met with

.e press here in St. John's Episcopal
i lurch across from the White House.

Reporters were handed statements
t which the eight said they could
at give the President the support
3 requested of the American people
I his May 8 televised address.

They appealed for others to join
lem in "widespread witness" against
intinuation of the war.

Leading the group was Eugene
arson Blake, general secretary of
le World Council of Churches and
)rmer stated clerk of the United
resbyterian Church USA. The cur-
:nt stated clerk, William P. Thomp-
>n, was also in the group.

Dr. Blake read a two page state-
lent signed by all eight, and the
thers added brief comments.

Mrs. Cynthia Wedel, president of
le National Council of Churches,
dd it was a "sad commentary on
le state of democracy" when such a
roup had to communicate with the
resident through the public media
istead of in a personal interview.

Dr. Blake's letter asking for the
/hite House meeting said, "We are
mscious of the fact that you have
>ught your religious advice on these
id other matters from Protestant
adership which is more supportive
f your position and often critical of
le ecumenical consensus position
hich most major Protestant Church
adership supports."

Dr. Thompson told newsmen that
e believed Americans support the
resident best when they tell him
le war is immoral.

Another UPUSA leader in the
roup, NCC Director of Interna-
onal Affairs Robert Bilheimer,
:knowledged that the primary
irust of the "witness" he hoped
merican churchmen would make
ould be political. He noted plans
»r getting people across the coun-
y to come to Washington to con-
ct their Congressmen about ending
le war. He said the Emergency
convocation To End the War spon-

sored by Set the Date Now was a
part of the effort.

Increased activity was to start the
following week, Mr. Bilheimer re-
vealed. The organization known as
Clergy and Laymen Concerned had
a number of strategies planned, and
there is a "sense of network" among
those opposing the war, he added.

The eight issuing the statement
here said they had called on Church
members to daily "repentance and
commitment" and had asked church-
es to encourage special prayers for
peace. Asked if they knew of any
response to the various calls for
prayer and repentance, some panel-
ists responded that they had received
letters reporting that special services
were being scheduled.

Others signing the statement were
United Methodist Bishop James
Armstrong of the Dakotas; Mrs.
Claire Harvey, president of Church
Women United; Presiding Bishop
John E. Hines of the Episcopal
Church; Robert V. Moss, president
of the United Church of Christ. II

Ford Asks Christians
To Help Reform Jails

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (RNS) —Evan-
gelist Leighton Ford concluded one
of his most successful crusades here
with a plea for Christians to become
involved in prison reform.

In a sermon broadcast on "The
Hour of Decision" radio program
from this city, located a few miles
from Attica State Penitentiary, the
brother-in-law and possible successor
to Billy Graham announced that a
long-term volunteer effort has been
established to assist prisoners at At-
tica.

Under the program, which was
launched during the 10-day crusade,
selected volunteers will regularly
visit prisoners at the jail to befriend
them and offer them assistance when
they are released.

Dr. Ford acknowledged that the
crime rate in the United States con-
stitutes "a crisis of major propor-
tions," but said that this should lead
to greater rehabilitation efforts for
convicted criminals who are put in
prison.

"In the Chinese language," he

said, "the same character can mean
either 'jail' or 'hell.' Are we pre-
pared to adopt that attitude? Surely
those of us who know Christ should
have a deep burden for prisons and
prisoners. Jesus our Lord said that
He came to 'set the prisoner free.' "

Crusade officials recorded a total
attendance of 65,400 for the ten days
and 3,293 commitments to Christ.

A "first" in the history of Billy
Graham Association Crusades was
established with the use of a large
(15 feet by 20 feet) closed-circuit
television screen immediately behind
the platform, so that the thousands
of people in the Rochester War
Memorial could see the facial ex-
pressions of the platform partici-
pants. EH

Little Support Given
CALC Stockholder Bid

MEMPHIS (RNS) — Two resolu-
tions aimed at getting International
Telephone & Telegraph to end all
"military-related projects" were over-
whelmingly defeated here at the an-
nual stockholders' meeting.

The measures were sponsored by
Clergy and Laymen Concerned, an
inter-religious peace group which
owned four shares of ITT stock.

One resolution requested a written
report on all ITT contracts that
"support" U.S. military action in
Southeast Asia. It was rejected in a
a 85,427,265 to 2,053,896 vote, receiv-
ing 2.35 per cent.

The second petition asked for a
special committee to help ITT make
an "orderly transition to civilian-
oriented production." The vote was
85,269,437 to 2,210,834 — only 2.52
per cent for the proposal.

ITT was one of several corpora-
tions challenged in the 1972 round
of stockholders' meetings by the in-
terreligious group. Others included
Honeywell and General Electric.

The GE meeting was held in
Houston in April. Among the religi-
ous figures asking the firm to make
peace its "most important product"
were the Rev. David Hunter, associ-
ate general secretary of the National
Council of Churches and Sister
Francis Kenoyer of the Sisters of
Loretto. EH

PAGE 5 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 24, 1972

THE CHURCH AT HOME

Church, Society Unit
Plans Five '73 Papers

WASHINGTON — In its first May
meeting to do long range planning,
the Presbyterian US Council on
Church and Society assigned the
writing of five papers for the 1973
General Assembly.

The council met here in connec-
tion with the Emergency Convoca-
tion to End the War, sponsored by
the Set the Date Now campaign. Its
meeting date and site were shifted to
enable members to participate in
the anti-war lobbying effort.

Also drafted here were strategies
for following up the pronounce-
ments which the council has submit-
ted to the 1972 General Assembly.

For 1973 the proposed topics are:
Church investment policies, partic-
ularly as they relate to Southern Af-
rica; criminal justice; peace; pornog-
raphy; and public education.

The council was told that on its
recent statement on the war, in
which 1971 Moderator Ben Lacy
Rose joined them, the council vote
was 17-1. Two of the 20 members
could not be contacted when the
poll was conducted.

It was also announced that the
proposed pronouncement on Cuba
which the council decided not to
send to the 1972 Assembly is going
as an overture from National Cap-
ital-Union Presbytery.

The council commended the staff
of the Board of Christian Educa-
tion's office of Church and society
for producing the book of "read-
ings" sent to Assembly commission-
ers on topics of the proposed pro-
nouncements. IB

Peace Task Force
Starts Its Program

WASHINGTON — Members of the
new Presbyterian US Task Force on
Peace have already begun work and
will intensify their activity during
the remainder of 1972. That report
came to the meeting of the denomi-
nation's Council on Church and So-
ciety at its meeting here.

Reporting was the task force chair-
man and director of the Board of
Christian Education's office of

Church and society, George Chaun-
cey. The council asked that the task
force be established.

Mr. Chauncey said the task force
is made up entirely of denomina-
tional staff members.

Its first project is compilation
and distribution of a "peace packet"
which will be sent to all ministers.
It is expected to be mailed shortly.

Mr. Chauncey said the new group
had also requested a time for a four
hour peace program at the 1972 Gen-
eral Assembly but was turned down
by the program committee. Instead,
an hour of the time docketed for the
Board of Christian Education is ex-
pected to be used to present the
cause.

The task force is also asking for
time on the docket of all Assembly
boards and board staff meetings to
make presentations.

In addition to Mr. Chauncey, the
task force is composed of: Miss Lena
Clausell, T. M. McMillan and Rob-
ert Brewbaker of the Board of Chris-
tian Education; T. Watson Street of
the Board of World Missions; Joseph
Roberts of the Board of National
Ministries; Mrs. Edith Walsh of the
Board of Women's Work; and James
H. Daughdrill Jr. of the General
Council.

Among the consultants assisting
with the task force's first meeting
were Richard Fernandez, executive
of Clergy and Laymen Concerned,
and William Yolton, UPUSA staff
member. SI

Minister Says Columbus
Was Divinely Led in '92

MIAMI (RNS) — The voyage of
Christopher Columbus to "Amer-
ica" was based upon a "vision drawn
entirely from the Holy Scriptures,"
according to a Presbyterian minis-
ter here.

The clergyman believes that the
explorer saw his surname (meaning
"Christ-bearer") as a symbol of his
missionary vocation.

The Rev. August John Kling, pas-
tor of First Presbyterian Church,
said that "Columbus had a very defi-
nite view that Christ would return
soon and the world would end. He
concluded, on the basis of the Bible's
prophecies, that the Gospel had to

be preached to all nations befoi
Christ could return."

Thus, the nations had to be di
covered, the minister continued, an
Columbus interpreted his coi
cern and his skills as a mariner to b
a sign that he was one chosen by Go
to do so.

Mr. Kling, who has researched th
influence of Scripture on other nt
table figures of history — Isaac Nev
ton, Johannes Kepler, Blaise Pasca
Galileo, Rembrandt van Rijn, am
others — bases his conclusions on
biography of the explorer written b
Samuel Eliot Morison, and the onl
book Columbus wrote, Book o
Prophecies. The latter has neve
been translated into English fron
the original Spanish and Latin, ac
cording to Mr. Kling.

Columbus' sailing journals and hi
private letters also give evidence o
his Biblical knowledge and his de
vout love for Jesus Christ, said Mr
Kling. The Book of Prophecies i
"a careful compilation of all th<
teachings of the Bible on the subjec
of the earth, distant lands, seas, pop
u 1 a t i o n movement, undiscoverec
tribes," according to the minister

"Columbus believed that the Hoi)
Spirit had given him special assist
ance in understanding both the
Scriptures and the sciences of navi
gation and geography required foi
his life's mission," he said.

The explorer wrote, "It was the
Lord who put into my mind ( I could
feel His hand upon me) the fact that
it would be possible to sail from here
to the Indies." B

Kennedy Is Honored

VALLEY FORGE, Pa.— D. James
Kennedy, senior minister of the
Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church,
Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., has been
awarded the George Washington
Honor Medal by the Freedoms
Foundation here. A 1971 sermon,
"What You Can Do About Com-
munism," was cited in the announce-
ment of the award. IB

Student Officers Named

JACKSON, Miss. — Student govern-
ment officers at Reformed Seminary
here next academic year will include
the following: El Waldron, Planta-
tion, Fla., president; David Jussely,
Hattiesburg, Miss., vice-president;
Billy Tyson, Jackson, secretary; and
Calvin Jett, Bristol, Tenn., treasur-
er, ffl

PAGE 6 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 24, 1972

Sr our own good, sometimes God answers us, "No" —

The 'Cruelty' of Christ

A

\ 11 Christians are familiar with
the story of Jesus' raising Laz-
us from the dead at Bethany. Not
) familiar is the puzzling behavior
I Jesus when He was first notified
lat Lazarus was sick. This strange
mduct is the reason for the title
f this message.

Lazarus' sisters, Mary and Martha,
:nt word to Jesus that "he whom
iou lovest is sick." Jesus then cle-
berately remained two days longer
here He was, at another Bethany
eyond the Jordan River, where
aim had baptized. By the time He
:ached Lazarus' tomb, His friend
ad been dead four days. Surely
ich slowness and indifference were
ot like Jesus. What lay behind
ich seeming callousness?

As the strange story unfolds, we
iscover that more is involved than
leets the eye of the casual observer,
ideed, the story demonstrates that
le best thing God can do for us in
>ve may be the opposite of what
e want or expect.

Jewish Custom

In that warm climate, the Jewish
astom was to bury a person on the
ime day he died, and mourn him
fterward. The corpse was wrapped
1 special burial linens and shrouds,
nd laid in one of the cool rock
)mbs which are still numerous
round Palestine. No coffins were
sed, nor will many Jews in Palestine
se them today, out of respect for
le Scriptural decree in Genesis 3:19:
In the sweat of thy face shalt thou
at bread, till thou return unto the
round; for out of it wast thou

The author is pastor of the Grace
nd St. John's Lutheran Churches,
)hiowa, Neb.

John 11:1-6

taken: for dust thou art, and unto
dust shalt thou return."

For three days, some thought, the
spirit of the deceased hovered around
the corpse seeking some means of re-
entry. On the fourth day, after the
inevitable fleshly decay and putre-
faction had set in, the spirit was re-
pelled by the altered appearance of
the body and forever fled the scene.
Then all hope of any resuscitation
was gone. Yet Jesus waited until
Lazarus had been buried four days
before He arrived in Bethany. Why?

Suppose a minister should be told
that someone in the congregation
was critically ill and desired his
presence, but he waited four or five
days to go to him. Would he not be
greatly (and justly!) criticized for
such delay? Some might gloss over
the failure by saying, "He has been
very busy" or "Everyone makes mis-
takes," but it would still be pain-
fully clear that he had neglected
his pastoral duties to the dying per-
son.

Jesus, however, simply because he
was the Christ, the Son of God, could
say: "This sickness is not unto death,
but for the glory of God, that the
Son of God might be glorified there-
by." When His disciples mistook his
reference to Lazarus as sleeping to
mean that the patient was gaining
strength for his recovery by getting
extra rest, Jesus told them plainly
that Lazarus had died and added:
"And I am glad for your sakes that
I was not there, to the intent ye may
believe." Christ would not merely
console the survivors, as you or I
might do, in the face of the inevit-
able. He would storm the gates of
death and bring the corpse back to
life.

EDWARD A. JOHNSON

For Jesus, a matter of self-preserva-
tion also was involved. When he had
been in Judea before and had testi-
fied to His divine origin, the Jews
angrily had tried to stone Him as a
blasphemer, so Jesus and the dis-
ciples had crossed the Jordan to the
other Bethany to wait until things
quieted down. There Jesus said He
wanted to return to Bethany of
Judea to help the family of Lazarus.
"Master, the Jews of late sought to
stone thee," the disciples protested;
"and goest thou thither again?"

Walk in the Sunlight

"Are there not twelve hours in the
day?" Jesus answered. "If any man
walk in the day, he stumbleth not,
because he seeth the light of this
world. But if a man walk in the night,
he stumbleth, because there is no
light in him." Go on to do confident-
ly the work God has given you to
do, walking in the sunlight of His will
for your life. March only to that
distant drum, no matter how many
revile you for being contrary or
"different."

Jesus well knew that He might
invite a violent end for Himself by
returning to Judea. He also knew
that His time had not come, that
His work was not finished, and that
God would not allow Him to be
cut down before His hour had ar-
rived. Despite His seemingly cruel
slowness in coming, He did love this
family in Bethany enough to risk
His life to go to them even though,
from their standpoint, He apparent-
ly arrived too late.

It was Thomas — yes, the same
"doubting Thomas" who later failed
to heed the lesson Christ tried to
teach him by raising Lazarus, and
who demanded visual proof of
Christ's resurrection before he would

PAGE 7 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 24, 1972

believe — who ended the disciples'
discussion and crystalized them into
action. "Let us also go," he declared,
"that we may die with Him." If the
Master intends to go back and face
death, he wanted to know, dare we
let Him go alone?

Can we begin now to understand
that God's love often serves us best
by doing, not what seems obvious or
good, but what is best for us even
though we least expected it? Can we
see that by delaying, by allowing a
situation to become utterly hopeless
in our eyes, God may be doing His
utmost for us?

God Steps In

Where a situation has become im-
possible, humanly speaking, God
steps in to show us that with Him
nothing is hopeless. When we can do
nothing, when our own frantic ef-
forts and animal heat have led only
to failure, God may have to force us
to turn to Him in order to learn that
it is He who gives us our strength,
and He alone. In appearing callous
or indifferent, even cruel, God often
is testing us to be sure that we learn
a vital spiritual lesson: "Be still, and
know that I am God" (Psa. 46:10) .

How fond we are of quoting
Romans 8:28: "And we know that all
things work together for good to
them that love God, to them who
are the called according to his pur-
pose." What we often fail to realize
is that if God's will is to prevail
ultimately, it must prevail now.

What We Want

If God were to give us everything
we want today, it might shut the
door to His working out to the full-
est His plan for tomorrow. Like any
loving parent, God often must deny
us our immediate wants in order to
make sure that our eventual needs
will be cared for. Faith in God must
realize this, and learn the discipline
of patience, waiting for God to give
us all things until He knows the
right hour has come.

"Loving people means giving them
what they need, not what they
want," Bruce Larson has written,
"even if they turn on you and despise
you." The people of Bethany wanted
Christ's immediate presence and
Lazarus' immediate healing. Christ
gave them, instead what they need-
ed: a resurrected Lazarus and a
stronger personal faith in God.

In raising Lazarus, Jesus intended

to prepare the people for His own
forthcoming resurrection about a
month thereafter. If they understood
by His demonstration of God's power
among them that He was truly the
Lord over life and death, they should
be ready to believe when they heard
that He had returned from the dead.

He also thereby brought the op-
position against Himself to a head.
The upsurge in popular support for
Jesus in the wake of Lazarus' resur-
rection led the Jewish religious lead-
ers to decide that Jesus must go.
"From that day forth they took coun-
sel for to put Him to death" (John
11:53).

Anyone in a position of leader-
ship or authority must take great
personal risks — his popularity, his
job, sometimes his life — in helping
his people to grow rather than mere-
ly to be happy. It is far easier to give
the people what they want, to preach
every week in glittering superficiali-
ties, than fearlessly to proclaim "all
the counsel of God" (Acts 20:27).
But if we take seriously our commis-
sion as God's witnesses and heralds,
the narrow, rocky road must be
taken in the name of Jesus Christ.

Or What We Need

A pastor had to resolve a delicate
issue that had arisen in his congrega-
tion. He knew that no matter what
he did, even if he did nothing at all,
many of his parishioners would be
against him. He did the only thing
a true undershepherd of Christ
could: He chose the course of action
which was best for the majority, and
in harmony with God's Word, for
both the present and the future.

Sure enough, a small faction kept
harassing and denouncing him until
he finally turned in his resignation.
Today, however, nearly everyone in
the congregation looks back grate-

Sin and Socialism

The idea that sin is a leaky, poor
roof, poor plumbing, patches on
overalls and cornbread and molasses
for breakfast is not new. But Chris-
tian dedication to that idea is Chris-
tian socialism. From the moment it
is governmentally maintained it
ceases to be Christian socialism and
becomes merely socialism. Super-
impose tyranny on it and you have
Communism. — The Dallas Morn-
ing News.

fully upon his wise and self-sacrifi.
ing leadership.

One morning two leaders of th
faction visited him, pouring oi
vitriol and spite. "We thought
minister was supposed to be a peaa
maker, to reconcile," they complaii
ed. "Why did you choose a cours
which split us apart?"

"Don't forget," the pastor repliec
"that the Jesus who said, 'Blesse
are the peacemakers,' is the sam
Jesus who said, 'I came not to brin
peace but a sword.' Both are Hi
authentic statements. It is wrong t
give a counterfeit peace which woul
sacrifice the principles involved ii
this dispute. It is wrong to give th
people harmony if it ignores th>
fact that they are plainly in th
wrong. It is not God's will to seel,
peace at any price when people nee(
a challenge, in the name of Christ
to shake them out of their letharg
and conceit.

On Our Knees!

in

"If I had done what you an
demanding, you would still not b<
satisfied; you would only say '.
should have had the good sense tc
go that way in the first place. Th(
rest of the people would feel I hac
betrayed them and the Word of God
they never again would trust
leadership. Giving in to your de
mands would prove that I didn'
really love any of you. If you want
peace, gentlemen, start with your-
selves— on your knees!"

So Christ often also must deal with
us. We say He is cruel, that His
way isn't "loving," forgetting how
often genuine love is confused with
sentimental gush. "God didn't an
swer my prayers," we say. "I'll nevei
trust Him again." Sometimes God
has to wait until a situation seems
hopeless in order to reach us when
we are open to Him and ready for
Him. Sometimes we must hit rock
bottom before we are ready to let
Christ lift us out of the tombs off
despair into His new way of life.

The starkest tragedy, the most out-
rageous or incredible developments:
in our lives, will work out for God's
glory eventually if we will only let
Him have His way today. "To love
is to want God's best for the other
person," Bruce Larson wrote, even if
one must run "the risk of being
misunderstood," and C. S. Lewis
also said, "The hardness of God is
kinder than the softness of men, and
His compulsion is our liberation." BB

PAGE 8 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 24, 1972

, parable of the indifferent neighbors —

Such People!

rhe Bible often speaks of men
knowing God, and Christian
?ople often tell of their personal
:periences. How can one acquire
personal experience of the pres-
lce of God? How does one come to
low God as a person, in a saving
lationship?

At the outset we acknowledge that
od is sovereign and that He makes
Imself known when and where and
i whom He wills. However, there

e some things man can do to fit
ito the sovereign will of God. I be-
eve that we often fail to know God
i a very personal way because we
re prone to treat God as a thing,
ti object, to treat Him as the
eathen deal with their idols.

God is not an object that we pos-
:ss and control. God is a person
ho wishes to enter into loving fel-
>wship with us. We oppose this
illowship and rule out the possibil-
y of knowing the presence of the
ving God when we do not acknowl-
ige Him as a person in our minds
nd hearts.

In three ways particularly we do
lis: We fail to express gratitude
) God; we fail to repent of sin; and
e fail to receive Jesus Christ into
ur hearts. To illustrate what I
lean by these three points, hear the
ory of an indifferent neighbor,
lease remember it is only a parable,
ut it could be a true story.

iLet us suppose that years ago in
nother community lived the Good-
I family, and that new neighbors
ith two small children and one big
og moved in next door to the south
f them. The father of the new peo-
le completely dominated the family

The author is pastor of the Cove-
ant United Presbyterian Church
UPUSA) , Hammond, Ind.

and in my story I want you to think
of him in particular.

The first evening they were there,
Mrs. Goodly took over a cherry pie,
which he received at the door with-
out saying a word. They never
spoke a word about that pie; they
did not even return the pie tin, and
the Goodlys never knew whether
they liked it or not.

A few weeks later, the Neigh-
bor family went on vacation and
Mr. Goodly determined to break the
ice by mowing their lawn during
their absence. This he did several
times, but again he received no ex-
pression of gratitude, no recognition
of the favor whatsoever.

Winter came one cold December
morning. Mr. Goodly saw that his
neighbor was having trouble start-
ing his car, so he put on his coat and
overshoes, got his own car out and
gave him a push. About half a block
down the street, the balky engine
caught and off drove Mr. Neighbor.
He never waved a friendly gesture,
never honked his horn in acknowl-
edgement of the courtesy, he never
did a thing. He just drove away.

Never a 'Thank You'

Needless to say, the Goodlys felt
frustrated but they refused to give
up; they determined to have fellow-
ship with the Neighbors if it was the
last thing they ever did.

Now it came to pass on a certain
day that Mrs. Neighbor was taken
to the hospital, and the Goodlys
took the two small children into
their home. It was wonderful the
way the youngsters responded to
their love and affection. They kept
them for three weeks, and even start-
ed them in Sunday school during
the time. When Mrs. Neighbor re-
covered and the children returned

JOHN H. EASTWOOD

home, the parents never spoke a
word of appreciation, but later ac-
cused the Goodlys of attempting to
steal the affection of the children.
They also took them out of Sunday
school.

Months grew into years and the
Goodlys never succeeded in estab-
lishing any fellowship with the
Neighbors, who never treated them
as people, but as things, and seemed
to look upon them only as some-
thing to be used at their con-
venience.

Do you begin to see how an ex-
pression of gratitude is essential to
fellowship? If there is no gratitude
there can be no fellowship. If you
go year after year receiving the
blessings of God with no expression
of gratitude, you cannot expect to
experience the presence of God in
loving fellowship. Men do not have
fellowship with objects. If we treat
God as an object to be used, we can-
not expect to experience any fellow-
ship.

A woman does not thank the dia-
mond on her finger for brilliantly
reflecting the light, but she should
thank the man who gave it to her.
We do not thank the sun for shin-
ing, but we should thank God who
makes it shine. God has given us
life, health, the world around us and
the sky above us. Let us express
gratitude to Him. It is not surpris-
ing that men have often found their
faith come alive and grow into a per-
sonal experience when they begin
to tithe.

A second practice of ours which
prevents us from having a personal
experience of the presence of God
is our failure to repent of sin.

Now let me tell you more of these
imaginary families: The Goodlys
liked flowers and growing things.
They had flowers in front of the

PAGE 9 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 24, 1972

house and in the back yard, but the
Neighbors had no interest in or con-
cern for their flowers. Mr. Neighbor
let the children run through them
and his dog was forever digging in
them.

There was nothing to do but for
Mr. Goodly to build a picket fence.
He took pride in it, making it
straight and strong and giving it two
coats of paint. It ran along the
south side of his property and pro-
tected the flower beds. One evening
soon after it was completed, Mr.
Neighbor came home in his old
pickup truck, slammed into the
fence and tore out a whole section,
breaking off three posts and reduc-
ing 40 pickets to kindling. Not only
that, he ruined many of the flowers.

Worst of all, however, he backed
his truck away from the wreckage
and went into the house without say-
ing a word. No apology, no regret,
no offer of restitution. In all the
time the two families lived next
door to each other, Mr. Neighbor
never admitted having done any-
thing wrong. The Goodlys felt re-
jected, sinned against, for he had vio-
lated their dignity and treated them
as objects, not people.

Now God has established His laws,
set up His fences and planted His
flowers. When you deliberately
smash God's fences, refuse to repent,
make no apology, confess no wrong,
offer no restitution, you can plainly
see that loving fellowship is out-
lawed.

One of the great barriers to know-
ing God in saving faith and fellow-
ship is an impenitent spirit, a re-
fusal to confess sin and turn from it.

If we are to experience the presence
of God in a saving relationship, we
must enter into His temple with the
prayer of the publican on our lips,
"God be merciful to me, a sinner."
Men often find their faith comes
alive and grows into a personal ex-
perience when they are willing to
confess their sins and repent of
them.

The third point is that we fail to
have a personal experience of the
living God because we fail to receive
the risen living Saviour, Jesus, into
our hearts.

Further Withdrawal

But let us return to our story.

As you might expect, things grew
very difficult for Mr. Neighbor. He
lost his health and his job, the fam-
ily became destitute. However, when
the Goodlys offered them food, they
would not take it. If possible, they
seemed to withdraw even more.

When the Goodlys heard that the
Neighbors' house was to be sold to
pay their debts, they went to him
and said, "Sir, we have heard that
your home is to be sold. We are will-
ing to pay the mortgage on this
house and let you continue to live
here without paying rent, until the
time comes when you can go back
to work."

"You are lying!" replied Mr.
Neighbor. "I do not believe you!
You are making fun of me and tak-
ing advantage of our hard luck."

The Goodlys will never forget that
last evening. The house and nearly
all the furnishings had been sold
during the day. The Neighbors

were standing on the walk in froi
of their old home with only a fe
possessions they could carry in the
hands. They went to them an'
said, "We have a furnished apai
ment only a few blocks away. The
is food in the refrigerator and tl
rooms are warm and comfortabl
Here is the key. It is yours for tl
taking."

But Mr. Neighbor replied i
anger, "We have never taken an
thing from you and we are not g<
ing to start now." The Neighbo:
walked away into the night and it
unknown. This was the final reje
tion, and the Goodlys never hear
from them again.

God in His great goodness has o
fered us not only the forgiveness
our sins, but a furnished home i
heaven. It is all ours for the tal
ing. We fail to have fellowshi
with Him because we reject His o
fer. We are morally and spiritua
ly bankrupt. We have no claim o:
eternal life. We cannot pay o
debt to God; we have no eterna
home of our own.

All we can do is accept His gra
cious offer. In rejecting His offei
we reject His fellowship and the ex
perience of His personal presence
It is not at all surprising that raei
experience the living presence of thj
personal God when they receive Je,
sus Christ into their hearts.

If you would know the preseno
of the personal God in your heart
then treat Him as a person. Shov
true gratitude toward Him; repen
of your sins; receive His grace ii
Jesus Christ.

A Memorial Day meditation —

A Time of Sacred Memory

Memorial Day is a time for re-
membering and remember-
ing is good for all of us. God never
forgets. The Bible tells us that the
Lord has "a book of remembrance
written before Him, for them that

The author is pastor of the First
Baptist Church, Merchantville, N. J.

feared the Lord and thought on
His name" (Mai. 3:16). Inscribed
on the pages of that book are the
names of the heroic and faithful,
those who walk uprightly, about
whom the Word of God says, "no
good thing will He withhold."

Remember what the Lord has
done for you in the past. It will

SAMUEL A. JEANES

strengthen you for the present. It
will inspire you for the future.
"Remember the words of Jesus
Christ!" This is what Paul told
the Christians at Ephesus. He said
the same thing to Timothy, b u t
added the words ". . . risen from
the dead." He wanted Timothy
not to forget the Saviour who died

PAGE 10 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 24, 1972

Ii the cross, and was buried, and

l is alive forevermore.
The Lord Jesus Himself called
ion His followers then and in all

I £s to exercise the power of mem-
y. He told them that whenever
ey observed the Lord's Supper
ey should "do this in reraem-
ance of me." Use the power of
emory to recall what Christ did

hr you. Focus intently your heart
id mind upon His death for your
ns, for by such an act of believing
ith, the life-giving power of His
led blood on the cross will become
purifying flame within you.
Never forget what God has done
>r you! The same God who has
elped you in the past is with you
)day and will be with you forever,
fever forget it, for He is "our help
a ages past, our hope for years to
ome, our refuge from the stormy
!last, and our eternal home."

Memorial Day is a patriotic day,
do! The turning wheels of busi-
ness and industry will come to a
alt. The flags will fly. The taps
f the buglers will sound across the
md. Americans should stop to re-
all the rich memories of the past
hat have been marked by the sacri-
ices of brave men. Such memories
an give us every confidence for the
uture.

The present may be fraught with
lifficulties, but with God's help we
an surmount them. Those who are
he purveyors of hate and unrest
vould have us doubt our future by
naking us forget our glorious past.
America has been uniquely blessed
aaterially. The total goods and
ervices of our nation totalled $932
)illion in 1970, ten times more
han that of the United Kingdom,
nd almost $300 billion more than

II the Communist nations together.
At the end of World War II, the

Jnited States possessed sufficient re-
ources, including the deadly atom-
c bomb, to conquer the world, but
America was not an aggressor. Our
lation did not want to master the
vorld, it wanted the people of
:arth to enjoy those spiritual bless-
ngs of life, liberty and pursuit of
lappiness.

To this end, America poured
S50 billion into a prostrate Europe
vhere nearly 200 million people
vere living on the borderline of
tarvation, and through the Mar-
hall Plan, enabled the people of
lation after nation to stand on their
eet once more. What nation in his-
ory has ever written such a noble

page of humanitarian accomplish-
ments? We must never forget it.
That memory will help us keep the
flag of our faith flying high.

When the Communists took over
China, there was a battle near an
American Christian mission being
used as an orphanage. The place
was so crowded with deserted babies
that the nuns had run out of
clothes with which to cover them.
In the midst of the barking guns,
the nuns heard a baby crying out-
side the door. They ran out and
brought in a little naked baby, but
they had nothing to wrap him in.

I shall, with the greatest caution,
and a sincere regard to truth and
holiness, to the glory of God and the
good of human souls, proceed to con-
sider the nature, effects and evi-
dences of the present supposed con-
version in this part of the world, that
we may all be the better able to
judge of the nature of the spirit from
whence it flows.

To any person, that with an un-
prejudiced mind hath viewed the
same for these six months past, or
more, I presume its nature will ap-
pear to be this, or very near, viz.,
a sudden and terrible fear of divine
wrath, or the miseries of hell, oc-
casioning in some a sensation of
cold, in most a very extraordinary
warmth all over the body; causing
people to cry as if distracted; to
shed tears in great plenty; throwing
many into convulsions, and a few
for some time into despair.

This continues with the generality
but for a very short season (though
some few feel it a little longer) . In
a few days or less, the cloud blows,
for ordinary, over; the terror is at
an end, and a more common cheer-
fulness succeeds; all their difficulties
and doubts are removed, and im-
mediately a certainty that all their

This sermon was preached at the
height of the Great Awakening in
America, 1741, by the Rev. John
Caldwell, New Londonderry, Pa.

Just then, an American flag was
shot down off the flagpole. One
nun ran out, brought back the flag,
and wrapped the shivering baby in
it. That act was a demonstration of
the heart of Christian America, and
so must it ever be with the help of
the Lord. Side by side with that
flag, we must keep flying the flag
of faith, the blood-stained banner
of the cross of Christ.

Do not neglect the book of glori-
ous and sacred memories. It will
give you strength for today and hope
for a future which is in the hands
of our God. II

JOHN CALDWELL

sins are pardoned, and that they
shall be saved, takes place; and that
all their after sins, how many or
heinous soever they be, will be over-
looked, upon their confidently rely-
ing on the merits of our Redeemer.

Its effects, in general are, a bold
talking of experiences, as soon as
the terror is over; by which if we
judge as *we would in other cases,
we are to understand their righteous-
ness; though in the meantime that
they are filling our ears with such
discourse, they would have us be-
lieve them the most humble and
selfdenied of mankind; a contempt
of all others, especially such as seem
to question anything of what they
say of their experiences; boldly call-
ing such carnal and sentencing them
to eternal misery, who demand more
evidence than they think proper to
give, to convince them their spirit
is from God; refusing to reason upon
their principles, telling the world
none are capable to judge of their
doctrines or experiences but spirit-
ual men; i.e. such as are of their
opinions.

Its effects upon many of their
teachers are very uncommon, divest-
ing them of all charity to such as
oppose, though ever so conscientious-
ly, this present scheme; moving them
to shut the gates of heaven against
the whole human race, but them-

(Continued on p. 19, col. 1)

Some Presbyterians, sad to say, think revival is of the Devil —

An Epidemic Distemper

PAGE 11 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 24, 1972

EDITORIALS

When Is the Sabbath?

On our way to the Far East, re-
cently, we crossed the International
Dateline between Hawaii and Tokyo
late one Friday afternoon — and sud-
denly, about dark, it was Saturday
night.

Speculating, we reasoned that if
the plane had crossed the dateline
at 11:55 p.m. that Friday, Saturday
would have been just 5 minutes long
for us. Conversely, had we been
travelling the opposite direction and
crossed the dateline at 11:55 p.m. of
a Saturday, we would have experi-
enced two Saturdays!

It is a strange feeling to lose (or
gain) an entire day simply by cross-
ing an imaginary line. We began to
think what might have happened
had we traveled a day later — no Sun-
day!

Then we started thinking about
the continuing argument advanced
by some Christian brethren who in-
sist that one particular day in the
week is eternally sacred because it is
mentioned in the Bible: the seventh
day, or Sabbath.

Most Christians, of course, worship
on Sunday — not so much because
they willingly violate an explicit Bib-
lical command, but because they be-
lieve the commandment concerning
the "Sabbath" can appropriately re-
fer to the first as to the last day of
the week — in fact, to any suitable
day in seven set apart for the wor-
ship of God. Thus many Christians
freely call Sunday "the Sabbath."
And they remember that in the
Bible "sabbath" refers to years and
weeks as well as certain days.

The difficulty of selecting a parti-
cular period between sunrises and
sunsets and saying "this is the sacred
period specified in the Bible" should
be obvious. For one thing, the cal-
endar has been changed more than
once since Biblical times and we
have no assurance that the day we
call Saturday is the Seventh Day of
the Bible.

Our experience with the Interna-
tional Dateline sharpens the point
we would make. Which was the
Sabbath? That day on the eastern

side of the dateline, or that other day
just a few miles away on the western
side?

When Christians on the eastern
side of the dateline got out of bed
on Saturday, the same morning that
Christians on the western side of the
dateline got out of bed on Sunday,
for which was that day the Sabbath?

We think the answer is inescap-
able. God requires of us one day in
seven. He does not hold us to a
particular period of twenty-four
hours. The celebrant of the Lord's
Day is as obedient as the celebrant
of the Sabbath.

One additional thought: If this
reasoning is valid, then people forced
to work on Sunday on account of
their "works of necessity and mercy,"
do not automatically retain the free-
dom to use the other six days as they
please. God still gets one day in
seven. IE

Whom Do We Confess?

When we recite the Apostles'
Creed, whom do we confess? Our-
selves, or Jesus Christ our Lord?
Our opinions, or God's actions? Do
we trust in what we have done for
God, or in God and what He has
done for us in Christ? Is our confi-
dence in our clever acumen and up-
to-date scholarship, or in the resur-
rected Christ and the Spirit He has
given? Is our future the great
things we desire for ourselves, or is
the coming of Christ our hope of
glory? Do we believe in our faith,
or do we believe in God the Father
almighty?

The creed itself is crammed with
the objective facts of God's saving
acts. When its recital is introduced
with the phrase, "Let us confess our
faith," we refer to the faith which
we believe. All too often, however,
this introductory sentence is misin-
terpreted as meaning the faith by
which we believe, that is, our sub-
jective act of believing.

When we subjectivize, it is all too
easy to relativize. Then everyone

thinks it permissible to put his ow I
individual interpretation upon an
or all of the creed's articles: fac
fantasy, fable.

Some regard the Apostles' Cree'
as largely figurative, but they repea
it for the edification of the babe
in Christ who still hold it to be fac
tually true. When the process o
subjectivizing is carried to its ulti
mate conclusion, it becomes belieA
ing in our own faith, in our fin
feelings, even in our hunches; thei
we are confessing only our faith ii I
ourselves.

To hold the faith as factual!'
true, we need to keep the emphasi
on God, accepting the creed's affir
mation of His mighty acts as not be
ing merely human hallucinations
To that end, pastors and session:
may wish to reconsider the way ir
which they introduce the creed. We
offer for their consideration some
such phrasing as, "Using the Apos
ties' Creed, let us confess the living
God, and His great and gracious acts
for us men and for our salvation."

In whatever way each church de-
cides, let us proclaim God's mighty
intervention in Christ for our salva-
tion. — W. C. Robinson. IE

It's Always Godless

Some truths have to be repeated
again and again — they are basic
and, human nature being what it is,
we all need to be reminded.

We thought of that when a letter
came across the desk from a Chris-
tian friend who was reflecting on
the possible effects of the new rap-
prochement between the United
States and Communist China.
"Wouldn't it be wonderful," wrote
our friend, "if the leaders of China
would let down the bars to a preach-
ing of the Gospel. What a differ-
ence it would make if Christians
should be found in the leadership
of that Communist country!"

We need to be reminded again
and again, not only that Commu-
nism is godless, but why Commu-
nism is godless. It simply will not
work among believers. The basic
philosophy is incompatible with the
Christian faith and where Commu-
nism enters, prima facie evidence
exists that Christian faith has de-
parted. In other words, there is no
such thing as Christian Communism.
The two terms are mutually contra-
dictory. Whenever you see or hear
Marxist principles supported by

PAGE 12 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 24, 1972

THE LAYMAN AND HIS CHURCH

It Haunted Me!

carchmen, you can assume with
if feet safety that either the church-
nn doesn't know what he is doing,
c genuine Christian faith is absent.
Walk into the Moscow Historical
tfuseum and on the wall you will
s: a plaque with Lenin's famous
i turn: "Religion is the opiate of
It'? people."

Why this fundamental emphasis
1 atheism? For one reason only:
Ommunism depends on human
* fishness for survival. It does not
Eke root where there is no selfish-
ss and it will not be supported in
iy atmosphere in which the people
e not essentially selfish. The per-
il who is content with what he has
never found in the company of
i e masses rioting for a better life
, the enforced expense of those
\jiho own property.
Communism is a very simple phi-
sophy. It is the idea that the laws
the universe operate on behalf
: the poor in relation to the rich.

teaches that the wealth of the
orld has gravitated into the hands
I a few and that if this wealth were
istributed equally — taken from
iim who has and given to him who
as not — everybody would be well
iff (not just simply better off) . Be-
luse he who has does not relish the
lea of giving up his possessions (or
oing to work) on behalf of him
/ho has not, the system inevitably
equires enforcement to work; hence
: always becomes a dictatorship,
ind because taking from those who
ave and giving to those who have
iot never leaves the whole mass well
iff, the system inevitably leaves ev-
rybody poor — except those in con-
rol who are careful not to practice
he system themselves.

Sometimes it is said that the early
christians practiced Communism.
«Jot so. A Christian sees his brother
n need and for Christ's sake he is
rilling to share with his brother,
rhat is altogether different from see-
ng that others have more than you
lave and demanding your "share," if
lecessary by revolution and, in any
ase, by government seizure.

For Communism to work there
nust be masses of people demand-
ng more, more, more. Christians
lon't do that. So Communist bosses
annot permit their people to be-
ome Christians. (Once in power,
>f course, Communism works by
uthless force as soon as the people
liscover that their demands for
nore, more and more produce less
ind less.) 11

"In less than fifteen years there
will be no Presbyterian Church," an-
nounced the new General Presbyter
during his installation before several
hundred well-to-do Presbyterians.

No Presbyterian Church? Of
course, th i s was the UPUSA
Church and an extremely liberal
presbytery, but that statement haunt-
ed me! Why? How?

Some of the answers came during
the new General Presbyter's address.
Denominations, he assured us, were
no longer necessary. The feeling of
denominational loyalty was a nar-
row thing, carried over from a more
primitive time. In the sophisticated
society of today it has no place, he
concluded.

For approximately eight years
since that night, this man has con-
tinued to work toward the achieve-
ment of his goal. He seems to think
that the Church of Christ Uniting
can provide the vehicle for replacing
the Presbyterian Church, so perhaps
it is not surprising that a Roman
Catholic bishop participated in the
services that day, and since then the
General Presbyter flew to Rome to
represent the presbytery when Arch-
bishop O' Boyle was made cardinal,
thus returning the recognition that
the Roman Catholic hierarchy gave
at his installation.

To reduce the moral conflict
which might develop, the UPUSA
Confession of 1967 is an appropriate
instrument. Since its adoption, the
new vows are required in all ordina-
tions and thus, the old familiar ques-
tion, "Do you believe the Scriptures
of the Old and New Testaments to
be the Word of God, the only infal-
lible rule of faith and practice?" is
no longer asked.

Mrs. Edioin P. Elliott Sr. is the
luife of a UPUSA minister.

When Not To Speak

Loose your tongue when angry and
you will make the greatest speech
you will ever regret. — Unknown.

Instead, an affirmative vow is
made to this one: "Do you accept
the Scriptures of the Old and New
Testaments to be, by the Holy Spirit,
the unique and authoritative witness
to Jesus Christ in the Church cath-
olic, and God's Word to you?"
This is a significant difference;
this change does away with the Pres-
byterian Church.

Enforcement of new standards
comes through the Ministerial Rela-
tions Committee. A careful check
is made to see that ministers who
come into the presbytery are untrou-
bled by adherence to the old stand-
ards. Special emphasis is placed up-
on social action activities. Church-
es which spend time and energy on
evangelistic programs are called to
task for failure to promote the de-
nominational thrust.

The "watch dog committee," of-
ficially the Strategy Committee,
checks the program of each local
church! Whenever a new minister is
called; property mortgaged, pur-
chased or sold; or five years of time
have passed since a check-up; or any
crisis arises, the committee evaluates
the program of the local church with
emphasis upon the social and ecu-
menical features, and adherence to
the denominational program.

No reference to evangelical wit-
ness is required. Members of the
Strategy Committee would be puz-
zled by the question which is irrele-
vant to them, "Are you a born-again
Christian?"

Smaller churches or churches min-
istering to lower income congrega-
tions are forced to bear an intoler-
able financial burden because of the
salary scale for ministers, with noth-
ing left for that part of the budget
which is planned for benevolent giv-
ing to others.

Not all of this is written out in
the official pronouncements of judi-
catories, of course, but it comes
through in the sardonic laughter of
the chairman of the Ministerial Re-
lations Committee in response to a
minister who affirms his belief in
the Westminster Standards. IB

PAGE 13 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 24, 1972

SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON

For June 11, 1972

Meeting God Through the Scriptures

Rev. Jack B. Scott

INTRODUCTION: Today our
special emphasis is on the Scriptures
and the devotional life. No full de-
votional life nor continuing fellow-
ship with God is possible except
through Scripture, for only there do
we hear God speak and only there
do we have a certain Word of God.

Some weeks ago, we saw in the
study of II Timothy, chapter 3, how
the Scripture was profitable to Tim-
othy and to us for teaching. Look-
ing again at that same passage, we
are reminded of the place of Scrip-
ture in all of Timothy's life. Tim-
othy's mother and grandmother were
devout believers and it can be as-
sumed that through their efforts
Timothy from a babe knew the
Scripture (II Tim. 3:15). He was
exhorted to abide in that same
Word, which he had long known.

This is indicative of Paul's esti-
mate of the importance of the de-
votion through Scripture. The Word
of God written, the infallible Word
of God is our only source of sure
knowledge of our Lord and His will.

Let us be reminded of the Shorter
Catechism question and answer:
"What do the Scriptures principally
teach? The Scriptures principally
teach what man is to believe con-
cerning God, and what duty God re-
quires of man." Read also the Con-
fession of Faith, Chapter I, to see
the great insight the writers of the
Confession had into the foundation
of our faith and practice, namely,
the Word of God written.

A portion of Psalm 119 gives
further insight into the power and
gains for us in the study of God's
Word in the devotional life. This
psalm, filled with praise of God's
Word, is what is called an acrostic
poem. Each section is so designed
that each line of that section be-
gins with the same letter of the He-
brew alphabet. Most Bibles distin-
guish the sections by giving the
name of the Hebrew letter used in
that particular section. Beginning
with Aleph, the first letter of the
Hebrew alphabet, the psalmist goes
in order through the letters of the
alphabet to the last letter, Tau.

Background Scripture: Psalm 119:
9-18; 97-104; II Timothy 3:14-
17

Key Verses: II Timothy 3:14-17;

Psalm 119:9-18
Devotional Reading: Psalm 119:97-

104

Memory Selection: Psalm 119:10

In our study we will note partic-
ularly four things about the Scrip-
ture in the devotional life: the pow-
er of Scripture; the intensity of the
devotional life; the teacher of the
Scripture; and the gain to the de-
votee.

I. THE POWER OF THE
SCRIPTURE (Psa. 119). The
greatest problem of every Christian
is the problem of sin in his life. No
matter that we have been cleansed
from the guilt of sin through the
shed blood of Christ, nevertheless
the daily purification of our lives
(sanctification, as it is called doc-
trinally) is a constant necessity to
every believer. The closer we walk
to God, the more we are aware of
our sin. No true believer who is ex-
posed continually to God's Word
can live comfortably with the sin
which is in his life.

It is possible to ignore sin by com-
paring ourselves to others around us.
We can come to be convinced that
we shine rather brightly by com-
parison. However, in the light of
God's Word, our sin shows up for
what it really is. Let us not deceive
ourselves then; the reading of God's
Word and examining our lives by
it are absolute necessities for the
sanctification of our lives in this
world.

This is what the psalmist meant
when he cried out, "Wherewith
shall a young man cleanse his way?
By taking heed thereto according to
thy Word." That is, the way we
have lives which are cleansed is by
dealing with this life as God's Word
shows us what our life is and what
it is really like. The Bible assures

The International Sunday School Lesson Out-
lines are copyrighted by The International
Council of Religious Education.

us of forgiveness for all sin ar
cleansing from all unrighteousness
we confess our sin (I John 1:8-9
yet we will not confess our sins ui
less we see them through the ligl
of God's Word. Otherwise we ca
and do deceive ourselves, with th
result that our lives do not glorii
God as they ought.

God's Word not only has power t
cleanse us from our evil ways bt
also it enables us to refrain fror
every evil way (v. 101) . The Bibl
teaches God's will and way. Whe
we as believers know this, it helps u
to recognize the deceitful attempt
of Satan to lure us into his evil way

We grow spiritually not only b
confessing our sins before God, bu
also by refraining from sin altogeth
er. Gradually then, by the dwellin;
on God's Word, the Christian come
to hate all false ways (v. 104) . Thi
is real spiritual maturity.

When we come to the point o:
hating evil, we have developed thai
"mind of Christ" which Paul spok(
of so frequently (I Cor. 2:16). We
should come to love what God love;
and hate what He hates. This is tht
mind the psalmist developed. Such
a mind is the outgrowth of our study
of God's Word until we can truly
think God's thoughts after Him.

In summary, the power of God's
Word in our devotional life is first
to show us our sin and lead us to a
cleansing of sin by that light. Then
our ability to refrain from all evil in-
creases and finally a mind that re-
jects evil, hating the very sight of it,
develops in us.

II. DEVOTION TO SCRIP-
TURE IS REQUIRED (Psa. 119)
The psalmist expressed his intensity
of devotion perhaps more than any
other one thing in numerous terms
of expression used by him to convey
this devotional intensity. We can be
certain that no devotional life in
God's Word can be meaningful if
we are lackadaisical or indifferent
about the time we spend with God
in His Word.

First, the psalmist spoke of seek-
ing God with his whole heart (v.

PAGE 14 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 24, 1972

■l . . God used this term to describe
viat He expects in our relationship
■\ih Him. In Deuteronomy partic-
nrly we find this expression fre-
(ently (Deut. 6:5, 10:12, 11:13, 13:
530:2) . Wholehearted devotion to
;<)d is required if we are to gain
A >m our devotional life what He has
I offer. Over and over, the half-
iarted, divided-mind approach to
i)d is shown to be unacceptable (I
Ings 18:21; Matt. 6:24; Rev. 3:15-
) •

Secondly, by various expressions
je psalmist stated the intensity of
.5 devotion by always meditating
)on the Word. It is not enough
give a particular time each day
read God's Word. We must learn
let that Word linger near to our
f:arts and minds all day. It must
!: applied to all of our circum-
inces and activities throughout the
[iy. The believer lays up God's
'ord in his heart (v. 11) , and puts
into his innermost thoughts so that
s very motivations may be guided
i that Word.

This is best expressed by the term

0 meditate," a term found very
equently in Scripture (vv. 15, 97,
), etc.) , and particularly in Psalms,
ote that Psalm 1 expresses this very
>ncept by description of the blessed
ian as one who meditates on God's
w day and night. When we have
^voted ourselves wholeheartedly to
taring God's Word, then it is
irther necessary to carry that Word
ith us throughout the day (v. 98) .
nly by this means can we have
ore than a momentary contact with
od.

In the third place, the psalmist
^pressed the intensity of devotion

1 terms of delight and respect. This
eans that he does not forget that
ford (vv. 15-16) . God's Word may
»nvict us and make us feel its cut-
ng edge (Heb. 4:12) , but even then
>r the believer it is a delightful ex-
:rience. We respect that Word by
:eping it always in our minds.
Our God has spoken and once we
ive truly heard that Word, it
lould be always ours. It is not that

is a word for today to be forgot-
n tomorrow, it is our precious
easure forever. Many of us have

few favorite verses which we like
i go back to over and over, but why
mit it to a few?

Every day we should both delight
i the Word of God which we have
ready laid up in our hearts, and
joicingly anticipate new under-
anding from Him to be our con-

tinued possession. The devotional
life of the believer can be an excit-
ing life, filled with eager expecta-
tion each day. This is the real de-
light of the child of God in this
world.

The fourth and final term used
by the psalmist to express intensity
in his devotional life is the term "ob-
serve." It is not sufficient to be
hearers of the Word. We must al-
so be doers, as James so graphically
reminded us (James 1:22-25) . This
is also what Jesus had taught (Matt.
7:24-27) . When we have given our
attention wholeheartedly to what
God says and have carried that word
in our hearts constantly, we learn to
delight in the discovery of God's
Word for our lives.

Then we must put that word to
work, applying it to every facet of
life so that it begins to affect our
lives and make them more in con-
formity with God's Word. As Jesus
said, if we look into God's Word like
a mirror and see ourselves and walk
away, doing nothing to correct our
sins, we are indeed foolish.

III. THE TEACHER OF SCRIP-
TURE IN THE DEVOTIONAL
LIFE (Psa. 119). The Westminster
Confession of Faith points to the
truth that the Holy Spirit is the true
teacher of the holy Scripture (Chap-
ter I, X) . When we open God's
Word to read it, therefore, we come
to it with an awareness that the Holy
Spirit must guide our thinking, so
that what we understand is what
God has said. The Holy Spirit leads
us, but always by His Word. He is

the best teacher because He is the
only author of Scripture (II Pet. 1:
21; compare I Pet. 1:11).

The psalmist consistently returned
to this realization as he contemplat-
ed the power and blessings of the
study of this Word. Time and again,
as illustrated in this psalm, he called
upon God to teach him (Psa. 119:
12) . He exulted in the knowledge
that his life had been changed by the
fact that God had taught him (v.
102) .

Another way he expressed this was
to pray that the Lord would open
his eyes. It is one thing to see the
words of Scripture; it is quite an-
other to see their meaning for our
life. This is what the Holy Spirit
teaches us. Many have memorized
great portions of Scripture, but have
failed to apply any of it to their own
lives. Many have ears to hear and
do not really hear, eyes to see and
do not really see (Isa. 6:9; Matt. 13:
13-17).

The Holy Spirit teaches us in
many ways. Not only does He help
us to understand the words which
are before us, but He calls to our
minds other Scriptures which further
enlighten us on the meaning of that
Scripture (John 14:26) . Thus the
more of God's Word we know, have
read and studied, the more effective
for us will be the Holy Spirit's teach-
ing.

The more of His Word we know,
the more of His language we will
grasp. By comparing Scripture with
Scripture and word with word, we

(Continued on next page)

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PAGE 15 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 24, 1972

gain an insight from this infallible
authority. (Compare John 16:13-
14; I John 2:20, 27; and the Confes-
sion of Faith, Chapter 1, VII) .

It is good to realize that we have
a teacher who has given and now
teaches us His Word. We all have
access to this teacher and have need
of no other if we are diligent in the
study of His Word (I John 2:27) .
Human teachers can only assist us
in learning to rely more on the Holy
Spirit in our own study of His Word.
Human teachers are necessary only
because we are slow to learn to be
taught by the Holy Spirit, but in
the devotional life we should rely
solely on Him. This is the way we
grow in our grasp of His Word.

IV. THE GAIN THROUGH
SCRIPTURE (Psa. 119). There is
some overlapping here with the first
topic, but there is enough distinc-
tion to warrant a separate considera-
tion of the personal gains of the one
who regularly and faithfully con-
tinues his devotions.

First, his life grows more godly
(v. 11) . He sins less, although he
is increasingly aware of his sin. As
we devote more time to God's Word,
we become increasingly aware of the

hidden faults in our life. The light
of God gets brighter and brighter
and every flaw in our lives eventual-
ly is revealed to us.

Furthermore, our own lives be-
come a testimony to God's goodness
and grace. We begin to praise God
more, and our lives are prone more
and more to express God's Word in
all of our speech and conduct (v.
13) . We thus find ourselves re-
joicing in God and in the fellow-
ship we have with Him (v. 14) .

Another gain is that real change
in us which makes God's Word no
longer irksome but a joy. We come
to love that Word. This makes us
aware of our being more conformed
to Christ. Surely He loved God's
Word and, as we come to be more
like the children of God, surely we
too will come to love that Word
more and more, until nothing but
that Word can satisfy our daily
spiritual hunger (v. 103) .

A final gain is wisdom and under-
standing, which put us ahead of the
enemies of the Gospel. The Word
enables us to gain advantage over
our enemies (God's enemies) in the
life we live in this world. Remem-
ber that Satan gained his great ad-

vantage over Adam and Eve
shaking their confidence in tj
Word of God, but as we gain cor-
dence in that Word and set ti^
course of our lives by it, we see wrjj j
natural man cannot see.

We see life and the meaning of ■ y
history and events, as being Goif
purpose; this the unbeliever canrl
see. We see the outcome of life aJf
the issues of life which he canria
see. By this greater wisdom, we
enabled to help the unbeliever co...
to know Christ and this will bri» (
him out of the bondage to sin ai;
domination to Satan, the god of tl
world.

As we gain wisdom ourselves, oti '
ers will come to us, and we
have learned from God can, in t
help and teach others until they ti
gain that wisdom which God h
given us.

e

CONCLUSION: No devotion^
life can be helpful without our col
stant use of and return to the Woir
of God. Saints of the Old and Nel
Testaments, the psalmist whose writ
ing we have been studying, and oiF
Lord by His constant return ll
Scripture and dependence on iP
show to us the way.

YOUTH PROGRAM

For June 4, 1972

The Reliability of the Bible

Scripture: Psalm 119:145-152; Isaiah

40:6-8
Suggested Hymns:

"How Firm a Foundation"
"Lord, Thy Word Abideth"
"Break Thou the Bread of
Life"

PROGRAM LEADER'S INTRO-
DUCTION: "Man's chief end is to
glorify God, and to enjoy Him for-
ever .... The Word of God, which
is contained in the Scriptures of the
Old and New Testaments, is the only
rule to direct us how we may glorify
and enjoy Him."

This strong statement in behalf of
the Bible from the catechism says
that the Bible is the only book that

Rev. B. Hoyt Evans

can tell us how to do the thing that
is most important. How do we know
the Bible is the only rule? How do
we know it is a reliable book? Many
say it is not reliable. Can we really
trust the Bible to tell us the truth
about life's most important matters?

We can confidently state that
there is abundant evidence to sup-
port the claim that the Scriptures
are reliable. We shall examine that
evidence in this program and in the
one for next week. Today we shall
be looking at the external evidences
outside of the Bible itself, such as
its influence, popularity and so
forth. Next week we shall consider
what the Bible says about itself.

FIRST SPEAKER: The Christian

Church claims approximately a bi'
lion members. The Church has a I
ways stood in a close relationship I
the Bible, and when the Church ha1
been separated from the Bible,
has ceased to be the true Church]
The power and influence of thfl
Church, even its very existence, can'
not be explained apart from the Bi
ble.

We must bear in mind that wher
ever the true Church has gone, man1
kind has been greatly benefitted'
The hungry have been fed, th('
naked clothed, the sick healed, th<'
ignorant taught, the slaves set free
the lost saved/ and evil has been pui
down. In a very real way this is alii
the work of God which has beer:
done according to the message of the

PAGE 16 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 24, 1972

lie.. Surely a book which has been
Irumental in the accomplishment
Iiuch things is reliable.

\\eCOND SPEAKER: The discov-
|:s of archaeologists show us that
I Bible can be trusted to tell the
fcth. Vast research in Bible lands
I produced numerous findings
Pich have supported the truthful-
[s of the Bible at points where its
fability has formerly been chal-
iged. At no point have authenti-
sted archaeological discoveries
[>ven the Bible to be in error.
;)ne example is mentioned in Dr.
irtin Hegland's book, Getting Ac-
hinted with the Bible. In Exodus
,1 we are told that the Egyptians
npelled their Hebrew slaves to
ild a city for storage of treasure
'Pithom. In the fifth chapter of
odus we read that the Egyptians
pped supplying straw for brick
iking and that the Hebrews were
ced to gather stubble to use in the
ice of straw.

[n 1883 the ruins of Pithom were
cavated, and the ancient store-
uses were identified. In the low-
courses of brick it could be plain-
seen that good chopped straw had
en used as a binder in the making
the brick. In the middle courses,
; brick had been made with stub-
I pulled up by the roots, and the
per courses were made of brick
ving in them no binding material
all. Here in amazing detail is a
:ture of things just exactly as the
ble reports it. This is just one
ample of how archaeology points
the reliability of the Bible.

THIRD SPEAKER: Many ancient
n-Biblical writings available for
amination mention incidents and
ints reported in the Scriptures. It
not surprising to Christians that
:se accounts closely coincide time
d time again, but for those who
im that the Bible is largely myth,
;end, and the creation of man's
agination, this close correlation is
rd to explain.

We have also the sacred writings
other ancient religions. They con-
n rituals and systems of theology
d ethics. Wise sayings and beau-
ul ideas are found in some of these
itings, but always mingled with
I good are things grotesque and
ensive. The Bible is obviously
aerior to these other writings in
consistently chaste and reason-
le language. This superiority is
-ther evidence of its reliability.

FOURTH SPEAKER: The Bible
contains a large amount of predic-
tive prophecy. It is easy to show
that numbers of events recorded in
Scripture were predicted in detail
hundreds of years before they came
to pass. This is especially true re-
garding the life and work of Christ.
The Gospel according to Matthew
makes a special point of showing
how Christ fulfilled one after an-
other of the Old Testament proph-
ecies.

Predictions have also been ful-
filled with respect to many such as
Edom, Tyre, Sidon, Egypt and Bab-
ylonia. It would be most unreason-
able to assume that all of these ful-
filled prophecies were the result of
chance or guesswork. No, fulfilled
prophecies point unmistakably to
the divine character of the Bible and
to its reliability.

FIFTH SPEAKER: Of the writ-
ing and publishing of books there is
no end, but the Bible continues to
be the world's best seller. It has been
translated into more languages and
dialects than any other book, ap-
proximately twelve hundred. The
demand for Bibles is never satisfied
even though its enemies do every-
thing in their power to discredit it
and to keep it from being circulated.
This is no ordinary book. Its very
popularity is evidence of its trust-
worthiness.

PROGRAM LEADER: The great-
est external proof of the Bible's re-
liability is the fact that millions of
people who believe its teachings and
trust its Saviour continue to receive
salvation and peace. There is no ef-
fective argument against a trans-
formed life. On record are many in-
stances of persons whose souls were
saved and whose lives were complete-
ly transformed simply by reading
and receiving the message of the Bi-
ble. A book which has brought con-
sistent blessing to millions for cen-
turies can be nothing else but re-
liable.

(Close the meeting with prayer,
thanking God for His Word and for
its reliability.) [1

THE MT. OLIVE Presbyterian Church now
has the ministry of a tape library. In-
cluded are sixty hours of Al Martin, tapes
of Packer, Lloyd-Jones, and many others.
These tapes may be rented or bought
on a cost basis, cassette or reel. If in-
terested, ask for a listing or other infor-
mation by writing: Mt. Olive Presbyterian
Church Tape Library, P.O. Box 142, Bass-
field, Mississippi 39421.

QUESTIONS

PEOPLE ARE
ASKING ABOUT

REFORMED
THEOLOGICAL

SEMINARY

Q. Are your students exposed to all
points of view?

A. The Seminary seeks to confront
its students with all significant
views, both contemporary and his-
toric. Special attention is given to
modern liberal and critical thought.
At the same time an effort is made
to evaluate all viewpoints in the
light of Scripture.

Q. Are churches calling your
graduates?

A. Yes. As we enter our sixth year
of life, all our graduates are well
placed in the Lord's work. They
have been received into four differ-
ent Presbyterian or Reformed
denominations, including 22 Pres-
byteries and 10 Synods. One gradu-
ate is engaged, as an ordained Pres-
byterian, U.S., minister, in an Inter
Varsity ministry, one is an army
Chaplain as a minister of the Re-
formed Church, Evangelical Synod,
and two are in graduate school.

< REFORMED
THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY

5422 CLINTON BOULEVARD
JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI 39209
PHONE 601-922-4988

The Seminary has a racially
non-discriminatory admissions policy

PAGE 17 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY

24, 1972

BOOKS

DICTIONARY OF SATANISM, by
Wade Baskin. Philosophical Library,
Inc., New York, N. Y. 351 pp. $12.50.
Reviewed by the Rev. Theodore Hard,
missionary, Orthodox Presbyterian
Missions, Pusan, Korea.

The Philosophical Library renders
us service in issuing this companion
volume to their Dictionary of Pagan
Religions published last year. Wade
Baskin, coauthor of the earlier title
of a similar format, provides us with
a spine-chilling, mind-boggling and
sickening survey of the cult of evil.
It is a paraphernalia of perversity
which gives in dictionary form: data
on demons; fables of fear and fan-
tasy; accounts of witch hunts, tor-
tures, executions; songs to Satan,
charms, curses, and so on. Recurring
themes are orgy, sabbats, werewolves,
voodoo, human sacrifice, pacts witb
Satan, etc. ad nauseum.

One runs across familiar names
from history who, in one way or
another, significantly ran with or
athwart this current. A sprinkling of
names includes Athanasius, Aquinas,

Roger Bacon, Richard Baxter, Byron,
Camus, Edison, Victor Hugo, and
Luther. Data on much recent history
of satanism is indicated in entries on
Bridey Murphy, Sharon Tate and
the Manson trial of 1970-71. Biblical
names treated include Abaddon,
Angel of Death, Antichrist, Astaroth,
Azael, Baal, the Beast, Baalzebub.
The reader can easily carry on from
C and D in the alphabet.

The weaknesses of the book are
many. If only the author had listed
information such as his qualifica-
tions, his method of research, and
classification method! He omits re-
ference to the language, nation, age
and religion from which many of
the terms come. Nor does he list
sources, although in the course of
the book are references to many
classic handbooks and compendiums
on demonology and witchcraft in
past centuries. When he names a
god, a spirit or a demon, he does not
indicate where it appears in my-
thology or religion, whether it is the
product of modern fiction or poetic

imagination. Few articles run o
half a page; there is little of hist
cal survey or analysis, and utter 1
of the critical spirit just where it
needed.

For this reason I turned to a
was greatly helped by the sup<
historical essay, The Europ
Witch-Craze of the 16th and 1
Centuries by H. R. Trevor-Roj
(Harper Torchbooks, 1969) . It v(
plausibly explains the psychologi
phenomena in terms of the sup
stition, social pressures, racial ai
religious prejudicies and legal pi
cedures of the day. As for one h
rible and all too believable ite
Trevor-Roper believes the inqui
tors created the new mythology
satanism by their use of particul
questions and their continued use
torture until the victim confessed

He points out new elements
the European late middle ages witc
craze which differ from old pag
superstitions: "the pact with Sata
the witches' sabbat, the carnal int
course with demons, . . . and
hierarchical systematic structure
the kingdom of the devil." All the
are, he says, "an independent pr
duct of the later middle ages."

For all his brilliant insights, ho
ever, he treats all as delusion a

A CHRISTIAN CAMP

Dedicated to developing
young people into mature,
well-balanced Christian
citizens.

1972 DATES

SENIORS

(ages 15-18; rising
10th- 12th graders)
June 6-17

JUNIOR I

(ages 8-11; rising 3rd-6th graders)
June 20-July 1

PIONEERS

(ages 12-14; rising 7th-9th graders)
July 4-15

JUNIOR II

(ages 7-11; rising 2nd-6th graders)
July 17-28

Camp

Westminster

Located in a beautifully wooded area of 114 acres.
20 miles southeast of Atlanta, near Conyers, Georgia.

Presenting young people with the chal-
lenge to accept the Lord Jesus Christ as
their personal Saviour. Developing the
spiritual life of the camper. Seeking to
know his needs through the understand-
ing contact of dedicated counselors who
teach the Bible and lead in the devotional
life of the cabin. Developing a habit of
daily Bible study and prayer. Complete
facilities with a balanced program for
physical, social, intellectual and spiritual
growth. Founded by Dr. John R. Richard-
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minster, Inc.

FAMILY BIBLE CONFERENCE

(Families and Adults)
Sunday, July 30

— Sunday, August

OUTSTANDING SPEAKERS
Dr. Henry Bast
Grand Rapids, Mich.

Preacher on
"Temple Time" Radio Broadcas

Dr. Robert Strong
Montgomery, Ala.

Pastor of
Trinity Presbyterian Church
Popular Camp Westminster
Bible Teacher

"More can be accomplished with a child in 2 weeks at camp than in 1 year at Sunday School."

WRITE TO: CAMP WESTMINSTER 1438 Sheridan Rd., N.E., Atlanta, Ga. 30324

PAGE 18 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 24, 1972

* es.no clear credence to Satan's
estence and the Biblical data. Is
i not far better to assume that the
fher of lies used a new lie about
Inself and his kingdom at that
tie, just as he used different ones
r pagan days and in "post-Chris-

1 n" America?

From acid rock to seances in high
jiety, from murder covenants to
' lurch" ritual a new wave of oc-
[itism, esoteric dabbling, and even
jink avowal of Satan's powers and
|tims is sweeping our land and
ijrts of Europe. The Christian is
"11 advised to reexamine the Bible
;d put on the whole armor of God.
'lis book should be used with
lution, and with awareness that
:t and fancy are intertwined, and
at to seek facility in this field is

explore both the phantom faces
id festering feces of the mind,
lere Satan has liars and lairs. El

THE GUIDING LIGHT, by Chris-
ie Hunter. Zondervan Publ. House.

2 pp. $3.95. Reviewed by Mrs.
larles J. Knapp, Moultrie, Ga.

An English author of nearly a
)zen novels has set this story into
Scottish background. While her
Dvel is light weight, it is clean,
ips the reader's interest, and af-
irds easy reading. It would espe-
ally appeal to elderly readers, con-
tlescing patients and shut-ins.
The plot is woven around twin
iters, favoritism practiced in their
aring, and the divergent paths they
illowed in maturity. If you are
oking for a birthday gift for one
ho loves simple, old fashioned love
ories, here it is. 51

istemper—from p. II

Ives and a few of their friends,
hose sins God will not be offended
:, as He will not approve the right-
ms and Christian behaviour of
iiers: To despise or lightly esteem

the great duties of morality, so
clearly taught, so powerfully en-
forced, and declared by our Saviour,
to be necessary conditions of salva-
tion.

Its effects upon people are cen-
soriousness and uncharitableness to
such as differ from them in that
point; speaking evil of their neigh-
bors, despising a holy and religious
life in all but themselves; fancying
they are obliged to persuade as many
as they can, to despise and leave the
ministry of their pastors, if not agree-
able to them; pretending to God's
peculiar prerogative, searching the
heart; taking deluded imaginations
for heavenly visions; fancying their
noise and uncharitableness, religion;
preferring the discourses of an ignor-
ant person among them to the
most judicious and learned of such
as differ from them; becoming teach-
ers of others, praying in public, and
some laying aside all labor for the
support of themselves and depend-
ents.

The evidences upon which the cer-
tainty of their conversion is founded,
are their being able to point out the
time of their first convictions, or
remembering how some expressions
in a sermon or texts of Scripture,
though not understood, filled them
with terror, caused them to weep,
scream, or fall into epileptic-like fits;
thus finding by some unknown cause,
or text of Scripture, or human ex-
pressions, or imaginations, called
visions; and attributed to the divine
Spirit, this uneasiness removed, and
cheerfulness succeed. From these and
such like things, they judge that their
own, and the conversion of others,
are undoubtedly certain.

This I think a just account of the
nature, effects and evidences of the
present conversion, when stripped
of a set of phrases and gestures, to
which it owes no small part of its
success. It spreads like an epidemic
distemper, catches at the eyes, and by

g§ook-Uf> Lodge and Camp

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Phone 836-6392 (AC 803)

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a kind of sympathy, prevails over all
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AT THE GATES of Montreal: Completely
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trout stream. Reservations: PINE LODGE,
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Ph. (704) 669-8811.

CANCER INSURANCE: Persons of all
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had and do now have cancer. No medical
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$25,000 for each family member. Costs
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We're from the
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We believe in a hand up, rather
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CHRISTIAN TEACHERS
Grade & High School

Calvary Free Academy
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is seeking teachers
committed to the
Reformed faith.

FOR INFORMATION WRITE TO:

Headmaster
Calvary Free Academy

P.O. Box 403
South Holland, Illinois
60473

PAGE 19 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 24, 1972

FAITH AND PURPOSE
of

THE STEERING COMMITTEE
for A CONTINUING PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

Scripture. We believe the Scriptures of the Old
and New Testaments to be the Word of God writ-
ten, the only infallible rule of faith and practice,
and that the entire sixty-six books of the Bible were
verbally inspired by God (Confession of Faith,
Chapter 1).

Interpretation of Scripture. We believe that
"the infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture,
is Scripture itself" (C.O.F.,1 :9). The Scriptures be-
ing self-attesting are not subject to the preconcep-
tions or criticisms of man, nor should they be in-
terpreted to suit the situations or fancies of man.
The Supreme Judge of the controversies, opinions,
doctrines and private spirits "can be no other but
The Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture."
(C.O.F.,1 :10).

Reformed Faith. We believe and accept the
Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms
as containing the system of doctrine taught in the
Holy Scriptures, and that these standards are the
most acceptable expression of the Reformed Faith.

Mission of the Church. We believe "The sole
functions (missions) of the Church are to proclaim,
to administer and to enforce the law of Christ re-
vealed in Scripture." (Book of Church Order, 1-3).

Church Power. We believe it is not given to in-
dividuals, boards, agencies, or judicatories to
legislate taxes, programs, rules, inquiries, or de-
mands upon members of the Courts or Churches.
Christ is "the only lawgiver in Zion" (B.C.O., Pref-
ace). "The Power which Christ has given His
Church is wholly moral and spiritual" (B.C.O., 1-2)
and "the exercise of church power has di-
vine sanction only when in conformity with
The Word" (B.C.O., 1-3). Church officers ought to
be in subjection to their brethren in the Lord
[B.C.O., 27-6 (5) and 29-3 (6)] when such brethren
are truly "in the Lord" through absolute confor-
mity with the Word.

\

Church Union. We believe the Presbyteri
Church in the U. S. may lawfully unite only wi
such "other ecclesiastical bodies whose organiz
tion is conformed to the doctrines and order
this Church" [B.C.O., 18-6 (17)]. Therefore t
Presbyterian Church in the U. S. could not be co
stitutionally united with the United Presbyter
Church USA and the Church of Christ Uniting b
cause of their doctrinal inclusiveness.

Apostasy. We believe that any Christian ind
vidual, institution, board, agency or judicatory th
rejects the authority of Christ as He speaks in
Word is apostate from Him and in need of repen
ance. We believe that any minister, member c
organization of the Presbyterian Church in th
U.S. who rejects the infallibility of Scripture an
the Constitution of this Church is apostate fror
the Church (B.C.O. 27-6) and in need of repen
ance. We believe that many institutions, board;
and agencies of the Church are apostate and w
see no significant sign of repentance and revive
among them.

Reconciliation. Recognizing that even Christiai
brethren differ in degree upon various aspects o
doctrine and polity, we would be reconciled
love to all Christians who share with us one faitl
in Christ as Lord and Saviour. We would be rec
onciled in love to all persons who receive the Bi
ble as the Word of God written and who submi
obediently to the sole authority of Scripture. We
would be reconciled in love to all those who pur
pose with us to reform the Church as far as pos
sible toward doctrinal purity, to the glory of oui
Lord Jesus Christ. We would be neighbors anC
friends to all men, calling them to be reconciled
to God in Jesus Christ.

Continuing Church. Under Christ, our Saviour
and Great Head of the Church, it is our purpose
to continue a Presbyterian Church faithful to Scrip-
ture and the Reformed faith and obedient to His
Great Commission. We pray Him to lead us in
this purpose.

{The Steering Committee invites inquiries from those interested in its work. Address: Steering Commit-
tee Secretary, 1600 Atlantic Ave., Hopewell, Va. 23860.)

PAGE 20 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 24, 1972

IL. XXXI, No. 5

MAY 31, 1972

le

KESBYTERIAN

vocating continuation of a Presbyterian Church loyal

d^B J

$4.00 A YEAR

JOURNAL

to Scripture and the Reformed faith

For All: Repent or Perish

Babylon is with us in every age. The sin of the nations is
that without exception "all nations drink of the wine of the
wrath of her fornication" . . . thus Babylon must be seen not
only on the Thames, the Seine, the Rhine, the Volga, and the
Bosphorus and the Nile, but also on the Potomac. All nations
drink of her wine, and unless they are brought to repentance,
they must perish with her.

— Rousas John Rushdoony
in Thy Kingdom Come

S. LESSON AND YOUTH PROGRAM FOR JUNE 18

dWOD

■>19LZ OK TTTH I©dBno

MAILBAGr

A GENERAL AND A PREACHER

Your editorial about Vietnam
(May 17) put me in mind of two
men I have known: The first one,
now dead, was a retired four star
general justly famous for his leader-
ship in the Southwest Pacific cam-
paigns of World War II. The grand-
son of a Methodist minister, he took
his religious faith and beliefs with
total seriousness and dedication. If
his was typical of what people like
to call the "military mind," then we

need more of them.

The other man is a young Pres-
byterian minister who prays over his
congregation week after week for
forgiveness for their collective guilt
for the violence in the world today.

In usually a very quiet way, pro-
fessional soldiers are about the most
peaceful and peace-loving people
I've ever known — they have good
reason to be, for they have personal
experience with hot lead and cold
steel, and they have a personal stake

the

PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL

Rev. G. Aiken Taylor, Ph.D., Editor
Rev. Henry B. Dendy, D.D., Managing Editor
Arthur H. Matthews, Assistant Editor

Circulation leader among independent publications in the Presbyterian-Reformed world

THIS WEEK

Vol. XXXI, No. 5, May 31, 1972

Are Our Differences So Great? 7

Five years after stating the case for the conservatives, nothing
much has changed By the Editor

Church Membership 10

The flip side of the privilege of church membership is
responsibility By George B. Hutchins

De partments —

Editorials 12

The Layman and his Church 13

Sunday School Lesson, June 18 14

Youth Program, June 1 8 1 6

Book Reviews 18

THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL, a

Presbyterian weekly magazine, devoted
to the statement, defense, and propa-
gation of the Gospel, the faith which
was once for all delivered to the saints,

is published every Wednesday by the
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Inc., in Weaverville, N. C.

SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: $4 a year

for individuals, $3 for members of
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ville, N. C. 28787.

POSTMASTER: Send Form 3579 to
Presbyterian Journal, Box 635, Wea-
verville, N. C. 28787. Subscribers
should allow three weeks for change
of address in continental U. S. Change
of address notices should include both
old and new addresses (with zip
codes) .

NEWS AND EDITORIAL correspond-
ence should be addressed to P. 0. Box
3108, Asheville, N. C. 28802. Editorial
offices located at 247 Charlotte St. in
Asheville.

TELEPHONES: (All area 704) edi-
torial office, 254-4015, 254-4016;
business office, 645-3310, 645-3962.

in world peace. Like the general, the
pray often but silently for the achiev
ment of the Christian goals t J
which this country has traditional!
been dedicated.

In usually a very public way, pr<
fessional peacemakers have much t
say about war and violence of a
kinds. Some preachers seem to thin
that because they are against vi(
lence (and who isn't?) they can sin
ply talk it away, and their ir
credible naivete was on view for a
the world to see when they too
that trip to Paris in the pious hop
that somehow the war could b
stopped because they said it shoul
be.

The general often worried abou
this failure of men of the cloth I
recognize the yawning chasm be
tween the way things are and th
way they ought to be, saying h
would feel much more comfortable i
he had any reason to believe th
Communists were praying for peace
too. Total reliance on unilatera
prayer, he once observed, might re
suit in an America forbidden ti
pray at all.

I'm with the general. I say w>
should give belated and overdu
thanks to those who fought an<
died in earlier wars to preserve th<
right of preachers to pray for, witl
and over us, but I reject the younj
preacher's assignment to me of per
sonal guilt for war. With all ou
failures and shortcomings, this coun
try remains the last great bastion o
Christianity.

Our Lord was not some kind of
doormat for bullies to wipe thei
feet on, and I don't believe God in
tends you or me to be one, either.
— Ray W. Conrad
Charlotte, N. C.

THIS AND THAT

I like the devotional and "person
al experience" articles that you carr
so regularly in the columns of th
Journal. For example, Leightoi
Ford's thoughts on heaven were
real blessing to an old woman wail
ing for the Master to call.

These are unhappy days in whicl
we live, in a sense, and I notice yoi
are not afraid to meet the issues ii
the Church headon. But I than!
you for balancing the "politics" witl
positive inspirational and devotion
al material.

— Alice Wolmenuth
St. Petersburg, Fla.

HE WILL SPREAD THE WORD

Just a few lines to congratulate
on the factual and vivid report

I your experience in Vietnam (Jour-
r l, May 17) . I do hope that some of

TV commentators will read it.
The situation, as you point out, is
■rigic beyond words, but this fact
Ires not excuse the effort to use this
Itigedy for biased political reports.

I have some extra copies of this is-
le and am sending them to Charles-
In and Texas.

—Ralph C. Powell
Spartanburg, S. C.

BEDROCK TRUTH

I I have read with deepest interest
lid appreciation "Scripture Cannot
fe Broken" (April 19) by Dr. Rob-
i t Strong. This is bedrock and fun-
rmental truth; it is unanswerable.

A most effective way to use this
material would be to publish it in
pamphlet form and distribute it on
the campuses of our educational in-
stitutions. No better antidote could
be prescribed for the poison which
too freely flows from the desks of
many teachers. If expense is any
problem, I feel that many of us
would deem it a privilege to con-
tribute to the project.

— (Rev.) J. W. Hassell
Hickory, N. C.

MINISTERS

Perry H. Biddle Jr., from Stark-
ville, Miss., to doctoral studies,
Vanderbilt Divinity School, Van-
d e r b i 1 1 University, Nashville,
Tenn.

Byron Hilton from Acworth, Ga.,
to the First Church, Tifton, Ga.

Walter B. Funk from Houston,
Tex., to the First Church, Lafay-
ette, La.

John Homer Jr., from Monroe,
Ga., to be organizing pastor of a
new work under Cherokee Presby-
tery in East Cobb County, Ga.
Richard Short from graduate
study to the Parkway church,
Metairie, La., as associate pastor.
William Frye Summers Jr., recent
graduate of Union Seminary,
Richmond, Va., to the Oakland
Avenue church, Rock Hill, S. C,
as assistant pastor.

CORRECTION

Freddie L. Powers was pastor of
the Handsboro, Miss., church be-
fore going to Weir, Miss. (May 17
Journal) .

ACROSS THE EDITOR'S DESK

• Those comments on p. 7 of this is-
re require a bit of explaining. They
ere originally delivered as part of
a exchange with staff and board
lembers of the PCUS Board of Na-
onal Ministries in early 1968. We
ave never published them, not be-
nise they were in any way secret,
ut because there seemed to be no
:ason to make a public matter of
rivate conversations. Lately, how-
fer, so much is being said about the
ecessity to make an effort at "rec-
nciliation" that we thought it
ould help to show just what efforts
: reconciliation already have been
ied. It is worth noting that the no-
xious "New Ways" conference at
lontreat, which caused such a com-
lotion across the Church, came four
lonths after this exchange with the
oard. In other words, neither then,
or since, has there been any indica-
on that official agencies of the
hurch are genuinely interested in
taking room for the evangelical
mvictions of conservatives.

• In this issue (p. 12) we are say-
ig about all we intend to say in ad-
mce of the 1972 General Assembly
t the Presbyterian Church US, at

Montreat, N. C, June 11-15. The
United (UPUSA) Assembly has been
making its headlines at Denver, as
you will see on p. 4 of this issue. At
Montreat, commissioners will notice
several novelties. For instance, in
the report of the Council on Church
and Society, and in the listing of two
of the presbyteries, all ladies are la-
beled "Ms" rather than "Mrs." or
"Miss" — thus, "Ms Edith Walsh"
and "Ms Dotty Barnard." Another
item of interest: About a dozen min-
isters and an equal number of lay
commissioners to the Southern As-
sembly are not even members of the
Southern Church, except by the ac-
cident of being members of union
presbyteries. But the rules under
which union presbyteries operate
give the privilege of participating in
all courts of all Churches involved
to all members, so we now have in-
creasing numbers of UPUSA minis-

ters and elders attending PCUS As-
semblies.

• A worthwhile opportunity for
young people seems to be shaping up
for the week of July 24-29. A group
within the PCUS calling itself the
"Reformed Youth Movement" will
hold a conference for senior high
young people (9th grade through
graduates) at King College, Bristol,
Tenn. Chairman of the program is
the Rev. Wayne Herring, assistant
pastor of First Presbyterian Church,
Box 1011, Rock Hill, S. C. 29730, to
whom inquiries about registration
should be addressed.

• Those articles by the Rev. R.
McFerran Crowe, on the issues in
Church union, (Journal, April 26
and May 3) , have been reprinted for
wider distribution. Order from the
business office in Weaverville, at $1
per doz., or $6 per hundred, post-
paid, ffl

PAGE 3 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 31, 1972

NEWS OF RELIGION

UPUSA Assembly Pulls Out of COCU

DENVER — With some agony but
also with determination, the Mother
of the Consultation on Church
Union (COCU) deserted her here.

The General Assembly of the
United Presbyterian Church USA
surprised itself as well as churchmen
around the the world by voting 411
to 310 to quit the consultation. The
debate took about two hours, with
commissioners consistently turning
back all attempts to delay considera-
tion or to weaken the recommenda-
tion of its bills and overtures com-
mittee.

It was the UPUSA General Assem-
bly of 1961 which originally invited
other denominations to join it in
following up the suggestions of its
then stated clerk, Eugene Carson
Blake. He had urged formation of
a denomination "truly catholic, truly
evangelical, and truly reformed" in
December 1960 in the San Francisco
cathedral of then Bishop James L.
Pike. The movement quickly be-
came known as the "Blake-Pike"'
talks.

The UPUSA rejection of COCU
reduces the number of participating
communions from nine to eight. One
of them is the Presbyterian Church
US, which joined in 1966.

Commissioners voted to get out
of the merger talks in response to
an overture from Philadelphia Pres-
bytery. The influential presbytery,
which includes the denomination's
headquarters city, asked the Assem-
bly to reject the draft plan of union
now being studied in the nine de-
nominations. In its recommenda-
tions, the bills and overtures panel
took the matter a step further by
calling for the UPUSA to discon-
tinue participation. While expressing
dissatisfaction with the plan, Phila-
delphia had asked "continuing ecu-
menical conversations through the
Consultation on Church Union."

Two other presbyteries, Duluth
and Nevada, had asked the Assembly
to get out.

Only two of the 44 members of
the standing committee signed a
minority report urging continued
membership with transmission of
Presbyterian criticism of the COCU
plan. One of them was the chair-
man, the Rev. George H. Pike. He
moved the substitute, which was de-
feated 365 to 333.

Presenting the committee's major-
ity report, which was finally adopted,
was Harry L. Schroeder, a ruling
elder from Indianapolis. He suggest-

THE CHURCH OVERSEAS

VIETNAM — The Communist siege
of the town of An Loc has resulted
in the death of Pastor Dieu Huynh,
a tribal missionary of the Tin Lanh
Church (Christian and Missionary
Alliance) , it was reported here.

Pastor Huynh, of the Stieng Tribe,
had just completed his theological
training and was developing a tribal
church at An Loc. He was wound-
ed in the stomach by Communist
fire. With An Loc still under siege,
few details of his death were avail-
able. He was to have been married
shortly.

Upon receipt of the news of Mr.
Huynh's death, Mr. Nam, missions

secretary of the Tin Lanh Church, ex-
pressed sorrow at the loss of a prom-
ising young worker.

Missionary Dave Black and a Viet-
namese helper escaped the attack at
An Loc because they were in Saigon
on business at the time the attack
began and coidd not get back. It
was reported that Black's house was
completely destroyed and his bunker
also was destroyed by a direct shell
hit.

Meager reports from the area indi-
cate that most of the men of An Loc
were taken prisoners by the Commu-
nists.— Missionary' News Sonice. ffl

%

f:
■

ed that instead of advancing genuii
ecumenicity, COCU was impedir
it. The commissioner also argue
that getting out would encourage r
lationships with groups not include
in the consultation.

Commissioners showed their d<
termination to get to a vote on tli
matter by refusing a request that tli
denominational delegation to COO
be heard before the vote was takei
The report was scheduled for late
the same evening, and members of th
delegation were waiting in the wing
with their documents.

Opponents of delay noted that th
draft plan of union was well knowi
to all commissioners and tha
COCU's advocates had a full hearinj
in the standing committee. A motioi
to proceed with the debate passec
364-302.

One of those arguing on the floo]
for the minority effort to remain
the consultation was the Rev. Georgj
L. Hunt of New Jersey's Elizabeth
Presbytery. During COCU's earl}
years he was its first executive secre
tary serving on a part-time basis. He
acknowleged that the plan was nol
perfect but encouraged continued
participation in order that the de-
nomination might have a voice in
improving the document.

President James I. McCord of
Princeton Seminary, COCU's first
chairman and chairman of the
UPUSA delegation, did not appear
during the debate. His report was
finally called for about an hour and
a half after the Assembly took its
vote to leave the consultation. He
walked onto the platform, asked that
the report of the delegation be re-
ceived and then promptly left. It
was received on a voice vote.

Dr. McCord did not mention the
recommendation from his commit-
tee that their appointments be con-
tinued.

A motion from the floor was adop-
ted to "express profound gratitude"
to the delegation.

Not adopted was a floor motion
which would have communicated to
other COCU denominations the
UPUSA's continuing interest in
Christian unity. Some advocates of
the consultation criticized it as a
"hypocritical" statement. It lost 229-
287.

By a voice vote, another motion

PAGE 4 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 31, 1972

■I

ssed which instructed the Church's
yieral Council to let other COCU
t nominations know that Presby te-
ams were interested in maintaining
«me relationships.
Three members of the commission
Ivkh drafted the COCU union plan
lire interested observers of the de-
ite. They included the chairman

the drafting commission, the Rev.
'illiam A. Benfield Jr., 1970 Pres-
/terian US Assembly moderator,
|(io was a fraternal delegate to this
ssembly; William P. Thompson,
PUSA stated clerk; and Mrs. Lois
| air, 1971 UPUSA moderator.
Not at the Assembly but informed

the action at his home in Con-
ecticut was Eugene Carson Blake,
he former stated clerk who is now
meral secretary of the World Coun-
1 of Churches issued this statement:
If I understand correctly the action
iken, it is not a turning away from
le basic ecumenical idea upon
hich the COCU organization has
een built. I am not interested in
OCU simply as an organization it-
.'lf, but am very much interested
lat the United Presbyterian Church
Dntinue to be a leader to make one
ihurch of Christ. Thus the re-
)lution to withdraw from COCU
:aves much unfinished business for
le Church to do."
Dr. Benfield and Dr. McCord in-
sted in a press conference that the
ssembly's action did not kill the
)nsultation. There was a suggestion
lat the UPUSA might join again
ext year.

The morning after the vote Dr.
enfield delivered his fraternal greet-
lgs to the court and spoke of the
action you precipitously took last
rening." He described the Presby-
:rian US participation in COCU as
a breath of fresh air" and suggested
lat the UPUSA Assembly's rejection
)uld be interpreted as a "betrayal of
ph."

He told newsmen that the Assem-
Iy erred in leaving the consultation
ithout discussing the matter with
s sister denominations.
Dr. McCord revealed in the press
jom that Dr. Blake had agreed to
:rve on the new delegation which
as to have been elected in keeping
ith a proportional formula decreed
icently by COCU. IB

UPUSA, UCC Magazines
To Form One Publication

DENVER — In one of its first ac-
tions, the General Assembly of the
United Presbyterian Church USA ap-
proved on a virtually unanimous
voice vote here a plan to unite its
magazine with that of the United
Church of Christ.

Presbyterian Life, the denomina-
tion's general circulation publica-
tion, will be combined with the
United Church Herald into a month-
ly journal named AD in September.
Half of each issue will be designed
for a common readership in both de-
nominations, and half will be de-
signed to carry denominational news
and promotion.

The Presbyterian Life edition
(with Presbyterian information) will
go to UPUSA subscribers, and the
United Church Herald edition will
be sent to UCC members. The
UPUSA magazine, with a circulation
of some 600,000, currently is the
largest of the denominational organs.
The Herald distributes about 100,-
000 copies.

Robert Heinze, publisher of Pres-
byterian Life, has been designated
as publisher of AD. He told commis-
sioners that little change could be
expected from the Assembly's stand-
point in the area of costs.

Robert Cadigan, who has been
Presbyterian Life editor 25 years, an-
nounced that he will take early re-
tirement next January or February.
The joint board for the new publica-
tion will name an overall editor and
editors for both denominational sec-
tions.

Martin Bailey, editor of the Her-
ald, told commissioners the new
periodical will be committed to pre-
senting divergent points of view as
well as promoting the official pro-
grams of the Churches. Mr. Heinze
added that "not all sides" of every
question would be published but
that "many sides" would be.

Reporters learned that Presbyte-
rian Survey, Presbyterian US official
magazine, had been asked to join the
merger. Mr. Heinze said two trips
were made to Atlanta in an attempt
to enlist Survey, but the response
was "not yet." The internal situa-
tion in the Presbyterian Church US

was cited as the reason for not join-
ing now.

While no other denominations
were said to be actively considering
the project, advocates of AD said
they hoped others would join
later. IB

UPUSA General Assembly
Elects Heckel Moderator

DENVER — Commissioners to the
1972 United Presbyterian General
Assembly gave an unusual first ballot
victory in the moderator's election
to a New Jersey law school professor
described by his nominator as "an
evangelist" with a "deep commit-
ment to social justice."

C. Willard Heckel of Newark told
reporters after his election over three
other candidates that evangelism in-
cludes not only the action of individ-
ual Christians in society but also
collective action by the Church.

To back this definition, he de-
clared "Christ did not just push
spiritual values, He said, ' Have
you fed the hungry, have you given
water to the thirsty, what have you
done about the prisoners, what have
you done about the stranger, the
naked?' "

Dr. Heckel got 398 of the 750
votes cast. Other nominees and their
votes were: the Rev. James R. Car-
roll, pastor of the Church of Ama-
rillo, Tex., 170; the Rev. James E.
Jones, pastor of the Westminster
Church, Los Angeles, 103; and Frank
L. Bowron, Casper, Wyo., lawyer,
76.

The new moderator told commis-
sioners during the question and
answer period after his nomination
that he opposed United States in-
volvement in the Vietnam war;
favored continuation of the legal de-
fense fund which made a contro-
versial grant to Angela Davis; and
wanted more youth voting in Church
judicatories when they could be
brought in constitutionally.

In the nomination process that
has been in effect in the UPUSA
Assembly since 1970, all the candi-
dates made brief speeches and then
submitted to a question period last-
ing about 45 minutes. All were re-

PAGE 5 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 31, 1972

vealed to lie advocates of Church
social action in the nominating
speeches or in their own remarks.

Dr. Heckel said one of the great
moments of the UPUSA was when it
established its fund for the self de-
velopment of people, a program
designed to help minority enterprises
at home and abroad. It was the
Assembly's response to the 1969 de-
mands for reparations from black
militant James Forman.

He also told commissioners women
should get more of a "place of equal-
ity" in the denominations. The
bachelor law professor who will be
60 next year is an advisor to the
denomination's task force on women.
He answered a news conference ques-
tion on abortion by saying he ap-
plauded New York Governor Nelson
Rockefeller's stand in vetoing the
bill which would have repealed that
state's liberal abortion law. He de-
clared every woman should be free
to make the decision about termi-
nating her pregnancy.

On one of the most controversial
issues in the denomination, the
$10,000 grant to the Angela Davis
defense, the Rutgers University con-
stitutional law professor and former
dean said he went to California last
fall to discover what Church people
there thought. He reported to his
synod, after consulting with mem-
bers of the session and with staff of
the synod office which asked a Gen-
eral Assembly agency for the grant,
that California churchmen were con-
vinced it was necessary. When re-
porters asked whether he talked with
others, he could not name any who
had opposed the contribution.

The new moderator is a native of
Bloomfield, N. J. and a ruling elder
in the Bloomfield (N.J.) Church
on the Green. He is a graduate of
Dartmouth College and earned an
M.A. degree at Columbia University
and a law degree at the University
of Newark (now a part of Rutgers,
the state university of New Jersey) .
He began teaching at his alma mater
upon his discharge from the Navy
at the end of World War II and
was dean of the law school from
1951 to 1970.

His election gave the UPUSA two
consecutive lay moderators. After he
and his predecessor, Mrs. Lois Stair,
embraced each other on the plat-
form following his election, he said,
"This is the greatest moment of my
life." IB

UPUSA-PCUS Merger
Talks Will Continue

DENVER — Continued union talks
with the Presbyterian Church US
were approved almost routinely
here by the United Presbyterian
General Assembly. The action came
without debate after 11 p.m. the
night the Assembly voted to leave
the Consultation on Church Union
(COCU) .

Commissioners, in their post-
COCU decision, ratified the addition
of professor Edward A. Dowey of
Princeton Seminary to the UPUSA

delegation. Dr. Dowey had been si
pointed by 1971 Moderator M
Stair after the PCUS Assemb
asked that one person "unhapp
with the draft plan of union
added to each side.

The court also approved continu
tion of its minority task force, whi<
is advising the union committee (
minority concerns.

Roscoe Nix, black member of tl
PCUS delegation, told the Assemb
that "union will come in one way <
another" and said he only hopt
that it would not come "too late" f(
the young people in the Church.

THE CHURCH AT HOME

New Synod "F" Adopts
Conservative Docket

MERIDIAN, Miss. — In an emo-
tional atmosphere which witnessed
public displays of anger by some lib-
eral ministers, the first convention
of proposed Synod "F," meeting
here, upset the report of its plan-
ning committee and adopted, in
lolo, a docket of business prepared
by conservative members.

The fireworks began when the
convention, consisting of the synods
of Alabama and Mississippi, elected
as its chairman the Rev. Robert
Strong of Montgomery over the Rev.
Massey Mott Heltzel of Mobile. The
vote was 278 to 162.

The convention next elected the
Rev. Albert H. Freundt Jr., a profes-
sor at Reformed Seminary, Jackson,
Miss., its clerk.

By standing votes so large they
were not counted, the convention
elected a slate of committees in
which numerous changes had been
made in committee nominations pro-
posed by the planning committee.

It then spoke a resounding "No!"
to a suggestion that Synod "F" be
merged with Synod "C" consisting,
in main, of Tennessee and Kentucky.
The vote here was 293 to 139.

A statement opposing the general
abolition of synods throughout the
Church was adopted on a voice vote.
In effect the statement rejected sup-
port of an overture to be considered
by the PCUS General Assembly, in
which Mobile presbytery has asked
for abolition.

The statement which was adopted

in First Church here pointed oi
that abolishing synods would plac
the power to change presbyter
boundaries in the hands of the Ger
eral Assembly.

By this time the atmosphere wa
so charged that when an individua
commissioner presented a resolutioi
condemning violence in electioi
processes (this was the day aftej
Gov. Wallace was shot) several
voices were heard in the negative.

The convention earlier had beei
led in prayer on behalf of the gov
ernor and his family. 3

Coeds to Be Admitted
At Davidson College

DAVIDSON, N. C. — Davidson Col
lege, a liberal arts college for mer
since 1837, will become coeducation
al this fall.

Davidson's trustees voted unani
mously to "approve the principle ol
coeducation and direct the president
to proceed on the basis of a plan out
lined in the Report on Coeducation
recommended by the faculty, pro-
vided that the plan is recognized as
a set of projections and possible
goals rather than a detailed blue-
print of commitments."

The Report on Coeducation calls
for the admission of sophomore and
junior women transfer students for
the fall of 1972, and freshman wom-
en for the fall of 1973 and there-
after. An upper limit of 500 wom-
en is projected for 1981, with the en-
rollment of men remaining at
1,000. ffl

PAGE 6 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 31, 1972

pica to take inventory before it is too late —

Are Our Differences So Great?

THE EDITOR

rwo weeks ago, in Lexington,
Mass., I was meeting with
l)Out 150 ministers and an equal
I amber of laymen belonging to the
ew England Evangelical Fellow-
ip. The other speaker on the pro-
lam was Dr. Myron Augsburger,
['esident of Eastern Mennonite Col-
Ige, whom some of you know be-
k use he took his doctorate at Union
pminary. An outstanding evan-
l:list, Dr. Augsburger is a firm and
nnvinced pacifist.

In the discussion up there in Mas-
\ chusetts, it was pointed out that
tie two speakers on the program
[ ere diametrically opposed concern-
lg a vital social question and the
lost pressing international issue of
ie time, the war in Vietnam,
f: Dr. Augsburger opposed the war
jrdially and wholeheartedly. I
lought that we should escalate in
ietnam as far as necessary to win
clear military victory.
But we were cordially agreed con-
erning the one thing that we also
greed was the one supreme thing
eeded by every man, namely salva-
on in Jesus Christ.
Please note: recognizing the his-
pric crisis of our time, Dr. Augs-
burger and I found that the incom-
'atibility of our views on Vietnam
vas totally irrelevant to the mission
;f the Church, namely, urgent need
o make common cause on behalf of
esus Christ.
Now there are churchmen today

Five years ago the editor was gra-
iously invited to present the case
or conservatives before the staff and
\ome of the members of the Board
\>f National Ministries. Spoken then
(J a plea, these words may help ex-
plain why today some have conclud-
ed it is, indeed, too late for "recon-
ciliation."

who would say that we had missed
the point. These churchmen would
say that Dr. Augsburger and I would
be better advised to bury our "theo-
logical" differences in order to pre-
sent, if possible, a united front, as
Christians, on the pressing problem
of Vietnam.

In this illustration I think we can
see the chasm between the poles of
thought in the Church today. A
Mennonite and a Presbyterian were
not agreed on the pressing social
questions of the day. But they were
agreed that the pressing social ques-
tions compelled them to join hands
in the primary assignment given His
witnesses by the Lord Jesus Christ.

Let's come a bit closer to home.
Twenty years ago, if the Committee
on Home Missions had money to
spend and critical conditions devel-
oped among striking cigar workers
in Tampa, Fla., the money would
probably have been sent to Dr. Wal-
ter Passiglia in order to expand his
ministry through the Ybor City Mis-
sion. Today, if critical conditions
developed among striking workers
in Tampa, the Board of National
Ministries might decide to send help
to the strikers.

Change In Mission

I am trying to suggest that vital
and important changes have oc-
curred at official levels in the Church
concerning our understanding of the
basic mission of the Church.

I do not mean to suggest that vital
and important changes have oc-
curred in the way we approach the
timeless mission of the Church up-
on which we all agree, but rather
that the mission itself has changed
in the thinking of some.

Because the mission itself has
changed, as some see it, the Church

is being committed to new programs
and emphases which exclude, to all
practical purposes, the mission of
the Church as others see it.

It's as simple as that.

The Presbyterian Church US,
through several of its agencies, has
embarked on a crash program to
help meet the crisis in American
cities. This is commendable, on the
face of it. But I have seen nothing
— not one word — in any of the
news releases, in any of the promo-
tional material or study material
prepared, in any of the actions taken,
to suggest that anyone intends to
commit the Church as the Church is
commissioned by its Lord, to help
meet the crisis in American cities.

There are millions of restless,
angry, oppressed people out there in
American cities. I have seen noth-
ing in this crash program concern-
ing the crisis to suggest that the
Church is girding itself to give those
people Jesus Christ. I have seen
much to suggest that the Church is
girding itself to give those people
things: material benefits, economic
relief, social justice.

At this point I am well aware that
I run the risk of being totally mis-
understood. I was talking along this
vein with some of our denomination-
al representatives to the Consulta-
tion on Church Union in Dayton,
Ohio, three weeks ago, when one of
the group, a seminary professor,
spoke up and said, "Oh, you believe
in saving souls only."

If it is that hard for us to under-
stand each other, meetings of this
kind are a waste of time. But may-
be we should at least continue to try,
as long as the lines of communica-
tion remain open between us.

I am not suggesting for a moment
that the evangelical's interest should
be in "saving souls only." This is a

PAGE 7 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 31, 1972

I

■

perversion of tlie Gospel and its em-
phasis on the whole man. But I am
suggesting that the Church's obedi-
ence to her Lord in days of shudder-
ing crisis does not call her to under-
take a crash program to help build
low-cost housing, as her part in
reaching the whole man.

Perhaps an illustration will help.
Let's say the Division of Higher
Education of the Board of Christian
Education decided that the crisis in
America demanded of the division
that it close down all Presbyterian
schools and take the money being
spent on higher education and put
it into low-rent apartments for un-
derprivileged people.

Should an educator object to such
a suggestion, someone might say,
"Oh, you think teaching English lit-
erature is more important than pre-
venting the destruction of Amer-
ica."

To such a complaint I think the
educator would be justified in re-
plying: "No, we are very much in-
terested in preventing the destruc-
tion of America, but we feel that the
best contribution that American col-
leges can make to the attainment of
this objective is to stay in business
as educational institutions."

I cannot imagine a hospital board
of directors voting to meet the crisis
in the cities by closing down the hos-
pital and using the hospital's endow-
ment to alleviate poverty.

This disinclination to join the is-
sue in the streets would not mean
that the hospital was any less inter-
ested in meeting the crisis. It simply
would mean that the hospital board
of directors saw their function in the
crisis as one of developing a better
hospital.

Two Philosophies

The Church's part in the attain-
ment of worthy social objectives is
to give people Jesus Christ as the
only answer. This does not mean
the Church is any less interested in
worthy social objectives. It does
mean the Church is the only institu-
tion on the face of the earth which
knows how permanent social pro-
gress can be made among men and
she is called to make her testimony
of its commitment to Jesus Christ.

The Church is not called to make
her testimony in the same coin or
after the same manner as those who
are looking for social progress with-
out the spiritual or supernatural per-
spective.

There are two principal philoso-
phies of social progress competing
with each other today. The one be-
lieves that social progress occurs as
men are changed in their essential
natures. The other believes that so-
cial progress occurs as men confront
one another in the marketplace of
ideas and as confrontation leads to
pressure and pressure leads to crisis
and crisis leads to decision and de-
cision makes for progress.

The first of these philosophies is
typified by the Christian faith and
the Christian mission. The second is,
essentially, the process called dia-
lectic.

Now hear this, my brethren: The
Christian Church is not committed
to human progress by means of dia-
lectic; it is committed to human
progress by means of conversion.

The difference is essentially that
between a concern for humanity
from a supernatural perspective and
a concern for humanity from a pure-
ly natural perspective.

Some of us would argue that in
all the concern for humanity which
has replaced traditional concerns in
the official ministry of the Church,
the supernatural perspective is miss-
ing and the purely natural perspec-
tive dominates.

I do not mean to suggest that the
boards and agencies of the Church
are doing their work without paying
their respects to the supernatural
frame of reference. I do mean to
suggest that this supernatural frame
of reference in the witness of the
boards and agencies of the Presbyte-
rian Church US appears merely as
lip service to the supernatural dimen-
sion; it is not the active practice of
a supernatural transaction.

Take, for example, a paper that
has just been offered to the Church
as an aid to study during the second
quarter of 1968. Entitled, "The
Responsibility of the Church in the
World," the paper abounds in refer-
ences to Jesus Christ, to the Holy
Spirit, to God. But in its many ref-
erences to the divine order, there is
only a polite hat-tipping to such an
order, not a real transaction with
such an order. There's a difference.

It is one thing to say that "in
obedience to Jesus Christ we work
for justice for all men." It is quite
another thing to say that "in obedi-
ence to Jesus Christ we work to give
Him to men as our contribution to
a world in which justice will prevail."

There is a difference. It may not
be considered a very big difference,

nor a very important differen<
That is a matter of opinion. B" 1
there is a difference. That is am;
ter of fact.

With respect to this paper who 1
title I have just quoted, this I wou; ^
say: The Gospel defined in this p1 *
per is not the Gospel I profess.

The proclamation to which th
paper calls the Church is not tH 10
proclamation to which I have bet ^
called.

The description of salvation give
in this paper is not the descriptic1
I understand.

Not My Calling

The calling to which this pap<
summons the Christian is not tr
calling to which I have been sun
moned.

The mission described is not th
mission I have been given.

The description of the work (
God in the world is not the descrij
tion of the work of God that I ha\
been led to discern.

You will notice that the reference
I have just made were cmite persoi
al. I did not say the Gospel in thi
paper is not the New Testamei]
Gospel, although I believe tha
would be an accurate statement. Bu
to put it that way would be to rais
an issue for argument which woul
require Bible study and an impai
tial jury to decide. We do not have a:
impartial jury here today, for we ar
all opinionated as to the issue.

And I did not say that the Gospe
in this paper is not the Gospel as ,
multitude of people in the Churcl
understand it. That would be t<
pretend to speak for others for whon
I cannot speak.

But I can express the issue ii
terms of my own convictions, anc
that is what I am trying to do.

That leads me to say this: We ar<
not likely, in these days of contro
versy, to persuade one another con
cerning our differing viewpoints
But we must recognize, we are com
pelled to recognize it seems to me
that the viewpoints do differ.

The Gospel and the commitmen I
of my Church in the world are toda^ i
expressed in terms and in deeds thaW
I cannot accept. That happens tel
be a fact. You can do with it whati
you will. If that fact interests youl
I invite you to take it for what it';
worth. If you want a fuller or more
documented statement of the case, ]
will be glad to supply it.

On the other hand, if that fad

PAGE 8 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 31, 1972

Jsiongs in the triviality file, then
tgt it there. But recognize it for
■tat it is, namely a fact: The Gos-
|jl and the commitment of the
ijmrch in the world are today ex-
tessed in terms and in deeds that
■:annot accept.

j May I become even more specific?

4 few days ago there came to my of-
■e a copy of the report of the Board
k National Ministries to the Gen-
fcil Assembly. It is verily a classic,
krai the standpoint of interest and
BcLuhan type appeal.

Ijl was almost overwhelmed, as I
bad through the report, with the
fcultiplicity of ministries in which
lie Church is engaged. It almost
I kes one's breath away to study the
fcpe and the breadth of the pro-
ii'am for which the Board of Na-
i jnal Ministries is partly, or alto-

5 ther responsible.

I; One Question Remains

l But if you want my enthusiastic
Indorsement of this multi-faceted
[! id variegated bouquet of opera-
lans, you must answer one simple
taestion: How many people have
hen led to Jesus Christ as their
[jiviour through the entire show?
f low me one. Just one.
i It is my belief that if the multi-
Llicity of wheels within wheels and
jiinistries within ministries does not
|[ the far end of the assembly line
urn out one single new-born soul,
Bien the whole, sophisticated, effi-
ent operation is unacceptable to the
' lmighty.

[ No. I did not say that I thought
he only business of the Church was
pul-saving. But if, in addition to
verything else you are doing, or by
Ijieans of everything else you are do-
pg, you are not soul-saving, your
pinistry does not deserve the title,
iChristian" ministry,
j But — you may say — if we took
hat $300,000 we are spending on
;xperiments and put the money in-
jo something like the Presbyterian
Evangelistic Fellowship, we might
idd a few names to the rolls by pro-
fession of faith, but we would not
eally come to grips with the prob-
ems of our times.

This I concede as a possibility. If
adding names to the roll of the
Jhurch does not issue in social ac-
ion, then it is indeed a very great
-in. But it at least is a sin in the
ight direction, and if it should
wing more to Christ, even imper-
ectly, it would infinitely be pre-

PAGE 9

f erred to what you are doing.

We are that far apart.

That leads me to the next logical
question: In the face of incompatible
views and acts, what can we do? Can
these opposites in the Church co-
exist? Is there room within the
Body of Christ for basic and funda-
mental differences concerning basic
and fundamental things?

To be quite specific, can I tag
along if the Church intends to fol-
low the way laid out in the paper,
"The Responsibility of the Church
in the World"?

I am not sure that I can give a fi-
nal or even a definitive answer to
that question. This much I do
know: I am not going in the direc-
tion laid out in that paper!

Because we are trying to under-
stand each other here today I will
say this: The problem is comparable
to the problem of co existence be-
tween a view of free enterprise and
a view of collectivism as the way to
achieve the American dream.

Can free enterprise co-exist with
collectivism? I don't believe a final
answer has yet been given. But I do
belong to the group of people who
are saying, "No, I will not adopt, nor
follow collectivism." More: I belong
to a group that does not believe the
country is big enough for both.

For another illustration: Here is a
marriage, consisting of husband and
wife, into whose relationship a new
element has been introduced. The
husband has decided to take a mis-
tress. Can he support his new mis-
tress and preserve his marriage?

His wife thinks that something en-
tirely incompatible to their relation-
ship has been introduced. He sees
nothing incompatible and he argues
that the two of them can continue as
before. "There's no reason for this
to break up our marriage," he says.
"Just because I have taken a mis-
tress does not mean that I love you
any the less. It just means that I
have decided my life should be more
than it has been with you. I simply
want what we have enjoyed together
and also I want this other for the
fulfillment of the whole man."

Like the Church

That illustration may not be the
way you see our problem in the
Church but it is the way I see it.
Here is a marriage. You are in a
sense the husband, the head of the
house. You surely are in charge of
things and I have no voice in the

/ THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY

way you have been running things.
Lately I have discovered that you
have taken a mistress. Perhaps you
do not view it that way, but if my
remarks today make any sense at all
you will agree that basic and funda-
mental changes have taken place in
the very life of the Church.

You do not see that the changes
are so important or so dramatic as
to mean the end of the marriage.
You see no reason why the marriage
cannot continue. This marriage, you
say, is big enough for these differ-
ences that have come up between us.

But the differences have come up
and it was not I who introduced
them. Let me repeat that: The dif-
ferences have come up and it was
not I who introduced them. I can
be charged with dragging my feet
in following you, but the one sin of
which I in good conscience can pro-
nounce myself "not guilty" is the sin
of introducing a new gospel or a
new mission into the God-given re-
lationship which has existed be-
tween heaven and earth since Christ
gave His disciples their great com-
mission.

You have done that. If you can
justify it when you are called into
account, then perhaps the judgment
will fall on me.

But this much is true: You have
not yet convinced me by Scripture,
the Word of God written, that your
decision to take a mistress is or-
dered of God. You have spoken of
the persuasion of the Spirit and of
the decisions of Church councils, but
you have not spoken of the clear
teachings of the Bible.

My conscience, as was that of a
greater man, is bound by the Word
of God. Unless you can prove to me
by that Word that two thousand
years of testimony in the Church
must now be discarded in favor of a
new mission, God help me, here I
stand, I can do no other.

There's Another 'Church'

Meanwhile, brethren, let us not
overlook the possibility that in our
denominational councils and delib-
erations we may not represent the
entire Christian world. In one of
the reports heard here today men-
tion was made that in a certain sit-
uation, "Every major denomination
was represented, except the Bap-
tists." I noted that the report came
from a section of the country where
it sometimes is wryly said that "there
are more Baptists than people." In

31, 1972

other words the report admitted that
with "every major denomination
represented," the consensus was that
of a minority of Christians in that
area.

It is easy, when we sit down to
plan things, especially if we are of
one accord, to believe the whole
Church is moving as One Mighty
Army, dragging along a few strag-
gling dissenters. I beg of you to con-
sider that the dissenters may be more
than a straggle.

Earlier in my remarks I men-
tioned the New England Evangeli-
cal Fellowship. That group repre-
sents the majority Christian opinion
in New England where the major
denominations have shriveled and
died and the evangelical witness is

Across America nearly every
church has a sign in front
which welcomes visitors. The invita-
tion is extended in many other ways,
too, by the minister, elders, deacons,
visitation committees, women of the
church, youth, Sunday school, and
through other organizations and in-
dividuals.

When a visitor accepts this invita-
tion and comes to church, he usually
finds a personal welcome at the
door, a written welcome in the bul-
letin, and a verbal welcome from the
minister. The person who responds
to these invitations and comes to
church, usually asks himself two im-
portant questions: What can I ex-
pect from the church? What can
the church expect from me?

The answer to the first is found
in the first two verses of the second
chapter of I Corinthians: "And I,
brethren, when I came to you, came
not with excellency of speech or of
wisdom, declaring unto you the tes-

The author is the newly elected
pastor of the First Presbyterian
Church, Marion, N. C.

the strongest there is.

There's a whole world of Chris-
tian testimony "out there" beyond
the circles in which you move. Next
week I will be attending the annual
convention of the National Associa-
tion of Evangelicals in Philadel-
phia. There will be two thousand
Christians in that great convention
and nearly all of them will be Chris-
tians who move in circles that are
not those in which you move.

When those in your circle hold a
youth convention the attendance
may reach 2,500. When those in this
other Christian circle hold a youth
convention the attendance reaches
12,000.

This other Christian circle I am
talking about has more missionaries

I Corinthians 2:1-9

timony of God. For I determined
not to know anything among you
save Jesus Christ and Him cruci-
fied."

Paul had just come from Athens,
that great center of learning, where
he had tried to argue intellectually
with the philosophers and agnostics
of that great city. This was the first
and only time, as far as we know,
that Paul ever attempted to reduce
Christianity to philosophic terms,
but it is worthy of note that Athens
was the scene of one of his greatest
failures. His efforts to argue did
not seem to work. Perhaps in order
not to let this kind of thing happen
again, Paul said to the Corinthians
that he was determined not to know
anything except Jesus Christ and
Him crucified.

More Than Philosophy

When people accept the invitation
to come to church, they have a right
to expect to hear the pure and pow-
erful Gospel of Christ. If it is news

overseas than do the representative
of the circle in which you move.

Sometimes you may be tempted t
think of those Christians out of th
Church you know as a sort of "ur
derground Church." It might bei
efit, sometimes, to take a good loo
at this other world and see how "ur
derground" it is with respect to th
very social objectives you have ii.
mind for the Church.

There is Bill Iverson, for instance
whose work in Newark has receive!
national prominence and whose stor
has even been told in Coronet magi
azine.

And there is David Wilkerson in
New York, whose Teen Challenge i

Continued on page 18, col. 1)

!

\
!

3

GEORGE B. HUTCHINS

stories and analysis you want, then
read your newspapers and listen tc
television. If it is philosophy you
want, sit at the feet of the philoso
phers. If it is politics, go to the city
hall, to Washington or to political
rallies.

But when you come to church you
have a right to hear more than a
rehash of current news, philosophy
or politics. You have a right to ex-
pect to hear the good news of Christ!

The second thing you should ex-
pect when you come to church is for
something dramatic and exciting to
happen, and if the Gospel of Christ
is preached, things will happen! To-
day we hear a great deal about
drugs, sex, crime and war, but if we<
have ears we can also hear of some
exciting things happening in the
church.

Not long ago in a sermon I re-
ferred to an article in Look Maga-
zine about the Christian youth move-
ment on the West Coast. Exciting i
developments are occurring there!
And as a postcript to the story, a
young man told me that the author
of the Look article returned to Cal-

We count on the church for the Gospel. Can it count on us as members? —

Church Membership

I

PAGE 10 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 31, 1972

irrnia for another visit and com-
ntted himself to Jesus Christ as
lt/iour and Lord.

jo when you come to church, ex-
rct excitement! You can expect

«.rist to do for you and others what
aju cannot do for yourself. Paul
j t it like this: "For as it is writ-
El, eye hath not seen, nor ear heard,
lither have entered into the heart
c man, the things which God hath
jepared for them that love Him"
■ Cor. 2:9) .
Something else you can expect
jm the church is growing knowl-
i ge of the Christian faith and life,
hundred years ago sermons usual-
lasted from one to two hours. To-

wiy we are usually limited to about
• minutes. In my opinion, the rea-

|!n is not a deterioration of preach-
g, but a shift of emphasis. The
nger sermons were more didactic,
dw they tend to be more inspira-
onal.

I To fulfill the necessity for teach-
I ig the message of the Bible, we of-
| r many opportunities. In addition
t > the regular worship services con-
ducted by the minister, Sunday
i :hool classes are customarily held
pr all ages, youth groups on Sun-
If ay evenings, Bible studies for the
"omen in church circles, and special
ij;udy and learning opportunities.
Vhen you come to church, you can
xpect to learn more about the doc-
trines of the Christian faith and
pore about how to live that faith.

And Fellowship

A fourth expectation is the experi-
:nce of a real Christian fellowship,
urst of all, you come to hear the
Gospel, but we all need the kind of
ellowship to be found only in the
;hurch.

In one church a study was made
:o determine why so many people
ittended. In addition to hearing
he Gospel, some came because they
iked the music, a few admired the
irchitecture, others were impressed
/vith the minister, but most came be-
:ause they found Christian fellow-
hip. One member said, "I greatly
/alue my friendships in the church
jecause they have aided me in many
rises and furnished me with much
asting joy and strength."

Pastoral care should certainly be
:xpected. It would take too long
o cover this subject adequately, but
n brief it means that you can expect
rom the ministers and elders of the
:hurch visits when you are sick, and

counseling when you face a crisis, a
decision, a bereavement or any other
situation in which you feel you need
spiritual guidance.

Such pastoral care also means that
you can expect the services of the
church for weddings, funerals and
help for the rearing of your children
in the nurture and admonition of
the Lord. You can expect your min-
ister to work hard, efficiently and
long to offer pastoral care to the
members.

Next Question

Having suggested some answers to
the first question, let us now look at
the second, "What can the church
expect from me?"

The first thing that the church
can expect from you is your presence
at the worship services. If the church
has an obligation to provide wor-
ship services, which require many
man hours of preparation, then the
church has a right to expect you to
be present.

Dr. Robert McCracken of the Riv-
erside Church in New York told a
story once about a minister who
made this announcement one Sun-
day morning: "The funeral service
for the late John Doe will be held
in this church tomorrow afternoon
at 3 o'clock, and Mr. Doe will be
here in person for the first time in
ten years."

The attendance in some churches
is better than "average," of course,
but this average is far too low. Un-
fortunately, those who least need the
admonition to attend are usually
the ones present to hear it. When
you join the church you answer af-
firmatively this question from the
Book of Church Order: "Do you
promise to serve Christ in His
Church by supporting and partici-
pating in its worship and work to
the best of your ability?"

Note that you do not promise to
attend church only when you feel
like it, or when you do not have
company, or when you do not make
a trip out of town, or when the fish
are not biting. You promised that
you would "participate in the wor-
ship and work of the church to the
best of your ability."

Your Tithes

A second thing that the church
can expect from you is your gifts.
The Presbyterian Church has one of
the highest giving records of all the

major denominations, but again this
average is far too low. God has been
gracious and plenteous in bestowing
His rich blessings upon us and He
has commanded that we give to the
church in proportions as He has
given to us. The church can expect
you to give and give generously.

You must also expect to share in
the work of the church. A few peo-
ple still say, "That's the minister's
job. That's what we pay him for."
This is true, but technically speak-
ing, we are all ministers. To put it
another way, when we get to heaven
neither you nor I expect me, as
an ordained minister, to have a posi-
tion that is better or superior to
yours. The work of the church is
the responsibility of every member
and every member can be expected
to share in it. The Sunday school,
choirs, and service projects are in
perpetual need of help. The church
can expect you to share in this work.

'Be Ye Doers . . /

Fourth, the church can expect you
to live like Christians in your daily
lives. "Be ye doers of the Word,"
said James, "and not hearers only."
Our Book of Church Order asks,
"Do you now resolve and promise,
in humble reliance upon the grace
of the Holy Spirit, that you will en-
deavor to live as becomes the follow-
ers of Christ?" The church can ex-
pect you to live like a devoted Chris-
tian at 1 1 o'clock on Saturday night
and at 1 1 o'clock on Monday morn-
ing, just as you do on Sunday morn-
ing. The church has no double
standards.

After all, what is the real church?
It is not the building, as beautiful
as it may be. The church is the
people of God. The building is only
the place where we, the church,
meet for worship, study, work, fel-
lowship and prayer. So where you
are, there is the church.

On any Sunday morning, we are
the church gathered. After a few
moments, we will be the church scat-
tered, but we will still be the
church. The church expects you to
come to the sanctuary to learn how
to live. Then it can expect you to
"endeavor to live as becomes the
followers of Christ."

These are some of the things you
can expect from the church, and
some which the church expects from
you. God help us to learn and live
our faith to make the church what
it ought to be. 51

PAGE 11 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 31, 1972

EDITORIALS

Looking Towards the 1972 Assembly

Longtime Journal readers may
have noticed that we haven't gone
to as great lengths this year as pre-
viously, to report the business sched-
uled for the upcoming PCUS Gen-
eral Assembly.

Quite frankly, at this stage of the
game we are somewhat less optimis-
tic over evangelical prospects at a
meeting of the General Assembly
than we once were.

Too, some of the proposals up for
consideration are trivial (a sugges-
tion from Lexington presbytery that
the PCUS "appeal directly and in
person to the pope of the Roman
Catholic Church" in support of birth
control) ; some are asinine (how else
would you describe that overture
from the Synod of Virginia asking
for a commission from the National
Council of Churches to study the
Vietnam war?) ; and much is irrele-
vant in view of the "lame duck"
status of the presbyteries and even
the General Assembly itself (several
suggestions for amendments to the
constitution to be voted on in 1973
and beyond) .

Two matters are of interest to
evangelical Presbyterians looking to-
wards a continuing Church loyal to
Scripture and the Reformed faith.

One is an overture from Augusta-
Macon presbytery calling on the As-
sembly to honor its commitment to
the "plenary verbal inspiration of
the Scriptures." When the Assem-
bly rejects the request (as it most
certainly will) , the need for a clear
doctrinal issue before the Church
will be fulfilled.

The other is the report of the Per-
manent Theological Committee in
response to a request that it define
the nature of the obligation which
officers and ministers assume when
they take their ordination vows. The
issue: What is meant by the require-
ment that officers accept the Scrip-
tures as "the only infallible rule of
faith and practice"; and the confes-
sion of faith as "containing the sys-
tem of doctrine taught in the Scrip-
tures"?

The Permanent Theological Com-
mittee, which includes that minister
of Charleston presbytery who has
written that not even the Bible

should be taken as final authority in
matters of religion, not unexpected-
ly says that the Bible should not be
construed as "the only authority, nor
the supreme authority" (italics are
the committee's) . Nor is it to be
taken as "the only rule of faith and
practice, but it is the only rule of
which it can be said that it is 'in-
fallible.' "

In further gymnastics, the com-
mittee says the Bible need not be
taken in and of itself but only as "in-
terpreted by the Holy Spirit." It al-
so says officers don't have to believe
the Bible is inerrant and they don't
have to accept every teaching of the
confession. When we vow to "accept
the system of doctrine" of the con-
fession as the same contained in

tv"

llfl

<x

Scripture, we really mean to sa
"the various elements are organical
ly related to one another in sue!
fashion that Biblical truth is no
self-contradictory."

According to the committee, th
Church also follows rules of faitl
and practice derived from source
other than the Bible and the confes
sion is not to be taken as affirming
Biblical truth in any unchangeable
way.

Finally, it is perfectly agreeabh
to one's ordination vows to work foi
change in the Church's confession
says the committee.

When the Assembly has adopted!
this one, it will pretty well eliminate I
theological hindrance to ordainationJ
It will also eliminate the current
need, which many feel, to take their
vows with their fingers crossed. (Every
vow, that is, except the one dearest
to the heart of the liberals: Will you
obey the Church?)

It will underscore the principal
argument on behalf of a continuing

Church.

This Has Been Going On A Long Time

Some of the mail across the edi-
tor's desk suggests that a sizeable
number of people in Presbyterian
circles believe the conservatives have
not really been willing to give "rec-
onciliation" a chance to work.

We'll resist the temptation to sug-
gest that such people are like those
who say the United States has not
really given negotiations in Paris a
chance to work. They are rather for
the most part latecomers to the scene
of ecclesiastical controversy and do
not realize the degree to which seri-
ous "dialogue" has been going on for
many years. (This is a chief reason
why we carry, on p. 7 of this issue,
the text of a presentation made to
the Board of National Ministries
four years ago.)

The problem is not that "recon-
ciliation" has not had a chance to
work. The problem is that the
polarities in the Church are irrec-
oncilable. You simply cannot put
people into the same cart who are
going in different directions.

We have not been arguing over
different approaches to the Gospel,
but over the difference between the
Gospel and no Gospel. We have not
been emphasizing a narrow aspect
of the faith, but rather calling for

faith against humanism, or unfaith
People still write in to say they
believe all God's children should be
willing to dwell together. Amen
We believe that too. But we don't be
lieve God's children can be obedient
to their Lord and remain in subjec
tion to principalities and powers
inimical to their Lord.

We have no problem being ecu-
menical in our outlook. There is a
Christian ecumenism functioning
among Protestants in America and
we take every opportunity we can to
call attention to it. It is made up
of Calvinists, Arminians, Pentecos-
talists, pacifists, activists and others
of almost every conceivable stripe.
It numbers more than 38,000 church-
es and some 3 million members. It
is called the National Association of
Evangelicals and at the moment the
editor is first vice president of it.

Standing before the General As-
sembly of the Presbyterian Church
US a few years ago, the executive
secretary of the Board of World
Missions read off the names of the
member denominations of NAE and
then said words to this effect: "That
is not company I could keep." He
was supporting continuing member-
ship in the National Council of

I

PAGE 12 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 31, 1972

■(lurches, an ecumenical body of an
utirely different sort.

That is the point. In effect, two
itithetical kingdoms exist and those
iho say they could be comfortable
dder an umbrella sheltering "the
idest possible theological differ-
lces," will also say, in their candid
moments, that another theological
rnbrella exists under which they
nild not stand at all.

So we're saying the same thing.
There are some with whom we be-
eve the child of God, before God,
annot stand. Not if he intends to
e part of a Church faithful to the
Vord of God. ffl

Christian, Look Around!

We travel a lot, these days, and
ire repeatedly impressed with the
ack of spiritual power evidenced in
he lives of many members in even
mr most conservative churches.

Think about it: Do professing
christians in your church enjoy the
■fch spiritual experiences which one
night expect them to, judging from
:he New Testament? If the circle
o£ your Christian friends is like most,
it is noted chiefly for its lack of
similarity to first century Christians!

Charles Finney, the great revivalist
of the first half of the 19th century,
was moved to begin his ministry by
just such a consideration. He saw in
only a few believers the marks of a
New Testament Christian and he
became fully convinced that the
Church of Jesus Christ failed to en-
joy God's blessing as it might be-
cause its prayers were not in the
power of genuine faith — -the people
didn't expect God to do anything!

Finney knew that God was ready
to pour out His Spirit upon men if
they simply would take Him at His
Word and lay hold on the promises,
sincerely striving to meet the Scrip-
tural conditions, with a vital faith
in Christ Jesus.

With this conviction, Finney be-
gan to talk with people about their
religious experience, and he became
a great personal worker. This per-
sonal evangelism led to preaching
evangelism, and God used him won-
derfully for almost fifty years. Hun-
dreds of churches were awakened out
of the deadly lethargy of dead ortho-
doxy and worse. Thousands of men
were saved unto Christ and thrust
by the Spirit into lives of dedica-
tion.

Finney preached a plain Gospel.

THE LAYMAN AND HIS CHURCH

m

God, I'm Talking About You Again

I used to be in agreement, and still
am to some extent, with the person
who says, "I think it is good to ex-
press our doubts about God and to
discuss them with other people."

My thinking was, "Yes, this helps
me to clarify my thinking (if I am
the one talking) and to hear views
against which to better judge the cor-
rectness of my own beliefs (if I am
the listener) ." The thought was al-
ways there, too, that there just might
be someone who woidd hear my
doubts and take me into his heart,
either to pray for me or give a spe-
cial word of comfort or testimony
that would help lead me further
along the road of truth. Hopefully,
I might even be that "someone" to
someone else.

Without discounting the possibil-
ity of this, it seems that lately I have
heard far too many doubts expressed
and too few affirmations of belief.
Let's look into this a little further:
In all our doubts, and we all have
them, who are we really doubting?
God. We are doubting His ability
to work at all, or His ability to work
a good work in us or in someone we
are concerned about. Let's earnest-
ly ask ourselves if we are really seek-

This week the layman's viewpoint
is brought by Mrs. J. Alton Barnes,
an elect lady and housewife of Wil-
son, N. C.

ing an answer, or if we are just talk-
ing about God in order to appear to
be seeking one.

Two beautiful illustrations of
doubt fairly sprang from the page
when I read them recently — one
from the Old Testament and one
from the New. Abraham and
Sarah honestly could not see how
God could give them the son
He promised, since they had already
passed the age of bearing children.
The Lord's glorious reply to their
doubt was, "Is any thing too hard
for the Lord? At the time appoint-
ed I will return unto thee, according
to the time of life, and Sarah shall
have a son" (Gen. 18:14).

Then there were the words of the
angel Gabriel to Mary when she ex-
pressed doubt as to how she could
possibly have a child in her condi-
tion of virginity: "For with God,
nothing shall be impossible" (Luke
1:37).

If these readings fail to warm your
heart, take the matter to God. Talk
to Him honestly about your partic-
ular doubts; hold nothing back, then
leave it all with Him. After all, on-
ly He can truly vindicate or reveal
Himself. It seems only fair that He
be given the chance. If, however, we
find ourselves unwilling to do this,
we have no choice but to surmise
that we are not ready to be res-
cued, ffl

r * * * ********* ****** ***************** ****

This was the key to his power. A
lawyer, he had no formal theologi-
cal education. His preparation was
almost exclusively the teaching of
the Holy Spirit from the Scriptures.
He served the bread of life to men
in its purity and simplicity.

A Presbyterian minister, founder
of the great Broadway Tabernacle
and of Oberlin College, Finney faith-
fully followed Christ, often at great
personal cost, but always with a
sweet, strong spirit. The result was
a rich harvest of souls in this coun-
try and in England.

Truly a great service to God and
man, we say. But how sad to note
that some of Finney's greatest obsta-
cles, especially in the early days, were
erected by the indifference and in-
consistencies of professing Chris-

tians.

Now, look around you again. The
Lord is doing great things and His
Word promises even greater things
if we are faithful. Could it be, for
instance, that a rich harvest of souls
awaits those who would serve Christ
in a continuing Church that is true to
the Bible and to the Reformed faith?

On the other hand, might it be
that your lethargy and complacence
hinder the possession of God's prom-
ises? Perhaps the Holy Spirit would
enlist you in the cause of Christ in
these clays!

However, the look around must
begin with a look inward. Who rules
your life? Indeed, have you experi-
enced New Testament Christian-
ity?— Paul G. Settle.

PAGE 13 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 31, 1972

p

SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON

For June 18, 1972

Meeting God Through Prayer

INTRODUCTION: Last week we
considered the place of Scripture in
the devotional life. This week we
shall consider the Biblical regula-
tion concerning prayer. The Bible
is God's Word to us. Prayer is our
response to God. The practice
either of reading God's Word with-
out prayer or praying without read-
ing God's Word is incomplete. The
two are to go side by side, but it is
certain one cannot pray effectively
or rightly if he does not know God's
Word and His will which is revealed
in that Word.

I. THE PLACE OF PRAYER
(Matt. 6:5-6) . We are, of course,
speaking here of private prayer,
prayer in the devotional life. Ex-
amples of public prayer are not fre-
quent in Scripture, but we do have
the example of Solomon's prayer (I
Kings 8) . Other Old Testament
prayers which can probably be classi-
fied as public prayers are one by
Isaiah (II Chron. 32:20) and one by
Ezra (Ezra 10:1) . In the New Tes-
tament, public prayers were ap-
parently made by Paul (Acts 13:3,
21:5) and alluded to by James (James
5:14).

Private prayers are far more fre-
quently mentioned in the Old Tes-
tament. We read of this practice by
Isaac (Gen. 24:63) , Hannah (I Sam.
1:10) , Elisha (II Kings 4:33) , Jonah
(2:1), Hezekiah (II Kings 19: 15) ,
and Daniel (Dan. 6:10). Further-
more, it is probable that the prayers
of Abraham, Moses, Nehemiah, Jer-
emiah, Job, and others which are
mentioned or recorded in Scripture
were private prayers.

That privacy is specifically men-
tioned in the case of some of the
prayers is certain. Isaac went to the
field (Gen. 24:63). Usually the Bi-
ble simply says, they prayed "unto
the Lord." This means that they
prayed for God to hear and not
men.

In the New Testament, we have
the great example of our Lord. So
far as I can tell, His prayers were
all in private. The Gospel writers

Rev. Jack B. Scott

Background Scripture: Matthew 6:
1-15

Key Verses: Matthew 6:5-15
Devotional Reading: Isaiah 55:1-6
Memory Selection: Isaiah 55:6

seemed to stress this quality of pri-
vacy about Jesus' prayers. "He went
up into a mountain apart to pray
and was alone" (Matt. 14:23; Mark
6:45; Luke 6:12) . "Sit ye here while
I go and pray yonder" (Matt. 26:
36; Mark 14:32) . "He went into a
solitary place and prayed" (Mark
1:35). "He withdrew into the wil-
derness and prayed" (Luke 5:16) .

All of these passages stress the pri-
vacy of the prayer life of our Lord.
He clearly preferred to pray alone.
The same practice is evident in Pe-
ter, His apostle, who "went up on
the housetop to pray" (Acts 10:9) .

The point is that private prayer
is the basic prayer and without it
God's children cannot grow and de-
velop spiritually. On the basis of
Scripture we cannot minimize pub-
lic prayer, but at the same time we
must note the prevalence of private
prayer. It can truthfully be said
that if one does not pray often pri-
vately, he cannot pray well publicly.
He may be able to pray beautifully
as men judge beauty, but in God's
sight he does not pray well.

The repeated phrase found in
both the Old and New Testaments,
"He prayed unto the Lord," says a
great deal to us. It says that all ac-
ceptable prayer must be directed to
the Lord.

The great danger of every public
prayer is that the pray-er is tempt-
ed to pray to the hearers rather than
to God. How often we hear the
public leader in prayers preach a
sermon, rather than pray to the
Lord. This undoubtedly is the
problem Jesus spoke to when He in-
structed His disciples to pray not in
public places but privately. "Enter
into thine innerchamber and having

jut

to

The International Sunday School Lesson Out-
lines are copyrighted by The International
Council of Religious Education.

shut the door, pray to thy Fathe
who is in secret."

This command could not mon
clearly express the private nature o'
prayer. Prayer is a very persona'
thing, but remember God does se<
you in private. You may fool oth
ers into supposing that you make
daily practice of prayer in your pri
vate life, but God knows whethei
you do.

II. THE REASON FOR
PRAYER (Matt. 6:7-8). The hu-1
man reason for prayer most logical
to man is to inform God of all of
our desires and needs. This seems
reasonable. We are to go to God
in prayer to tell Him the things we1
need. I am sure that this is still the
most commonly held reason for
prayer.

If it is, as I suspect, then Jesus
shatters that reason here for us. He
plainly tells us that God already
knows what we need before we ask
Him. So then, why ask God? Why
pray?

Jesus did not specifically answer
this question except by implication.
The method of prayer which He
taught shows that the first and chief
concern of the pray-er should be to
glorify God. Prayer does glorify God
by acknowledging that all things
which we receive do come from a
benevolent and loving Father. As
the apostle James puts it, "Every
good gift and every perfect gift is
from above, coming down from the
Father of Lights."

To ask why we should pray is like
asking why a child should talk with
his father. It is the normal, reason-
able thing for a child to talk to his
earthly father. He has learned his
speech from his father. He has re-
ceived abundantly from his father
even before he could talk. He has
lived under his father's watchful eye.
He has learned the meaning of life
and has come to understand all things
around him from his father. A bet-
ter question to ask is why would he
not talk to his father?

In the same way, it is normal and

PAGE 14 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 31, 1972

i:asonable that we pray to our heav-
lily Father. We learn the vocabu-
iry of heaven from His Word. We
live received abundantly from Him,
I/en our very eternal life as James
■rain told us (1:18). Even before
te recognize Him as our Saviour, we
lave already been born again to new
Ife by His Holy Spirit and brought
lito His family by adoption.
I By the time we recognize ourselves
-Jj> God's children, we already have
In abundance of His grace in our
Jves. We live continually under the
Jjratchful and loving eye of our heav-
Jnly Father. By His Word we learn
Jbout life, its meaning and purpose.
•JlV'e learn by His Holy Spirit to in-
terpret all that happens to us and
,111 that we see, using His Word to
jleach us. Indeed, why would we
w.ot talk to our heavenly Father?

Just as only a thoughtless child
ould refuse to speak to his father,
o only a thankless believer (if there
s such a person) could refuse or
leglect to talk with his heavenly Fa-
her.

Jesus himself made this earthly fa-
her — heavenly Father comparison
(Luke 11:11-13) . It is good to keep
his in mind. In the Old Testa-
Inent, too, God's care for us is com-
pared to the care of an earthly fa-
Ither for his child. (See Psalm 103:
13; Malachi 1:6.)

We give glory to God's name
when we, as His children, acknowl-
edge that all comes from Him. Will
jwe receive our daily bread whether
[or not we pray for it? Most likely!
Will we have what we need even
when we do not pray? Probably. An
[earthly father provides for his child,
even an ungrateful child. How much
imore our heavenly Father! Jesus
ihimself promised us outright that
;we who are God's children can ex-
pect that God will provide all we
need (Matt. 6:31-33).

When we pray for our daily bread
(daily needs) , we acknowledge that
we look to God for them, and we are
thankful for His benefits. By this,
when we sit down to a meal or put
on our clothes, we shall recognize
the source of that which we have.
We will treat it with respect and care
for it, happy in the knowledge that
God cares and God provides.

He cares and He provides but if
we do not acknowledge this, then we
become callous, arrogant, proud,
even supposing that by our own clev-
erness and skill we have what we
have. That is, we develop a world-
ly attitude and treat our possessions

as belonging exclusively to us and
not as gifts from God.

It is spiritually devastating if we
do not pray to our heavenly Father.
We are like rebellious, wrathful
children who are never thankful for
anything their father does.

III. THE METHOD OF
PRAYER (Matt. 6:9-13) . Here we
are not talking about the position
or posture of prayer. We speak of
the content of prayer as given by Je-
sus to His disciples in what we call
the "Lord's Prayer." This is not the
best name for that familiar prayer.
It is rather "the believer's prayer."

Jesus taught His disciples to pray
that way. Jesus did not pray this
prayer nor would He. One prayer
which Jesus never had to pray Him-
self was "Forgive us." Jesus prayed
many prayers, and the 17th chapter of
John is more accurately the "Lord's
Prayer."

In looking at this prayer which
Jesus taught His disciples, we ob-
serve that first attention is given to
God's holy name, kingdom, and will.
This in itself teaches us that all
proper prayer should be centered on
God and what pleases Him. This
overrules all else that we may ask.
The prayer that is self-centered or
motivated by selfish interests is not
pleasing to God.

When we pray we must know, first
Of all, that what matters more than
any particular desire we may have
is the glory of God's name through
our life. Any petition which would
take honor and glory away from
God's name, as we bear it in the
world, is not a good petition.

Again, any request that is not in
harmony with the good of God's
kingdom is not a proper prayer for
God's children to make. In short,
all of our petitions are to conform
to God's will, which is to be found
only in God's Word. "Thy will be
done," is a petition that should un-

dergird every request we make of
God. A prayer that cannot be
prefaced by that petition, given sin-
cerely from the heart of the petition-
er, is not worthy of a child of God.

Only after we have acknowledged
the desire for God's glory and will
can we pray for those things which
daily affect our personal lives. Two
of our daily needs are within the
realm of proper petition: our physi-
cal needs and our spiritual needs.

We pray for our daily bread (what
is needful for each day) in order to
acknowledge that every good gift
comes from God. We do not pray
for material security (bread for the
week, month, year, etc.) . We should
only be concerned for our needs.
This is true faith, to trust God daily,
step by step, day by day. Included in
this petition is prayer for all of our
physical needs.

The fact that God may provide
these even when we do not ask does
not change the matter. If we are
not praying to Him daily for the
things which we need, we fall in dan-
ger of forgetting that they come from
Him. This forgetting leads us to
take God and His benefits for grant-
ed and cuts us off from spiritual vi-
tality.

This prayer further teaches us to
acknowledge our sins (debts to
God) . The second part of that pe-
tition is particularly revealing. We
are to expect forgiveness in propor-
tion to our readiness to forgive oth-
ers who have wronged us. The re-
lationship between God's forgiving
us and our forgiving others is based
on the measure of our sincerity in
our prayer.

Anyone can say, "forgive me" but
only one of a humble and contrite
heart can pray, "forgive me." God
looks at the heart. Anyone can say,
"I forgive you" but only one of a
humble and contrite heart can

(Continued on next page)

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PAGE 15 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 31, 1972

mean, "I forgive you." This petition
utterly destroys pride, that great sin
of man that keeps men from loving
God and from loving their fellow-
men.

IV. THE RESULT OF PRAYER.
Prayer changes us. It is a God-given
means by which we, the children of
God, grow spiritually in our daily
life. It is a real means by which

what we learn from God's Word is
applied to our lives.

When we pray, we are drawing
near to the God who saved us, ac-
knowledging that we belong to Him,
and are ready servants to honor His
name, labor for His kingdom, and
carry out His will in our lives. In
addition, we are assured that as we
thus first seek His kingdom and
His righteousness, all of our daily

physical and spiritual needs will b
met (Matt. 6:33) and that we wi
thereby grow in faith and spirituz1 !*
depth (Luke 11:13) .

To neglect prayer is to neglect th
glory and kingdom of God and t
ignore His will and purpose for ou
lives. A prayerless life is an ungrat(
ful and unspiritual life. It canncP
be an acceptable life either to Go
or to the sincere child of God. E|

YOUTH PROGRAM

Scripture: Matthew 4:17-22
Suggested Hymns:

"We've a Story to Tell to the

Nations"
"Rescue the Perishing"
"I Love to Tell the Story"

PROGRAM LEADER'S INTRO-
DUCTION: Jesus said to Andrew
and Peter, "Follow me, and I will
make you fishers of men." This prop-
osition made to Andrew and Peter
so long ago is still valid today. Wher-
ever people are still willing to follow
Christ, He will still make them fish-
ers of men, He will still enable them
to win others to Him.

There are people living and who
have lived in our own time who
prove the point. One such man was
Swanson Yarbrough of Tyler, Texas.
Mr. Yarbrough died in 1956 and in
the years before his death, he was in
poor health. But on five nights a
week he made it his business to visit
people and talk to them about
Christ. Records were kept over a
period of six years, and during that
time 612 people came into the mem-

For June 18, 1972

Fishers of Men

Rev. B. Hoyt Evans

bership of his church by his invita-
tion, many of them by profession of
faith in Christ. He was clearly a
fisher of men.

There is nothing mystical or magi-
cal about being a fisher of men, but
there are some practical conditions
that must be fulfilled before we can
become successful at the art of win-
ning people to Christ. Our speak-
ers will explain some of these condi-
tions.

FIRST SPEAKER: Jesus stated
the most important condition when
He said, ". . . if you follow me." We
must follow Him before we can be
used to win others, but what does it
mean to "follow Christ"? It means
being His child by faith.

What this involved for the first
disciples was yielding everything
they had to Jesus. They left their
fishing business and went with Him.
Of course, we do not see Jesus in
bodily form, and He does not call
us to go with Him physically. He
does call us to yield our wills to
Him, to give Him first consideration
in all things, to give Him our high-

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est loyalty. Following Christ meanl
doing His will instead of our owij
It means putting Him first.

An enthusiastic sportsman fished hi
a clear mountain stream for a lonJ
time but with very little success. HI
was naturally quite surprised wheif
he came upon a very small bo1]
carrying a fine string of fish. "WhaJ
is the secret of your success?" askec
the fisherman. "Why it's simple,'!
replied the boy, "I just keep mysel
out of sight." This is also on<|
of the secrets to winning people foi
Christ. We must keep self out of sight!
and this means putting Christ first ,

St:COND SPEAKER: We alsc
need to remember that Jesus saidl
"I xvill make you fishers of men.'!
Winning souls is not a matter olf
employing clever, human tricks. Ill
is God's work. He graciously use;{
people in the work of soul-winningl
but it is basically His work. Evan*
gelism clinics and workshops have!1
failed because they failed to recogj
nize this point.

God works through His Word tc
win souls. If we are to become fish,
ers of men it will be necessary foi
us to know and use the Scriptures.:
God's Word is powerful. Even peo-'
pie who do not believe in Christ are1
impressed with the authority of the.
Scriptures. It is important then, for
us to know the Bible, to believe it.i
and to rely on it as our authority
when we talk to people about Christ.,

God works by His own power inj

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PAGE 16 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 31, 1972

■e winning of souls. It is the per-
vasion of God's Spirit that makes
lit people understand their sinful-
Iss and their need of Christ. We
Ijnnot convert people, but if we
list in the power of God and pray
Mr it, God can use us to win others.
Jpd's power will overcome our
l;akness and timidity. One effec-
"M'e personal worker said, "Talk to
me Lord about your friends, and
I.u'll soon be talking to your friends
I tout the Lord."

God works by His love to win
luls. Many a seemingly impene-
Ijable heart has been melted by the
larmth of God's love. Sometimes
|j is very difficult to persuade hard-
|;arted people to read about God's
live or even to listen to your words.
Ii such cases it may be necessary to
hmonstrate the love of God in your
Ife. We need to ask ourselves,
Idan people always see the love of
Tod in me?"

J God is wonderfully patient in
lealing with sinners. Sometimes we
sk, "Why doesn't God do some-
ling?" Many times we should be
lad that He doesn't! We should be
lankful for His patience, grateful
lat He does not deal with us ac-
ording to what we deserve. Are we
tatient with those whom we seek to
/in? Swanson Yarbrough was a pa-
ient man. On one occasion some
[if the people in his church were
liscussing some families to be visited.
)f one family it was said, "No use
ailing on them. They're just plain
10 good." Said Mr. Yarbrough,
'Those are immortal souls you're
alking about. I'll go to see them."
It takes patience to be a good fish-

fHE SCRAMBLE, 1116B Montreat Rd.,
Slack Mt., N. C. Vacations, conferences,
ottages and big houses. Meals arranged
or big groups. Near Montreat. Caroline
\. Walbek owner, 2145 S.W. 19 Ter.,
Miami, Fla. 33145. Phones: 305-443-8896;
704-669-8524, summer; 704-669-9201, May
15 and after.

FOR SALE: 1902 Austin Organ, rebuilt
in 1938, in workable condition. Three
manual console in excellent condition
(hewer than the organ). Photos on re-
quest. Available July 1. Inquire: First
Presbyterian Church, Montgomery, Ala.
36104.

HOUSE PARENTS, dedicated Christian
couples to work with dependent, neglect-
ed, or orphaned children at beautiful
Presbyterian Children's Village. Live-in
accommodations for on or off duty hours.
Husband may be employed elsewhere or
at the Village, or pursue graduate studies.
Minimum two year commitment desired.
Write: George H. Gibbs, ACSW, Executive
Director, Presbyterian Children's Village,
Rosemont, PA. 19010.

erman, and it takes patience to win
souls.

PROGRAM LEADER: Fishing
for men is the greatest work in the
world. Many preachers admit that
they should be doing more about
soul-winning than they are, but it is
not primarily due to the shortcom-
ings of ministers that evangelism is
lagging. The real problem is that
so few Christians are willing to be
fishers of men. Few are willing even
to try.

Questions for Discussion:
I. How much do we know about

personal witnessing? What would
be the possibility of having some
special instructional classes?

2. What are some of the unique op-
portunities young people have to tell
others about Christ?

3. What specific things can our
youth group do to encourage person-
al witnessing?

Closing Prayer. H

• • •

All men become controversial at
some point. The measure of their
concern is taken when you find out
where. — Unknown.

"YE ARE MY WITNESSES"
Isaiah 43:10 Luke 24:48

EVANGELISM CONFERENCE

sponsored by

Presbyterian Evangelistic Fellowship

MONTREAT, NORTH CAROLINA August 18-23, 1972

MAIN SPEAKERS:

Grady Wilson

Kennedy Smartt

Mariano DiGangi
Mario Rivera
James Baird

Robert Reymond
Ben Wilkinson

BIBLE HOUR led by William E. Hill, Jr.

Twenty six SEMINARS on EVANGELISM

MUSIC PROGRAM directed by Rev. and Mrs. Iner Basinger

Special and separate YOUTH PROGRAMS for all ages

coordinated by Carl Wilson of Campus Crusade

VESPERS each evening with:

Wilson Benton

Michael Schneider
John Sartelle
John Oliver
Carl Wilson

For Evangelism Conference brochures clip this coupon and mail to

PRESBYTERIAN EVANGELISTIC FELLOWSHIP
P. O. Box 808
Hopewell, Virginia 23860

Name

Address

City and state Zip_

Please send me Evangelism Conference brochures.

PAGE 17 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 31, 1972

Differences— from p. 10

combining the Gospel and social ac-
tion in a way that gladdens the heart
of every evangelical Christian.

So what? My complaint is that you
never will find Bill Iverson or Da-
vid Wilkerson on the Montreat plat-
form when you want to exhibit what
the Church ought to be doing in the
world.

Do you want to build "bridges
of understanding"? Then put some
concrete meaning into that "word
and deed" that is mentioned so glib-
ly in board reports. Make the
"word" to be the "Word" and give
some evangelical content to the pro-
gram that is offered to meet the
crisis in the cities and the Church
will be truly unified in its effort, ffi

BOOKS

THEOLOGICAL CROSSINGS, ed.
by Alan Geyer and Dean Peerman.
Wm. B. Eerdmans Publ. Co., Grand
Rapids, Mich. Paper, 155 pp. $2.95.
Reviewed by Addison H. Leitch, pro-
fessor, Gordon-Conwell Theological
Seminary, South Hamilton, Mass.

It is not likely that readers of the
Presbyterian Journal are also read-
ers of the Christian Century and
vice versa, so it is well to know at
the outset that the Century since
1939-40 has regularly offered at de-
cennial intervals a series of essays
by modern theologians under the

Get These Paperbacks

The People Who Couldn't Be Stopped— Ethel Barrett $ .69

The Secret Sign — Ethel Barrett -69

The Strangest Thing Happened — Ethel Barrett .69

Which Way To Nineveh?— Ethel Barrett 69

Christianity, Communism And Survival — David V. Benson -95

Division, Despair And Hope — Manford G. Gutzke .95
Don't Look Now . . . But Your Personality Is Showing — Ethel Barrett .95

The Early Church Speaks To Us — H. S. Vigeveno .95

Faith and Courage For Today — John Hunter .95

The Go Gospel — Manford G. Gutzke .95

Help! I'm A Camp Counselor — Norman Wright .95
Henrietta Mears And How She Did It — Ethel May Baldwin

& David V. Benson 1.95

Ethel Barrett's Holy War— Ethel Barrett 1.95

How To Be A Christian Without Being Religious — Fritz Ridenour .95

How To Succeed In Family Living — Clyde M. Narramore .95

I'm A Good Man, But . . . — Fritz Ridenour .95

Inside Jerusalem, City of Destiny — Arnold T. Olson .95

Is It Real?— H. S. Vigeveno .95

Is Life Really Worth Living? — David A. Hubbard .95

Israeli/Arab Conflict — Wilbur M. Smith 1.25

It All Depends — Fritz Ridenour .95

A Life, A Cross, An Empty Tomb — H. S. Vigeveno .95

A Look At The New Testament — Henrietta C. Mears .95

A Look At The Old Testament — Henrietta C. Mears .95

The Man Jesus — Based on Kenneth N. Taylor's 'Living Gospels' 1.45

Men Who Knew Christ — William Sanford LaSor .95

Men Who Knew God — William Sanford LaSor .95

Power For Christian Living — Ethel Jones Wilcox .95

Sometimes I Feel Like A Blob — Ethel Barrett .95

So, What's The Difference? — Fritz Ridenour .95

Studies In Genesis And The Christian Life — Betty Pershing, Ed. .95

Successful Youth Work — Elmer Towns 2.95

Take Your Choice — Fritz Ridenour .95

Order from

The Presbyterian Journal, Weaverville, N. C. 28787

i-.i

■

title "How My Mind Has Changed
Theological Crossings brings togeth
er in one volume the last series o
such essays.

The contributors to the volume in
elude well-known writers such
Reinhold Niebuhr, Harvey Cox
William McAfee Brown, John A. T
Robinson and Jurgen Moltmann
one Roman Catholic, John L. Mq
Kenzie, S. J., one Jew, Emil Facken
heim, one woman, Cynthia Wedel
who is president of the Nationa
Council of Churches. There are n<
blacks although several black theo
logians were approached, but as th
introduction reports, they were un
able to fulfill the assignment be
cause of "the burdens of other com
mitments."

As would have been expectec
there is nothing at all from an;
evangelical or orthodox or conserva
tive theologian nor are we told tha
any such was ever approached.

That last fact gives us the tenor o
the whole volume. The essays an
liberal and in most cases tend to
ward the radical. Whatever Protes
tant evangelicals may have though!
in past times of their continuing con
troversy with Rome, or whatevei
evangelicals may think to be the
large issues within Protestant circle:
— tongues, verbal inerrancy, creedal
niceties — this volume may discovei
for them that the real issue of the
day is somewhere else.

The revolutionary radicalism to
ward which most of these essays tend
would seem to indicate that there is
a frightful polarization to be faced
in our day between those who em
phasize personal and those who rep
resent social salvation. A careful
reading of these essays would seem
to indicate that Protestants today
are talking about two different kinds
of Gospel. Read these essays to be
educated, maybe to be shocked, in
most cases dismayed.

There are also some strange hints
of things to come. The ecumenical
movement seems open to harsh crit
icism. Take Ellul: "The World
Council precipitately adopted posi
tions that seemed to me scarcely
worth taking seriously — problems
poorly analyzed, inadequate solu
tions, superficiality, a lack of sound
theological thinking, etc. I have

PAGE 18 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 31, 1972

■nor of the reign of false experts!"
I- Sidney Mead: "In this regard I
In see little hope in the ecumeni-
li movement and the great coun-
ts, for to me they represent only
defensive alliance of those who
ng to a dying sectarianism . . ."
r Paul Verghese: "The stuff that
>mes out of ecumenical conferences
liming to be social ethics bores me
) end."

If Romanism bothers you let John
,'cK.enzie, S. J. speak: "I would say
lat an almost total loss of respect
tr the Roman Curia is the major
nange in my ecclesiological think-
lg." Or again: "I do not mean to
nply that Paul VI is a fool; I do
Ban to imply that he takes tools
)r advisers (possibly where he lives
e cannot easily find anyone else) ."
And these words from Cynthia
Vedel on the councils vs. the grass
oots: "But have we been right in
ur cavalier disdain for and disregard
if the vast number of earnest church
aembers whom we have left bewil-
lered and angry? Are we, not they,
)rimarily responsible for the polari-
ation which is undermining effec-
ive social action on the part of the
Church?"

So read this book and find trea-
sures hidden in the field — surpris-
ing treasures in unexpected places. IS

A COMMENTARY ON THE REV-
ELATION OF JOHN, by George El-
don Ladd. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publ.
Co., Grand Rapids, Mich. 308 pp.
$6.95. Reviewed by the Rev. George
W. Knight III, professor, Covenant
Theological Seminary, St. Louis, Mo.

It is appropriate to have a com-
mentary by the professor of New
Testament theology and exegesis at
Fuller Theological Seminary, in
view of his extensive work on es-
chatological questions as reflected in
lour previous works, i.e., The
Blessed Hope, Crucial Questions
about the Kingdom of God, The
Gospel of the Kingdom, and Jesus
and the Kingdom.

The author provides a very read-
able book which avoids highly tech-
nical discussions, but is at the same
time thorough and scholarly. His
interpretative principle "is a blend-
ing of the preterist and the futurist
methods." He goes on to say that
"the beast is both Rome and the
eschatological anti-Christ — and, we
might add, any demonic power
which the Church must face in her
entire history. The great tribula-

tion is primarily an eschatological
event but it includes all tribulation
which the Church may experience at
the hands of the world, whether by
first-century Rome or by later evil
powers."

18 — NO TIME TO WASTE, by Mar-
garet Johnson. Zondervan Publ. Co.,
Grand Rapids, Mich. 117 pp. $3.95.
Reviewed by Mrs. Charles J. Knapp,
Moultrie, Ga.

This California author began
writing while attending Moody Bi-
ble Institute, sold articles to mag-

azines, and later worked as a radio
continuity writer. Her first book
is short, gripping and unforgettable.
I have no illusions about its literary
value, but it has a great message for
modern parents struggling with re-
bellious youth who are frustrated by
unsolvable problems.

The author's cousin, Dr. John Ed-
ward Haggai, urged her to publish
this true story for the benefit of oth-
ers. It took a brave mother to con-
fess the lack of understanding which
widened the gap between herself

(Continued on next page)

ye(k Simpson

31 stores in 8 states serving you
with this pledge ....

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budget needs in Stores doing credit business.

Since the opening of the first Belk-Simpson Store, it has been our
endeavor to be more in a community than just another merchant.
We have set forth a united concentrated effort, dedicated to the task
of securing superior quality merchandise, giving our customers a
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SOUTH CAROLINA

Belk-Simpson Co.
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SEE THE MANAGER NEAREST YOU FOR CHURCH CARPET, ROBES, ETC.

PAGE 19 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 31, 1972

Today's ministries are varied and
exciting. Seminary graduates find
places of service not only in churches,
but in hospitals, missions, at home
and abroad, the inner city and
crowded classrooms. A sound biblical
education is the basis from which
effective ministries can grow.

Study at Covenant is not prepara-
tion for a restricted ministry tied to
traditions of the past, but the building
of the vital foundation you need. We
can help you focus on your particular
calling if that is not now clear.

Our distinguished faculty presents
a curriculum that is designed to give
the student a thorough knowledge of
scripture with special emphasis on its
application to the needs of people
today.

Our students come from widely
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and a number of foreign countries.

Write us for information.

covennnT

THEOLOGICAL
/emiflARY

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12330 Conway Road
St. Louis, Missouri
63141

and her high school daughter. The
girl vibrated with life, charm, and
magnetism, and all teen-agers loved
her company.

Because Kathi was so different
from an older sister, her mother
tried to press her into the same
mold, stressed her shortcomings, and
ignored her virtues. A year of strug-
gles and pressures brought misery.
Finally Kathi asked permission to
move out to an apartment with her
friend Felicia, whom her mother dis-
liked.

It was hard to release the child,
but the book is based on the en-

lightenment about the daughte
character which came after Kath' |L
life was snuffed out in a tragic e
perience. The author relates tl
swiftly moving events of Kathi's la
summer, and of the unbelievab
impact which her short life had c
her friends. Kathi had a fresh, mo
ing faith in God which impelled h
to witness and to work unashamed
to share it. As if forewarned, h
motto was "18 — no time to waste
The little book would be an ide;
gift to a friend confronted with
similar situation. It is a stirrin
story with much to offer.

0(

Presbyterian School of Christian Education

Summer School 1972
Visiting Faculty will include:

WILLIAM B. KENNEDY, Ph.D., Executive Secretary for Education,
World Council of Churches, Geneva; former professor of Christian
Education, Union Theological Seminary in Virginia.

JOHN J. ZIEGLER, Ph.D., Vice President of Youth Research Cen-
ter, Minneapolis, Minnesota, and member of the Association for
Religion and Applied Behavioral Sciences.

FIRST TWO WEEKS (July 3-14)
Christians in Families

Dr. Mathews F. Allen, Jr., Visiting Professor, Virginia Union
University

The Church's Ministry with Children

Miss Mary Jean McFadyen, Visiting Instructor, Board of
Christian Education
The Christian Life

Dr. Isabel Rogers, Professor, PSCE
Education in World Perspective

Dr. William B. Kennedy, Visiting Professor, World Council
of Churches

Crises of Youth and Adults

Chaplain William D. Russell, Richmond Memorial Hospital

SECOND TWO WEEKS (July 17-28)
Christians in Families

Dr. Mathews F. Allen, Jr., Visiting Professor, Virginia Union
University

Innovation and Renewal in Worship
Dr. James R. Sydnor, Professor, PSCE
The Church's Ministry to Mentally Retarded Persons
Martha B. Aycock (Mrs. B. D.), President, Richmond Associa-
tion for Retarded Children
Human Sexuality

Dr. Harold W. Minor, Jr., Visiting Professor, Board of Chris-
tian Education
Seminar in Youth Ministry

Dr. John J. Ziegler, Visiting Professor, Youth Research Center
Miss Gerry Jones, Instructor, PSCE

For Summer School Bulletin, please write:
Registrar

1205 Palmyra Avenue, Richmond, Va. 23227
Telephone 359-5031

PAGE 20 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MAY 31, 1972

OL. XXXI, NO. 6

JUNE 7, 1972

$4.00 A YEAR

he

PRESBYTERIAN

JOURNAL

ivocating continuation of a Presbyterian Church loyal

to Scripture and the Reformed faith

Nature Abhors a Vacuum

Rationalistic Europe and rationalistic Germany, rejecting the
authority of the Word of God, ignoring the commandments of
the Lord, forgetting to pray to God and being ignorant of the
redemption that is in Christ Jesus, became the tinderbox out of
which came Nazism and Communism. Today this atheistic
monster moves across the whole world.

What difference does it make? It makes all the difference
in the world! Although I am no prophet, I predict that the
Church of Jesus Christ, unless it returns to the historic Biblical
faith and to the Word of God as its authority, is going to come
into the direst circumstances, because the vacuum in the human
heart is going to be filled with something. If it is not filled
with faith in Jesus Christ, it will be filled with Satanic unbe-
lief, however intellectual it may appear to be.

— Robert J. Ostenson
(See p. 10)

I S. LESSON AND YOUTH PROGRAM FOR JUNE 25

moo

flGLZ DM TTIH I^^O
m OR J° Xq-isasAiun
tio*£^08T_ioo 0 M

MAILBAG

FROM TAIWAN

Since I came back from America,
after one year's study at the Austin
Presbyterian Theological Seminary
1963-64, I have continuously received
The Presbyterian Journal. I don't
know how to express my heartfelt
thanks and appreciation for your
faithfulness and thoughtfulness in
distributing this publication during
the past years. Thank you very much
indeed. I have really got encourage-
ment and inspiration from the Jour-
nal.

I served in the Tainan Theologi-
cal Seminary, 1957-1965, as registrar
and lecturer. Since 1965 I have been
working in the Tainan Young Men's
Christian Association as the general
secretary. Because of being blessed
to have opportunities to get along
with young people, I feel that I am
always in need of Gospel and Bible
study publications as my spiritual re-
sources for service to the youth. I
would like to let. you know that the
Journal has been well read, used not
only by myself but also by the young

the

PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL

Rev. G. Aiken Taylor, Ph.D., Editor
Rev. Henry B. Dendy, D.D., Managing Editor
Arthur H. Matthews, Assistant Editor

Circulation leader among independent publications in the Presbyterian-Reformed world

THIS WEEK —

Vol. XXXI, No. 6, June 7, 1972

Forward in the Spirit 7

The National Association of Evangelicals looks confidently
to the future By Harold J. Ockenga

Why All the Fuss? 10

A glimpse of the past indicates reasons why churchmen are
concerned for the Church By Robert J. Ostenson

De partments —

Editorials 12

The Layman and his Church 13

Sunday School Lesson, June 25 14

Youth Program, June 25 16

THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL, a

Presbyterian weekly magazine, devoted
to the statement, defense, and propa-
gation of the Gospel, the faith which
was once for all delivered to the saints,

is published every Wednesday by the
Southern Presbyterian Journal Co.,
Inc., in Weaverville, N. C.

SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: $4 a year
for individuals, $3 for members of
Every Family Plan churches. All cor-
respondence regarding subscriptions,
advertising or other business matters,
should be addressed to the business
office in Weaverville, N. C. 28787.
Second class postage paid at Weaver-
ville, N. C. 28787.

POSTMASTER: Send Form 3579 to
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verville, N. C. 28787. Subscribers
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NEWS AND EDITORIAL correspond-
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TELEPHONES: (All area 704) edi-
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business office, 645-3310, 645-3962.

people who come to this Association.
It has been kept in our reading
room.

— (Rev.) Edwin Wang
Tainan, Taiwan

CRUSADE FOLLOW UP

My attention has been called to
the Religious News Service article
which you carried about Roman
Catholic participation in the recent
Leighton Ford Crusade in Rochester,
N. Y.

The endorsement of the crusade
by Bishop Hogan of the Roman
Catholic Church was certainly very
significant. A very large proportion
of Roman Catholics did, in fact, at-
tend the crusade and many came for-
ward as inquirers.

Some of the statements in the
RNS article on the follow-up may,
however, be a bit misleading to some
of your readers. The follow-up pol-
icy was, in fact, as follows:

(1) Participation in the crusade for
churches and individuals was open
to all who could support a very clear
evangelical statement of the Gospel
which Mr. Ford made at the initial
organizational meeting.

(2) Inquirers who indicated a par-
ticipating church as their preference
were referred back to that church
(this is somewhat a change from
previous crusades in that, for exam-
ple, inquirers from Protestant
churches who were not participating
were not automatically referred back
to that church) .

(3) Inquirers, Protestant, Cath-
olic and from some other back-
ground who were not from a partici-
pating church, were referred to a
specially trained group of crusade
counselors, advisors and other lead-
ers for follow-up.

I should simply like to stress that
the crusade organization itself was
responsible for the follow-up, and
not any extra crusade organization.
— Irv Chambers

BGEA, Atlanta, Ga.

IT'S THE BIBLE FOR HER

If the authority of the Scripture
means anything, it surely tells us that
a woman cannot be an elder in an as-
sembly with a Biblical form of gov-
ernment. (Quoted from the letter
from John Van Voorhis in Journal
of May 24.)

I certainly do agree with the
above. If we believe that our
Church is to be faithful to Scripture

is "the only infallible rule of faith
md practice, ' how can we approve
)f women being elected elders or or-
iained to the ministry?

I do hope that all Christian wom-
;n feel the desire to do something
tor Christ and the Church, but there
lis plenty for them to do without
folding one of these church offices.
There are so many sad and lonely
and ill people who never are visited
or cared for by members of the con-
gregation who "in a pure conscience"
should be full of good works.

If Paul's advice about women's
place in the Church is to be thrown
out where is the line to be drawn to
keep the Presbyterian Church faith-
ful to Scripture and the Reformed
faith?

If you use my letter, please with-
hold my name as we have women

• "The lady changed paddles in
mid stream." That complaint was
not heard at a canoe race or even at
a table tennis exercise in Ping Pong
diplomacy. It was at the Denver
General Assembly of the United
Presbyterian Church USA. (See p. 4,
this issue.) It had to do with a new
parliamentary device. In an attempt
to help the moderator spot those in

| the vast hall who wanted the floor,
each aisle microphone was equipped
with three table tennis paddles. If
a speaker wanted to speak for a
pending matter, he was to hold aloft
the green one; if he wanted to speak
against, he was to hoist the red one.
The trouble came with the third one,
sometimes described as yellow and
sometimes as chartreuse. It was sup-
posed to symbolize a desire to ask a
procedural question or to make a
procedural motion. The moderator
would usually recognize those waving
yellow before those indicating red or
green. "Does the chartruese always
take precedence?," one exasperated
commissioner asked after debate was
; cut off on the motion of a paddle
waver. "Yes" was the answer.

• Begging for cooperation and ask-
ing commissioners not to use the yel-
low paddle unless they intended a
strictly procedural point, the mod-
erator at one point reminded, "I

! don't have a yellow paddle." Some
who got up to argue for one side or
another would not be recognized un-

elders in our congregation and it has
not "worked out" for the good of the
church. The men are too gallant to
express themselves in a congregation-
al meeting.

— Name Withheld

MINISTERS

Robert C. Benson from Signal
Mountain, Tenn., to the Lee Park
church, Monroe, N. C.
Betty L. Blanton from Gainesville,
Fla., to the Trinity church, Jack-
sonville, Fla.

Donald F. Bobb from Tulsa,
Okla., to Austin, Tex., for grad-
uate studies at the University of
Texas.

James T. Donnell from Freeport,
Tex., to the Eno church, Cedar
Grove, N. C, and Fairfield church,
Efland, N. C.

til they hoisted the magic chartreuse.
Then, beginning with a procedural
point, they would move into arguing
the case. The moderator tried to
stop this abuse of the system, but he
was not always successful. In ap-
preciation of his attempts to be fair,
Moderator Willard Heckel was pre-
sented an oversized chartreuse pad-
dle the size of a regulation tennis
racket.

• Youth advisory delegates con-
tinue to come in all shapes and sizes
with a variety of opinions. They
quickly learned to use the paddles
effectively. In the UPUSA Assembly
they do not have a guaranteed vote
in standing committees, but commit-
tees may choose to let them vote.
Most did. In at least one case a
youth was named chairman of a sub-
committee.

• At next year's UPUSA Assembly
there will be still more youthful, un-
ordained voices. On the motion of
retiring Moderator Lois Stair, the
rules were amended to allow semi-
nary advisory delegates, elected by
their student bodies. The formula
for representation from the seven

Thomas Cheely from S o d d y
Daisy, Tenn., to the Locust, N. C,
church.

Kenneth M. Kepler Jr., from Pick-
ens, S. C, to the Rose Hill church,
Columbia, S. C.

C. D. (Fred) Murphy, Presbyte-
rian Evangelistic Fellowship evan-
gelist living in Black Mountain,
N. C, has been called by the
Hazelwood, N. C, church.

DEATHS

J. Blanton Belk, whose last pas-
torate was in Richmond, Va., died
May 28 in Tucson, Ariz. He was
78.

Raymond J. Ball, 46, died unex-
pectedly in Florence, S. C, Nov.
25, 1971, while serving as pastor of
the Parkwood church, which he
helped organize.

schools officially related to the
Church is a bit complicated, but had
the rule been in effect this year the
total number of seminary delegates
would have been 22.

• It was inevitable. One ecology
minded commissioner asked that at
future Assemblies all reports be re-
produced on recycled paper. The
bills and overtures committee was
told by the stated clerk that he
would continue to experiment but
so far had not found any of high
enough quality to produce good re-
sults with his five high speed mimeo-
graph machines. How many pages
were mimeographed at Denver? The
clerk said 1,075,000. Another 42,000
came through photographic copying
processes.

• Oh yes. The article on p. 7 of
this isssue is to answer the frequent
question: "Don't we have an alterna-
tive to the National Council of
Churches?" Many Presbyterian con-
gregations don't seem to know they
can belong to NAE as congregations
— many do. You can address your
inquiries to Box 28, Wheaton, 111.
60187. ffl

ACROSS THE EDITOR'S DESK

PAGE 3 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE 7, 1972

m

NEWS OF RELIGION

UPUSA Fails To Reverse COCU Action

DENVER — With only 244 of 763
commissioners maintaining their
stand against the Consultation on
Church Union (COCU), the Gen-
eral Assembly of the United Presby-
terian Church USA nearly reversed
its historic decision to quit the con-
sultation. (See Journal, May 31.)

In the Assembly's closing minutes
a dramatic effort was made to put
the Church back into the union
talks it had left five days before. A
motion to reconsider got a majority
of the votes cast, but it fell short of
the two-thirds vote necessary for pas-
sage.

The tally on reconsideration was
396 for and 244 against.

Rules of the court call for recon-
sideration only when two-thirds of
the number voting on the original
proposition favor taking up the mat-
ter again. Since 721 votes were cast on
the original recommendation (411 to
get out and 310 to stay in) , the num-
ber required for reconsideration was
481.

The total number of eligible com-
missioners, 763, did not participate
in either the first vote or the last.

Prompting the motion for recon-
sideration was a 17 minute speech
by Stated Clerk William P. Thomp-
son in which he roundly condemned
the Assembly for its withdrawal.

"My heart aches" over the deci-

NIGERIA — In a switch from the
usual missionary activity, an African
Christian leader has begun an evan-
gelistic mission to several Asian na-
tions.

The Rev. Moses Ariye, author and
evangelist, has accepted invitations
to speak in Hong Kong, the Philip-
pines and Singapore. The largest
meeting is a three day, city wide
campaign in the Ward Memorial
Methodist Church in Hong Kong.

In the Philippines, he will be the
main speaker for the Manila Con-
gress on Evangelism and he will lec-
ture at Christian schools and church-
es.

sion, he told commissioners.

The clerk took the floor for a
docketed report of the Office of the
General Assembly. He said that be-
cause the Assembly had given him
the responsibility of correspondence
with other Churches and had desig-
nated him to conduct some of its
ecumenical relations he needed to re-
mind the court of the effects of its
action.

Dr. Thompson then launched into
a long list of quotations that have
been used historically to advocate
union — from Christ and Paul to
Calvin and Eugene Carson Blake,
former clerk.

It was not particularly important
that Dr. Blake first proposed COCU,
he declared. The important factor,
he claimed, was that the 1961
UPUSA Assembly adopted it as its
own and invited other denomina-
tions to the talks.

He insisted that COCU is an ex-
ploration and that the plan of union
is not yet a final contract.

"By your vote," he scolded, "you
said this Church is not prepared to
go through with that process."

Dr. Thompson named a long list
of leaders of other denominations
with whom he has worked in COCU,
including such observers as the head
of the Vatican's Secretariat for Pro-
moting Christian Unity. He suggest-

The Singapore visit will include
speeches in nine churches, as well as
meetings with youth organizations
and missions groups.

A graduate of the SIM Seminary
at Igbaja, and Central Baptist Semi-
nary, Toronto, Canada, he is an
ordained minister of the Evangelical
Church of West Africa under the
sponsorship of Christian Nationals'
Evangelism Commission, an organiza-
tion which assists national Christian
workers in 18 nations.

Author of over 400 Christian
hymns and songs, Mr. Ariye has also
written several books in the Yoruba
language. 51

ed that the Assembly's withdrawa
destroyed the trust and confidence
he had developed with these Church
men.

The UPUSA clerk, along with th(
retiring moderator, Mrs. Lois Stair
served on COCU's commission draft
ing the plan of union. Chairmar,
of that commission was the 197C
Presbyterian US Assembly modera
tor, William A. Benfield Jr. Dr
Benfield was a fraternal delegate tc
the Denver Assembly.

"And what of our conversations
with the Southern Church?," Dr.
Thompson asked commissioners. He
said he shared Dr. Benfield's con-
cern that the Assembly withdrawal
might cause many Southern Presby-
terians to think "we've turned our
back on the ecumenical movement."

The clerk told the court their ac-
tion could also be interpreted as a
sign of UPUSA lack of interest in
contacts with Roman Catholics, lack

Correct/on

On p. 4 of the Journal for May 31
the report on the UPUSA Assembly's
action on COCU said membership
of the bills and overtures committee
was 44. The figure should have
been 23.

of interest in racial justice, lack of
concern for advancing the status of
women, and a turning of the
Church's back on local expressions
of ecumenism.

The action will be seen, he added,
as a retreat "into narrow Presbyte-
rian parochialism."

He concluded his stinging rebuke
by handing the moderator a petition
signed by all 24 Assembly pages
(seminary students) in which the 24
expressed their disappointment in
the court's action.

One commissioner responded to
the clerk's remarks. The Rev. Low-
ell E. Byall of Omaha, Neb., told the
denomination's chief interpreter that
the interpretation given to the world
and other Churches "will largely de-
pend on how the stated clerk him-
self interprets" the action. He main-
tained that the vote did not repre-
sent a repudiation of the ecumenical
movement.

The day before the clerk made his
speech the Assembly had voted not

THE CHURCH OVERSEAS

PAGE 4 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE 7, 1972

o send observers to COCU. The first
itf ;ote on the question was 284 for ob-
ervers and 351 against. Because con-
tusion over the question was ex-
oressed, the moderator called for a
jiecond vote. It was 305 for and 370
" igainst. El

Mrs. Stair Appointed
' To Merger Delegation

DENVER — Mrs. Lois H. Stair,
15 moderator of the 1971 UPUSA Gen-
eral Assembly, has been added to
e her denomination's delegation talk-
ling merger with the Presbyterian
" Church US.

1 She was appointed here by 1972

,!j Moderator Willard Heckel to take
the place of James I. McCord. The
Princeton Seminary president resign-

( ed from the negotiating committee.
Mrs. Stair last year made an ap-

i pointment to the committee. She
named Princeton Professor Edward
Dowey Jr., an announced opponent
of the provisions in the draft plan of
union which would permit congre-
gations to withdraw with their pro-
perty.

She told the Journal here that "as
a Presbyterian" she shares Dr.
Dowey's view on withdrawal of con-
| gregations. She was aware of his ob-
jections to the plan when she ap-
pointed him, she added.

The new member of the Commit-
tee of 30 insisted, however, that she
did not intend the appointment as a
divisive action.

Mrs. Stair suggested that some
middle ground might be found be-
tween Dr. Dowey's total opposition
to letting congregations leave and the
provisions now in the draft plan.
The immediate past moderator said
the withdrawal clause might be re-
moved from the plan but that lower
judicatories might be instructed to
dismiss congregations which want to
leave.

She emphasized that she did not
think the property issue ought to
stand in the way of churches which
wanted to form new alliances.

Mrs. Stair has had experience in
planning unions. She was a member
of the commission drafting the Con-
sultation on Church Union (COCU)
merger plan. 33

Cash Woes firing Court Compromises

DENVER — Total contributions in
the United Presbyterian Church USA
were up $11 million in 1971 over
1970, but giving to General Assem-
bly causes was down for the fourth
year.

Unhappiness over national pro-
grams and subsequent loss of sup-
port for all denominational causes
prompted much debate at the 1972
General Assembly here. Most of the
decisions reached about future benev-
olence handling were compromises,
however.

In the spotlight were two con-
troversial grants, the $10,000 from
the Council on Church and Race to
the Angela Davis defense and the
$75,000 from the Fund for the Self
Development of People to a Colom-
bian group charged with being revo-
lutionary and unfriendly to the
Presbyterian Church in that nation.

Not debated on the floor but in
the thinking of many commissioners
were other expenditures for ecumeni-
cal alliances and such activities as
non-Church "liberation" movements
in Africa.

One of the Assembly's earliest ac-
tions was its decision on answering
overtures related to the Angela Davis
grant. On the unanimous recom-
mendation of the standing commit-
tee on bills and overtures the Assem-
bly approved new guidelines for the
denomination's Emergency Fund for
Legal Aid. The guidelines were pro-
posed by the Council on Church and
Race, which administers the fund.

Even though some observers doubt-
ed that the new procedures would
prevent another grant of the kind
given Miss Davis, the Assembly spon-
taneously broke into applause after
it approved the committee recom-
mendation.

Criteria for grants include a pre-
sentation of "clear evidence of fin-
ancial need." Critics of the Angela
Davis contribution have argued that
she had other sources of support and
did not need the Church money.
Proponents of the assistance to the
Marxist charged with murder have
replied that circumstances of the
case will make her trial extraordi-
narily expensive.

Coincidentally, her trial was being
conducted in California as the As-
sembly was in session here.

Also listed among criteria for fu-
ture legal defense grants is evaluation
of applications by Church judica-
tories. The guidelines do not require
concurrence by the affected judica-
tories, but consultation with them is
required.

The consultation with lower courts
of the denomination is not required,
however, when there are cases "in-
volving grants for national organi-
zations." A national organization has
been established to help defend Miss
Davis, but this was not mentioned
on the Assembly floor.

The Assembly had before it 17
overtures directly related to the
Angela Davis grant or the legal de-
fense fund.

Causing more debate was the grant
made to a Colombian organization,
Rosea De Investigacion Y Accion
Social. The synod (national govern-
ing body) of the Presbyterian
Church of Colombia has gone on re-
cord against the contribution. The
synod's action came to the Assembly
through unofficial channels, how-
ever, and denominational officials
commented that it was "strange" and
"unusual" that the comment did not
come to them directly.

Proponents of the grant said the
Colombian Church was behind the
times and not likely to approve the
work of such a "progressive" organi-
zation as Rosea. Efforts to get the
Assembly to accept a requirement
that affected judicatories must ap-
prove grants from the Fund for the
Self Development of People were un-
successful.

The compromise reached by the
court was appointment of a special
investigating committee by the mode-
rator. All the complaints will be
transmitted to the panel which will
be named by Moderator Willard
Heckel.

Total per capita giving in the de-
nomination was at an all time high
of $121.95 in 1971, as compared with
$115.42 for 1970. Benevolence giving
was down, however, from $20.52 in
1970 to $20.32 in 1971. Assembly

L

PAGE 5 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE 7, 1972

causes got $12.11 per member in 1971
as compared with $12.99 in 1970. Re-
ceipts thus far indicate that the
amount will be even less in 1972.

Among the bright spots in the
financial report was the successful
conclusion of the capital campaign
known as the $50 Million Fund. Its
retired director, John Park Lee, was
lauded for his work. Over $56 million
has been received by Assembly boards
and agencies and nearly $7 million
by synods and presbyteries.

The court also heard that United
Presbyterians gave more than ever
before ($1.77 per capita) last year to
special (designated) offerings.

With a vote of 337 to 300 the court
directed another special offering,
this one for overseas missions. EE

Endorsement of Key '73
Denied by UP Assembly

DENVER — Efforts to turn around
the denomination's official evange-
lism program were frustrated at the
General Assembly of the United Pres-
byterian Church USA here. The best
indicator of the failure of evangeli-
cals to succeed in their efforts was the
Assembly's refusal to endorse the in-
terdenominational Key '73 thrust.

Even though an endorsement of
Key '73 got through the standing
committee on evangelism, it was de-
feated on the floor. Instead, a sub-
stitute motion prevailed which would
refer the question of participation
to lower judicatories. Included in the
referral is a paper listing "reserva-
tions" which the denomination's
Council on Evangelism has about
Key '73.

The substitute motion passed the
Assembly by a vote of 387-237.

A member of the council, the Rev.
Donald Parkinson, was called to the
platform to list the problems which
denominational evangelism leaders
saw in the interdenominational ef-
fort. The Assembly was operating on
strict time limits for each speaker,
and Mr. Parkinson was cut off after
listing only three points.

He claimed Key '73 plans were
vague and still undetermined; its
planning bodies did not have pro-
portional representation; and it is a
paraecclesiastical structure which iso-
lates evangelism from the total work
of the Church.

Some commissioners who op-
posed official endorsement read the

names of small evangelistic groups
which are participating, with the sug-
gestion that it would be improper
for the UPUSA to have no more
votes on Key '73 planning bodies
than the independent groups. Some
of the groups were described as "anti-
Church."

The objections to the interdenomi-
national movement's non-proportion-
al voting arrangements prompted a
commissioner who favored Key '73
to ask: "What do we want, control?"

In another significant action the
Assembly failed to approve an over-
ture which would have admonished
the division of evangelism (of the
Board of National Missions) to fol-
low Assembly orders. The overture
from New Jersey's Newton Presby-
tery noted directives to the division
from the last five Assemblies but
"little material and little program"
from the division. "Prompt and re-
sponsible obedience to these direc-
tives" was asked in the overture. EE

NY Site, Not Structure,
Tops Debate on Agencies

DENVER — Devoting nearly all of
its discussion time on the matter of
reorganizing denominational agen-
cies to the question of a headquar-
ters site, the United Presbyterian
General Assembly approved a vast
reorganization plan here.

The headquarters will be at the In-
terchurch Center, 475 Riverside
Drive, New York City. Philadelphia
and St. Louis were also proposed but
lost out in successive votes.

Only two national offices will not
be required to move. They are the
Washington Office and the Presbyte-
rian Historical Society in Philadel-
phia.

The new organization will take
over officially next Jan. 1, but mov-
ing of offices will be spread over a
two year period.

Top body in the new structure will
be the General Assembly Mission
Council. Its chairman will be the
immediate past moderator (Mrs.
Lois Stair during the coming year) .

In addition there will be a pro-
gram agency, support agency and vo-
cation agency.

Permanent nominating commit-
tee nominees for all positions in the
new structure were elected here.

Several standing committees in
their reports mentioned that they
would be making the last reports for

the existing agencies. Being aboi l
ished by the reorganization are the!
Board of Christian Education, Board I
of National Missions, Commission ori
Ecumenical Mission and Relations !
Department of Ministerial Rela I
tions, etc. The pension board will!
continue to handle the pension I
fund, but it will be related to the!
vocations agency. Certain advisory!
groups will be continued, such as I
the ones on Church and society and I
Church and race.

No firm figures were given, but
commissioners were assured by
Sherman Skinner, chairman of the
commission proposing the restruc-
ture, that the national staff will be
smaller and that the financial sav-
ings will be "significant."

Commissioners turned down a
floor attempt to keep top executives i
in the new organization from get- j
ting salaries similar to those now be- la
ing paid officials of some boards, la
Had the motion prevailed, the top >
executives' pay would have been ID
closer to that now going toi L
COEMAR leaders than to the high-l [
er pay of Board of National Mis- L
sions leaders. ii

The standing committee handling
the reorganization proposal initially
recommended St. Louis as the head-
quarters site. During the last days
of the Assembly it reversed itself,
however, and brought in a recom-
mendation for New York. A report
from the Skinner commission said it
"concluded that for the near term a
present move to consolidate in New
York would be the quickest and the
least expensive and would cause the
least disruption of program and per-
sonnel."

Some 1,025 staff members are af-
fected. About half are already in
New York. Of the 1,025, about one-
third are executives and two-thirds
are secretaries and clerical workers.

The commission reported that it
gave some consideration to a head-
quarters site that would be agreeable
to the Presbyterian Church US in I
the event of merger. The PCUS
stated clerk was reported to have told .
the commission that his denomina-
tion was not ready to join in such a '
decision.

In a parallel development, the As-
sembly approved organization of new
regional synods throughout the de-
nomination, most of them effective
next Jan. 1. Each of the regional
synods, regardless of the size of its
membership, will have one represen-
tative on the mission council. EE

PAGE 6 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE 7, 1972

i backward glance at the NAE and a forward look into the future —

Forward in the Spirit

Thirty years! Thirty years since
the National Association of
Evangelicals was founded. Think
what has happened in these three
decades:

In 1942 the United States was in
the midst of World War II; by 1944
D-Day arrived for the invasion of
Europe, followed by the surrender
of Germany on VE-Day 1945. Bombs
dropped on Hiroshima and Naga-
saki introduced a new era of atomic
power. From 1946-1949 the Com-
munists took over China, fulfilling
the Yalta Agreement of Stalin,
Roosevelt and Churchill.
.1950 saw the beginning of the Ko-
rean war which cost us 138,000 cas-
ualties and brought forth the warn-
ing that the next war would be
Armageddon. In the middle years
of the decade began American eco-
nomic expansion and growth beyond
anything known in history.

Our involvement in Vietnam com-
menced in 1960; it continues to this
day and it has managed to divide
our nation. The walk on the moon
in 1969 made a giant step into the
future.

The whole period witnessed a
great religious change. The Federal
Council of Churches merged with
the International Council of Reli-
gious Education and with the For-
eign Missions Conference; the Ro-
man Catholic Church sponsored
Vatican II, which opened the doors
of freedom for many Roman Cath-
olics and their priests.

Surely these have been decades of
change.

The first president of the Nation-
al Association of Evangelicals and
keynote speaker at the first conven-
tion delivered this message at the
30th anniversary meeting of the
NAE in St. Louis, Mo.

"Speak unto the children of Israel
that they go forward" (Exo. 14:15) .

In 1942 a group of religious lead-
ers launched a new organization
which was positive in emphasis, evan-
gelical in principle. These men
gathered at the Coronado Hotel in
St. Louis in April 1942 to meet the
challenge made by liberalism; they
were determined to have evangeli-
cal cooperation.

Some of those men who partici-
pated are still very active: Leslie R.
Marston, Stephen Paine, Paul Rees,
Herbert McKeel, Paul Petticord,
Clyde Taylor and Dan Iverson.
Among the others who have since
died are J. Elwin Wright, Roland
T. Phillips, William Ward Ayer,
Donald Grey Barnhouse, J. Alvin
Orr, J. Roswell Flower, Robert P.
Schuler, Harry Hager, Bob Jones Sr.,
and Nathan Wood.

Following the organizational meet-
ing, several groups stumped the
country to stir interest in the con-
stitutional convention to be held in
Chicago in 1943. The traveling was
fruitful, for the Chicago convention
in the Hotel LaSalle was attended by
a great representation of the evan-
gelical world. We were thrilled with
the possibility of evangelical co-
operation and at the close of the
convention, Bishop Leslie R. Mars-
ton commented, "America's revival
is breaking!"

Had there been no division be-
tween the National Association of
Evangelicals and the American
Council, under the leadership of Dr.
Carl Mclntire, unquestionably the
prophecy would have come true.
However, the American Council
group withdrew from the NAE and
conducted its own movement. In
the 1944 convention at Columbus,
we did our best to bring the two

HAROLD J. OCKENGA

groups together, only to find that
it was impossible. Dr. Mclntire in-
sisted on our dissolving the NAE and
letting the individual denomina-
tions apply to the American Council
for acceptance, with the warning
that some would not be accepted,
namely, the Pentecostals.

The keynote address at Columbus
by Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse al-
most ruined our attempts at unity.
He said that we all resembled either
a rock, a cork or a feather — the
Calvinists were the rocks, and the
Holiness people, like corks bobbing
around on the water, were very emo-
tional. Then he added that the
Pentecostals were like feathers,
blown hither and yon by every wind.
We, in the administration of NAE,
spent the rest of the week trying to
put the organization back together.
Nevertheless, those were great and
thrilling days.

The Situation:

In 1942, evangelicals were being
strangled by organized and trium-
phant liberalism. This was partic-
ularly true in the field of radio
broadcasting. The Federal Council
of Churches had evolved the code
which they sought to impose on all
the broadcasting stations in the na-
tion. This code would eliminate all
paid religious broadcasting and put
the assignments in the hands of the
councils of Churches which were lib-
eral. The evangelicals saw the hand-
writing on the wall which would
terminate their broadcasting. Men
like Charles E. Fuller and Walter
Maier realized that they would short-
ly be put off the air, as would be
all independent broadcasters.

In the area of chaplaincies the old-
line denominations had a monopoly
for certification, largely through the

PAGE 7 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE 7, 1972

Federal Council of Churches, and
the men from our evangelical groups
who wanted to become chaplains
were frozen out. The liberal bu-
reaucracies within the individual de-
nominations had control of the pul-
pits and also of the missionary ap-
pointments.

In the book, Rethinking Missions,
Prof. Ernest Hocking assigned the
drop in missions giving to a loss of
evangelical faith and a change in the
message of the Churches.

Sunday school attendance declined
radically. The Presbyterians had
lost a million members of their Sun-
day schools in approximately a de-
cade. The international Council of
Religious Education terminated its
Sunday school conventions and Sun-
day school literature was nature-
centered, or character-centered, rath-
er than Bible-centered.

Evangelism Eclipse

Evangelism had entered into an
eclipse. Hugh Thompson Kerr, the
moderator of the General Assembly
of the Presbyterian Church USA, said
of evangelists, "They are not in the
woods." Mrs. I. Haldeman, the wife
of one of the great evangelical
preachers of New York, rebuked me
in calling for revival by saying, "God
is withdrawing His Spirit pro-
gressively, and today we cannot have
revivals; we will only have brands
plucked from the burning. There
will be no great campaigns."

Because of two world wars, the
young people were upset. In 1942 they
were called the "khaki-wackie" gen-
eration. I myself witnessed a great
deal of immoral behavior on the
trains and also on the Boston Com-
mon. In fact, the conditions so de-
teriorated there that I initiated out-
door preaching on Sunday evenings.

Literature produced by evangeli-
cals was at an all-time low. We were
depending upon materials that had
been produced several decades be-
fore; evangelical scholarship was
antedated and the liberals held the
field.

Humanitarianism was the empha-
sis of the liberal element who called
it the "social gospel," following
Rauschenbusch, Ward and Niebuhr.
There was much suffering in the
world, but it seemed that the funda-
mentalists were impotent to help and
especially, to change the world sit-
uation.

The challenge was simple. It was
"Unite or Die." Each evangelical

had a sense of isolation, of loneliness,
of being the last of the Mohicans. It
was evident that we would have to
"hang together or hang separately,"
as Patrick Henry said. A sense of
defeat, tenseness and frustration
marked the evangelical movement.
We had largely abandoned our social
responsibility and abdicated our
leadership.

The Tide Turns

The founding of the National As-
sociation of Evangelicals began to
meet these needs. Great rallies were
held in various cities; Churches en-
tered into membership; individual
congregations repudiated the leader-
ship of the Federal Council of
Churches of which they were mem-
bers through denominational affilia-
tion, and united with the NAE. In-
dividuals also sought to join. The
tragedy of this great momentum was
that the American Council launched
attacks upon individual leaders of
the National Association of Evan-
gelicals, and hindered some evangeli-
cal groups from uniting with it.

The genius of NAE was mani-
fested in the formation of its com-
missions. The majority of each com-
mission was to be formed by mem-
bers in good standing with the NAE,
but the remainder could come from
Churches outside the NAE who had
a sympathy for us. Some fifteen or
sixteen commissions were formed.
The Chaplains' Commission immedi-
ately began work to insure that the
services would receive as many chap-
lains as we would recommend.

National Religious Broadcasters
was formed and has continued to
function through the years with a
great influence in keeping the chan-
nels of radio broadcasting open to
evangelicals and to the purchase of
time.

The World Relief Commission
was established to minister to the
needs not only of evangelicals, but
of humanity everywhere through the
instrumentality of evangelicals.

The Evangelical Foreign Missions
Association, established under the
leadership of Dr. Clyde Taylor, be-
came the representative of more
Protestant missionaries on the field
than any other single organization.
The National Sunday School Associ-
ation was formed and great conven-
tions were revived. These became
so huge they had to be divided re-
gionally in order to accommodate
the people. An upsurge of Sunday

school attendance and evangelical
literature occurred.

The National Sunday School Asso-
ciation gave a great stimulus to Chris-
tian education, especially under the
leadership of Dr. Frank Gaebelein.
Youth for Christ was separated from
the NAE, but associated with il
through overlapping leadership.

Many other organizations were
spawned by the evangelical upsurge
spurred by the NAE: the Inter- Var
sity Christian Fellowship, the Chris
tian Business Men's Committee
Child Evangelism, Young Life, Teer
Challenge, Professional Women'.'
Clubs, and so forth. None of these
existed before the organization ol
the NAE, which really initiated an
era of cooperation.

In addition to this, duplicates o)
the NAE from twenty-six countrie;
of the world joined in the Worlc
Evangelical Fellowship at Vonc
Schoten, Netherlands. These organi
zations were often the instrumeni
and agent in the promotion of the
Billy Graham crusades in the vari
ous countries.

Great creativity was released fr}
NAE. At scholars' conferences area;
of literary production were delineat
ed and assumed by different scholars
resulting in a wealth of evangelica
literature. Following this, Fullei
Theological Seminary was foundec
to train evangelists, missionaries
ministers, and professors of evangeli
cal theology and Biblical truth
Shortly afterwards Christianity To
day was initiated and has continuec
its publication as the largest evan
gelical magazine reaching preacher:
today. Another arm called, "Evan
gelical Books" ministered to tens o
thousands of ministers in the choic<
of literature.

A Tragic Mistake

Unfortunately, the participator
by the NAE in evangelism was ob
structed by one of the member de
nominations so that it missed one o
the great opportunities of the de
cades. The leadership deferred to the
denominational membership whc
claimed that this was the work o
the Church and not of an inter
Church organization. The same wa:
true with reference to humanitariar
service. World Vision under Bot
Pierce seized this opportunity, how
ever, and accomplished tremendou
tasks.

The religious challenge is just a,
severe today as it was in 1942. Ou:

PAGE 8 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE 7, 1972

iol day is marked by a disenchantment
on the part of the rank and file with
>s. the World Council of Churches, the
[j National Council of Churches and
b COCU. There is a great drop in
1 giving and attendance, and in the
5U offering of people for service. The
it old-line denominations are in trou-
ble. There is a grass roots revolt
1[? against liberalism, radicalism and
™ revolution, especially against the in-
jj. volvement of the Church in social,
j economic and political factions.
5J Simultaneously, we see the devel-
opment of the Jesus Movement,
q', which can go to extremes, or can be
directed into proper channels. It
0i needs guidance, teaching and bal-
M ance. This is only one of many in-
dications that a coming revival may
0j well be accepted as a harbinger of
Jsuch an awakening on the national
|4 scene.

Jj| Evangelicals are realigning across
J denominational lines. This is il-
J lustrated by the eight Reformed and
J Protestant groups who are cooperat-
Jing for an evangelical Presbyterian
I witness. Such a realignment, if it
,iis to involve the evangelicals of the
I denominations, must have as essen-
jj tials the fundamentals of the faith —
J an infallible Bible, the deity of
j Christ, the reality of Christ's mir-
| acles, the atonement of Jesus on the
ij cross, the bodily resurrection of Je-
j] sus from the dead. Any such move-
j' ment will have to grant freedom in
, the area of baptism, in the teachings
j concerning the Holy Spirit, and the
(. doctrine of the second coming. N ev-
il ertheless, fertilization will take place
5, across all denominational lines. The
j great development of evangelicalism
[j in Roman Catholicism is good evi-
,. dence of this.

Missionary Efforts

The widespread discord as to the
1 purpose and nature of the mission-
1 ary enterprise is evidenced by the
1 departure of the World Council of
| Churches from it, and many denomi-
nations followed this example, mov-
1 ing from evangelical Christianity to
1 secularization. The major emphasis of
] the secular religious movement is
I the alleviation of poverty, the end
j of war, the counteracting of pollu-
| tion, and the meeting of such social
j problems. The responsibility is
I placed directly and fully upon the
Church.

On the other hand, the time-hon-
ored view of Biblical evangelism
and an outreach for the salvation of

the souls of men continues to be the
primary interest of evangelical
Churches. More and more people
are recognizing that there are not
two gospels, a social and a personal,
but only one, with two directions;
one is vertical, and the other is hori-
zontal, but one without the other is
not sufficient.

We face social conditions which
are changing rapidly. Nationally, we
face a debt which is astronomic. Our
national debt is $495 billion; our in-
debtedness for Social Security
amounts to about $400 billion; state
and city debts amount to some $300
billion and the private debt in Amer-
ica is over $300 billion. This means
that we are now a trillion and one-
half dollars in debt in this nation,
an amount which is a greater value
than all of the material assets we
possess. This will result in contin-
ued inflation and ultimate repudia-
tion of our currency.

Problems, Problems

We are facing a moral debacle.
Under the new morality of relativ-
ism, more and more people are re-
pudiating Christian and traditional
morality. With the new thology, an
imminentistic concept of God has
been accepted; this destroys the dif-
ferentiation between good and evil
and the inevitability of change has
made many embrace the concept of
revolution.

Our racial strife has gone beyond
the area of integration to a new sep-
aration. Simultaneously, youth is in
revolt. Many of their emphases are
commendable: their idealism and
desire for sincerity, their willingness
to deny themselves, their repudiation
of materialism and their ecological
goals.

However, these young people are
also marked by lack of commitment
to traditional values, including pa-
triotism. They have embraced the
existential philosophy which has led
them in rebellion against all au-
thority, whether of government, uni-
versity, church, home, reason, tra-
dition or other. Each one wants to
have the authenticity of experience.
Failure to understand this is to fail
to understand one's age.

America stands in political crisis.
Our dependence upon the United
Nations, while Russia constantly
uses the veto, will never maintain
peace in the world. My prophecy is
that we are in the midst of events
that will hasten a terrible war in

your time before another thirty
years of the NAE history has passed.

Where will the NAE go tomorrow?
I believe there is need for a broader
movement which will include all
evangelical groups. Either the NAE
will broaden its appeal, or another
movement will arise which will su-
persede the NAE and bring together
such great groups as the Southern
Baptists, the Lutherans, Southern
Presbyterians and others. Therefore,
I believe it is time for closer ties
with other conservative groups.

What's Next?

This is a time of disillusionment,
hunger and longing on the part of
the masses for Christian leadership.
Any realignment of forces may mean
that the NAE would have to take a
more definite and negative stand
against the actions of the National
Council and World Council of
Churches than it has done in the
past. This is the time to express op-
position to Church movements
which support Communists, gueril-
la movements, revolution and an-
archy.

I believe we need to turn for lead-
ership in the Church to young men
who are in their thirties, just as we
were when the NAE began. They
can build for the Church of the fu-
ture. Theirs must be the responsi-
bility and theirs the leadership. Re-
cruit them now.

I believe we should have an evan-
gelistic program which will put the
NAE in the forefront of Key '73.
Perhaps this will start the revival
which we must have in this nation
or we are doomed. We need a re-
newal in the nation of conviction
concerning integrity, responsibility
and involvement. Revival can occur
in this world until Jesus comes. Let
there be no abdicating of responsi-
bility on the ground of the second
coming.

We have need for pioneering lead-
ership in the area of humanitarian
activity, for Christianity must have
relevance to problems of the day
such as drugs, crime, infidelity, dis-
honesty, race conflict, revolt, et al.
We ought now to seek to approxi-
mate the conditions of the age of the
kingdom. The kingdom is coming
and a theology of hope stimulates
and motivates us to realize now the
practice of justice, righteousness, and
peace which will be introduced by

(Continued on p. 18, col. 3)

PAGE 9 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE 7, 1972

The issue is theological. What is the Church and what should it do? —

Why All the Fuss?

Why are the conservatives cre-
ating an uproar over doc-
trinal issues? What difference does
it make? Why can't we just leave
well enough alone? Why can't every-
body believe whatever he wants to
believe?

Perhaps the best way of answering
this is to bring to your mind what
happened in Germany in the 19th
century and the first half of the 20th
century. Germany, remember, was
the land of Luther, the land of the
Protestant Reformation, but in the
1800's, German rationalism took con-
trol of the religious life of the coun-
try. Rationalism is simply the ele-
vation of human reason or intellect
as a final judge and arbiter in all
matters. From Germany came the
higher critical school of thought
which shredded the Scriptures and
said that the Bible was simply a hu-
man invention, and a bad one at
that.

This left a religious vacuum in the
life of the German people. Out of
this came the writings of three Ger-
mans, two of whom were professors
in German theological seminaries,
who denied the supernaturalness of
the Christian faith and the preemi-
nence of Jesus Christ.

Three Men of Influence

The first of these was David
Strauss. In 1835 he published a crit-
icism of the trustworthiness of the
New Testament records, and his
work gave tremendous impetus to
the whole rationalistic repudiation
of the Christian faith.

The second book was written by
Bruno Baur, a member of the Doc-

Acts 1:1-11

The author is pastor of the Gra-
nada Presbyterian Church, Coral
Gables, Fla.

tors' Club in Germany, which was
made up of headmasters, scholars,
and instructors in German universi-
ties and seminaries. These men, and
Baur in particular, said that Strauss'
book did not go far enough. Baur
said that Jesus and Paul were not
the founders of New Testament
Christianity, that rather Seneca and
Philo were the authors of primitive
Christianity. Then Ludwig Feuer-
bach wrote in his book that he had
"shown that Christianity has in fact
long vanished, not only from the
reason but from the life of mankind,
that it is nothing more than a fixed
idea . . ."

Rationalistic Europe and rational-
istic Germany, rejecting the author-
ity of the Word of God, ignoring the
commandments of the Lord, forget-
ting to pray to God, and being ig-
norant of the real significance of
the redemption that is in Christ Je-
sus, became the tinderbox out of
which came Nazism and Commu-
nism. Today this atheistic monster
moves across the whole world.

What difference does it make? It
makes all the difference in the
world! Although I am no prophet,
I predict that the Church of Jesus
Christ, unless it returns to the his-
toric Biblical faith and to the Word
of God as its authority, is going to
come into the direst circumstances,
because the vacuum in the human
heart is going to be filled with some-
thing. If it is not filled with faith
in Jesus Christ, it is going to be
filled with Satanic unbelief, howev-
er intellectual it may appear to be.

Closely related to this is an issue
before the entire Church: What is
the mission of the Church? What is
the supreme task of the Church of
Jesus Christ? If one reads much in

ROBERT J. OSTENSON

contemporary literature in the field!
of ecclesiology, which is simply the!
doctrine of the Church, one is con-|
vinced that the primary concerns ofl
the majority of ecclesiastical leaders,
as well as the laymen, in the Church
today are two: the ecumenical move-
ment, getting everybody together in
one great big vast Church organiza-
tion; and social reconstruction,
changing the structures of society.
We are told that these should be the
main burdens and concerns of the
Christian Church in the 20th cen-
tury.

Scandalous!

The great scandal of the 20th cen-
tury Church, we are told, is the di-
vision into so many different denom-
inations, rather than into one great
visible world Church, and the
Church's neglect of these great pri-
mary social issues in our times. Sev-
eral years ago Redbook Magazine
made a survey of 100 seminarians in
eight American theological schools.
These young men were asked what
they considered the outstanding ad-
vancements of the Christian Church
in the 20th century.

Fifty per cent of them said that
the greatest thing which had hap-
pened in fifty years was the procla-
mation of the social gospel. Another
30 per cent said the greatest thing
was the establishment of the World
Council of Churches. What we see
taking place right before our eyes
is an increasing measure of the
Church's intrusion into social and
governmental matters and at the
same time an alarming decline in the
Church's influence and concern with
spiritual issues.

This drift is evidenced by what ec-
umenical leaders have written and
said. For example, to a collection of

PAGE 10 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE 7, 1972

essays written by the leaders of the
ecumenical movement called The
Theology of the Christian Mission,
Dr. Floyd H. Ross of the University
of Southern California School of Re-
ligion contributed this:

"The Christian must accept the
possibility that the early Christians
may have been over zealous in af-
firming there is no other name given
under heaven for the salvation of
men. That the Christian finds
God's decisive act in the person and
work of Jesus Christ does not rule
out entertaining the possibility that
this decisive act may point to that
which has been experienced as re-
ality in other modes and under oth-
; er names.

"As Christians, we should go forth
i seeking converse with men of other
I faiths, not offering an absolute mes-
j sage. He who feels he already has
the truth does not enter fully into
dialogue. As we learn to live more
profoundly in faith, we talk less and
less about the only way, even though
we may nourish the hope that we
may be in the way."

What's the Mission?

Now what can be said in answer
to all of this? First of all, we come

[ right back to the same starting point,
a theological one, and it revolves

! around the question of the nature
and the mission of the Church. If

I the Church is simply in the world to
exert its influence in social issues,
then let's at least be honest, and
adopt the Roman Catholic philos-
ophy of Church interference with
the affairs of state.

If, on the other hand, the Church
and individual Christians are called
upon to bear witness to the redeem-
ing, transforming power of Jesus
Christ, then the main concern should
be to see that that message and that
Gospel are kept pure, trusting in the
Holy Spirit to so operate in the
hearts and consciences of individual
Christians that they will go into so-

- ciety, of which they are a part, and

j bear their influence by being the

! light of His truth and the salt of

| His righteousness.

The scandal of Christendom in the
20th century is not the division into
various denominations, but the de-
nial, or perversion, of the truth of
the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Today we find in its place a "gos-
pel" which is simply a product of
human imagination and human de-
sire and appeals strictly to the physi-

cal and not to the soul.

It is perfectly legitimate, on the
basis of the evidence, to ask this
question: Can it be that some ec-
clesiastical leaders who are so active
on the secular level are doing so be-
cause they have no motivation on the
spiritual level due to their unbelief?

"It would be a great day,"
said D. L. Moody long ago,
"if men would just take sides
and let it be known where they
stand in relationship to Jesus
Christ." It would be a great day in
the Church now if we just returned
to plain, old-fashioned moral integ-
rity and honesty. Then some in po-
sitions of leadership could tell the
laymen honestly that they no longer
believe the historical Gospel and the
Bible as the Word of God, stop using
evasive language to confuse the lay-
men of the Church, and let them
know where they stood regarding the
great tenets of the faith.

Evangelize Now

Denominational differences
in themselves do not render the
Church of Jesus Christ ineffective:
what does is the loss of its first love.
Trading the historic Gospel testi-
mony for some new product of mod-
ern sophistication is the thing which
renders the Church ineffective, and
today the Churches of America are
sinking into the morass of spiritual
ineffectiveness because they no long-
er believe and proclaim the message.
As one astute observer has said:

"The hue and cry for a contem-
porary expression of faith in the
light of contemporary findings in so-
ciology and science is borne on the
wings of the wishful thought that a
generation which does not know the
Almighty One can be saved by the
creation of a new concept of God.
This is the oldest form of idolatry.
Its high priest is unbelief. Declare
the faith of the fathers obsolete, up-
date the message of the Church to
make it 'relevant,' replace the light
of the old-fashioned Gospel with
more 'modern' illumination, and the
Church will simply continue dying."

Many of us believe that if the in-
fluence of the Church of Jesus Christ
is to make any impact upon the
world any longer, it will not be be-
cause we are brought together in one
great vast man made organization
with hierarchical control at the top,
nor by pressure tactics, nor by politi-
cal lobbying, nor great social pro-
nouncements. It will only be on the

level of the original mission of the
Church, the proclamation of the
Gospel here at home and in all of
the world.

Upon the authority of the Word
of God, I say to you that the primary
mission and the supreme task of the
Church is the heralding of the Gos-
pel into all the world. This was the
intent of the Lord Jesus Christ. I
believe firmly that Jesus never said
anything He did not mean. Before
our Lord went back to heaven, He
gathered His small band of disciples
around Him and told them what He
expected them to do:

"But ye shall receive power, after
that the Holy Ghost is come upon
you: and ye shall be witnesses unto
me both in Jerusalem, and in all Ju-
dea, and in Samaria, and unto the
uttermost part of the earth" (Acts
1:8) . Luke recorded this: ". . . thus
it behooved Christ to suffer, and to
rise from the dead the third day:
And that repentance and remission
of sins should be preached in His
name among all nations, beginning
at Jerusalem" (24:46-47) .

Jesus Christ intended His Church
to have a world-wide mission and to
herald the message He gave it to pro-
claim. This means evangelism; this
means world missions, right here at
home, and unto the uttermost parts
of the earth, proclaiming the good
news that God so loved the world
that He gave His Son as a sacrifice
for human sin. It involves Christian
education, training up our children
in the knowledge and the truth of
God's Word. All of this is to be done
only in the enabling power of the
Holy Spirit whom Jesus Christ said
would come forth to witness and tes-
tify of Him. If the Church of Jesus
Christ fails to fulfill its mission, no
matter how many other things in
which it may be involved, it is guilty
of disobedience and sin before al-
mighty God Himself.

Westminster Standards

Up until this time, two statements
from the Westminster Confession of
Faith have summed up Presbyterian
belief. How long the Confession
will remain, I do not know, but it is
still our doctrinal standard now:

"Since there is no other way of
salvation than that revealed in the
Gospel, and since in the divinely es-
tablished and ordinary method of
grace faith cometh by hearing the

(Continued on p. 19, col. 1)

PAGE 11 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE 7, 1972

EDITORIALS

Needed: Courses in Ethics

Not long ago a personal friend
who is on a congregation's pulpit
nominating committee told us that
the Commission on the Minister and
his Work of his presbytery had in-
formed his committee they must se-
lect their next minister from a list
of names which the commission
would supply.

Because we could hardly believe
our ears, we inquired further of oth-
er members of that pulpit nominat-
ing committee. All agreed that in
a meeting with the full commission
they had been told that their next
minister must be selected from the
commission's list of "approved"
names. They were also told that no
name would be approved if the
minister had signed the Declaration
of Commitment of Presbyterian

No action of the United Presbyte-
rian General Assembly has stimu-
lated as much interest as the recent
decision in Denver to withdraw from
the Consultation on Church Union
(COCU) . Readers have written, and
even called long distance, to ask,
"What does it mean?"

Assistant Editor Arthur Matthews
was on the scene and he reports that
there was no question but that the
Assembly knew its own mind when
it voted by a very comfortable mar-
gin to abandon the movement start-
ed by its former stated clerk, the
Rev. Eugene Carson Blake.

But the action was not really con-
sistent with the majority of the As-
sembly's decisions — for instance,
the vote to merge Presbyterian Life
with the United Church of Christ's
Herald, one of the most radical de-
nominational organs in the business.

And it was generally conceded that
the man elected to the office of mod-
erator was the most liberal of the
four nominated.

Perhaps many of the commission-
ers were disappointed that the As-
sembly refused to condemn that gift
of $10,000 to the Angela Davis de-
fense fund — a vote taken just be-
fore the one on COCU.

Churchmen United.

When the committee suggested a
name of their own, the commission
promptly turned the man down.

Some time later we discovered that
the rejected minister proposed by the
congregation's committee to the com-
mission of presbytery had been rec-
ommended by the president of one
of the Church's institutions, who al-
so wrote a letter to the chairman of
the commission in support of the
minister he was recommending. The
chairman of the commission told the
institution's president, in reply, that
the congregation's committee was
not interested in the minister he rec-
ommended — an outright untruth.

Such behavior on the part of com-
missions is not uncommon, although
it is flagrantly unconstitutional, not

Perhaps the majority sensed the
potential uselessness of an amalga-
mation of Churches of every stripe
into a non-Presbyterian conglome-
rate. There has been widespread
discontent, even within liberal cir-
cles, since the original plan to merge
four major denominations into a
Church "truly catholic, truly evan-
gelical and truly reformed" turned
into a wide open jamboree into
which everybody was invited to
"come just as you are."

Certainly there were many who
believed the cart was before the
horse — one Presbyterian family
should be attempted before trying
one Church for everybody.

In any case, the effect should be
beneficial as it sharpens the interest
of both the UPUSA and the US de-
nominations in their own merger
plans.

Will the Southern Church follow
suit in its June General Assembly?
After all, we usually say "Gesund-
heit" every time the UPUSA
sneezes.

Who knows? We just might.

It would be a boost for the move-
ment in the direction of a continuing
Church loyal to Scripture and the
Reformed faith. IS

to say unethical.

No commission has the authority
to dictate the choice of a congrega-
tion's minister. Any pulpit commit-
tee wanting guidance in this area
may write to our business office for
a tract on this subject by the former
stated clerk of the General Assem-
bly, Dr. E. C. Scott.

Some presbyteries, of course, try
to say they will not accept graduates
of Reformed Seminary, members of
Presbyterian Churchmen United —
even ministers who in their former
pastorates were willing to hold re-
vival services under the leadership
of a member of the Presbyterian
Evangelistic Fellowship. However,
when a congregation has enough
courage to stand up for its rights and
demand a proper examination and
a proper decision in the proper man-
ner by the presbytery itself, the re-
sults usually have been fair and ethi-
cal.

Few liberal ministers are willing
to behave in an open meeting of
presbytery the way they behave pri-
vately or as members of a commit-
tee. And in the larger meeting of
the presbytery there usually are
enough elders to assure an honest
vote.

This has just happened in a meet-
ing of the new Mecklenburg pres-
bytery, where a conservative minis-
ter has been received by the whole
presbytery after an "examining"
committee turned him down because
he would not agree that he would
accept all decisions of Church courts
as the "voice of God."

It has been our observation that
many liberal ministers need a dose
of those ethics in which they pretend
to specialize. II

A Comment from Japan

Missionaries of the PCUS have
been invited to share their views
with the Board of World Missions
concerning a new policy of the board
under which there will be an "inter-
nationalization of personnel" sup-
ported by the board.

Briefly, the new policy will in-
clude salary support of nationals in
other countries who feel a call to
work in still other countries besides
their own. Thus a Christian from
Zaire who is going to do a work in
Mozambique which has the approval
of the Presbyterian US Board of
World Missions might be supported

What Did the UPUSA Mean?

PAGE 12 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE 7, 1972

THE LAYMAN AND HIS CHURCH

The True Church Will Not Pass

by the board.
Since this is a public matter and
J comment has been solicited, a public
discussion may not be out of order.
:i The following comments are from
Jt Robert N. Mooney, a PCUS mission-
1 ary to Japan. Because we wish to
1 identify ourselves with the senti-
' ments expressed, we are carrying
j them on the editorial page rather
ithan in the Mailbag:

"First, it is possible that subsidiz-
ing, on a stated basis, Third World
people to work in Third World
countries discourages those very im-
pulses toward independence and
self-respect which people in the so-
called Third World need to develop.
(Hasn't the resentment engendered
by U. S. government aid programs
taught us something in this regard?)

"I say, 'on a stated basis,' because
I can imagine situations in which, to
meet a temporary and emergency
need, such aid might be extended
wisely, provided that the initiative
for such aid came from the coun-
tries concerned and was not artifi-
c i a 1 1 y stimulated by ecumenical
agencies.

"This year the Reformed Church
\ in Japan intends to send out a mis-
sionary to Indonesia, at its own
initiative and from among its own
personnel and at its own expense.
This would appear to be the only

I healthy working basis for any nation-
al Church to send out missionaries.
"Second, there is the question of
stewardship. Is it wise for the
board to embark on additional new
ventures when those we have already
begun are so starved for funds?
Would it not be the better part of
wisdom to have less experimentation
and more fidelity to programs al-
ready undertaken?

"Third, the impression is given
that the impulse for this program
does not so much arise from evan-
gelical concern as from that dread-
ful masochism which is so rampant
among churchmen in America today.
('In a day when white racism is at
the top of most Christian agendas
and there is a rising nationalism
around the world, with accompany-
ing fear of domination from North
America . . .')

"Some of us are not embarrassed
about our nationality and we are not
ashamed to be white, though we dai-
ly live among non-whites who some-
times have very hard things to say
about our country. We do not share
the widespread view that the United
States need hang its head in remorse

One of my friends is called an ir-
reverent fellow, but in reality he de-
flates the pompous and asks unor-
thodox questions of the self-satisfied.
In an informal discussion recently
over what was going wrong with the
Church, he suddenly broke in with
the question, "Well, do you know
of a better place to lose your pocket-
book?" That was his way of saying
that with all of the faults the
Church was still the safest and most
dependable place in the city.

The most callous and cynical of
the conglomerates when they are
looking for a new location for a fac-
tory or a branch house, want to
know about the churches in the com-
munity under study. They will not
move into a community without a
healthy quota of churches.

Suppose the sirens were to begin
wailing tomorrow, and the radio and
television would say this was the real
thing, where would you go? I know
where I would go. I would make a
bee line for my church. I know God
can be found everywhere, but I
would feel better seeking Him in
the accustomed place of worship.

The Church has the right origin —
it is from God. It was conceived by
the Son of God, and given a divine
mission by Him. That mission was

This week the layman's viewpoint
is brought by R. C. Cropper, an
elder and business man of Macon,
Ga.

in the presence of other nations, nor
can we see that the white race is any
more (or less) sinful than other
races.

"If there are some who feel they
must flagellate themselves, they
should do so without at the same
time applying the lash to others. If
the Churches in North America have
contributed more to missions than
Churches in other areas, the reflec-
tion (if there is any and there need
not be any) is upon those who have
been delinquent and not us. If the
situation needs redress it should be
achieved by their sending out more
people, not by our sending out
fewer." 15

directed through appointment and
inspired apostles and later by the
inspired Word in written form. It
is still the only agency for saving
the lost, through the Church's Foun-
der and Head.

Through the centuries man has
built a superstructure of creeds and
denominations, ritual and theology,
and there is much wrong with that
man made edifice. The Church it-
self is solidly, permanently, and mer-
cifully right, and we should thank
God that it is so.

Jesus tells us through the Word
that the Church is built on the solid
bedrock of His being and His min-
istry. Jesus is the power and the
glory of the Church. Without that
power the Church would never have
survived the centuries that it has.
The true Church is discovered by
the means of the personality of
Christ. One does not enter the true
Church by joining a certain denomi-
nation. The true Church is the re-
ality which cannot be confined with-
in an institutional structure.

The true Church is not an organi-
zation founded by Simon Peter or
Martin Luther or John Wesley or
John Calvin. The true Church has
always been represented by people
who recognize Christ as the Son of
the living God, and on the bedrock
of His salvation and ministry built
an organization to minister to other
men through the Gospel.

Some of our man-made organiza-
tional superstructures are having
quite a bit of trouble and we all
know it. But the Church is doing
quite well. It is widely believed that
there is quite a bit wrong with many
of the denominational structures.
There is nothing wrong at all with
the true Church, built on the bed-
rock of Christ.

The Church superstructures not
built upon the bedrock will pass
away. The edifice, of many forms,
built upon the bedrock, will stand
and will grow as we build ourselves
into the structure. I have no fears
for the true Church of the living
God. It is still the best place in the
city to mend a broken heart or a
broken life, or even to lose your
pocketbook. El

PAGE 13 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE 7, 1972

i

SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON

For June 25, 1972

INTRODUCTION: The topic
before us can, I believe, be best han-
dled by the addition of several
passages from the Psalms and else-
where which deal with the same sub-
ject. We will therefore begin with
a general discussion of security and
then look at the specific passages in
the lesson as they illustrate the sub-
ject for us.

I. SECURITY: The common de-
sire and the two ways to it.

1. The way of the world. Most
people in the world spend much of
their lives seeking security of one
kind or another. Security is sought
by various means, such as by having
connections, by storing up money, by
doing as you please, and by having
a "sure thing."

Some people feel most secure by
having connections with influential
people. They try to make friends
with those in power or who have
wealth. They see their security in
terms of influence. They want to
be known by those who count in the
community. To do this, they are
willing to lose their own identity
and to be parrots of the one whose
friendship they covet. They will
even betray other friends in order
to have this connection and security.

Others feel that security for them
consists of having lots of money or
property. They seek to store up
treasures on earth against hard
times. They have a craving for more
and more wealth. Their security is
measured by their bank balance.

Still others find security in their
independence. They are not con-
cerned with friends, they wish to be
alone and make it their own way.
They don't like to work with others.
They have an independent spirit
which says, "I'll go it alone." Neither
do they want any responsibility.
They resent having to punch a clock
or being told by others what they
must do. For them, security is to be
left alone to do what they please.

Finally, there are those who feel
their security depends on others.
They look to others to carry all the

Hunger for Security

Rev. Jack B. Scott

Background Scripture: Psalm 57;

Psalm 90:13-17; Isaiah 6:1-6;

Romans 8:28-39
Key Verses: Psalm 57
Devotional Reading: Psalm 90:13-

17

Memory Selection: Romans 8:38, 39

responsibility for their security: their
boss, their government, their leader.
They are only interested in the "sure
thing" and want to take no risks.
Like sheep, they simply want a shep-
herd. They will follow him any-
where just to be safe.

The problem is, those who seek
security through connections with
those of big influence, end up as
lackeys usually. They are, at any
rate, secure only as long as the one
to whom they have attached their se-
curity succeeds. When he fails, they
fail unless they are able to change
friends quickly. This can cause be-
trayal and much anguish as they try
to find the right friend. In the end,
all such friends will fail. They may
find they are being "used" and may
in the end be discarded.

Those who seek financial security
may develop ulcers and heart trou-
ble because of the difficulty of find-
ing investments that really pay off.
Even money gained is taxed heavily
and eaten up by inflation. Many
are not able to enjoy what they have
gained because of poor health, as a
result of having struggled for what
they have or because of a constant
fear of losing what they have.

Those who define their security in
terms of freedom to do as they
please, soon find that there is little
enjoyment alone. When you cut your-
self off from friends and responsibil-
ity, you begin to wonder whether life
is really worth living. Many suicides
come from this group of people. Life
simply does not seem to be worth
much without purpose.

For those who see security in terms
of someone to watch out for them,

The International Sunday School Lesson Oat-
lines are copyrighted by The International
Council of Religious Education.

who are just interested in no-risk liv-
ing, being spoonfed by the govern-
ment or looked after by the company
they work for, the perils are also
many. They surrender so much of
their life that soon they cannot do
their own thinking or planning.
Soon they are like blind men follow-
ing blindly wherever others may lead
them.

Scripture makes clear that none of
these means of security is really what
man is designed for. None of these
can really succeed. The Bible makes
clear that friends on earth will fail
(Micah 7:5; Zech. 13:6) . Job's ex-
perience with his friends is illustra-
tive of the futility of trusting in
friends and influential people for
your security.

The Bible also warns against de-
pending on financial security. We
are not to lay up treasures on earth
where it can spoil or be stolen
(Matt. 6:19) . Riches often wind up
in the hands of others and not those
who have stored them up (Psa. 49:
10; I Tim. 6:7; Luke 12:19). Rich-
es cannot really satisfy (Ecc. 5:10,

12)-

The Bible is equally plain in
teaching that man was made to have
responsibility. He cannot just kick
over his obligation to the rest of
mankind. Genesis, chapters 1 and 2,
show that man was made to care for
this world and to live with others,
not alone. (See also Gen. 4:9) . In
the New Testament, this is also clear-
ly brought out (Rom. 14:12; 15; 1;
Gal. 6:1-5) . Before God, all men do
have a responsibility to others.

Finally, the Bible warns against
looking to other men or society for
security (Amos 6:1; Zeph. 1:12).
Blind followers of the blind will
stumble and fall, the Bible warns.

But suppose one does gain a
measure of security by any one or all
of these means. Is he really secure?

In Matthew 16:26 Jesus asks: "For
what shall a man be profited if he
shall gain the whole world and for-
feit his life? Or what shall a man
give in exchange for his life?" If
one spends his life seeking for se-

PAGE 14 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE 7, 1972

curity in any of the ways outlined
above or by any other worldly
means, though he may have a
measure of success he will, in the
end, lose his own soul.

2. The way of God. There has
to be a better way and God's Word
provides it. How would you like
to be friends, really close friends,
with the best and most important
person in the community? How
would you like to receive from that
friend many gifts, always enough to
supply all of your needs? How
would you like to be really free to do
as your heart desires? And how
would you like to be sure that it will
all never end, that this friend will
always be pleased and never take
from you or cut you off from him?

The Bible teaches us that the fear-
ers of the Lord do have such se-
curity. First, in Psalm 25:14, we
read that the friendship of the Lord
is with them that fear Him. He is
the friend that sticks closer than a
brother (Prov. 18:24) . Jesus de-
clares Himself the friend of those
who trust Him (Luke 7:24; John
15:14, 15) .

Secondly, in Psalm 31:19 we read
that the Lord has laid up great good-
ness for those who fear Him, who
take refuge in Him. Jesus promises
that His own will have all their
needs supplied continually (Matt.
6:25, 34) .

In the third place, we read in
Psalm 33:18 that the eye of the Lord
is upon them that fear Him, who
hope in His lovingkindness, and we
are told that they will have no lack
(Psa. 34:9) .

In the fourth place, at the same
time, this lovingkindness of God to-
ward His friends who fear Him is
limitless and inexhaustible (Psa.
103:11). God's mercies will not
fail. And finally, with all of this
security promised, we can neverthe-
less have all we desire if we fear Him
(Psa. 145:19).

How is all of this possible? Jesus
said in John 8:32, "If ye are my dis-
ciples, ye shall know the truth and
the truth shall make you free." He
explained further that everyone who
commits sin is a bondservant of sin.
Only the Son (Christ) can truly
make one free. He gives to us a new
heart with a new desire to please
Christ and glorify God in our lives.
He gives us freedom to pursue this
great purpose in our lives.

In other words, as God's children,
we have a desire which is in har-
mony with God's will and purpose

for us and we are free in Christ to
pursue this life. That is real free-
dom and real security, based not on
anything in this world but on our
friendship with God through Jesus
Christ.

God made us for this end and we
can never have any real security out-
side of Him.

How do we get this freedom, this
security? Fearers of God have it.
And who is a fearer of God? The
Bible clearly states that the fearers
of God are those who have put their
trust in Him (Psa. 115:11; 128:1;
135:20) .

Two things however must be noted
about being fearers of God. First,
it is not an easily attained security.
Abraham was called a fearer of the
Lord at the end of a long life of
spiritual growth. It did not come
quickly.

Second, when you have become a
fearer of the Lord, that is, one who
has learned to trust in God in all
areas of his life, then you will be a
target of Satan. Job was called a
fearer of God (Job 1:1) and conse-
quently he became the particular
target of Satan's opposition. So too,
as we live in this world as God-fear-
ers, we are the particular targets of
Satan's wrath and opposition. The
secure life does not equal an easy
life, no more than Jesus' life was
easy, but it is the only truly happy
and truly free life!

II. AN OLD TESTAMENT
TESTIMONY TO THE SECURE
LIFE (Psalm 57) . Here the psalm-
ist first affirms his total trust in
God. He has taken refuge in the
Lord. That is, he is a God-fearer
(57:1).

Because of this, he has enemies
(vv. 3-6) . These enemies of the
psalmist are in reality the enemies
of God. As friendship with the
world is enmity against God (James

4:4) , so friendship with God is en-
mity against the world and the
prince of this world will attack those
who are God's friends.

But the psalmist expresses his se-
urity in terms of confidence in God.
He knows that God will send His
lovingkindness (v. 3) . Therefore"
the heart of the psalmist is fixed (se-
cure) (v. 7) .

III. A NEW TESTAMENT TES-
TIMONY TO THE SECURE LIFE
(Rom. 8:28-39) . Here Paul first af-
firms that all things work together
for good to those that love God
(those who have put their trust in
Him) (v. 28) . Our security rests in
the plan of God which cannot fail
(vv. 29, 30) .

When God is for us (pleased with
us who fear Him) , then none can
really oppose us (overcome us) (v.
31) . This love of God, expressed in
His having sent His Son to save us,
will never end for those who trust
in Christ (v. 34) . Satan may attack
and seek to destroy us. We may even
suffer persecution, famine, sword, or
death, but none of these things take
away our security before Christ be-

(Continued on next page)

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PAGE 15 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE 7, 1972

cause He is for us (vv. 35-39) .

This great testimony to what se-
curity really is, is most important
for us to learn. It is not a security of
this world. Real security rests in close
fellowship with God, in an abiding
trust in Him for all things, even

when it may cost us our own life. Or,
as Paul also says, "I reckon that the
sufferings of this present time are
not worthy to be compared with the
glory which shall be revealed to us-
ward."

The man of this world can be se-

cure only as he is able to tame the
storms of this world. The man of
God is secure in the midst of the
storm because he puts his trust in
God who is always near to him. That
is his whole security and it is the on-
ly real security. ffl

YOUTH PROGRAM

For June 25, 1972

The Reliability of the Bible-II

mil

-

si

Scripture: Matthew 5:17-19; II Peter

1:20-21; II Timothy 3:14-17
Suggested Hymns:

"Lamp of Our Feet, Whereby

We Trace"
"Wonderful Words of Life"
"How Precious Is the Book

Divine"

PROGRAM LEADER'S INTRO-
DUCTION: Our Confession of
Faith has some important things to
say about the Bible, stating what we
believe and why we believe the Bi-
ble to be reliable:

"The Old Testament in Hebrew,
(which was the native language of
the people of God of old) , and the
New Testament in Greek, (which at
the time of the writing of it was most
generally known to the nations) , be-
ing immediately inspired by God,
and by His singular care and provi-
dence kept pure in all ages, are there-

CHRISTIAN TEACHERS
Grade & High School

Calvary Free Academy
South Holland, Illinois

is seeking teachers
committed to the
Reformed faith.

FOR INFORMATION WRITE TO:

Headmaster
Calvary Free Academy

P.O. Box 403
South Holland, Illinois
60473

Rev. B. Hoyt Evans

fore authentical; so as in all contro-
versies of religion the Church is fi-
nally to appeal unto them.

"But because these original
tongues are not known to all the peo-
ple of God who have a right unto,
and interest in the Scriptures, and
are commanded, in the fear of God,
to read and search them, therefore
they are to be translated into the
vulgar (common) language of every
nation unto which they come, that
the Word of God may dwell plenti-
fully in all, they may worship Him
in an acceptable manner, and
through patience and comfort of the
Scriptures may have hope."

Our speakers will show how the
Bible itself teaches its reliability.

FIRST SPEAKER: The Bible
claims to be an inspired book, not
merely the invention of a number of
human authors. Time and time
again we find expressions such as
these: "God called unto him and
said .... Thus saith the Lord ....
The Lord saith ... . The Lord
spake .... The Word of God
came . . ."

It is estimated that there are about
two hundred such expressions to be
found in the Bible. We also have
the well-known statements in II
Timothy and II Peter: "All Scrip-
ture is given by inspiration of

God . . . . " and ". . . . prophecy came
not in old time by the will of man:
but holy men of God spake as they
were moved by the Holy Ghost."

The word which we translate "in-
spiration" means literally "God-
breathed." God breathed His mes-
sage into the minds of men and
caused them to write that which He
wanted written. Sometimes He lit-
erally dictated the words He wanted
used, but always He supervised the
choice of language so that His truth
was clearly and accurately set down.
The Bible says "men spake," and we
can see reflections of different person-
alities in the writings of the human
authors.

However, the Bible also says these
men "spake as they were moved by
the Holy Ghost." God's Holy Spirit
superintended the writing of the Bi-
ble, and we can trust it because He
is its author in a very basic sense.

SECOND SPEAKER: As we study
the Bible we are impressed by its re-
markable unity. This unity is re-
markable because the Bible was writ-
ten by approximately forty different
human authors over a period of
about 1500 years. We might expect
the Bible to be a hodge-podge of dif-
ferent, even conflicting, ideas, but
it is not. It tells the same story
from beginning to end, that of God's

111

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PAGE 16 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE 7, 1972

redeeming love and gracious plan
af salvation.

The central figure in the Bible is
Jesus Christ. The Old Testament
looks forward to His coming; the
New Testament tells of His life,
death, resurrection and of His com-
ing again. The Bible explains the
significance of the Saviour for the
world. A book which is so unified
and consistent invites our confidence
in its reliability.

THIRD SPEAKER: The Bible
does not impress us as a fictional
book, a collection of fairy stories. It
i has a profound respect for historical
j accuracy, abounding in specific
i names, dates, numbers, incidents,
I events, colors, materials, and so forth.
I Here are two passages which il-
lustrate concern for historical ac-
curacy. (Read Luke 1:1-4 and 3:
1-3.)

We observed last week that the
Bible is unbendingly frank and hon-
est in the way it depicts its main
characters. The heroes of other an-
cient books apparently never did any-
thing wrong in their lives, but it is
not so with the Bible. Its chief char-
acters are described just as they
were, their sins and weaknesses being
reported just as faithfully as their
strengths and accomplishments. A
book which is so obviously honest
commends itself to our acceptance
and belief.

FOURTH SPEAKER: We are en-
couraged to trust the Bible because
of the trustworthiness of its human
authors. The men whom God used
to write His book were reputable,

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honest men. They were the kind of
men who were trusted in their own
communities, the kind of men who
would have made reliable witnesses
in law courts.

It has been said of the apostles, for
instance, that they were gullible
men, the kind who would be likely
to believe any ridiculous thing that
came along. This is not true. Jesus
called them "men of little faith." It
was only with difficulty that they

(Continued on next page)

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PAGE 17 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE 7, 1972

came to believe. This is especially
true of the Apostle Paul. Of all men,
he was most unlikely to believe in
Christ, but once he did believe, his
whole Christian career became pow-
erful evidence of the truthfulness of
Christianity and the Bible.

FIFTH SPEAKER: The most tell-
ing evidence in support of the re-
liability of the Bible is the attitude
of Jesus Himself toward the Scrip-
tures. Everything Christ ever said
about the Bible indicates that He
had complete confidence in it. It
is sometimes claimed that Jesus set

Himself against the teachings of
Scripture. (For an example, read
Matthew 5:21-22.) He was not tak-
ing exception to the Bible but rather
to mistaken interpretations which
were current at that time. His real
attitude toward the Bible is indi-
cated in these words: (Read Mat-
thew 5:17-19.)

In the words of Jesus recorded in
the Gospels there are at least 55 def-
inite references to the Old Testa-
ment, not counting duplications.
These quotations were taken from
every volume of the Old Testament
as the Jews had the books divided.

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Don't Look Now . . . But Your Personality Is Showing — Ethel Barrett

The Early Church Speaks To Us — H. S. Vigeveno

Faith and Courage For Today — John Hunter

The Go Gospel — Manford G. Gutzke

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How To Succeed In Family Living — Clyde M. Narramore

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He referred to definite people, to
historical facts, and to fulfilled!
prophecies. At least 15 times He ap-
pealed to the Bible in defense of
statements and practices. Three
times He affirmed the absolute fi-i
nality and trustworthiness of the :
Scriptures.

All of this says one thing: Jesus
Christ regarded the Bible as the js<
truthful, reliable, authoritative Word
of God. How can anyone take a
position contrary to that of Christ
Himself?

PROGRAM LEADER: The prac-
tical proof of the Bible's reliability!
is that it is the only book that leads;
us to Christ, and Christ is the only
one who can give us salvation and
satisfaction.

Closing Prayer: Sing the first
stanza of "O Word of God Incar-
nate." 11

Forward— from p. 9

that advent of Christ's kingdom.

Will the Holy Spirit lead us? This
depends upon our humility, our
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PAGE 18 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE 7, 1972

wrought into being for such a time
is this. Would that there could be
i renewal of vision, of Spirit baptism,
t crusading zeal in this body. There
s no limit to what the Holy Spirit
night yet do through the National
Association of Evangelicals. 51

:uss—from p. I I

Aford of God, Christ hath commis-
ioned His Church to go into all the
vorld and to make disciples of all
lations. All believers, are, there-
tore, under obligation to sustain the
>rdinances of the Christian religion
vhere they are already established,
md to contribute by their prayers,
{ifts, and personal efforts to the ex-
ension of the kingdom of Christ
hroughout the whole earth" (Chap-
er X, Paragraph 4) .
Then Chapter XXXIII, Paragraph

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4 reads: "Synods and councils are to
handle or conclude nothing but that
which is ecclesiastical: and are not
to intermeddle with civil affairs
which concern the commonwealth
unless by way of humble petition in
cases extraordinary; or by way of ad-
vice for satisfaction of conscience, if
they be thereunto required by the
civil magistrate."

This has been our historical po-
sition as to the mission of the
Church. This, we believe, is accord-
ing to the truth of God's Word. We
are where we are today in the
Church because laymen have been

asleep, complacent, indifferent, apa-
thetic, and appeasing. I share my
part of the responsibility, but you
have to share yours, too.

Why all the fuss? Why do conser-
vatives have to create an uproar?
This is why. The very existence of
the Church is before us, and you
have to make a decision. Paul wrote,
"Wherefore he saith, Awake thou
that sleepest, and arise from the
dead, and Christ shall give thee light.
See then that ye walk circumspectly,
not as fools, but as wise, Redeeming
the time, because the days are evil"
(Eph. 5:14-16). 03

31 stores in 8 states serving you
with this pledge ....

• To give prompt courteous service, treating our customers as you would a guest
in your home. • To give the best selection ol merchandise from Top Quality
Fashions to basement bargains, meeting everyone's need. • To give satisfaction
guaranteed with every purchase. • To give credit terms arranged to meet your
budget needs in Stores doing credit business.

Since the opening of the first Belk-Simpson Store, it has been our
endeavor to be more in a community than just another merchant.
We have set forth a united concentrated effort, dedicated to the task
of securing superior quality merchandise, giving our customers a
better value than any other merchant.

SOUTH CAROLINA

Belk-Simpson Co.
Greenville, S. C.
J. A. Ellison, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson-Plaza Store
Greenville, S. C.
R. Grier Robinson Jr., Res. Mgr.
The Dollar Store
Greenville, S. C.
R. P. Crumpler, Res. Mgr.
Belk's of Pleasantburg
Greenville, S. C.

A. M. Smith, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store
Lancaster, S. C.

B. L. Plyler, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store
Camden, S. C.
J. A. Hagins, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store
Clinton, S. C.
D. B. Smith, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.
Darlington, S. C.
Paul E. Broome, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store
Laurens, S. C.
David Middleton, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.
Abbeville, S. C.
J. S. Hagins, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Hagins Co.
Kershaw, S. C.

C. E. Hlnson, Res.

Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.
Easley, S. C.
R. J. Womack, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Beaufort, S. C.
Al Wilson, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Fountain Inn, S. C

E. J. Copeland, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Woodruff, S. C.

F. B. Hagins, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Honea Path, S. C.
T. R. Martin, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Whitmire, S. C.
Clyde Smith, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Manning, S. C.
W. M. Gettys, Res. Mgr.

OHIO

Belk-Simpson Co.
Athens, Ohio
Joe Kelly, Res. Mgr.

MISSOURI

Belk-Simpson Co.
Carthage, Mo.
Charles Wilson, Res. Mgr.

OKLAHOMA

Belk Dept. Store
Miami, Oklahoma
J. T. Holmes, Res. Mgr.

NORTH CAROLINA

Belk-Simpson Co.

Hendersonville, N. C.

R. E. McCormack. Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store

Brevard, N. C.

J. M. Felty, Res. Mgr.

KENTUCKY

Belk-Simpson Co.
Harlan, Ky.

Delmar Tolliver, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Corbin, Ky.

W. C. Ashley, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Winchester, Ky.
T. L. Beckham, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Mt. Sterling, Ky.
Willoughby Smith, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Frankfort, Ky.

J. D. Prow, Res. Mgr.

GEORGIA

Belk-Simpson Co.

Bainbridge, Ga.

M. D. Ashley, Res. Mgr.

ARKANSAS

Belk-Simpson Co.

Paragould, Ark.

W. H. Wade, Res. Mgr,

Belk-Simpson Co.

Osceola, Ark.

K. R. Cline, Res. Mgr.

These stores are a small part ol the entire Belk or-
ganization and have been in existence approximately
50 years. The Belk stores were launched in 1886-88.

SEE THE MANAGER NEAREST YOU FOR CHURCH CARPET, ROBES, ETC.

PAGE 19 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE 7, 1972

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FOIUHGN DEVIL

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PUBLISHING HOUSE • GRAND RAPIDS, MICH. 49506

PAGE 20 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE 7, 1972

S 7^1°

VOL. XXXI, NO. 7

JUNE 14, 1972

$4.00 A YEAR

the

PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL

Advocating continuation of a Presbyterian Church loyal

to Scripture and the Reformed faith

It Is Not Humanitarianism

The Christian faith being primary, it is not to be confused
with a mushy humanitarianism — or even with a noble humani-
tarianism.

We are being urged to reform the Church so that it will
extend the goals of a Great Society. Carrying out plans invented
by Washington supermen (everyone becomes "super" when he
goes to Washington), ministers are to be front-line activists in
their churches, converting citizens to a new vision. Individual
piety is a superfluous luxury when there is rioting in the slums.
The Church is to be where the action is.

So ministers hobnob with drug addicts. Being compassion-
ate to tipplers, ministers spend their days in bars, and perhaps
their nights. Ministers embrace unloved homosexuals ....

Granted that these happenings are extreme, the philosophy
that they express is common. We have been told so often that
action is a necessary expression of the Christian faith, which is
true, that we have come to think that action is the Christian
faith. Losing the faith in our frenzy to be active, we have be-
come chickens without heads. We run in a panic, but we do not
know where we are running, or why.

— Joseph Addison

in Religion and Society

. S. LESSON AND YOUTH PROGRAM FOR JULY 2
MRCLE BIBLE STUDY FOR JULY

dMOO

flQLZ ON. tITH led^no
m ON jo XlTsaaAjun
tio-fiosnoo o M

MAI LB AG-

some, BUT NOT ALL

Writing in "The Layman and his
Church," Mrs. Edwin P. Elliott Sr.
says much with which we heartily
agree (Journal, May 24) . However,
while some of the things she relates
may be true in that presbytery, it is
not true of every presbytery of the
United Presbyterian (UPUSA)
Church.

1 am an "ultraconservative" min-

ister serving an "ultraconservative"
church in a presbytery that is cer-
tainly not conservative. While the
ministerial relations committee some-
times recommends that a call not be
issued to a minister under considera-
tion, the presbytery here has always
voted with the request of the pulpit
committee of the church in question.

Although we place special empha-
sis on social action, our church

the

PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL

Rev. G. Aiken Taylor, Ph.D., Editor
Rev. Henry B. Dendy, D.D., Managing Editor
Arthur H. Matthews, Assistant Editor

Circulation leader among independent publications in the Presbyterian-Reformed world

THIS WEEK— Vol. XXXI, No. 7, June 14, 1972

Circle Bible Studies for 1972-73 7

Raising questions about the adequacy of material extolling
the virtues of do-goodism By the Editor

Teach Us 9

A woman in a congregation starved for spiritual food writes
to her new minister Anonymous

Am I Catholic? 10

She was in the Church of Rome, but her connections are now
more universal By Janet M. Baker

De partments —

Editorials 12

The Layman and his Church 13

Sunday School Lesson, July 2 14

Youth Program, July 2 16

Circle Bible Study, July 17

THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL, a

Presbyterian weekly magazine, devoted
to the statement, defense, and propa-
gation of the Gospel, the faith which
was once for all delivered to the saints,

is published every Wednesday by the
Southern Presbyterian Journal Co.,
Inc., in Weaverville, N. C.

SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: $4 a year
for individuals, $3 for members of
Every Family Plan churches. All cor-
respondence regarding subscriptions,
advertising or other business matters,
should be addressed to the business
office in Weaverville, N. C. 28787.
Second class postage paid at Weaver-
ville, N. C. 28787.

POSTMASTER: Send Form 3579 to
Presbyterian Journal, Box 635, Wea-
verville, N. C. 28787. Subscribers
should allow three weeks for change
of address in continental U. S. Change
of address notices should include both
old and new addresses (with zip
codes) .

NEWS AND EDITORIAL correspond-
ence should be addressed to P. O. Box
3108, Asheville, N. C. 28802. Editorial
offices located at 247 Charlotte St. in
Asheville.

TELEPHONES: (All area 704) edi-
torial office, 254-4015, 254-4016;
business office, 645-3310, 645-3962.

spends its time and energy on evan-
gelistic programs and, while presby-
tery cooperation is nil, we have not
been called to task for failing to pro-
mote any denominational program.

It is true that the mission and
strategy committee of the presbytery
does exercise advisory power over a
church receiving financial aid, and
any church wishing to mortgage or
sell property must have presbytery
approval, but we have not been sub-
jected to any "five year check up";
our property has never been subject-
ed to evaluation, nor has there been
pressure put on our church to force
adherence to any denominational
program.

It is true that the question, "Are
you a born-again Christian?" would
fall on puzzled ears. Yet in our
church this question is asked by the
session of prospective members and
by the pulpit committee of prospec-
tive pastors.

— (Rev.) Earl H. Tilford
Lantana, Fla.

CROSSING THE DATELINE

In reference to your editorial in
the May 24 Journal, "When Is the
Sabbath?" I had the very thing hap-
pen to me in reference to the inter-
national dateline that you described
in the editorial.

I left Hawaii on my way to the
Far East about 11:00 p.m. one Sat-
urday night and when I next saw
daylight, on Guam, it was early
Monday morning.

I don't remember at what point
we crossed the international date-
line, but in the experience I missed
a Sunday altogether. It was an eerie
feeling. I have missed Sunday
school and church services because
of illness before, but that was dif-
ferent, as I could either hear on ra-
dio, or watch on television, a church
service. My experience in the Pa-
cific was unlike anything else and I
felt strange the whole week long un-
til I could attend services on Clark
Air Force Base the next Sunday.
— Martha L. Sawyer
Weaverville, N. C.

THIS AND THAT

I have just finished reading your
article, "Are Our Differences So
Great?" in the May 31 Journal. I
want to say I appreciate it as much
as any article I have read in the
Journal in some time. I believe it
is so evident that the liberals want

aal'retonciliation" but only on their
dJ)wn terms. Your article reminded
lojne of the sermon, "Who Determines
rj. he Gospel?" printed in a recent is-
i ,ue of "The Radio Pulpit" of the
g Back to God Hour, on the text of
ialatians 1:8.

— (Rev.) Reuben J. Wallace
Laurens, S. C.

I I take pen in hand to personally
^ ,tate that the Journal of May 31 was

• me of the best issues I have ever

* read. I believe the Lord is using the
8 magazine in a tremendous way. I
1 continue to support your ministry
4 daily in prayer.

— (Rev.) Adrian R. Munzell
Miami, Fla.

I

r

P I was glad to read the remarks in
| the May 17 Journal about conditions
. in Vietnam. It becomes rather dif-
ficult to decide on whom to believe
where war and politics are con-
cerned. If I cannot believe the
Journal, then I can believe no one.

• An issue of the Journal in which
| the circle Bible study appears would
j seem to be the best one to discuss
1 next year's studies. We have at-
tempted a candid evaluation on p.
7 of this issue. The ladies may be
interested in the results of the latest
Presbyterian National Sample, a
periodical "public opinion survey"
among Southern Presbyterians. In
this latest poll, one question was:
"How well are your concerns repre-
sented in the boards and agencies of
the General Assembly?" While a ma-
jority of people surveyed said they
were represented in what the Board
of Women's Work is doing, a larger
percentage of professionals — pas-
tors, directors of Christian educa-
tion, board and agency staff mem-
bers and middle judicatory staff
members — said the Board of Wom-
en's Work did not represent them,
than said this of any other board.
In fact, 32 per cent of pastors and
DCE's who expressed an opinion
said the Board of Women's Work did
not represent them. The percentage
of church members in this category
was smaller, only 15 per cent. Looks

It is a source of constant inspiration
and comfort for which I am deeply
grateful.

—Carl C. Riedesel
Stockton, Calif.

MINISTERS

Edward V. Cartwright Jr., from
Lonoke, Ark., to chaplain of Girls'
Town, Tecumseh, Okla.
Richard H. Little, Presbyterian
Evangelistic Fellowship evangelist
living in Richmond, Va., has
been called by the Westminster
church, Tallahassee, Fla.
William M. Logan, pastor of the
Union Church, Brownwood, Tex.,
will also supply the First Church,
Comanche, Tex.

H. Wilkes O'Brien Jr., Blacksburg,
Va., to the Salisbury church, Mid-
lothian, Va.

Clarence A. Lingle Jr., from Me-
chanicsville, Va., to the Faison, N.
C, church.

Archie C. Ray, honorably retired
by Southwest Georgia Presbytery,
is now living in Tallahassee, Fla.

like you ladies haven't been doing
your homework.

• Once again statistics reveal that
while many so-called "mainline"
Churches are losing members at a
greatly accelerated rate, the evangeli-
cal wing of Protestantism continues
to thrive. As Louis Cassels of the
United Press International has ob-
served, evangelicals not only com-
prise the membership of more "fun-
damentalist" denominations, they al-
so are to be found in the "main-
liners." And while they are a shrink-
ing group in some Churches, such as
the Presbyterian, they still constitute
a body of considerable size when
taken together. Mr. Cassels put it
this way: "If you count those who
are members of essentially nonevan-
gelical bodies, such as the United
Presbyterian (and, we might add,

Forrest D. Sheets from Powhatan,
Va., to the Byrd church, Gooch-
land, Va. He also will be Hanov-
er Presbytery's coordinator of non-
metropolitan service.
David B. Seabrook from Jackson-
ville, Fla., to the First Church, Sa-
vannah, Ga.

John R. Thompson, received from
the ARP Church, to the Lebanon
church, Winnsboro, S. C.
David V. Voss, Purcellville, Va.,
has joined the staff of the Greater
Washington, D. C, pastoral coun-
seling and consultation centers,
and is interim pastor of the Pur-
cellville church he had been serv-
ing.

James W. White Jr., from Greens-
boro, N. C, to the Greenville,
church, Donalds, S. C.

DEATH

Ceci Hunsberger, 24, died May
26 in Gainesville, Fla., where her
husband, the Rev. George Huns-
berger, is Inter-Varsity staffer at
the University of Florida.

the PC US) , Episcopal and Methodist
Churches, the total probably is
around 40 million, or about half the
total U. S. Protestant population."

• Several readers have sent us clip-
pings from newspapers in which re-
prints of the May 17 editorial on
Vietnam appeared. We are grateful
for this evidence of interest in per-
mitting another viewpoint on the
war to appear. We are particularly
grateful to those readers who cared
enough to see that their newspapers
got copies of the editorial. A fay we
make an additional request? Let us
know if your local paper did not
print the editorial when you sent it
in, and we will be able to put 2
and 2 together and learn how many
of the Journal's readers are willing
to become involved in the issues of
our time. IS

ACROSS THE EDITOR'S DESK

PAGE 3 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE 14, 1972

NEWS OF RELIGION

Selective Criticism Defended by Blake

(Editor's note: Why does the World
Council of Churches seem to criti-
cize so freely the governments of the
United States and other free world
countries when it says so little about
discrimination and persecution of
Christians in totalitarian and Com-
munist states? That question is of-
ten asked, but only recently has a
member denomination asked the
question of the WCC itself. It took
several months for the World Coun-
cil to reply, but the following story
reports the contents of the letter just
released. The letter is General Sec-
retary Eugene Carson Blake's defense
of the WCC's way of handling such
matters.)

GENEVA (RNS) — The World
Council of Churches must employ
different methods in working for hu-
man rights in different parts of the
world, according to Eugene Carson
Blake, general secretary.

"I know that a policy in which the
difference of situations is disregard-
ed may help the public image of the
World Council of Churches, but I
am not willing to pay such a price
for our image," he said in an open

COLOMBIA — The only group in
Latin America to benefit from the
$200,000 disbursed last September by
the World Council of Churches for
combating racism was the Com-
mittee for the Defense of the Indian
in Colombia, which received $15,-
000 for the second consecutive year.
(For a parallel story from the
UPUSA, see Journal, June 7, p. 5. —
Ed.)

The committee, a paper organiza-
tion not recognized by the Colom-
bian government, is under the direc-
tion of Gonzalo Castillo Cardenas, a
Marxist-oriented former Presbyterian
minister, who for some time has not
been related to any Church.

Of the 12 million Indians in Latin
America, it would appear that the
WCC has a special interest in the
300,000 in Colombia. The WCC
could have expressed its concern for
these Indians through the Pro-Indian

letter to the General Synod of the
Reformed Church in the Nether-
lands.

The letter, written in April, was in
reply to a query last year from the
Church asking how they could give
expression to their concern for hu-
man rights in Eastern Europe and
the Sudan.

Taking note of critics who have
indicted the WCC for issuing less se-
vere public pronouncements on hu-
man rights violations in the East
th an in the West, Dr. Blake com-
mented, "More important than the
image of the World Council is the
quality of our fellowship, and a gen-
uine fellowship expresses itself
through differentiated approaches
according to the real needs of those
suffering discrimination."

Those who appeal for equal treat-
ment "would like to protest in ex-
actly the same terms to a country
where public opinion is a mighty
force as to others where public
opinion has little influence," he said.

"They would like to use the same
language in countries where Church-
es are regarded as an important part

Association, a legally recognized or-
ganization representing 16 denomi-
nations and carrying on extensive
work with this marginal group, or
the Summer Institute of Linguistics
whose 200 highly trained specialists
in Colombia are working with 35
tribes.

Instead, the WCC chose the Com-
mittee for the Defense of the Indian,
indicating that the real interest of
the WCC is the committee and its
political orientation, rather than the
Indians.

Gonzalo Castillo Cardenas is also
one of the leading members of the
Leftist organization fomenting class
conflict, "Rosea de Investigacion y
Accion Social de Colombia" which
can be translated "Colombia Clique
for Social Investigation and Action."
This group received $75,000 from
the UPUSA Committee for the Self-
Development of People. — Pulse. IS

of the electorate and a strong moral
force as in countries where Church-
es are hardly tolerated," he contin-
ued. "Even if Churches get into ma-
jor trouble when the World Council
criticizes their government, they feel
that the World Council should speak
there exactly in the same way as in
countries where Churches are al-
lowed or even encouraged to make
their constructive and critical con-
tribution."

Dr. Blake said this did not mean
the WCC would be silent "in cases
in which we must speak," but that at
times it would "plead" rather than
criticize, or try to persuade behind
the scenes rather than publicly.

He noted that his reply to the let-
ter of the Netherlands Church was
delayed because the WCC was in-
volved in confidential negotiations
regarding the Sudan conflict at the
time.

"The outcome will make you ap-
preciate that an organization like
ours often contributes best in cases
of human rights by playing its quiet
role behind the scene," he said.

Dr. Blake also commented that the
situation in Eastern Europe should
not be seen "in isolation" or given
"automatic priority."

He questioned the decision to sin-
gle out the Sudan and Eastern
Europe for special inquiry by the
Church, and asked why it did not al-
so inquire about torture in Brazil,
injustice to blacks in the United
States, political prisoners in Indo-
nesia, Iran or North Vietnam, or oth-
er deprivations of human rights.

"I do not doubt for one moment
that your genuine interest goes out
to all people who ask for support
against discrimination," he said, "but
we must say this clearly time and
time again."

Though Dr. Blake's letter was ad-
dressed to only one Church of some
250 in the WCC, it was apparently
regarded as an answer to questions
that have often been raised else-
where. The full text was carried in
Ecumenical Press Service, which is
published here under the auspices
of the WCC, and three other ecu-
menical organizations — World Al-
liance of Young Men's Christian
Associations, World Young Women's
Christian Association and World
Student Christian Federation. ffl

THE CHURCH OVERSEAS

PAGE 4 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE 14, 1972

j Some UPUSA Staffers
j sace Bleak Prospects

j PHLADELPHIA (RNS) — Bewil-
^ lerment, confusion and some sadness
ire reflected in the attitudes of Unit-
^ id Presbyterian Church USA workers
< in the Witherspoon Building here.
J According to a Philadelphia Bul-
letin report, this has been the case
Jsince the denomination's General As-
sembly, meeting in May, authorized
Jthe transfer of its Philadelphia of-
fices to New York City.

Some 500 Church employees have
been affected by the decision. Of
■ these, about 145 are executives who,
the Bulletin said, seem fairly confi-
dent that they will find places in
New York. About 360 clerical work-
ers, however, are not so confident
of their futures.
According to James Schunck, an
[ executive who is in charge of recruit-
ment and placement of clerical em-
| ployees, most of them are women
who have roots in Philadelphia and
have no desire to go to New York,
j Quite a number are resigning, he
said even if they have no firm plans
' for the future.

"The other day I had two resigna-
tions within 10 seconds of each oth-
er, good people who will have no
i trouble getting work," Mr. Schunck
said.

"But," he told the Bulletin, "for
some older persons the decision to
move is a disaster. I can't overstate it.
In their early sixties, they're too
young for a pension or Social Security
and too old to get another job. "I'd
say about a third of our clerical peo-
ple are 50 and over."

One administrative assistant, a 60-
year-old woman who did not wish
j to be identified, reportedly told the
newspaper, "I don't know what's
next, maybe relief. I can't move.
I'm too old to get another job. I've
been here 39 years."

She said that when she took the
job with the United Presbyterian
Church she had had four other offers.
! "But a man in personnel manage-
ment told me, 'Take it, it's secure,
nothing ever changes there.' Well,
everything changes."

The first United Presbyterian of-
fices to move are expected to leave
Philadelphia next October, with the

complete transfer scheduled to be
accomplished in two years. They
are expected to join other United
Presbyterian offices in New York's
Interchurch Center. New York was
chosen as the site for the operations
because it is a "center of ecumeni-
city," and a "hub for ministry on six
continents," according to Church
spokesmen. IB

Step 'Toward Demise'
Seen in COCU Action

DALLAS (RNS) — An editorial in
the Texas Methodist has declared
that the United Presbyterian with-
drawal from the Consultation on
Church Union (COCU) marks the
first step toward the consultation's
"demise."

"Whatever one may think of the
precipitousness of the Presbyterians'
decision one must recognize that
their action only confirms in an of-
ficial way the widespread indiffer-
ence and/or hostility that exists to-
ward COCU," said the editorial.

Contending that the demise of
COCU would not mean a retreat
from the ecumenical movement, it
declared, "What is dying is not the
ecumenical spirit but the idea that
unity in Christ requires the struc-
tural unity of the various denomina-
tions."

"Those most in favor of COCU
must accept responsibility for having
placed the consultation's emphasis al-
most wholly on developing and per-
fecting a plan of structural union,"
it said, adding that the emphasis
came when most denominations were
seeking decentralization.

At its next meeting, the editorial
said, COCU should "either agree to
change its purpose radically or to die
an honorable death."

In another United Methodist re-
sponse to the United Presbyterian
action, Dr. Robert W. Huston of
New York expressed optimism that
the question would be reconsidered
at the 1973 United Presbyterian Gen-
eral Assembly.

Dr. Huston, general secretary of
the United Methodist Commission
on Ecumenical Affairs, said that
"their absence for a year will be re-
grettable, but not a disaster." IB

Presbyteries of UPUSA
Get Baptism Proposals

DENVER — Presbyteries of the
United Presbyterian Church USA
will be debating and voting on a
variety of proposed amendments to
the denomination's constitution dur-
ing the coming year. Among the
most controversial of the proposals
is one which some commissioners at
the General Assembly here charged
would denigrate the sacrament of
baptism.

One of the changes approved by
the Church's top court would re-
move from the Book of Order the
obligation of sessions to instruct par-
ents to present their children for in-
fant baptism. A minority of the As-
sembly's standing committee han-
dling the proposal suggested reten-
tion of the section but use of the
word "encourage" in the place of
"instruct." Their recommendation
lost on an uncounted vote.

The major thrust of the proposal
is to give equal recognition to be-
liever's baptism and infant baptism.
Parents are to be presented the op-
tion of presenting their children in
infancy or of instructing their chil-
dren in preparation for later baptism
as believers.

A new concept is incorporated into
the proposal to allow for the fact
that UPUSA children may now be
allowed to receive the elements of
the Lord's Supper before they make
their profession of faith. The amend-
ment would provide a service of
"commissioning" for those who make
their profession of faith and thus
become full members of the Church.
The word "confirmation," which
only recently got into the denomina-
tion's constitution, would be re-
moved as a part of the change.

Since a baptized child's time of pro-
fession no longer necessarily marks
his admission to the Lord's Supper,
the commissioning will simply signify
his admission to voting in the
Church.

Other major proposals being voted
on this year will concern a new in-
terpretation of the call to the min-
istry and the place of women in the
denomination. IB

PAGE 5 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE 14, 1972

UniqueTriple Anniversary Observed

WEAVERVILLE, N. C. — There
probably never has been a celebra-
tion like it, and there probably nev-
er will be another one.

That sentence sums up the rare
series of events just concluded here
by the First Presbyterian Church of
Weaverville, with the Rev. and Mrs.
Henry B. Dendy as the principal
honorees.

The triple anniversary noted 50
years of marriage for the Dendys, the
first 50 years of the congregation's
life and the Dendys' 50-year relation-
ship to the church.

A congregational dinner and wor-
ship service commemorated the
couple's wedding anniversary June
1, and the following Sunday Dr. Den-
dy preached from the text he used
his first Sunday here. There was
also a Sunday afternoon reception
for presbytery colleagues, neighbors
and relatives.

The unique relationship began
when seminarian Henry B. Dendy
did his final field work in the area
in the summer of 1921. At the end
of the season the church was or-
ganized with 12 charter members. He
returned the following spring with
his bride. He became the church's
first pastor and continued in that re-
lationship 45 years. Since 1967 he
has been pastor emeritus.

One of the congregation's own
sons, David L. Parks, is now pastor.
The church has over 500 members.

In addition to Mr. and Mrs. Parks,
14 other members of the congrega-
tion went into full time Christian
vocations during the Dendy pas-
torate. All but two of the other 14
were able to be here and to speak
at the congregational dinner.

The first missionary from the con-
gregation, Miss Blanche Sawyer, told
of the Dendys' influence on all of
her life. In her early years every-
thing "hinged on the church," she
declared. The former medical mis-
sionary who served in the Congo 18
years disclosed that after she first
talked and prayed with her pastor
about her decision to serve Christ
abroad, "he got busy" in practical
ways to help her on her way.

She paid special tribute to the
Dendy family and the congregation
as a whole for their prayers during
her time of missionary service. "I
was never forgotten a single clay be-
fore the throne of grace," Miss Saw-

yer said.

After another reference was made
to the Dendys' faithfulness in prayer
for all members of the church, Mr.
Parks presented Dr. Dendy with a
new prayer list of the congregation.

B. Hoyt Evans, executive secretary
of Asheville Presbytery, told the
throng at the dinner that he was
grateful no "arm twisting" was ever
used to encourage him or any of the
others to make a decision to devote
their lives to Church work. He noted
that the message of the Bible was
"preached and taught and demon-
strated" in the church in such a way
that those growing up in it under-
stood that there was "not anything
more important than making that
Word known."

He recalled the friendship that has
existed across the years between the
pastor and his family and the mem-
bers of the church, particularly the
young people.

Among the speakers were two of
the family's own children, Rob-
ert S. Dendy, pastor of the First Pres-
byterian Church of Galax, Va., and

UP

Asheville Citizen Photo
By Malcolm Gamble

The Dendys

Mrs. S. S. Cappel, wife of th(
pastor of the Carrollton Presbyteriar
Church, New Orleans.

Mrs. Dan Carlton of Barnardsville
N. O, another minister's wife whc
grew up in the congregation, saic
the honored couple had such joy ir
their lives that young people grow
ing up in the church never thoughl
of Christianity as a "weary, dreary'
religion. She expressed thanks thai
her name was on the list for daily
prayer.

A variety of practical expressions
of interest in individuals was men-
tioned by the speakers. Mrs. J. Olin
Coleman, missionary to Brazil,
thanked the couple "for being there
on that important day when we were
commissiond at Montreat" and "for
being at the Asheville airport"
when they have come home on fur-
lough.

She also noted the fulfillment of;
a Dendy dream to provide a "mis-
sionary manse" for those on fur-
lough. During the past year the
Colemans have been living in a
house which was originally used as
the congregation's first building.

Announced during the dinner was
establishment of the Henry B. and
Nellie M. Dendy scholarship for de-
serving students. Recipients will be
named annually by Dr. and Mrs.
Dendy during their lifetime and af-
terwards by the session. Initially, the
amount will be $500.

Other gifts were also presented.

During the Sunday sermon on I
Corinthians 2, Dr. Dendy noted the
great responsibility of the preacher
to proclaim God's grace and not the
wisdom of men. He appealed for
a new devotion to the Great Com-
mission.

Special recognition of his contri-
butions to Asheville Presbytery (and
especially its home for children) and
to the Presbyterian Journal was
given during the reception. IB

Season's Fund Reported

NASHVILLE (PN) — The 1972
witness season offering of the Pres-
byterian Church US, allocated in its
entirety to the denomination's Board
of World Missions, totaled $434,964.
90, according to James Halverstadt,
board treasurer. IB

PAGE 6 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE 14, 1972

Better than most, but are they adequate? —

Circle Bible Studies for 1972-73

For the program year 1972-73,
women in the Presbyterian
Church US will get yet another
heavy dose of do-goodism, but this
year the encouragement to sacrificial
service on behalf of mankind will be
more spiritually related than in any
year within memory.

The Circle Bible studies appear-
ing in the 1972-73 Workbook consti-
tute another manual of encourage-
ment to good works under the
theme: "The Church — God's Ser-
vant People." The author, the Rev.
D. P. McGeachy III, of Nashville,
Tenn., has persuasively challenged
women to ask, "Lord, what would
you have me to do?" He begs them:
"For God's sake, turn your life over
to service!"

In theme and emphasis, then, the
Workbook follows the same path
trod consistently for years. Women
in evangelical congregations may be
tempted, at first glance, to conclude
that these studies constitute more of
the "same old stuff" from a board
which seems to take perverse pleas-
ure in suggesting it hasn't the fog-
giest notion as to what Christianity
is all about.

This misunderstanding appears
quite plainly here and there. Follow-
ing the final lesson, a question is
prefaced with this comment: "A few
years ago a woman wrote saying that
she disagreed with the viewpoint of
that year's Workbook, which seemed
to be that we are saved in order to
serve." The comment is then fol-
lowed by the question: "Now that
you have had a year's study on Chris-
tian servanthood, how would you an-
swer the woman referred to above?"

We find it very hard to believe
that any church member of any per-
suasion whatever would deny that
we are saved in order to serve. If
there is such, the lessons in the cur-

rent Workbook will no doubt pre-
sent the case for service more per-
suasively than those in former years.
But if the "woman referred to
above" meant what we suspect she
meant, her complaint stands: Even
in these lessons the Board of Wom-
en's Work still implies that doing
good and being saved are' one and
the same thing.

Because it still seems to think that
salvation is do-goodism, with human
intelligence and sociology as authori-
ties to determine what a person
should be doing, a few bizarre sug-
gestions appear among the many
helpful ideas.

For instance, there is the sugges-
tion that Presbyterians might "make
a deal with other churches in your
neighborhood to build and maintain
one expensive house of worship be-
tween the several of you. Then take
turns on Sunday (and on Saturday
if Jews and Adventists are involved)
using the building at different
hours." This would "save millions
of dollars" and also "lead to exciting
ecumenical experiences."

To which suggestion the Seventh
Day Adventists, not to mention the
Jews, woidd no doubt turn a well de-
served cold shoulder.

There is also this suggestion for
solving the generation gap: "If you
want to keep your children from re-
belling and running off to join an
anti-establishment cult, try rejoicing
with them where they are. Believe
in them as people! Give them your
utter confidence and loyalty! They
will respond as true children can.
But try to keep them tied to your
apron strings and whip them into
line and watch them rebel and go
dashing off into all sorts of anti-
Mom activities."

Not much there about: "Train
up a child in the way he should go

THE EDITOR

and when he is old he will not de-
part from it."

But for the most part the studies
constitute helpful exhortations to
"get up and get with it" in worth-
while projects: Start a volunteer re-
ferral service; get to know a poor
person or someone of another race
on a personal basis; help entertain
international students; put an over-
seas national on your church staff
for a year. And so on.

Get Up And Get With It

There is also persuasive financial
stewardship: "Turn your money over
to the Lord and you will discover
you are rich — not perhaps in mon-
ey, but in true riches. A church that
decides to give away half of its in-
come will become twice as active,
twice as busy, and twice as much fun
to belong to. If you don't believe
me, try it!"

We said at the outset that these
lessons relate good works more con-
cretely to spiritual considerations
than any of the others within recent
memory. We did not mean to say
that the Gospel itself appears in the
Workbook, for it does not. But in
the assumption which accompanies
all program material from this board
(and the others) , namely that circle
members already are committed
Christians needing only guidance in
how to exercise their gifts, the au-
thor relates good works to a spiritual
dimension more concretely than his
predecessors.

For example, he makes this point:

"We've had a lot to say so far
about projects and plans that we
might undertake as a circle or as a
congregation. But before we go on
making endless lists of 'do-goodies'
we need to stop and remind our-
selves that we do not possess the

PAGE 7 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE 14, 1972

power to bring in the kingdom in
our own strength. Of course we
have been saying this all along, but
we also have been forgetting it all
along. There is a constant tempta-
tion in every one of us to say, 'I can
do it on my own! Give me my share
of the inheritance and just watch me
do my stuff!' But as surely as God
made little green apples, whenever
I try this there comes a famine in
the land (Luke 15:14). When we
have exhausted our own resources in
searching for success and happiness
we come at last to the hard-nosed
reality: You can't make it without
God."

What this means, however, in the
final analysis turns out a bit disap-
pointing, not for its direction but
because it doesn't go far enough to
really answer the questing soul:

"We musn't think that we are
initiators or the solvers of the
world's problems. We must come
at last to the place where we say:
'Father, I have sinned against heav-
en and before you; I am no longer
worthy to be called your child.'
When the prodigal said that, they
put a king's robe on him and threw
a feast. And only the elder brother
(and, of course, the fatted calf) was
sorry when the merrymaking got un-
derway.

"I wonder if everybody has to be-
come a prodigal son in order to be
saved .... I think so ... . Most of
us do not have dramatic runaway
times, or Damascus road conversions
. . . . But sometimes I think that I
envy the sure-enough prodigal. Only
one who has really been down knows
how good it feels to be rescued. As
the song puts it: 'Being lost is worth
coming home.' "

Suspended

Pretty good as far as it goes, even
if it sort of leaves one suspended.
Dr. McGeachy gets this close to
home base: You must confess that
you are a sinner and when you do
God accepts you. Having obeyed
His command to come, the next one
is to go. Lord, what would you have
me to do?

That isn't quite close enough.

Perhaps the chief weakness of the
lessons is precisely the way they re-
late evangelism to the Christian
life of service. One lesson in par-
ticular is devoted to "evangelism"
and here is the heart of it:

" (Evangelism) is not a question
of saying, 'My religion is better than

your religion,' as though the two
faiths were in competition, like two
small boys competing for the atten-
tion of a girl by walking the top of
a fence to show off. Nor is it a mat-
ter of reaching down to someone be-
low us and saying, 'I'm so much bet-
ter off than you are — if only you
would come up here where I am you
would be so much happier.' Some-
how we have to be saying, 'We're in
this together.'

"This is very difficult to do, espe-
cially for a church. How can a
church be that kind of a servant?
Here is a list of ways to get at it.
Pick out the ones you like and dis-
cuss how you could put them to
work in your church. (You won't
like some of them, but before you
reject them consider why you don't
like them.)

"1. Stop inviting people to 'join
our church.' Instead go to work on
a program of service and worship
that will 'draw all men unto you.'
Forget the statistical game of 'how
many members we took in and how
many Fifth Church took in,' and
start witnessing by the life you live.

"2. Instead of saying aloud to
your neighbor, 'Christ is alive!' try
living the kind of life you would
live if you really believed that.
Would you be bubbly? Youthful?
Joyous? Helping? Serious? Com-
passionate?

"3. Reduce as far as possible the
amount of your church's budget that
is spent on making you look good
(bricks and mortar and boutonnieres
for the ushers) and concentrate on
benevolence dollars and people
money.

"4. Open a Coffee House, or
some other kind of ministry where
you encounter people in a secular
setting, and then don't hit 'em with
the religious talk unless they ask you
to. (They will.)

"5. Plan an innovative worship
service (with banners and guitars
and parades and dances and balloons
and singing and shouting) — not to
prove anything, just to praise God
for what He has done for you.
(Don't attempt this unless you real-
ly feel like doing it; fakey celebra-
tion isn't going to fool anybody.)
At least you could try saying the
Apostles' Creed as though you meant
it, or sing the Doxology a little fast-
er. Do you mean it, by the way?

"6. Fill this one in yourself: If
you were really free to do it, how
would you tell the world about
Christ? Recommend it to your ses-

sion."

There are some good settings sug-
gested above, within which evan-
gelism could take place, but nol
even the newest Christian in the
block would fail to notice there i;
no evangelism in any of those sug-
gestions.

Evangelism is that process b)|
which a Christian leads (or takes
or points) a non-Christian to a su
pernatural transaction resulting from
a personal encounter with the living
God through the Lord Jesus Christ
the Holy Spirit being the catalyst
and activator.

It can be done from a pulpit, iri
Sunday school, in a "bull session,",
through personal conversation,
through the simple expedient of a
tract. i

Overt evangelism is not essential
to salvation, for many have become
Christians without being subjected
to any evangelistic effort — as by
reading the Bible alone. But it never
occurs apart from the context of
certain basic truths known as the 1
Good News or the Gospel.

It helps to approach the one who
is the object of evangelism in a dem-
onstration of the concern and love
that one feels. But it isn't necessary
to be accepted — witness those who
have been overwhelmed with an ex-
perience of the Lord Jesus Christ
while in a state of anger or hostility
towards the evangelist.

It can be done in many ways, but
the essential objective, the essential
elements and the essential result do
not vary.

This is one area in which the po-
larities within the Church are most
visible. But it is an area in which
no compromise is possible and over
which no "umbrella" shelters mu-
tually exclusive viewpoints. It is the
central issue before the Church
(apart from the foundational ques-
tion of the authority of Scripture
around which the issue itself re-
volves) .

It separates the sheep from the
goats and no doubt will be the de-
terminative consideration in the
gathering of a continuing Presbyte-
rian Church loyal to Scripture and
the Reformed faith.

For circle leaders seeking a more
Biblical approach to the monthly
lessons, the Journal again expects
to carry regular "Circle Bible Stud-
ies." This would be a good time
to enroll all your church leaders in
a Journal subscription package. EE

PAGE 8 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE 14, 1972

I

[Vo7 fine phrases, nor lively illustrations, but God's Word —

Teach Us...

To our new minister and brother
in the Lord: Grace be unto you
and peace, from God our Father and
Jthe Lord Jesus Christ. We give
e thanks to God for you, making men-
jjtion of you in our prayers.
,j We have long prayed that God
A would send you to us, although we
[ did not know you by name. Twelve
t months ago when we began to search
?for a new shepherd for our flock,
we set aside one day a week at
church or at home to be spent in
. praying especially for you, the man
j whom God would send to be our
' new pastor.

Now the time has come and God
J is sending you to us, and we do give
j Him thanks and praise His name for
His goodness and mercy. We know
that God has great and wonderful
things planned for you and for our
church throughout your ministry. I
believe He would have me tell you
what is on my heart, those matters
about which I have prayed ever since
! I first joined this congregation and
i learned how great are our needs.

Only on Sundays!

Dear brother, please help us to
know salvation. Some of our flock

J are plainly in need of soul saving.
Yet, having no knowledge either of

j the Bible or Jesus Christ, they do
not even recognize their need and
base their claim of Christianity on
devotion to the name and structure
of the church (First) and to the de-
nomination. And this only on Sun-
day mornings!

Help these children to know that
real salvation comes only through

This open letter was written by a
North Carolina housexuife to her new
pastor.

genuine, godly repentance and
through dedication to Jesus Christ
as a person, not to Christianity as an
ideal. Some of our flock do not
know what salvation or Christianity
means. They don't know or under-
stand the Bible, although they might
read it and even "teach" a Sunday
school class.

They believe that no one can
know he is saved, and they say we
have no right to call ourselves Chris-
tians because we are not "good
enough." What an empty, futile un-
derstanding of the nature of God
and the mission of Jesus Christ.
Please help us to understand and re-
ceive salvation, and to know what
to do with our salvation when we
have received it. Help us to have
joy and the wish to share this joy
with others.

Feed the Hungry

Feed us from God's Word. Our
flock has been starving to death
spiritually. We have been fed for
years on the finest, most beautiful,
well-prepared sermons, full of love-
ly high-sounding words, clever
stories, and thought-provoking illus-
trations, but they have done nothing
for our souls. Some sermons have
made us think and perhaps praise
the message afterwards. However,
there was almost never anything to
carry with us to sustain us through
the following days, and there was
nothing to inspire a changed life.

Please, dear brother, feed us from
God's Word. Feed us the spiritual
food that we need for our soids. We
can get all the mental stimulation
we need from our morning newspa-
pers, magazines, books of our own
choosing, even from some of our
Sunday school literature. God has
promised that His Word shall not

ANONYMOUS

return unto Him void, but He has
not promised to so honor man's
words.

True, some members of the con-
gregation will not want to hear the
simple Gospel, and there will always
be those who will turn away from
the truth even when they recognize
it, but this was the case even for Je-
sus — not everyone would hear; not
everyone would believe; and not ev-
eryone will be saved. Please give us
Jesus' message, as carried on by good
and loyal apostles of Jesus through-
out the centuries, in order to reach
those who will hear and who will be-
lieve, and who will in turn go out
then to reach others who will hear
and believe, wherever they may be.

Teach us to pray. Teach us the
importance and value of prayer, of
communion with our heavenly Fa-
ther, of daily seeking His face to
know Him personally. Teach us how
we may call on our Father, who will
supply our needs from all His richest
glories.

Teach us that as children of the
King we have an inheritance of
many rich and wonderful promises
and that we must read and study
God's Word to know what our in-
heritance is. Teach us to pray from
our hearts and not our heads, so that
we need not write out our prayers
beforehand, we need only to speak to
God. Please help us be a praying
church!

Teach us to have faith in God, to
trust Him and His promises to us.
Help us to know positively that we
can depend on Him for all our needs,
waiting on the Lord after asking
Him for something desired or need-
ed. We know that with Him one
day is as a thousand years and that
He will always be faithful in answer-
ing our prayers, for with Him all
things are possible.

L

PAGE 9 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE 14, 1972

Teach us to be anxious for noth-
ing, believing and knowing that God
is sovereign and always in charge, so
that we need not worry about any-
thing that happens. Teach us to be
thankful always for all things, for
this is the will of God. Even trou-
bles, adversities, sorrows have their
place and purpose in His scheme of
things, for with Him all things work
together for the good of them who
love the Lord.

Teach us to love the Lord, for
until we love Him we cannot pos-
sibly love our fellow man, since the
source of love is Christ in us and we
in Him. If you teach us to love
Him, you will be teaching us to love
each other when we disagree, loving
even those who are ugly, unseemly,
unkind or rude. If we love one an-
other, we will pray for one another,
and it is this prayer of compassion
and concern that brings about rec-
onciliation.

Teach us to trust God for the an-
swers to all our problems, and to seek
to know and do His will above all
things. Teach us that for followers
of Christ there is no such thing as
"situation ethics" or a choice be-

tween two or more decisions involv-
ing any given situation or circum-
stance. For Christians there is only
a choice of doing our will (man's
will) or God's will.

Teach us that in seeking to do
God's will, we must ask for His guid-
ance in prayer; believe that He will
give it to us; give thanks for an-
swered prayer and for His faithful-
ness to us even when we don't de-
serve it; wait and watch for His an-
swer; and recognize Him and praise
Him before men for answered prayer
and for His goodness and mercies.

Teach us, dear brother, to "fear
not those who would harm our bod-
ies," but to beware and fear those
who would lead us into sinful ways
which will separate us from a right
relationship with God and cause us
all manner of sickness and sorrow.
Teach us that God's ways are not the
ways of this world.

Then teach us that as we seek to
have communion with God through
prayer, as we seek to know and do
His will for our lives, the rewards
and joys that will be ours are too
tremendous to bear human descrip-
tion. Only a child of God who has

Walls of all kinds are breaking down —

Am I Catholic?

A nun came to dinner at the
home of Jim Hefley, an or-
dained Southern Baptist minister
who is now a member of Circle
Evangelical Free Church. My hus-
band, Al, and I were also dinner
guests. When Al mentioned that he
was brought up in the First Baptist
Church of Amarillo, Texas, Sister
Miriam said, "Bet you never thought
you'd get this close to a Catholic."
He chuckled as he told her, "My
wife was a Catholic."

I'm not sure if he got the tense
of that verb right. I wonder if I
was a Catholic, or if I am a Cath-

The author, a new Christian,
shared her testimony with Chris-
tian Heritage magazine, from
which it is reprinted tvith permis-
sion.

olic. A bit of background aids the
understanding of that statement.

Until the age of eighteen, I was
a model Catholic. Twelve years of
Catholic schooling had taught me
everything I thought I needed to
know about dogmas, doctrine and
devotion. When it came time for
college, I was sick of religious
schools and chose the University of
Illinois — Chicago circle.

There was a Newman House right
across the street from the university
library. (Newman Club is the Cath-
olic student organization on cam-
pus.) Suffering from pangs of new-
ness, I frequently wandered over
there just to talk to someone who
had something in common with me.
Unfortunately, Newman was merely
another social club, rather than a
religious community. The more

experienced this closer walk and the
rewards that follow can know and
fully understand the joys of being
in the Father's presence.

Oh, dear brother, if you would
really be used by God to further His
kingdom on earth, if you would real-
ly preach Christ as the risen Saviour
of the world, and see results in your
ministry at our church and in our
town, please teach us these things.
If you do, I promise you, as one who
has met and known the risen Lord
and Saviour, that you will have such
joy in your life and in your ministry
as you have never known possible on
earth, for you will indeed see the
kingdom of God on earth as Jesus
Christ meant it to be. You will in-
deed find "rivers of living waters flow-
ing from your heart," as Jesus prom-
ised. The grace of our Lord Jesus
Christ be with you. Amen.

That my letter to you, dear
brother, remains unsigned is only to
call your attention to the fact that
the name, and the writer, are unim-
portant. What is important is the
message contained herein, which is
delivered from the heart of one dedi-
cated to the service of the King! IB

JANET M. BAKER

friends I made on campus, the less
often I showed up at Newman. Soon,
I had cut myself off from fellowship
with other Catholics at school.

I exposed myself to fellowship
with non-Catholic Christians. Al and
I were almost engaged. He was a
Southern Baptist who had come
from Texas to study at Illinois In-
stitute of Technology and was not
regularly attending any church in
Chicago. He often went to Sunday
mass with my family. At one time,
he told me that he would "turn
Catholic" before we were married.
I never worried about our religious
differences.

When Al announced that he had
changed his mind about becoming
a Catholic, I saw our neat little fu-
ture crashing down about me. We
struggled for a compromise. We

PAGE 10 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE 14, 1972

doUi held the same basic Christian
jeliefs, but he could not accept the
Catholic Church and I could not
ibandon it. Ultimately, we decid-
ed to attend each other's services on
Sunday. Now the task was to find a
church that Al could call his.

From the phone book we got the
name and address of a local South-
ern Baptist Church. Our associa-
tion with it barely lasted one Sun-
day. I was ready to go home as soon
as we sat down, while Al lasted un-
til the hand-clapping and hallelu-
liah-chorusing began. For some time
[after that, the mass was our only
[form of Sunday worship.

A friend of Al told him about

■ Circle Evangelical Free Church.

■ From our first visit we were both
I impressed. Our regular Sunday

routine became the worship service
at Circle at 9:30, Circle's service of
interaction (discussion groups) at
10:45, and finally, mass at 12:15.

For five months, we followed this
hectic schedule. The mass began to
look pale beside the worship service
and the fellowship of the service of
interaction. Shortly after our wed-
ding, we canceled our 12:15 Sunday
appointment.

We had found much in Circle
Church. More than anything, Circle
was a community of believers. You
really got to know and care about
] your fellow Christians. Prayer meet-
ings were held in homes. Hospitality
nights were a part of the church cal-
endar.

Another aspect of Circle Church
was unique in my experience. Circle
taught that being a Christian meant
committing your life to Christ, giv-
ing Him your primary allegiance. I
learned that it was this commitment
that separated Christians from Chris-
tians, that divided true disciples
from intellectual assenters. I had
never heard anything about this in
twelve years of Catholic education.

They Loved the Bible

The members of Circle Church
had a novel (to me) attitude to-
ward the Bible. They loved it. The
Bible is to Circle Church what the
missal is to the Catholic Church. In-
stead of toting a missal to church on
Sunday, I carried a Bible. One ad-
vantage that the Bible has is its read-
ability. A missal is a help at mass,
but the Bible is a literary classic
that instructs and entertains at any
time. It is the record of God's in-
teraction with man.

The ideas of community, commit-
ment and love of the Bible made
Christianity much more meaningful.
Christ himself said that He is the
vine and we are the branches. We
are all members of one body. How
could there not be community in
such a group?

I thought about my Catholic
Church. After years of membership,
the only people I knew were neigh-
bors and classmates. Spaghetti din-
ners and parish carnivals, possible
means of encouraging fellowship,
were poorly disguised fund raising
projects. I never learned the name
of the man who showed us to a pew
or passed the long-handled offering
basket, Sunday after Sunday. I nev-
er even thought his name was im-
portant.

As far as commitment was con-
cerned, I thought that the only
Catholics asked to give their lives to
Christ were priests, nuns and monks.
I was never told that He wanted me.
Yet on the basis of what He did for
me, who else deserved first place in
my life?

It is through the Bible that man
learns what Christ did for him. In
Catholic school, we were never
taught to turn to the Bible as an au-
thority. It was not expected that
we have a Bible in class. In gram-
mar school, we read Bible stories, but
I can recall very few instances of
hearing the original version. God's
Word was reserved for theologians
and was not to be read by common
Catholics.

Good Ideas

It took more than two years for
all the ideas of Circle Church to be-
come my ideas also. The first one
to become precious to me was the
need for community among Chris-
tians. Circle people were loving.
They were concerned. The words
of a song, . . they'll know we are
Christians by our love," might have
been written about them. Francis
Schaeffer calls love the mark of the
Christian. For the first time, I
knew experientally the meaning of
"Christian love."

The next idea I adopted was rev-
erence for the Bible. My Catholic
background did not teach me dis-
respect for the Bible, but it did not
encourage individual reading and
interpretation of the Scriptures. At
Circle, assertions about Christianity
were challenged with, "Where does
it say that in the Bible?"

The very hardest and the most es-
sential acceptance was the necessity
of total commitment to Christ. It
is the hardest because it involves a
surrender of personal desires. It re-
quires dying to self and being born
again in Christ, and that is why it
is the most essential. This rebirth
is precisely what it means to be a
Christian.

I fought against "dying" for a
long time. It was not that I doubt-
ed the promise of rebirth, but that
I enjoyed being my own No. 1 in-
terest. Christ was competition. He
haunted me and helped me to con-
quer my pride. I now operate un-
der a revised schedule of priorities.

Have Catholics Changed?

Back to the dinner table scene.
There I sat with both my head and
my heart full of "Protestant" ideas.
I tried to explain to Sister Miriam
about these wonderful new concepts
I had learned at Circle Church. She
had the uncanny knack of antici-
pating all I was going to say. I
found out that I had not been in-
doctrinated with "Protestant" no-
tions after all.

Two explanations are possible.
Either the Catholic Church had
drastically changed during the two
years that I had been away, or my
experience of Catholicism had been
more provincial than mainstream.
Sister Miriam held all three of my
new beliefs as "Catholic" beliefs.
She also told me that most Catholics
no longer accept the idea of auto-
matic excommunication for non-at-
tendance at Sunday mass. So, does
that make me a Protestant with
Catholic beliefs or a Catholic attend-
ing a Protestant church?

This brings me back to the origi-
nal dilemma: "Am I a Catholic or
was I a Catholic? As more and more
people find themselves asking this
type of question, the only rational
solution will emerge. The categories,
"Protestant" and "Catholic," will
disappear. "Christian" will be the
only name applicable to the truly
catholic Church that will form. The
scene around the dinner, with Chris-
tians of different religious back-
grounds breaking bread and sharing
their mere Christianity, will no long-
er be a curiosity. 51

• • •

"Ye shall be witnesses" is not to
tell us what the Church should do
but what the Church must be. —
Harvie Conn.

PAGE 11 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE 14, 1972

Jit

EDITORIALS

Another Double Standard

Earl Hansen, religion editor of the
Seattle Post-Intelligencer, had some
things to say about Presbyterian
happenings in his city. The com-
ments are a fitting editorial note on
the Denver General Assembly of the
United Presbyterian Church USA:

"Some of the leaders of the Unit-
ed Presbyterian Church have laid
themselves open to extreme criticism
by asking for tolerance among other
Churches while suppressing diversity
within their own organization.

"There are, in fact, more than 1,-
000 dissident 'fundamentalist' Pres-
byterians in Seattle who have good
reason to wonder whether their
'leaders' are practicing what they
preach.

"The denomination, after all,
held an expensive convention this
week in Denver which issued several
high-sounding proclamations about
the Church's mission to fight for the
underdog and the oppressed.

"The convention delegates, how-
ever, included a number of Presby-
terians from this area who were in-
strumental in seizing church proper-

From Japan a missionary has sent
us a copy of a large newspaper ad-
vertisement inserted in the Japan
Times by persons who signed them-
selves, "Americans in Japan who
want peace."

The advertisement was "An Open
Letter to the President of the U. S."
and it called for a cessation of all
involvement in the Vietnam war and
withdrawal of all American military
aid.

Among the signers were Presbyte-
rian US missionaries and children of
missionaries: Priscilla Abbott, James
E. Atwood and Roxana M. Atwood,
Jim A. Cogswell, Bill Day and Sylvia
Day, Lewis Lancaster and Virginia
Lancaster (and three of their chil-
dren) , Laura Logan, John and Jane
Reagan (and three of their chil-
dren) , Arch B. Taylor and Margaret
Hopper Taylor.

Happily, not a single missionary

ties from two congregations which
had decided not to go along with the
denomination's 1967 'modernized
and liberal' confessional creed.

"Members of the Laurelhurst
Presbyterian have been ousted
from the church they built and
paid for, and members of West Se-
attle's Hillcrest Presbyterian Church
are apparently next in line to get the
boot.

"Any denomination that advocates
changing laws to help the oppressed
and then uses the courts to evict peo-
ple who disagree with their version
of Christianity brings to mind a Po-
go quote:

" 'I has seen the enemy and he is
us.'

"The following is one of the Pres-
byterian proclamations handed to
the press at Denver for national dis-
tribution:

" 'Forgiveness, not judgment,
marks the life of the Christian. We
must exercise forbearance toward
one another in our differences, rec-
ognizing that diversity is characteris-
tic of the Church's nature and mis-

associated with the Reformed
Church in Japan appeared among
the signers, who by this type of po-
litical activity were violating express
provisions of the manual of the
Board of World Missions.

The missionary who sent us the
ad appended this note: "They
scrupled not to swell the list by in-
clusion of even their children's
names. Mr. Nixon, not knowing
this, may be more impressed by the
numbers involved than I am."

No doubt even missionaries have
a right to political opinions, but we
question the value to the cause of
Jesus Christ when newspaper adver-
tisements attacking their country and
its president and based on misinfor-
mation appear in the overseas coun-
tries where they work.

We doubt that Mr. Nixon will be
"impressed." He knows what's go-
ing on in Vietnam. El

sion.'

"That is indeed a forward-think- i
ing statement, coming as it did upon
the heels of the delegates' unani-
mous decision to continue their le- ■
gal aid fund which last year contrib- 1
uted $10,000 to Angela Davis' de- »
fense fund.

"Locally, however, such words lj[
have a hollow ring about them.

"Especially when one considers ;[:
that the Laurelhurst group was dis- !(
possessed despite its having had reg- 1
ular worship service exchanges with l1'
a black church in the Central Area, 9
participated in such community pro- ;il
grams as Neighbors in Need and, un-
til 1967, contributed as much as $10,- B
000 to the coffers of the United ;il
Presbyterians.

" 'I'm not a Presbyterian, but I've
been appalled at their peculiar kind 1
of Christianity,' an attorney involved ]
in the case said this week of the de- 'J
nominations' handling of the contro-
versy.

"On April 13, in the evening, 27 1
elders and trustees of the Laurel- fit
hurst church gathered for a sched- i
uled negotiation towards a fair set- t)
tlement with the Seattle Presbytery, f
the ruling body of local Presbyte-
rianism. They were stood up. The
Presbytery leaders had decided there
was nothing to negotiate.

"On May 2 the Presbytery acted
to evict the congregation, and re-
fused to allow any discussion of a
compromise settlement.

"The case finally went before Su-
perior Court Judge William J. Wil-
kins who ruled in favor of the de-
nomination on grounds that civil
courts cannot interfere with canon
law, despite the fact that the Laurel-
hurst congregation had ownership
papers secured with the sweat of
their own offertories.

"The State Supreme Court upheld
Judge Wilkins, however, and the U.
S. Supreme Court twice rejected mo-
tions for appeal.

"To date the Supreme Courts of
Georgia, Ohio, Indiana, Maryland
and Kansas have decided similar
cases in favor of local congregations, i
Only in New York and Pennsylvania I
have rulings been made like the one
here.

"So while part of the Seattle Pres-
bytery were helping formulate proc-
lamations in Denver, the remaining
leaders here took inventory in
Laurelhurst to see that the evicted
members didn't make off with any
hymnals, communion grape juice,
rose bushes, or whatever." El

Politics in Japan

PAGE 12 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE 14, 1972

THE LAYMAN AND HIS CHURCH

The Good That I Would . .

The

'Silly Season' Is On

Some of the objectives of the so-
called "women's liberation move-
ment" no doubt are founded on
quite valid considerations.

It is true that women sometimes
are discriminated against on account
of their sex. For instance, few wom-
en can expect to earn the same pay
as men, even when performing ex-
actly the same task. And in some
states women do not have equal
standing before the law in such basic
matters as property rights.

But the admitted inequities do not
call for some of the remedies lately
proposed or put into effect. Some,
indeed, are downright silly.

Take, for example, the new move-
ment to denote all women by "Ms"
instead of "Miss" or "Mrs." Two
presbyteries of the Presbyterian
Church US have so designated their
women commissioners to the 1972
General Assembly. And the report
of the Council on Church and Soci-
ety to the Assembly so lists the wom-
en mentioned in that report.

A news story just in from Prince-
ton Seminary tells of a milestone in
the seminary's history: Doctor of
Theology degrees awarded to two
women candidates, Ms Joyce Bailey
and Ms Elizabeth Edwards.

The Princeton story goes on to
identify Ms Bailey as a professor at
the United Theological College of
the West Indies, and Ms Edwards as
a member of the faculty at Prince-
ton.

In our opinion, this sort of thing
does not further the cause of wom-
en's "liberation." It merely suggests
that the theological judgment of a
prestigious seminary is not likely to
be very mature. IE

Other Cheek

Any extreme form of pacifism
which renounces all use of force in
every circumstance is incompatible
with the status of a citizen in a na-
tional state which is menaced by oth-
er armed states. To think that the
Sermon on the Mount can be di-
rected to international relations is
misleading. It is not possible for a
nation, as such, to turn the other
cheek. — Walter Robert Mat-
thews.

Do gooders and good-doers need
to be distinguished. The former are
best described as the visionary type
who desire to provide for the needs
of others with someone else's re-
sources. Hence, the politician who,
because of his own guilt complex,
wants to rebuild the ghetto with mid-
dle-class tax-payers' dollars; or the
amateur conservationist who, be-
cause he has no personal property to
control, wants to manage resources
on the lands of others.

The do-gooder is basically self-cen-
tered (and his efforts therefore sin-
ful) , though this may be elaborate-
ly and unconsciously disguised with
sincerity. Sincerity, however, does
not always reflect truth.

Good-doers, in contrast, are men —
hopefully Christ's men — whose good
is done for the sake of doing good.
No political, personal, professional,
nor spiritual motivation. Not even
an effort exerted "because this is
what the Lord expects . . . ."

The striving of men to do good
and the extolling of preachers for
men to do good may appear as Scrip-
tural admonitions. But somehow
the striving and the preaching lack
the ring of truth. One need only
observe those who preach and those
who strive. If to strive is "the
Way," one would expect at least
some random evidence of its propri-
ety. But where in the Church is the
evidence?

Why then the passages in the "New
Bible" (as rural folk around these
parts call the New Testament) com-
manding certain behavior, much as
the Mosaic Decalogue of the "Old
Bible" commanded the Israelites?

Peter and Paul and James had suf-
ficient wisdom to know that their ad-
monitions would forever be valid
while, at the same time, be forever
unattainable by "manual labor,"
even though Christian experience

This week the layman's viewpoint
is brought by Prof. Lawrence C.
Walker, dean of the School of Forest-
ry, Stephen F. Austin State Univer-
sity, Nacagdoches, Tex.

would, at the time of their writing,
be limited. Those passages then, de-
scribing the Christian as a good-doer,
were written to list the evidences of
commitment, not the requirements
for commitment. They note the
visible results of letting Christ work
in us, an idea often upsetting to one
striving by human effort for position
in the kingdom.

A Christian's goodness is not a
"Christian goodness." The Chris-
tian is a person, not an adjective
connoting niceness, nor even right-
eousness. The Christ-one accepts as
genuine the Pauline philosophy that
his ability to do good, as well as his
goodness, is a gift of God, not of
himself, lest he be able to boast. So
he is endowed (theologians say im-
puted) with the righteousness of
Christ and with that right-ness he
is a good-doer, never needing to be
concerned about his doing good.

Strivers worry about doing good
and being good. Neither striving nor
worrying is God's way for His peo-
ple. Both lead to emotional tur-
moil.

Striving discounts the work of
Christ. God's forgiveness is "once
and for all" time. His greatness is
equal to His goodness. There can
be no divine penalty for failure to-
day if, on an earlier day, we have
said, "I give up. I now depend on
You to make me a proper person."

A continuing problem in Presby-
terianism is the suggestion that God
punishes Christians for failure —
moral and physical. That cannot
be if it be so that "once and for all"
Christ paid the awful price of a
three-day confinement in the agony
of hell, to endure a total separation
from His Father, for us. He has al-
ready been punished for our sins and
our sinfulness. Rather now, "He
hastens and chastens, His will to
make known."

Paul, in his scholarly report to
Christians in Rome, links justifica-
tion with righteousness. "The just
shall live by faith," he wrote. And

(Continued on p. 20, col. 3)

PAGE 13 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE 14, 1972

SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON

For July 2, 1972

Discovering a Meaningful Faith

Rev. Jack B. Scott

INTRODUCTION: Job is one of
the greatest examples of a man and
his devout life. Since the primary
Scripture for this lesson is in the
book, of Job, it seems profitable to
focus our attention on Job and his
struggle for a meaningful faith.

I. THE PROLOGUE (Job 1, 2) .
A devout man, perfect, upright, and
a God-fearer (v. 1) , Job showed his
faith by turning from evil and faith-
fully seeking to glorify God in all of
his religious life (vv. 1,5).

This made Job the particular tar-
get of Satan, who sought to discredit
both Job and Job's God. Peter later
described Satan as a roaring lion go-
ing about seeking whom he may de-
vour (v. 7, I Pet. 5:8) .

Satan's challenge was that Job
served God only because of the bene-
fits God had given him (v. 10) . In
order to test Job, God allowed Satan
authority over Job to take away ev-
ery blessing God had given him, but
God forbade Satan to hurt Job's per-
son (vv. 11-12) . Yet when Satan had
done his worst, Job still worshiped
and served his God, in no way com-
plaining to God (vv. 20-22) .

Then Satan came forth with a
further challenge, claiming that it
was because God protected Job's per-
son that he served God. So God al-
lowed Satan power to hurt Job's per-
son, but not to kill him (2:4-6) .
While Job sat in misery, covered
from head to foot with awful boils,
his wife encouraged him to curse
God and die. But again Job showed
the depth of his faith in refusing to
blame God (2:8-10) .

It should be noticed here that Job
did not complain because all was
taken from him, or even because he
was allowed to suffer so greatly. The
problem of Job is not, "Why do the
righteous suffer?" He had no prob-
lem here, as Scripture plainly teach-
es (1:21; 2:10).

Between verses 10 and 11 of chap-
ter 2, a period of time elapsed. We
do not know how much time. Then
certain friends who had heard of
Job's misery came to comfort him

Background Scripture: Job 23, 42:
1-6; Hebrews 12:5-11; I Peter 5:
6-7

Key Verses: Job 23:1-4, 16-17; 42:
1-6

Devotional Reading: Job 40:3-14
Memory Selection: Job 42:5

(2:12) . They were so awestruck by
what they saw that they were not
able to speak for seven long days.
They gave no words of comfort as
they had intended.

II. JOB'S REAL PROBLEM
(Job 3) . After a long silence, Job
finally spoke and when he did so,
we seem to see another side of Job.
Many have suspected that this Job
is so different from the Job of the
prologue that it must be part of a
different story written at another
time. I reject such an idea.

Actually we do not see a different
Job here, but we are allowed to see
the great spiritual struggle that went
on within the heart of Job as he
wrestled in his own faith. This is
recorded for our own edification.

Many condemn Job for cursing his
day, that is, the day of his birth
(3:1). On the contrary, Job here
was only expressing his deepest grief.
God permits such testing only in the
lives of His most devout followers.
Most of us never attain the spiritual
depth of a Job or a Jeremiah (see
Jer. 20:14-18 where Jeremiah also
cursed his day) . Therefore, we can-
not really understand the depth of
feeling expressed here.

God never condemned either Job
or Jeremiah for having cursed the
day of their birth, but let us not as-
sume that we can freely curse the day
of our birth when things do not seem
to go right. Far from it, most of us
never attain to a spiritual depth that
would allow us to be tested as great-
ly as these men were tested in their
godly lives. Most of us are not privi-
leged to suffer to the extent that they

The International Sunday School Lesson Out-
lines are copyrighted by The International
Council of Religious Education.

suffered. Therefore, we have no right
to assume that we, too, can curse the
day of our birth just because things
don't seem to be going right with us.

What was Job's problem? We have
already said that it was not because
he suffered. He had shown already
that he could suffer for God and not
murmur or complain.

In Job 3:23 we have indication of
what really bothered Job. He felt
hedged in, cut off from God. He
felt that there was no communion
with God. His way to God was hid-
den. Since his ordeal had begun,
there was no word from God, no
communication. God seemed to have
deserted him.

Job spoke of his great fear (3:25) .
What was that fear? In chapter 1,
verse 5 he had shown his concern
that all things always be right be-
tween him, his sons, and their God.
He could have no ease or rest for
fear that because of God's silence
with no communication, God had
forsaken him. He was a man of a
committed devotional life, but he
seemed to have lost this communion
with God.

Perhaps he hoped his friends could
help him restore this communion
with God. Instead, all he got from
them was silence. God did not an-
swer, his friends did not answer. He
felt so very alone. It was almost
more than Job could bear.

III. THE "FRIENDS'' ANSWER
(Job 4-31). Three friends of Job
essentially had just one answer to all
they saw in Job's life. Their reply
was that men suffer like this only if
they have done some evil. Therefore,
since Job had obviously suffered
greatly, he had equally obviously
sinned greatly. He should therefore
acknowledge his sin and ask God's
forgiveness. First expressed by
Eliphaz (4:7-8), it was oft repeated
by the other friends.

Eliphaz developed the theme (5:
3-4) , implying that Job was foolish
and all of this evil happened to his
children because of his folly. Eliphaz

PAGE 14 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE 14, 1972

iccused Job of rejecting all fear of
^od and of ceasing to be a devout
nan (15:1-6), and of speaking de-
;eitfully. Finally, (22:5) , he made
fob out to be a wicked man, doing
evilly to his neighbors and denying
:hem their due. He accused Job of
injustice and unrighteousness.

The other two friends were no bet-
ter in their assessment of the situa-
tion. Bildad imputed sin to the life
of Job and his children (8:4) . Re-
jecting the idea that Job could be
right with God (8:6) , he called Job
ja godless man (8:13). In 18:5 he
implied that Job was wicked.

Zophar was even worse. He said
that Job was so evil that he deserved
even worse treatment than he re-
ceived (11:6). Like the other two
friends, he called Job both wicked
and godless (20:4-5) .

When in chapter 32 a fourth per-
son, Elihu, heretofore not men-
i tioned, began to speak, we could
■ hope for something better. How-
, ever, he too harped on the same old
theme: Job had suffered because he
had sinned (33:8-9). He charged
Job with scoffing and with walking
in company with workers of iniquity
and wicked men (34:7-8) . He said
' that Job was rebellious and without
knowledge (34:35-37) , and he con-
cluded that the judgment of the
I wicked had fallen on Job.

Now we know that all of these so-
called friends of Job were all very,
very wrong! Though much of what
they said in their varied speeches had
' truth in it, they were all terribly
wrong because they came to wrong
conclusions based on wrong hypoth-
eses. We know why Job suffered,
I so the point of the book is certainly
not that. The friends did not know
; what we know, so they made er-
' roneous conclusions and serious
| charges that had no basis. When we
seek to judge one another as these
men sought to judge Job, we are
j in very dangerous territory. No won-
der Christ warned us not to judge
others. How wrong these men were!
Since the point of the book is not
j to discover why the righteous suffer
I (we are told this in the first two
chapters) , the real point of the book
is how Job endured not only loss
and suffering but even the false ac-
cusations of his friends and yet re-
tained his trust in God, his spiritual
integrity, and a meaningful faith.

IV. JOB'S FAITH EXPRESSED
(Job 4-31) . In the midst of all the
accusations against him, Job contin-

ually expressed his one great fear
that God was shut off from him. He
did not feel this way because he had
suffered, because the first part of the
book pointed out that suffering was
not his problem. His problem was
God's silence. He had lost his de-
votion with God, his communion
with God. He felt shut out from
fellowship with God, and he ex-
pressed this frequently (6:13; 10:2;
13:3, 22; 16:19-21; 19:7-8; 29:4-5).
This is the particular meaning of the
lesson text for this Sunday (Job 23:
3-9, 16-17) . He saw God as being
far from him (v. 9) .

He furthermore stoutly main-
tained his innocence and his faith in
God (6:10, 29-30; 13:15, 18; 19:25;
21:16; 27:4-6; chapter 31). He did
not contend that he was sinless, but
that he was right before God, that is,
justified in God's sight. He mani-
festly denied all the implications of
his friends that he suffered because
of his sin and because things were
not right between him and God.

If there are touches of bitterness
in Job at times, such as in 9:22, 28-
29 or 14:1-2 or 16:9 or even 21:4, it
was expressed only because Job could
not understand why his communion
with God was cut off. This and only
this really disturbed the righteous
Job. He knew God well enough to
know that God has fellowship with
those who are righteous and he knew
that before God he was righteous.

V. GOD'S ANSWER TO JOB
AND ITS IMPACT (Job 38-42).

A. God's answer by theology (38-
41) . God gave His answer in
theological terms. He showed Job
the world which He made and
showed Job how He has cared for
that world and continues to main-
tain that world by his careful watch-
care over all He has made, even the
least and the wildest and the most
remote of His creatures.

God's answer is not, as many
claim, that God is above all and does
not have to give an answer to Job.
Elihu had said that (36:24-37:24)
and God had said that his words
were without knowledge (38:2) .
Rather, God's answer in these drap-
ers was in effect, "Job, can you af-
fect providence? Is it from you? Who
do you think runs this world? Is it
not 1? Who can care for all of this
except God? If I so care for these
little creatures and do not forget
even the least of them, even that
crocodile lying in the mud of the
Nile, will I not also surely take care

of you? Do you think God will real-
ly forget you?"

In essence then, He answered Job
much as Jesus exhorted the disciples
in Matthew 6:25-34, "Be not
anxious." Communion between God
and His children is never really
broken. Though they may be tested
in their faith, God is always there.
Thus the answer to Job is seen in all
of God's providence and watchcare.
Job had to learn from them!

Jesus said something very similar
in Matthew 6; Job himself had the
essence of this answer (9:4) , but he
did not hold on to it.

B. Job's spiritual growth (42:1-
6) . Job saw clearly that God was
near him all the time and that all
around Job was the communion and
care that God would provide. God
cares. God will not forget His own.
Job knew that God cares and that
He does provide all of his needs (v.
2) ; he need only look around and
see evidence on all sides of God's
watchcare (v. 5) .

C. God's second answer to Job
(42:7-17) . God answered not only
theologically but also by deed. In
terms that the friends could under-
stand, He blessed Job materially.
This was not for Job's sake but for
theirs. Job was satisfied even with-
out those material blessings but the
friends needed to be shown by ma-
terial blessings that God approved
of Job.

CONCLUSION: The Christian
application of the lessons learned by
Job (Heb. 12:5-11; I Pet. 5:6-7) is
found in the chastening of believers,
trials of their faith, testing of com-
mitment. By these means God makes
us more holy and right in His sight.
He treats us like sons and, therefore,
He expects more of us. We should
endure these things with joy and not
with downcast spirits (Heb. 12:12-
13).

As Peter exhorted, we are to cast
all of our care on Him, being as-
sured that He does care for us (I Pet.
5:7). This is what Job had to learn
and had to remember. It will sus-
tain us too as we undergo our spirit-
ual growth by the testing of our
faith. ffl

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PAGE 15 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE 14, 1972

YOUTH PROGRAM

For July 2, 1972

f!
(Oil
i)»

13

Christians and the Nation

Scripture: II Chronicles 7:1-14
Suggested Hymns:

"Faith of Our Fathers, Living
Still"

"God Bless Our Native Land"
"Lead on, O King Eternal"

PROGRAM LEADER'S INTRO-
DUCTION: This week our nation
celebrates its 196th birthday. Com-
pared to some of the European and
Asiatic nations, the United States is
very young, but compared to many
of the world's nations, it is one of the
oldest and most stable governments
in existence.

We are very likely to take our na-
tion for granted, both its blessings
and our obligations to it. All of us
know our country well enough to ap-
preciate its blessings, if we only take
time to think about them. In this
program we shall be emphasizing our
obligations as Christian young people
to our nation. We shall be seeking
answers to the question: What can I
do for my country?

FIRST SPEAKER: The first thing
we can do has already been suggest-
ed. We can appreciate our country. It
has become fashionable among some
who are thought of as intellectuals
to scorn patriotism. A veteran mis-
sionary remarked that one has to be
born in another country and spend
his life there in order to appreciate
the true greatness of our nation.

Are we really aware of and thank-
ful for our marvelous natural re-

Rev. B. Hoyt Evans

sources? Do we actually appreciate
what it means to be free, as Ameri-
can citizens are free?

If we lived in many places in the
world the pattern of our lives and
our occupations would have been
largely determined generations ago.
We would be doing with our lives
what our parents before us had done
with theirs, and there would be little
we could do to change it. Do we,
then, truly appreciate the wealth of
opportunity young people have in
our nation to develop their abilities
and interests to the fullest? Surely we
do appreciate our country, but we
need to appreciate it even more.

SECOND SPEAKER: Another
thing we owe our nation is to be
knowledgeable about it. How much
do we know of our nation's heritage?
It is truly said that only those people
who have an appreciation and know-
ledge of the past can face the future
intelligently.

Do we know and appreciate our
national ideals? Are we aware of
those attitudes toward God, men and
material things which have made
America great? What do we know of
the present problems which face our
nation and our national leaders?
Since our government is of the peo-
ple and by the people, an informed
populace is essential to our national
health. Christian citizens, of all peo-
ple, should be well informed. This
is one of our basic obligations.

THIRD SPEAKER: Most of us

are not yet old enough to vote or to
run for public office, but we are
certainly old enough to be thinking
about it. In countries where people
are fortunate enough to have the
right to vote there is the obligation
to use that right wisely and regular-
ly-

Communists and other radicals
count on the apathy and ignorance
of great numbers of voters as a way
of gaining control of governments.
They do not find it necessary to gain
a real majority, they just impose
their will and their rule on lazy,
ignorant, unsuspecting people. It is
our Christian obligation not to be
lazy, ignorant voters.

It is obvious that only a relatively
few people in any generation can,
or even should, be public officials.
There is, however, a great need in
every age for capable, high-princi-
pled young people to prepare them-
selves for government service. Is it
not our Christian obligation at
least to consider offering our lives
in the service of our nation as of-
ficial leaders?

FOURTH SPEAKER: As long
as evil men seek to enslave the bod-
ies and minds of their fellows, and
as long as our own nation continues
to be the protector and champion
of freedom, there will be the threat
of war and aggression. This means
that one of the obligations falling
on many young Americans is that
of readiness to serve in the nation's
defense when necessary. No young
man relishes the idea of risking his
life or even of having his plans or
his education interrupted by a term
of military service, but those who
appreciate their country and what

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PAGE 16 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE 14, 1972

t stands for will not complain.

FIFTH SPEAKER: One of the
nost valuable things a young per-
on can do for his nation is to be
n active Christian. We need to re-
nind ourselves again and again
hat ours is a Christian nation. We
lo not always — even often — act like

Christian nation, but this was the
mention when our country was
•stablished.

The founding fathers envisioned
Christian nation with built-in

safeguards to protect other minority
religious groups. It was never in-
tended, as is sometimes suggested
today, that America should be a
religious vacuum. It is our obli-
gation to insist on Christian ideals
and behavior from ourselves and
others. This is required for spiritual
health, and spiritual health is neces-
sary for national health.

A most important part of our
spiritual service to the nation is our
obligation to pray for it. We need

to pray for our leaders, for our
national institutions, and for our
fellow citizens. This is one thing
which every Christian can and
should do.

PROGRAM LEADER: (By
means of suggestions solicited from
the young people, make a list of
the things Christian young people
ought to be doing now as responsi-
ble citizens of their country.)

Closing Prayer.

m

WOMEN'S WORK

Supplementary Circle Bible Study

July: Faith and Politics

Manford Geo. Gutzke, D.D., Ph.D.

Do you realize that the good news
}f the Lord Jesus Christ is guaran-
:eed to the people of God by the
way God has worked through
Christ?

In our general study of the book
Df Isaiah, we have looked at the first
half, covering 1) the spiritual condi-
tion among the people of God dur-
ing the time of Isaiah; 2) the na-
i tional affairs in Judah including the
Syrian crisis and the later Assyrian
t crisis. Throughout this section we
i saw Isaiah emphasizing, 1) the cer-
itain judgment of God upon sin, any-
Iwhere, everywhere; 2) the wonderful
[grace that a merciful God provides
to call sinners to repentance and to
provide salvation to all who turn to
[Him; and 3) the promises of God
[looking towards a glorious future for
I the remnant who would heed His
call and turn to Him.

We saw that the hope of God's
salvation was given in the promises
of a chosen "Servant" whom God
would send, who would be King of
kings, the Messiah or the Christ.

After a brief presentation of the
character of the Messiah and His
coming kingdom, Isaiah delivered a
series of messages addressed to the
nations round about and a final mes-
sage to the people of God in which
it is promised that, "the ransomed
of the Lord shall return and come to
Zion with songs and everlasting joy
upon their heads" (35:10) .

The remainder of the book con-
sists of messages addressed to the
remnant who will survive the nation-
al judgment because they have be-
lieved in God and put their trust in

Isaiah 40-51: 7

Him. Because of incorrigible sin
the nation was to experience destruc-
tion. But because of His righteous-
ness, God would in grace extend
mercy unto a remnant that they
might be spared. While the nation
would be destroyed, individuals
would be spared.

The covenant promises made to
Abraham would be fulfilled as God
in grace dealt with the repentant be-
lievers who would inherit those
promises.

Messages To the Remnant

Beginning with chapter 40 we
have these messages directed to the
remnant. This chapter opens with a
wonderful call to the prophet direct-
ing him to speak to the remnant:
"Comfort ye, comfort ye my people,
saith your God."

This is a new note — the note of
grace and mercy which will charac-
terize the rest of Isaiah. The entire
second portion is built around the
theme expressed in Isaiah 40:9: "O
Zion that bringest good tidings, get
thee up into the high mountain; O
Jerusalem, that bringest good tidings,
lift up thy voice with strength; lift
it up, be not afraid; say unto the
cities of Judah, Behold your God!"

This is the very basis of comfort to
believers: "Behold your God," or,
"Think about God!" The call is fol-
lowed by a description of God, as if
in answer to a question, "Who is
God?" The answer: "He shall feed

His flock like a shepherd; He shall
gather the lambs with His arm and
carry them in His bosom and shall
gently lead those that are with
young" (v. 11). Isn't that wonder-
ful!

There follows in the remainder of
this chapter an emphasis on the
greatness of God as this can be seen
in what He has created.

In chapter 41 the prophet goes on
to describe God as great in His
sovereignty — that is, in his free
choice of Israel to be His own. Ref-
erences to "Israel" appear in this
chapter and these are not to be taken
as references to the "remnant" —
those left after the destruction of
both the northern and the southern
kingdoms. The words of promise (v.
10, etc.) are about those who trust
in Him at a time when all the na-
tion goes down in sin.

Chapter 42 tells us some wonder-

(Continued on next page)

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PAGE 17 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE 14, 1972

ful things about the "Servant" of
God, through whom God will per-
form His gracious salvation on be-
half of the remnant. Notice that in
the context of this section on the
Messiah there is reference to the
Gentiles who later would be blessed
through Him (vv. 1 and 6) . Years
later, Matthew (4:16) said that the
Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled this
prophecy.

The Promise Is Sure

In chapter 43, the faithful people
of God are comforted with the as-
surance that they will most certainly

receive the salvation of God. In Him
they must not fear: "For I have re-
deemed thee; I have called thee by
thy name; thou art Mine!"

Remember, these words were
spoken to the remnant, back in those
days when the prophet was proclaim-
ing judgment to the whole nation on
account of their sins. In those days
God promised forgiveness of sins (v.
25) . These are words that we can
take to our own hearts if we, too, are
believers.

Let me suggest that you go
through one of these chapters, such
as the 43rd, and pick out verses that
speak suggestively to your own heart

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K. R. Cline, Res. Mgr.

These stores are a small part of the entire Belk or-
ganization and have been in existence approximately
SO years. The Belk stores were launched in 1886-88.

SEE THE MANAGER NEAREST YOU FOR CHURCH CARPET, ROBES, ETC.

The

and underline them. You can reac
them aloud to the circle, perhap:
suggesting how you have claimec *
their promises for yourself.

An interesting verse appears in th< fl"
middle of the chapter (v. 22) . Ir 1 1
the midst of gracious promises tht
people are reminded that it is no)
because they deserve it that God will
be gracious, for "Thou hast nof
called upon me, O Jacob; but thou!1
hast been weary of me, O Israel." Ii#d
other words, God's favor is totally
unmerited. Even those to whom He
extended His love would not be*
faithful all the time.

He Is Sovereign

In chapter 44, the gracious salva-
tion offered to the remnant is made [t
possible because God is the living
and true God: "I am the first and
the last; and beside me there is no
God!" (v. 6) . There follows one of
the most scathing indictments of
idolatry to be found in all of Scrip-
ture. In holy scorn the prophet re-
fers to the stupidity of men who will
cut down a tree, use part of the wood
to heat with, part to cook with, and
part to make into a graven image
that they then worship.

The utter sovereignty of God over'' !i
all His creation is mentioned in a 1(
most interesting way in chapter 45.' &
Here Cyrus, the heathen king who
conquered the ancient world, is re-
ferred to as God's anointed. In other
words, even the wrath of the heathen
is poured out only by God's permis-
sion. In fact, Cyrus is said to have

For Discussion

How do you see the difference be-
tween the crisis faced by Judah in
relation to Syria and the crisis faced
by, say, South Vietnam in relation
to North Vietnam? Should the words
spoken by Isaiah to Ahaz in chap-
ter 7 be taken as instructions to any
nation confronting a threat from an-
other? Why not?

been raised up precisely for the sake
of Israel (v. 4) . In other words, he
was the tool through whom God car-
ried out His purposes.

In chapter 46 the same idea is
brought out, namely, that God is the
sovereign of the universe, in contrast
with the dead idols of all the
heathen. He alone is the living God
who can save: "I am the Lord and
there is none else, there is no God
beside me" (v. 9) .

PAGE 18 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE 14, 1972

rea

lag In chapter 47, it is promised that
Da hile God's people will be threat-
led, the great power that threatens
ti m (Babylon) will be destroyed

I r. 5) . For their wickedness the
(In ;athen, too, are destroyed (vv. 10-
no ) •

n The message continues in chapters

10 i through 51, in which the people
u e reminded that they are sinners

11 id do not deserve the mercy which

II ill be shown them; and that
fj trough the restoration which is be-
ll lg promised, God Himself will be

orified. Throughout these chap-
rs the promises are repeated over
(id over again. Despite their sins,
od will not forsake His people,
'he remnant can derive their assur-
nce from their trust in God who
ill most certainly work wonders on
leir behalf.

Faith and Politics

For just a few moments I want to
iscuss the specific content of the
:sson suggested in the Workbook:
Faith and Politics." I believe that
ur glance at the chapters we have
dmmed in the first portion of the
;sson will help us to evaluate what
re should believe concerning the re-
itionship between faith and the po-
itical situation in which we live.

For a Christian, faith always

The Presbyterian Journal
Weaverville, N C. 28787

means "responding obediently to the
Word of God.'' That's it. To be-
lieve is to trust the promises of God.

On the other hand, politics is a
word that refers to human affairs. I
would define politics as "man deal-
ing with man to achieve his own
ends."

Now there is no conflict between
faith and politics for the two do not
even operate in the same sphere.
They are not even remotely kin.
They do not clash with each other
any more than sunlight clashes with
a garden fence. In other words, the
two belong to different worlds. I
sometimes have said that you cannot

use a fishnet to catch a sunbeam and
so it is in any comparison between
faith, or man's response to the Word
of God; and politics, or man's hu-
man relations with his fellowman
on a natural level to achieve his own
ends.

The portion of Isaiah suggested
for our study in this section is chap-
ter 7, where reference is made to the
crisis with Syria through which Ju-
dah passed. This was a very real
crisis, produced as natural forces con-
fronted one another and as one na-
tion struggled for supremacy over an-

(Continued on next page)

"YE ARE MY WITNESSES"
Isaiah 43:10 Luke 24:48

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BIBLE HOUR led by William E. Hill, Jr.

Twenty six SEMINARS on EVANGELISM

MUSIC PROGRAM directed by Rev. and Mrs. Iner Basinger

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PAGE 19 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE 14, 1972

other.

In the crisis, the prophet urged
the king to trust in God. "Don't pay
any attention to the human situa-
tion," Isaiah said, in effect. "Your
trust is in God. You belong to Him
and He has given you a commission.
Carry out that commission!"

Now. Let me say this as plainly
as I can. You cannot carry over the
story of the crisis in Israel in the
days of Isaiah and make it apply to
Germany, or France, or the United
States. This is not a political story
with a political lesson told for po-
litical purposes. The story is of an
incident in the life of the people of
God, told for what it suggests about
their relation to Him, namely to
God. Beset by natural enemies, the
people of God were reminded by
their prophet that their trust was al-
ways in God alone.

We can make a contemporary ap-
plication of this story, but it is not a
political application. For us, the
story means that when we are faced
with human threats, when we con-
front the attacks of human science,
or the jibes of human philosophy,
we will find our safety in our trust
in God. When we are threatened
as Christians, our hope is in the
promises given in His Word.

To be sure, political situations
come and go: nations rise and fall,
countries rule and overrule, as inter-
national affairs ebb and flow. But
none of that pertains to faith and
none of that is any part of the issues
associated with the Gospel. God has
a message for believers and He has
given a commission to believers, but
neither the message nor the commis-
sion pertain to human politics!

The commission given to Chris-
tians is plain: "Go into all the world
and preach the Gospel." It is not
a commission to go into the world
and rearrange national affairs at the
human level. God has the world in
mind and He wants believers in the
Lord Jesus Christ to go out into the
world. But it is a world of sin and
He wants believers to go out with
the message of salvation from sin. It
is not of the Gospel that a particular
sequence of events shall follow be-
tween nations of the earth any more
than it is of the Gospel that a par-
ticular sequence of events shall fol-
low between two baseball teams in
competition.

When Isaiah spoke to Ahaz, he
was talking to a king preoccupied
with the possibility of enlisting one
nation to help him gang up against
another nation. The prophet's mes-

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The Epistle of Paul to the Romans

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The Epistle of Paul to the Galatians

The Epistle of Paul to the Ephesians

The Epistle of Paul to the Philippians

The Epistles of Paul to the Colossians and to Philemon

The Epistles of Paul to the Thessalonians

The Pastoral Epistles of Paul (I and II Timothy, Titus)

The Epistle to the Hebrews

The General Epistles (James, I and II Peter, f, II and III John, Jude)
The Revelation of John

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The Presbyterian Journal, Weaverville, N. C. 28787

it

id /

sage was to the point: Don't do it
Put your trust in God!

Some today conceive that the Lor<
Jesus Christ wants His people to pla
political games in the international |(
and national arenas. Well, I cai
tell you that the Lord Jesus Chri
had two things to say about politics
In His first statement He said
"Render unto Caesar the things tha
are Caesar's and unto God the thing
that are God's." In other words,
Christian's attitude towards practi
cal politics is that he has an oblige
tion as a citizen to pay his taxes, t<
obey the laws and to do everythinj
that his country rightfully requires o
him.

The second saying of the Lord Je
sus on the subject of politics wa
even more succinct. He said: "M
kingdom is not of this world. If m
kingdom were of this world t h e r
would my servants fight."

The Lord Jesus, in other words
was saying He did not intend to con
vey the impression that it was Hi
mission to become involved in "po
litical realities," nor was it His de
sire that His followers should gc
forth believing they had a mandate
to become involved in political re
alities as an expression of their fun
damental mission in the world.

Dr. Gutzke is professor emeritu.
of Biblical exposition, Columbia
Seminary, and broadcaster of "Th
Bible for You." This study is avail
able on tape recording, $3 per reg
ular tape containing 4 lessons
the set, Nos. 71, 2, 3) and $3 per cas
sette containing 3 lessons ($12 th
set, Aros. 71-AJ3,C,D) . Order from
The Bible for You, Box 15007, At
lanta. Ga. 30333.

Layman— from p. 13

in the original the just one is also
the upright man.

Some old lines of verse by the
Scot cleric McCheyne are a helpful
commentary here. Jehovah Tsidke
nu is a Hebrew phrase. In English
it is "the Lord our righteousness.'"
To the reformers of Calvin's time it
was "the Watchword." To us, it says
we are already good with the good
ness of God. '£

• •

The story of Achan reminds us
that a traitor in the camp is more
dangerous than any outward enemy.
— Vance Havner.

ffl

PAGE 20 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE 14, 1972

%7Z/>

'OL. XXXI, NO. 8

JUNE 21, 1972

$4.00 A YEAR

the

PRESBYTERIAN

idvocating continuation of a Presbyterian Church loyal

to Scripture and the Reformed faith

Who's Troubling Israel?

All through history, those who have departed from God's
Word and have gained control of the Church have accused those
who hold faithful to God's Word of being troublers in the
Church. So it was in Jesus' day. The Pharisees who left God's
Word and substituted their own teachings accused Jesus of being
the troubler when He insisted on faithfulness to God and not
to men. Just so were the apostles accused in the first cenutry,
and Paul warned they would continue to accuse God's servants

Even today, those among the liberals who have led the
Church away from sound faith and have led the departure from
God's Word accuse the conservative, who holds fast to the Word
of God and its authority, of being the troubler.

Elijah's answer to Ahab (I Kings 18:18) is the proper an-
swer which all conservatives should give today to those who
accuse them of being the troublers in the Church.

(II Tim. 3).

— Jack B. Scott
(See p. 14)

S. S. LESSON AND YOUTH PROGRAM FOR JULY 9

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A DECEITFUL 'PEACE'

With due respect for their high
position and prestige, I find myself
in sharp disagreement both with
logic and the ethics of those leaders
of our Church who are advocating
the total disengagement of the
United States from the war in Viet-
nam and the announcement of a
specific date on which this would
take effect.

The United States did not start the
war. It was in full swing for several
years before our country intervened.

It is a conflict between two inde-
pendent states in Southeast Asia, not
a civil war, and was begun by North
Vietnam by its invasion of South
Vietnamese territory and the wanton
destruction of life and property. This
was done in violation of solemn
agreements internationally witnessed,
in alliance with subversive elements
within South Vietnam itself, and
with the connivance of China and
Russia.

The United States could not stand
by with folded arms and watch the

the

PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL

Rev. G. Aiken Taylor, Ph.D., Editor
Rev. Henry B. Dendy, D.D., Managing Editor
Arthur H. Matthews, Assistant Editor

Circulation leader among independent publications in the Presbyterian-Reformed world

THIS WEEK

Vol. XXXI, No. 8, June 21, 1972

Striving for the Faith 8

Christians must earnestly contend together for the
propagation of the Gospel By Synesio Lyra Jr.

The Louisville Story 9

A PCUS minister expects to be an official elector of the
Communist Party By the Editor

De partments —

Editorials 12

The Layman and his Church 13

Sunday School Lesson, July 9 14

Youth Program, July 9 16

Book Reviews 1 7

THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL, a

Presbyterian weekly magazine, devoted
to the statement, defense, and propa-
gation of the Gospel, the faith which
was once for all delivered to the saints,

is published every Wednesday by the
Southern Presbyterian Journal Co.,
Inc., in Weaverville, N. C.

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plundering of a hapless people. It i;; aid
of the very nature of our country ;i
that she moves to deter the aggres id
sor and to defend the aggrieved. it

The action of our government in it
going to the help of the South Viet ilti
namese was a noble one. We had >
no territorial ambitions. Nor did
we move primarily in our own de
fense, since we were not directly
threatened. Our response was un
selfish, undertaken at great cost tc
save the independence and the live;
of a brave people who were at the
mercy of predatory neighbors.

The struggle, while localized in
Southeast Asia, has implications foi
the freedom of millions of people
in wide areas of the world, wherevei
men are threatened with enslavement
by totalitarian power. Had it not,
been for the brave resistance ol
South Vietnam and the help she has
had from our country, it is likely
that not only Vietnam, but Cam-,
bodia, Laos, Thailand, Malaysia,
Burma and possibly India and In-
donesia would by this time have
been brought under the heel of a
ruthless Communism.

Our President deserves the grati-
tude and encouragement of respon-
sible people in the United States,
not their criticism. He has been
magnificent in his courage, resolute
determination, and tireless effort for
peace. It is hard to see how he could
have done more to bring this war
to an end. Approximately a half
million of our fighting men havei
been withdrawn from the battle andi
returned to this country. He has not
escalated the war; rather, he has
escalated only our resistance to esca-
lated offensives. Why is so much
made of our bombings, and so little
said of the wholesome aggression
which has made them necessary?

North Vietnam has yet to makei
even a gesture toward »~eace. Why
should she? Why should she negoti-
ate seriously at the table in Paris,
while influential men in our Con-
gress, in our Church councils, in our
political campaigns, and in our
universities are busily negotiating the:
surrender for which she waits? This !
is what is prolonging the war.

"Peace!" This is not the right I
word to describe a movement which
seeks to undermine our nation's re-
solute commitment. Our surrender
will not bring peace. It will merely
leave the South Vietnamese to con-
tinue the fight alone. This is a cow-
ardly solution. It could be more
accurately described as throwing the
sheep to the wolves, washing our

;i arids, passing by on the other side,
-utting our hand to the plow
nd looking back, copping out on
lie serious responsibility we have
ndertaken. We pervert the Church
phen in the name of it we foster
ubversion.

— (Rev.) C. Darby Fulton
Nashville, Tenn.

IT HAPPENED TO HIM

On the editorial page of the Jan-
lary 5 Journal there was a good
tatement concerning the "rotation"
■f elders. I know there have been
aany letters received by you con-
irming like experiences. The same
hing, namely a "cleaning house" by
in aggressive minister using the "ro-
ation" system to eliminate elders
lispleasing to him, has happened in
mr church. I confess that I have
>een one of the main targets of our
ninister as I am proud to be rated
i "Bible-believing Presbyterian."

Our church has recently declined
n finances, membership and benev-
)lence giving. Officers have been
educed to three deacons and three
;lders and the rotation system

• George R. Edwards, a professor
at Louisville Presbyterian Seminary,
has an unlisted telephone. Just why
will become clear after you read about
him on p. 9 of this issue. But there
is another citizen of Louisville who
has the misfortune of bearing the
same name. This brother, who
signed himself the "real" George R.
Edwards, recently wrote the Louis-
ville Times to say that he was being
overwhelmed with unwelcome calls
at all hours of the day and night. He

ilwrote: "I would appreciate greatly
the pro and con comments intended
I; for the Reverend Edwards be divert-
ed hereafter to him, and leave me to
jmy much-needed sleep and rest. I'm
jtoo busy working and contributing
*my due share of taxes to our govern-
ment to be continuously disturbed
[by the rather outspoken professor,
whose teachings have apparently be-
come radically political in lieu of
(teaching inspirational religion."

• During the week we were assem-
bling material for the article on p.
9, the American Association of
Theological Schools announced that

adopted, although we do not have
enough members to profitably ro-
tate. Having served as an elder for
some twelve years, my term will
cease in a few months.

Some of our best contributing
members have reduced their giving
and are no longer attending regu-
larly. They have not been content
to submit to a ruthless "one man"
operation. Officers are not given
responsibilities and are not made a
part of the conduct of church af-
fairs.

Please do not identify me by name,
as I do not wish to aggravate an al-
ready bad situation. I simply want
you to know that "it has happened
again." Prayer that Christ may re-
turn to be the head of our congre-
gation is now our only hope.

— Name Withheld

MINISTERS

Benjamin J. Bass from Heming-
way, S. C., to the Parkwood
church, Florence, S. C.
Dwight S. Bayley from Ormond
Beach, Fla., to the Central church,
Anderson, S. C, as assistant pastor.

it was putting Concordia Seminary
of the Lutheran Church Missouri
Synod on "probation," with an im-
plied threat that accreditation will
be lifted in two years if assurances
of "academic freedom" are not made
in the interim. Concordia is theologi-
cally conservative. An internal prob-
lem arose over the teaching of a pro-
fessor and after several hectic months
during which the president of the de-
nomination became personally in-
volved, the professor was removed.
At the height of the controversy (and
before the professor's removal) ,
AATS sent in an "investigating"
team, consisting of Dr. Benton Kline
of Columbia Seminary (Presbyte-
rian) and Dr. Allen Graves of Louis-
ville's Southern Baptist Seminary (an
institution that has been described
as Louisville Presbyterian Semi-
nary's "twin") . The resulting threat
against Concordia by the national

Alfred L. Bixler, Clinton, S. C, has
been called to the Westminster
church, Bluefield, W. Va.

William A. Crosland from Laurel,
Miss., to graduate study, Colum-
bia Theological Seminary, Deca-
tur, Ga.

Robert E. Ford from Seffner, Fla.,
to the Grace Covenant church,
Tampa, Fla.

Basil V. Hicks from Oakland,
Fla., to the First Church, Monti-
cello, Ark.

Byron L. Milton from Acworth,
Ga., to the First Church, Tifton,
Ga.

Thomas Schellingerhout from St.
Louis, Mo., to the Crystal City,
Mo., church.

J. Tom Young from Laurel Hill,
N. C, to the Pine shores church,
Sarasota, Fla., as assistant pastor.

Day Carper from missionary serv-
ice in Africa to the First Church,
Hickory, N. C, as assistant pastor.

Robert O. Kantner from West
Palm Beach, Fla. to the First
Church, N. Palm Beach, Fla.

accrediting agency illustrates how
the liberal establishment defends its
own, even across denominational
lines and within the bosom of anoth-
er denomination's internal affairs.

• From the Columbia (S.C.) Rec-
ord a portion of syndicated column-
ist Ernest Cuneo's article of May 20
caught our eye. Here it is: "Widely
advertised over the nation is a tele-
phone number which servicemen
may call collect to reveal the mili-
tary movements of their units. The
tolls are reported as amounting to
$10,000 already and to be defrayed in
part by the Presbyterian and Meth-
odist Churches. Since American men
are undoubtedly embattled, and
since military movements are ordi-
narily of great value to enemies try-
ing to annihilate them, this process
is hardly likely to increase the stat-
ure of the clergy in the eyes of many
Americans ..." EE

ACROSS THE EDITORS DESK

PAGE 3 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE 21, 1972

NEWS OF RELIGION

Plan for NCC Restructuring Forwarded

NEW YORK — Looking forward to
the Dallas General Assembly of the
National Council of Churches, the
council's General Board finished
work here on a reorganization plan
which it hopes will help it run more
smoothly than during the past three
years.

The last triennial Assembly, held
during December 1969, had its
agenda junked because of protests by
various minorities and special inter-
ests. Since that time board members
have been spending much of their
time trying to come up with a plan
for empowering the minorities.

Support for the NCC and its mem-
ber churches has continued to de-
cline during the triennium, with the
council's staff and programs being
cut accordingly.

In one attempt to restore confi-
dence of some churchmen, the pro-
posals going to the Dallas Assembly
will include a new preamble
to the NCC constitution. Pres-
byterian US representatives at the
Charlotte board meeting in February
had asked for the change, and their

NORTH VIETNAM — While fac-
tual information is scarce on the sit-
uation in this nation, a few items
appeared in a recent article in Viet-
nam Today.

In December 1962, the Interna-
tional Control Commission toured
the city of Haiphong and saw a rea-
sonably good building near a dilapi-
dated pagoda with the sign, "Tin
Lanh" (Gospel Church) still on it.
The building was boarded up and
apparently not in use. In 1963 the
same commission on a trip to Vinh
saw a small church obviously no
longer in use as a church, but
changed into a warehouse.

Another visit to Hanoi in 1963 re-
vealed a church still in operation
whose pastors had to fulfill their ob-
ligation to the state. Two lower
rooms had been converted into a
small factory from which was re-
quired the production of a certain
number of pieces made from iron

appeal was endorsed by leaders of
several other denominations.

The current preamble refers to the
council simply as a body of "com-
munions which confess Jesus Christ
as Divine Lord and Saviour." Some
who wanted it altered had suggested
the trinititarian basis incorporated
in the constitution of the World
Council of Churches with its explicit
reference to Churches confessing "the
Lord Jesus Christ as God and Sav-
iour according to the Scriptures."

The proposed NCC preamble
mentions "communions, responding
to the Gospel revealed in the Scrip-
tures, (which) confess Jesus, the in-
carnate Son of God, as Saviour and
Lord." There is also an explicit ref-
erence to the Holy Spirit but none to
God the Father.

While the doctrinal basis was the
subject of some discussion, most of
the debate was over the reorganiza-
tion plan's provision for board mem-
bers who will not represent denomi-
nations. The proposal will allow
election of an "additional 15 per
cent" in an effort to provide a bal-

rods. Only then were the ministers
permitted to carry on their pastoral
duties.

At that time church attendance
was about 120; the year before it was
around 50. The pulpit had been
removed and curtains hung in order
to use the platform as a stage. In
addition to services, the church was
used for many other purposes.

No Bibles are allowed into North
Vietnam and consequently there
must be a great shortage of Scrip-
tures.

One pastor is reportedly serving
as a chaplain for American prisoners
of war. It is estimated that some
twelve pastors are still in North
Vietnam, but there is no way of
knowing how many active churches
there might be.

Earnest prayer is requested for all
Christians who still seek to be faith-
ful to Christ under the extreme pres-
sure. — Asia Pulse. , SI

ance of laymen, women, youth, mi-
norities, representatives of ecumen-
ism at other levels, and persons with
special expertise.

Since 1963, all board members d|
have come as a part of denomina- t'l
tional delegations. The new re- 1
commendation would restore a pre-;
1963 principle in which specialists
would be added to the board andi
not counted against denominational
quotas.

Under the proposal which the
Dallas Assembly will consider, the
"additional 15 per cent" could in-
clude members of Churches which
are not affiliated with the council.
They would have to be members,
however, of denominations which
the NCC judged to be "eligible for
membership" because of doctrinal
agreement with its preamble. Board
members also agreed here that before
one of the "additional" members was
elected, he would have to be ap-
proved by a member communion i
after that communion consulted with
the body of which he was a mem-
ber.

It was pointed out to the board
that the Roman Catholic Church is
considered "eligible for membership"1
and that the "additional" members
could all be Roman Catholics. At
current levels, the denominational
delegations would total 297, thus
making an additional 44 places pos-
sible in the new board.

Thus, nonmember communions
with several board members elected
under the "additional" provision
could have more voting power than
members who were behind in their
payments.

It was reported that several de-
nominations, including the large
United Methodist Church, would
have difficulty achieving the in-
creased level of support in the three
years recommended by the reorga-
nization committee or even in the
five year period finally approved by
the board.

Board members learned that the
council's executive staff has been
cut about one third during this j
triennium as receipts have declined.

The governing body defeated a
motion that would have asked de-
nominations not to pay living ex-
penses for delegates to the Dallas
Assembly. IB

THE CHURCH OVERSEAS

PAGE 4 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE 21, 1972

I

J

L. Nelson Bell Wins

MONTREAT, N. C— "By God's
iielp . . . this time next year
we're going to be closer together."

With that promise L. Nelson
Bell began his term as moderator
of the 112th Presbyterian US Gen-
ii eral Assembly here. He won elec-
i tion by a vote of 221 to 212 on the

second ballot.
J The former medical missionary
e who is a ruling elder in the Mon-
v. treat Presbyterian Church was one
li|of four nominees for the denomi-

I nation's top office. He and Jo-
i seph A. Norton, a physician from
h Little Rock, Ark., were in the run-
r off.

II Also nominated were the Rev.
i David L. Stitt of Houston, Tex.,
ej former president of Austin Semi-
si nary, and Worth McDougald,
n journalism professor at the Uni-
llversity of Georgia, Athens.

it On the first ballot the totals
were: Bell, 197; Norton, 124; Mc-
jDougald, 14 and Stitt, 99.
ij Dr. Bell was nominated by Dale
s Edwards a 31 -year-old lawyer from
Texarkana, Tex., and his second-
s ing speech was given by Charles
tlE. McGowan, 35-year-old pastor in
1 Decatur, Ga. Dr. Bell will be 78
i in July.

j They stressed the possibility that
their candidate would be an agent

i| of reconciliation in the denomina-

I tion. Mr. Edwards said Dr. Bell was
uniquely qualified to be a reconciler

1 this year for four reasons.

Caffs for Laymen

The young lay commissioner from
Covenant Presbytery said the fact
that Dr. Bell is a layman was the
first reason he could bring the
Church together. He also declared
that the veteran elder is a "man
whom all of us, regardless of theo-
logical stands, can trust."

Mr. Edwards gave as the third rea-
son the promise that Dr. Bell would
add "a spiritual dimension" to the
life of the Church. Finally, he sug-
gested that the election of a theologi-
i cal conservative "would be a clear
word from this general Assembly
s that the conservative voice is heard
' and has a place in this Church."

Moderator's Post

Dr. Bell

Obviously responding to hints in
the speeches about younger candi-
dates concerning their ability to per-
form the duties of moderator, Mr.
Edwards added that Dr. Bell was a
man of great energy, arising at 5 a.m.
daily.

Claiming he was not a member of
"any group" or "faction," Mr. Ed-
wards said he was in the Church's
"progressive party" and in sympathy
with recent Assembly actions. De-
spite this position he asked for the
election of the Montreat senior el-
der for the sake of reconciliation.
The denomination "paid a price" for
its recent direction and needs heal-
ing now, he stressed.

Mr. McGowan emphasized Dr.
Bell's long service to the Church, be-
ginning with his 1916 appointment
as a missionary to China. He noted
he was an appointee to the denomi-
nation's new Council on Evangelism
and a supporter of last year's Cin-
cinnati Celebration of Evangelism
and the interdenominational Key 73
evangelism thrust.

Neither speaker mentioned Dr.
Bell's long association with the Pres-
byterian Journal, but a campaign
leaflet signed simply, "Eriends of L.
Nelson Bell, M.D., Nashville, Ten-
nessee," noted that he resigned from

the Journal board last August. Dates
were given for his service on the de-
nomination's Board of World Mis-
sions, but the fact that he resigned
before the end of a term was not
mentioned in either the leaflet or in
the speeches.

After Dr. Bell was escorted to the
platform by Mr. Edwards, retiring
moderator Ben L. Rose called on
past moderator William M. Elliott
Jr. of Dallas to pray. He thanked
God for Dr. Bell "and his devoted
wife" and asked for the "physical,
emotional and spiritual strength" the
new moderator will need. The pastor
of the denomination's largest con-
gregation also prayed for the
Church's "spiritual renewal" and
"reconciliation."

Dr. Rose then presented Dr. Bell
with the gavel and with the Celtic
cross originally donated by Harrison
Ray Anderson to promote union
of Northern and Southern Presbyte-
rians.

Dr. Bell spoke to the Assembly
briefly and requested commissioners
to pray for him daily. He acknowl-
edged his fallibility and his inabil-
ity sometimes "to see all of the truth
as it should be seen," but promised
that with prayer support for him and
the Church the next year could be
a good year.

Nominees Questioned

Placing the name of Dr. Norton
in nomination was the Rev. Dan
West of Sherman, Tex. He empha-
sized the radiologist's interest in so-
cial action and Church union and
said he had "never wavered" in his
support of the denominational pro-
gram. The seconding speech was
made by the Rev. Ernest Trice
Thompson Jr. of Charlotte, N. C.

The Stitt nomination was present-
ed by the Rev. Samuel Lanham III
of Houston, Tex., and seconded by
Miss Averill Gouldy of Fort Worth.
Nominating Dr. McDougald was the
Rev. Lawrence Bottoms of Atlanta,
with the Rev. A. A. Markley III of
Athens, Ga., offering the second.

New in Assembly procedure this
year was a question and answer ses-
sion for candidates the night before
the election. The four nominees re-
sponded to a variety of questions on

PAGE 5 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE 21, 1972

personal, political and Church mat-
ters.

The Assembly started officially on
Sunday, and the election was held
that afternoon. In a departure from
earlier schedules, the standing com-
mittees of the court met Saturday be-
fore the court itself convened.
The questioning of candidates was
begun at 9 p.m. Saturday.

Dr. Bell was an Assembly commis-
sioner from Asheville Presbytery,
which also unanimously endorsed
his candidacy for moderator. He
has probably represented his presby-
tery in the Church's top courts more
times than any other layman in the
denomination's history. He was nom-
inated for moderator in earlier As-
semblies.

When the new moderator's elec-
tion was declared by Dr. Rose, for-
mer moderators were on the platform
for recognition by the Assembly.
Besides Dr. Elliott, others were: Wil-
liam A. Benfield Jr., Matthew Lynn,
Frank Caldwell, William McCorkle
and Marion Boggs.

Dr. Bell's 25 years of missionary
service is the main focus of a biog-
raphy, Foreign Devil in China, pub-
lished last year. More than 700,000
copies have been distributed.

After his 1941 return from China
he began surgical practice in Ashe-
ville. In 1942 he was one of the
founders of the Journal. He contin-
ued to be active in its production un-
til last August when he resigned as
associate editor and a board member
in a disagreement with the board
over its support of the steering com-
mittee for a continuing Presbyterian
Church.

Since then he has become a mem-
ber of the governing board of the
Covenant Fellowship of Presby-
terians. 33

Complete Agency Restructure Approved

MONTREAT, N. C. — After four
hours of explanation, discussion and
beating back efforts to postpone ac-
tion or amend, the Presbyterian US
General Assembly adopted the most
comprehensive restructuring of its
boards and agencies in history.

The plan, which was three years in
the making by an ad interim com-
mittee under the chairmanship of the
Rev. William J. Fogleman, Brazos
presbytery executive, provides for a
single body to replace the present
16 boards and agencies of the
Church.

Concerns covered by existing
boards will be handled through five
divisions of a General Executive
Board. A general staff director and
five division staff directors will re-
place the present executive secretaries
of existing agencies.

In a single exception to the total
implementation of the plan, the As-
sembly provided for additional study
of the special relation of the Board
of Annuities and Relief to the new
structure.

A "committee of professionals with
recognized expertise in the areas of
investments, actuarial science, in-
surance, pensions and trust law" will
make the study before this board is
merged into the unified operation
adopted here.

The special study committee will
be appointed by the provisional Gen-
eral Executive Board and will report
to the 1973 General Assembly for a
final decision.

Strong representations in favor
of separate status for the Board of
Annuities and Relief had been made
by the board itself. Speaking before
the Assembly, Chairman John A.

Stated Clerk (I.) gives Ben Rose plaque as Dr. Bell watches

Fulton and Executive Secretary
George Vick defended the principal
of separate status, describing their
agency as a service board and not a
program board. A compromise, ham-
mered out in the standing commit-
tee, led to the study proposal.

Restructuring will take place im-
mediately, with a provisional Gen-
eral Board functioning until a per-
manent organization is implemented.
Before approving the plan as a
whole, the Assembly beat back a
minority report which would have
submitted the entire proposal to a
separate ad interim committee for
evaluation.

At no time in the debate was the
issue in doubt. All votes taken rep
resented majorities of two and three
to one.

Displace Confession,
Scots Assembly Votes

EDINBURGH (RNS) — A new
statement of belief for the Church
of Scotland (Presbyterian) , one that
would replace the historic 1646
Westminster Confession, will be
drawn up as an outcome of decisions
taken here by the General Assem-
bly.

Plans for the new statement have
been drawn up by the panel on
doctrine and its text will be pre-
pared by committees drawn from
all the presbyteries, each to be head
ed by a leading Scottish theologian.

"Preparation of the new state-
ment," a statement said, "will pro-
ceed while the presbyteries vote on
the panel's recommendation to
change the status of the Westminster
Confession of Faith from being the
Kirk's 'principal subordinate stand-
ard' to a 'historic statement of the
faith of the Reformed Church.' "

The Assembly endorsed the panel's
recommendation by a large majority
but observers said that because of
the complex procedures involved in
the planned discussions of presby-
teries, which must give a two-thirds
majority endorsement in two succes-
sive years, it could be 1975 before the
matter is settled.

By its action, the Assembly agreed
to proceed with proposals to aban-
don the Westminster Confession as
a subordinate standard of the faith.
Fhe case for this position was ad-

PAGE 6 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE 21, 1972

vanced by the Rev. Kenneth M.
(I Campbell, convener of the panel on
doctrine.

iij The Rev. John D. Sutherland of
)al Killtan warned the Assembly, how-
i ever, that the attempt to displace
i the Westminster Confession could
» lead to the most serious crisis of
li belief which had occurred in the

Church in many years.
I In other action, the Assembly en-
n. dorsed a view that the Church of
I Scotland should become more deeply
i involved in national and local poli-
, tics. EE

;

i New Boards of UPUSA
1 Begin Organization

I NEW YORK — Busy schedules are
}i ahead for members of four new
ej agencies of the United Presbyterian
H USA General Assembly.

Elected members of the agencies
i met here in orientation-organization
sessions. They chose permanent or
temporary officers, selected meeting
dates, and appointed committees to
seek their top staff persons.
1 The new units, formed as part of
I an extensive reorganization of the
!l Church's agencies, include the Gen-
1 eral Assembly Mission Council and
: three mission agencies: program, sup-
1 port, and vocation. The beginning
internal structures for the agencies
were approved last month by the
• General Assembly.
1 Two of the entities — the program
agency and the vocation agency —
elected temporary chairmen and will
pick permanent officers later.

Each of the agencies selected a
I series of tentative meeting dates, sub-
ject to cancellation if they are not
needed. Meanwhile nominating com-
mittees are expected to meet fre-
quently during the summer and fall
months, with emphasis on picking
nominees for the chief staff admin-
istrative posts.

The new agencies officially begin
operation January 1.

Initially chairing and staffing the
agencies are: Lois H. (Mrs Ralph)
Stair, Waukesha, Wis., and the Rev.
Alcwyn L. Roberts, New York, Gen-
eral Assembly Mission Council;
George Bushnell, Detroit, Mich., and
the Rev. Edgar Ward, New York,
program agency; Morris Plotkin, Los
Angeles, and the Rev. Wesley C.
Baker, New York, support agency;
and the Rev. Lewis S. Mudge, Am-
herst, Mass., and the Rev. Donald
L. Leonard, Philadelphia, vocation
i agency. 11

ARP Synod Approves
Women in Diaconate

FLAT ROCK, N.C.— Women are
now eligible for election to the office
of deacon in the 147 congregations
of the Associate Reformed Presby-
terian Church. The denomination's
general synod enacted a new con-
stitution permitting the distaff of-
ficers after it received the necessary
majority of presbytery votes.

Previous attempts to open all of-
fices to women have failed. The
constitution finally was passed after
removal of provisions permitting
women elders.

Elected moderator of the court,
meeting at Bonclarken assembly
grounds here, was Charles H. Car-
lisle, staff member of Erskine Col-
lege, Due West, S. C. Moderator-in-
nomination is the Rev. W. P. Grier
of Mooresville, N. C.

A feature of the annual meeting
was an address by Roy M. Terry,
chief of chaplains of the U.S. Air
Force. EE

Three Rose Nominees
Approved by Assembly

MONTREAT, N.C. — By acclama-
tion, the Presbyterian US General
Assembly accepted here retiring
moderator Ben L. Rose's three nomi-
nees for the Permanent Nominating
Committee.

They are the Rev. John H. Leith,
professor at Union Seminary, Rich-
mond; Anne Paisley (Mrs. William
H.) Boyd, wife of a minister in Mt.
Pleasant, S. C; and the Rev. Robert
Turner, veteran regional director of
Christian education, Charlotte, N.C.

The court's acceptance of the
nominees was in marked contrast to
last year's challenge of moderatorial
recommendations. Even though there
were nominations from the floor at
the 1971 Assembly, all of Moderator
William Benfield's nominees were
elected. EE

Synod Cuts Home Funds;
Restores College Grant

MIAMI (PN) — The Synod of
Florida (Presbyterian US) over-
turned a recommendation that would
have reduced its support for Florida
Presbyterian College more than 50
per cent.

At the same time, commissioners
to the 81st annual meeting here

chopped $10,000 from the amount
recommended by Synod's Council
for support of Thornwell Home and
School, Clinton, S.C.

A minority report was adopted
changing FPC support from the pro-
posed $32,000 to $50,000 and Thorn-
well from $55,000 to $45,000 in an
overall asking budget of $1,258,000.
FPC is in the 1972 budget for
$70,000; Thornwell for $45,000.

Commissioners argued that Florida
Presbyterian, which has been re-
named Eckerd College effective July
1, is still in dire financial straits de-
spite large gifts.

They also maintained that Thorn-
well's endowments place it in a more
favorable financial position. EE

Evangelist Reports Hope
For Ceasefire in Ulster

PHILADELPHIA (RNS) — Evan-
gelist Billy Graham, recently return-
ed from a tour of strife-torn North-
ern Ireland, said that he thinks a
total ceasefire is imminent there.

At a press conference held before
his scheduled appearance at the
Southern Baptist Convention here,
Mr. Graham disclosed that he had
met with leaders of the "Official"
wing of the Irish Republic Army at
their request, but said he was "not
at liberty" to reveal the nature of
their discussion.

He said he had been taken to an
undisclosed location for the late-
night meeting and speculated that
the IRA leaders had wanted to be
sure that he heard their side of the
situation.

(In May, following pressure from
Ulster Roman Catholics, the "Of-
ficials" announced they were sus-
pending all armed offensive opera-
tions in Northern Ireland.)

"I learned a great deal that I'm
unable to reveal at the meeting,"
Mr. Graham commented. "But I
think it was good that I did go. I
think I was able to bear a Christian
witness to them."

The evangelist did say that one
matter on which both Catholic and
Protestant leaders agreed was that
the troubles in Northern Ireland are
not basically religious difficulties,
but that they stem from political and
social problems.

During his stay in Ireland, he
spent five days in Belfast and three
in Dublin and became the first
prominent Protestant clergyman to
walk around the Catholic section of
Belfast. EE

PAGE 7 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE 21, 1972

Faith is the Spirit-led affirmation of what the Gospel is —

Striving for the Faith

Paul's letter to the Philippians,
perhaps his mildest and most
amiable epistle, contains much by
way of thanks and praise. Such
gratitude and praise were due the
people to whom he wrote for their
generosity to him as well as for the
spiritual qualities and other Chris-
tian virtues they displayed.

At the same time, throughout this
letter are constant exhortations to
battle or references to war, expressed
in words such as defense, striving,
suffering, conflict, and similar terms.
However, this address to Christians
should not be unexpected, as the be-
liever in Christ is referred to in the
New Testament as a soldier, and
commissioned "to endure hardness
as a good soldier of Jesus Christ"
(II Tim. 2:3) . That is why every
Christian is also exhorted to "put
on the whole armor of God" (Eph.
6).

Paul concluded an observation to
the Philippians with the words,
"striving together for the faith of
the Gospel" (1:27). Three things
are worth noticing in this statement.

Nature of Our Striving

Initially we must understand the
nature of our striving. At first it
may appear a bit contradictory that
Paul spoke positively about striving,
because the New Testament abounds
with instances where this concept is
attacked. Even Paul himself in this
same letter warned, "Let nothing be
done through strife or vainglory: but
in lowliness of mind let each esteem

The author is a member of the
faculty of Covenant Theological
Seminary, St. Louis, Mo., where he
teaches missions and Christian edu-
cation. He is from Brazil.

other better than themselves" (2:3) .

However, the idea of striving in
this and many other Biblical passages
is quite different from what Paul
asserted in Philippians 1:27. Here
the Scriptural concept is stressed as
something vital and essential in the
Church's ministry. Strife is expected
to accompany the Church through-
out its whole life. The assaults of
the enemy are unnumbered: Indif-
ference pervades it, heresies assail
it, schisms disrupt it, and apostasy
threatens it. Striving in the sense
Paul used the word means our active
acknowledgement that we are at war
and must be constantly engaged in
doing battle for the Lord. Thus, it
is not an internal striving, within
the Church and among its members,
but one against the external forces
of evil that seek to invade the
Church, control it, and prevent its
mission from proceeding according
to the prescriptions of almighty God.

This verse also speaks of the man-
ner of our striving and this may be
gathered in the text from the word
"together." We do not enter into the
conflict as isolated individuals if we
expect to have real success and a def-
inite impact against the forces of
evil in our world, but "together with
all the saints" (Eph. 3:18).

Manner of Our Striving

A careful study of the book of the
Acts of the Apostles will readily
point to the togetherness which
characterized the life, activity and
suffering of the early Christian
Church. Only through their con-
sistent togetherness were they able
to have the impact they exerted on
the world of their day, even to the
point of turning it upside down.
This is also the meaning of our
Lord in His high priestly prayer,

SYNESIO LYRA JR.

"that they all may be one; as thou,
Father, are in me, and I in Thee,
that they also may be one in us:
that the world may believe that thou
hast sent me" (John 17:21) .

This unity, this togetherness, this
spirit of Christian cooperation was
strongly emphasized by Paul when
he wrote, "that ye stand fast in one
spirit, with one mind . . . togeth-
er . . ." The stress here is on striv-
ing together for a common goal, not
against one another, as it so often1
happens. Even in our striving,
Christians are laborers together with
God.

In this connection, the apostle ad-
monished that "the servant of the
Lord must not strive; but be gentle
unto all men . . ." (II Tim. 2:24),
and observed that nothing should
be done through strife but with mu-
tual esteem (Phil. 2:3) . Unfortu-
nately, Christians nowadays do not
pay too much attention to such Bib-
lical demands. Instead of turning
against the forces of evil, together,
they are dividing themselves for the
purpose of striving against each
other, because of their own ideas,
which they transform into prin-
ciples, and their own way which
they insist on having in all things.

In my younger days I loved to hear
a story which later on I also loved
to present to children and young
people. It vividly illustrates the
point:

The carpenter's tools had a con-
ference. Brother Hammer was in
the chair. The meeting had in- j
formed him that he must leave, be-
cause he was too noisy. But he said,
"If I am to leave this carpenter's
shop, Brother Gimlet must go too,
he is so insignificant that he makes
very little impression."

Little Brother Gimlet arose and
said, "All right, but Brother Screw

PAGE 8 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE 21, 1972

Bust go also; you have to turn him
iround and around again and again
to get him anywhere."

Brother Screw then said, "If you
wish, I will go but Brother Plane
must leave also; all his work is on
the surface, there is no depth to it."

To this Brother Plane replied,
'Well, Brother Rule will have to
withdraw if I do, for he is always
measuring other folks as though he
were the only one who is right."

Brother Rule then complained
against Brother Sandpaper and said,
"I just don't care, he is rougher than
he ought to be and he is always rub-
bing people the wrong way."

In the midst of the discussion, the
Carpenter of Nazareth walked in. He
had come to perform his day's work.
He put on his apron and went to
the bench to make a pulpit. He
employed the screw, the gimlet, the
sandpaper, the saw, the hammer and
the plane and all the other tools.
After the day's work was over and
the pulpit was finished, Brother Saw
arose and said, "Brethren, I perceive
that all of us are laborers together
with God."

How many of us Christians are
jjust like those tools — fussing at oth-
ers because they don't do things just
the way we think they should. Every
accusation against each of those tools
was absolutely true. Yet the Carpen-
ter used every one of them and each
j time He used one, there was not an-
other which would have done at all.
i How careful we should be not to
! find fault with any of God's tools.

Our striving, however, has special
reasons. We should not be contend-
ing just for the sake of being con-

tentious, or striving just for the sake
of fighting. The purpose of our
striving is nothing more or less than
the preservation of the faith. Paul's
"striving together for the faith of
the Gospel" could also be rendered,
"for the sake of the faith which the
Gospel discloses."

Paul had already stated that he
was "set for the defense of the Gos-
pel" (Phil. 1:17). Many of us could
easily find it sufficient that a man
of the stature of Paul, who was one
of the great apostles, be entrusted
with such a high and noble calling,
that of the defense of the faith. On
that basis, they could easily disen-
gage themselves from the arena
where they should be doing battle
for Christ and His Gospel.

Not Mine But Ours

Perhaps with this in mind, Paul
added that besides his being "set for
the defense of the Gospel" his read-
ers themselves should also be contin-
ually "striving together for the faith
of the Gospel." This was imperative
because many distortions of the faith
made themselves known and felt in
the world of that day.

Christians were to be on guard
and always at war with the forces of
darkness. In the same vein, the in-
spired Jude in his brief epistle ex-
horted his readers, partakers of a
common salvation, to "contend
earnestly for the faith which was
once delivered unto the saints"
(v. 3).

Faith here is not an individual
possession, that initial divine gift
which every Christian receives in or-

der to embrace Christ and His great
salvation. In this context, faith is
the collective property of the
Church, it is that body of Christian
truth accepted, proclaimed and de-
fended by the Church of all ages.

In other words, it is the system of
Biblical doctrine found in Scripture.
This faith is not merely the product
of council decisions and formula-
tions, but primarily the Spirit-led af-
firmations by the Church of what
the Gospel really is and entails.
Here, again, it is not our individual
affirmations of this faith but our
communal sharing in it and procla-
mation of it that must be defended.

This faith is something that can
be comprehended only "together
with all the saints" in all its
"breadth, and length, and depth, and
height" (Eph. 3:18). The Church
is the depository of God's truth; in
the "communion of saints" which we
easily confess and easily also forget,
we are nurtured in the faith and
grow in it.

For the days in which we live
there must be continual study of
God's Word that we may recapture
its meaning and rediscover forgotten
truths as Luther did in his time, in
order to be better able to fulfill the
mandate this verse enjoins us to do.

We are to be striving together not
for the reputation or denomination-
al image of the Church, not for the
wealth of the Church, not for the so-
cial status of the Church, not
for the organizational structure of
the Church. We are expected to
strive for the faith of the Gospel of
the Church which is the source of
its life and producer of its fruit. E!

How big issues can develop out of little things —

The Louisville Story

I n its most recent meeting, Louis-
ville Presbytery formally heard,
with some shock, that one of its min-
isters has been registered in the of-
fice of the Kentucky secretary of
state as an official elector of the
Communist Party.

The minister declared on the floor
of presbytery that he was not him-

self a member of the party, he simply
believed the party had a right to be
on the ballot in Kentucky, along
with the Liberal Party, the People's
Party, and others.

He then proceeded to support an
overture sent to the presbytery by
the session of the congregation he
serves, calling for a civilian police

THE EDITOR

review board — an objective devout-
ly sought by the acknowledged lead-
ers of the Communist Party in the
Louisville area.

The presbytery approved the call
for a civilian police review board.
Then it appointed a committee to
look into the minister's relationship
to the Communist Party.

PAGE 9 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE 21, 1972

This incident represents the tip
of an iceberg which has been largely
invisible in the Louisville area, and
unknown to many of the Presbyte-
rians who now feel themselves some-
what caught up in what has been
happening in Louisville Presbytery
and, particularly, in Louisville Semi-
nary.

The iceberg is still invisible, but
the public record of Louisville Pres-
byterian leaders, both in and out of
Louisville Seminary, is one that has
provided lurid newspaper copy for
years. No Presbyterian we know of
has been sent to prison as a criminal;
none has been arrested for treason
or sedition. But the political activi-
ties of Presbyterians in that "Berke-
ley of the South" have been of the
most radical sort and should be de-
tailed if it is to be understood how
a minister in good standing could
become an official elector of the
Communist Party.

For a number of years we have
watched the growth of radicalism in
Louisville without commenting on
the particulars. For one thing, we
have always wanted to major on is-
sues, not personalities. For another
thing, the news coming across our
desk has been incomplete, develop-
ments have been inconclusive — no-
body has ever been able to supply
enough information to prove any-
thing.

The Iceberg's Tip

Recent events, however, make it
difficult if not impossible to dismiss
the invisible mass of the iceberg as
though it did not exist, simply be-
cause the only thing in sight is the
tip. A catalog of events over the
past ten years or so — as taken from
newspaper stories and minutes of
Church courts — turns out to be
quite revealing.

To catalog these events it will be
necessary to name names. We be-
lieve in this case the Church can see
how the spiritual pendulum can
swing from evangelical to radical on-
ly if it is made aware of the details
of a case history. Louisville — pres-
bytery and seminary — provides such
a case history.

The capstone event, constituting
that tip of the iceberg mentioned
before, was the action of Louisville
Presbytery in relation to the Rev.
Terrence Davis, pastor of the Grace
Hope Presbyterian Church. Mr. Da-
vis did not just suddenly decide to
become a controversial figure in

Kentucky politics. As a student at
Louisville Seminary he was arrested
twice within a single month for his
part in public demonstrations then
common. And in 1969, as a pastor,
he spent several days in jail under in-
dictment by a grand jury in connec-
tion with an anti-war coffeehouse op-
erating near Ft. Knox.

Nor was Mr. Davis' interest in a
civilian review board a recent thing.
The issue of police control on ac-
count of alleged brutality had been
a hot one for months. Strong sup-
porters of such a board have been
such organizations as, the Black
Panther party, the Southern Confer-
ence Education Fund, the faculty of
Louisville Presbyterian Seminary,
and other groups from mostly far left
of center.

It is a fact of record that one sug-
gestion implemented during the pub-
lic debate over a police review board
seems to have originated with a
group of Louisville Seminary stu-
dents, two of whom were mentioned
prominently in the papers: Houston
Wheeler and Dan Preston. The sug-
gestion: a telephone "hot line" to
provide 24-hour telephone answering
service for anyone wishing to report
police "brutality."

It also is a fact of record that the
hot line functions out of the offices
of the Southern Conference Educa-
tion Fund.

At this point the plot begins to
thicken.

The Southern Conference Educa-
tion Fund is the successor to the
Southern Conference for Human
Welfare which operated out of New
Orleans until publicity "encouraged"
its removal elsewhere. Under the
leadership of Carl Braden, whose se-
dition trial in 1953 produced writ-
ten evidence of his estimate of a
Communist takeover of the United
States, the SCEF has been the parent
"front" for scores of other groups of
political agitators.

For instance, the SCEF has been
identified as the organization that
financed the Fair Play for Cuba
Committee, the subversive front
with which Lee Harvey Oswald was
connected. Driven from New Or-
leans by raids and harassment of lo-
cal and state officials and constant
exposure by anti-Communist papers,
SCEF moved its headquarters in 1966
to Louisville.

Carl Braden, whose official title
was that of field secretary for SCEF,
refused to answer questions about

his Communist connections and
served 10 months in a federal peni- Ik
tentiary for contempt of Congress.
He also was sentenced to 15 years
and fined $5,000 for dynamiting a «
house he bought. (It was charged
that the dynamiting was a Commu- ..
nist plot to incite racial disorders in ii
Louisville.)

How did the Presbyterians get
mixed up in all this?

It all seems to have begun taking
shape under a professor at Louis- k
ville Presbyterian Seminary, the
Rev. George R. Edwards, who
joined the faculty about fifteen
years ago. Dr. Edwards had been
known as an aggressive pacifist from
World War II days. In Louisville,
he began taking aggressive interest,
first in the military draft and then
in the Vietnam war.

Dr. Edwards made early headlines
when he was escorted from the cam-
pus of the University of Louisville:
in 1962, after his distribution of
pacifist tracts was said to have caused
the danger of a riot.

By 1965, Dr. Edwards was organiz-
ing regular demonstrations in front
of the Federal Building in Louis-
ville, in which other Presbyterian
seminary professors and students par-
ticipated. (A 1966 issue of the Jour-
nal carried a photo of Dr. Edwards
parading with an anti-war placard.)

Other Causes

The parading became more diver-
sified and in 1967 Dr. Edwards was
arrested for his part in a parade dur-
ing a dispute over public housing.
He was again arrested in 1968 for
taking part in a protest against the
indictment of Dr. Benjamin Spock.

Also in 1968, Dr. Edwards found
himself at the center of a contro-
versy over a student underground
newspaper. A high school political
organization calling itself FAIR de-
cided to publish a paper and Dr. Ed-
wards allowed the youths to use his
basement for the purpos.e, later ad-
mitting that he also financed the pa- 1
per. Police took a somewhat less;
sympathetic attitude toward FAIR]
after it became necessary to arrest a
couple of the organization's members
on drug charges. The overall result
of the episode was an even firmer
conviction on the part of the cit-
izenry that Presbyterians were devot-
ed to subversion.

Possibly as a result of Dr. Edwards'
leadership, Louisville seminary early
became deeply involved in the con-

PAGE 10 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE 21, 1972

troversial issues before the public.
Additional professors participated
in street marches and demonstra-
tions. Newspaper accounts men-
tioned Prof. Sam Keen as among
those picketing the Federal Build-
ing in 1965 and Prof. Harold Ware-
hime as marching in support of open
housing in 1967.

Prof. Warehime was arrested in
the company of Mrs. Anne Braden in
1967. He has most recently joined
Terrence Davis in public agitation
for a police review board.

Carl Braden had already appeared
on the campus of Louisville Semi-
1 nary, speaking under the auspices of
ijthe Louisville Peace Council in 1963.
I Evidently he felt that the city gave
1 promise of being hospitable to the
I Southern Conference Education
I Fund, for he moved the headquar-
I ters there three years later. (It is al-
I so noteworthy that Kentucky has
I few, if any, statutes on the books to
cope with subversives and Commu-
nist activities.)

By 1967, Prof. Edwards was being
listed as a member of the SCEF
board of directors. Also listed as
members of the board, incidentally,
were Prof. Jack B. McMichael of
Presbyterian Centre College in Dan-
ville, identified by black former
1 Communist Manning Johnson as a
member of the Communist Party;
and Prof. Margaret Rigg of Florida
I; Presbyterian College, St. Petersburg,
I Fla.

Meanwhile, where there was pro-

I* fessorial involvement, student in-
volvement was sure to follow.
Students at Louisville Seminary
came to be known throughout the
, area as organizers and promoters of
| demonstrations on behalf of a wide
f variety of causes, most of them radi-
i cal.

'The Lamb Was Sure To Go'

In 1964, with the support of Prof.
George Edwards, Prof. Sam Keen
and Prof. Kenneth Phifer, the Louis-
ville Presbytery took under its care
a college student named Jim Wil-
liams. Mr. Williams had just been
listed in Esquire magazine as one of
the half dozen leading young radi-
cals in the United States. The list of
his involvements in left-wing causes,
publications and movements would
fill a page. After a year or two on
, the presbytery's rolls (a relationship
which intensified bitterness among
j local Presbyterians) , he voluntarily
\ asked that his name be dropped from

the list of candidates and has since
dropped from sight.

From time to time local resistance
against the behavior of Presbyterian
leaders has surfaced, but without
much effect. In 1967, when the semi-
nary students indicated their admira-
tion for George Edwards by select-
ing him as baccalaureate preacher, a
group of elders became so incensed
that they organized a protest of their
own. Led by a highly respected pro-
fessional man, these laymen arose in
the midst of the service in the semi-
nary chapel, read aloud their pro-
test, then solemnly filed out. They
were heartily condemned by the pres-
ident, Dr. Albert C. Winn, for hav-
ing interrupted a "Communion serv-
ice." (Communion was served later
in the program.)

It was also during that spring that
Terrence Davis seems to have dis-
covered his motivation in life. In
April he managed to get himself ar-
rested twice.

Since the high-water mark of pub-
lic protests, 1967, things have con-
tinued in the Louisville area, but on
a somewhat more subdued note.

A 1968 public debate between
Mrs. Anne Braden and a Dr. Howe,
held in the seminary chapel, pro-
duced so many discourtesies on the
part of students (against Dr. Howe)
that letters of protest were mailed
to the president and once again the
seminary became the subject of ses-
sional resolutions.

By 1969, an organization calling
itself Seminary Students Concerned,
had been formed to oppose the war
in general and the draft in particu-
lar. George Edwards went to Can-
ada shortly thereafter, to "study" the
plight of American draft dodgers and
deserters there, and return full of ex-
pressions of sympathy which he re-
ported to a seminary convocation
upon his return.

The 1970 graduating class wore
white armbands over their black
robes at Commencement, to protest
American "militarism." They distrib-
uted copies of their "concerns" dur-
ing the graduating exercises.

Public "worship" services were
sponsored by Seminary Students
Concerned. At one of these, Prof.
Daniel B. Wessler presided and an
undisclosed number of students
turned in their draft cards.

By 1971, Dr. Wessler was leading
bus caravans coordinated by semi-
nary students to participate in Wash-
ington marches against the war.

Most recently, the seminary has

made headlines with continuing
anti-war appearances at the Federal
Building, but especially with a pub-
lic ruckus over the establishment of
a church for homosexuals in the
Louisville area. The "Rev." Troy
Perry, founder of the Universal Fel-
lowship of Metropolitan Churches,
announced from California that at
the request of one or more seminary
students a homosexual congregation
would be started in Louisville.

Dropped?

This is another project that has
since dropped from sight, but not
before a seminary student had heat-
edly protested in the newspapers
against "the trend of recent (critical)
letters to the editor I have read re-
garding the Metropolitan Com-
munity Church and (its) ministry
to homosexuals."

Today, Louisville Seminary seems
to be one of the few institutions of
the Church as yet untouched by the
influence of revival movements that
have sprung up on other campuses.

Even Louisville Baptist Seminary
has its share of "Jesus freaks." But
"we would be on the fringe of the
Jesus Movement," said Presbyterian
seminary vice president, the Rev. An-
drew Newcomer, to explain why evi-
dences of the new "fundamentalism"
have not appeared at Presbyterian.

"Jesus people don't demand ra-
tional reasons for what they believe
and we do," he continued. "The
people we get will probably be Pres-
byterians who have been influenced
by the Jesus Movement, not the real
fundamentalist Jesus people."

Meanwhile, the Church awaits the
new confession of faith in prepara-
tion by a committee under the chair-
manship of the president of Louis-
ville seminary. And the First Pres-
byterian Church of Louisville, in
particular, the mother church of
many congregations of the area,
awaits its fate at the hands of an ad-
ministrative commission appointed
by the presbytery when the church
rejected the efforts of the presbyte-
ry's ministerial relations committee
to administer discipline for having
"violated the Book of Church Or-
der."

The "violation" consisted of invit-
ing a minister to preach on a supply
basis in the absence of a pastor,
without clearing the man with the
commission, whose chairman and

(Continued on p. 20, col. 3)

PAGE 11 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE 21, 1972

EDITORIALS

Now He Doesn't Have To Pray

Writing in Monday Morning, a
magazine for United Presbyterian
ministers, the pastor of First Presby-
terian Church, Plattsburg, N. Y. con-
fesses his difficulty with the pastoral
prayer in the worship service. He
says, among other things:

"I feel that this (the pastoral
prayer) is not one of the more cre-
ative moments in the Sunday morn-
ing worship service. First of all, I
am afraid that congregations do
more wool gathering than they do
praying as the pastor with familiar
voice and phraseology ambles and
rambles through a five minute
prayer, which too often sounds like
a sermonette ....

"Secondly, knowing how long it
has taken me to compose pastoral
prayers, I wonder if other pastors
spend as much time on them as I
do. And it causes me to reflect that
maybe pastors could be spending
those hours more fruitfully in study,
in pastoral calling or, of all things,
taking more time with the family."

The Rev. William W. Kenney is
not so sure he has the time to both
preach and pray: "Can a minister
produce a weekly prayer as well as
a weekly sermon and do a creative
job with both? And are there not
more important things we can do
with our time?" he asks.

Mr. Kenney has solved his prob-
lem by turning the pastoral prayer
over to the laymen of his congrega-
tion who, he reports, "have respond-
ed to this opportunity with imagina-
tion and dedication, because . . .
the creation of the morning prayer
means that a lay person has to think
through his or her faith, has to do
some serious consideration of other
people's needs, and has to locate
where God is now in life — in the
community of faith and in the
world."

Mr. Kenney does not say how
much time he spends in prayer him-
self — to articulate to himself what-
ever current action may constitute
for him where "God" may be lo-
cated. Nor does he suggest that he
has time in those pastoral visits to
make a sufficiently accurate determi-
nation of where "God" is in each sit-

uation to be able to address appro-
priate words to the people he would
be "praying" for.

But he does say he spent hours
in the composition of his pastoral
prayers before he found a way to dis-
pense with the chore. Under the cir-
cumstances they could hardly have
been "ambles and rambles." We
hope the hours released for study
and for time with his family enable
him to be more "creative" with his
sermons.

In any case, the new arrangement
could be beneficial. If there are
Christians among those laymen who
lead in prayer, the people may be
drawn closer to God than ever they
were through the admittedly wasted
rhetoric of their pastor. IB

Pray God For
A New Reformation

Editorial comments on the state
of public morals are neither new nor
scarce. In fact, one is tempted to
feel that the subject of public mo-
rality is being run into the ground,
with so many people wringing their
hands over it. But it surely should
be said again and again that public
morals are at a low ebb, not only
because it describes the age in which
we live but also because the Church
has had no small part to play in the
decay of morality.

An editorial in a Vatican newspa-
per goes so far as to say it is obvious
that "we are now living in a new
Middle Ages, and however closely
we may look and search, we still can-
not see the components of the new
age which is developing.

"The other Middle Ages were
marked by spiritual and cultural val-
ues which did not reject whatever
positive or useful elements came
from the past .... Today one sees
nothing but oblivion and rejection.

"The relatively naive protest of
past years has become radical, cruel,
lucidly merciless," the writer con-
tinued. It is characterized by a
mania to destroy everything of value,
he said.

The situation described is one that

every thinking person recognizes
What most do not so clearly recog-
nize is the part that the Church haf
had to play in the development oi
moral chaos. Rather than standing
as a bastion for truth and righteous
ness, too often the institutional
Church has been at the forefront ol
the attack upon civilized institutions

It was in Church that the new
morality was born and it was from
the lips of professed Christian min
isters — many of them Presbyterian
— that society first heard it might
be possible to improve on the Ten
Commandments.

It was Church assemblies, includ-
ing three consecutive General As-
semblies of the Presbyterian Church
US, which took the lead in condon-
ing civil disobedience, in calling for
a reduction of criminal penalties, in
supporting revolutionaries, in pro-
moting disrespect for law.

Yes, men of the cloth and the
Churches they represent have pro-
moted the decline of civilization
more than any other "responsible":
segment of society.

If there is to be a recovery, it must
be through revival and reformation,
again centering in the Churches.
This is the chief reason why a con-
tinuing Presbyterian Church faith-,
ful to Scripture and the Reformed
faith is so desperately needed.

Those who oppose such a hope are
part of the problem, not the solu-
tion, in our time. EE

Revelation Is More
Than Event

The latest theory of revelation
says that God reveals Himself in
mighty acts, not in words or intellec-
tual propositions. According to this
theory we should not look to hear
what God may have said but to see
what He has done. This theory rests
on the shaky assumption that man
can deduce from events what he
needs to know about God.

The Bible is full of events: the
flood; the tower of Babel; the famine
in Egypt; the fall of Jericho; the
death of Ahab in battle; the con-
quest of Israel by Assyria; the con- (
quest of Assyria by Babylon; the
conquest of Babylon by Persia; the
slaughter of the innocents by Herod;
the death of John the Baptist at
the request of a dancing girl; the
death by crucifixion of a good Man i
who went as a lamb to the slaughter;
the raising of Lazarus; the raising

PAGE 12 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE 21, 1972

THE LAYMAN AND HIS CHURCH

But Hasn't Science Proved . . . ?

a 'if that good Man; the stoning of
fj'tephen; the death of the brother
a »f James by the sword. All of these
of i,re events. We wonder what sort of
t religion a person would construct
Hit of the pure events without a
livine word of explanation?
And secular history is full of
is ;vents: Alexander the Great con-
juering the world; Caesar conquer-
ng Egypt; the fall of Rome; Ghengis
(Chan sweeping the East; the Mos-
>ems romping over the near East,
Northern Africa and Southern Spain;
n Balboa discovering the Pacific; the
French Revolution; Napoleon's de-
i- Eeat at Waterloo; Appomattox;
s- Versailles; Pearl Harbor. All of these
fere events. We wonder what sort of
Ha religion a person would construct
nbut of the pure events without a
"divine word of explanation?
H The fact of the matter is that re-
velation often preceded, followed or
c accompanied Biblical events: Moses
Hied the people out of Egypt after he
■bad talked with God. The Lord
Jesus died on the cross after telling
His disciples: "And as Moses lifted
t up the serpent in the wilderness,
, even so must the Son of man be
lifted up: that whosoever believeth
• in Him should not perish but have
■jeverlasting life." What is that but
1 an intellectual proposition?

Which is to say, without embar-
rassment and with utter candor: Re-
velation is first and foremost intel-
l|lectual propositions, logically, if not
j chronologically. And it is upon intel-
lectual propositions that faith rests.

God's "power and Godhead" are
<seen in nature, as the psalmist said,
i But it was not until God spoke that
i the universe became benevolent and
not malevolent to men. It was not
until God communicated with man's
understanding — his intellect, if you
please — -that history began to take
on meaning.

Revelation is God's covenant with
! Abraham; Jacob at Bethel; Moses at
the bush; Samuel in the dark night;
Solomon's dream before his corona-
tion; Daniel's vision; the handwrit-
ing on the Babylonian wall; the
law at Sinai; the Word of
the Lord to Amos; Jonah's com-
| mission to go to Nineveh; the
: beatitudes; John 14; Romans 8;
Hebrews 2; Revelation 20. These
were revelations, not events.

This means that the Christian to-
day must not simply come to terms
with events, or even with a Person
alone. It means that he must come
to terms with a Book. El

Some six years ago I found myself
in a large liberal denomination
where it was commonplace to hear
statements such as, — "but science
has proved that the Bible is
wrong . . ." and "we really can't de-
pend on the Bible to be trustworthy
in matters related to science ..." and
"today science knows so much more
about our beginnings that we can no
longer accept the Genesis record of
creation as a fact."

I had been taught, and I believed,
that the Scriptures were the Word of
God and that as such, they contained
no errors. I began to ask myself a
series of questions such as, "Has the
Gospel message changed in the past
years and if it has just what can I
now believe?," and "If the Scriptures
are in error concerning scientific
facts then could they also be in error
concerning the crossing of the Red
Sea on dry land or concerning the
birth of Christ, His death and resur-
rection, His coming again?"

The answer to these and other
questions seemed to be in research,
and since I made my living in the
field of (atomic) science why
shouldn't I investigate this area for
myself?

My first stop for study was the
church library where I could find on-
ly references to the inaccuracy of the
Bible in the scientific area. I read
that science had proven the theory
of evolution was now a fact; that
anyone who assigned a relatively
young age to the earth was a reli-
gious fanatic and couldn't possess
much knowledge of science.

My next try was to consult current
biology text books, with results that
were much the same.

Then, while talking with a Chris-
tian colleague one day I brought up
the subject and his answer was, "You
have been reading only one side of
the issue — this book will be of help
to you." In that book additional
references were found so that I now

This week the layman's viewpoint
is brought by Richard T. Bell, Pres-
byterian elder and physicist working
at Oak Ridge, Tenn.

have dozens of books on the subject
of the Bible and science. Let me
tell you a bit of what I can now re-
affirm.

The Scriptures are not primarily
a book of science but a book of sal-
vation, but while the scientific truths
it teaches are not written in modern
terminology, all of its assertions are
scientifically and historically true in
all original autographs. In fact, the
Bible contains scientific truths that
are not as yet understood by the sci-
entific community.

To give one example of a Biblical
scientific truth: One might ask a
physicist today a question such as,
"What is it that supports the earth
in its orbit around the sun?" He
might answer by saying gravitational
attraction and that science knows to-
day that the earth isn't really sup-
ported by anything. However, if you
know the Scriptures you could point
to the book of Job written some 3,-
000 years ago where the writer af-
firms: "He . . . hangeth the world
upon nothing" (Job 26:7) . Think
about that statement for a moment
— a scientific statement in layman's
language that is absolutely true!

If space permitted, many other ex-
amples of scientific truths in the Bi-
ble could be given but there is no
need to try to "prove" the Bible cor-
rect — by faith we accept it as the
Word of God. Science has not
proved that man evolved from low-
er forms of animal life or that the
earth is 4.5 billion years old. Science
has not proved that the Genesis ac-
count of special creation by God is
in error. Science has not proved
that there is a single scientific error
in the Scriptures.

Now ask yourself if you are able
to uphold the Bible with responsible
answers when your children come
home from school believing that
man has descended from animal or
science has proved that life arose
from the sea. Can you defend from
a scientific point of view the Bible
teaching that first life (plant life)
was created on land?

(Continued on p. 20, col. 3)

PAGE 13 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE 21, 1972

SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON

For July 9, 1972

Finding God's Guidance

INTRODUCTION: Early in the
ninth century B.C., the kingdom of
Israel, the northern kingdom, had
deteriorated spiritually to a state of
near apostasy. Ahab was the king
and Jezebel was his queen. In Sa-
maria, the capital, Jezebel had
brought in Baal worship, Baal
priests and prophets to such an ex-
tent that the true worshipers of the
Lord were all but silenced.

The great masses of the people
were seemingly indifferent, wavering
from Baal worship, (the popular
religion of the day) , to worship of
the Lord (the traditional worship of
God's people) . In those days there
appeared unannounced and sudden-
ly one of Israel's greatest prophets.

L ELIJAH'S CREDENTIALS (I
Kings 17:1-18:15). Elijah suddenly
came to the court of Ahab one day
and announced, "As the Lord lives,
before whom I stand, there shall not
be dew nor rain these years but ac-
cording to my word" (v. 1) . Then
he disappeared from Ahab's sight as
suddenly as he had appeared.

In hiding, God supplied Elijah's
needs by the miraculous feeding of
the ravens as the brooks began to
dry up. As Elijah had foretold, no
rain came (vv. 4-7) . Later he went
to live in Sidon on the coast, out-
side of Israel proper. Other miracles
were performed there as he lived
with a poor widow and her child.
God caused the food supply of the
widow never to lack and when her
child died, the Lord through Elijah
raised him to life again (17:8-24) .

This was indeed an age of mir-
acles. There was no rain by Eli-
jah's word; food was supplied by his
promise miraculously; and the dead
was raised to life again.

In Scripture we find three such
clusters of miracles as we have here.
First, in the time of the Exodus and
the ministry of Moses, we have a
cluster of miracles. Then God gave
a written revelation through the
hand of Moses.

Next, in the time of Elijah and
Elisha, his associate, there was an-

Rev. Jack B. Scott

Background Scripture: I Kings 19:

9-18; John 16:7-15
Key Verses: I Kings 19:9-18
Devotional Reading: John 16:7-15
Memory Selection: Psalm 25:4-5

other cluster of miracles. This was
also followed by further significant
written revelation by the successors
of Elijah and Elisha, namely the
writing prophets of the Old Testa-
ment.

Finally, in the time of Christ and
His disciples, we have the third and
greatest cluster of miracles which
was immediately followed by the
writing of the New Testament.
Clearly then, the ages of the mir-
acles were a prelude to written rev-
elation which God would give to the
Church.

It is impossible to separate the
clusters of Biblical miracles from
revelation. They were the creden-
tials of those through whom God
spoke to His people.

When Elijah suddenly appeared
and God did many mighty works
through him, we should understand
that the Lord was about to bring
new revelation to His people. It
had not rained for years. Ahab was
desperate. He sent his servants ev-
erywhere looking for Elijah but no
one could find him. Then God told
Elijah to go to Ahab. Ahab and
the people of Israel were then ready
to listen (18:1-16) .

II. THE CONTEST AT CAR-
MEL AND ITS RESULTS (I Kings
18:17-19:8) . Ahab called Elijah the
troubler in Israel (v. 17) . Elijah's
response is equally interesting. "I
have not troubled Israel; but thou,
and thy father's house, in that ye
have forsaken the commandments of
the Lord, and thou hast followed
the Baalim" (v. 18) .

All through history, those who
have departed from God's Word
and have gained control of the
Church have accused those who

The International Sunday School Lesson Out-
lines are copyrighted by The International

Council of Religious Education.

1

%

hold faithful to God's Word of be-, H
ing troublers in the Church. So it
was in Jesus' day. The Pharisees,
who left God's Word and substituted
their own teachings accused Jesus of
being the troubler when He insisted
on faithfulness to God and not to
men. Just so were the apostles ac-
cused in the first century, and Paul
warned they would continue to ac-
cuse God's servants (II Tim. 3) .

Even today, those among the lib-
erals who have led the Church away
from sound faith and have led the
departure from God's Word accuse
the conservative, who holds fast to
the Word of God and its authority,
of being the troubler.

Elijah's answer to Ahab is the
proper answer which all conserva-
tives should give today to those who
accuse them of being the troublers
in the Church.

Elijah assembled the people of Is-
rael together at Carmel for a mighty
demonstration of God's power, to
convince them once and for all who
the true God is (v. 19) .

The problem was that the people
vacillated between the prophets of
Baal and the Lord. Elijah called it
"limping between two sides." Later
on, Jesus also warned that you can-
not serve two masters (Matt. 6:24) .
In the book of Revelation, Jesus de-
nounced the church of Laodicea, ac-
cusing them of being neither hot nor
cold and so not fit for God at all
(Rev. 3:15-16) .

Elijah proposed that he and the
Baal worshipers each lay an altar
prepared for fire, but then instead
of lighting the fire, they would call
on their gods to bring fire from
heaven to consume the offering. The
god who answered by fire would be
the true God. The people agreed
to this plan (vv. 23-24) .

The Baal prophets went first and
called all day on their gods to an-
swer by fire. Elijah watched them
for awhile and then began to mock
them; they had deceived God's peo-
ple and deserved all the ridicule that
could be heaped upon them. They
were destroying God's people spirit-

PAGE 14 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE 21, 1972

tally (vv. 27-28) . When they failed
o get any answer from their god af-
er a whole day's effort, this indi-
:ated to the people that Baal was
10 god.

Then Elijah, at the end of the
lay, drew the people close to him.
He rebuilt the Lord's altar and took
:welve stones, reminding them of
od's covenant with Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob. After pouring wa-
iter over all, soaking the wood and
the offering, he prayed to the God
8 of the patriarchs to answer by fire.
a By this he was pointing the people
°; back to the covenant God of Israel
^ and to that faith that had at one
time been expressed by God's peo-
ple (v. 37) .

God did answer by fire which con-
sumed all the altar and everything
on it (v. 38) . The people were so
amazed that with one voice they de-
'fclared, "The Lord He is God" (v.
16 39) . It seemed that day that Eli-
jah had won a great victory for the
Lord.

But the victory was short-lived.
Soon after this Jezebel threatened to
destroy Elijah and she apparently
made life so terrifying for him that
Elijah had to flee from the land for
his own life. Where were all the
people who had so recently cried,
' "The Lord He is God"? The "con-
' version" of these people was ap-
' parently only temporary. No one
'] had really been changed, only out-
; wardly, only momentarily.

Elijah fled to Horeb (Sinai)
f where God gave him new insight in-
I to His working in the hearts of His
I people.

III. THE NEW REVELATION
OF GODS POWER AT SINAI (I
Kings 19:9-12) . It was appropriate
that Elijah should go back to Sinai
to receive new insight from God.
Here God had first spoken by thun-
I der and lightning years before
when Israel stood at the foot of Si-
nai in Moses' day.

This day God caused Elijah to see
many mighty demonstrations of pow-
er: winds, earthquakes, fire, but God
was not to be found in any of these.
Then after all of this had passed by,
he heard a still small voice from
God (v. 12).

Here was the meaning of the les-
son. The people had seen many
mighty miracles and demonstrations
of power, but none had really
changed them. It only made them
conform outwardly, and thus it al-
ways is with miracles and mighty

signs. They are for those weak in
faith and they seem to affect people,
but they do not really change them.
All of Jesus' miracles did not really
change anyone. The Jews saw them
all and still they crucified Jesus.

What was needed was the quiet
inward working of God in the hearts
of His people. This alone could
change their lives. To show this was
the message of the prophets, Isaiah,
Jeremiah and Ezekiel showed that
what was needed was the changing
power of God's Word in the hearts
of the people.

God's Word would not fail to ac-
complish His purposes (Isa. 40:6-
8, 55:11) . The hearts of the people
were corrupt, so God would give to
them new hearts (Jer. 31:31) . God
would put His Spirit in them to be
their guide and change their evil
hearts to hearts of obedience (Ezek.
36:26-27) . As Zechariah said: "Not
by might, nor by power, but by my
Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts"
(Zech. 4:6) .

So the prophet cry was, "Thus saith
the Lord." Later, Jesus declared that
one must be born again by the Spirit
of God to come into God's kingdom.
Not by demonstrations of power but
by God's Word. Only by this would
the people be changed. This was
real power, power to change lives.

When Jesus was about to ascend
to heaven, He promised to send the
Holy Spirit and He declared that the
people would receive power after the
Holy Spirit came; then they would
be Christ's witnesses (Acts 1:8). The
whole book of Acts and the follow-
ing epistles to the churches by Paul,
Peter, James, John and others show
the truth of this power.

IV. THE NEW TESTAMENT
AND GOD'S HOLY SPIRIT (John
16:7-15) . Jesus told His disciples
that the Holy Spirit would be their
teacher and guide when He had as-
cended into heaven. He would work

in the hearts of men and convict
them as the servants of Christ wit-
nessed to them God's Word.
Furthermore, the Holy Spirit would
be the constant guide of God's chil-
dren, leading them to all truth (vv.
12-14) .

The Word of God written and the
Holy Spirit are God's gifts to the
Church to lead His people, who look
to that Word and depend on the
teaching of the Holy Spirit. The
Holy Spirit guides only those who
look to the Word of Christ (the Old
Testament and the New Testament) .
He not only guides, He applies the
Word to our lives and changes our
lives by the Word.

We do not need special revelations
for this day. The Church only needs
God's Word written and a depend-
ence on the Holy Spirit to help us
understand it (see the Confession of
Faith, chapter I) . This is the only
infallible guide we have. Beware of
those who would claim new revela-
tions or new teachings which are in-
dependent of God's Word.

One of the highest tributes to the
authority of the written Word is
given by Peter (II Pet. 1:16-21) , who
said that he had seen with his own
eyes Jesus' transfiguration on the
mountaintop and heard with his own
ears a voice from heaven. Yet he
called the written word of prophecy
even more sure a guide and authority
than this personal experience which
he had had (v. 19) .

We do not need any new revela-
tion today, only a return to what
God has already given and a desire
to know the will of God re-
vealed there. For this we have re-
ceived the Holy Spirit to teach us.
Let us, therefore, come to God's
Word and ask the Holy Spirit to
help us understand. He will not fail
us if we come in faith to be guided
by His infallible Word, led by His
Holy Spirit to understand all that
He has taught us. IS

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PAGE 15 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE 21, 1972

YOUTH PROGRAM

For July 9, 1972

God's Day for Man

Scripture: Selected
Suggested Hymns:

"O Day of Rest and Gladness"
"Safely through Another
Week"

"Softly Fades the Twilight
Ray"

PROGRAM LEADER'S INTRO-
DUCTION: A 20 year old edition
of The Book of Church Order of the
Presbyterian Church has some very
definite things to say about the
way the Lord's Day should be kept:

"It is the duty of all persons to re-
member the Lord's Day, and to pre-
pare for it before its approach. All
worldly business should be so or-
dered, and seasonably laid aside, that
they may not be hindered thereby
from sanctifying the Sabbath, as the
Holy Scriptures require.

"The whole day is to be kept holy
to the Lord, and to be used for wor-
ship and rest. It is requisite, there-
fore, that the people abstain from
all unnecessary labor, and from rec-
reations which are not in keeping
with the sanctity of the day.

"Let the provisions for the sup-
port of the family on that day be so
ordered that servants or others be
not improperly detained from the
public worship of God, nor hindered
from sanctifying the Sabbath.

"Let every person and family, in
the morning, by secret and private
prayer, for themselves and others, es-
pecially for the assistance of God to
their minister, and for a blessing up-
on his ministry, by reading the
Scriptures, and by holy meditation,
prepare for communion with God
in His public ordinances."

In this program we shall discover
that these teachings of our Church
concerning the Sabbath have solid
foundations in the Bible.

FIRST SPEAKER: (Read Exodus
20:8-11 and Luke 6:1-11.) In these
passages of Scripture we learn that
the Lord's Day is ideally a day of
rest and worship. The word "sab-
bath" means "rest." The right keep-

Rev. B. Hoyt Evans

ing of the day glorifies God and
benefits mankind. Man needs to rest
periodically from his ordinary la-
bors, and he needs especially to be
renewed spiritually. The Sabbath
day provides this needed time for
rest and restoration.

During the days of Christ's life on
earth He differed with the Jewish
leaders about the keeping of the Sab-
bath day. This is not to say that He
disagreed with the teachings of the
Bible. He did not. The Jewish
leaders had made the Sabbath a bur-
den on the people rather than a
blessing to them, and Jesus insisted
that the Sabbath was given for
man's good to provide man with a
time for rest and restoration.

SECOND SPEAKER: (Read Nehe-
miah 13:15-22.) This passage from
Nehemiah, as well as the fourth com-
mandment and other Scripture pas-
sages, tells us that all unnecessary
work is to be avoided on the Sab-
bath. In fact, violators of the Sab-
bath were punished by death. This
indicates how seriously the com-
mandment was taken by both God
and the people.

The Bible makes it plain, howev-
er, that works of necessity and mercy
are not only permissible on the Sab-
bath but desirable. Jesus made this
especially clear in His teaching, but
we should be careful lest we stretch
"necessity and mercy" to include too
many works.

In our complex society a great
many people must work on Sunday
in order to keep the wheels of mod-
ern civilization turning. For instance,
people must work on Sunday in or-
der to provide the electricity we use
in our churches. This seems to be
a necessity.

It is not necessary, however, that
we engage in commercial amuse-
ments on Sunday, and thus require
people to work in order to provide
those amusements. In other words,
it is not only our duty to refrain from
work on the Lord's Day, but to do all
we can to make it possible for others
to rest from their work. >•

.H H

zi »

■'I iir

;
I
I

THIRD SPEAKER: (Read Isaial
58:13-14.) The Bible tells us tha
the Sabbath is a holy day, but man''
make it just a holiday, a day foi
purely secular pleasure. It is a da^
that should be set apart for the glon
of God. It is to be a day of rest anc
worship, not just another day foi;
boating, swimming and golfing.

One of man's greatest needs is foi
spiritual rest and re-creation. Man}
seem not to recognize the need, ancj
so they go on seeking their own sed
ular physical pleasure, even on the
Lord's Day. If we want to use thf
Sabbath for God's glory and our owe
greatest good, then we will postpone
secular recreations and amusements,
and dedicate the whole day to rest,
worship, and seeking the blessings
of God. j

FOURTH SPEAKER: (Read
Ezekiel 20:12-20.) The keeping of
the Sabbath day is a sign of our re-
lation to God and a way of witness.
When we keep the Sabbath as the
Bible directs we are bearing testi-
mony to our belief in the God of
creation. It was after He had cre-
ated the world that God rested and
commanded man to rest in ob-
servance of what He had done.

When we keep the Lord's Day,
which we now observe on the first
day of the week, we are bearing wit-
ness to our belief in the resurrection
of Christ, for it was on the first day
of the week that the Lord rose from
the dead. When we keep the Sab-
bath, we identify ourselves as the
people of God, who believe in Him,
worship Him, and serve Him. But
when we fail to keep the Sabbath as
God has indicated we should, we are,
in a sense, denying Him.

PROGRAM LEADER: (With the
help of suggestions from the young
people, make a list of activities in
which they normally engage on the
Lord's Day, and then discuss each
one in the light of the Scripture pas-
sages that have been read and stud-
ied in this program.)

Closing Prayer. ffl

PAGE 16 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE 21, 1972

BIBLICAL REVELATION, by Clark
I. Pinnock. Moody Press, Chicago, 111.
'56 pp. $4.95. Reviewed by the Rev.
iarold Borchert, pastor, Waynesville
'resbyterian Church, Waynesville,
I. C.

Since 1965 professor of systematic
heology at Trinity Evangelical Di-
'inity School, Deerfield, Illinois, Dr.
'innock was formerly with New Or-
eans Baptist Seminary, and earlier
ialjhe University of Manchester. His
present work came out of his con-
tm acts with F. F. Bruce and Francis
(o! khaeffer during some five years
la\ ipent in Britain.

)rv At a time when a presbytery of the
nc Presbyterian Church US which had
(ot listorically been called "conserva-
tive" can come to a tie vote (twice!)
Mon whether to reaffirm its faith in
m 'plenary, verbal inspiration," it is
ij *ood to see this book declare the Bi-
:c<'ble as the "infallible communication
^from God."

i Dr. Pinnock quotes R. K. Har-
ulrison's statement concerning neoor-
ie thodoxy, ". . . its interpretation of
3, revelation in terms of selective his-
t torical events, fallible records, and
15 encounter with God can only end in
subjectivism and in a mystical inter-
pretation of Scripture that fails to
i do justice to the Biblical view of it-
if 1 self as the words and acts of God
* revealed through a controlled re-
i. demptive history and recorded in
e written form to constitute an au-
thoritative basis for human thought
f concerning the divine."
■ He proceeds then to state his thesis
I in the form of thirteen theses
which, he writes, form "... a doc-
trinal model of inspiration which is
at once adequate (able to do justice
to the data) and judicious (cautious
not to overstep the bounds of evi-
dence) ." His studied analysis is pre-
sented in the following form:

"All Scripture is God-breathed,
and is God's written Word to man,
infallible and inerrant, as originally
given. Divine inspiration is plenary,
1 verbal, and confluent. As the very
Word of God, Scripture possesses the
properties of authority, sufficiency,
clarity, and efficacy. The central
purpose of Scripture is to present
Christ."

The elucidation of his analytical
statement forms one of the finest
and clearest definitions of the doc-
trine of inspiration to be found any-
where, and it gives the lie to the so-
called "witness and instrument"
theory.

This professor does not evade is-

BOOKS

sues or criticisms. He faces them
head-on, not sidestepping, as some
do, the use of words and phrases like
"plenary, verbal inspiration." He
speaks of the sadness theologically of
the "defection of a high view of in-
spiration." It is indeed sad when
respected leaders stand in Church
courts and equivocate on this issue
in order to pacify a liberal segment
of the Church. The author quotes
Joseph Parker: "Are we to await a
communication from Tubingen, or
a telegram from Oxford, before we
can read the Bible?"

If a choice must be made concern-
ing which book to buy, or which au-
thor to investigate, accept this recom-
mendation; buy and read this book.
Nothing could be more relevant to
the time in which we live and
serve! ffl

THE DEFENSE OF CHRISTIAN-
ITY & MY CREDO, by Cornelius van
Til. Presbyterian & Reformed Publ.
Co., Nutley, N. J. Paper, 93 pp. $1.00.
Reviewed by Robert M. Metcalf Jr.,
Memphis, Tenn.

What kind of Christian philos-
ophy and Christian apologetics will
we have in the continuing Presbyte-
rian Church? Of course we must
follow the true and that means fol-
lowing the Scriptural. And what are
the most purely Scriptural philos-
ophy and apologetics? They are the
Calvinistic (our way, in the first
place) and they are best set out in
our time by Cornelius van Til, dis-
tinguished professor of apologetics
at Westminster Theological Semi-
nary.

One could wish that for us aver-
age people "Christian apologetics"
had a better name, such as "Chris-
tian advocacy." We have long need-
ed a statement along this line in
short, clear, readily understandable
form for the thinking Presbyterian.
Now in a modestly priced but in-
valuable little book we have it —
joy-filled advocacy.

This defense of Christianity is in
the clear style for which Dr. van Til
is justly famous, and its power is
notable. Here is a sampling of what
he says we should do:

"That we use the same principle

in apologetics that we use in the-
ology: the self-attesting, self-explana-
tory Christ of Scripture. That we no
longer make an appeal to 'common
notions' which Christian and non-
Christian agree on, but to the 'com-
mon ground' which they actually
have because man and his world are
what Scripture says they are . . . .

"That we claim, therefore, that
Christianity alone is responsible for
men to hold. It is wholly irrational
to hold any other position than that
of Christianity. Christianity alone
does not slay reason on the altar of
'chance' ....

"That we preach with the under-
standing that the acceptance of the
Christ of Scripture by sinners who,
being alienated from God seek to
flee His face, comes about when the
Holy Spirit, in the presence of in-
escapably clear evidence, opens their
eyes so that they see things as they
truly are.

"That we present the message and
evidence for the Christian position
as clearly as possible, knowing that
because man is what the Christian
says he is, the non-Christian will be
able to understand in an intellectual
sense the issues involved. In so do-
ing we shall, to a large extent, be
telling him what he 'already knows'
but seeks to suppress. This 'remind-
ing' process provides a fertile ground
for the Holy Spirit, who in sovereign
grace may grant the non-Christian
repentance so that he may know Him
who is life eternal."

This book will make the non-Re-
formed evangelical very uncomfort-
able; it is sheer pleasure for us in
the true Reformed faith to read,
however. ffl

AT THE GATES of Montreal: Completely
furnished rustic cabins, cool, quiet, on a
trout stream. Reservations: PINE LODGE,
1118 Montreal Rd., Black Mountain, N. C.
Ph. (704) 669-8811.

HOUSE PARENTS, dedicated Christian
couples to work with dependent, neglect-
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Presbyterian Children's Village. Live-in
accommodations for on or off duty hours.
Husband may be employed elsewhere or
at the Village, or pursue graduate studies.
Minimum two year commitment desired.
Write: George H. Gibbs, ACSW, Executive
Director, Presbyterian Children's Village,
Rosemont, PA. 19010.

PAGE 17 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE 21, 1972

THE GREENING OF THE
CHURCH, by Findley B. Edge. Word
Books, Waco, Tex. 195 pp. $4.95. Re-
viewed by the Rev. Robert Weinman,
pastor, First Presbyterian Church, Co-
lumbiana, Ohio.

Among the seemingly endless
stream of books on Church renewal
which have flooded the market in
the past ten years, most have been
negative, critical and somewhat de-
pressing. The author of this one is,
however, filled with hope and opti-
mism for the Church.

Findley Edge, professor of religi-
ous education at Southern Baptist
Seminary in Louisville, shares the

conviction that though the Church
should never be free from the criti-
cal eye of those who love it, the need
now is for some positive word and
practical proposals for growth. Re-
jecting the "fundamentalist" view
of God, man and salvation as being
too narrow, Dr. Edge presents his
growth proposals from a middle of
the road theology, contending that
God is concerned with the human
social situation of His children.

The book develops three major
emphases. First is the author's con-
viction that the basic problem in the
Church is personal and spiritual. A
lack of a clear understanding of

what it means to be "people of God" ff
is hindering God's efforts to accom- |S
plish His purpose in the world to- l
day. The second is that the Churchi ipi
must recapture a balance between i
evangelism and social involvement. »\
Not to care for and minister to man ,,,
in his human needs, declares Edge, 3
is to treat him as an object — some-
thing less than a human being. The
third emphasis is that positive, cre-
ative proposals are vital if the
Church is to change from what it is
— to what it ought to be. The in-
fluence of both Gordon Cosby and
Keith Miller are clearly evident in;
the practical proposals Edge sug-
gests.

In conclusion the author admits
that a pastor considering the pro-
posals made in this book should not
think in terms of trying to get the
whole Church to change at once, but
rather he should begin on a limited
scale to open some doors and let the
"new" begin to emerge on a small
and limited scale. The book should
be read carefully to separate the]
wheat from some evident chaff. EE :

WOMEN IN CHURCH AND SO-
CIETY, by Georgia Harkness. Abing-
don Press, Nashville, Tenn. 237 pp.
$4.85. Reviewed by the Rev. John R.
Richardson, minister emeritus, West-
minster Presbyterian Church, Atlan-
ta, Ga.

Although many books are pouring
from the press on this subject,
the author justifies the publication
of this volume by her concern that
much of the women's liberation lit-
erature has a secular base. This
work is presented from two angles, '
historical and theological.

Miss Harkness professes that her
guidelines are built on theological
foundations. The fact is, however, f
much of her material is derived from
the Zeitgeist instead of Biblical rev- ,
elation.

The weakest part of this work is :
found in her discussion of the pros
and cons of the ordination of worn- I
en. St. Paul's utterances on the sub- J
ject are quickly dismissed without J
any effort to exegete his teachings. 1

Miss Harkness is a prolific writer,
and she has the capacity to write f
well. This book contains many fine jj
paragraphs, but it must not be ig- j
nored that she does not hesitate to I
promote views that cannot be Bibli-
cally defended. The zeal for her
cause at times outruns her zeal for
Biblical fidelity. El \

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Charles Wilson, Res. Mgr.

OKLAHOMA

Belk Dept. Store

Miami, Oklahoma

J. T. Holmes, Res. Mgr.

NORTH CAROLINA

Belk-Simpson Co.

Hendersonville, N. C.

R. E. McCormack, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store

Brevard, N. C.

J. M. Felty, Res. Mgr.

KENTUCKY

Belk-Simpson Co.
Harlan, Ky.

Delmar Tolliver, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Corbin, Ky.

W. C. Ashley, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Winchester, Ky.
T. L. Beckham, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Mt. Sterling, Ky.
Willoughby Smith, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Frankfort, Ky.

J. D. Prow, Res. Mgr.

GEORGIA

Belk-Simpson Co.

Bainbridge, Ga.

M. D. Ashley, Res. Mgr.

ARKANSAS

Belk-Simpson Co.

Paragould, Ark.

W. H. Wade, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Osceola, Ark.

K. R. Cline, Res. Mgr.

These stores are a small part of the entire Belk or-
ganization and have been in existence approximately
50 years. The Belk stores were launched in 1886-88.

SEE THE MANAGER NEAREST YOU FOR CHURCH CARPET, ROBES, ETC.

PAGE 18 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE 21, 1972

"I THE PREACHER'S HERITAGE,

* TASK, AND RESOURCES, by Ralph

* i. Turnbull. Baker Book House, Grand
^ lapids, Mich. 178 pp. $2.95. Reviewed
411 »y the Rev. Wallace Carr, associate
^ irofessor, Reformed Theological Semi-
^ lary, Jackson, Miss.

!!' Dr. Turnbull's purpose is to bring
'e' he life and work of today's pastor
^ nto clear focus. He traces the min-
,6 stry's noble tradition, climaxing
3.e /vith our own age's need for the Gos-
15 jel of Christ to be applied to every
urea of life. The author is a pastor's
pastor. He is editor of Dictionary
il of Practical Theology and, until re-
s' ently, pastor of the First Presbyte-
rian Church, Seattle, Washington.
I The book is divided into three sec-
1 tions: First, he summarizes the in-
1 teracting influence of the Puritan,
[evangelical and liberal strains upon
American society and its preachers.
[With objectivity and candor he sum-
i|marizes our present defection from
Jour heritage. Second, he briefly em-
phasizes the aims, difficulties and
^ opportunities of today's pastor.
Third, he points out "our special
need . . . for the pastor to be like
his Puritan mentor" as a man, in
his message and in standing once
again in his historically established
role "where the pulpit still leads the
world."

Dr. Turnbull has incorporated a
wealth of historical information
| which he has combined with a Bibli-
cally oriented insight, giving a solid
validity to his description of the role
' to today's pastor. He writes with the
! wisdom and personal touch of a man
who has walked the paths he
traces. SI

CHRISTIAN FAITH AND MOD-
ERN THEOLOGY, ed. by Carl F. H.
Henry. Baker Book House, Grand Rap-
ids, Mich. Paper, 426 pp. $3.95. Origi-
nally published in 1963, reprinted in
1971. Reviewed by Loraine Boettner,
Rock Port, Mo.

This book had its origin in part
as a result of a symposium in New
York City attended by some 20 out-
standing evangelicals, concerned
about what they believed to be a
spiritual slump and an era of doc-
trinal uncertainty in both the Unit-
! ed States and Europe. The sym-
posium was designed to be a rea-
soned defense and elucidation of tra-
ditional Christian perspectives in
the modern world, and therefore
throughout an aggressive presenta-
tion of the conservative position.

The result is a very readable and
quite comprehensive survey of pres-
ent day evangelical thought.

Some chapters which in my
opinion are of outstanding merit
are: "The Nature of Revelation,"
by John H. Gerstner, professor of
Church history in Pittsburgh Theo-
logical Seminary; "The Nature of
the Bible," by Robert D. Preus, pro-
fessor of systematic theology in
Concordia Theological Seminary;
"The Nature of Man," by Fred H.
Klooster, professor of systematic
theology in Calvin Theological
Seminary; "The Nature of Redemp-
tion," by Roger Nicole, professor of
theology in Gordon Theological
Seminary; "The Nature of the
Church," by William Childs Robin-
son, professor of historical theology
in Columbia Theological Seminary;
and "The Nature of Last Things,"
by Harold B. Kuhn, professor of
philosophy of religion in Asbury
Theological Seminary. There are 20
chapters in all. EE

FREE TO BE ME, by Bill G. West.
Word Books, Waco, Tex. 149 pp. $3.95.
Reviewed by Mrs. John H. Knight,
Opelika, Ala.

Through language and ideas, the
pastor of River Oaks Baptist Church,
Houston, Texas, makes a tremen-
dous appeal to the rising generation
of under 30's. Those who do not
find themselves in the age bracket
mentioned could still find help for
the ever increasing problems that
surround the individual of any age.

"Hang-up" is the key word of the
book. Many interesting situations
are mentioned, and the author sug-
gests that hangups come in differ-
ent shapes and sizes. "A hang-up is
a pattern of conduct that grabs us,
a fear that holds us back from a full-
er enjoyment of life, an inner com-
pulsion which drives us in directions
where we do not want to go."

The major portion of the book
deals with ways to cope with hang-
ups. Many people are trying to run
and hide from their problems, but
since we can never fully escape them
we need to seek the sources of
strength to handle them.

Through several chapters Dr. West
examines ways in which Jesus helped
individuals of many types handle
their hang-ups.

Our Lord cares about people's
problems. Do you need a friend
who really cares? The author would
recommend Jesus. EE

CORAL RIDGE Presbyterian Church
needs full time librarian committed to Re-
formed evangelical faith. BS in LS or
equivalent. Dewey class. Fringe bene-
fits. Contact George D. Johnston, 1901
N. E. 50th Street, Fort Lauderdale, Flor-
ida 33308.

CHRISTIAN TEACHERS
Grade & High School

Calvary Free Academy
South Holland, Illinois

is seeking teachers
committed to the
Reformed faith.

FOR INFORMATION WRITE TO:

Headmaster
Calvary Free Academy

P.O. Box 403
South Holland, Illinois
60473

SPECIAL
INTRODUCTORY OFFER

(FOR NEW SUBSCRIBERS ONLY)

10 Issues
A six-month subscription of

TLe
Standard. Bearer
only $2.00

This is a 24-page magazine of
Reformed comment on current ec-
clesiastical events and doctrinal issues,
as well as various expository and
practical articles; offers a distinctively
Reformed viewpoint and solid, Scrip-
turally founded instruction. Issued 21
times a year. Regular subscription
rate is $7.00 per year.

THE STANDARD BEARER
BOX 6064, GRAND RAPIDS, MICH. 49506

□ Please accept my Vz year subscrip-
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My payment is enclosed.

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free of charge containing a listing
of literature offered by the pub-
lishers of the Standard Beareb.

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Address

Zip

PAGE 19 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE 21, 1972

THE SCIENTIFIC ENTERPRISE &
CHRISTIAN FAITH, by Malcolm A.
Jeeves. Inter-Varsity Press, Downers
Grove, 111. Paper, 168 pp. $2.25. Re-
viewed by the Rev. Oswald T. Allis,
H.R., Wayne, Pa.

This book is a summary and di-
gest of the discussions held
in Oxford, England, in 1965 by
36 scientists from 10 countries,
to consider the relation be-
tween science and the Christian
faith. How these scholars were
chosen, or on what basis, is not
stated, but it is probable that the
editor, a professor at the University
of Adelaide, Australia, was largely re-
sponsible.

One of the principal aims of the
book was to set down with support-
ing arguments why these scientists
believe that "science is a true friend
of Biblical faith and not, as is often
assumed, in conflict with it." The
greater part of the book is devoted
to the discussion of the scientific en-
terprise, and such subjects as cos-
mology, evolution and origin of life,
psychology, sociology, cybernetics
and determinism form the greater
part of the book. The discussion of

these subjects is interesting and in-
forming.

However, the same cannot be said
with regard to its treatment of
Christian faith. The Apostle Paul
described this in the following terms,
"Faithful is the saying and worthy
of all acceptation that Christ Jesus
came into the world to save sinners."
The words "sinner" or "sin" are
mentioned only a very few times and
the cross, which is the symbol of
Christianity, hardly appears.

The inadequacy of the discussion
is illustrated, for example, in the
treatment of the subject "Miracles
Reconsidered," where we read:
"Miracles are certainly not invasions
by God into the otherwise natural
order of creation . . . they are rather
special acts of God and seem to be
such, but ones in which the secon-
dary means which are responsible
for the event are neither more nor
less given by Him than any other
day-to day occurrence."

Miracles are manifestations of
God's sovereign power, and they oc-
cur not in the natural working of
creation but in a creation that has
been wrecked and ruined by sin.

They are exceptional events and dif-
fer radically from all "day-to-day oc-
currences." Thus it appears that no
proper and adequate distinction isj
drawn between common grace
(providence) and special grace (re-
demption) .

The miracles of Scripture, notably
the incarnation and resurrection of
Christ, are unique events which are'
utterly different from all "day-to-day
occurrences." If sin is minimized or
ignored, the redemptive supernat-l
uralism of the Bible tends to dis-
appear with it. 11

Louisville-- from p. 9

some members are United Presbyte-
rians.

"We belong to the Presbyterian
Church US," said the church in re-
jecting the commission's jurisdiction.
"We do not acknowledge the juris-
diction of the union presbytery,
which was formed unconstitutional-
ly, and which has placed over us
ministers who are not even members
of the denomination to which we be-
long," they said in effect. The case
is expected to go to the civil courts.

And so a presbytery finally comes
to the point where it must deal with
the case of a minister who, out of
convictions no doubt acquired in
seminary, has decided that obedience
to God leads him to the Communist
Party.

In the welter of confusion, and of
circumstances, none of which of it-
self constitutes "heresy," yet all of
which, taken together, result in a
public testimony detrimental to the
Gospel and the evangelical faith, we
can see the Church in microcosm.

In particular, it may be possible
the better to understand future de-
velopments due out of Louisville,
such as that confession of faith sched-
uled to be laid before the Church in
July. EH

Layman— from p. 13

If you can, good, but if not, let
me suggest that you begin your own
investigation by obtaining two cop-
ies of a very informative book writ-
ten for the non-scientist. The book
is Studies In The Bible and Science,
by Henry A. Morris, Baker Book
House, Grand Rapids, Mich. One
copy should be for you and the sec-
ond copy for your church library. IB

GET THESE PAPERBACKS

THE STORY OF MAN by Robert Strong $1 .00

PLAIN TALK ABOUT REAL CHRISTIANS by Manford Geo. Gutzke 1.95

PLAIN TALK ON LUKE by Manford Geo. Gutzke 1.95

PLAIN TALK ON MATTHEW by Manford Geo. Gutzke 1.95

PLAIN TALK ON JOHN by Manford Geo. Gutzke 1.95

PLAIN TALK ON JAMES by Manford Geo. Gutzke 1.95

LIVING IN THE SPIRIT— IS IT REAL? by Manford Geo. Gutzke 2.95

PLAIN TALK ON ACTS by Manford Geo. Gutzke 1.95

THE BOOK OF ISAIAH by Geo. L. Robinson 1.95

DRY BONES CAN LIVE AGAIN by Robert E. Coleman 1.25

A STUDY OF JOB— From Tragedy to Triumph

by H. L. Ellison 1.95

MARK THE GOSPEL OF ACTION by Ralph Earle .95

LUKE THE GOSPEL OF THE SON OF MAN

by G. Coleman Luck .95

DANIEL by G. Coleman Luck .95

YOUNG LIFE IN ACTION by J. B. Phillips .95

Order from

The Presbyterian Journal, Weaverville, N. C. 28787

PAGE 20 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE 21, 1972

VOL. XXXI, NO. 9

JUNE 28, 1972

the

PRESBYTERIAN

idvocating continuation of a Presbyterian Church loyal

$4.00 A YEAR

JOURNAL

to Scripture and the Reformed faith

Not the Ministry's Business

Nothing is more likely to ensnare ministers than
bringing them to meddle with controversies about polit-
ical matters and civil rights and to settle landmarks be-
tween the prince and his subjects.

These matters should the more certainly be done,
but it is not at all fit that ministers should have the
doing of it.

— Matthew Henry

S. S. LESSON AND YOUTH PROGRAM FOR JULY 16

JHOO

uoiaoanoQ q g

MAILBAG

LETTER FROM VIETNAM

I would like to compliment you on
your editorial on Vietnam in the May
17 Journal. I showed it to Mr. Har-
nist (Note: Gabriel Harnist is gov-
ernment liaison with volunteer serv-
ice agencies. — Ed.) and he thought
it was very good. It is refreshing to
read some articles that build and
tell the true situation. I get weary
of reading the same line of criticism
about America and Vietnam. It
makes for bad morale among the
troops as well as leaving out the
good and encouraging happenings.

We have been busy since your
visit. We are doing our best to cope
with the new refugee problem. Our

main emphasis is in the Da Nang
area where the largest numbers now
are located. If you remember the
Camp Books area bordering on the
back fence of the Hoa Khanh Child-
ren's Hospital, then you know the
area.

There are around 40,000 people
here who have come down from Hue
and Quang Tri and the DMZ area.
Also across the highway in the two
military camps there are another
15,000. Add these two totals to the
few thousand in Da Nang itself and
you will know how many war vic-
tims the World Relief Commission
and Christian Youth Service Corps
are taking care of. We are feeding

the

PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL

Rev. G. Aiken Taylor, Ph.D., Editor
Rev. Henry B. Dendy, D.D., Managing Editor
Arthur H. Matthews, Assistant Editor

Circulation leader among independent publications in the Presbyterian-Reformed world

THIS WEEK— Vol. XXXI, No. 9, June 28, 1972

The 1972 General Assembly of the PCUS 4

De partments —

Editorials 12

The Layman and his Church 13

Sunday School Lesson, July 16 14

Youth Program, July 1 6 1 6

Book Reviews 17

THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL, a

Presbyterian weekly magazine, devoted
to the statement, defense, and propa-
gation of the Gospel, the faith which
was once for all delivered to the saints,

is published every Wednesday by the
Southern Presbyterian Journal Co.,
Inc., in Weaverville, N. C.

SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: $4 a year

for individuals, $3 for members of
Every Family Plan churches. All cor-
respondence regarding subscriptions,
advertising or other business matters,
should be addressed to the business
office in Weaverville, N. C. 28787.
Second class postage paid at Weaver-
ville, N. C. 28787.

POSTMASTER: Send Form 3579 to
Presbyterian Journal, Box 635, Wea-
verville, N. C. 28787. Subscribers
should allow three weeks for change
of address in continental U. S. Change
of address notices should include both
old and new addresses (with zip
codes) .

NEWS AND EDITORIAL correspond-
ence should be addressed to P. O. Box
3108, Asheville, N. C. 28802. Editorial
offices located at 247 Charlotte St. in
Asheville.

TELEPHONES: (All area 704) edi-
torial office, 254-4015, 254-4016;
business office, 645-3310, 645-3962.

as of this week 60,000.

We are solely responsible for Hi
refugee centers. We are using a staff
of 170 and utilizing 7 bakeries for
bread as well as two centers fori
cooking CSM (a corn and soya milk
blend used for feeding some 20,000
kids) . So far we have made and giv-
en out about 300,000 loaves oft
French bread.

The hospital is treating an aver-f
age of 250 kids a day at special clin-,
ics. We are in the midst of a meas-
les epidemic which has killed many
children. The hospital has 105 bed
patients now, in addition to the out-
patients, which puts a strain on the,
staff. We are doing the job however.

May the Lord use you in the work
that you are doing. I wish to thank
you personally for your visit to Viet- ,
nam and for the results of that visit. ;
—Stuart C. Willcuts
Director, WRC, Vietnam

Churches and individuals wishing to
put their money where their feelings
are, can make contributions to World
Relief Commission, Box 44, Valley
Forge, Pa. 19481. — Ed.

RE: COMMISSIONS

I congratulate the Journal on the
excellent editorials in the June 7
issue — especially, "Needed: Courses
in Ethics."

I continue to wonder that con-
gregations are willing to permit
presbytery's commissions on the
minister and his work to direct whom
the congregation's committee should
select as pastor of the congregation;
or assuming the authority to reject
a pastor the commission does not ap-
prove.

I was present as a commissioner to
the General Assembly in 1937 and
1938 when it was proposed, debated
and done that the Assembly create a
body known as the "Commission on
the Minister and his Work" with
clearly defined dual authority: a)
that of a committee concerning the
calling of a pastor by a congregation;
and b) that of a commission in any
other matter referred by the pres-
bytery, when such authority is speci-
fically granted by the presbytery.

As all long-time Presbyterians rea-
lize, a committee is appointed to
investigate and report back to the
body which appointed it. A commis-
sion is appointed to handle some
matter with full authority to act as
specified by the body appointing it.
Its report is on what action has been
taken.

In the calling of a pastor, the con-
gregation's committtee must con-
ider nominations that may come
9 rom the commission on the minister
1 md his work, but is not required to
nake its selection from such nomi-
lations. It is required, further, to ad-
/ise the commission whom they wish
o recommend to the congregation.
Having done so and having received
:he "advice" of the commission, they
nay then proceed with or without
.he commission's consent to pursue
:he matter before the presbytery.

The commission has no authority
:o direct or require a congregation
Dr its nominating committee to obey
its edicts. When the matter comes to
ihe presbytery, as parent body, the
aresbytery no doubt will take into
account the judgment of the com-
mission, but many presbyteries have
permitted congregations to call mini-
sters who did not receive favorable
recommendation from their commis-
sions on the minister and his work.
— Tom Glasgow
Charlotte, N. C.

• While feelings ran to their cus-
Itomary heights, the 112th General
Assembly of the Presbyterian Church
US was one of the best conducted
and best mannered in recent years.
6 There was only a little rudeness (as
\ when applause greeted the defeat of
• Kenneth Keyes' nomination to an
office) , few unseemly outbursts of
i anger, no vindictive motions adopt-
ed (such as those of the 1968 As-
i sembly which refused so much as to
hear minority reports) . Among the
interesting vignettes:

— The very first appointment by
Moderator L. Nelson Bell was that
of a woman — Mrs. J. Neill Clark to
be chairman of the Standing Com-
mittee on Thanks.

— In one hectic moment the As-
sembly voted on a motion made by
a non-commissioner. Dean John W.
Wade, chairman of the Permanent
Nominating Committee, was wind-
ing up the business of his committee
and in routine fashion suggested,
"Mr. Moderator, I move the adopt-
ion of the report as a whole." The
Assembly accepted the motion, with

HE LIKED IT

Ecumenists should take heed of
the article, "Are Our Differences So
Great?," in the May 31 Journal.

While less than four pages in
length, this thorough, compact, and
superb article contains more pene-
trating Christian logic for support-
ing an evangelical and/or conserva-
tive Presbyterian Church than do a
dozen or more similar articles which
I have read on the matter in the last
decade. Moreover, it encompasses
so well the Church's faulty practices
that it should be rerun in the Jour-
nal every six months during the next
two years.

— E. S. Musick

Bellefontaine, Ohio

MINISTERS

C. W. Echols from Reidville, S. C,
to the Knox church, Cantonment,
Fla.

Lawton Daugherty from Salem,
Va., to the White Bluff church,
Savannah Ga.

most commissioners unaware of the
inadvertent slip.

— The Rev. Lawrence W. Bottoms,
respected black leader and nomi-
nator of Worth McDougald (who got
14 votes for moderator, but later
presided over one session with con-
summate skill) , explained the vote
with characteristic Bottoms humor:
"After all, the Church always has
paid us colored preachers less than
anyone else!"

— Another Bottoms classic: "I
come from an old Scottish Presby-
terian Covenanter background —
Negro Scottish, that is."

— The Rev. David L. Stitt, now of
Houston, Tex., kept the Assembly
in good humor while presiding, with
comments like this: "The Assembly
reminds me of the cross-eyed javelin
thrower, who never set any records
but he kept an alert audience!"

— Only one address came close to

William E. Alexander from Or-
lando, Fla., to director of United
Methodist Church Kindergarten,
Winter Park, Fla.
William E. Clark from Pine Bluff,
Ark., to associate vice-president
for development of Arkansas Col-
lege.

Collier S. Harvey from Fishers-
ville, Va., to the Salem, Va.,
church.

Robin E. Kash from graduate
study to the University church,
Austin, Tex., as associate pastor.
Richard H. Little has declined the
call of the Westminster church,
Tallahassee, Fla., reported here
June 14.

Harry G. McDonnell Jr., from
Pasadena, Tex., to the McRae,
Ga., church.

DEATH

Edward M. Nesbitt, 81, died May
29 in Somerville, Tenn., the loca-
tion of his last pastorate.

ruining the general good spirit of
the Assembly, namely, the one on
Vietnam delivered during the "spe-
cial order" on Christian education.
(We intend to publish excerpts next
week.) A mild mannered minister
who, to our knowledge, has never
been part of any controversy, said
in our hearing: "It was all I could
do to keep from punching that
speaker in the nose!"

— If the Assembly had a theme,
it probably would have been the
sentiment voiced by one of the wor-
ship leaders: "To turn loose recon-
ciling power to bring peace, unity
and harmony to all creation." If the
theme was never realized, or seemed
incongruous with the actions of the
court, it may have been because the
liberal majority has the most curious
imaginable notion of what recon-
ciliation is, and how that state can
be attained. SI

ACROSS THE EDITOR'S DESK

PAGE 3 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE 28, 1972

NEWS OF RELIGION

Assembly Again Realigns Seven Synods

MONTREAT, N. C— Seven region-
al synods will go into effect in the
Presbyterian Church US in 1973,
but they will be the same seven ap-
proved by the 1971 General Assem-
bly. At the top court's 1972 meeting
here, one of the regions created in
1971 was divided, and two were com-
bined.

Before changing the boundaries,
the Assembly voted down an attempt
to abolish synods altogether. The
top court also decided that one new
regional synod will be able to start
before the July 1, 1973 date estab-
lished by the 1971 Assembly.

Combined into one region by As-
sembly action were the states of Mis-
sissippi, Alabama, Tennessee and
Kentucky. The 1971 decision was
to put Mississippi and Alabama into
one synod, with Tennessee and Ken-
tucky forming another.

Divided was 197 l's Synod "G,"
composed of South Carolina, Geor-
gia and Florida. The 1972 decision
was to allow Florida to continue as
a synod by itself.

Debate was lengthy on both pro-
posals, but the votes were not close.

BANGLADESH — A medical mis-
sionary with ABWE (Association of
Baptists for World Evangelism) has
reported that for the Bengali people
the results of the conflict continue
to be dreadful.

"Bangladesh leaders claim that
some 3,000,000 Bengalis were killed,
and that 200,000 women were raped
by West Pakistani soldiers. Accord-
ing to their religious code, these
women are no longer acceptable to
their husbands.

"What will happen to these wom-
en and to their unborn and unwant-
ed children?" Dr. V. B. Olsen asked.

The Hindus were terribly affect-
ed, too, he reported, and many
thousands of Muslims were killed
by Muslim troops of West Pakistan.

The Christians fared better than
others because the troops had no

On the question of combining the
four states, the tally was 249 for and
156 against. On the question of sepa-
rating Florida, the count was 249 to
155.

Only a voice vote was needed to
defeat the proposal on abolishing
synods.

There was little opposition on the
floor to the recommendation al-
lowing an earlier effective date for
the new middle judicatory. Passed on
a voice vote was an affirmative an-
swer to overtures asking that Synod
"E" (Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas
and Oklahoma) be organized offi-
cially Jan. 1 1973.

OK Early Meetings

Also passed easily was an affir-
mative answer to a Norfolk Presby-
tery overture asking permission for
early second meetings of synod or-
ganizing commissions. The 1971 As-
sembly had directed the second meet-
ings "after Feb. 1, 1973."

The original schedule of synod re-
structuring was designed to keep the
new courts from taking official action

particular vendetta against them, al-
though several score were killed and
hundreds left homeless.

As refugees returned from India
to their villages, most of them
found only the burned out founda-
tions of their homes. Dr. Olsen
called the poverty, human suffering
and need "incredible."

Although the Memorial Christian
Hospital, 65 miles south of Chitta-
gong, where Dr. Olsen served during
the fighting was endangered as the
Pakistan army moved into the area
during the early stages of the war,
the facilities and personnel escaped
harm.

World Relief Commission of the
National Association of Evangeli-
cals, Box 44, Valley Forge, Pa. 19481,
is among the agencies supplying re-
lief goods in Bangladesh. IS

until after the existing presbyteries
had voted on the proposed union
with the United Presbyterian Church
USA. However, the timetable on the
union question was altered in 1971
Assemblies of both denominations so
that presbyteries will not get the
plan until 1974, at the earliest.

New synods will have the power
to change the number and boun-
daries of presbyteries within their
territories.

The debate on combining Missis-
sippi and Alabama with Tennessee
and Kentucky reflected the tensions
existing in the denomination. There
were repeated warnings that the
merger would cause more problems
for the Church.

Commissioners were reminded by
the Rev. Robert Strong of Mont-
gomery, Ala., that the 1971 Assem-
bly had decided on synod restruc-
turing by a close vote. Even though
there was much opposition to the
plan, Mississippi and Alabama held
the first organizing convention "in
a spirit of obedience," he said.

Dr. Strong, who was elected chair-
man of that initial convention, re-
ported that it voted 293 to 139 a-
gainst a proposal that it join Ten-
nessee. Mississippi and Alabama are
a region of "manageable size," he
suggested, but the four states com-
bined would be a "geographical and
psychological burden."

Frank D. Montague Jr., a ruling
elder from Hattiesburg, Miss., ap-
pealed to the Assembly not to give
Mississippi and Alabama any more
issues that will cause trouble. He
noted that the last meeting of the
Synod of Mississippi discharged its
special committee on reconciliation
which had been functioning in re-
sponse to Assembly action. The
South Mississippi commissioner said
that at the synod meeting he heard
for an hour and a half reports of
how effective the work of reconcili-
ation had been.

In answer to charges of conserva-!
tive "log rolling" at the convention
at which Dr. Strong was elected, Mr.
Montague said that while he was not
present, he assumed that liberals
had their agenda for that gathering
also.

Another South Mississippi com-j
missioner, the Rev. Larry C. Mills of
Centreville, suggested that the mer-

THE CHURCH OVERSEAS

PAGE 4 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE 28, 1972

Iger of the four states was a "shotgun
■wedding."

Favoring the combination was
Mrs. Philip R. Arello of Florence,
commissioner from North Alabama
, Presbytery. She said putting the four
states together would help keep the
Church from standing still.

Taking a similar view was the
Rev. Gene R. Canestari of South-
aven, Miss., a commissoner from
i St. Andrew Presbytery. He claimed
that some Mississippi Presbyterians
|| would like to be "a separate little
j island" but that they needed help
i from other areas. The minister from
la suburb of Memphis suggested that
the synod composed of only Missis-
sippi and Alabama could be a ve-
hicle for those who want to with-
draw from the denomination.

St. Andrew Presbytery's youth de-
I1 legate, Wayne S. Rutherford, said
he spoke on behalf of youth in the
: area who wanted diversity and to
be freed of "bonds" that tied them
j to their own area. He said it was
I time for Mississippi to "move theo-
logically and ecclesiastically," as well
as socially.

Mac W. Freeman Jr. of Nashville,
executive secretary of Central Ten-
nessee Presbytery and formerly exe-
cutive of East Alabama Presbytery,
urged combination of the four states
into one region. He claimed it
would promote reconciliation. He
reminded the court that all are al-
ready supporting some institutions.

Montague Mrs. Arello

Brothers Rutherford

Recommending the new synod
which will stretch from the Gulf of
Mexico to the Ohio River was the
Assembly's Commission on Synod
Boundaries. The commission was ap-
pointed after the 1971 Assembly by
Moderator Ben L. Rose. Its chair-
man, the Rev. John S. Brown of
Richmond, Va., presented the re-
quest to the court. The commission
had voted 20 to 4 for the proposal.

Deny Authority

While approving this recommen-
dation of the commission, the As-
sembly denied the commission's re-
quest for more authority to act on
its own. It had asked to be able to
respond to requests from organizing
conventions or new synods. It is thus
still under the mandate of the 1971
Assembly that it respond only to re-
quests from synods which existed be-
fore restructuring.

The standing committee on bills
and overtures had voted 17 to 12 to
recommend a negative answer to
overtures asking the combination of
the four states. Its chairman, the Rev.
John A. Brothers Jr. of Maxton,
N. C, joined in the minority report,
however. He was one of 10 signers
of the minority recommendation
asking an affirmative answer.

Presenting the majority report was
the Rev. W. J. Stanway of Jackson,
Miss. Presenting the minority report
to the court was the Rev. John M.
Crowell of Mobile, Ala.

The bills and overtures commit-
tee voted 21 to 8 to recommed that
Florida be continued as a synod,
separate from Georgia and South

Carolina. There was no minority re-
port before the court on this issue,
however.

The decisive vote on the issue was
taken in response to a resolution in-
troduced by the Rev. Warren M.
Wardlaw of Darlington, S. C, and
Donald M. Law of Aiken, S. C. They
argued that the large size of pro-
posed Synod "G" and the great
travel time involved would discour-
age participation in synod affairs by
ruling elders.

Mr. Wardlaw also appealed to the
court to divide the territory for the
sake of peace and harmony. Other
speakers echoed the appeal, but the
Rev. William M. Gettys of York,
S. C, said some in South Carolina
were willing to go into the three
state region.

South Carolina would actually pre-
fer to be a synod by itself, the Rev.
William F. Mitchell of Cross Hill,
S. C, said in arguing for the motion
to allow Florida to remain alone. He
said South Carolinians were more
willing to be grouped only with
Georgia than with both of the other
states.

Boundary changes approved by the
Assembly make the new four state
synod the largest in terms of mem-
bership, with about 194,000 Presby-
terian US communicants. Florida
has about 99,000 members, and the
region of South Carolina and Geor-
gia includes approximately 148,-

Brown

PAGE 5 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE 28, 1972

Ecumenical Alliances Remain Intact

MONTREAT, N. C— All of the
ecumenical alliances of the Pres-
byterian Church US remained intact
through the 112th General Assembly,
and agency restructure plans approv-
ed here paved the way for more in-
terdenominational connections.

Attempts to get the denomination
out of the Consultation on Church
Union (COCU) , the World Council
of Churches and the National Coun-
cil of Churches failed.

Also failing were attempts to get
an early vote on union with the
United Presbyterian Church USA
and a new presbytery vote on the
issue of union presbyteries.

The Assembly also continued its
stamp of approval on such de facto
union efforts as the joint publication
of Colloquy and Church and Society
magazines.

Presbyteries were sent a proposed
constitutional amendment which will
even encourage the organization of
more union congregations.

One Assembly action indicated an
awareness of ecumenism existing
outside the conciliar movement dom-
inated by liberals. The court de-
cided to send observers to meetings
of the National Association of Evan-
gelicals. It authorized the moderator
to appoint them in consultation with
the Permanent Committee on Inter-
Church Relations.

The only debate on the NAE ob-
servers matter was over the question
of selection of those observers. The
standing committee on inter-Church
agencies and councils recommended
that they be chosen from among the
Presbyterian US delegation to the
NCC governing board by the Per-
manent Committee on Inter-Church
Relations. The Rev. David L. Stitt
of Houston, Tex., offered the amend-
ment which prevailed.

The action on NAE came in
answer to a resolution from the Rev.
P. David Nicholas of Boca Raton,
Fla.

Most of the debate time on ecu-
menical questions came on the sub-
ject of continued participation in
COCU. Leading off the discussion
was guest speaker Paul Crow, a Dis-
ciples of Christ minister who is
COCU's chief executive.

Dr. Crow praised the Presbyterian
Church US and begged the Assembly
"to share with us more of yourself."

Even before the resolution to with-
draw from COCU was introduced by

C. E. Hornsby Jr. of Centreville,
Ala., the Assembly heard an appeal
from an outsider to continue parti-
cipation. It came from Lois (Mrs.
Ralph) Stair, immediate past mode-
rator of the UPUSA Assembly and a
fraternal delegate to the Assembly
here.

Mrs. Stair, who was on the com-
mission which drafted the COCU
plan of union, lamented her denomi-
nation's recent withdrawal from the
consultation and appealed to the
commissioners to help the UPUSA
again find "faith and family." In her
fraternal greetings on the opening
night of the Assembly she said it was
no secret she "longed for unity" and
hoped the Southern Presbyterians
would help the UPUSA "stretch be-
yond denominationalism."

In his remarks, Dr. Crow promised
that responses which have come in
during the period of study of the
COCU plan will produce "major
revisions" during the coming year.

The plan for uniting nine denomi-
nations was de-emphasized in Ben
L. Rose's speech asking continued
participation. The former Assembly
moderator stressed COCU's function
as a meeting ground for the ex-
change of information and discus-
sion of common problems. The con-
sultation is "simply the process" of
dealing with such problems as that
of many small congregations of sev-
eral denominations in small towns,
he argued.

Dr. Rose also told commissioners
that the Presbyterian Church had
much to contribute to COCU since

Kennedy P. Crow

it was now the only Reformed body
remaining after UPUSA withdrawal.
He appealed to the court not to say
"me too" and quit just because the
UPUSA Assembly did.

Leon Hammond, youth delegate
from National Capital-Union Pres-
bytery, who identified himself as a
member of Fourth Presbyterian
Church, Bethesda, Md., said he was
opposed to COCU before coming to:
the Assembly. He told commissioners
his experiences in the standing com-
mittee on inter-Church comity and
union changed his view.

Most opposition to COCU is based
on provisions of the draft plan, Mr.
Hammond claimed. He urged the
court to consider that the final plan
might be different from the draft
and to withhold judgment until the
final document is ready.

Speaking against continued parti-
cipation, the Rev. Charles McGowan
of Decatur, Ga., called COCU a
"dead horse." He noted that renew-
al and revival are sweeping the
country and ecumenism is taking
hold at the grass roots without the
help of the consultation.

The Rev. Lawrence Bottoms of
Atlanta countered that God can
make such dead bones live. He ap-
pealed for support of COCU as a
means for the Presbyterian Church
US to find "community."

Both Dr. Bottoms and Dr. Rose
were called "idealists" by the Rev.
J. Wayte Fulton of West Palm
Beach, Fla. He said he opposed con-
tinued participation in the consul-
tation simply because he is a Pres-
byterian. He suggested it was highly
unlikely that COCU would end up
with either a Reformed faith or
Presbyterian polity.

An attempt to extend debate on
COCU beyond the alloted time was
defeated. The vote to stay in was
264 to 164. Commissioners cheered
when the count was announced.

W. Jack Williamson of Green-
ville, Ala., presented the resolution
asking for completion of the plan
of union with the UPUSA to be pre-
sented at the next Assembly. He is
member of the committee on union
with the UPUSA, added last year as
one "unhappy with the plan."

Mr. Williamson reported a tele-
phone conversation with the UPUSA
stated clerk, William P. Thompson.
He quoted Dr. Thompson as saying
the "minority issue" which had de-

PAGE 6 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE 28, 1972

layed the study period had been set-
tled in the UPUSA and that it was
'high time" to go ahead and put the
plan to a vote.

\ Speakers against the resolution
stressed the matter of perfecting a
plan that will be acceptable to mino-
rity groups in both denominations.
The standing committee recommen-
dation that Mr. Williamson's request
be answered negatively was passed
on a voice vote.

The Assembly voted another en-
largement of the negotiating com-
mittee, authorizing the addition of
a Mexican American from the Pres-
byterian Church US and a UPUSA
member from a "significant non-
i black ethnic minority." The new
ij members will bring the committee
Iroster to a total of 32.
1 First to speak on the World Coun-
Jcil of Churches was a Presbyterian
;( US minister on the WCC's Geneva
4 headquarters staff, the Rev. William
IB. Kennedy. The Rev. George
JOgilvie of Richmond, Va., and a
J member of the Board of World Mis-
Isions, said continued membership
.■was essential to the work of that
J board. He lauded the "enlarged wit-
Iness" of the denomination through
the WCC.

There were no speakers against
; continued affiliation, and the vote
to answer negatively an Enoree Pres-
bytery overture to leave the World
i Council was uncounted.

Enoree also asked the Assembly
to direct the Board of World Mis-
sions to stop giving money to guer-
rilla groups, but there was little sup-
port for the overture in the court.
The Rev. Conrad Crow of Charles-
ton, W. Va., chairman of the stand-

(Continued on p. 18, col. 3)

Reed and C. Crow

Universaiism Debated;
Inerrancy Is Rejected

MONTREAT, N. C. — There was
more theological debate in this As-
sembly than in any other within the
memory of most observers. Two
major contests and several peripheral
skirmishes were held over the doc-
trines of the Church with the Con-
fession of Eaith coming out a rather
poor second in most cases.

The first developed over a resolu-
tion introduced by Andrew Mc-
Donough, an elder from Pompano
Beach, Fla., who tried to get the As-
sembly to speak out against univer-
saiism and affirm Jesus Christ as
Saviour and Lord, "calling persons
to repent and believe in Him, lest
they suffer the consequences of eter-
nal condemnation."

That language was much too
strong for the standing committee,
which recommended a statement
that would read, ". . . calling on per-
sons to repent and believe in Him
in order that they may enjoy the
benefits of life in Jesus Christ."

Dr. L. Nelson Bell tried to save
the intent of the original by suggest-
ing that it might be acceptable to
the General Assembly if "eternal
condemnation" were replaced with
"lost."

"Today the Church's mission is
seriously ineffective because too
many people do not believe that it
is possible to be lost," he said in sup-
port of his move to have the com-
mittee's recommendation brought
more into line with the original res-
olution.

The Rev. Palmer Robertson, a
professor at Westminster Seminary
in Philadelphia, sought to amend
Dr. Bell's motion so as to restore
the original language, "eternal con-
demnation." This failed on a strong
voice vote of the Assembly.

The Rev. Samuel B. Shumate of
Maxton, N. C, said he agreed with
Dr. Bell's language but thought it
would be better to refer the whole
matter to the Permanent Theologi-
cal Committee for study.

Supporting the referral for study,
the Rev. Frank Campbell of Mem-
phis said he personally rejected the
approach which appeals to persons
to come to Christ from the motiva-
tion of fear. "This resolution also
loses sight of the fact that man is
saved, not by his own efforts but by
the grace of God" he said.

The Rev. David Wilkinson of

Charlotte said he could not accept
the contention that without faith in
Jesus Christ men are lost. "Maybe
the Assembly will want to defrock
me here and now," he said, "but I
cannot buy that idea."

Former Moderator Ben Rose re-
solved the issue, which had begun
to get sticky, by suggesting that a
reference to being "lost apart from
the grace of God in Jesus Christ"
replace the resolution's reference to
the need for "faith in Jesus Christ."
Added Dr. Rose: "If we cannot af-
firm this, we cannot affirm any-
thing."

The substitute carried, but not be-
fore Mr. Wilkinson reiterated that
he could not accept it either. "I
cannot believe in a loving God who
would condemn people unless they
accept and believe in Christ," he
said.

A second major theological con-
test occurred in the waning moments
of the Assembly over an interpreta-
tion of the meaning of ordination
vows which had been submitted by
the Permanent Theological Com-
mittee.

The paper sought to explain such
key clauses in the ordination vows
as "to receive and adopt the Confes-
sion of Faith" and "believe in the
Scriptures as the only infallible rule
of faith and practice."

In the standing committee con-
sideration of the papers, strong ob-
jections to "watering down" the
Church's view of Scripture were
voiced by a youth delegate, John
Hall of York, S. C. Largely on ac-
count of his interest, a minority re-
port was presented which would
have replaced a key section of the
paper with another statement more
faithful to the Church's historic
stand.

Offered on the floor by the Rev.
Lewis Baker of Goldsboro, N. C,
the minority statement followed the
language of the permanent commit-
tee's paper, but completed the lat-
ter's inconclusive statements with
language reflecting the viewpoint
of the Confession of Faith.

Thus, where the committee's ex-
planation of the meaning of infal-
lible was simply, "We interpret the
term 'infallible' as referring to the
Bible as the 'rule of faith and prac-
tice,' " the minority report would
have said: "We interpret the term
'infallible' as referring to the Bible
as the 'rule of faith and practice'
which is without error, because God
cannot lie."

PAGE 7 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE 28, 1972

The committee had said, "Certain-
ly we can read the Bible expecting
God's witness to the 'infallible truth'
and 'divine authority' of 'the rule
of faith and practice' therein con-
tained without the need to prove the
accuracy of every detail."

The minority statement would
have said: "We read the Bible as
God's Word, expecting the Holy
Spirit to bear witness to its infallible
truth and divine authority. While
this does not assign equal infallibili-
ty to every written part as a 'rule of
faith and practice,' it does lay upon
us in our ordination vows the obli-
gation to accept and implement what
it plainly states concerning God and
the sum total of man's religious
duty."

Strong opposition to the minority
was voiced by the Rev. John Newton
Thomas, chairman of the permanent
committee and reported author of
the original statement. "The two
positions are identical," he said.

"What we are saying in regard to
Biblical inerrancy is in line with Re-
formed theology and past deliver-
ances of this Assembly," Dr. Tho-
mas declared.

After a strong statement by John
Hall, appealing to the Assembly to
"stand by the Word of God," the
minority report was defeated on a
large voice vote.

Final adoption of the position pa-
per prepared by the permanent com-
mittee was on a recorded vote of
264 to 50. IS

Won't Promote Union;
Will Unite - Dr. Bell

MONTREAT, N. C. — He will not
work for union, but as he sees it
now, if union is voted between the
Presbyterian Church US and the
United Presbyterian Church USA,
he will go into the united Church.

So stated L. Nelson Bell to a press
conference following his election as
moderator of the 112th General As-
sembly of the PCUS here.

This does not mean that he en-
dorses the "umbrella" concept un-
equivocally, however. Dr. Bell made
it clear that his willingness to be
"ecumenical" depended on a mutual
acceptance of Jesus Christ as the Son
of God and Saviour from sin. "I
would have to accept anyone who
so believes as a Christian brother,"
he said.

On the other hand, a great need
in every Church today is discipline,

the retired medical missionary de-
clared. This does not mean heresy
trials, he added in response to a
question for clarification. "I have
in mind where the life of a church
member is totally at variance with
his profession," he explained, adding
that original jurisdiction in such
cases would be the local session.

Dr. Bell indicated that he hoped
his election would have a "healing
effect" on the anticipated division
in the Southern Church, but said
any contacts made would have to be
individual and personal.

In reply to additional questions
concerning his views on Church
union, the new moderator said he
felt the proposed Plan of Union is-
sued by the Joint Committee of 30
is "inadequate," particularly as it
fails to specify clearly the confes-
sional position of the future Church.

He said he strongly supported an
"escape clause," not only for PCUS
congregations but also for UPUSA
congregations. "This should be re-
tained as the only way in view to
make possible separation on any am-
icable basis," he said.

The long-time Montreat resident
emphasized he was not opposed to
union in principle. He said he
would be happy to unite with "any
Reformed group" if it could be as-
sured that the full integrity of the
Scriptures and the Gospel would be
upheld.

In answer to other questions, Dr.
Bell:

— Disagreed that the Church, as
the Church, should take any posi-
tion suggesting expertise on ques-
tions relating to the war in Vietnam.
He recalled that in Korea millions
were murdered when the Commu-
nists invaded the South.

— Called the Assembly's deliverance
on abortion "a grave mistake." Re-
minding the press that as a physician
he had performed abortions, Dr.
Bell said he prayed "God's judg-
ment will not fall on the Church"
for being willing to support abor-
tion as a way to control population.

— Refused to speak critically of
glossolalia (tongues speaking) as
such. "I have seen great blessing
come from an experience of this
ecstatic form of prayer," he said,
"but not if it comes in such a way
as to prove divisive."

— Reserved approval of the restruc-
turing of boards and agencies until
he sees how the plan will work.
"Some provisions, such as the one
to limit the terms of executives,

could cripple the Church," he said,
asking rhetorically, "What would
the Board of World Missions have
done if Dr. Street had been required
to resign a couple of years ago at
the completion of 7 years' service?" 11

'Thrust' of Resolution
Condemned by Assembly

MONTREAT, N. C— Presbyteries
of the Presbyterian Church US are
not free to express their opinions if
the "thrust, tenor and tone" of their
expressions violate their obligations
to perserve the peace, unity, edifi-
cation and purity of the Church.

That was the judgment of the
112th General Assembly of the de-
nomination here in a case growing
out of passage of a resolution by
Bethel Presbytery in October 1970.
Similar declarations were approved
by 15 other presbyteries.

The presbytery had said it "will
not consent to organic union with
the United Presbyterian Church
USA," "cannot in good conscience
accept any dilution of the Confes-
sion of Faith," and "will refuse to
recognize" constitutional changes
which take control of property from
congregations, among other possi-
bilities.

The Rev. Carlyle A. McDonald of
York, S. C, and others complained
that the presbytery had acted uncon-
stitutionally. The Synod of South
Carolina sustained the presbytery's
right, and the complainants took
the matter to the Assembly.

The Assembly approved the pre-
liminary judgment of the Permanent
Judicial Commission and made it
the final judgment on a voice vote.

The judgment said, "While
Church courts may 'give counsel in
matters of conscience' (BCO 14-3/2) ,
it is the view of the Permanent Judi-
cial Commission that the resolution
goes beyond the right of freedom of
expression and beyond the powers of
presbytery, and injuriously affects
the Church."

The opinion approved by the As-
sembly concluded, "The resolution
adopted by Bethel Presbytery should
not have been adopted . . . the
Synod of South Carolina should have
sustained the complaint against the
action of Bethel Presbytery . . . the
General Assembly should annul the
whole of the action of synod and sus-
tain the complaint, declaring said
resolution null and void and of no
effect." ffl

PAGE 8 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE 28, 1972

Elections Get Unusual Court Attention

MONTREAT, N. C— Nominations
md elections took up more time than
[usual at the 112th Presbyterian US
General Assembly, but the nominees
of the Permanent Nominating Com-
mittee were elected in all but a few
contests.

Unprecedented in the court's his-
tory was the choice of 62 persons to
serve in one agency, the provisional
General Executive Board. Also un-
usual was the Assembly's refusal to
give third terms to many board
members eligible for re-election.

All attempts from the floor to
challenge the committee's choices for
the GEB were defeated. Also lost
were floor attempts to elect to exist-
ing agencies persons not named in
standing committee reports. The few
changes from the Permanent Nomi-
nating Committee recommendations
which were made were decided in
standing committees.

The Permanent Nominating Com-
mittee said the list it proposed for
GEB "has what we conceive to be a
suitable balance in several signifi-
cant respects." The report explained,
"There are 29 clergy and 31 lay peo-
ple (15 men and 16 women) , plus
two students. There are 53 whites, 7
blacks and 2 Mexican-Americans.
Points of view are also the subject of
balance. And geographically we
have appropriate representation,
too."

Some commissioners were not con-
vinced there was suitable balance
in the slate suggested for the new
body, however. Nine additional per-
sons were nominated from the floor,
but only one of the floor nominees
came near getting a majority of the
votes.

Mrs. G. R. Bowen, a commissioner
from Oklahoma Presbytery, discover-
ed that there were no Oklahomans
on the list. She nominated an Okla-
homa City ruling elder who came
within seven votes of winning a place
on GEB.

The moderator had ruled that
any nominations from the floor
would have to be placed in opposi-
tion to one of the names suggested
by the permanent committee. Mrs.
Bowen chose to place the name of
James Harkins in the race against
the Rev. R. W. Jablonowski Jr. of
Fort Worth, Tex.

There was no suggestion of doc-
trinal or other differences between
the two, except for geography. Mrs.
Bowen apologized for having to list

her candidate in opposition against
another. Speaking for the nominat-
ing committee, the Rev. L. B. "Roy"
Horn Jr. of San Antonio described
Mr. Jablonowski as a "churchman
par excellence." The vote was 198
for the Texas clergyman and 189
for the Oklahoma elder.

Some of the other nominations
were for ideological rather than geo-
graphical reasons. Some "liberals"
were nominated to replace the few
"conservatives" on the slate, and vice
versa. The standing votes on the
other contests were never close
enough to count, however.

After each nominating speech was
made from the floor, a member of
the Permanent Nominating Com-
mittee came to the platform to ex-
plain the qualifications of the com-
mittee candidate. Several commis-
sioners appealed to the Assembly to
accept the entire slate even though
it was not completely balanced.

One North Carolinian pointed
out that of the six North Carolini-
ans listed, three came from one pres-
bytery. He suggested that when the
permanent GEB takes over there
will be more balance.

Even though implementation of
the new Assembly agency plan will
begin immediately (the provisional
GEB is expected to hold its first
meeting during the third week of
July) , members were chosen for
other boards so that they can con-
tinue to function until the transi-
tion is completed. Most boards are
expected to continue operating at
least until the next Assembly. All
agencies affected by the restructure

Wade Horn

are scheduled to be out of business
by Jan. 1, 1974.

One of the members of an existing
board voted a third term by the As-
sembly was Mrs. Frank Alexander of
Long Beach, Miss., a member of the
Board of World Missions. The stand-
ing committee proposed her election
over the Rev. Charles Cousar of De-
catur, Ga., who was suggested by
the Permanent Nominating Com-
mittee. No other member of that
board was allowed a third term.

The Committee on Certification of
Lay Workers also got a third term
member on recommendation of the
standing committee handling its re-
port. Miss Gay Mothershed was re-
elected even though the Permanent
Nominating Committee suggested
the name of Miss V. Carlisle Hoyt
for the vacancy.

Chairman David Burr of the Gen-
eral Council was elected to a third
term even though the Permanent
Nominating Committee had not rec-
ommended his name.

In its report, the Permanent Nomi-
nating Committee allowed one ex-
ception to its rule of no third terms
for trustees of the Mountain Retreat
Association. James L. Morgan, chair-
man of the Montreat board, was
nominated and re-elected. The com-
mittee explained in its report that
"whenever the committee felt that
the reasons against renomination
were outweighed by other reasons it
made their third term nomination."

Another exception made by the
permanent panel was for the Per-
manent Committee on Television,
Radio and Audo- Visuals. Lacy Sellers
was named to a third term on that
agency.

The standing committee on judi-
cial business attempted to reverse
one of the permanent panel's nomi-
nations for the Permanent Judicial
Commission but failed. There was
also an unsuccessful attempt on the
floor to replace one of the nominees.
Winning the contested places were
the Rev. Richard Baldwin Jr. of
Nashville, Tenn., and the Rev. Gray-
son L. Tucker Jr. of Louisville, Ky.
Nominated in opposition were the
Rev. Neal Dean and the Rev. Henry
P. Mobley. El

65 on Initial Board

MONTREAT, N. C— Three Gen-
eral Assembly moderators plus 62
persons elected by the 1972 Assembly
will make up the provisional Gen-
eral Executive Board of the Presby-

PAGE 9 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE 28, 1972

terian Church US. As the 65 initial
members select executives to head
the board's divisions, they will be
added to the voting membership.

While a permanent board will be
elected by the 1973 Assembly, the
provisional body will have vast pow-
er during the first year of transition.
It has the responsibility of begin-
ning the process of setting priorities,
but the Assembly's action also gave it
authority to take over existing agen-
cies' functions.

Chairman of the provisional GEB
will be Ben Lacy Rose, moderator
of the 1971 Assembly and a professor
at Union Seminary, Richmond, Va.
The 1972 moderator, L. Nelson Bell,
is a member. He is scheduled to be-
come GEB chairman at the 1973
Assembly. The other moderator on
the provisional body will be the
1970 presiding officer, William A.
Benfield.

Elected by the court to complete
the provisional GEB were (listed

MONTREAT, N. C. — To pray or
not to pray. Some said that was the
question before the Presbyterian US
General Assembly here. Others said
it was not. The question, they said,
was to endorse or not to endorse.

It all started with a resolution in-
troduced by the Rev. J. Wayte Ful-
ton of West Palm Beach, Fla. He
asked the denomination's highest
court to commend Explo '72, the
evangelistic training event in Dallas
being held the same week as the
Assembly. In the resolution he
offered, Dr. Fulton noted that the
meeting of 100,000 young people was
sponsored by Campus Crusade for
Christ, an organization headed by
Bill Bright, a ruling elder in the
United Presbyterian Church USA.

The reference to Campus Crusade,
an independent evangelical organiza-
tion, was just too much for some
churchmen. The standing commit-
tee on National Ministries, which
handled the proposal, removed all
references to Campus Crusade and
even to Explo. By a vote of 19-5
the committee made this counter
proposal:

"The Presbyterian Church in the
United States neither specifically en-
dorses nor condemns special evange-
listic endeavors of non-denomination-
al youth movements. We pray for the
evangelistic efforts of all Christian
groups, denominational and non-
denominational as they seek to pro-

alphabetically) : Rev. Harvard A.
Anderson, Orlando, Fla.; Rev. Reu-
ben P. Armendariz, Corpus Christi,
Tex.; Mrs. Gene R. Barnard, St.
Louis, Mo.; Rev. Vance Barron,
Chapel Hill, N. C; Rev. Betty Blan-
ton, Jacksonville, Fla.

Mrs. William J. Boney, Rich-
mond, Va.; Rev. Frank H. Caldwell,
Charlotte, N. C; Mrs. R. L. Camp-
bell, Tallahassee, Fla.; Stuart B.
Campbell, Wytheville, Va.; Michael
Carr, Brookhaven, Miss.; Mrs. J.
Calvin Chesnutt, Hartsville, S. C;
Mrs. Thomas Cleveland, Washing-
ton, D. C.

Rev. Charles B. Cousar, Decatur,
Ga.; Rev. Thomas Cutting, San An-
tonio, Tex.; Rev. Robert Davenport,
Laurinburg, N. C; Lee G. Davy,
Kingsport, Tenn.; Mrs. Lydia Frias,
Fort Worth, Tex.; Rev. J. Wayte
Fulton, West Palm Beach, Fla.; Rev.
Elias Hardge, Atlanta, Ga.

Mrs. Henry L. Harkey, Charlotte,
N. C; Rev. A. M. Hart, Richmond,

claim Christ in a spirit of Christian
love and unity."

As soon as the standing committee
recommendation hit the floor, three
youth delegates came to the defense
of Campus Crusade. A pastor stood
to say his congregation had sent 89
young people to Dallas. An elder
told how college students associated
with campus crusade regularly filled
his church each Sunday.

In an all-out attack on all non-
denominational ministries, the Rev.
Stephen L. Cook of Longview, Tex.,
questioned Campus Crusade's view
of the Church. He recalled the dis-
pensational movement and its con-
nection with Dallas Seminary. He did
not say how any of it was connected
with Explo or Campus Crusade, but
he was cheered when he finished his
speech.

Mr. Cook was chairman of the
standing committee which made the
counter proposal.

The Assembly finally accepted an
amended version that took notice of
the fact that Explo was being held,
praying for it without endorsement.
The Rev. David Stitt of Houston,
who was then presiding, led the
prayer, asking God to "pour out
abundantly Thy grace" on the Dallas
gathering.

The Assembly then voted to send
a telegram to Explo, advising those
gathered there of the court's pray-
ers. 33

Va.; Rev. William W. Hatcher, Rus-
ton, La.; Edward N. Henderson,
Shreveport, La.; Carl M. Hill, Frank-
fort, Ky.; Rev. F. Wellford Hobbie,
Little Rock, Ark.; Mrs. Rebecca
Howard, Houston, Tex.

Rev. S. M. Houck, Miami, Fla.;
Mrs. H. L. Hudson, Jackson, Miss.;
Rev. R. W. Jablonowski Jr., Fort
Worth, Tex.; Vernol R. Jansen,
Raleigh, N. C; Rev. Thomas L.
Jones, Louisville, Ky.; Rev. Sam M.
Junkin, Kerrville, Tex.; Arthur Ma-
gill, Greenville, S. C; Rev. A. A.
Markley, Gainesville, Ga.; Al Mas-
ters, Lexington, Ky.

P. Willard McCreight, Hunting-
ton, W. Va.; Rev. Carlyle A. Mc-
Donald, York, S. C; Worth Mc-
Dougald, Athens, Ga.; John McGee,
Charleston, W. Va.; Rev. D. P. Mc-
Geachy III, Nashville, Tenn.; Rev.
Alexander J. McKelway Jr., David-
son, N. C; Rev. John McKinnon,
Knoxville, Tenn.

Mrs. George R. McMaster, Louis-
ville, Ky.; A. S. Moffatt, Tampa,
Fla.; Mrs. John D. Moseley, Sher-
man, Tex.; Rev. Irvin S. Moxley,
Louisville, Ky.; Roscoe Nix, Silver
Spring, Md.; Joseph A. Norton,
Little Rock, Ark.; Rev. James A.
Payne Jr., Richmond, Va.

Rev. Kenneth G. Phifer, New Or-
leans, La.; Mrs. Hosea Rasberry,
Beaumont, Tex.; Mrs. H. G. Rose
Jr., Memphis, Tenn.; Ronald Salfen,
Austin, Tex.; Rev. David L. Stitt, i
Houston, Tex.; Miss Betty Stephens,
Atlanta, Ga.; Rev. Robert Strong,
Montgomery, Ala.

Robert S. Stroud, Charlottesville,
Va.; Rev. George B. Telford Jr.,
Auburn, Ala.; Mrs. Graves H.
Thompson, Hampden-Sydney, Va.;
Rev. James F. Van Dyke, Roanoke,
Va.; Mrs. Lewis Wilkins Jr., Baton
Rouge, La.; and M. J. Williams,
Memphis, Tenn.

Among the 62 are the other three
moderatorial candidates defeated by
Dr. Bell at the General Assembly:
Worth McDougald, Joseph Norton
and David Stitt.

Chairman John W. Wade of the
Permanent Nominating Committee
explained to the court that the Ad
Interim Committee on Restructur-
ing Boards and Agencies forwarded
the names of four members of that
group to serve in the transitional
body. The suggestions of the four
were approved by the nominating
panel, and they were among the 62
elected by the court. They are: Mrs.
Chesnutt, Mr. Jansen, Mr. Markley
and Mrs. Rose. IS

After Debate, Assembly Prays for Explo

PAGE 10 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE 28, 1972

Varied Social Pronouncements Passed

MONTREAT, N. C. — Additional
pages of social legislation were put
into the records of the Presbyterian
Church US by the General Assembly
meeting here, but some of the pro-
posals from the standing commit-
!tee on Church and society were re-
jected.

The court reaffirmed the anti-war

pronouncements of its predecessors
?; and endorsed an end the war state-
. ment issued this May by the Coun-
cil on Church and Society with then
t Moderator Ben L. Rose, but strong-
■ er documents on Southeast Asia

failed to get into the records.
J Also failing to get the approval of
J commissioners was a proposed com-
v mendation of Archbishop Dom Hel-
].i der Camara, critic of the Brazilian
| government.

The Assembly did approve pa-
si pers on women's role in Church and
a society, prison reform, freedom of
r| information (in the government,
[J not the Church) , school busing, nu-
ll clear testing, renewing diplomatic
J relations with Cuba, and invest-
l ments in Southern Africa.

Dr. Rose, who during his modera-
1 torial year has been objecting to the
muse of the word "pronouncement"
e to describe Assembly social actions,
j led the opponents of the stronger
j anti-war statements and moved for
a "indefinite postponement" of the
j recommendations regarding the Bra-

Izilian Roman Catholic prelate.
Having just returned from a trip
, to Brazil, Dr. Rose told the court
. that Presbyterian US missionaries
; 1 were almost unanimously against As-
, sembly commendation of the leftist
i prelate. He appealed to the court
, ; to drop the recommendation on the
basis that it simply did "not know
il the situation" in Brazil and that it
, did not know the character of the
l| archbishop which the Council on
I Church and Society wanted it to
laud.

The immediate past moderator
added that many thought the prelate
was just a "headline hunter."

The Rev. Charles R. Hughes Jr.,
Latin America secretary for the
Board of World Missions and author
of the proposed pronouncement, call-
ed the archbishop a "leading spokes-
man of the Third World." He ac-
knowledged that the Brazilian Pres-
byterian Church opposed a Presby-
terian US commendation and said
"most" Presbyterian US missionaries

agreed with the Church.

The Rev. T. Watson Street, execu-
tive secretary of the board, suggested
Dr. Rose did not have the "actual
facts" in the matter and that the
missionaries were not unanimously
opposed. He argued for passage of
the statement, saying the Assembly
should not shun the issue.

Jule Spach, a lay missionary in
Brazil for over 20 years who has been
serving the board during a furlough
year as recruitment secretary, took
the opposite position. He said he
spoke for "the entirety" of Presbyte-
rian US personnel on the field in op-
posing the document. Its passage
could be "seriously detrimental" to
all they are doing, he claimed.

The Rose motion to postpone in-
definitely passed 261 to 134.

A companion measure from the
standing committee on Church and
society, asking that the archbishop
be invited to speak at next year's

Assembly, was also postponed. The
vote was 243 to 158.

On the war issue, the court ap-
proved the May statement of the
council and the moderator which
asks for an end to the war by the
end of this year, but it turned aside
a longer "pastoral letter" proposed
by the council and endorsement of
the United Presbyterian Denver As-
sembly's anti-war pronouncement. It
also rejected printing an address on
the subject by President Albert Winn
of Louisville Seminary.

The interboard task force on peace
was kept in business, however.

Also left intact, even though the
Assembly indicated some uneasiness
with it, was the 1970 statement on
abortion. Some commissioners, in-
cluding Moderator L. Nelson Bell,
argued for deletion of social and
economic reasons as valid reasons for
abortions.

Instructions were sent to the Per-
manent Theological Committee to
produce a study on the abortion
question. EE

RCA Authorizes First Distaff Officers

LOUDONVILLE, N. Y. (RNS) —
A tradition dating to early colonial
times was broken here when the an-
nual General Synod of the Reformed
Church in America voted to permit
women to be deacons and elders —
lay officers — in local churches.

The historic action also opened
the way for women to be seated as
delegates to the Synod — three wom-
en were waiting in the wings.

Mrs. Jean Wells of Port Ewen,
N. Y., Mrs. Joyce Regier of Oradell,
N. J., and Mrs. Harold Rose of
Jersey City became the first members
of their sex to vote in the policy-
making body of the 350,000-member
Church.

The Reformed Church in America
traces its beginnings in 1628 from
the arrival of Dutch settlers in the
colonies. Deacons and elders are the
top lay leaders in congregations of
the denomination which is Pres-
byterian in polity and Calvinistic in
theology.

Support for women to hold local
church office and be delegates to the
Synod was overwhelming among the
280 representatives, meeting at Siena
College, a Roman Catholic school.

The classes (presbyteries) of the
Church endorsed the move in spring
meetings. It took a favorable vote by
two-thirds of the classes to bring the

measure to the General Synod for
final passage.

In addition to opening new roles
for lay women, the General Synod
elected a layman its president for
the first time in 35 years. Harry
DeBruyn of Palos Heights, 111., was
elected without opposition to the
post. He had been vice-president
last year.

Mr. DeBruyn, a lawyer, is a former
board president of "Temple Time,"
the radio broadcast supported by
many RCA churches and individuals
even though it is an independent
operation. He is currently chair-
man of the trustees of Bethesda Hos-
pital, a psychiatric facility, in Den-
ver.

Elected vice-president of the de-
nomination's governing body was the
Rev. Donald DeYoung of New York
City.

The Synod voted to restore assess-
ments to local congregations for the
support of the National Council of
Churches.

In 1970, the court stipulated that
giving to the National Council would
be on a voluntary basis. The vote
to return to the assessment plan was
120 to 108.

In another action, the General
Synod voted to continue its observer
status in the Consultation on Church
Union (COCU) . El

PAGE 11 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE 28, 1972

EDITORIALS

The Prognosis Is Not Good

During the week of the PCUS
General Assembly, a letter came
across the desk from a subscriber in
Oklahoma who wanted his subscrip-
tion cancelled. "I love the Church
of my grandfather and my father,"
he wrote, "and I deplore your talk
about leaving it."

We feel more sympathy with the
brother's feelings than he probably
imagines. We also love the Church
of our forebears and we have no in-
tention of leaving it. In fact, it is
our dream that the Church of our
forebears will spread across the land
until it is truly national and truly
Reformed as well as truly Presbyte-
rian.

What the brother does not realize
is that the Church to which he pres-
ently belongs bears little if any re-
semblance to the Church of his fore-
bears. The PCUS he once knew is
dead and past resurrection save by
a miracle of God. If it is the PCUS
of just a decade ago that he loves,
he is wasting his feelings on a corpse.

We do not refer to the congrega-
tion the brother belongs to. That
congregation may have a history
that goes back two hundred years
and through affiliations with two
or more Churches. A hundred years
from now that congregation may
still be alive and active after having
gone through several additional con-
nections.

We're talking about the Church,
the institution, the establishment,
the covering "umbrella" at the ad-
ministrative levels.

Even before this latest General
Assembly, the PCUS had begun to
come apart. For example, the
Church no longer had a strictly
Presbyterian board of Christian edu-
cation at its service. Instead, a con-
sortium of three denominations in
some areas, and four or five in oth-
er areas had begun performing the
functions previously performed on
behalf of the Church by this board.

Hardly anything, from world mis-
sions to stewardship has been any
longer strictly Presbyterian in any
previously understood sense, let
alone PCUS.

At this Assembly, the final dis-
engagement from Presbyterian form,
order, theology and ethics was well-
nigh completed.

A total reorganization of Assem-
bly boards and agencies was put into
effect, which combined 16 separate
units into a single executive board.
It is hard to imagine a more drastic
step towards centralization than the
plan adopted in Montreat.

Two illustrations will suffice:
What if all the separate standing
committees of the Assembly were
consolidated into one committee to
handle all the business of the
Church, ranging from world mis-
sions to annuities and pensions? Can
you imagine any layman with
enough time to mind the store?

Or, what if all the committees of
the Congress were consolidated into
one single committee to handle all
the affairs of the United States, from
foreign policy to health, education
and welfare? Can you imagine rep-
resentative government long surviv-
ing?

We've come a long way from the
days when the Presbyterian Church
could be considered the ideal model
of truly representative government.
Even Assembly representation has
begun to take on its bizarre aspects,
with voting commissioners from oth-
er denominations and all kinds of
other people added to the court.
(This Assembly added the presi-
dents of Synodicals to standing com-
mittees from henceforth.)

Perhaps the clearest evidence of
the Church's true condition ap-
peared in the "special order" pro-
grams by which the boards present-
ed their major concerns to the As-
sembly. The cause of "Christian
education" came to the Assembly
in the form of a shockingly irration-
al anti-war barrage. It was so unfair
and even untruthful that it brought
forth the first profanity we have
heard on the floor from a reacting
commissioner.

The three-year major evangelism
effort came to the Assembly as a
mission to unite all men into an all-
inclusive "humanity," or, the appli-

cation of love at the different points
of human experience: poverty, lone-
liness, war, race.

There is much more to be said.
But our preliminary opinion, fresh
from the meeting of the 112th Gen-
eral Assembly, is that the Church
has taken another long stride to-
wards dissolution. The prognosis is
not good. SI

'Relating' To Youth

While the pendulum of public
opinion seems to be swinging back
to a more moderate position on the
cult of youth, extreme examples of
efforts to bridge the "generation
gap" in order to be "relevant" to
young people continue to appear.

Columnist Lester Kinsolving re-
ports the proposal of a unit of the
Disciples of Christ (Christian)
Church, to set up a "youth empow-
erment" program of $100,000 per
year — to be administered by a com-
mittee of 11, nine of whom will be
between the ages of 14 and 18.

Mr. Kinsolving recalls the unhap-
py experience of Episcopalians with
a similar venture. The "wayout
youngsters" who operate the Episco-
pal General Convention Youth Pro-
gram have chalked up an unparal-
leled record of cash support for radi-
cal and subversive organizations, he
writes.

The problem seems to be that
while some young people have ex-
ceptional ability, most of the noise
is being made by those who are gen-
erally (and understandably) imma-
ture and therefore irresponsible. The
result, when demands are met with
generous handouts, too often has
been unfortunate.

The columnist goes on to quote
Episcopal Bishop John P. Craine on
the subject:

"Today, in our endless and often
hopeless search for companionship
between parents and children, we are
inclined to pretend there is no gulf,
no difference. As a result, we rob
our children of the knowledge of
our experience and authority . . . . 9

"There is consequently a vast an- ,
archy abroad in our land, in which
we as adults have lost the capacity
of respect for experience and author- 1 i
ity in our leaders and professional
men ....

"Fathers: be authorities in your
homes; don't sell your experience as
a cheap ingredient for so-called com-
panionship. You cannot know the
thoughts of your children; you are

PAGE 12 / THE PRESBYTERAN JOURNAL / JUNE 28, 1972

THE LAYMAN AND HIS CHURCH

Crime and Punishment

]i iortunate if you can understand and
■ espect your own.

"Raise up men to follow us, not

i tampered children. As a man re-

ii ipects the authority he himself boars,
» le will insist on it in his society,
a iearch not for easy companionship

> — authority is often a lonely road,
is j3e of good courage; you are a man,
i inade in the image of your Crea-

or." IB

For a Proper
Moderation

• In a curious passage, the Preacher
jf Ecclesiastes warns: "Be not righ-

n :eous overmuch" and again, "Be not
"wicked overmuch" (Eccl. 7:16-17).

Is it possible to be too righteous?
1 One immediately thinks of the
e aharisees, whose excessive legalism
1 irew a condemnation from the Lord
'' fesus. In a sense they were "righteous
Overmuch," for their proscriptions
1 ind prohibitions (mostly in the nega-
tive) made an intolerable burden of

God's law.
i But perhaps the Preacher would
1 say that he was warning his hearers
1 against the loss of perspective. "You

need to meet your responsibilities

• from a balanced perspective," he
may have meant to say.

• The late M.R. Dehaan of the
; Radio Bible Class once told of a

barber who determined to find op-
1 portunities to witness for Jesus

Christ. Mustering his courage as his
; first customer of the day relaxed in

• the chair in anticipation of a shave,
|he began stropping his razor and
: then suddenly blurted out, "Are you
1 prepared to die?" The startled custo-

> mer bolted from the chair and the
barber lost not only a potential con-
vert, but a customer as well.

"Enthusiasm," said Dr. HeHaan,
"can be appealing; it can also be
appalling!"

Whatever the meaning of the
Preacher's strange words, their ap-
plication seems clear; When we set
out to accomplish something for the
Lord, let it be from a balanced per-
spective. In this sense let us be mod-
erate— inoffensive in our approach,
tactful in our efforts.
I It is so easy for one who has
climbed to unusual heights of un-
derstanding and insight to launch a
; crusade from those heights upon an
i unawakened and unprepared audi-
ence which has not yet begun the
ascent. The result can (and often
does) hinder rather than help the
kingdom's cause. ffl

Recently I have seen several items
in the press which suggest that the
proper distinction between an im-
moral and an illegal act is not gen-
erally understood.

While certainly many things are
both illegal and immoral (murder,
theft) , other acts are immoral but
not illegal (showing X-rated mov-
ies) , and some illegal but hardly im-
moral (prayer in public schools) .
There is a difference.

Furthermore, as our federal, state
and local governments tend to dis-
card our Christian heritage, it is en-
tirely possible that this trend will
continue. Who would have predict-
ed 15 years ago that it would be il-
legal to pray in schools?

Unfortunately, many people have
the mistaken idea that our present
laws and government conform to the
teachings of the Bible on various sub-
jects. Let us get out the concordance
and see.

Most of the references are in the
books of Exodus, Leviticus, Deu-
teronomy and Numbers. However,
in the Gospels Christ stated explicit-
ly that God's law remains un-
changed.

It will be no surprise to you that
the Bible advocates capital punish-
ment. Death is given as the proper
punishment not only for murder,
but also for kidnapping to sell into
slavery, adultery, rape, sodomy,
bestiality, blasphemy, sorcery, and
false witness in a capital case. Es-
pecially in the matter of killing
someone, the law makes a clear dis-
tinction between intentional and ac-
cidental killing, and provides for
due process.

The Bible also advocates cor-
poral punishment. The text about
sparing the rod and spoiling the
child is familiar, of course, but cor-
poral punishment is also advocated
for what we would call aggravated
cases of assault and battery where
some permanent injury is done.

Author John T. Harllee is a certi-
fied public accountant who lives in
Florence, S. C.

However, the punishment must not
exceed the seriousness of the of-
fense.

For other, lesser offenses the rule
is that restitution must be made to
the victim. If the damage was acci-
dental, a simple compensation of
the amount of damage done is speci-
fied. In our legal system this would
come under the civil law. In cases
of deliberate harm, such as theft,
fraud, or vandalism, the criminal
must pay an additional amount as
penalty.

Such crimes as usury and extor-
tion were evidently treated the same
way. A thief who was unable to
pay might be forced to work out
his debt to the victim. For fornica-
tion, the punishment was payment
of the dowry. Also the Bible men-
tions certain cases in which no pun-
ishment is to be imposed, such as
for killing a burglar who breaks
in during the night. It also provides
for a reduced verdict in capital cases
where there are not two witnesses.

Imprisonment as a form of pun-
ishment is not advocated. The near-
est thing to it is forced labor, with
the proceeds going to the victims,
for a thief who could pay his fine.
The criminal is not assumed to have
"a debt to society," although he may
have a debt to his particular victim.

This is not because prisons had
not been invented at the time. Both
Scripture and archaeology assure us
that they were in use among the
heathen nations around Israel. But
they do not seem to have been in
use under Scriptural law. For exam-
ple, when Jeremiah was imprisoned
unjustly the arrangements in the
house of Jonathan the scribe are de-
cidely makeshift.

Now, let us compare Scriptural
law with our own. Capital punish-
ment is probably a dead letter, as
no executions have been carried out
for several years now. Corporal
punishment, except for children, is
generally considered to be a dead
letter, too, the last legal whipping

(Continued on p. 19, col. 1)

PAGE 13 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE 28, 1972

SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON

For July 16, 1972

INTRODUCTION: What is
praise? Most of us appreciate praise
from people, from time to time, for
the work we have done, though we
know as Christians that all we have
accomplished is by God's work in us.
We like to be noticed for what we
have done. Sometimes our motiva-
tion for desiring praise is not a good
one. We desire selfishly to be ex-
alted over or noticed more than oth-
ers we feel to be our rivals.

But there is a proper sense in
which Christians can praise one an-
other. Paul exhorted us to rejoice
with those who rejoice. We are also
to think of others as better than our-
selves. Such attitudes provoke praise
of others in the proper sense.

When, however, we speak of prais-
ing the Lord, which is the object of
our study today, we have a clear un-
derstanding of what praise is. In
Psalm 103:2, we have a case of paral-
lelism in Hebrew poetry in which
the first line exhorts us to bless
(praise) the Lord. The second line
defines that praise in terms of not
forgetting all His benefits.

Our praise of the Lord, then, can
be seen particularly as an exhorta-
tion to recall all that God has done
for us. By means of this, we are con-
tinually reminded of our own depend-
ence on the Lord. Thus our praise
of God rebounds to our own spirit-
ual good.

God does not need our praise in the
sense that we sometimes need a word
of encouragement from others. God
could raise up praises for Himself
from the very stones as Jesus Him-
self taught (Luke 19:40) . Rather,
we need to praise God that we may
ever remember that to God alone be-
longs all the glory. Otherwise we
become proud and vain and in dan-
ger of serious spiritual decline.

I. THE OBJECT OF PRAISE.
Scripture clearly teaches that the
Lord and only He is the true and
ultimate object of praise. All praise
ultimately should be given to Him
and to no other.

This is brought out quite clearly

Praising the Lord

Rev. Jack B. Scott

Background Scripture: Psalms 103:

1-5, 104, 150
Key Verses: Psalms 104:1, 5-8, 14-

17; Psalm 103:1-5
Devotional Reading: Psalm 103:6-

18

Memory Selection: Psalm 104:33

in Genesis 14 when Abraham learned
from Melchizedek. Abraham had
gone out to fight the enemies of
Sodom and Gomorrah and had re-
captured all that had been taken
away.

As he returned, he received a hero's
welcome. Two kings came out to
meet him, the king of Sodom and the
king of Salem (Melchizedek) . The
king of Sodom offered him praises
and all the possessions which he had
recaptured. The king of Salem
praised God Almighty, the One who
had given to Abraham the victory
that day.

Abraham saw that all the glory of
his victory belonged to God and he
followed the lead of Melchizedek in
praising God, giving God the glory
and giving a tithe to the priest of
God. Abraham grew spiritually that
day. He learned that what he ac-
complished was by God's power and
for God's glory. He shined as a light
in a darkened world on that day.

It is undoubtedly for this reason
that Moses led the people in praise
of God when they crossed the Red
Sea and saw their enemies perish in
the floods of water that washed over
them. God was praised because the
victory that day was God's and not
because of the cleverness of Moses or
those with him (Exo. 15:1).

Revelation 4-5 gives a glimpse into
heaven. All heaven is gathered
around the throne of God and the
whole Church and all of the heaven-
ly creatures give all glory to Him
who sits on the throne (4:11). He
alone is worthy of the praise, glory,
honor and power. The reasons given
for this praise are His creation of and
providence for all that He has made.

The International Sunday School Lesson Out-
lines are copyrighted by The International
Council of Religious Education.

The same praise is given to the'
lamb of God, Christ, who is worth)
of praise because He died for God'.'
Church (Rev. 5:9) .

Any time, therefore, that we take
credit for what God has done, we in
terfere with the glory and praise
which are due to Him. This exalts
ourselves in pride and we are sure tc
fall. In all things we should strive
to see that God gets the glory for all
that is accomplished in us. When
we are zealous for credit for what we
have done, then we stand in the way
of God's glory. When we see every
thing in terms of God's strength
then we are not zealous for the prais
es of men.

Peter expressed beautifully our
task: "Ye are an elect race, a royal
priesthood, a royal nation, a people
for God's own possession, that ye
may show forth the excellencies ol
Him who called you out of darkness
into His marvelous light (II Pet. 2
9) . Or as Christ himself said: "Let
your light so shine before men, that
they may see your good works, and
glorify your Father who is in heav-
en" (Matt. 5:16) .

II. REASONS FOR PRAISE
(Psalms 103, 104) . The reasons foi
praising God can be summarized in
two general categories: praise foi
His works of creation and provi-
dence; and praise for His works ol
redemption. Given in summary fash-
ion in Revelation 4-5, the benefits
of God are also enumerated in Psalm
103 which particularly deal with
God's redeeming benefits. Psalm 104
tells of His creative and providen-
tial benefits. We will begin with
the benefits of His providence and1
so with Psalm 104.

A. God has created all and pro-
vides for all (Psalm 104) .

God has created all (vv. 1-9) .
These verses particularly remind us
of God's creative power. God
made heaven and earth and hovers
over all that He has made. He laid
the foundations of the earth and cov
ered portions of it by sea. He set the

PAGE 14 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE 28, 1972

rounds for all portions of the earth
o that the seas cannot cover the
:arth. Thus we see that the world as
ve have it today is as it is because
Sod made it so. It did not just hap-
pen. God by His Word made it all
i(Gen. 1; Heb. 11:3) .

God has cared for the physical
\uorld (vv. 10-18). By physical I
nean the inanimate world. He
nade the springs to water the ground
Ivnd rain to water the mountains. He
,:aused the grass to grow and the trees
j;o blossom and bear fruit. All the
(world is God's garden. We see that
it Sod created an inanimate world to
n- provide all the needs of the animal
s^world of creation — birds, fish, in-
Bsects and so forth. Everything was
to thought of. God did not make a
;e single creature without providing for
Jits particular needs. The benevo-
lence of God is marvelous.
J God has appointed the heavenly
mbodies to their functions (vv. 19-20) .
»Even the moon and sun and their
i functions and circuits are there for
Ithe reasons which God ordained.

Light and darkness alternating are
i[for the benefit of the creatures
il. which God has made. Some creatures
t prefer to move in the sunlight, oth-
f ers in the darkness. God provides for
flail.

A All animals await God's care (vv.
: 21-30) . The psalmist said they all
t seek their food from God, not only
tithe animals we see moving about
j among men, but even those in the
r. oceans which we never see, are un-
;der the watchful eye of God. When
iGod does not supply the need of
I any, they feel the lack and are in
[ distress. Even man, going to his dai-
i ly labors, is part of God's plan for
i provision. His work is blessed by
God who sends His rain on the just
j and the unjust.

. The psalmist praises God for all of
■hhis (vv. 31-35). All men ought to
i praise God, for all are direct benefi-
ciaries of this goodness of God. The
| psalmist, who knew God not only
j through nature but by special revela-
i tion, called on all believers to praise
I God. Sinners who receive God's ben-
> efits and yet do not praise Him are
; under great condemnation and will,
. in the end, perish. They are guilty
of not recognizing the truth of God
revealed in all that He has done,
i Compare Romans chapter 1:18-32.
i B. God has redeemed His chil-
I dren and given them all spiritual
I blessings (Psa. 103) . The psalmist
• summarized these spiritual benefits
: (vv. 3-4) . God forgives your iniqui-

PAGE 15

«

ties and heals your diseases, He re-
deems your life and crowns you with
lovingkindness and mercies. He sat-
isfies all the desires of those whose
hearts have been changed so that
they desire the things of God.

The psalmist, knowing that God is
this kind of God primarily through
the special revelation which God has
given of Himself, quoted the revela-
tion which God gave of Himself to
Moses long before (v.8) . See Exodus
34:6. That particular revelation of
God's goodness to Moses became the
basic operating knowledge of God
which all of His children learned to
depend on throughout the Old Tes-
tament period. In the New Testa-
ment period the revealed Word be-
came flesh and we see in the person
of Christ God's mercy, grace and lov-
ingkindness.

Next the psalmist expounded on
God's revelation as it applies to our
own spiritual condition. God does
not deal with us in accord with our
sins, else we would all perish (v.
10) . In fact, He has removed our
sins from us as far as the east is from
the west (we will never again see
those sins ■ — -v. 12) .

God is like unto a father who loves
and pities His children (v. 13) . Thus
He continues forever His lovingkind-
ness to them since they are forever
His children (vv, 17-18) . After hav-
ing recited all that God has done,
the psalmist called on all to praise
the Lord, particularly His ministers
(servants) who have tasted the
Lord's graciousness.

III. THE MEANS OF PRAIS-
ING GOD (Psa. 150) . This psalm
is rightly called the Hallelujah
Chorus of the psalter. It begins with
the word "Hallelujah," the Hebrew
word for "praise ye the Lord."

The theme of this particular psalm
is that the Lord is to be praised ev-
erywhere and by all means. He is to
be praised in the sanctuary, the place
of worship (v. 1) . We usually think
of this as the proper place of praise
and truly here by our worship of
God we must praise Him.

But the psalmist goes on beyond
that. We are also to praise God in
the firmament of His power. This
word firmament, like its use in Gen-
esis 1, seems to indicate the inhab-
itable part of the world, that is, ev-
erywhere that men can go. Thus
praise of God is to be first in the
place we gather for worship. Be-
yond this, praise is proper every-
where we go. No place is an inap-

/ THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE

propriate place to praise God.

The last part of the psalm notes
the means by which we can praise
Him, using all kinds of musical in-
struments. We should remember
that many of these instruments were
invented by sinful men (Gen. 4:21-
22) . How appropriate that God's
children should take over these in-
struments for His glory and praise!

However, if one has no ability to
play instruments to God's praise, he
still has a voice. As many as have
any breath are called on to praise
the Lord (v. 63) . Any means can be
used to praise God. Our art, music,
talent, gifts, abilities, all can be mus-
tered to the praise of God.

Let us be slow to condemn those
young people today who praise God
in a music to which many of us are
not accustomed. I have listened to
young people praise God. They did
so in ways I have never heard God
praised before, but I found myself
praising God for giving to them this
unique ability to use the instruments
of men to pour out praise unto Him.

Surely we cannot deny the young
people of today this right to praise
God as they desire to express their
praise, when we read of Miriam's
dancing to God's praise (Exo. 15:20-
21) and David's dancing (II Sam.
6:14). Let us not discourage but
encourage all praises that are to
God's glory by any means.

CONCLUSION: One final word.
All praise should be enthusiastically
offered. As the psalmist elsewhere
stated, with the whole heart (Psa. 9:
1, etc.). No praise offered merely
with the lips can please God. God
searches the heart and He looks for
praise to begin. Praise is not an act,
it is a heartfelt desire. HI

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28, 1972

YOUTH PROGRAM

For July 16, 1972

Unity and Diversity in the Church

Scripture: I Corinthians 12
Suggested Hymns:

"In Christ There Is No East
Nor West"

"The Church's One Founda-
tion"

"In the Cross of Christ I Glory"

PROGRAM LEADER'S INTRO-
DUCTION: The figure the Bible
uses of the Church as the body of
Christ is a very helpful one. It helps
us understand our relation to the
Lord, as the head of the Church, and
it delivers us from the idea of a
Christian unity which insists that ev-
ery Christian must be a carbon copy
of every other Christian.

It also keeps us from falling into
the error of thinking that Christians
are justified in being completely in-
dependent of each other. Just as all
the members of our physical bodies
are different from one another yet
are still part of the same body, so the
members of the Church differ from
one another and yet are bound to-
gether very really in the body of
Christ.

Our speakers will help us see some
of the values of this diversity within
the unity of the Church, and to un-

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ida 33308.

Rev. B. Hoyt Evans

derstand what is the true basis of
our unity. It is especially appropri-
ate that we consider this topic at a
time when a great deal is being said
and written — some words seeking
to contradict others — about unity
and diversity.

FIRST SPEAKER: A baseball
pitching coach takes a dim view of a
pitcher who "throws with his arm."
By "throwing with his arm" it is
meant that the pitcher does not make
proper use of all the muscles of his
body. Obviously, the arm is most
prominent in the act of throw-
ing, but the most effective
pitchers make skillful use of the
strength of their entire bodies when
they deliver a pitch. Every muscle
in the body is made to play its part.

There is practical strength in the
unity of the Church. Christians to-
gether can do many things which
we cannot do nearly so well individ-
ually. An individual Christian
could not be expected to plan, ad-
minister and finance a program to
carry the Gospel to the lost people
on five continents. But as members
of the Presbyterian Church, we can
have a share in just such an under-
taking. In addition to world mis-
sion work, there are opportunities
to witness at home through the unit-
ed efforts of the members of our de-
nomination. These particular op-
portunities for service are not open
to the individual Christian who in-
sists on cutting himself off from fel-
lowship with other believers.

SECOND SPEAKER: There is
added value in the contributions
which different members of the
church are able to make. Not all
people are able to do all thing s
equally well, and God intended for
it to be that way. One of the main
points of I Corinthians 12 is that the
different members of the church can
make different contributions to its
welfare, even as the different mem'
bers of our bodies contribute to the
whole life of the body.

To mention two examples, there
is need for both teaching and sing-
ing in every church. One person
may have a good, well-trained sing-
ing voice, but no gift for teaching.
Another person who is well equipped
to teach has no musical ability. It
would be obviously foolish for the
singer to insist on teaching and for
the teacher to be determined to fill
a place in the choir loft. The bring-
ing together of many Christians with
their varying gifts enables each tc
use his ability most effectively for
the benefit of other people and for
the glory of God.

What can be said for a particular
church and for a denomination can
be applied to the Church universal.
All the Christians in the world are
responsible for bringing their com-
bined strength and their abilities tc
the one great task which the Lord has
given us to do, that of proclaiming
the message of salvation to the world

THIRD SPEAKER: In bringing
together our strength and gifts in the
Church, there are dangers against
which we must be on guard. One ol
these is the temptation to parade
our own particular skill or ability
before others in order to receive
their praise and acclaim.

That was one of the problems in
the Corinthian church with which
Paul's letter dealt. Certain church
members at Corinth who possessed
the spectacular gift of being able tc
speak in tongues were glorying in the
attention which they were attracting
They saw themselves as superior tc
those who did not have that partic

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PAGE 16 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE 28, 1972

alar gift, and the service and praise
)f God were largely forgotten.

We must always remember that
tvhen we unite for the worship and
.vork of the Church we do it for the
lonor and glory of God. If we seek
praise, let it be His praise!

FOURTH SPEAKER: There is
ilso the danger that we shall become
;o enthusiastic about doing things to-
gether that we shall seek unity merely
for the sake of unity. Some very sin-
cere people seem to believe that uni-
if'ty in the Church must be secured,
i whatever the cost. While unity has
01 very definite advantages, as we have
j[ already discovered, certain loyalties
i( and convictions cannot be compro-
ir raised for the sake of appearing uni-
fied.

nf Sometimes the recommended low-
liest common denominator among
i groups of church members becomes
t^much, much too low. Diversity
ceases to be healthy when it is a mat-
Iter of taking opposite positions on
tiifundamenal matters.
»' A collection of arms, legs, and oth-
ler parts does not constitute a body
[[! unless they are bound together nat-
if urally and unless they have life,
it Definite fundamental beliefs unite
| Christians just as sinews unite the
I parts of our physical bodies. There
| can be no real spiritual unity
t among a group of people unless they
j have a common belief in the Bible
i as the inspired Word of God, a com-
mon belief in Jesus as the di-
i vine Son of God and Saviour of sin-
i ners by His death as their substitute,
| and a common trust in Christ as per-
t sonal Saviour and Lord. These are
i. some of the basic fundamentals of
j unity, and there can be no common
i spiritual fellowship and life without
i them.

PROGRAM LEADER: Let us
conclude our program with a series
J of sentence prayers thanking God
for the unity we have in Him,
[ thanking Him for the usefulness of
I different believers and their abili-
ties, and asking that all of us may
i be drawn closer to the Lord, to the
truth, and to His will for us.

Closing Prayers. EE
• • •

No sermon is of any value, or like-
ly to be useful, which has not the
: three essential R's in it: ruin by the
j fall, redemption by Christ, and re-
generation by the Holy Spirit. —
I Ryland.

BOOKS

ABORTION: THE PERSONAL
DILEMMA, by R. F. R. Gardner. Wm.
B. Eerdmans Publ. Co., Grand Rapids,
Mich. 288 pp. $5.95. Reviewed by the
Rev. Richard G. Watson, pastor, Semi-
nole Presbyterian Church, Tampa,
Fla.

This practicing gynecologist, who
is also an ordained minister of the
United Free Church of Scotland, has
tried to present a balanced and sym-
pathetic view of the problems associ-
ated with abortion. Having spe-
cialized in obstetrics and gynecology
and having practiced in Great Brit-
ain since 1965, he is uniquely quali-
fied to discuss the changes that have
taken place and the problems that
have arisen since the British Abor-
tion Act of 1967.

The strong point of this book is
the author's thorough research on
the subject and careful documenta-
tion which is reflected throughout.
This is particularly important since,
as he states, "facts are the scarcest
commodity in the abortion debate."

He is keenly aware of the prob-
lems created for all those connected
in any way with abortion and gives
careful treatment to each one. An
example of this is the following quo-
tation regarding involved phy-
sicians: "A patient struggling for
life or to preserve a pregnancy ex-
pects the doctor to try, and go on
trying beyond reason — and he usual-
ly does. But will he try quite as
hard if he has just come from de-
stroying a fetus? He may think he
can keep the two functions separate
in his mind, but the unconscious in-
fluence will be insidious."

The author's weakest point is his
treatment of the spiritual status of
the fetus. He says, "My own view
is that while the fetus is to be cher-
ished increasingly as it develops, we
should regard its first breath at birth
as the moment when God gives it
not only life, but the offer of life."
In support of this opinion he states,
"This surely is the original Biblical
teaching that God took a fully
formed man and breathed into his
nostrils the breath of life, and thus
the man became a living creature —
Adam (Gen. 2:7) ."

Many undoubtedly agree with this
low view of the fetus but the
claimed Biblical support reflects
weak and faulty exegesis. Since the

state of the fetus is the foundation
principle of the whole debate, it is
disappointing to discover his view
at this point so weakly supported.
However, this position is considered
necessary in order to permit abor-
tions in some extreme cases without
feeling that a human life is being
destroyed.

This author is opposed to liberal
abortion laws but in favor of care-
fully worked out reform. In the clos-
ing paragraphs he mentions an or-
ganization of Catholics and Protes-
tants known as "Birthright," whose
creed is, "It is the right of every
pregnant woman to give birth, and
the right of every child to be born."

He then adds, "The present writ-
er, while convinced that there is a
real place for abortion in some
cases, nevertheless is sure that the
approach of "Birthright" is essential-
ly the right one, and would be ap-
plicable to the majority of women
seeking abortion today."

This book should be read by those
involved in any way with the abor-
tion problem, and who is not in-
volved? IS

LIVING DOCTRINES OF THE
NEW TESTAMENT, by H. D. McDon-
ald. Zondervan Publ. House, Grand
Rapids, Mich. 319 pp. $3.95. Reviewed
by the Rev. Osterhoudt Phillips, pas-
tor, Shandaken Reformed Church, Mt.
Tremper, N. Y.

This excellent book contains 25
chapters covering most of the New
Testament books from the Gospels
through the Revelation. The au-
thor has a unique, inspiring manner
in bringing out the deeper meanings
of theology that holds the reader.
He explores the theology of God, Je-
sus Christ, the Holy Spirit, man, sin,
grace, salvation, the kingdom and
final things in the Gospels and con-
tinues the study in the Pauline let-
ters.

It would be most difficult to do
justice to this fine book without in-
cluding some statements the author
makes:

"It was in relation to God that Je-
sus brought out the exceeding sin-
fulness of sin. Sin is not man's mis-
fortune, it is his fault."

(Continued on next page)

PAGE 17 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE 28, 1972

"The Sermon on the Mount is not
the Gospel; it shows rather the over-
whelming need of the Gospel. For
salvation was something more than
morality touched with emotion;
something more than ritual per-
formed with punctiliousness. Salva-
tion is for the synagogue as much as
for the slum; needed equally by the
people in the pew as by the people
in the pub. And the great thing
about the Gospel records is that the
love of God is not restricted to any
one class; it is a love which would
save the evil man from his sin and
the good man from his goodness ....
The Gospel is not something distinct

and different from Christ. He is the
Gospel; He is the salvation of God."

"To those without, the cross was
a deed of man; but in the enlight-
enment of the Spirit, the cross had be-
come for Paul an act of God. To
them it was a crucifixion; to him it
was a cross. The cross is more than
the crucifixion. The crucifixion is
what man did to Christ; the cross is
what God did in Christ .... With-
out then the slightest hesitation the
apostle relates the cross to the love
of God. However dark was the night
the Lord went through, the anchor
of the cross was secure in the eternal
heart of God. Calvary was not some-

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Belk-Simpson Co.
Winchester, Ky.
T. L. Beckham, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Mt. Sterling, Ky.
Willoughby Smith, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Frankfort, Ky.

J. D. Prow, Res. Mgr.

GEORGIA

Belk-Simpson Co.

Bainbridge, Ga.

M. D. Ashley, Res. Mgr.

ARKANSAS

Belk-Simpson Co.

Paragould, Ark.

W. H. Wade, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Osceola, Ark.

K. R. Cline, Res. Mgr.

These stores are a small part of the entire Belk or-
ganization and have been in existence approximately
SO years. The Belk stores were launched in 1886-88.

SEE THE MANAGER NEAREST YOU FOR CHURCH CARPET, ROBES, ETC.

thing done behind God's back but
done in the full light of His presence
by His own beloved Son in Whom '
He was always well-pleased . . . t *
Salvation is not just something done tf
for us, it is also something done
in us."

I heartily recommend this book to
all Christian servants of the Lord.
To read the book is an investment";
paying handsomely in spiritual divi- '
dends. To the unsaved it will be a t
serious challenge to think deeply of
God, eternal matters and the salva- i
tion of their souls. IS

Ecumenical— from p. 7

ing committee on world missions, re-
ported that the committee heard an
explanation of the WCC's request
for the funds from the executive sec-
retary of the WCC's New York office,
the Rev. Eugene Smith. He said the
World Council went to great lengths
to see that the relief materials re-,
quested for the groups got into the
hands of the right people.

Guns or Butter?

The Rev. Gordon Reed of Green
ville, S. C, told commissioners that
Enoree Presbytery was not opposed
to feeding the hungry in Africa bul
was disturbed, rather, that the Board
of World Missions could provide no'
assurance that its contributions were
being used for that purpose.

The Enoree overture had noted the
board's financial support for three
African guerrilla organizations and
asked that the board be instructed
"to cease and desist from directly or
indirectly supporting or contributing
to foreign or domestic political re
volutionary movements."

On a voice vote the Assembly an

NEEDED: PRINCIPAL FOR GRADES 1-8
Privately owned Christian Day School if
Atlanta needs a qualified Administratoi
who can also provide spiritual leadership
for faculty and 450 students. Must be
firmly committed to Christ and to a sound
philosophy of Christian education. Salary
scale at least equal to Atlanta City
Schools. Write or call the Heiskell School
3260 Northside Drive NW, Atlanta Gfi
30305. (Phone 404-237-5216)

WANTED: Clinical year or graduate stu-
dent to assist minister for a year with
general work in fast moving city church
Youth work, visitation and general assist
ance. Open August 1st. Excellent salarj
for energetic young man who is willing tc
work. Send full particulars to "OP
PORTUNITY" c/o The Presbyterian Jour
nal, Weaverville, N. C. 28787.

PAGE 18 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE 28, 1972

ivered negatively a resolution asking
withdrawal from the National Coun-
il of Churches. On another voice
ote it expressed its support of both
lie NCC and WCC by keeping them
i the denominational benevolence
udget.

The General Council had recom-
rended supporting the general bud-
ets of the controversial councils by
esignated, unequalized gifts from
ympathetic individuals and Pres-
yterian US congregations. By a vote
f 20 to 7 the standing committee on
he General Council reversed the
ecommendation.

John A. Clary of Harlingen, Tex.,
old the court that after learning of
he General Council's recommen-
lation he had been looking forward
o an every member canvass when he
ould ask for support of a budget
xcluding the two councils.

Mrs. Geraldine R. Pearson of
Atlanta, a newly elected representa-
ive on the NCC governing board,
ppealed to commissioners to send
ler to the council with "full sup-
>ort" rather than "haphazard" back-
ag.

Commissioners gave a standing
ote of commendation to "the re-
presentatives of our denomination
o the General Board of the NCC for
heir significant influence and dyna-
mic participation in the leadership
>f the NCC," particularly singling
>ut the Rev. John F. Anderson "for
lis distinguished service as a vice-
)resident of the NCC." El

.ay man— from p. 13

■(in Delaware) being about 20 years
|igo. 6
e| For theft and related crimes, it is
extremely rare for the victim to get
i my sort of compensation at the ex-
pense of the thief. All too often,
j|;?ven when the thief is caught and '
prosecuted successfully, the stolen
or property is not recovered. Many
if'Victims have the distinct impression
J| ::hat the law enforcement machinery n
^ould not care less about them, that
I die offender is being punished for
ol laving offended the majesty of the

'* government by disturbing its peace,

ind not for the harm he has done
To the victim.

Without quoting a lot of statis-
tics, the evidence seems to show that
sfkhe present system of justice is not
«1 Working, either as a deterrent, for
xrimes are not being prevented, nor

SCHOOL OF
EVANGELISM

— AUGUST 3-17, 1972 - MONTREAT, N.C.

— Sponsored by the Board of National Ministries

— Concurrent with the Bible Conference (Platform
programs of Bible Conference open to registrants.)

— Principle Speaker: Dr. Krister Stendahl

— Rev. Charles M. Olsen, Convenor

— Dr. Felix Gear, Resident Theological Reflector

Design — Eight courses offered, with a maximum registration of 30 per
course. Participants will pre-register for one course, to be studied in-depth
two hours each morning. Afternoon sessions will enable exposure to the other
seven courses.

Courses: (Select first three choices)

1. EMBRACING CONGREGATIONAL DIVERSITY AS AN EVANGELISM
STYLE- the relation of program diversity to the evangelism task.
Faculty - Rev. Robert Ball

2. DEVELOPING LEADERSHIP FOR "BODY LIFE" OF HOUSE
CHURCHES - the contributions of the human potential movement,
liturgical reform, mission action planning, lay renewal, neo-pentecostalism
and inter-generational learning.

Faculty - Rev. Jim Hornsby, Rev. Don Allen, Rev. Joe Sandifer, and Rev.
Charles M. Olsen

3. DEVELOPING PRESBYTERY AND CONGREGATIONAL
STRATEGIES FOR EVANGELISM - evangelism concerns and action
strategies.

Faculty - Rev. Sandy McGeachy, Rev. Fred Campbell, Rev. Don Park-
inson, and Rev. John R. Smith

4. TRAINING FOR SYSTEMATIC VISITATION EVANGELISM - methods
of training for lay visitors.

Faculty - Rev. Archie Parrish

5. MEDIA, A VEHICLE FOR EVANGELISM - how the media can be util-
ized to communicate the good news.
Faculty - Dennis C. Benson

6. DESIGN FOR WITNESS - good and existing evangelism programs and
materials for the congregation in visitation training, small groups, mission
action, etc.

Faculty - Rev. Dan Dickenson

7. INVOLVED IN COMMUNITY, A CONTEXT FOR EVANGELISM -

ways to initiate and sustain the local congregation in a witness to the
community.

Faculty - Rev. Robert Rhea

EVANGELISM IN BLACK AND TRANSITIONAL COMMUNITIES -

evangelism strategies from the experiences of two effective churches.
Faculty - Dr. William Holmes Borders and Dr. Harold Thomas

MAIL THIS FORM TO: Mr. E. A. Andrews, Jr., Mountain Retreat Associ-
ation, Montreat, N.C. 18757. Enclose $15 registration fee payable to:
Mountain Retreat Association.

Please register me for Course No. . My second choice is No. . My

third choice is No. .

Nar

{Continued on next page)

ame .
Street
City _

State

Zip

PAGE 19 / THE PRESBYTERAN JOURNAL / JUNE 28, 1972

i

as a system of punishment or re-
habilitation — convicts tend to re-
turn to crime after release. Rehabili-
tation is properly the job of the
Church, not the state, anyway.

I submit that the reason for this is
increasing divergence from divine
law. Let us take the most common
type of offense, theft. Here the
criminal has injured a specific per-
son, the victim, by depriving him of
the use of his property. The crim-
inal should be forced to return the
property or its equivalent in money.
Furthermore, the criminal should
be forced to pay the victim a pen-
alty for the hardship and trouble he

has caused, including the cost of
catching and prosecuting him.

Generally the criminal will have
to work out this debt. Such a sys-
tem provides a much better way of
both punishing and rehabilitating
the criminal, who must assume re-
sponsibility for his actions in full,
than our present system of locking
the miscreant up and feeding him
at public expense, while leaving the
victim to suffer the loss.

If we are really interested in hav-
ing "law and order," the first step
would appear to be to bring our
secular laws and their enforcement
into conformity with divine law. IS

FOR YOUR LIBRARY

Machen's Notes on Galatians
Biblical & Theological Studies
Paper $3.9J

The Modern Language New Testa-
ment, The New Berkley Version

Paper 1.6!

Creation, Evolution and God's Word

By Zimmerman Paper 2.5(

Biblical Revelation

By Clark Pinnock 4.9!

The Bible and Modern Science

By Henry M. Morris Paper .51

The Twilight of Evolution

By Henry M. Morris Paper 1.51

The Bible Has The Answer

By Henry M. Morris Paper 4.51

Biblical Cosmology and Modern

Science By Henry M. Morris 2.5M

The Genesis Flood — The Biblical
Record and Its Scientific Impli-
cations By John C. Whitcomb,

Jr. & Morris Paper 3.9

Studies in The Bible and Science

By Henry M. Morris Paper 1.9

The Theory of Evolution and the Facts
of Science By Harry Rimmer

Paper 2.5

The Creation Vs. Evolution Hand-
book By Thomas F. Heinze

Paper 1.5

Conflict and Harmony in Science
and the Bible by Jack Wood

Sears Paper 1 .£

The Flood by Alfred Renwinkel 2.1

The Story of Man

By Robert Strong 1.(

"YE ARE MY WITNESSES"
Isaiah 43:10 Luke 24:48

EVANGELISM CONFERENCE

sponsored by

Presbyterian Evangelistic Fellowship

MONTREAT, NORTH CAROLINA August 18-23, 1972

MAIN SPEAKERS:
Grady Wilson

Kennedy Smartt

Mariano DiGangi
Mario Rivera
James Baird

Robert Reymond
Ben Wilkinson

BIBLE HOUR led by William E. Hill, Jr.

Twenty six SEMINARS on EVANGELISM

MUSIC PROGRAM directed by Rev. and Mrs. Iner Basinger

Special and separate YOUTH PROGRAMS for all ages

coordinated by Carl Wilson of Campus Crusade

VESPERS each evening with:

Wilson Benton
Michael Schneider
John Sartelle
John Oliver
Carl Wilson

For Evangelism Conference brochures clip this coupon and mail to

PRESBYTERIAN EVANGELISTIC FELLOWSHIP
P. O. Box 808
Hopewell, Virginia 23860

Name

Address

City and state Zip_

Please send me Evangelism Conference brochures.

Order from
The Presbyterian Journal
Weaverville, N. C. 28787

PAGE 20 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JUNE 28, 1972

I VOL. XXXI, NO. 10

JULY 5, 1972

YTERIAN

4dvocating continuation of a Presbyterian Church loyal

$4.00 A YEAR

to Scripture and the Reformed faith

112th General Assembly
of the

Presbyterian Church US
In Photo and Comment

S. S. LESSON AND YOUTH PROGRAM FOR JULY 23

dWOO

uot^oeixoo o H

i

MAIL BAG

THE REMINDER HELPED

Thanks for reminding us the sec-
ond time about asking our local pa-
per to carry your remarks concerning
the Vietnam war. When you first
mentioned it, I must admit it slipped
my mind. However, since the Gen-
eral Assembly had just delivered
their ultimatum concerning the war,
I suggested that our editor please
use it, even though it was late. En-
closed is a copy of the result from
our local newspaper.

May I be so bold as to suggest that
you do this on other important is-
sues. For as I suggested to our local

editor, it serves a two-fold purpose.
Many people are still not aware that
there are other voices in the Church
which oppose many things going on
in high places.

Thanks also for your article, "The
Louisville Story." Truly, one can
no longer ignore the iceberg, even
though just the tip is in sight, or else
we shall be as the ill fated Titanic
and will go down with the ship.

Our ship is sinking and many
will not be saved because they go
along with the world 'til the end.
Because the truth has been so care-
fully concealed, few have taken the

the

PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL

Rev. G. Aiken Taylor, Ph.D., Editor
Rev. Henry B. Dendy, D.D., Managing Editor
Arthur H. Matthews, Assistant Editor

Circulation leader among independent publications in the Presbyterian-Reformed world

THIS WEEK— Vol. XXXI, No. 10, July 5, 1972

The 112th Assembly in Photos and Comments 7

Continuing Montreat Assembly coverage

Departments —

Editorials 16

The Layman and his Church 17

Sunday School Lesson, July 23 18

Youth Program, July 23 20

Book Reviews 22

THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL, a

Presbyterian weekly magazine, devoted
to the statement, defense, and propa-
gation of the Gospel, the faith which
was once for all delivered to the saints,

is published every Wednesday by the
Southern Presbyterian Journal Co.,
Inc., in Weaverville, N. C.

SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: $4 a year

for individuals, $3 for members of
Every Family Plan churches. All cor-
respondence regarding subscriptions,
advertising or other business matters,
should be addressed to the business
office in Weaverville, N. C. 28787.
Second class postage paid at Weaver-
ville, N. C. 28787.

POSTMASTER: Send Form 3579 to
Presbyterian Journal, Box 635, Wea-
verville, N. C. 28787. Subscribers
should allow three weeks for change
of address in continental U. S. Change
of address notices should include both
old and new addresses (with zip
codes) .

NEWS AND EDITORIAL correspond-
ence should be addressed to P. O. Box
3108, Asheville, N. C. 28802. Editorial
offices located at 247 Charlotte St. in
Asheville.

TELEPHONES: (All area 704) edi-
torial office, 254-4015, 254-4016;
business office, 645-3310, 645-3962.

trouble to find it, and fewer still
have the courage to use it once they
find it. Without the truth we can- :
not stand. So thanks for bringing
those facts to your readers.

— Mrs. Emily W. Elmore ]
Rocky Mount, N. C.

FOR THE LORD'S SAKE

The Journal, in its May 24 issue,
carried a stimulating and provocative
editorial entitled "When Is the Sab-
bath?" The central thrust of this
editorial — that no particular period
of twenty-four hours in the week
is more sacred than another — is very
well taken. If this were so, the dif-
ficulty of deciding which twenty-
four hour period was "the holy time"
would result in confusion com-
pounded.

The principle which must always
be maintained is that man desperate-
ly needs, and God expects, a weekly
rhythm of one day out of seven for
spiritual renewal.

Although there is nothing especi-
ally sacred about the first day of the
week per se, there are two practical
reasons for its observance by Chris-
tians. First, it points up our witness
to a living Lord, who rose again on
the first day of the week. Thus that
day becomes theologically and ex-
istentially significant to believers.

Second, this is the day which, in
this country at least, has been re-
cognized as a time when schools are
out, industries silent, businesses shut
down, government offices closed, and
people given an opportunity for a
"break" in their lives. This being
the case, the Church should, from a
humanitarian, if not theological,
standpoint encourage maintenance
of this day as a weekly "rest day,"
and at the same time see that the
rights of those to whom the seventh
day is theologically meaningful, are
protected.

The Lord's Day Alliance of the
United States believes that the
Church has a six-fold responsibility
in regard to the Lord's Day in the
contemporary context of society: (1)
To lead its people in their under-
standing of their needs of and the
means whereby they may truly en-
joy the Lord's Day; (2) To protect
the rights of its people for a day for
spiritual renewal and witness; (3)
To provide for the spiritual needs of
those who are engaged in essential i
work on Sunday so that they, too, I
may enjoy a day with their Lord on I

mother day of the week; (4) To
(support those businesses which order
heir schedules out of respect for the
Lord's Day; (5) To encourage en-
ictment of legislation which will
maintain Sunday as a "rest day" for
all of society; (6) To protect the
rights of those whose "holy day" is
Saturday.

If we today are indeed living in a
'post-Christian" culture, we must
recall that the concept of and the
need for a valid Lord's Day experi-
ence once each week, was developed
py the primitive Church in a "pre-
Ghristian" culture. Regardless of de-
velopments in secular society the
Church must discover techniques for
((the Lord's Day which will assure its
blessings for the whole Body of
[Christ.

— (Rev.) Marion G. Bradwell
Atlanta, Ga.

TOO TIMID?

I have been a subscriber to the
Journal since its founding. In the
past, I have sometimes felt that you
were too timid or reticent in report-
ing false teaching and dangerous
actions in the Church, as in not pub-

• How do your ordinarily read
your Journal? Do you quickly skim
it, jumping from the letters to the
editor to the editorial page, with a
quick look over the news and arti-
cles? You owe it to yourself and to
the Church of which you are a part
to sit down and soak up this issue
word for word. The coverage of the
1 12th General Assembly of the PCUS
has not been laboriously taken from
tape recordings just to make a per-

' manent record of what was said, but
rather to capture, if possible, the
!! "flavor" of the meeting — to reveal
!i what was "bugging" them as well as
what they actually said. Especially to
( show on what they based their opin-
! ions and what they thought religion
3- was all about. In controversial issues,
lilwe have tried to pick up quotes that
Wwould exhibit the heart of the pre-
c occupation of each side. Where does
oi the PCUS stand at this moment in
)) jhistory? In this issue, we've tried to
answer that question.

• A notable contribution was made
by the youth delegates to the 112th

out Assembly. No doubt contrary to the

lishing the names of persons invol-
ved. I commend you for the change
that seems to have taken place.

Especially I appreciated the Jour-
nal for June 21, and its contents,
"The Louisville Story." It is my
intention to be at Journal Day if
physically able.

— (Rev.) Hugh Smith
Galax, Va.

We hope a few thousand other con-
cerned Presbyterians will be physical-
ly able to join us on August 9 for
Journal Day. — Ed.

MINISTERS

James A. Aldridge from Bristol,
Tenn., to the Vansant and Oak-
wood, Va. churches.
Ewell C. Black Jr., from Saluda,
S. C, to the Trinity church,
Travelers Rest, S. C.
Robert S. Crutchfield, after a
year's sabbatical study at Emory
University, has returned to the
Hilton church, Newport News, Va.
J. Brett Fenwick from graduate
study to the First Church, Pulaski,
Va.

H. Howard Smith from Wades-
boro, N. C, to the Jonesboro
church, Sanford, N. C.

Charles K. Gieser from Murfrees-
boro, Tenn. to Christ Church of
Oak Brook, 111., as associate pas-
tor.

James P. Martin from Union Semi-
nary, Richmond, to principal of
the School of Theology, United
Church of Canada, Vancouver,
B. C.

Richard P. Poethig, UPUSA fra-
ternal worker in the Philippines
since 1956, to Chicago as director
of the Presbyterian Institute of In-
dustrial Relations and the Insti-
tute on the Church in Urban-In-
dustrial Society at McCormick
Seminary.

Paul E. Rowland Sr., from Au-
gusta, Ga., to the Chapel-in-the
Gardens, Garden City, Savannah,
Ga.

Jean L. Willis from Lexington,
Ky., to the Wesley Medical Center,
Wichita, Kan., as hospital chap-
lain.

Donald W. Shriver Jr., Raleigh,
N. C, will become professor of
ethics and society and director
of the doctor of ministry program
at Candler School of Theology,
Emory University, Atlanta, Ga.,
Sept. 1.

ACROSS THE EDITOR'S DESK

original expectations of those who
brought them in to add the "per-
spective of youth" to the delibera-
tions, the young people stood
strongly on the evangelical as well as
the liberal side of crucial issues. In
fact, while it may have been wishful
thinking on our part, we came away
with the conviction that the evangeli-
cal youth were much more effective

Debbie Drinkard
Leads Assembly
in worship

What belter way
To bridge the
generation gap?

in influencing votes than their
liberal counterparts. It was the
youth delegates — several of them —
who galvanized the Assembly into
supporting Explo 72. It was a
young man on the standing commit-
tee on theology (see p. 11) who put
his elders to shame over that exer-
cise in casuistry offered as a formal
explanation of officers' ordination
vows. It was another young man
(see p. 9) who restored the spiritual
perspective to the Vietnam debate.
Do not mistake us — we still believe
the courts of Christ's Church are re-
served for men. But in a court
which cared little for the Word any-
how, the youth often led.

• You are planning to be present
for Journal Day this year, aren't
you? August 9 at the Weaverville,
N. C, high school.

PAGE 3 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JULY 5, 1972

NEWS OF RELIGION

Explo Delegates: It's Just Beginning1

DALLAS — Explo '72 is all over
here, but in the minds of many who
attended it is just beginning. The
whole purpose, they believe, was
not so much a huge gathering in the
Cotton Bowl stadium as it was a
starting point for new evangelistic
efforts.

Explo, sponsored by Campus Cru-
sade with Evangelist Billy Graham
as honorary chairman and principal
speaker, had as its primary purpose
"training for explosive spiritual re-
volution."

Each of the nearly 80,000 delegates
was asked to train five others in the
evangelistic techniques he learned
here. This will be spurred in August
and September by some regional
conferences for which Dallas dele-
gates will be urged to enlist dele-
gates.

The ultimate goal is to evangelize
the United States by 1976 and the
world by 1980.

At a closing press conference Mr.
Graham explained: "We mean the
total Christian Church regarding
the 1976 goal. We don't believe we
personally will do it. And by 'evan-
gelize the world,' we do not mean
that the whole world will be con-
verted but that every person will be

MEXICO — Evangelical Christians of
Mexico City honored a long dead
leader who was responsible for the
reforms which made Protestantism
possible in this country.

In honor of Benito Juarez, who
died 100 years ago, some 40,000 peo-
ple participated in a huge demon-
stration which received favorable re-
action in the communications media.
The good coverage was considered
a major victory by evangelical
Church leaders long accustomed to
being ignored by press, radio and
television.

Dozens of leaders and observers
were moved by the huge parade of
singing, joyous Christians. Well
dressed men and women, pretty

confronted with the claims of
Christ."

Stressing the Church connection,
Explo Director Paul Eshleman said
the registration included 1,300 dele-
gations from churches and 2,000 pas-
tors.

Mr. Graham told a closing rally:
"The young people have made an
end run around the church, and
we're going back home to the church
and say to the church that we be-
lieve in the old-fashioned Gospel of
Jesus Christ."

Welcome to City

Even though some Dallas church-
men were critical, the invasion of
Christian young people was wel-
comed by many residents of the city.
After it was all over, the Dallas
Morning News said editorially, "The
Explo youngsters and their Dallas
hosts got along famously, so well
that local people shrugged off such
inconveniences as traffic jams that
resulted from the influx .... This
spirit of hospitality and friendship
not only survived the week, it grew
with each day. It was a heart-
warming experience for hosts and
guests alike."

girls, sandaled peasants and Indian
mothers carrying babies melted into
one as the parade surged through
the streets, often fifteen abreast.

Following the parade, Mexico City
authorities closed off the eight-lane
Juarez Avenue in the heart of the
downtown area and the evangeli-
cals held a ceremony honoring the
country's greatest hero. Speakers em-
phasized Juarez' great contribution
to Mexican liberty, especially free-
dom of religion and separation of
Church and state.

The rally was sponsored by the
National Committee of Evangelical
Defense, with special help on this
occasion from the Evangelism-in-
Depth movement in Mexico. 51

Among the critics were some whoi|i
wanted more attention to such ! I
world problems as war and poverty.
Some outside groups which attempt-
ed to crash the grounds to demon-
strate for their cause or to hand out
literature were removed. Those not
authorized ranged from the Children
of God and Pentecostal organizations
to anti-war groups.

Churchmen sounding off about
Explo included a Dallas Episcopal
priest, the Rev. Gene Norman, who
told a reporter, "I don't think any
aspect of life is so simplistic as Ex-
plo '72 has made it."

The Rev. Thomas Fry of First'
Presbyterian Church said in a ser-
mon the Sunday after the meeting
ended, "The mortality among born-
again Christians can be very high
without the support which allows
them to develop a spiritual matur-
ity."

A participant had a more hopeful
view. Gordon Snyder, a student at
Bethel Seminary, St. Paul, Minn.,
said, "We will just have to wait and
see if the impact of Explo continues.
I personally believe that it has just
begun."

The Dallas police chief and his
men had lavish praise for the young-
sters. He called the gathering
"Woodstock in reverse" or "Wood-
stock with a haircut." Many police-
men were assigned to the meetings:
but they had little to do. Only one
drug case was reported and one
purse snatching. Officers were de
lighted that nobody called their
"pigs."

Crews normally pick up and can
away tons of trash after a Cottor
Bowl event. The first night the}
found only two pieces of litter.

A "Jesus music" festival on an un
finished freeway downtown attractec
the largest crowd of the six days. Ir
addition to the 80,000 registered,
there were 100,000 others there t(
listen.

Musical fare ranged from countr
and Western to "soul" and fron
hymns to rock 'n' roll. Top billec
artist was Johnny Cash. He said
"This is the most important plao
I've ever performed."

The event featured a message b
Mr. Graham who reminded that ;
person "cannot know God by intel I
lectual comprehension" but mus I
learn of Him through the Bible. 8 I

THE CHURCH OVERSEAS

PAGE 4 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JULY 5, 1972

Bell Cautions Against Force in Union

CHARLOTTE, N. C. — "Coercion
in union is an anomaly," members
of the joint committee planning a
union of the United Presbyterian
Church USA and the Presbyterian
Church US were told here. Modera-
tor L. Nelson Bell of the 1972 PCUS
General Assembly made the decla-
ration in advising the negotiators to
leave the "election not to enter"
clause in the plan of union.

In an address to the group, Dr.
Bell not only stressed his belief that
such an "escape clause" was neces-
sary but also commented that the
formation of union presbyteries was
unconstitutional and a "devious"
route to organic merger of the de-
nominations.

He urged the committee to pre-
sent the plan for a vote after observ-
ing that many Church members con-
sider the proposal as a "sword of
Damocles" which has been hanging
over their heads 20 years. The com-
mittee voted later in the meeting
to decide next February whether to
submit a plan for action at the 1973
Assemblies.

Even though he urged a settle-
ment of the issue, Dr. Bell told the
union negotiators that union was
not the main issue in the denomina-
tions. He said the primary concern
to the Churches was their sickness
over differing interpretations of the
Gospel.

Departures from Paul's classic defi-
nition of the Gospel in I Cor. 15:3-
5 have caused a multitude of prob-
lems in both denominations, he sug-

Doctrinal Problems

"Two sick people can't get mar-
ried" legally in North Carolina and
other states, the physician noted.
He cited declining membership and
contributions to Assembly causes as
symptoms of the sickness of both
Presbyterian bodies.

Dr. Bell accused both denomina-
tions of "temporizing" with their
doctrinal positions. He said many
seem to think now that they can be-
lieve anything they want to regard-
less of the teachings of the Bible.

While acknowledging that the

Westminster Confession of Faith
could be "restated" in modern lan-
guage, he called for a new emphasis
on its doctrine.

The Assembly moderator also
warned against making a "fetish"
of ecumenism. Real union is spirit-
ual, he declared.

His address, the first he has made
to an Assembly agency or committee
since the Montreat meeting of the
denomination's highest court, was
followed by a brief question period.
Members of the committee immedi-
ately took issue with his charge that
union presbyteries were unconstitu-
tional.

'Back Door'

Responding, Dr. Bell insisted that
since three-fourths of the PCUS pres-
byteries did not approve Chapter 32
of the Book of Church Order (which
authorizes the union judicatories) ,
the provision was not legal. When
reminded that three successive meet-
ings of the Assembly have declared
the chapter to be constitutional he
said it was still a "back door" ap-
proach to union since it was not ap-
proved by the constitutional ma-
jority required for merger.

The committee spent much of its
two days here discussing its future
timetable. One subcommittee sug-
gested extending the period of es-
tablishing relationships and study
of the plan until 1975.

Other members of the panel re-
sponded that some "progressives" as
well as "conservatives" want the
plan to be voted by the 1973 Assem-
blies. One reason given by the sub-
committee for suggesting a delay un-
til 1975 was that the PCUS would
not get the necessary three-fourths
vote if the matter is sent to presby-
teries in 1973.

The committee finally voted,
however, to decide at a Feb. 8-10
meeting whether to submit a plan
at the 1973 meetings of the two de-
nominations' highest courts.

Meanwhile, representatives will
be selected from the new regional
synods to help promote union. They
will be organized at a workshop
scheduled in St. Louis in September.

A study guide for the draft plan is
also expected to be available in early
fall.

The joint committee heard that a
UPUSA presbytery in West Virginia
(Grafton) is making plans to join
the new "Synod A" of the Presbyte-
rian Church US. While many de-
tails remain to be worked out, the
presbytery has voted "provisionally
and conditionally" to seek a trans-
fer in order to help the cause of
union, one of the committee's co-
chairman, the Rev. Robert Lamar
of Albany, N. Y., reported.

While some members expressed
some reservations about the action,
the panel voted to keep in touch
with the presbytery and to offer its
resources to those trying to make
the change. One possibility is for
the court to become a union pres-
bytery with Winchester (PCUS)
Presbytery.

The meeting was conducted on
the campus of a UPUSA institution.
Johnson C. Smith University. A
number of PCUS leaders in the
Charlotte area were invited to a
dinner for the committee which was
given by the UPUSA Synod of Ca-
tawba. SI

Cumberland Moderator
Is Indian Missionary

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (RNS) — A
missionary to the Chotaw Indians
has been elected moderator of the
Cumberland Presbyterian Church.

The Rev. Claude Gilbert was
named by the Church's 142nd Gen-
eral Assembly here. He defeated the
Rev. C. Ray Dobbins, editor of the
Cumberland Presbyterian.

An unusual feature of the meeting
was the delivery of the nominating
speech in the Choctaw language by
Abrom Meashintubby, an elder in
the Choctaw Presbytery. It was trans-
lated into English by the Rev. Randy
Jacob.

Mr. Gilbert said he thought his
election was significant in showing
that the "entire Church has seen the
value of the Indian work which is
setting the standard for other de-
nominations."

The General Assembly elected the
Rev. H. Shaw Scates to a seventh

PAGE 5 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JULY 5, 1972

three-year term as stated clerk.

The Cumberland Presbyterian
Church has 82,000 members in 900
congregations. Principal offices are
in Memphis, Tenn. EE)

West Named President
Of Arkansas College

BATESVILLE, Ark. — Dan C. West,
coordinator of research and develop-
ment at Austin College in Sherman,
Tex., has been elected the new presi-
dent of Arkansas College by the
college board of trustees. The an-
nouncement was made by S. R.
Nichols of Des Arc, chairman of the
board.

Dr. West will assume duties as
president Aug. 1. In making the an-
nouncement, Mr. Nichols said,
"We're delighted to have this very
capable and dedicated educator to
lead the college into its second cen-
tury of service."

Dr. West succeeds R. W. Wygle,
President of AC for three years, who
will become president of North-
western State College in Alva, Okla.,
in July.

Arkansas College, a four year
liberal arts college operated by the
Synod of Arkansas-Oklahoma, Pres-
byterian Church US, is celebrating
its Centennial Year during the
1972-73 school year.

Dr. West, 33, was born in Galves-
ton, Texas and attended public
schools in Dallas. He attended the
U.S. Naval Academy for three and a
half years and is a 1962 graduate of
Austin College. He received the
Bachelor of Divinity degree from
Union Theological Seminary in
Richmond.

After graduation from Union
Seminary in 1965 he assumed duties
as pastor of the Smyrna Presbyterian
Church, Smyrna, Tenn. He joined
the Austin College staff in 1968. EE)

Plan 145th Meeting

CONYERS, Ga. — The 145th an-
nual camp meeting at Smyrna Pres-
byterian Church near here will be
held July 28-Aug. 4, with the Rev.
Charles McGowan of Decatur
preaching each evening at 8 p.m.
and on Sunday at 11 a.m. The Rev.
Sidney Anderson of the Columbia
Seminary faculty will be homecom-
ing speaker at 3 p.m. Sunday. Daily
Bible teacher will be the Rev. Low-
ell Sykes of Augusta. EE

Last of 70 Recruited,
Missions Board Says

NASHVILLE — Appointment of
eight new missionaries and exten-
sion of the term of another have
been announced by the Presbyterian
US Board of World Missions here.

Two couples, the Rev. and Mrs.
Henry M. Haswell Jr. of Dallas,
Tex., and the Rev. and Mrs. James
D. Revis of Greenville, S. C, were
appointed to evangelistic work in
Brazil.

The Rev. and Mrs. Arthur Wood-
ruff Kinsler, New Llano, La., will
be evangelistic missionaries in Ko-
rea.

The Rev. and Mrs. Harry Edwin
Altman Jr. of Providence, R.I., will
be educational missionaries in Ja-
pan.

Reappointed for another year as
a teacher of missionaries' children
in Brazil was Mrs. Robert P. Mc-
Neill.

The board said the newest addi-
tions to the candidate list brought to
70 the number appointed this year.
Most of them are now enrolled in
an orientation course at Montreat,
N. C, with commissioning sched-
uled there Aug. 3. EE

To Head ABS 'Advance'

NEW YORK (RNS) — Dr. James
Z. Nettinga of Haworth, N. J., has
been appointed to the newly created
post of director of advance programs
for the American Bible Society. The
Reformed Church in America clergy-

man has been executive secretary o
the society's national distributior
department for seven years. As di
rector of advance programs, Dr. Net
tinga will head a five-year prograrr !
that will begin with the providing
of Scriptures for "Key 73," the nan ;
tional evangelistic campaign, and I
will culminate in 1976 with special I
observances of the 200th anniversary I
of the U. S. and the 160th of the]
American Bible Society. EE

i |.

Villa International
Is Being Furnished

ATLANTA (PN) — The Rev.
Thomas T. Biggs, executive direc-
tor of Villa International Atlanta
(VIA) , and his family have moved
into two-story VIA recently com-
pleted at 1749 Clifton Rd., N.E., At-
lanta.

VIA is a short-term, low cost resi-
dence for international visitors
studying and doing research at the
Center for Disease Control and the
Protestant Radio and Television
Center. Most of the funds for
VIA's construction have come from
the women of Presbyterian Church
US, but VIA's board of directors is
comprised of representatives from '
a number of denominations which
will take part in its service and pro- 1
gram.

Formal opening and dedication is
not scheduled until sometime in the
fall, after furnishing is completed.

"Approximately 25 to 30 interna-
tionals are already waiting to move
in," Mr. Biggs said. EE) !

They Moderated for the Moderator

L. Nelson Bell was elected moderator of
the 1972 Presbyterian US General As-
sembly, but most of the presiding was
done by other commissioners. At the end
of the meeting, the court thanked Dr. Bell
for his "generous sharing of the chair
with other distinguished members of the
court." Veteran observers said in no
recent Assembly had the moderator allow-
ed others to occupy the chair for so
long. Called on to preside were 1971
Moderator Ben L. Rose (upper left) and
Dr. Bell's three opponents in the race:
Worth McDougald (lower left), David L.
Stitt (upper right) and Joseph Norton
(lower right).

PAGE 6 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JULY 5, 1972

The 112th Assembly in Photos and Quotes

HARVARD ANDERSON (Explaining procedure which brought the re-
structuring plan to the Assembly in alleged haste) — The committee has
w 'teen holding consultations, briefings and testings throughout the entire
1(j Zhurch. Thus the entire Church has participated in the building of this
h ilan. It is true that we, as commissioners, have had only a short time of
t -tudy. But if we send this back for another year of study, there will be an-
l ither set of commissioners who will also have only a short time to study,
lis to the matter of presenting the plan to the General Council for recom-
nendations, representatives of the council felt reluctance to make such rec-
immendations because they would be speaking to the issue of their own re-
organization.

GORDON REED (Presenting the minority report which would have ap-
pointed a committee to look at the plan of restructuring boards and agencies
and report back next year) — I am amazed and somewhat appalled at the
haste with which this proposed reorganization has been brought to the As-
sembly. The final plan was not published until mid-May of this year,
when the commissioners received their handbook . . . .We are being rushed
to make a decision of far-reaching consequences .... I am concerned that
we are violating all that Presbyterians have been taught about doing things
decently and in order. For example, it is a rule of the Assembly that any re-
quest to make adjustments in the division of responsibilities among the agen-
cies of the Church, or to create new agencies, shall be referred to the General
Council for recommendation. (Lost.)

JOHN REED MILLER (Objecting to the plan for restructuring boards
and agencies) — / question the underlying philosophy of the proposed or-
ganization, namely the need for "a strong concept" of organization. It is
the centralization principle to which I object. One genius of our present
General Council is that it is not executive and not administrative. I am re-
minded of the remark by Lord Acton that all power corrupts and absolute
power corrupts absolutely. I fear that the proposed general executive board
will become an absolute executive body.

■ LAWRENCE I. STELL (Pointing out some serious difficulties inherent
^■fc I in plan of restructuring) — I have certain concerns for the nature of the

^mSBm'^ I Church, growing out of my place at the center of the whirlpool that Dr.

John Anderson has characterized as "this mess we're in." There is the
question of how effectively one board can carry out all the work of the
General Assembly. Most of the people on the General Executive Board
will serve from three to a maximum of six years. With everyone charged
to know all the affairs of all the divisions, think of the enormous time this
will require. I also have a concern about centralization. They say the Assem-
bly will make policy, but every Assembly is like this one — most of the
decisions will be made on recommendation of staff. And there is the ques-
The seven communications offices alone will cost a minimum of $280,000
— plus the evaluation and review office and the Washington office. I can see added cost approximating
a half million dollars. I am also opposed to staff domination of our work, and clergy domination, and I
can see us moving in that direction. (The vote had been taken before Dr. Stell spoke.)

tion of the cost of new work.

PAGE 7 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JULY 5, 1972

JOHN A. FULTON (Defending the request that the Board of Annuities)1'
and Relief, of which he is chairman, be kept separate from the proposed
general executive board under restructuring) — The Board of Annuities
and Relief is not a program board. We have been able to carry on undei
the "decadent and dying system" described by others because we do not
live under the pressures experienced by the other boards. Our dollars are
neither conservative nor liberal. The board feels, and has tried to say tc
the Assembly, that the best method of carrying out the pension and annuity
program of this Church is to have a board of men with expertise in the area
of investments that is directly responsible to the Assembly and with no pro-
gram responsibilities ; for the purpose of carrying out faithfully the con-
tracts made with the ministers and employees of the Church. (Defeated. A
year's study of this board's special relationship was ordered, however.)

WILLIAM J. FOGLEMAN (Explaining the work of the committee on
restructuring of which he was chairman) — The committee has been com-
pletely open and available throughout its work. We have yet to hold an
executive session, from which guests or the press have been excluded. There
has been frequent participation by many who have an interest in this mam-
moth task. Our task has been "to create an organic structure which accom-
modates three basic requirements: 1) that the structure be the most effec-
tive instrument to permit the Church to fulfill its unchanging mission j 2)
that the structure be responsive to the rapidly changing contemporary world ;
and 3) that it be in harmony with Presbyterian polity." We utilized con-
sultant services, we had comprehensive papers prepared by a wide spectrum
of experts on Church polity, we built and tested possible models before
adopting a final form.

ALBERT C. WINN (In a speech against the Vietnam war) — The 1970
Assembly declared that the Lord of the Church is the Prince of Peace. If
peace, then, is our business, we are a business failure. There are powerful
forces in our society that are determined none of us will ever again know
anything but a war-oriented society. The powers that run our society are so
war-oriented that a public prayer for peace is to them a subversive act. The
American people have not been told the truth. We have been lied to so
long that even when the truth comes out, we cannot hear it. Our own gov-
ernment officials . . . deliberately manufactured the idea of South Vietnam
and the puppet government which rules there {instead of a single Vietnam,
north and south). It was our government which denied the people of Viet-
nam free elections promised them in the Geneva accords. Our Constitution |
has been subverted. The President continues to exercise powers never granted him by the Constitution. |
Our establishment . . . establishes inhuman policies. . . any one of which would be sufficient grounds |
for bringing to trial before another Nuremberg, not a lone lieutenant, but the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the
highest officials of the United States.

MYRON G. GIBBONS (Reacting to Dr. Winn's speech) — That was one
of the most emotional overstatements I have heard in a long time. I am
for peace, but when people talk that way I almost get to the point I am
not for it. He talks about murderers. I am one of the murderers he talked
about. You sent me to Germany and we killed some people. I don't believe
our country is as bad as Dr. Winn would have us believe. If you continue
having him go around talking to people like that, it will just start another
war. This sort of approach will do more harm than good. Let's get at the
facts. It's not all a conspiracy, the picture is more complex than he would
have us believe.

PAGE 8 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JULY 5, 1972

sa

BEN L. ROSE (Offering a substitute for various papers and pronounce-
ments on the Vietnam war) — I move the following: "The 1 12th General
Assembly joins previous General Assemblies in expressing its deep anguish
and profound perplexity over the tragic war in Vietnam. We are painfully
oncerned for all those persons who have been bereaved, or maimed, or made
homeless by the war and for all prisoners of war. We call upon the Presi-
dent of the United States and all others in positions of national leadership,
to redouble their efforts to stop the killing and to bring the war to an end.
We encourage all Presbyterians to express their view of the Vietnam war
to the President and to their representatives in Congress by letter, telephone
and in person. Further, we pray for our enemies and we ask God to lead
the leaders of all nations involved in the war in Southeast Asia to seek peace
and pursue it." (Carried, over all other motions and papers, by standing
vote.)

BILL MELDEN — / cannot support the war in Vietnam, or any other
war, but Jesus, my Lord, said, "We wrestle not against flesh and blood,
but against principalities . . . and spiritual wickedness in high places." The
war did not start with the Viet Cong, although the right wing would like
to say so. The war did not start with American imperialism, although the
left wing would like to say so. According to the way I read the Bible, the
war started in the heart of man and if real peace is to come there must be
a change in the heart of man. I find it hard to understand that I, a three-
year-old Christian who knows much less than anyone else here about Christ,
has to tell the Church that Christ is its message. But here I stand to say it.
If we should stop this war tonight, the nature of man will have started another war, or several other wars,
^somewhere else tomorrow. The Christian Church does not have a stand to take on the politics of this issue.
| The Church's stand is to say, "True peace can be found only in Jesus Christ." That is the only imperative
I granted to this Assembly.

JAMES E. ATWOOD (Supporting a strong state-
ment on Vietnam war) — / am a missionary to Ja-
pan and I want to speak in favor of doing something
constructive for peace. I get the impression that in
America peace is a dirty word. When I left Amer-
ica in 1965 I was a hawk. I supported Senator Gold-
water. In Japan it became increasingly difficult for
me, working among students, to answer them when
they asked, "Why? Why the bombing, day after
day? Why the burning of children with napalm?"
The greatest thing that this Assembly could do
would be to come out and say that we are in favor
of some real action on behalf of peace. Sure you
should pray. Get on your knees and wear blisters
on them. But go to work too. Today, in world
missions, if we don't speak peace, we either are not
Christian or we are irrelevant. To say that we don't
know the facts is not true. The story of the Gulf
of Tonkin, as we recently have been told in the
Pentagon Papers, is a bald-faced lie. If we do not
face the facts there will be judgment on our house
from Almighty God. [Followed by sustained ap-
plause^)

PAGE 9 / THE

KENNETH KEPLER (Supporting U.S. policy
in Vietnam) — I was born under the Empire in
China and I remember the Empire during the rev-
olution. Twice, in my childhood I remember when
we fled for our lives. My father was shot, though
he lived. I lived through the Japanese war. I have
buried civilians who were used for bayonet practice,
and women who had been raped to death. I have
received a pass from a Communist general to travel
in Communist territory. I have talked with Com-
munists and I have seen the light. To me this is
one of the most moral wars that America has ever
fought because we have nothing to gain. I would
say that, having lived through decadent empires
and cruel warlords, and through wars, I am most
vividly reminded of 50 million people running from
Communism, preferring to live in the streets of
Shanghai, or in refugee camps where they died of
starvation, than to go back home — and they could
have gone back home if they had wanted to. How-
ever wicked the conditions of the government of
South Vietnam (and any government that is not
Christian has a set of morals different from ours),
it still remains that people will take the risk of na-
palm to run from the Communists, but none are
running to them. (Also applauded.)

JOURNAL / JULY 5, 1972

J. RUSSELL CHANDRAN (A major delineation of the Church's three-
year emphasis on evangelism) — Evangelism is a well known word for
Christians. This does not mean we all know enough about what evangelism
means and what we are called to do in 1973. The interpretation given in
one place and time need not be valid and relevant for all places and times.
The unchanging message in evangelism is Jesus Christ who is the same yes-
terday, today and forever. But the words and concepts of Gospel, Christ,
salvation, saviour, are not self-evident. They need interpretation. One
thing is certain. The answer cannot be adequately expressed in the tradition-
al formulations of Christ, salvation, church, sacraments and the Christian
hope. Preaching the Gospel in the words of these old formularies of the

1 7th and earlier centuries is like seeking Christ in His tomb. This is the good news for the world : Christ
is risen, you will meet Him in Galilee. Evangelism is proclaiming that God has raised Jesus and His min-
istry continues in the Galilees of the world. (We) seek to follow Him in all the Galilees of the world
i.e. wherever human need cries for the manifestation of the love of God. In every place, the particulai
human situation is the occasion for the manifestation of the power of Jesus' love. The needs are not the
same everywhere, but the love of Christ is the key to meet all needs. This is not humanitarianism, noi
is it humanism. It may resemble humanitarian service (but) it is the saving work of God. This calls u<
to consider how the social, economic and political life may be so ordered that all of God's children —
which means all members of the human race — can have a rightful share of God's bounty on this
planet. (Dr. Chandran, visiting professor at Louisville Seminary, spoke under a "special order.")

L. NELSON BELL (Speaking to resolution asking for a -proclamation of
the Gospel of faith in Christ lest people suffer the penalty of eternal con
demnaton) — Today, not just the PC US but almost all the major denomi-
nations are suffering from the fact that many believe men cannot be eter-
nally lost. For this reason, the nerve of evangelism and of world missions
is often cut. We speak of the love of God and surely this cannot be over-
stressed. But there is grave danger that we fail to see that there is a dif-
ference in people and in their destiny depending on what they do with Jesus
Christ. The Church presents an alternative and this must be presented so
clearly that there is no mistake: lost, or saved. We must never becloud the
teaching of God's Word with respect to this central truth.

FRANK CAMPBELL (Supporting motion to refer resolution on the Gos-
pel and being "lost" or "saved" to Permanent Theological Committee for
study) — I believe that any appeal to persons to come to Christ out of any
motive of fear is an appeal to man's selfish concern for himself and is un-
worthy. John Calvin said, "I am more concerned for the glory of God
than I am for the salvation of my soul." I think this resolution also loses
sight of the central discovery of the Reformation that man is saved, not by
his own efforts but by the grace of God. We are called to believe, not out
of fear but out of grateful response to God's grace. (Amended resolution
was approved, but committee was ordered to study universalism.)

LEWIS BAKER (Supporting his amendment to paper on ordination vows
which would accept the teaching of Scripture as infallible) — The paper of
the Permanent Theological Committee fails to affirm a position on doc-
trinal loyalty that is in accord with the standards of the Church. While our
report does not cover the entire paper, in a crucial section it does provide an
interpretation of our ordination vows which we believe the whole report
should affirm. We are a confessional Church, by virtue of the fact that
we require subscription to our confession in our ordination vows. I believe
the committee's report interprets the ordination vows so as to make them
practically meaningless, and to this extent it undermines the confessional po-
sition of the Church.

PAGE 10 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JULY 5, 1972

fOHN NEWTON THOMAS (Objecting to the amendment to his paper
m ordination vows which would have declared Scripture to be without er-
jor in matters of faith and practice) — There are those who accept the
Scriptures as the only infallible rule of faith and practice but maintain there
s more than one view of inspiration that does justice to the authority of
Scripture. The position we are taking with regard to Biblical inerrancy is
n line with Reformed theology from the time of John Calvin and in par-
icular in conformity with past actions of this Assembly. If anyone wishes
:o believe in inerrancy he is perfectly at liberty to do so, but a court of the
Church does not have the right to make inerrancy a sine qua non for ordina-
;ion. The minority report is not a different theological position from the
Dne that we propose.

f JOHN HALL {Defending effort to improve the -paper on ordination
vows) — / think we are playing with fire when we say that the Word pre-
sented and preserved by God is error-plagued. We must tear down the two
straw men that the theological committee has erected, those of inerrancy
, and open-endedness. I agree that we must have diversity on some matters,
but when it comes to Scriptural matters we must stand firmly together. The
paper does not imply minute errors in the Scriptures, but major doubts as
to the inspiration and preservation of the Bible as God's Word. Our con-
\ fession speaks of the "entire perfection thereof" speaking of the holy Scrip-
1 tures. When we question God's Word, are we not questioning Him? Are
\ we not leading to our own destruction when we make such statements as
those the Permanent Theological Committee has given us? (Vote to accept
• statement unchanged, 264-50.)

DAVID WILKINSON {Objecting to thought in a
■resolution that men must believe in Christ) — I can-
not accept the statement that all men are lost apart
from faith in Jesus Christ. How about the people
who do not have the opportunity to come to faith
in Christ? I am still struggling with this question.

If there is anyone here who can give me the answer
to this question Pd like to hear it. I cannot accept
the fact that those who do not have the opportunity
for faith in Christ are lost. Now maybe the Assem-
bly will defrock me right here, but I cannot go
along with that idea.

ROBERT STRONG (Arguing for keeping Alabama and Mississippi to-
i gether as a synod separate from Tennessee and Kentucky) — Some of us
have been opposed to the entire scheme of restructured synods. But once
the Assembly had acted, there was nothing to do but go forward in the spirit
of obedience. The maintenance of earnest, active and even happy coopera-
tion in Synod F could well be involved in the issue before us. A great deal
of the success of the restructuring of boards and agencies may well depend
on enthusiastic cooperation at the synod level. To move to a system of
delegated synods will not be very helpful in securing that cooperation. A
manageable synod size and a high synod spirit are surely to be deemed im-
portant as we approach this year of radical change. (Lost.)

MRS. PHILLIP R. ARELLO (Listening to further debate after support-
ing the merger of Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee and Kentucky) — /
speak loud and clear because I am the only woman here today who can speak
— now listen to me — for over half the Presbyterians in the synods of
Alabama and Mississippi. My experiences have given me the vision,
through the years, of wide horizons in the Lord's work. Uniting with the
synods of Tennessee and Kentucky will further the work of Jesus Christ
and help us to meet the challenges and opportunities of our day. To do
otherwise would be tragic, it would be retarding and crippling to the won-
derful work we can do together in strength and in love. The Church can-
not stand still. The old methods have served their purpose. Let us look
to the future with new methods for our day. (Sustained.)

PAGE 11 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JULY 5, 1972

ROBERT F. DAVENPORT (Supporting the liberalization of abortion)

— When our Church speaks on abortion we are calling on society for an ag-
onizing reappraisal of our moral priorities in the light of the needs of a
vastly changed world. Only five years ago the major conscience forming
influences in our society told us that abortion was evil. But the Church, the
law, the medical profession changed their minds and the message to women
today is, "You no longer need to feel badly about having an abortion."
This, I submit, is rapid social change, and the Church has been a significant
influence in bringing it about. Not only so, we have put our money where
our theology is. A new committee of our Church on abortion (COTA),
last year distributed through loans, or grants, $92,166.65, to women whose
right to abortions was not limited by law or conscience but only by "socio-economic conditions." In 1971,
a total of 341 women were aided by this program. Our Church's work has set in motion events that have
resulted in changing the law in two states. This is not just an Assembly statement, this is a pastoral work
in which we are not just talking about the poor and hungry, we are doing something about it.

Other statements heard in the debate over abortion:
L. NELSON BELL — As a physician, I have performed abortions, but never on the basis permitted by
the Assembly's pronouncement. I think our Church has erred grievously and I pray God's judgment will
not fall on us for what we have done.

ATWELL W. SOMERVILLE — The thing that troubles me the most about this matter is that we
have moved so far as to approve abortion for the purpose of population control. We are beginning to think
we can play God.

MRS. ROBERT C. MEACHAM — / would not for myself choose abortion. As a Christian and a
mother, however, I would not dare to deny it to another. To refuse a woman the opportunity for safe,
medical attention will not solve the problem. The whole matter of unwanted children will not go away.

CHARLES LANDRETH — As a campus minister I see numerous coeds who, for a variety of reasons,
choose to terminate pregnancy. I have used the funds available to help them. I believe the quality of
human life can be enhanced by abortion.

DON ALD E. BOREMA — One of the shames of this century is the low esteem in which man has held
human life, second, perhaps, to man's callous disregard for the destiny of the human soul. I grieve for
the slaughter of human lives on the abortion tables of our nation.

MRS. M. JENELYN WESSLER — As a follower of Christ I find myself concerned for other persons

— women who are poor, who desperately need relief from the oppression of yet another pregnancy. I
believe the woman should be allowed to make the decision for herself.

SARA LITTLE (Reading her standing committee's reply to an overture
seeking to soften the 1970 Assembly's pronouncement on abortion) —
That Overture 29, calling on the Assembly to delete from the 1970 state-
ment on abortion the section, "or the socio-economic condition of the fam-
ily" be answered in the negative on the grounds that the theological and
moral adequacy of the statement adopted by the 1970 Assembly and re-
affirmed by the 1971 Assembly, which statement lists "socio-economic con-
ditions of the family" as one "possible justifying circumstance" under which
"the willful termination of pregnancy by medical means on the considered
decision of a pregnant woman may on occasion be morally justifiable."

PAUL CROW (Executive secretary of Consultation on Church Union) —
While we have not yet found complete agreement on all those things which
now divide us, this vision and this process are bringing new meaning to our
understanding of the lordship of Jesus Christ and to the life and mission
of the congregation. The action of your Assembly, authorizing you to par-
ticipate in COCU was one of the peak moments in these conversations. Since
that time the PCUS has gained a unique visibility and appreciation within
the consultation. Through COCU, your Church, your people and your
heritage have received a new promise and a highly deserved recognition.

PAGE 12 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JULY 5, 1972

J PALMER ROBERTSON (Urging withdrawal from COCU) — The
listinctiveness of COCU is that it is a consultation on Church union. The
if, pur-pose is to unite organically the denominations of America. The prin-
ciples of government have been established so that a non-Presbyterian form
\ of government will dominate the Church to be formed. This means that
\participation in the union established by COCU will end the concept of rep-
II resentative government by elders meeting in a series of courts with the right
il of appeal. COCU has already said that it accepts the office of bishop as
VLthe means of ordering the Church. We should note that when we enter into
nthis consultation our ultimate goal is to end Presbyterian Church govern-
! ment. Our basic commitment to the Reformed faith and our confessional
mstance must be altered if we enter into this union. We can expect that we
; shall not see anything resembling our present commitment to Scripture or
mto the historic faith. (Move to get out defeated 264-164.)

DAVID ANDRES (Supporting resolution which would have recognized
Explo 72 in Dallas) — This, of any ecumenical movement we might con-
sider, is worth commending. This is a responsible group and we would be
remiss if we did not adopt the original resolution submitted. In all of the
contacts I have had with this group (Campus Crusade) they have encour-
aged church membership. I have found not one iota of opposition to our
communion or to any other communion. (Note: the standing committee
would have removed all references to Explo and rather said, "the Assem-
bly neither endorses nor condemns . . . non-denominational youth move-
ments.)

STEPHEN L. COOK (In opposition to resolution supporting Explo 72)
— Some of us who are a little bit older here remember a time when dispen-
sationalism held full sway in the Presbyterian Church. Scofield's notes
said Jesus is not King of the Church, meaning the Church is apostate.
Thirty or forty years ago many of our congregations were fighting each
other, with people reflecting upon the profession of faith of others and
getting together in little groups and praying for the conversion of their
ministers. They were outlawing our literature and saying, (<Get David C.
Cook and Gospel Light." It is my full persuasion that Young Life and
the Navigators and Campus Crusade and Child Evangelism are not subject
to the review and control of any denomination. There are people who encourage our members to with-
hold their money and send candidates for the ministry to non-denominational seminaries. There are some
who come up to us and say, "Are you saved?" — when my mother and father presented me as a child of the
covenant. My own daughter at the Univ. of Texas has been sidled up to by a Campus Crusade worker and
the validity of her faith questioned. (Loud applause.)

ALEX WILLIAMS (Speaking to the contest over endorsing Explo 72) —
I believe we have here a contest between "freedom of form" and "rigidity
of form" which often is represented by strict ecclesiastical order. One of
the attractions of a group such as this one is the freedom it offers from any
rigid form. I have found that such a group is particularly attractive to
young people at a particular stage in their lives, when young people be-
gin to grow into a mature faith. I don't fully understand the theological
validity of a bikini with "God loves you" written on it, but in the interest
of Christian unity we should be able to say that we pray for such move-
ments, recognizing that the differences in expression are at least a reflec-
tion of the individuality of faith which is as diverse as individual experi-
ences. (The Assembly finally expressed its interest in Explo 72 and was
led in prayer on its behalf.)

PAGE 13 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JULY 5, 1972

W. JACK WILLIAMSON (Defending his own resolution to request the
joint committee on union to have the plan of union ready for a vote in
1973) — I am not speaking in opposition to the work of the committee. I
speak in favor and in commendation of the work done. I believe it is time
for a decision. Until this foremost issue is decided, we will not know the
Church's ultimate direction. By next Assembly this committee will have
been in existence 4 years. This committee is fully capable to have the plan
ready by next year. I have spoken to Dr. William P. Thompson, stated
clerk of the UPUSA, and he has authorized me to quote him as of the
opinion that a vote in 1973 would not embarrass the UPUSA in any way,
that the minority problem has been resolved and that the plan should be
voted on in 1973, or else the committee should be dismissed. (Proposal
defeated on voice vote.)

AVERILL GOULDY (Speaking against resolution to abolish Chapter 32
in Book of Church Order which permits union presbyteries) — Fellow saints
and sinners. I will not tell you to try it, you'll like it, for you might not
And I own no stock in Alka Seltzer, although at the end of this Assembly
I think the sales are going to mount. Contrary to appearances, I have not
been to but two General Assemblies. But I was here last year, and I heard
a lot of the same stuff repeatedly. I would like to say, let our ears go, let
our callouses go, let my people go! I understand some of you are working
on a divorce to take place just as soon as you can get the lawyers to work out
the property settlement and decide who gets the family Bible. Messiah is
here and He is present in this room taking careful note of the accountability we give of our time and mon
ey in His Church and how we are wasting it on this kind of Mickey Mouse business! (Effort to recon
sider union presbyteries died on large voice vote.)

DAVID T. EVANS JR. (Supporting a constitutional change which would
permit "unhappy" ministers in union presbyteries to transfer membership
out of the presbytery but continue serving their churches) — I am trapped
in my situation without my consent. I have to attend double meetings
of presbyteries, a waste of time. I think it is great for a presbytery which
wants to be a union presbytery to have that right, but I pastor a church
which does not want to be a union church, did not vote to be a union church,
but is a union church.

DOUGLAS HARPER (Supporting right of churches and ministers to
transfer out of union presbyteries if they wish) — I have heard Dr. Rose
speak of the importance of diversity within unity. I agree wholeheartedly .
I believe in people being able to do their own thing in the way that seems
best to them. But a serious problem with Chapter 32 of BOCO is that at
times persons and churches within union presbyteries whose consciences op-
pose it, nevertheless have no form of relief to the situation into which they
are placed. If the Assembly means what it says about diversity, then it
should allow people to do what their consciences tell them to do.

ROBERT LARSON (Opposing right of churches and ministers to transfer
out of union presbyteries if they wish) — I come from a church in Knox-
ville that was made up at the beginning primarily of members of the United
Presbyterian Church. Over the years we have often found ourselves in op-
position to the positions taken by Knoxville presbytery. If this proposal is
enacted, my session could decide, some day when it is disenchanted with
some action of the presbytery, that what's fair for the goose is fair for the
gander. (Proposal defeated on fairly large vote.)

PAGE 14 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JULY 5, 1972

DAVID P. ALLEN (Supporting his own resolution to eliminate references
to color of persons in any literature of the Church) — I have noted with
appreciation the efforts of many to give equal opportunity to people without
regard to race, color or previous condition of servitude. It is my hope that
this resolution will have the effect of helping to remove any remaining bar-
riers to the progress of all of us. There is something about the designation
of a person which carries with it the characterization of a person. What we
are trying to do is eliminate such differences.

MRS. GERALDINE R. PEARSON (Opposing the suggestion that ref-
erences to color should be eliminated in the Church) — Minority designa-
tions should be used to provide total representation in the life of the
Church. God has created men differently, including skin pigmentation, and
designated His multi-colored creation good. Negative connotations have
been placed on physical differences by some men, not by God. Differences
are not divisive, but rather cause for celebration in this pluralistic world.
(Mrs. Pearson carried the day. She was later made an NCC representative.)

CHARLES R. HUGHES (Supporting a resolu-
tion originally introduced into 1970 Assembly, ask-
ing support and commendation of Brazilian Roman
Catholic Archbishop H elder Camara) — As mem-
bers of the PC US and followers of Christ we are
committed to peace, justice and the development of
the human community so that all God's people can
enjoy the material as well as spiritual blessings He
has provided. The citizens of the Third World
who are committed to neither capitalism nor com-
munism, but who seek merely for a chance at a
more decent and more human way of life, say the
real division in the world is between the underde-
veloped and the developed countries. Archbishop
Camara is one of the leading spokesmen of the
Third World. He has sought to identify with
and plead the cause of the poor and oppressed peo-
ple of the world. He speaks out against the super-
powers, both capitalist and communist. He calls
for radical reforms and change as one who is deeply
committed to the Christian principle of non-vio-
lence. He poses a threat to vested interests. The
Brazilian government regards him as a subversive,
a disturber of the peace. The Brazilian Church
regards him as an opportunist, who for his own
power and prestige, stirs up the masses to dream
and expect miracles that can never come to pass.
And most of our missionaries in Brazil agree. But
for many others, the Archbishop has all the ear-
marks of a modern-day saint, whom God has raised
up to call the Church and the nation to repentance.
In all honesty, I confess this is my sincere convic-
tion about the man. (Despite further support by T .
Watson Street, the Assembly adopted a motion by
former moderator Ben L. Rose to (< postpone indef-
initely" — in effect tabling the proposal. See edi-
torial, "Where the Difference Lies," p. 16, this
issue.)

ALFRED L. BIXLER (Opposing movement to
support and commend Brazilian Archbishop Ca-
mara) — I am the son of missionary parents in Bra-
zil. I have served the past six years on the Board
of World Missions. This matter has come before
the board several times. When our missionaries were
informed that a move was on to give some recogni-
tion to this very controversial figure, the reaction
was instantaneous and explosive. Within a very short
time they drew up a protest, urging the board to
use its influence to prevent the action which they
heard was being proposed. These men and women
whom we have sent to Brazil to be our representa-
tives are men and women of good judgment. They
are almost unanimous in their opinion that for us to
give any kind of moral support to Archbishop Ca-
mara would jeopardize the unusually fine relation-
ship existing between them and the National Church
and the Brazilian people themselves. Instead of be-
ing a unifying and constructive force for good, the
Archbishop has succeeded in creating more problems
than he has helped to solve. Instead of trying to
find solutions for the problems plaguing the nation,
he has used much of his time going up and down
the rest of the world, including Europe and Amer-
ica, preaching a gospel of distrust and hate against
what our missionaries consider to be one of the best
governments Brazil has ever had. He has had
much to say about the curtailment of freedom of
speech and press. But our missionaries can produce
any number of national periodicals that have car-
ried his pronouncements and speeches. It is just
not true that he is suppressed by the government.
Our missionaries regard him as detrimental to the
social development of the nation. He is not the
man of influence among his fellow countrymen and
even within his Church that he has been portrayed
to be.

PAGE 15 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JULY 5, 1972

EDITORIALS

The Incongruous Assembly

Of the last fifteen Assemblies of
the PCUS, the 112th, which has just
concluded a hectic week at Mon-
treal N. C, has been probably the
most difficult to evaluate.

Previous Assemblies have had a
special "character" all their own —
a central mood or characteristic by
which they could be understood.

There have been racial Assem-
blies, doctrinal Assemblies, vindic-
tive Assemblies, do nothing Assem-
blies. This one was polite, intense,
racial, doctrinal, social, moral, im-
moral, ecumenical, parochial, lov-
ing, punitive — you name it.

Perhaps the 1 12th should be called,
The Incongruous Assembly. For a
Christian, anchored in the consisten-
cies of the Word of God, the most
consistent characteristic of this court
was its instability — the lack of any
firm, authoritative base upon which
to build anything, or on which to
establish its decisions. Commission-
ers tended to go off in all directions.

There was the St. Andrews Col-
lege staff member who praised the
program of the Church designed to
kill infants through abortions — then
came up with a proposal that the
Assembly support strict gun con-
trols. Even the moderator then pre-
siding, Dr. Ben Rose, queried, "Are
you serious?"

There was the executive in charge
of the Church's evangelism thrust,
who brought in an Indian who
sounded like a universalist with a
social message, to tell the Assembly
what its evangelistic mission should
be. In the area of witness the
Church cannot survive without di-
versity, the executive argued — then
spent a hilarious ten minutes plead-
ing for total centralization and tight
administrative control by means of
a single General Executive Board.

There was the diminutive woman
elder from North Alabama Presby-
tery, who was perfectly content to
leave Missouri as a synod all by it-
self — but it would be "tragic," "re-
tarding," "crippling" if "in strength
and in love" the Assembly did not
combine Alabama, Mississippi, Ten-
nessee and Kentucky into the big-
gest synod of them all. This one
ultimately will stretch from the Gulf

of Mexico to the Great Lakes.

There was the Texas chairman of
a standing committee, who praised
board chairman of Southern Voca-
tional College, Richard LeTour-
neau, as "the modern Barnabas of
our Church" — then turned around
and blistered Campus Crusade,
Young Life, the Navigators, Child
Evangelism, by name. They are
"dispensational," he said, and they
go around asking, "Are you saved?"

There was the popular professor
of theology who defended his com-
mittee's understanding of doctrinal
loyalty as doctrinal freedom — then
insisted that a substitute proposal
(which would have confessed Bibli-
cal inerrancy) , while "not different"
from his committee's view, was nev-
ertheless totally unacceptable. (And
if that doesn't make sense, that's the
point.)

Bring together a bunch of well-
meaning, intelligent and civilized
human beings with an awareness of
their own humanity and a concern
for the development of human so-
ciety by any available means that
might, upon due reflection, seem
reasonable — you have the majority
of this Assembly.

Faithful to Scripture and the Re-
formed faith? Not at all. 51

Where
The Difference Lies

We have said again and again
that the problem in the Church is
not at the local level — it is not
this or that congregation which has
departed from the kingdom. While
the problem has filtered down to
the congregational level, it exists
mainly at the top administrative
levels — particularly, at the educa-
tional level, where the seminaries
of the Church have been pouring
a steady stream of spiritual poison
into the life-blood of the Church.

A clear illustration of this was
given at the 1972 PCUS General As-
sembly — in the debate which saw
top staff members pitted against
missionaries over the matter of Ro-
man Catholic Archbishop Dom Hel-

der Camara of Recife, Brazil.

It all started in Memphis, when a
gaggle of commissioners introduced
a resolution asking the Assembly to
support and commend the contro-
versial Archbishop. Later the Sur-
vey opened its columns to the Rev.
Herbert Meza, vice-chairman of the
Board of World Missions, for an ef-
fusion on Bishop Camara in which
he was called, among other things,
"the most important churchman in
the western hemisphere."

Because the issue hit a snag when
the Church's missionaries in Brazil
were consulted, the resolution did
not come back to the 1971 Assem-
bly as expected. During the past
year, valiant efforts were made to \
pave the way for the commendation
requested, and when both the na- ,
tional Church and the missionaries
continued adamant, the Council on
Church and Society in typical fash-
ion decided to go ahead with a res-|
olution anyway. (Why let a little
thing like relations with our mis- i
sionaries, with an important nation-
al Church and with the Brazilian i
government stand in the way when
a matter of such importance to the
Gospel as commendation of a far-
left Roman Catholic prelate is at
stake?)

Supporting the resolution before
the Assembly was the South Amer-
ica area secretary for the Board of
World Missions, the Rev. Charles
R. (Buddy) Hughes, who called
Bishop Camara "a modern-day
saint"; and board executive T. Wat-
son Street, who said former modera-
tor Ben L. Rose didn't know what
he was talking about ("does not
have all the facts") . Opposing the
resolution was Dr. Rose, who said
he had just been to Brazil, the Rev.
Alfred L. Bixler, a board member
who was born in Brazil (see state-
ment, p. 15, this issue), and mis-
sionary Jule Spach, who said he was
from the bishop's own district and ,
was living there when the bishop
arrived. Other missionaries were
waiting in the wings to speak, but j
didn't get the chance.

So there you are. The establish^
ment is almost ruthless when it
comes to leftist, liberal or repres-
sive objectives. The result is a
Church which does not know the|
Lord it professes so glibly.

If Christ is to be honored by con-
gregations and members of the I
PCUS, it will have to be in large
measure outside the camp represent-
ed by the Church. IB

PAGE 16 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JULY 5, 1972

THE LAYMAN AND HIS CHURCH

Tomorrow's Leaders

They
Accomplish Nothing

The Columbia (S.C.) Record had
ome things to say about the sort
if antics on the part of churchmen
hat have become all too familiar
hese days. Said the Record, on its
ditorial page:

"The District of Columbia is gov-
rned by an 'unlawful entry' statute,
jjnder that law, it is illegal to re-
nain in the nation's Capitol build-
ing after the official closing time,
J vhich is 4:30 p.m.
i "Isn't that clear? Can you under-
stand it? At 4:30 p.m., clear the
■jremises. Leave. Right?
■ "Well, maybe you missed the news
■tern of what happened Tuesday,
•May 17. About 3 p.m., members of
fclergy and Laymen Concerned, a
■national antiwar organization, be-
Ijan gathering in the Rotunda.
■About 3:30 p.m., they numbered
liround 150.

"Among them were figures now
■familiar to Americans — the Rev-
erend William Sloane Coffin, chap-
ilain of Yale, and Dr. Benjamin
Spock.

"The demonstrators prayed, read
■from the Bible and sang hymns
i until, about 4:20 p.m., they were ad-
) vised to leave. Capitol Police Chief
t\ James M. Powell tried to address
■them at 4:50 p.m., but was drowned
iout by singing from the group.

"Arrests began at 5:10 p.m. and
more than 100 were taken off, gent-
ly, to the clink.

"One wonders whether cleric Cof-
fin and others, who chanted hymns,
have a clear perspective of Church
said state. Question: Are both
Church and state, in their varied
organized expressions, subject to the
will and rule of God, who is sover-
ieign over all things?

"Question: Should the Church
and the state be free, each, to per-
form its essential task under God?

I Question: Does the behavior of the
demonstrators seek dominance of

I the 'Church' (as they perceive it)

I over the state?

"Question: If 'civil authority'

\ manifested in the state is to be re-

| spected and obeyed, except for over-
whelming conflict with the laws of

I God, does violation of the law

j1 engender continuous disrespect and

[j disobedience to the state?

"The state does not need the un-

I critical loyalty of the Church but

I the prophetic guidance and judg-

The future of the United States
of America is in the hands of the
youth of today.

In his book, Dividing the Wealth,
Howard E. Kershner attributes
America's rapid progress and pros-
perity to "the observance of the
moral law from which came the
ideals of freedom that motivated the
founders and developers of our
country .... They remembered the
injunction, 'Seek ye first the king-
dom of God and His righteousness
and all these things shall be added
unto you.' "

Can we trust what the youth of
today will remember when they be-
come the leaders of tomorrow? Can
we expect them to emerge with a
sound faith in spite of the efforts
of many of our adult leaders today?
In many instances, those who should
provide sound spiritual leadership
lead the young people astray with
teachings such as these:

— The Bible is not necessarily the
final authority; the Ten Command-
ments were just a set of rules made
up by Moses for the government of
a particular people at a particular
time, and, since times have changed,
those rules are not necessarily bind-
ing on us today.

— Don't take the word of anybody
as to what is good or bad; try every-
thing and find out for yourself; if
you haven't tried it, don't knock it.

— God is a God of love and will
not permit any man to suffer eter-
nity in hell; all men will spend eter-
nity with God.

— If there is anything to Christian-
ity it is primarily to work for the

Jonathan H. Allen, who brings
the layman's thoughts this week, is
an attorney in Dallas, Tex.

ment of the law of God. But have
we not, as a people, had enough and
quite sufficient law violations by
men like Coffin and Spock to re-
alize their views?

"Should they not now cease and
desist, inasmuch as their repetitious
acts serve no justifiable, righteous
purpose?" IB

material well being of man while he
is here on earth.

I think the answer is, "Yes, we
can trust our youth tomorrow."
They will emerge with a sound
faith, for God works in mysterious
ways His wonders to perform. We
can see today how He is using the
works of modern false prophets to
build strong, Christian character in
the lives of the younger generation.

Hundreds of thousands of young
people have on their own recognized
the false prophets for what they are
— deliberate frauds or misguided,
immature, pitiful, little people.

The youth are smart enough to
recognize the truth and to seek it
where it may be found. Because of-
ten the church organization, with its
attempts to attract youth with prom-
ises of bowling parties and a good
time instead of Bible study, is not
where the truth is found, the young
ones are turning by the thousands
to other organizations. In these,
which God has raised up, they can
experience genuine Christian fel-
lowship, learn how to witness for
Christ to others, and diligently seek
the truth from the Bible.

Two such fine organizations are
Campus Crusade for Christ and the
Navigators. These are not a substi-
tute for the church organizations,
and the young people know it. How-
ever, they are providing now what
often is lacking in church programs.

As they grow into adulthood,
many of the youth have been ex-
posed to the teaching of the false
prophets and they have been com-
pelled to seek the truth on their
own. Those who find it will be
the leaders in our church organiza-
tions and in society.

They will know well the way of
life and will be eager to lead oth-
ers into it, even the false prophets
who now try to lead them astray.

Truly, the future of the church,
the Church universal and the insti-
tutional Church — is bright. It will
be producing leaders who will re-
member to observe the moral law.
Hence, the future of America looks
like more progress and pros-
perity. 15

PAGE 17 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JULY 5, 1972

SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON

For July 23, 1972

Confession and Forgiveness

Rev. Jack B. Scott

INTRODUCTION: The study
for today centers around the subject
of confession of sins and forgiveness.
This is closely related to the whole
sacrificial system in the Old Testa-
ment and its fulfillment through
Christ in the New Testament sacri-
ficial system. In order to be able to
comprehend the basis for true con-
fession and forgiveness, we must un-
derstand the connection.

I. THE SACRIFICIAL SYSTEM
IN ISRAEL. When the Lord insti-
tuted the sacrificial system in Israel,
it was given to those who were al-
ready the people of God. To these
people God had given the moral law,
that is the Ten Commandments; by
them the people were to express
their obedience to and love of Him.
The Ten Commandments and all of
their related laws were to be the
guide for the conduct of the chil-
dren of God.

At the same time God instituted
the sacrificial system in recognition
of the fact that the people would
not live sinless lives. In the book
of Leviticus this system of sacrifices
is elaborately laid out. There we
find the sacrifices given in two gen-
eral categories as to the material
used: burnt offerings for atonement
and meal offerings for reconcilia-
tion.

Sacrifices could also be divided
into three categories as to their par-
ticular usage: 1) peace offerings
(thank offerings) ; 2) sin offerings;
3) trespass offerings.

Another way to divide the offer-
ings was according to the one mak-
ing the offering: 1) the individual
offering including sin offerings, tres-
pass offerings, and peace offerings
plus various other personal offerings
for defilement; 2) household offer-
ings such as the passover; 3) nation-
al offerings for sin such as the daily
offerings twice a day and other of-
ferings on special occasions; 4) and
offerings made by leaders at the
time of consecration. Besides these
were other special offerings.

When Israel entered Canaan,

Background Scripture: II Samuel
12:1-15; Psalm 51; I John 1:8-9
Key Verses: Psalm 51:1-12
Devotional Reading: Psalm 32:1-11
Memory Selection: I John 1:9

there were approximately two and a
half million people. Not only were
they to offer their numerous sacri-
fices according to the requirement,
but all were to be offered in one
place at one altar where God should
choose. See Deuteronomy 12.

Counting all the sins the people
would commit daily and adding the
regularly required sacrifices, one can
see what an impossibility it was to
carry out fully the requirement for
the sacrifices of the people. And
this is just the point. Nothing the
people could do could really be
enough to deal with sin. This was
the greatest lesson the people could
learn from the sacrificial system.

An addition to the system itself was
the whole tabernacle with its furni-
ture to teach the people what was
necessary for them to be able to ap-
proach unto God. Outside of the
tabernacle proper stood first the al-
tar of burnt offering. Here daily
sacrifices were to be made, both at
morning and in the evening.

Then as one approached the tab-
ernacle there was a laver where the
priest must wash after the sacrifices
were made. This taught the neces-
sity not only for blood sacrifice but
for continual cleansing.

As the priest entered the taber-
nacle he found in the first room,
that is, the holy place, a candlestick
burning continually and a table of
bread. These represented the neces-
sity for spiritual guidance (God's
light) and spiritual nurture (God's
bread) for the proper spiritual
growth of God's people.

When the priest approached the
inner room, the holy of holies, at
the entrance stood the altar of in-
cense which represented the prayers

The International Sunday School Lesson Oat-
lines are copyrighted by The International

Council of Religious Education.

continually lifted. Compare Psalm
141:2, Revelation 5:8.

Finally, when all this had been
accomplished by the high priest, he
once a year was privileged to enter
into the holy of holies before the
ark itself through the veil to stand
in the very presence of God as sym-
bolically represented by the ark.

Therefore, whenever God's peo-
ple desired to approach unto the
Lord, they would pray wherever
they were toward this tabernacle
(later the temple) . Solomon ex-
pressed this concept in his prayer of
dedication of the temple (I Kings
8:38-39) . Jonah actually practiced
this prayer toward the temple when
he was in great distress (Jonah 2:4,
7. See also Psalms 3:4, 4:7, 18:6,
28:2, 138:2.)

We see, then, that the Old Testa-
ment believer approached God sym-
bolically through the tabernacle vi-
cariously by the priest. He could pray
toward the tabernacle or temple in
order to be heard by the Lord, as
though he were praying in the name
of the tabernacle itself.

The sacrificial system, however,
was never meant to be a substitute
for obedience to God's will. When
the Hebrew people began to think
of sacrifice as merit or as compen-
sation for their sin and therefore as
an alternative to obedience, they had
perverted the original meaning of
sacrifice. They were then presum-
ing on God and this He would not
accept. This is best illustrated by the
example and attitude of Israel's first
two kings. We will now examine
their attitudes about sacrifice and
forgiveness in order to see what real
confession and forgiveness are.

II. TWO EXAMPLES OF SAC-\
RIFICE (I Sam. 15:17-26; II Sam.j
12:1-15; Psalm 51) . Saul was chosen
as king of Israel, being the best
qualified man for the position in all
Israel in his day. He seemed to
have many attributes of a great
king. He was impressive to the
sight (I Sam. 10:22-24); wise (I
Sam. 10:27); brave (I Sam. 11:6);

PAGE 18 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JULY 5, 1972

fiieroic (I Sam. 11:11-13); and pop-
ular (I Sam. 11:15). Saul demon-
strated that while humanly speaking
lie was the best, yet he was not right
lis the leader of God's people,
j Nowhere does Saul's weakness
I how up as it did in his attitude
libout sacrifice and worship of God.
Iiro Saul, sacrifice was an incidental
jlhing. It was a mere detail. On
[me occasion he grew weary of wait-
ing for Samuel to show and offer sac-
rifice and so he did it himself in di-
rect disobedience of Samuel's com-
mand (I Sam. 13:8).
1 On another occasion, he delib-
erately disobeyed God's command to
llestroy Amalek and its king and all
the possessions of the people of
iVmalek (I Sam. 15:3) . He spared
■ he king and most of the best of the
l:attle (15:9) . When confronted by
iamuel, he sought to excuse himself
ly saying that the people had
>pared the cattle to offer to the
Lord.

At this point Samuel asked: "Has
he Lord as great delight in burnt
jfferings and sacrifices as in obeying
:he voice of the Lord? Behold to
)bey is better than sacrifice, and to
jiearken than the fat of rams" (I
5am. 15:22).

By this Samuel was teaching that
(sacrifice can never be thought of
(properly as a substitute for obedi-
ence. Because the Jewish people
did try to substitute sacrifices for
Dbedience and thought that by their
sacrifices and worship by ritual
they would satisfy God, God finally
liad to tell them that He despised
their sacrifices and worship alto-
gether.

God expressed this very strongly.
When the people would not obey
His will in regard to the moral law
and yet tried to push their sacrifices
toward Him to make amends, He
itotally rejected all of their worship
i (Isa. 1:11-15). He expressed much
Bthe same thought in Hosea 5:6-7;
|Amos 5:21-24; and Micah 6:6-8. In
fall of these, God called for obedi-
ence and righteous living, not for
[sacrifice.

Though promising, Saul never
jmade it before God because he per-
verted the whole concept of obedi-
ence to Him. Saul never really re-
lented of his sins and never would
admit his wrong, seeking always to
make excuses much as did Adam
and Eve in the garden.

In stark contrast, we have the ex-
perience and example of David (II
Sam. 12:1-15) in confrontation with

his own sin. He had taken another
man's wife, committed adultery
with her, and then murdered her
husband. Yet, in spite of these
heinous sins, David was called a man
after God's own heart (Acts 13:22;
I Sam. 13:14). Why?

When confronted with his sins,
David immediately confessed his
guilt. He did not make excuse or
deny that they were sins (II Sam.
12:13) . Moreover, in Psalm 51, writ-
ten on the occasion of this sin, Da-
vid revealed a clear understanding
of the meaning of sacrifice. He
called first on the mercy of God
(v. 1) , knowing that only God could
deal with his sin (v. 2) .

He further recognized that it is
not sacrifice that God desires but
a broken spirit and a contrite heart
(vv. 16-17) . Here is the heart of
the meaning of sacrifice. Every lamb
slain should break our hearts as we
are made visibly aware of the aw-
fulness of our sin in God's sight.
Every innocent lamb whose blood
was shed should have broken the
hearts of God's people. Only in this
way could the sacrificial system have
any real meaning.

The sacrifices could not really
deal with sin itself, but they could
break the hearts of the people to see
how very terrible their own sin was
in God's sight and so teach them
that without the shedding of blood,
there could be no remission of sin.

When David openly confessed his
sin to God, it was immediately for-
given. God assured him of this
(II Sam. 12:13). When our hearts
are broken and contrite before God,
then we can be forgiven. Simply to
offer a sacrifice and suppose that
this merits forgiveness is not suf-
ficient.

Most would have considered Saul's
sins slight compared to David's, but
this shows how very deficient and
wrong our own judgments are. All
sin is worthy of death. All sin
grieves God. If we do not under-

stand this, then we do not under-
stand forgiveness. The Israelites for
the most part thought as Saul did
and not as David. This is seen in
the prophets.

III. THE LESSON APPLIED
TO US (I John 1:8-9). Today we
no longer have the sacrificial sys-
tem. We have Christ. The Old
Testament sacrificial system and
tabernacle worship were pointers to
Jesus Christ and all of their pat-
terns were fulfilled in Him. This
is the point of the author of the
epistle to the Hebrews (7-10) .

Most particularly the tabernacle
points to Christ Himself. As the tab-
ernacle was with God's people, so
is Christ the tabernacle in the flesh
with God's people. As the Old Tes-
tament required a lamb offered for
sins daily, so Christ once and for all
offered himself for our sins, the true
lamb of God (Gen. 22:8; Isa. 53;
John 1:29) .

As continual confession of sin is
required in the Old Testament by
the washing at the basin outside the
tabernacle, so by Christ we are con-
tinually to confess our sins (I John
1:8-9) . As the tabernacle was light-
ed by the light of the candlestick
and supplied continually with the
bread, so Christ is the true light of
the world (John 8:12) and the true
bread of life (John 6:35). As the
incense represented continual prayer
offered for God's people, so Christ
at God's right hand continually in-
tercedes for us (Heb. 7:35) .

As the high priest once a year en-
tered into the holy of holies repre-
senting God's people and their ap
proach to God, so Christ declares
himself to be the only way, the truth
and the life, for no man enters to the
Father except by Christ (John 14:
6) . As the Old Testament believ-
ers prayed toward the temple to
reach God, so now we pray to the

(Continued on p. 24, col. 1)

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PAGE 19 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JULY 5, 1972

YOUTH PROGRAM

Scripture: Exodus 20:1-17
Suggested Hymns:

"Blessed Assurance, Jesus Is
Mine"

"I Would Be Like Jesus"
"Stand up, Stand up for Jesus"

PROGRAM LEADER'S INTRO-
DUCTION: To some it will seem
ridiculous that Christian young peo-
ple should be considering such a
topic as "Thou shalt not steal." We
assume that everyone understands
that stealing is a sin, and we further
assume that no Christian would be
guilty of this sin.

What we may not recognize is that
there are more ways of stealing than
committing armed robbery, or crack-
ing a safe, or snatching a purse.
There are quite subtle ways of steal-
ing that are just as real and just as
wrong as robbery, safe cracking, or
purse snatching. These subtle ways
of stealing are in such widespread
practice that they are considered by
some to belong in the accepted code
of behavior even for Christians.

We need to get this fact straight:

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GA 30305. (Phone 404-237-5216)

For July 25, 1972

Thou Shalt Not Steal

Rev. B. Hoyt Evans

When God said, "Thou shalt not
steal," He meant just that. Stealing
of any type is a violation of God's
law, and a Christian should not
practice it or condone it.

Our speakers will indicate some
of these so-called "accepted" ways of
stealing. Let us, then, examine our
own lives and be on guard against
temptations to do these things.

FIRST SPEAKER: Cheating in
school is a form of stealing. It is
using knowledge or information
which does not belong to you in or-
der to win credit you do not de-
serve. Even if someone else willing-
ly supplies the information, you are
still guilty of receiving credit in the
form of grades you did not earn.

Sometimes students offer the fee-
ble excuse that everyone else cheats,
or that they will fall behind in their
work if they do not indulge in this
practice. The excuse is hardly wor-
thy of consideration. Since God has
said, "Thou shalt not steal," you
are obligated to keep His c o m -
mandment, even if every other per-
son on earth disobeys it.

In the law courts people are some-
times accused and convicted of "aid-
ing and abetting" in a crime. This
means, of course, that they shared
in the crime and its guilt because
they helped the criminal to commit
it. Whenever you help another stu-
dent cheat by offering to share your
information with him, you are guil-
ty of aiding and abetting in the sin
of stealing.

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PAGE 20 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JULY 5, 1972

■ ft"!

SECOND SPEAKER: Another
common way of stealing is to cheal x
an employer out of the time anq &
skill for which he has paid. Any
workman who shirks on the job or
who does anything less than his best
is guilty of stealing. The person
who kills time on the job or who
turns in sloppy, shoddy work does
not really earn the wages he re
ceives, and when anyone receive;
that which he has not earned (un
less it is a gift) he has stolen.

One of the most dangerous ideas;
abroad today is that it is all right
to cheat a man who has plenty, but
wrong to steal from a poor man.
God makes no such distinctions.
With Him, stealing is stealing. It
makes no difference whether the
man from whom the thing is stolen
is a pauper or a millionaire.

THIRD SPEAKER: A type of
stealing closely related to the one
just mentioned is that of padding
expense accounts and tax returns.
In addition to being stealing, these
practices involve misrepresentation
and lying. It seems to be generally
accepted that many people who
work on an expense account will
cheat their employer by listing ex-
penses which are not actually in-
curred, or by incurring expenses
which are not necessary.

It also seems to be generally ac-
cepted that many people will cheat
the government out of taxes by fail-
ing to report their true income or
by claiming deductions which they
do not deserve. As has been said by
previous speakers, stealing is steal-
ing. It is still a sin even though it
is so generally practiced that almost
everyone does it, and even though
the victim expects it.

FOURTH SPEAKER: Gambling
is still another kind of stealing. It
is a sin which has many connected
evils, but the fundamental thing
wrong with gambling is that it is
stealing. Gambling is different
from other kinds of stealing in that
all who engage in it readily admit

liei'r intention to steal from others.
|3me device of chance is allowed to
letermine who does the stealing and
■ ho is stolen from.
I Of course, chance is a very un-
redictable thing, and people who
Lake a business of gambling are of-
j ;n tempted to "fix" things in order
p lessen the risk of losing. For this
bason dishonesty is frequently the
pmpanion of gambling. Any kind
J If gambling, even the so-called
^ [harmless" matching of coins or the
J felling of chances for some "good
j lause" is a kind of stealing. No
q christian is justified in stealing,
s jven for a "good cause."

FIFTH SPEAKER: If it is wrong
or citizens to steal from the govern-
aent, then it is also wrong for the
;overnment to steal from its citizens.
£§> we believe it is possible for a
;overnment to steal from its peo-
ple? It is not only possible, it has
ilready been accomplished. Com-
nunist governments have confis-
ated the property of the people.
Confiscation is a polite name for
tealing. Wherever Communism and
:xtreme socialism are practiced,
itealing by their government is ob-
/ious.

There is also danger in the so-
:alled free countries. When citizens
:onsent to taxes, the government has
a right to levy taxes in order to pro-
vide certain services and protection
for its citizens. However, when one
group of citizens votes to take the
wealth of the rich by means of taxes
and to divide it among all the peo-
ple, that is stealing, even though it
is done by lawful means and even
though it is done in the name of so-
cial betterment.

Christians cannot sanction govern-
ments which steal from one group
I of citizens by means of unreasonable
; taxes and then distribute that stolen
[wealth to others. Christians are ob-
ligated to know what is going on in
their government, and to use their
votes and their influence to protect
the God-given rights of themselves
and their fellow citizens.

PROGRAM LEADER: It is easy
to see that the commandment,
"Thou shalt not steal," is not as
simple to keep as it seems on the
surface. Let us promise our Lord
and ourselves that we shall examine
our own lives thoughtfully, and let
us seek His aid and wisdom that we
shall not be guilty of stealing.

Closing Prayer. J]

Tf\e "Bible $$11 speaks,

God's promises to Adam and Eve are as relevant today as
ever! The words of Jesus mean life, hope and freedom
from the bonds of sin!

Read The Upper Room. The entire July-August issue is
filled with devotions based on scripture passages from
every book in the Bible.

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PAGE 21 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JULY 5, 1972

BOOKS

THE GOD OF SCIENCE, by
Frederick E. Trinklein. Wm. B. Eerd-
mans Publ. Co., Grand Rapids, Mich.
Paper, 192 pp. $3.45. Reviewed by the
Rev. John W. Kennedy, Vero Beach,
Fla.

Although this volume will stimu-
late and exhilarate a reader's mind,
he might be apt to feel that the pres-
entation could have been improved
by a straight author form instead of
an author-editor style. A reader
mlgkt also differ with specific items
of content or with the arbitrary ar-
rangement of questions, for this is
basically a book of questions and an-
swers.

If you do buy it, remember that
you have read the suggestion here,
and order it from the Journal book-
store, inasmuch as you owe your in-
terest and curiosity about it to the
magazine which is also in the busi-

ness of selling good books.

Dr. Arthur B. Komar, dean of the
graduate school of science, Yeshiva
University, New York, is quoted as
saying, "The values of science are
the values of a computer, and you
would not expect a computer to
make judgments on questions of
good and evil, but just on the logi-
cal output for a given input." How-
ever, it appears that this is not ac-
ceptable to Dr. Trinklein. He men-
tions the difference between the sci-
entist as a person and his science as
a science. He seems to try to prove
that scientists are especially valid re-
ligious critics.

Early in the '50s I remember re-
viewing a book by Lionel Stander
called, Science Is a Sacred Cow. I
have a feeling that the 38 distin-
guished scientists quoted in this
book are thought of in some such

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III

fashion. Yet because science hat
radically changed things in the last
few decades, scientists do indeed
have a right to speak their opinions
and attitudes regarding religion. Ii
this panel is any indication, man)
highly professional scientists are tak
ing great liberties in a field with
which they are lightly acquainted

So the reader is treated to the rich
thoughts of a wide variety of lay spec-
ulation. There is a gold mine of
quotations. For example, Dr. Weiner
Forssman, Nobel Prize winner of
Dusseldorf, Germany, says, "I often
ask myself, 'How far do we go in our
thought models with our mathemati-
cal constructions toward the limits
where it becomes unclear?' They are,
after all, products of our senses and I
mind."

For another example, Dr. John P.
Friedrich, USDA Research Lab,
Peoria, 111., states: "In religion, we
equate hate with sin and love with
purity. Now if I can take someone
who hates and give him an injection
and make him love, you can see the
religious implications there. Does
that mean we can put sin in a
syringe, or what?" Such quotations
stir the reader's defenses, and make
him yearn to set things straight with

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PAGE 22 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JULY 5, 1972

I sound Christian Gospel.
! A reader may then be led to spec-
late pon the comparable validity
f this sort of criticism among far
jss mentally endowed persons.
'Vhen pastors go calling in the after-
oons, do they not frequently need
b deal with flat assertions that have
d be brought into Biblical focus?
'hould we have awe for intellect and
isdain for ignorance? I bring this
ip because it is a fact that with God
iere is no respect of persons: all of
is are benighted in His sight, and
nly His searching grace finds us at
>ur surrender to give us eternal
ight. The tendency to make priests
ifjut of scientists is calamitous. Let
jjis thank God for mental prowess,
laid be stimulated by all challenges
from it, so that we can again and
igain affirm the faith once for all
lelivered to the saints. IB

! HEALERS OF THE MIND, ed. by
I'aul E. Johnson. Abingdon Press,
■Nashville, Tenn. 270 pp. $6.95. Re-
viewed by the Rev. John R. Richard-
Ion, minister emeritus, Westminster
li'resbyterian Church, Atlanta, Ga.

[ The ten chapters in this book are
[religious autobiographies. Each au-
thor is a physician who has spe-
cialized in psychiatry. Dr. Paul
[rournier, technically speaking, is
|iot a psychiatrist though he is high-
ly successful in the practice of psy-
chotherapy. These psychotherapists
(practice in four countries around the
Iworld — America, Japan, Switzer-
land and Wales. In each chapter
Iwe observe a disclosure of the inner
(lives of the writers.

There is a wide diversity among
ithese "healers of the mind." They
vary in age, historic culture, and es-
pecially in their religious experience.
Several are truly Christian in their
;faith and methodology. One writer,
J. L. Moreno, in effect says he is
jGod: "I have remained amorphous

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as a living God." Several are Uni-
tarians. One professes to be an
atheist.

The third essay, "An Autobio-
graphy of My Religion" by Dr. Leo
H. Bartemeier, one of America's top
psychiatrists, is a great and courage-
ous confession of faith in the Christ
of the Bible. Here he says, "My
spiritual relation with God super-
sedes all my human relations and is
as eternal as my immortal soul. My
soul is not the same as my psyche,
my mind, or my mental processes.
But it is through these that I con-
ceive of the existence of my soul and
its relationship to God."

The closing chapter by Dr. Paul
Tournier on the subject, "My Reli-
gious Vocation as a Physician" is
worth the price of the book. Tour-

nier acknowledges his enormous
debt to John Calvin. In his fight
against liberalism, he began to study
Calvin, and this is the way he ex-
presses his appreciation of the
theologian of Geneva, "How this
jurist, passionately concerned with
truth, suited me; he whose every
page was like an irrefutable math-
ematical theorem!"

This interesting work makes it
clear that psychiatry is not an exact
science, and there are many kinds of
psychiatrists. One should thank God
for the good ones who are dedicated
to the healing of sick minds, and the
encouragement of hope in the face
of despair. Discerning readers who
know how to separate the wheat
from the chaff should find this work
rewarding and enlightening. IB

Quality education focused on the individual

PRESBYTERIAN COLLEGE

Clinton, South Carolina 29325

Accredit
by the
Southern
Association
of Colleges
and Schooi

PAGE 23 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JULY 5, 1972

lesson— from p. 19

Father in the name of our Lord and
Saviour Jesus Christ.

Sacrifice was not a substitute for
obedience and Christ's sacrificial
death is not a substitute for obedi-
ence. On our behalf He perfectly
obeyed God's law and so was the
perfect sacrifice for sin, dying to
pay the penalty for our sins. His
perfect obedience was the substitute
for our own imperfect life in God's
sight. Therefore we come to God
acceptable only by the merit of
Christ and by His death for our sins.
See particularly Hebrews 10:19-25.

Now then, when we confess our
sin as we are told to do (I John 1:8-
9) , we must understand that this
calls for more than a mere verbali-
zation of our sins. We are to have
broken and contrite hearts as we re-
alize the awful price which Christ
has paid for our every sin. If our
confession does not break our hearts,
then we have fallen into the same
old error of the Jewish people of
the Old Testament who offered sac-
rifices as a means of being forgiven,
rather than as a means of breaking
their hearts so that they could be
forgiven.

One final thing needs to be said
about confession and forgiveness.
We can be assured of forgiveness
when we truly (with broken hearts)
confess our sins to God. This is
certain, yet there are consequences
of sin that must be faced. Although
David was assured of forgiveness, he
still had to face a life of conse-
quences for his sin as God through
Nathan foretold (II Sam. 12:10-15).
All the rest of David's life the con-

WANTED: Clinical year or graduate stu-
dent to assist minister for a year with
general work in fast moving city church.
Youth work, visitation and general assist-
ance. Open August 1st. Excellent salary
for energetic young man who is willing to
work. Send full particulars to "OP-
PORTUNITY" c/o The Presbyterian Jour-
nal, Weaverville, N. C. 28787.

If you are moving to an area where
there is no congregation of the
Presbyterian Church in the U. S.
you may find an Orthodox Presby-
terian Church nearby. A Directory
of Churches and Chapels of the
Orthodox Presbyterian Church
will be sent upon request. Please
address: Orthodox Presbyterian
Church Directory, 7401 Old York
Road, Philadelphia, Pa. 19126.

sequences of his sin in his own life
and the lives of his children had to
be faced. Yet he was forgiven and
grew spiritually through all of this.

So we must know that though
God through Christ forgives our
sins, certain consequences may well
follow our sins in this life. If we
commit adultery we can be forgiven,
but it may destroy our home and
our family. If we kill, we can be
forgiven, but we may have to go to
prison or even die for it. If we
sin so as to set a bad example for
our children, we may be forgiven,
but our children may suffer great
consequences because we sinned.

Forgiveness for sin does not freM
us from its consequences in this lif<
Every time we sin, we invite grea
tragedy into our lives. Forgivenes V.
is not equal to immunity from an [If
consequence as the result of our sin
This must always be remembere
and stressed.

That is why there is no real su
stitute for obedience in the Chri
tian life. That is why God calls u
to obedience and to a life withou
sin. This should ever be our goa
and though in this life we neve
fully attain it, we must ever be mo\
ing in that direction. See Philip
pians 3:8-16. B

31 stores in 8 states serving you
with this pledge ....

• To give prompt courteous service, treating our customers as you would a guest
in your home. • To give the best selection of merchandise from Top Quality
Fashions to basement bargains, meeting everyone's need. • To give satisfaction
guaranteed with every purchase. • To give credit terms arranged to meet your
budget needs in Stores doing credit business.

Since the opening of the first Belk-Simpson Store, it has been our
endeavor to be more in a community than just another merchant.
We have set forth a united concentrated effort, dedicated to the task
of securing superior quality merchandise, giving our customers a
better value than any other merchant.

SOUTH CAROLINA

Belk-Simpson Co.
Greenville. S. C.
J. A. Ellison, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson-Plaza Store

Greenville, S. C.

R. Grier Robinson Jr., Res.

The Dollar Store

Greenville, S. C.

R. P. Crumpler, Res. Mgr.

Belk's of Pleasantburg

Greenville. S. C.

A. M. Smith, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store
Lancaster, S. C.

B. L. Plyler, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store

Camden, S. C.

J. A. Hagins, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store

Clinton, S. C.

D. B. Smith, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.
Darlington, S. C.
Paul E. Broome, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store

Laurens, S. C.

David Middleton, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.
Abbeville, S. C.
J. S. Hagins, Res.

Mgr.

Mgr.

Belk-Hagins Co.
Kershaw, S. C.
C. E. Hinson, Res.

Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Easley, S. C.

R. J. Womack, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Beaufort, S. C.

Al Wilson, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Fountain Inn, S. C

E. J. Copeland, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Woodruff, S. C.

F. B. Hagins, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Honea Path, S. C.

T. R. Martin, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Whitmire, S. C.

Clyde Smith, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Manning, S. C.

W. M. Gettys, Res. Mgr.

OHIO

Belk-Simpson Co.

Athens, Ohio

Joe Kelly, Res. Mgr.

MISSOURI

Belk-Simpson Co.

Carthage, Mo.

Charles Wilson, Res. Mgr.

OKLAHOMA

Belk Dept. Store

Miami, Oklahoma

J. T. Holmes, Res. Mgr.

NORTH CAROLINA

Belk-Simpson Co.

Hendersonville, N. C.

R. E. McCormack. Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store

Brevard, N. C.

J. M. Felty, Res. Mgr.

KENTUCKY

Belk-Simpson Co.
Harlan, Ky.

Delmar Tolliver, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Corbin, Ky.

W. C. Ashley, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Winchester, Ky.

T. L. Beckham, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Mt. Sterling, Ky.

Willoughby Smith, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Frankfort, Ky.

J. D. Prow, Res. Mgr.

GEORGIA

Belk-Simpson Co.

Bainbridge, Ga.

M. D. Ashley, Res. Mgr.

ARKANSAS

Belk-Simpson Co.

Paragould. Ark.

W. H. Wade, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Osceola, Ark.

K. R. Cline, Res. Mgr.

These stores are a small part of the entire Belk or-
ganization and have been in existence approximately
50 years. The Belk stores were launched in 1886-88.

SEE THE MANAGER NEAREST YOU FOR CHURCH CARPET, ROBES, ETC.

PAGE 24 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JULY 5, 1972

3 72- f

OL. XXXi, NO. 11 & 12

JULY 12, 1972

$4.00 A YEAR

PRESBYTERIAN

dvocating continuation of a Presbyterian Church loyal

to Scripture and the Reformed faith

Most Important: The Gross

Unity, fellowship or ecumenism is only one of the important
problems of the Christian Church in the 20th century. It is, of
course, by no means the only one. Nor can attempt be made
here to enumerate these problems.

Basically the problem is the skandalon, the offense of the
cross, and the foolishness of the Gospel .... Atheism, indiffer-
ence, materialism, Pharisaeism and a multitude of social issues,
especially problems arising from race relations and city slums,
confront the Churches of America and Europe. The Great Com-
mission of the Lord of the Church provides the program. Faith-
fulness to the task, loyalty to the Lord Christ, and readiness to
bear the cross are its demands.

— Carl S. Meyer

The Church: From Pentecost To the Present

i. S. LESSON AND YOUTH PROGRAM FOR JULY 30 & AUGUST 6
CIRCLE BIBLE STUDY FOR AUGUST

JH00

frTQ^S ON TTJH IQdBqo
111 OK jo itq.f ej:eAfun

MAILBAGr

ANOTHER CONSIDERATION

Very seldom do I read something
in the Journal with which I disagree.
One item that does not agree with
my understanding of the matter is
your editorial of May 24, titled "It's
Always Godless."

The editorial is correct until the
second paragraph which says, "Com-

munism depends on human selfish-
ness for survival. It does not take
root where there is no selfishness and
it will not be supported in any at-
mosphere in which the people are
not essentially selfish . . . ."

Before I take off on that, let me
say that you are correct farther down
in the editorial when you say that

the

PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL

Rev. G. Aiken Taylor, Ph.D., Editor
Rev. Henry B. Dendy, D.D., Managing Editor
Arthur H. Matthews, Assistant Editor

Circulation leader among independent publications in the Presbyterian-Reformed world

THIS WEEK — Vol. XXXI, No. 11 & 12, July 12, 1972

Encounter with Holiness 7

Until men really meet God, they have little real knowledge
of their own situations By Edwin Wang

What Is Democracy? 9

Essential spiritual questions must be answered before the
political ones are settled By Handel H. Brown

Red Riding Hood Today 11

De partments —

Editorials 12

The Layman and his Church 13

Sunday School Lesson, July 30 14

Sunday School Lesson, August 6 16

Youth Program, July 30 1 8

Youth Program, August 6 19

Circle Bible Study, August 20

Book Reviews 24

THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL, a

Presbyterian weekly magazine, devoted
to the statement, defense, and propa-
gation of the Gospel, the faith which
was once for all delivered to the saints,

is published every Wednesday by the
Southern Presbyterian Journal Co.,
Inc., in Weaverville, N. C.

SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: $4 a year

for individuals, $3 for members of
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Second class postage paid at Weaver-
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TELEPHONES: (All area 704) edi-
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the early Christians did not practice
Communism. Amen! Your point
the one with which I differ — is tha
Communism is at its root a mate
rialistic social arrangement. Or tha
it requires materialistic values
flourish. It appeals to the lusts
the flesh: "It depends on humar
selfishness for survival." You con
elude that this explains Commu
nism's atheistic position.

Communism's atheism springs fron
a far more fundamental error. Thi
philosophical roots of Communism
approach to the problem of satisfyin;
men's needs lie in an understandinj
of the nature of man that is radicall1
different from the understanding o
the nature of man that underlies th<
free enterprise system.

The root idea that shaped the frei:
enterprise economic and politica;
approach was this: all men are bac
you cannot trust any man at ani
time — unless you put him under un
changeable limitations of power. O
course, that's pure Bible. In fact, thi(
truth of the matter is that thi
evaluation applies to a Christian a
well as a non-Christian. The govern
ment of the United States is set u|
on the basis that even if Billy Gra
ham were President, you couldn'
trust him with unlimited power.

The idea that all men are bad i
only one half of the root idea of ou:
system as it was envisioned by thj
founders. The fact is that men an
limited, finite, and are in realit
able to know and do only an in
finitesimal part of what is knowabl
and do-able. Again, this is pur
Bible.

The Communist rejects both thes<
ideas totally. Communist ideolog1
is based on two crucial foundatioi
stones: first, man is not bad (hi
may be mis-trained, but he is n<J
bad in any moral sense) , and second
man can have unlimited knowledge
and can do unlimited things. Th
net effect is to arrive at the cow
elusion that although some men ma
be "bad" and some men may b<
"limited," there are or can exis
good enough and wisi
decide what is best fo

some men
enough to
other men.

What you have is simply the ide;
that man is god — or can be god. Aj
idea right out of the pit of hell aru
having hellish consequences wherj
ever it is allowed to be the founda
tion of a system of government.

Allow me to argue again that yotj
position in the editorial is not es
sential to the problem of Commu
nism. In Russia the agricultura

?gment of the economy is very much
. [art of the whole central planning
ipproach. (Central planning, always
miserable failure, is based on
Some men are good enough and
rise enough to know what is best
yr all other men.") In that miser-
ble agricultural mess in Russia the
'lanners have found it necessary to
How the farm workers to have their
wn little home garden plots. Every

jjvailable, reliable statistic coming
ut of Russia indicates that these
little private plots out-produce the
Jentral planning farms by a wide
Jaargin. These private plots are in
J real sense the epitome of selfish-

less.

: Your idea can only be stated cor-
ectly as follows: men turn to Com-
nunism as a system for satisfying
heir needs when they hold the posi-
ion or idea that rule by men is
petter than rule by law because they
believe that some men are good and
ery wise. The "selfishness" that
Powerfully impels this is the easily
•bservable trait of the follower of
Communism that they fall into the
ategory of those who are wise e-
lough and good enough to deter-

• You will notice that this is a
i'double" issue of the Journal, with
Iwo Sunday school lessons and two
|/outh programs. That is in order to
Ipve the people at the press and in
Ihe office a week's vacation —
i here'll be no Journal in your mail-
pox next week. (You wouldn't be-
grudge us one week out of the year,
Uould you?)

• If the mail across our desk means
jinything, the uppermost question in
|:he minds of most readers is, "What
pfect did the recent General Assem-
bly have on plans for a continuing
Church loyal to Scripture and the
Reformed faith?" We've tried to
;>ay something about that on the edi-
torial page (p. 12) , but an even
more cogent answer will be found
;in the story of the most recent meet-
ing of the Steering Committee (p.
»5) . The decision made in August,
i!971, seems more justified than ever,
and as soon as the Joint Committee
on Union has decided when the As-
■emblies will vote (a decision to be
imade in February) , even more firm
projections can be made.

! • This issue will reach most of our

mine occupation and rewards.

— Eliot K. Nymeyer
South Holland, 111.

DELAYED REACTION

The March 15 Journal has just
been received. (It usually takes
from two to three months when sent
second class. Thus, the reason for
the delayed reaction.)

Ordinarily I let pass by certain
statements that I come across in my
reading to which I disagree, but I
have been left baffled by the follow-
ing comment by Richard K. Harris
in his article, "Look to Jesus Only."
He said: "It's so much easier to try
and feed and clothe people and go
hurt with them than it is to preach
Christ." Without undermining the
importance of preaching Christ, it
can be far more difficult and costly
and painful to try to help people
help themselves and feel with
broken hearts in their many kinds
of sufferings.

— (Rev.) Richard K. Swayze
Brasilia, D.F., Brazil

Here's another missionary who could
use the gift of an airmail subscrip-
tion ! — Ed.

MINISTERS

Richard A. Curnow Jr., Scottdale,
Ga., has been called by the Mal-
vern Hills church, Asheville, N. C.

James M. Baird from Gadsden,
Ala., to the First Church, Macon,
Ga., eff. Aug. 1.

Erik T. Johnson from Ararat, Va.,
to the First Church, Starke, Fla.
Donald E. Lannon from Colum-
bia, S. C, to the Guilford Park
church, Greensboro, N. C.

William O. Moore, Norfolk, Va.,
to the Willowwood church of that
city, eff. Aug. 1.

Robert F. Park from Lillington,
N. C, to the Bayside church, Vir-
ginia Beach, Va., as assistant pas-
tor, eff. Aug. 1.

Francis C. Preston from Safety
Harbor, Fla., to the Fort King
church, Ocala, Fla.

Charles Williams from Durham,
N. C, to the First Church, Bris-
tol, Va., eff. Aug. 1.

Richard J. Oman from York, Pa.,
to the Georgetown church, Wash-
ington, D. C.

ACROSS THE EDITOR'S DESK

readers while the first Miami Beach
political convention is going on.
With so much being said these days
about "economic disparities," it is
interesting to note how some of the
principals in the promised Miami
disruptions have been faring. Young
Americans for Freedom has learned,
for instance, that "radicals such as
Jerry Rubin, Abbie Hoffman and
David Dellinger make in excess of
$50,000 a year" from public speak-
ing appearances. No doubt Miami
will procure additional engagements.
YAF goes on to say that Black
Panther Huey Newton has been paid
as much as $4,891.00 for one appear-
ance (at the University of Mary-
land) . William Kunstler, the de-
fense attorney whose services have
proved so valuable to the left, got
$2,000 for one speech at the Uni-
versity of California at Santa Bar-
bara. (It almost tempts us to quit
preaching and go to meddling!)

• News from Ireland continues dis-
tressingly bad, but we saw one quo-
tation which said volumes about the
basic reason. It was by Bernadette
Devlin, the militant Marxist-in-a-
miniskirt who is most often identi-
fied with the current agonies of the
Emerald Isle. Said Miss Devlin:
"I've never seen a stone thrown in
defense of either Catholic or Protes-
tant dogma. Economic exploitation,
not religious antagonism, is the
cause of the troubles in Ireland."
She went on to emphasize that the
war is not a religious war but rather,
"a Socialist revolution." In other
words, the Western equivalent of
Vietnam.

• Anybody need a combination or-
ganist-choir director? We have it on
good authority that a recent South
Carolina college graduate would be
quite competent in such a capacity.
If you are interested, drop us a line
and we'll forward it. IS

PAGE 3 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JULY 12, 1972

NEWS OF RELIOION

Churchmen in Court: Won One, Lost One

WASHINGTON — Two important
cases in which churchmen had a
stake were decided by the U. S. Su-
preme Court on the last day before
it began its summer recess.

The tribunal banned, by a 5 to 4
decision, the death penalty for most
capital crimes. It stopped short of
an absolute prohibition on capital
punishment, however.

The high court, in another 5 to 4
split, ruled that Beacon Press, Uni-
tarian-Universalist publishing arm,
had no immunity from federal in-
vestigation or prosecution simply
because it got material for publica-
tion from a senator who does enjoy
certain immunities.

In the death penalty decision, a
major victory was won by such
groups as the National Council of
Churches, which have been pushing
for abolition of the punishment.
The NCC was among the organiza-
tions filing "friend of the court"
briefs urging such a ruling.

The Beacon Press decision was a
loss for the NCC, however. The
council's general secretary, R. H. Ed-
win Espy, complained to President
Nixon about Federal Bureau of In-
vestigation search of Beacon Press
records before the inquiry was

BURUNDI — An inter-tribal
war in Burundi which has killed at
least 100,000 people has caused Bap-
tist missionaries to appeal to the
Baptist World Alliance for financial
and other aid to assist the nearly
3,000 Baptists here.

Most of the Burundi Baptists are
members of the Hutu tribe which
reportedly staged an uprising against
their Tutsi overlords. In the massive
reprisal by the Tutsi, the Hutu edu-
cated class was said to be virtually
eliminated.

Christian missionaries in Burundi
regarded the inter-tribal uprising as
evidence of a failure of the Western
Church, both Roman Catholic and
Protestant, according to a New York
Times report.

stopped by a court order which the
latest Supreme Court ruling over-
throws.

At issue in the Beacon case was
the publication of some of the "Pen-
tagon Papers" released to the Uni-
tarian agency by Senator Mike Grav-
el (D. -Alaska) . The court ruled that
his arrangement with Beacon Press
to publish the excerpts is not shield-
ed from extra-Senatorial inquiry by
the speech or debate clauses of the
U. S. Constitution.

The decision means that Beacon
Press personnel, records, books, or
anything else are subject to being
subpoenaed before a grand jury by
the government. Mr. Gravel's aides
expect this to happen soon.

The majority opinion said that
while the "speech or debate clause
recognizes speech, voting and other
legislative acts as exempt from lia-
bility that might otherwise attach,
it does not privilege either senator
or aide to violate an otherwise valid
criminal law in preparing for or im-
plementing legislative acts."

The opinion added, "If re-publica-
tion of these classified papers was a
crime under an act of Congress, it
was not entitled to immunity under
the speech or debate clause."

The Times said churches were
"particularly hard hit" in the first
wave of repression by the Tutsi.
Twelve Hutu priests were reported-
ly killed and thousands of Protestant
pastors, school directors and teach-
ers were arrested or killed.

"The Church has been humiliated
and must start again from zero," a
clergyman told The Times. "Both
those who provoked the rebellion
and those who carried out the re-
pression were Christians."

The basic struggle involved the
attempt by the Hutu, who comprise
about 85 per cent of the 3.5 million
inhabitants of the country, to over-
throw the Tutsi aristocracy, as did
the Hutus in neighboring Rwanda
in 1959. ffl

While the opinion on capital pur
ishment was not as clear, most oh
servers saw it as indicating the vh'
tual end of the death penalty in th
United States. It actually set asid
the sentence in only three test cases'
The decision left open the door fo
legislative bodies to reconsider thj
question.

No less than 17 religious group
had filed "friend of the court
briefs, including the NCC. Amon
those filing were also the Unitec
Presbyterian Church USA, the Epis
copal presiding bishop, and agencie
of the United Church of Christ an<
the United Methodist Church.

There had been no executions ii
the nation since 1967, pending th
outcome of these test cases. Of som
600 persons now on death row ii
prisons around the country, all bu
83 have been convicted of murder.

While the court ruled that thj
penalty should be set aside in thi
cases before it, it was divided on th
meaning of the Eighth Amendmen
phrase, "cruel and unusual punish
ment."

Among the first to hail the deci
sion was the Rev. Dean M. Kelley
director of government relations fo
the NCC. He declared, "The Cour
has finally put a stop to the bruta
vestige of the primitive custom o
blood vengeance."

Mr. Kelley claimed opposition t<
the death penalty "is just abou
unanimous among leaders of majo
Churches in the U. S. This is on*
issue that is a major priority fa
Christians of most traditions." a

Chaplain Endorsements
Resumed by Baptists

VALLEY FORGE, Pa. (RNS) -
The American Baptist Conventioi
has decided to resume its endorse
ments of chaplains for the Navy al
ter a three month suspension.

Paul O. Madsen, associate genera
secretary of the American Baptis
Home Mission Societies, which en
dorses American Baptist chaplain
for the military, disclosed that thj
decision had resulted from certaii
agreements that had been reache<
by the denomination and the Nav
after the court-martial and reassign
ment of Chaplain (Cmdr.) Andre\

THE CHURCH OVERSEAS

PAGE 4 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JULY 12, 1972

F. Jensen.

In mid-March, the Navy instituted
court-martial proceedings against
Chaplain Jensen on allegations that
he had committed adultery with the
wives of two officers at Cecil Field
Naval Air Station in Jacksonville,

iJjFla. At that time, the American
Baptist Convention suspended its

p endorsements of chaplains for the

i Navy because it had not been con-
ilsulted on the Jensen case.

m Two precedents were set by the
ii,; affair — the American Baptist Con-
fij.vention became the first denomina-
njition to suspend its endorsements of
jjNavy chaplains, and Chaplain Jen-
jjrsen became the first Navy chaplain
Ito face a court-martial.
I The ecumenical General Commis-
1 sion on Chaplains and Armed Forces
1 Personnel, an umbrella group that
I acts as liaison between the military
(;and some 40 denominations, sup-
i ; ported the American Baptist action
f.and authorized a committee of five

ii to meet the Navy Chief of Chaplains
I on the matter.

Chaplain Jensen was subsequently
acquitted of the charges and has

been reassigned to Princeton Theo-
logical Seminary for postgraduate
studies.

In announcing the decision to re-
sume endorsements, Dr. Madsen
said that the American Baptist Con-
vention has been assured by Navy
Under-Secretary Frank Sanders and
Navy Chief of Chaplains (Adm.)
Frank Garrett that the Navy will re-
fer all future moral cases "to the re-
ligious body involved in concert
with established procedures and
communications."

The American Baptist agency had
asserted during the controversy that
the disciplining of a chaplain on
moral grounds is a matter for the
denomination rather than the mili-
tary.

Expressing approval of Chaplain
Jensen's new assignment, Dr. Mad-
sen said that his permanent military
record will not carry a reference to
the court-martial, and that the
American Baptist Convention has
been assured that he "will be given
every consideration for promotion
consistent with established standards
among his peers." IB

THE CHURCH AT HOME

Steering Committee Picks Administrator

ATLANTA — Actions of the 1972
Presbyterian US General Assembly
reinforced the decision of the Steer-
ing Committee for a continuing
Presbyterian Church to go ahead
with its work.

To underscore the determination
to plan for a denomination "faith-
ful to Scripture and the Re-

; formed faith obedient to the Great
Commission," the committee an-

: nounced appointment of the Rev.
John E. Richards as full time admin-
istrator.

The committee met here on the
, last day of June and the first day of
July to evaluate actions of the As-
sembly and to re-evaluate its own
( course.

Instead of doing anything to
cause the committee to stop its work,
the Assembly made planning for a
continuing Church more necessary

than ever, Chairman Donald B. Pat-
terson said here. He was a commis-
sioner to the Assembly from Cen-
tral Mississippi Presbytery, where he
serves as pastor of the First Presby-
terian Church, Jackson.

The 12 member group of which
he is chairman was formed last Au-
gust by the governing bodies of four
independent evangelical organiza-
tions. They are: Presbyterian

Initial GEB Meet Slated

ATLANTA — Initial decisions on
phasing out existing agencies of the
Presbyterian US General Assembly
will be made here July 19 and 20
when the provisional General Execu-
tive Board holds its first meeting. Ses-
sions are scheduled to start at 9:30
a.m. at the new Ramada Inn near the
Atlanta airport.

Churchmen United, Concerned Pres-
byterians, Presbyterian Evangelistic
Fellowship, and the board of the
Presbyterian Journal.

Members of the executive com-
mittees of the four sponsoring or-
ganizations participated in the post-
Assembly meeting here.

After it was over, Dr. Patterson
asserted, "We are firmly convinced
that we must continue to make plans
for a Church loyal to Scripture and
the Reformed faith."

Among the actions of the denomi-
nation's highest court which were
discussed in the evaluation session
were its new interpretation of ordi-
nation vows, its rejection of a pro-
posal on Biblical inerrancy, estab-
lishment of a new central agentry,
elimination of the only regional syn-
od with a distinctly conservative
leadership, refusal to order a pres-
bytery vote on the question of union
presbyteries, and continued partici-
pation in the Consultation on
Church Union (COCU) .

Dr. Richards, who resigned from
his Macon pastorate to accept the
new post of administrator, has been
a member of the steering committee
from its inception. He was also one
of the early leaders of Presbyterian
Churchmen United and operated its
first office until the Rev. Paul Set-
tle left the pastorate to become full
time executive of PCU.

The Macon pastoral relationship
has been dissolved, effective July 31,
and Dr. and Mrs. Richards will es-
tablish their home near Perry, Ga.
He expects to open the steering com-
mittee office in Perry Aug. 1.

Augusta-Macon Presbytery has
granted him leave of absence status.

Before going to Macon 16 years
ago, Dr. Richards served as pastor
of the First Church, Roanoke, Va.;
First Church, Columbus, Ga.; First
Church, Meridian, Miss.; and First
Church, Waynesboro, Ga. He was
a World War II military chaplain.
He is a graduate of Davidson Col-
lege and Columbia Seminary and re-
ceived an honorary doctorate from
Presbyterian College.

He was for several years chair-
man of the board of the Mountain
Retreat Association and of the trus-
tees of Montreat College. He has
held a variety of presbytery and syn-
od posts. ffl

PAGE 5 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JULY 12, 1972

Missions Board Plans
To Commission Catholic

NASHVILLE — Appointment of the
first Roman Catholic to serve over-
seas as a missionary of the Presby-
terian Church US has been an-
nounced by the denomination's
Board of World Missions here.

She is Mrs. Todd Maxwell Hobbie
of Little Rock, Ark., the former
Elizabeth Marie Keeley of Roanoke,
Va. She and Mr. Hobbie were ap-
pointed to a four year term as edu-
cational missionaries to Zaire (form-
erly the Congo) .

The recently married couple is
now enrolled in the institute for out-
going missionaries at Montreat, N. C.
Commissioning is scheduled Aug. 3,
and they will proceed to language
training soon after that.

Their appointment was approved
at the board's April meeting, but
the announcement was withheld un-
til after their marriage. They are
among the 70 candidates being sent
out by the board this year.

According to an announcement
from Presbyterian News Service, Mrs.
Hobbie is a member of Our Lady of
Nazareth Catholic Church, Roanoke.
She is a graduate of the College of
Mount St. Joseph, Mount St. Joseph,
Ohio.

Her husband is a Davidson College
graduate whose membership is in
Second Presbyterian Church, Little

Rock. His father is the pastor, the
Rev. F. Wellford Hobbie.

While she is not the first non-
Presbyterian to be appointed, she is
the first non-Protestant.

A board spokesman told the
Journal that Mrs. Hobbie had signed
the same agreement required of other
appointees who are not members of
Presbyterian US presbyteries. He
said this requires an affirmative
answer to the questions asked of
persons who are being ordained in
the denomination.

Zaire, the country to which the
new appointee is being sent, has had
considerable Roman Catholic in-
fluence in its history. BE

Prayer Day Is Urged
On Behalf of Ireland

MONTREAT, N. C. (PN) —Mem-
bers of the Presbyterian Church US
have been asked by the moderator
of the General Assembly to pray that
"peace and harmony may come to
Ireland."

Dr. L. Nelson Bell of Montreat
has designated Sunday, Aug. 6, as a
day of prayer throughout the de-
nomination.

In response to an action of the
Assembly earlier this month, Dr.
Bell called for prayer by individual
members and during public wor-
ship services. IB

Moderator Names Five
To Reconciliation Unit

MONTREAT, N. C. (PN) — A
five-man cabinet on reconciliation
has been appointed by Dr. L. Nel-
son Bell of Montreat, moderator of
the General Assembly of the Presby-
terian Church US.

The cabinet was authorized at the
recent meeting of the denomina-
tion's highest court, to assist the
moderator "in working toward rec-
onciliation within our communion."

The Rev. Hugh W. McClure III,
pastor of First Presbyterian Church,
Columbia, S. C, was named cabinet
chairman.

Other members are the Rev. Ben
Lacy Rose, immediate past modera-
tor of the Assembly and professor
at Union Theological Seminary,
Richmond; the Rev. David L. Stitt,
associate pastor of First Presbyterian
Church, Houston; the Rev. D. Alan
Farquhar, pastor of Trinity Presby-
terian Church, Texarkana, Tex.;
and the Rev. Cortez Cooper, pastor
of First Church, Nashville. IB

Name Is Changed

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Re-
formed Bible Institute here has
changed its name to Reformed Bible
College. IB

Five Assemblies Name Lay Presiders

LAYMEN LED THE RACE for presiding officer in five
of the national governing bodies in the Presbyterian and
Reformed family this year. Elected to the top offices
were (left to right, above): Marion Barnes, Reformed
Presbyterian Church, Evangelical Synod; L. Nelson Bell,
Presbyterian US; Charles H. Carlisle, Associate Re-
formed Presbyterian; Harry DeBruyn, Reformed Church
in America; and Willard Heckel, United Presbyterian
USA. A North Dakota pastor, Jack Peterson (lower left),
was presented a jawbone in recognition of his keeping
the Orthodox Presbyterian Assembly under control. Part
Choctaw and a minister-missionary among Indians in
Oklahoma is Claude Gilbert (lower right), Cumberland
moderator.

PAGE 6 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JULY 12, 1972

When God asks for messengers, what will be your response? —

Encounter With Holiness

U zziah was one of the greatest
kings of Israel. Never since the
days of Solomon had the national
pride stood so high or the nation's
dream of sovereignty touched such
remote borders. Suddenly the glory
was eclipsed and disaster struck the
king in the form of leprosy. Thrust
from the temple, he died a miserable
end.

Jotham succeeded to the throne af-
ter Uzziah's death, but the kingdom's
fortunes were declining. We can
imagine how such a dark conclusion
of a glorious era affected the people
of Judah and, in particular, the most
sensitive heart in Jerusalem. Peo-
ple were thrown into confusion and
anxiety, and Isaiah's imagination
was darkened. "In the year King
Uzziah died," it is almost as if a veil
had dropped and the prophet saw
beyond what it had hidden.

Although the world then seemed
to be ruled by the power of dark-
ness, the narrative of Isaiah indi-
cates that the whole earth is full
of the glory of God. The authority
of God does not fall to the ground.
"The Lord (Adonai) sitting on a
throne high and lifted up . . ." The
Lord absolutely sits over the human
prince. The world is out of order,
but God is living and judging all of
us! The simple antithesis seems to
speak of the passing away of the
young man's hero worship and the
dawn of his faith. Uzziah's death
was perhaps a final indication or
expression of the besetting sins of
his people, and in that sin Isaiah

The author is general secretary of
the Tainan, Taiwan YMCA, and,
formerly served as registrar and lec-
turer in the Tainan Theological
Seminary. This is the first article
ever submitted to the Journal by
an Asian Christian. It is appropriate
to the Bible study in this issue.

Isaiah 6:1-8

himself was a partaker.

Isaiah saw the Lord sitting upon
a throne, high and lifted up; and
His train filled the temple. Because
of all that the vision contained, the
temple itself was too narrow. The
truth which was to be revealed to
Isaiah, the holiness of God, demand-
ed a wider stage and the breaking
down of their partitions. This sud-
den and divine presence apprehend-
ed and overwhelmed him. God and
Isaiah were there face to face. What
Isaiah actually felt was the dim-eyed
shame, the destruction, the embar-
rassment, the blinding shock of a
personal encounter with one whom
he was utterly unfit to meet!

This glorious but amazing appear-
ance of holiness shocked the young
prophet almost to death. In face of
this awesome presence, Isaiah ut-
tered his words of fear and confes-
sion: "Woe is me! For I am lost;
for I am a man of unclean lips, and
I dwell in the midst of a people
of unclean lips; for my eyes have
seen the King, the Lord of hosts!"

When Man Meets God

When man meets with God, first
he sees his sins. The prophet now
relates how powerfully he was af-
fected by that vision; namely, that
he was so terrified by seeing God
that he expected immediate destruc-
tion. He says, "I am a man of un-
clean lips." He was so terrified
that he resembled a dead man. Cer-
tainly we need not wonder at this;
for the whole man, so far as relates
to the flesh, must be reduced to
nothing, that he may be renewed
according to God's mercy.

Men live — that is, they imagine
they live — and are swelled with
vain confidence in their own wis-

EDWIN WANG

dom or strength, or their own au-
thority, because they know not God.
Until God reveals Himself to us,
we do not think that we are men,
we think we are gods. But when
we have seen God, we then begin
to feel and know what we really are.
From thence springs true humility,
which consists in the fact that a man
makes no claims for himself, but
depends wholly upon God.

Our life, therefore, until our
minds earnestly draw near to God,
is a vain delusion; we walk in dark-
ness, and can hardly distinguish
truth from falsehood; but when we
come into the light, it is easy to per-
ceive the difference. So when God
draws near to us, His light comes
with Him, that we may perceive our
worthlessness which we could not
formerly see, while we entertained
a false opinion of ourselves.

Awareness of Ignorance

Socrates respectfully taught that
awareness of ignorance is the begin-
ning of knowledge. "I know that
I don't know." This is the begin-
ning of knowledge. In other words,
the way to knowledge is always
closed so long as we don't know
even our own ignorance. It goes
without saying that this great wise
man laid a solid foundation for Hel-
lenism, a fountain of modern civili-
zation.

Likewise, Christian salvation is
only possible to those who have the
fear of the Lord and become con-
scious of their sins. "Fear of the
Lord is the beginning of wisdom."
This is the starting point of the
Hebrew conception and origin of
true religion. "Fear of the Lord"
is actually the greatest and most im-
portant teaching through the whole
book of the Bible. However, Chris-
tian life in the modern community
seems to be losing the sense of fear

PAGE 7 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JULY 12, 1972

of the Lord. The result is that our
sense of seriousness and responsibil-
ity becomes dull, and our peace has
been lost.

The terrible fear of Isaiah before
the holiness of God is very meaning-
ful for us. Indeed, fear of the Lord
is the beginning of wisdom. Once
your mind and heart become fearful
before the Lord, you will be faithful
to Him, consequently you will be
sincere and humble to your fellow-
men. The sincere and humble one
is the happiest in the world, because
it is always true that "Happy is he
who is poor in mind." The Bible
says, "The fear of the Lord leads
to life ... . The fear of the Lord
prolongs life"; and "The Lord pities
those who fear Him."

Fear Makes Bravery

When you begin to fear the Lord,
you are at the same time the strong-
est and bravest and the most cour-
ageous person, because you don't
need to fear anyone or anything in
the world, but God. You will com-
mend yourself to others in every way
as servant of God. You will be
strong with the weapons of the right-
eous towards the right and the
left. As Paul said, "As sorrowful,
yet always rejoicing, as poor, yet
making many rich; as having noth-
ing, and yet possessing everything."

Isaiah says he is a man of unclean
lips, and dwells in the midst of a
people of unclean lips. The form
of his confession, "uncleanness of
lips," will not surprise us as far as
he makes it for himself. As with
the disease of body, so with the sin
of the soul, each often gathers to
one point of pain. Every man,
though wholly sinful by nature, has
his own particular consciousness of
guilt. Isaiah, being a prophet, felt
his mortal weakness most upon his
lips.

The prophet mentions that which
he regarded as the most valuable,
his tongue, his lips, which were con-
secrated to God; for God created
man "in His image" and to be prais-
ing His divine holiness. But man
profanes God's name with his lips.
Isaiah's consciousness of guilt in hu-
man lips was really deep and ac-
curate. To have unclean lips means
to seek glory from men, that is, to
become estranged from God. Isaiah
expressed the crux of his whole
thought and his whole life as un-
cleanliness of lips, because lips are
the organ with which we seek hon-

or and glory from man, instead of
seeking glory from God himself.

Man is always seeking glory from
men and from this world. Man does
not correspond to the divine holi-
ness, he confesses that; even in that
part which in itself is more holy, he
is polluted.

The approach to God is the de-
struction of flesh because it shows
that man is nothing in himself.
When he who is conscious of his
wretchedness sees God, what can he
expect but destruction? For God
is our judge, from whom, we know,
nothing is concealed or unknown,
in whose sight our purity is impure.
The lips of all men are impure and
polluted, until the Lord has cleansed
them.

At that time, one of the seraphims
flew to the prophet, having in his
hand a burning coal which he had
taken with tongs from the altar. He
touched Isaiah's mouth and said,
"Behold, this has touched your lips,
your guilt is taken away and your
sin forgiven." Isaiah's guilt being
taken away, sin forgiven, then he is
able to discern the voice of God.
"I heard the voice of the Lord say-
ing, 'Whom shall I send? and who
shall go for us?' and I said, 'Here
am I, send me.' " One cannot pass
away from these verses without ob-
serving the plain answer which they
give to the question, what is a call
to the ministry of God?

After passing through the funda-
mental religious experience of
cleansing and forgiveness, which are
in every case the indispensable prem-
ises of life with God, Isaiah was left
to himself. He heard the voice of
God asking generally for a messen-
ger, and he on his own responsibil-
ity answered it for himself in par-
ticular. He heard from the divine
lips of the divine need for messen-
gers, and he was immediately cer-
tain in his mind and heart that he
was the man for the mission, and
made up his mind to give himself
to it.

Ready to Obey

The resolute self-surrender and
willing resignation of a free and
reasonable soul are revealed here.
Self-consecration is the beginning
of His service, and a sense of our
own freedom and our own responsi-
bility is an indispensable element
in the act of self-consecration. We,
not God, have to make the decision
to be the followers, spokesmen and

ambassadors of His Gospel.

"Here am I!" So ready a reply
shows how great is that cheerfulness
which springs from faith. Besides,
it is a powerful aid to our confi-
dence, our conviction as a Christian,
when we know that we are not desti-
tute of the necessary gifts, but that
God had bestowed them on us, in
order that we may be better enabled
to discharge our responsibility.

This remarkable instance of
obedience ought to produce such an
effect on our minds that we shall
readily and cheerfully undertake any
task which He may be pleased to
enjoin, and shall never refuse any
task, however difficult we may imag-
ine it to be. When the prophet
says, "Here am I," the meaning is
that he is ready to obey the com-
mands of God; for this mode of ex-
pression is frequently employed in
Scripture to denote obedience.

This chapter stands apart in lit-
erature as a unique record of how
the call of God reached a man and
a prophet was born. It is a piece
of pure autobiography, the record
of an experience of a young proph-
et when he met with the overwhelm-
ing presence of the divine holiness.

But there is nothing of necessity
mystical about it. Isaiah saw a vi-
sion and heard a voice. Paul was
confronted with a presence and had
speech with the living Christ at Da-
mascus. Such instances of encoun-
ter with the living God have marked
the call of thousands in His service.
This is a phrase generally associ-
ated with the vocation of the min-
istry, which is not necessary to be
limited to one profession in life,
but it is purely possible for any man
and woman to resolve what he will
do with his life as to be able to say
that in his chosen work he is an-
swering God's call to him.

The call is really a sense of voca-
tion brought to a focus in a deci-
sion. That need not be either sud-
den or dramatic. The encounter
with holiness has more probably
taken place gradually and calmly in
the deep places of our minds and
hearts. It may be, and generally is,
the culmination of a growing aware-
ness of what one may and ought to
do with life. To everyone God has
given certain gifts and capacities,
and the secret of the good life is the
use of these to the highest ends.

People need to be shown how
their religious faith can be expressed
in their work. What unrealized
possibilities, for example, await the

PAGE 8 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JULY 12, 1972

Christian teacher, the Christian doc-
tor, the Christian business executive,
the Christian foreman, the Chris-
tian student, the Christian house-
wife, if only they see clearly that
their work is their opportunity for
the service of God and man! That
it is not merely a livelihood, but in
truth a calling of God.

A layman may receive and answer
a call just as any minister. It is
possible for a man facing the op-
portunity of some honest labor or
great profession to be ready to give
his life to it to hear, as Isaiah did,
a calling and to answer, "Here am I,
send me."

One of the most faithful servants
of our Lord who spent 60 years in
Formosa as a missionary was Dr.

Thomas Barclay. He founded Tai-
nan Theological College and trans-
lated the Bible from the original
languages of Greek and Hebrew to
the Formosan language. During his
second year at college on his 16th
birthday, he made a solemn vow
and drew up a written covenant
with God, offering his whole life to
His service. From that time until
he died, he renewed it annually,
signing it again each year on his
birthday.

No one knew of this document
until it was discovered by his ex-
ecutors after his death. He never
spoke of it, even to his most inti-
mate colleagues, but there is no
doubt that a very real and deep
spiritual experience lay behind the

writing of this composition. His
life again shows us how a humble
soul acted through his encounter
with holiness. He concluded this
remarkable document with the
prayer, "Use me, O Lord, I beseech
Thee, as an instrument of thy serv-
ice."

From this example of how a young
and humble soul responded to an
encounter with divine holiness, we
can see the fountain of strength
which enabled Dr. Barclay to carry
out his remarkable service in For-
mosa.

Each one of us has his own en-
counter with holiness. This is the
secret of our Christian life and the
real strength of the growth of the
Church. EE

In an election year, Christians could well ask themselves,

What Is Democracy?

There is a widespread belief
that Democracy is that form
of government under which every-
one is equal. Yet "equality" is little
more than an ideological myth.

I do not wish to upset your tradi-
tional faith. I hesitate to run coun-
ter to what seems to be the clear
teaching of the Constitution. But
the plain fact is, we are not "all cre-
ated equal."

We enter this world with different
capacities and with different tem-
peraments. Some children are born
into such wretched homes, morally
and culturally, as well as economi-
cally, that they have two strikes
against them from the start.

If you seriously believe that De-
mocracy is that form of government
under which everyone is equal, what
are you doing to secure and guaran-
tee this equality?

Are you going to settle for "equal-
ity of opportunity," to insist upon
the principle that everyone must be
free to develop his own life? Is that
your idea of Democracy?

The author is minister of the
United Presbyterian Church, St.
Cloud, Fla.

But how will "equal opportun-
ity" secure "equality," unless all the
people make "equal use" of the
"equal opportunities" which they all
share "equally"?

You can give identical opportuni-
ties to two boys from identical back-
grounds who have identical I.Qs,
and one will become an honored
citizen, while the other ends up a
bum.

What To Do?

There is another danger to a mis-
interpretation of the idea of "equal
opportunity." A result of this phi-
losophy may be such an extravagant
emphasis on liberty that it degen-
erates into licence, and forgets all
about equality. You have seen that
happen again and again. You have
seen the strong and determined man
use his freedom to crush those who
are weaker than he is. The un-
bridled freedom of the strong al-
ways leads to the abject slavery of
the weak.

What can be done to make every-
one "equal"? If you say that every-
one must be treated exactly alike,
without regard to their personal pe-
cularities, your search for the high-

HANDEL H. BROWN

est common factor will actually
give you the lowest common de-
nominator. You will drag the cre-
ative artist — the painter, writer,
inventor and musician — down to
the level of the meanest drudge.
Your so-called "equality" will ac-
tually become "equality of limita-
tions," enforced through rigid con-
formity.

This is the great danger of several
current trends in western culture.
We are all familiar with that mod-
ern monstrosity, the "organization-
al man." Organizational man is
that deadly expression of conform-
ism which regards individuality,
independence, and originality, as
the cardinal sins.

There has been no society — not
even France under Robespierre, or
the Third Reich under Hitler —
less free than the society in present-
day Russia or China. Yet there has
never been a society in which the
dogma of equality was so rigorously
applied.

If you want to equate democracy
with "equality" in any meaningful
manner, you must first come to the
place where you see that this is es-
sentially a spiritual conception.

There never has been, and there

PAGE 9 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JULY 12, 1972

never will be, a real equality of
gifts or powers. There never has
been, and there never will be, a real
equality of influence or authority.

Democratic equality is equality of
inherent worth. It is the right of
every individual, not to "be him-
self" period, but to "be himself" so
long as he grants every other indi-
vidual the same right.

Now that is very different from
saying, on the one hand, that each
individual, in being himself, is to
be exactly like every other individ-
ual; or, on the other hand, that each
individual, in being himself, has no
obligations and responsibilities to
others.

Equality that pays no regard to
others is licence. There are only
two possible ends of such licence,
totalitarianism resulting from one
person grabbing all the power, or
anarchy resulting from every man
being a law unto himself.

Every man must have an "equal
opportunity" to be himself, so long
as he does not deny this right to his
fellows, or infringe on their free-
dom in the exercise of his own.

That is the "equality" which is
essential to Democracy. It is an
"equality" which finds expression
in "liberty" to the extent, and only
to the extent, that it is grounded in
"fraternity."

It is only when liberty and equal-
ity are conceived within the frame-
work of fraternity that they can
possibly work, and Democracy can
become a profitable ideal.

Some people will tell you that any
country which has a two-party sys-
tem of government enjoys true De-
mocracy. They believe that Democ-
racy lies in a system of party gov-
ernment which is calculated to pro-
duce checks and balances. Usually
it turns out that the people write
the checks and the government
keeps the balances.

There are weaknesses in party
government which Plato would nev-
er have considered as signs of gen-
uine Democracy.

Does it not often seem that the
chief object of party politics is not
to get the job done in the best and
quickest manner, and at the least
expense to the tax-payer, but to dis-
credit the other party, to make sure
that it accomplishes nothing worthy
of praise, or, if it does, to see that
it does not get the praise?

Does it not often seem that this
system of party government suc-
ceeds to the extent that it does suc-

ceed because most of the citizens do
not take enough interest in vital is-
sues to study them and know the
score? Party government is bureauc-
racy more often than it is Democ-
racy.

What about universal suffrage?
Is that the hallmark of Democ-
racy?

It is easy to argue that the nation
which gives its citizens the largest
share in government, is the nearest
thing to a true Democracy. The
greater the number of people who
possess the vote, the greater will be
the people's share in government,
and the closer will that country be to
true Democracy.

At first sight this looks more
promising. We are saying that if
all the people have the vote then
they have the power to get what
they want, and that, we think, is
the real essence of Democracy.

There are, however, three fatal
flaws in this point of view.

First, the people seldom know
what they want! To back up this
apparently preposterous statement,
let me ask two questions. What is
your solution to the problem of in-
dustrial pollution? What do you
want to do about Federal aid to edu-
cation? Most of us, you see, are not
expert enough to even have a helpful
opinion about problems of great
magnitude.

Secondly, while universal suff-
rage guarantees decision by majority
vote, there is nothing in majority
rule that guarantees Democracy. By
this I do not merely mean that ma-
jorities are often manipulated by
well-organized minority pressure-
groups, although this is notoriously
true. Rather, I mean that a gen-
uine numerical majority may, and
often does, deny the ethical prin-
ciple of Democracy in its treatment
of minorities.

The third criticism of universal
suffrage as equivalent to Democ-
racy is also a moral one. This po-
sition, that Democracy is ultimately
the opportunity to get what you
want, is selfishness carried to the ex-
treme. It says that your interests,
and nothing more, must determine
your politics. It does not give a
hang about other people.

So, if Democracy is majority rule
by which the people exercise their
own power to get what they want,
it may be just as selfish, vicious, and
tyrannical as any other form of gov-
ernment, and its symbol may well
be "Madam Guillotine."

If people are mainly concerned
about getting what they want, if
their entire emphasis is on what
they consider to be their rights, you
will have a society which consists
of a number of selfish and compet-
ing interests. Polarization will not
be the end result. It will be merely
a stage on the way to the final deg-
radation in which the strongest will
prevail, and the weakest will go to
the wall, or to the guillotine.

The only society in which every-
one has his rights is one which gives
priorities to duties. When we are
all doing our duty, we are recogniz-
ing and honoring our neighbor's
rights. When all are really con-
cerned with duties, it creates the at-
mosphere of true Democracy. Any
other kind of Democracy is selfish
and, therefore, immoral.

There is, unfortunately, wide-
spread evidence that moral consid-
erations are not always the deter-
mining factors in choice. I will cite
one example only. There is a very
popular idea that when something
needs doing, it is not necessary for
you to bother about it, because it is
"the government's responsibility."
This means that "the government"
is blamed every time something that
should be done is neglected.

An error more fatal never flour-
ished. A heresy more calculated to
destroy true Democracy was never
concocted.

The Constitution of these United
States never envisages the concen-
tration of all power in Washington,
or the solution of all problems by
Washington.

The true test of Democracy lies
not in the amount of government
that it creates, but in the amount of
government it can dispense with; not
in the number of laws it enacts, but
in the number it can do without;
not in the number of things it can
do for people, but in the number
of things it can encourage them to
do for themselves.

In other words, the real test of aj
Democracy is this: Is it composed
of people who realize that, ultimate-
ly, all responsibility lies on their
shoulders?

The essence of Democracy is the
voluntary acceptance of personal
responsibility.

Now. As a Christian, what does
this say to you about human nature
and man's ability to do what he
ought to do? More important, what
does it say about your responsibility
to preach the Gospel? IB

PAGE 10 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JULY 12, 1972

Red Riding Hood Today

(From a publication of the Neiv
Life Fellowship, we gleaned the fol-
lowing. We have been unable to de-
termine to whom the original credit
belongs. — Ed.)

Once upon a time, in a far-away
country, there lived a little girl
called Red Riding Hood. One day
her mother asked her to take a bas-
ket of fruit to her grandmother, who
had been ill and lived alone in a
cottage in the forest.

It happened that a wolf was lurk-
ing in the bushes and overheard the
conversation. He decided to take a
shortcut to the grandmother's house
and get the goodies for himself. The
wolf killed the grandmother, then
dressed in her nightgown and
jumped into bed to await the little
girl.

When she arrived, he made several
nasty suggestions and then tried to

grab her. But by this time, the child
was very frightened and ran scream-
ing from the cottage.

A woodcutter, working nearby,
heard her cries and rushed to the
rescue. He killed the wolf with his
axe, thereby saving Red Riding
Hood's life. All the townspeople
hurried to the scene and proclaimed
the woodcutter a hero.

But at the inquest, several facts
emerged:

1) The wolf had never been ad-
vised of his rights.

2) The woodcutter had made no
warning swings before striking the
fatal blow.

3) The Civil Liberties Union
stressed the point that, although the
act of eating Grandma may have
been in bad taste, the wolf was only
"doing his thing" and thus didn't
deserve the death penalty.

4) The SDS contended that the
killing of the grandmother should
be considered self-defense since she
was over 30 and, therefore, couldn't
be taken seriously because the wolf
was trying to make love, not war.

On the basis of these considera-
tions, it was decided there was no
valid basis for charges against the
wolf. Moreover, the woodcutter was
indicted for unprovoked assault with
a deadly weapon.

Several nights later, the woodcut-
ter's cottage was burned to the
ground.

One year from the date of "The
Incident at Grandma's," the cottage
was made a shrine for the wolf who
had bled and died there. All the
village officials spoke at the dedica-
tion, but it was Red Riding Hood
who gave the most touching tribute.

She said that, while she had been
selfishly grateful for the woodcut-
ter's intervention, she realized in re-
trospect that he had overreacted. As
she knelt and placed a wreath in
honor of the brave wolf, there wasn't
a dry eye in the whole forest. SI

Work Plans Listed for Seminary Students

(Editor's note: This year's Presbyterian US seminary graduates
who have indicated they will accept Presbyterian work are in-
cluded in the following list. Except where otherwise noted
they will be pastors of churches. We were unable to get the
Louisville list.)

AUSTIN SEMINARY

Robert Larry Black, Highland church, West Monroe, La.;
Richard Dawson Brownlee, Biggsville, 111., UPUSA church; Ja-
cob Eige III, First Church, Fordyce, Ark., and the Carthage, Ark.,
church; Warren Justice Muller, assistant pastor, Highland Park
church, Dallas, Tex..; William Christopher Poe, associate pastor,
First Church, Bryan, Tex.; David Michael Smith, assistant pas-
tor, St. Mark's church, Dallas, Tex.; Albert Cook Hemenway,
Eastminster church, New Orleans, La., and Wesley McCullough
Moore, South Tacoma, Wash., UPUSA church.

Graduate work — David Marsh Barton, Winfred Clark Cham-
berlain III, John Richard Steele and Dean Garrett Stroud.

COLUMBIA SEMINARY

Theodore E. Blackwell, Pineola-Crossnore church, Crossnore,
N. C; George A. Brown Jr., First Church, Hartwell, Ga.; Nor-
man Campbell, assistant pastor, Second Church, Spartanburg, S.
C; James Lawrence Cuthill, assistant pastor, Georgia Avenue
church, Atlanta, Ga.; Dan Hagan, music director-organist, Hill-
side church, Decatur, Ga.; R. Michael Holmes, assistant pastor,
Northwest church, Atlanta, Ga.; Renee Huie, producer, TRAV,
Atlanta, Ga.; Brian I. Johnston, First Church, Cedartown, Ga.;
Norman Eugene Lassiter, Allendale, S. C, church; S. Caroline
Leach, assistant campus minister, Georgia Tech, Atlanta, Ga.;
Clarence O. Magee Jr., Olivia and Barbecue churches, Olivia, N.
C.; James E. McNaull, assistant pastor, Northminster church,
Macon, Ga.; Thomas L. Musselman, Andrews, N. C , church;
Charles N. Neder, assistant pastor, Seven Oaks church, Colum-
bia, S. C; Ronald L. Odum, Franklin, N. C, church; Joseph B.
Rightmyer, assistant pastor, Chapel Woods church, Decatur, Ga.;
Howard G. Shockley, Piney Flats and New Bethel churches, Piney
Flats, Tenn.; David E. Swindall, assistant pastor, First Church,
Milledgeville, Ga.; Ronald M. Thomas, Jefferson, Rocky Creek

and McBee churches, Jefferson, S. C; Calvin L. Vermeire, First
Church, Miami Beach, Fla., and James E. Watson, New Dublin
church, Dublin, Va.

Graduate work — James B. McLain, Danny A. McRight, Doug-
las B. Stearnes and Kenneth P. Wackes.

REFORMED SEMINARY

Dominic Aquila, Stony Point Reformed church, Richmond,
Va.; Tom Cook, First Church, Louisville, Miss.; Pete Hurst,
Mary Martin Memorial, Mt. Olivet and Coeburn, Va., churches;
Steve Irby, Richland ARP church, Millington, Tenn.; Gerry
Little, St. Andrew's church, Belize City, British Honduras; Ger-
ald Morgan, St. Paul church, Jackson, Miss.; John Reeves, Moss
Point, Miss., church; Larry Roff, Marks, Miss., church; Bill
Smith, Gretna, Fla., church; Jimmy Stewart, director of campus
and youth ministries, Fifth Street church, Tyler, Tex.; Wayne
Rogers, Filbert church, York, S. C, Calvin Todd, Memphis, Tenn.,
ARP church; Charles Todd, Salem ARP church, Atoka, Tenn.,
and Boyce Wilson, Iva, S. C, ARP church.

Graduate work — John Kim.

UNION SEMINARY

Edward K. Beckes, assistant pastor, First Church, Mexico, Mo.;
Joseph C. Brandon, Williamson Memorial church, Ringgold, Va.;
Jerry D. Bron, Pink Hill, N. C, church; Gordon F. Garlington
III, Hartwood, Va, church; James R. Glenn III, assistant pastor,
Miami Shores, Fla., church; W. Lawrence Kline, Ebenezer church,
Benson, N. C; Judson J. Milam, Sherwood church, Fayetteville,
N. C; Richard H. Miller, First Church, Lonoke, Ark ; Jack D.
Raymore, assistant pastor, Royster Memorial church, Norfolk,
Va.; Arthur Ross III, assistant pastor, Riverside church, Jackson-
ville, Fla.; William F. Summers Jr., assistant pastor, Oakland
Avenue church, Rock Hill, S. C; Dawes B. Thomson, Vaughn
Memorial church, Fayetteville, N. C; Truman J. Warren Jr.,
First Church, Prescott, Ark.; Charles C. Williamson, associate
pastor, First Church, Goldsboro, N. C, and Robert L. Yoder,
First Church and McElhenney churches, Alderson, W. Va.

Graduate work — John N. Adams, David A. Anderson, David
B. Cozad, Daniel W. Massie, Roger A. Nicholson, Sarah A.
Payne and Kenneth G. Smith.

PAGE 11 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JULY 12, 1972

EDITORIALS

Revival Calls for Strong Church

A year ago, four conservative or-
ganizations announced they could
see no hope for returning an effec-
tive Gospel witness to the Presbyte-
rian Church US. They also said they
recognized that a divinely-sent re-
vival could "make changes in these
plans necessary."

No one anticipated that signs of
revival might have the opposite ef-
fect, namely, make the formation of
a Church loyal to Scripture and the
Reformed faith even more impera-
tive. But it is beginning to look
that way.

Throughout the area served by the
Church, signs of revival are begin-
ning to multiply — congregations in
which the Holy Spirit evidently has
been moving, communities in which
evidences of what David Wilkerson
calls "a Holy Ghost resurrection"
are multiplying; in high schools,
Christian women's clubs, business
men's associations, even the Boy
Scouts!

Wherever revival comes, the need
for a vibrant Church follows. New
Christians must have New Testa-
ment congregations shepherded by

New Testament pastors, to sup-
ply the essentials for growth in grace
and service. Those looking for a
Christian education need schools and
colleges they can attend with confi-
dence. Students for the ministry
need evangelical presbyteries to su-
pervise their professional prepara-
tion.

Evangelical seminary graduates
need to find the channels leading to
vital pastoral opportunities open.
Congregations looking for evangeli-
cal pastors need to belong to presby-
teries that will sympathize with their
desires and cooperate with them in
their search for a godly man.

Today, the situation is developing
with opposite effect. More and more,
the presbyteries of the PCUS are
making it difficult if not impossible
for congregations to get evangelical
pastors — are even tightening the
screws on congregations enjoying the
benefits of such leadership.

Conservative ministers are finding
it harder to be accepted by PCUS
presbyteries, some of which have
adopted rules aimed at barring such
ministers altogether.

What Is Christianity?

Christianity as a name has been
adopted and used by many individ-
uals and groups to accomplish their
own ends. As a result, Christianity
has often been labeled a failure.

Christians have been accused from
many sources of being irrelevant, and
not aware of the times and the needs
of people. History proves that true
Christianity has always been relevant.
For this reason, it has grown and
spread throughout the world. True
Christianity is still reaching people
and changing lives.

A true Christian is a follower of
Christ who said, "My sheep hear my
voice, and I know them, and they
follow me." Therefore, a Christian
is a person who has an experiential
knowledge of Christ, hears and
knows His teaching, and then faith-
fully obeys what Christ has said.

The plan of Jesus Christ was and

is a personal relationship of an in-
dividual with Himself, resulting in a
changed life. It has never been a
plan to change the life style of a
group or a city or a nation. But it
is always Jesus Christ reaching and
changing one life at a time . . . and
each changed life becoming a new
and additional testimony for Christ.

The new life in Christ is evident
in the changed attitudes of the man
toward God, toward himself, toward
other individuals, toward society, to-
ward government, until each indivi-
dual life so changed has an impact
on the world itself.

This is the work of God through
His Son Jesus Christ in the lives of
men. Why not experience it for your-
self?— Trefon Sagadencky in Con-
tact of Christian Business Men's
Committee. SI

Even the General Assembly has
gotten into the act — as by its re-
cent restructuring of synods and its
decision against a presbytery which
voiced its firm opposition to some of
the directions proposed for the
Church.

As signs of spiritual vitality begin
to increase at the grass roots, the
need for a faithful Church becomes
more urgent, not less. SI

Now Is
The Acceptable Time

John Wesley inaugurated and
guided for half a century a move-
ment which the Lord used to bless
great multitudes. Wesley sailed from
Great Britain in 1735 to be a mis-
sionary in Georgia, but, in God's
providence, it was not the natives
but the missionary who received the
benefits of the Word!

In fellowship with some Morav-
ians, Wesley realized they enjoyed a
relationship with Christ that he lack-
ed. On his return to London, he
found God's grace flowing to him
through a Moravian minister, Peter
Boehler. Wesley had felt that his
good works were necessary to his
salvation. Then, while listening to
Boehler preach, he discovered that it
is of grace alone and received by
faith in Jesus Christ alone.

His heart was strangely warmed,
and the fervent heat of his love for
Christ became a mighty instrument
in the hands of God to reach thou-
sands of souls for Christ.

Wesley did not intend to leave
the established Church, but his zeal
was too radical for complacent
churchmen and many doors were
closed to him. Learning of George
Whitefield's remarkably blessed
open-air meetings, he carried on his
own ministry in that way with great
success all over the isles.

Constrained by Christ's love, he
said, "I look upon the world as my
parish; ... in whatever part of it
I am, I judge it meet, right, and my
bounden duty to declare unto all
that are willing to hear the glad
tidings of salvation."

When Christ's mind so fills a man,
he cannot be kept from winning
other men to the Saviour. Even in
old age Wesley's zeal continued
unabated. Eight days before he died
he preached with great power, then
went to be with the Lord in the
eighty-eighth year of a life rich,
strong, and courageous in glad con-

PAGE 12 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JULY 12, 1972

iecration to the Lord Jesus.

It was said of him, "He was al-
ways at work when awake." How we
leed men of this caliber today! One
:annot but wonder if some men who
aoast much of their orthodoxy have
jfelt the love of Christ warm their
jiearts. Prodigious amounts of energy
fire expended on the tennis courts,
or golf courses, or handball courts,
;ven, more nobly, in the defense of
the faith, but so few calories are
burned in efforts to win precious
souls to Jesus Christ!

Some of us yearn for a continuing
Church that is obedient to the Great
Commission. Do we honestly believe
we will be more zealous in a con-
tinuing Church if we display so little
evangelistic concern in this one?

Now is the acceptable time! — Paul
G. Settle.

What's Happened
To Our Youth?

One of our favorite commenta-
tors, Jesse Helms of WRAL-TV, Ra-
leigh, N. C, had some pithy things
to say in reply to the question so
r often raised: "Where do our young
i people get their ideas? Why do so
1 many of them hate their country?
il Why have so many joined with
I mobs to denounce America?"

He found a hint of the direction
i from which the trouble comes in a
1 textbook used in a history course at
I North Carolina State University.

The first two words of the textbook's
I introduction are, according to Mr.
I Helms: "Capitalism stinks." From
i there, the author moves into 458
pages of absolute denunciation of
America, under the title, Up Against
■ the American Myth.

Says the text: "We can solve our
social problems only ... by doing
away with capitalism and the insti-
I tutions that support it .... It is
only through developing and ex-
panding the socialist rationality that
the advanced industrial countries
can hope to overcome the (ills of so-
ciety) ."

Mr. Helms picked up the phone
and called the young instructor at
the university who had selected the
text for his course. A native of Con-
necticut and a graduate of Yale, he
was asked what he would recom-
mend to replace the capitalistic sys-
tem functioning in America. "None
of the systems works," he finally re-
plied after hedging.

He bristled, according to Mr.
Helms, at the suggestion that cap-

THE LAYMAN AND HIS CHURCH

'Be Ye Separate, Saith the Lord'

m

Many Presbyterian-loving, Bible-
believing Christians find themselves
in a dilemma over plans for the Con-
tinuing Presbyterian Church be-
cause they are opposed to schisms.
Even though they are out of accord
with the present direction of the
Church, they don't want to be la-
beled separatists.

They rightfully point to I Corin-
thians 12:25, "That there should be
no schism in the body; but that the
members should have the same care
one for another."

They should, however, turn to II
Corinthians, chapter 6, and these
portions of verses 14 and 17: "Be
ye not unequally yoked together
with unbelievers .... Wherefore
come out from among them, and
be ye separate, saith the Lord."

Our Westminster Confession of
Faith tells us, "The infallible rule
of interpretation of Scripture, is the
Scripture itself; and therefore, when
there is a question about the truth
and full sense of any Scripture, it
may be searched and known by oth-
er places that speak more clearly."

In the light of confessional in-
struction, it should be clear that
II Corinthians gives a definite basis,
to say nothing of the direct com-
mand, for the separation which is
hinted in I Corinthians, for Paul
said to "have the same care one for
another." It is now evident that
the liberals in our Church do not
(and will not) "have the same care"
for us conservatives. Thus II Corin-
thians prevails, "Be ye separate,

This week the layman's viewpoint
is brought by Dr. Hugh Cunning-
ham, Presbyterian elder and profes-
sor of journalism at the University
of Florida, Gainesville.

italism had built the university at
which he taught, and that capital-
ism supplied his salary. "I cannot,"
he said, "accept that theory."

In parting, the professor was
asked if he intended to use a text-
book which would suggest that cap-
italism did not stink. He was can-

saith the Lord."

If this Scriptural basis is not
enough for us, there is also a very
practical matter: Most Presbyterian-
loving, Bible-believing congregations
are already separated.

Take the congregation of which
I am a member, for example:

1. We do not use the Covenant
Life Curriculum in any of our Sun-
day school classes.

2. We do not use the women's
study material put out by the Board
of Women's Work.

3. We do not use Church-distrib-
uted material for our young peo-
ple's work, but use instead the Chris-
tian Endeavor program.

4. We do not recommend that
our young people attend summer
camps sponsored by the presbytery.

5. We have withdrawn our fi-
nancial support and identification
with the Presbyterian student cen-
ter near the large university in our
city.

6. We have declined to cooperate
with four other Presbyterian church-
es in the city on a marriage counsel-
ing program and on an advertising
campaign in the university's student
newspaper.

7. We encourage members of our
congregation to designate their be-
nevolences and have turned down
requests of the General Assembly
for special offerings.

The list could go on and on, but
perhaps the point is made. The
congregation I belong to has al-
ready separated itself. How about
yours?

If you feel you don't want to be
a "separatist," might I suggest you
sit down and make out a list like
mine above. You may find that
you're already separated. IB

did. "No." In fact, he did not know
of a book defending the American
system which, according to his
chosen text, is deliberately operated
so as to oppress the people.

What's happened to our youth?
Mr. Helms thinks he has found one
answer. We believe he is right. EE

PAGE 13 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JULY 12, 1972

SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON

For July 30, 1972

Deepening Our Relationship with God

Rev. Jack B. Scott

INTRODUCTION: Because of
the importance of this lesson for the
whole of Christian life, let us begin
with God's very purpose for our
lives as it is most clearly expressed
in Ephesians 1:4. In that passage
we have the following expression of
God's intent for His people:

1. God chose us in Christ before
the foundation of the world;

2. He purposes that through
Christ we should be a people holy
and without blemish;

3. He purposes that we should
dwell before Him (eternally) ; and

4. He willed that our relation-
ship with Him should be one of
love.

All through Scripture we see God
moving in this direction to have us
both sinless and loving Him and
one another. This is God's desire
and He never lowers His standards
for us as we shall see.

I. GOD'S GOAL AS EXPRESSED
IN THE OLD TESTAMENT.

A. At creation. In the creation
itself we can see God's expressed
purpose exercised in the way He
made man. First, we note that man
was made good in God's sight (Gen.
1:31). This indicates both his sin-
lessness and his ability to have fel-
lowship with God (in God's image) .

Secondly, God gave to man a re-
sponsibility before Him, expressed
positively, to rule and subdue all
the rest of creation (Gen. 1:28) , and
negatively, not to eat of the fruit
of the tree in the midst of the gar-
den (Gen. 2:17) . Herein was given
to man that possibility of showing
his love for God, as Christ said, "If
you love me, keep my command-
ments" (John 14:15, 23-24) .

Thus the situation was set in the
beginning for man to be holy with-
out blemish before God in love.
However, sin entered and man lost
this possibility, becoming dead in
sin.

B. In the covenant with Abra-
ham (Gen. 17:1, 18:19). God never
altered His purpose merely because
men were sinners, nor did He lower

Background Scripture: I John 4:
13-19; Ephesians 3:14-21

Key Verses: I John 4:13-19; Ephe-
sians 3:14-21

Devotional Reading: Philippians 3:
7-16

Memory Selection: Galatians 2:20

His goal. When Abraham failed to
live fully by faith as he should, God
did not say, "I will expect less of
you, Abraham." Instead, He chal-
lenged Abraham to that high goal:
"I am God Almighty; walk before
me, and be thou perfect" (Gen. 17:
1) . The word "perfect" expresses
that completeness which God desires
in all of His children. It is "com-
plete" as God judges completion.
God will not settle for less.

Again, in expressing His purpose
in calling Abraham in the first
place, God said, "I have known him,
to the end that he may command
his children and his household after
him that they may keep the way of
the Lord, to do righteousness and
justice; to the end that the Lord may
bring upon Abraham that which he
hath spoken of him."

Here we see that God's goal to
have an obedient and loving people
has not altered. The words "right-
eousness" and "justice" are hereaf-
ter used throughout the Old Testa-
ment to express God's desire for His
people. They are the God-chosen
words to express the kind of holi-
ness and love God demands in all
of His children.

C. In the calling of Israel out of
Egypt (Exo. 19:6; Lev. 19:2). Af-
ter God had delivered Israel from
Egypt and had brought them to Si-
nai, He expressed again His goal for
His people. This time He said:
"Ye shall be unto me a kingdom of
priests, and a holy nation" (Exo.
19:6; compare also Lev. 19:2) .
Again the relationship of God's peo-
ple to Him in terms of holiness is
stressed.

Furthermore, He gave them the

The International Snnday School Lesson Out-
lines are copyrighted by The International

Council of Religious Education.

Ten Commandments, which as our
Lord said, are summarized in the
commands to love God with all of
our hearts and our neighbors as
ourselves. (Compare Deut. 6:4; LevJ
19:18).

God does not lower His standards
for His people. All of the law and
worship ordinances in the law of
Moses are intended to bring God's
people to an awareness of God's
will for a holy and loving people.

D. In the prophets of Israel (Isa.
5:1-7). This passage, representative
of the continuous demand of God
for His people, states God's desire
for His people in terms of a par-
able. God loved Israel and looked
for the fruit He desired in her, but
instead she yielded bad fruit.

God had earlier expressed the
same desire in connection with the
purpose for Abraham's life: He
wanted justice and righteousness (5:
7) . When this did not come forth,
God determined to punish Israel (5:
5-6) .

Throughout the Old Testament
God has just one standard, holiness
in love. He never veers from that
standard or lowers it because men
of themselves cannot attain unto it.

II. GOD'S GOAL AS EX-
PRESSED IN THE NEW TESTA-
MENT.

A. By Jesus (Matt. 5:48) . Does
the New Testament lower the high
standard? Not at all! In the Ser-
mon on the Mount, Jesus called His
own to a perfect obedience to God's
Word and law, not only outwardly,
but even in the heart. He also ex-
horted them to love not only God
and their neighbors, but even their
enemies. Then to sum up what He
expected, He declared: "Ye there-
fore shall be perfect, as your heav-
enly Father is perfect" (Matt. 5:
48) .

The same words the Lord used to
challenge Abraham (Gen. 17:1)
were used here to challenge all of
His believers, "Be perfect."

B. By Paul (Phil. 3:12-21). Paul
most beautifully expressed this goal

PAGE 14 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JULY 12, 1972

|>f God for us in Philippians. In a
■personal testimony he confessed that
lie had not yet attained to God's
Standard, "I am not already made
{perfect" (v. 12) , but he declared his
Intent to press on toward this goal
I)f the high calling of God in Christ
l(v. 14) . By this Paul showed that
[jie understood God's high goal to
be unaltered and that toward which
pod's children must ever strive.
I' The fact that we have not or can-
Jiot fully attain it in this life makes
Iio difference. It is what God wants
ind what in God's good time shall
Joe in all of His children. The rest
IjDf our lesson, therefore, shall be con-
, :erned for the accomplishment of
J this goal in the lives of all of us
, who trust in Christ for our salva-
Jtion — the deepening of our rela-
, Itionship with God which He de-
Imands to see in each of us.

J III. HOW IS GOD'S GOAL BE-
RING ACCOMPLISHED IN US?
ii| A. By the work which God has
idone in us through Christ (I John
i4: 13-19) . The Old Testament saints
i well understood that they could not
iattain perfection nor could they be
holy and love God as they ought,
tj They understood that they could at-
tain righteousness and justice in
:j -their lives only by faith in God. So
^Abraham believed in the Lord and
lit was counted to him for righteous-
: ness (Gen. 15:6) .

Later the prophets also declared
ii, the same truth (Hab. 2:4). Isaiah,
i in particular, began to point toward
[i the Christ as the answer to our need,
i speaking of the Christ to come who
1 would act in righteousness and faith-
fulness (Isa. 11:1). He specifically
I declared that Christ, the son of Da-
l vid, will establish His kingdom and
uphold it with justice and righteous-
I ness (Isa. 9:7). This particularly
points to God's goal (Gen. 18:19),
which men cannot accomplish by
their own effort (Isa. 5:7) . In
Christ this will be accomplished for
us. Isaiah said that Christ will do
all He does as our substitute (Isa.
5:3) . Thus by faith in Him we are
made righteous and justified in
God's sight.

Therefore, John declared that the
hope of all God's people and the
basis of our righteous relationship
to God is through Jesus Christ, the
Son of God. He is the Saviour and
hope of the world (I John 4:14;
! compare Acts 4:12) .

Our relationship to God begins
with faith in Jesus as the Christ,
God's Son, the Lord of the Old Tes-

tament (v. 15) . This is what Paul
meant when he said, "If thou shalt
confess with thy mouth that Jesus
is Lord, and shalt believe in thy
heart that God raised him from the
dead, thou shalt be saved" (Rom.
10:9) . In other words, all of God's
children both in the Old Testament
and the New Testament eras are
saved alike by trust in the Lord of
the Old Testament who in the flesh
came and did for us in the New Tes-
tament period what no mere man
could do.

God loved us first so that by faith
in Him we might love Him and
love one another (v. 19) ; He initiat-
ed our salvation and in Christ has
done all that is necessary for us to
become holy and without blemish
before Him in love. Fear is removed
because our perfection comes in
what God has done in us by Christ
(v. 17) . That is, we have no doubt
about our salvation if we rightly un-
derstand the extent of God's love
for us in Christ.

There is nothing to fear, as Paul
wrote in Philippians 3, "Forgetting
what is behind, I press on." Again,
as he said in Romans 8, "Nothing
can separate us from the love of
God in Christ Jesus." We are not
in danger of losing our salvation be-
cause we are not perfect now.
Christ's perfect obedience and death
and resurrection have fully dealt
with the failure of our lives. Never-
theless we are now free to strive to-
ward that perfect life which God
has purposed for us. This should
ever be the believer's desire.

B. By the work which God is do-
ing in us through the Holy Spirit
(Eph. 3:14-21) . The work of Christ
for our salvation is accomplished
and completed and perfect. It can-
not be undone by us or by Satan.
It is finished. Yet there is a work
continued by Christ's Holy Spirit
which is working in us. It is the
work of sanctification or the work

of our deepening relationship to
God.

In Ephesians and in many other
places, Paul and other writers of
the epistles have dealt with this
work. The goal is the same as origi-
nally stressed in the following terms:
"Be filled unto all the fullness of
God" (v. 19) . As Christ said, "Be
perfect as your Father in heaven is
perfect." This comes about by the
sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit
in us. "Strengthened with power
through His Spirit in the inner man"
(v. 16).

The Holy Spirit is given to en-
able us to become more Christlike,
to better bear the image of Christ in
us. The Holy Spirit enables Christ
to dwell in us and us to abide in
Him (see John 15 on the fruit in
the believer's life by Christ's abid-
ing in us and us abiding in Him) .
This results in the fruit of the Spirit
being shown in our lives (see Gal.
5:22) . Love is intended here as
the root and ground of all of the
Christian fruit (v. 17) .

This leads to a strengthening of
the Christian life and to a broaden-
ing of our spiritual knowledge (v.
18) . The mark of a spiritual man
is not his particular gifts and abili-
ties, but rather his spiritual fruit.

The work is possible because al-
mighty God is there to work in us.
Just as God spoke to Abraham, "I
am almighty God, walk before me
and be perfect," so Paul stressed that
God is able to do even beyond what
we think possible (v. 20) .

The end of all of this is God's
glory, as Paul reminded us (v. 21) .
We cannot lose sight of that fact.
God desires us to be right before
Him and the world, so that men may
see our good life and glorify our
Father (Matt. 5:6) . This is a most
important aspect not only of our
personal relationship to God but of
our evangelistic responsibility in the
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PAGE 15 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JULY 12, 1972

SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON

For August 6, 1972

Worshiping in the Congregation

Rev. Jack B. Scott

INTRODUCTION: Today we
have the first of two lessons on the
subject of devotion or worship in
groups. The first lesson is con-
cerned for worship in the congrega-
tion. The other lesson will deal
with worship in the family. New
Testament worship was based on the
Old Testament revelation, so that
in order to see worship in its prop-
er perspective we must go to the
Old Testament to begin our lesson.

I. OLD TESTAMENT WOR-
SHIP (Psalm 122). The psalmist
spoke of the joy he knew in wor-
ship at the "house of the Lord" (v.
1) , the temple. The first temple
was built by Solomon and when it
had been destroyed, the second was
built after the exile in the time of
Zerubbabel and those who returned
with him to Jerusalem, while Persia
ruled the land. All of this is record-
ed in the book of Ezra.

There was, of course, a place of
worship before the building of the
temple of Solomon. When God first
called Israel out of Egypt and gave
them His law, which was His will
for the lives of His children, He al-
so taught them how they were to
worship Him. God did this by
means of the tabernacle and the
whole system of sacrifices which He
ordained. Most particularly, by
means of the various pieces of furni-
ture in the tabernacle, or associated
with it, the Lord taught the people
how to approach unto God.

A brief review of the tabernacle
worship is at this point profitable
to remind us of those elements
which God thus required of the
people who would worship God
aright.

A. An altar of burnt offering.
This place of sacrifice, where God
dwelt in the holy place, was in front
of the tent and there daily sacrifices
were offered for the sins of the peo-
ple.

The sacrifices themselves were to
teach the people that their sins were
heinous in God's sight. The sacri-

Background Scripture: Psalm 122;
I Corinthians 11:23-28; Hebrews
10:23 25

Key Verses: Psalm 122; Hebrews
10:23-25

Devotional Reading: Psalm 34:1-10
Memory Selection: Psalm 34:3

fice of innocent lambs was supposed
to bring the people to their knees
in realization that what God want-
ed on the occasion of their sin was
a broken heart, a humbled and con-
trite heart. (See Psa. 51:16-17.) As
David correctly understood, only
when the people had broken and
contrite hearts could they even be-
gin to approach unto God (Psa. 51:
19).

Furthermore, the altar of burnt
offering constantly reminded the
people that without the shedding
of blood there could be no remis-
sion of sins (Heb. 9.22) . God is
a holy God and sinners cannot stand
in His presence in their sin. That
sin must be dealt with. Thus, the
altar of burnt offering was a con-
stant reminder of this.

B. A laver of water. This laver
of water, also outside of the tent,
likewise reminded the people that
in their approach to God there must
be constant cleansing of their daily
sins. As the priest washed before
entering the tent, the people were
reminded of the necessity of the con-
stant recognition of their need of
cleansing in God's sight.

John said in the New Testament,
"If we confess our sins, He is faith-
ful and just to forgive us our sins
and to cleanse us from all unright-
eouness" (I John 1:8-9). The con-
fession of sin is an essential part of
all worship and approach to God.

C. The golden candlestick. In-
side the tent and affording light for
the whole interior, the candlestick
was ordained by God to be there
and shed light for the guidance of
the priest through the tabernacle
and his approach to God. By the

The International Sunday School Lesson Out-
lines are copyrighted by The International
Council of Religious Education.

light Israel was reminded of the ne-
cessity of the light of God to guide
them.

God's light is most consistently
identified with God's Word and
God's Spirit in Scripture. As the
psalmist declared: "Thy Word is a
lamp unto my feet, and light unto
my path" (Psa. 119:105), and we
also read: "The commandment is a
lamp and the law is light and re
proof of instruction all the way of
life" (Prov. 6:23) .

Hence the reading of God's Word
is an essential part of all worship of
God. Throughout the Old Testa-
ment is the example of the reading
and hearing of God's Word when
God's people assemble. Moses and
Aaron read the Word to the people
in the wilderness at the beginning
of Israel's history, and Ezra followed
the practice at the end of Israel's
Old Testament history. In the New
Testament we see the same thing.

D. The table of shewbread. In
the room with the lamp was a place
where bread was weekly placed and
then eaten by the priest. It taught
that spiritual nourishment was es-
sential for true worship.

It is not enough to be hearers of
God's Word, we must be partakers
also, feeding on the Word until it
becomes a part of us. Thus true
worship of God has to be a matter
of the heart, not mere outward con-
formity. By faith God's people must
live out the Word which they hear.
Eating the shewbread was a con-
stant reminder that God's people
must partake, not merely be exposed
to God's truth.

As bread is eaten and becomes a
part of the body, so God's Word of
life must be taken that by that
Word we may bear much fruit. So
Christ insists that we abide in Him
and partake of Him (John 4:13-
14; 6:35, 47-51, 53-58) .

E. The altar of incense. This
third piece of furniture within the
first room in the tent constantly
burned with incense, filling the
room with its fragrance. From the
book of Revelation we understand

PAGE 16 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JULY 12, 1972

[hat the constantly rising incense
lymbolized the constant prayers be-
ing raised to God (Rev. 5:8) .
rrayers were associated with incense
n the minds of God's people in the
bid Testament time (Psa. 141:2;
ijompare also Luke 1:10).

Once again the people were be-
ng taught that all worship and ap-
proach to God must be made with
jnuch prayer to God. As Paul later
aid, "praying without ceasing."

F. The veil of the tabernacle.
jrhis veil separated the first room
jpom the second room. Through
jt only the high priest could enter
ind he could enter only once a year.
Behind the veil were the ark and
.he cherubim and the mercy seat,
nil symbolizing the very presence of
'pod Himself.

1| The people approached unto the
^jDresence of God vicariously by

means of the high priest once a
j year, when he bore on his robes the

jiames of all the tribes. His entrance
linto the symbolic presence of God
iwas accomplished only by the strict-
test observance of all the means of
r approach ordained by God, begin-
,c ning with the altar of burnt offer-

In review, let us see what essen-
tials of worship we learn from the
' Old Testament tabernacle: 1) a rec-
ognition of the need for a sacrificial
death to make us worthy (clean)
i, to come into God's presence; 2)
r the need for continuous confession
|of sin as we come to God who alone
Jean deal with our sin — unconfessed
Tor denied sins break our fellowship
, with God; 3) the need for the hear-
. ing of God's Word as a light to
' guide our spiritual path; 4) the need
; for partaking of that Word, that is,
commitment to that Word by our
lives; 5) the need for prayer lifted
to God continually.

In this way God's people in the
Old Testament worshiped Him.
Even when they were away from Je-
rusalem, they would worship toward
this temple where His people wor-
shiped and approached unto Him
(John 2:4, 7; see also Psalm 5:7,
etc.) .

II. THE NEW TESTAMENT
WORSHIP (I Cor. 11:23-28; Heb.
10:23-25). As the New Testament
; era dawned, God's people still wor-
shiped Him by means of the temple
and its furniture (Luke 1:8, 2:22,
41).

fi It was the custom of Jesus to wor-
ship regularly in the synagogue on

the Sabbath day (Luke 4:16). The
synagogue had arisen during the
time of the exile and thereafter,
when the people could no longer
be near the temple. It did not take
the place of the temple, but was a
means of God's people continuing
to worship Him in a regular manner.

Note in Luke 4 that by custom
the Word of God was read and then
the people were exhorted from the
Word to apply it to their lives.

Jesus and His apostles constantly
observed the proper worship as or-
dained by God in the Old Testa-
ment. When Jesus saw the temple
being misused by those who per-
verted its proper function, Jesus
angrily drove out those who would
defile the temple (Luke 19:45-46) .
Jesus called the temple the house
of prayer. Note that after this Jesus
continued to teach in the temple
(19:47) , thus showing that both the
aspects of prayer and the teaching
of the Word are essential in the wor-
ship of God. Until Jesus' death He
and His apostles were frequently in
the temple.

Then at the death of Jesus, the
veil of the temple was rent in the
midst (Luke 20:45) . Here symboli-
cally the temple's end had come. It
was no more needed because Jesus,
the fulfillment of all that the temple
symbolized, had come and had fin-
ished His work. God's people
could truly approach unto God by
means of Christ as Jesus declared:
"I am the way, and the truth, and
the life: no one cometh unto the
Father, but by me" (John 14:6) .

True, the temple was not de-
stroyed for 40 more years. As long
as they were able the believing Jews
worshiped in the temple (Acts 3:1,
etc.) , but in reality the temple had
served its purpose.

Now instead of approaching and
worshiping God by means of the
temple furniture symbolically, God's
people come to the Father in Jesus'
name, that is, in what Christ had
done to fulfill all that the taber-
nacle-temple symbolized (John 14:
13-14) .

Jesus beautifully showed this
transition on the night of His be-
trayal when, beginning with the Old
Testament sacrament of the Pass-
over, He led the apostles into the
new sacrament in His own body and
blood. He taught them that they
were to show forth the Lord's death
till He came, since by His death they
could then enter into God's pres-
ence (I Cor. 11:23) .

The writer to the Hebrews exhort-
ed believers to enter boldly into the
holy place by the blood of Jesus
(Heb. 10:19), for His way is the
new and real way (v. 20) . Thus
recalling the meaning of the Old
Testament tabernacle, the writer
moved into the exhortation to as-
semble regularly in continuing wor-
ship of God (v. 25) .

By our regular worship together
we exhort (encourage) one another
in the Lord. Therefore, worship is
mutually good for all of us spiritual-
ly. To neglect public worship is to
lose out on those mutual blessings
which God has uniquely attached
to public worship, such as provok-
ing one another to love and good
works (v. 24) . The sprinkling of
blood and washing of ourselves (v.
22) likewise point us back to the
symbolic approach to God at the
altar where blood was sprinkled and
at the basin where water washed
clean.

In essence, when one worships
God today he comes in Jesus' name,
not through the Old Testament tab-
ernacle. In Old Testament days,
people approached God symbolical-
ly by the tabernacle, but we ap-
proach God really through Christ.
We see in Christ all that is neces-
sary for our approach to God. This
they could see only symbolically, yet
both we and they come to God only
by faith. Their faith was in the
God who ordained the means of ap-
proach to Him and likewise our
faith is in God who has provided
Christ as the full and true approach.
So both we and they ultimately
come to God only by faith in the
Lord.

III. THE PATTERN OF WOR-
SHIP. From the tabernacle we can
all learn what is essential in worship:
1) the recognition of the death of
Christ for our sins (a confession of
faith) ; 2) the confession of our
sins; 3) the hearing of God's Word;
4) the exhortation to apply that
Word to our lives (the sermon and
commitment of God's people) ; 5)
the prayers of God's people. These
elements are essential to any true
worship and, if any elements are
missing in our worship in our
churches, they should be restored.

I have not specifically mentioned
psalms, hymns and spiritual songs,
but they are also clearly embraced
in the whole work of exhortation
and commitment along with the
preaching of the Word (Col. 3:16) .
Note that Paul urged that all is to

PAGE 17 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JULY 12, 1972

be done in the name of Jesus Christ.
He is our only right approach and
our only true means of worship of
God the Father.

The early Christians worshiped in

Scripture: Exodus 25:10-40
Suggested Hymns:

"My Hope Is Built on Nothing
Less"

"Take Time to Be Holy"
"What a Friend We Have in
Jesus"

PROGRAM LEADER'S INTRO-
DUCTION: It is interesting to me
that instructions were given for the
main furnishings of the tabernacle
before instructions were given for
the building of the tabernacle it-
self.

This is not as strange as it may
seem, for the furnishings symbolized
fundamental aspects of God's rela-
tionships to His people that were
far more basic than the building it-
self. The tabernacle was of secon-
dary importance compared to the
truths symbolized in the furniture.
Apart from the relationships sym-
bolized by the ark, the table, and
the candlestick, the tabernacle by
itself would have been meaningless.

In this day and age, we sometimes
make the mistake of confusing the
church building with the essential
nature of the church. The build-
ing in which we worship and which
we often call the church is not really
the church. One pastor has a more
accurate term. He calls it the

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just this manner (Acts 2:42) , and
the Lord blessed and added to that
Church daily. The Confession of
Faith rightly exhorts us to continue
worship of God as a communion or-

Rev. B. Hoyt Evans
"church house." The building
houses a people who are related to
God in certain fundamental ways.

These people, together with Christ
to whom they are related as their
head, are the church. Our relation
to Christ involves certain truths.
These fundamentals of our belief

— the basic furniture of our faith

— are really more essential to the
nature of the church than the build-
ing in which we meet.

FIRST SPEAKER: The first ar-
ticle of furniture for which God
gave directions was the ark. Every-
thing else centered around the ark
with its cherubim and mercy seat.
The ark was the symbol of God's
abiding presence with His people.
The mercy seat over the ark sug-
gested that God's presence was based
on His own intervention on behalf
of His sinful people.

God is with us, not because He is
obligated to us, not because we
have merited His presence and bless-
ing, but because He has loved us
and condescended to us in mer-
cy. He has done for us what
we could not do for ourselves. "In
this was manifested the love of God
toward us, because that God sent His
only begotten Son into the world,
that we might live through Him.
Herein is love, not that we loved
God, but that He loved us, and sent
His Son to be the propitiation for
our sins" (I John 4:9-10) .

"For He hath made Him to be
sin for us, who knew no sin; that
we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him" (II Cor. 5:21).
"Whosoever shall confess that Jesus
is the Son of God, God dwelleth in
him and he in God" (I John 4:15) .
God is eternally with us to forgive
and bless because He has come to
us in mercy and love.

SECOND SPEAKER: The second

dained by God for the good of Hi;
people. (See the Confession o} \l
Faith, chapter 28, II, and also chap !
ter 23 which deals with worship spe
cifically.) ff

I
I

article of furniture which God di
rected to be made for the tabernacle
was the table. Always, in the East,
the table is a symbol of fellowship.
This table for the tabernacle sym-
bolized God's fellowship with His
people. It was to be continually set
with utensils and supplied with
bread.

God's presence among us through
propitiation is not merely a legal
arrangement for the remission of our
sins. It is that, of course, but He
is also here to have loving fellow-
ship with us. He is not only our
legal sin-forgiver, He is our loving
friend. "That which we have seen
and heard declare we unto you, that
ye also may have fellowship with us:
and truly our fellowship is with the
Father, and with His Son Jesus 1
Christ" (I John 1:3) .

"And we have known and believed
the love that God hath to us. God
is love; and he that dwelleth in love j
dwelleth in God, and God in him"
(I John 4:16). "He that hath my
commandments and keepeth them,1
he it is that loveth me: and he that
loveth me shall be loved of my Fa-
ther, and I will love him, and will
manifest myself to him ... If a man
love me, he will keep my words:
and my Father will love him, and
we will come unto him, and make our i
abode with him" (John 14:21, 23)j|

We have tables for communion in !
our church buildings, but the crucial j
question is this: Do we have a vital I
experience of fellowship with Godl
in our hearts?

THIRD SPEAKER: The third!
article of furniture for the taber-|
nacle was the golden candlestick. I
With its light, it was a symbol ofl
witness, of the people's obligation!
to tell of God's presence through!
propitiation and of their fellow- 1
ship with Him. This message ofl
God's presence, redemption, and £el- 1 [

YOUTH PROGRAM

For July 30, 1972

The Furniture of Faith

PAGE 18 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JULY 12, 1972

pwship is the good news, the Gos-
lel.

The church today has the same
ood news to tell, only we have it
n greater and more beautiful de-
ail. The Christ to whom these sym-
bols pointed forward has already
iOme to us. The church today which
las no candle of witness ceases to
>e a true church. Our obligation
!o witness is unmistakable. Jesus
aid, "Go ye into all the world, and
jreach the Gospel to every creature"

facripture: I Corinthians 6:19-20;
1 Romans 12:1-2
mSuggested Hymns:

"I Am Thine, O Lord, I Have

Heard Thy Voice"
"Take My Life and Let it Be

Consecrated"
"So Let Our Lips and Lives

Express"

PROGRAM LEADER'S INTRO-
DUCTION: What is recreation? It
helps us to understand better what
it is if we remember that the word
can be spelled this way: re-creation.
It is actually a building up or a
building again of ourselves physi-
cally, spiritually, mentally, and emo-
tionally.

We are stewards of life in all these
expressions of it. Our total being,
spiritual, physical, mental, and emo-
tional, has been created by God, and
pre are responsible to Him for tak-
ing proper care of ourselves.

We have a great deal of leisure
time. It has been estimated that the
average American young person has
la hundred days of leisure in an ordi-
nary year. The adult who is on a
forty hour week spends fewer than
iione fourth of the hours in a week
| at work. Adding on additional
time for transportation, eating, and
sleeping, there is still more leisure
time than ever before.

Leisure and recreation are not the
same thing, of course, but leisure
I allows time for recreation. Are we
good stewards of this time? It is
legitimate, even necessary, for a

(Mark 16:15).

Again He said, "But ye shall re-
ceive power after that the Holy
Ghost is come upon you: and ye
shall be witnesses unto me both in
Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and
in Samaria, and unto the uttermost
parts of the earth" (Acts 1:8).

PROGRAM LEADER: Does our
church have these furnishings, these
articles of spiritual furniture? Do
we have the assurance of God's pres-

Rev. B. Hoyt Evans

Christian to use some of his leisure
time for recreation. What we need
to do at this point is to determine
the characteristics of Christian rec-
reation.

FIRST SPEAKER: Recreation
needs to be different from our ordi-
nary employment. Different things
are recreational for different people.
For instance, sewing is recreation for
some people, but hardly for a seam-
stress. Woodworking is a good hob-
by, but it would not seem like rec-
reation for a cabinet maker.

Recreational activity ought to be
relaxing and satisfying, providing a
restful change from our normal
work. For the person whose work
involves mental and emotional
strain it might well be physical ac-
tivity. For the person whose work
calls for the expenditure of great
physical energy, recreation should
probably be some quieter activity.

SECOND SPEAKER: In many
cases recreation involves physical ac-
tivity. This is especially important
when the person's everyday work
calls for a minimum of physical ac-
tivity. Jesus "increased ... in stat-
ure," which means He grew physi-
cally. Exercise is necessary to main-
tain physical health and strength,
and a Christian is responsible for
taking good care of the body God
has given him.

With this in mind, you can see
why sports which allow for wide
participation are better recreation-
al activities for young people than

ence through propitiation? Do we
have an experience of vital fellow-
ship with Him? Are we really dedi-
cated to the task and privilege of
witnessing? Unless we do have these
spiritual furnishings, we are not
really the church. If we do have
them, what is their state of repair?
May God help us to renew and to
appreciate the fundamental furni-
ture of our faith.

Closing Prayer. IB

the strictly spectator sports. One
other word of caution is in order at
this point: physical recreation
should build up the body, not ex-
haust it.

THIRD SPEAKER: Christian rec-
reation must be wholesome. This
means that it will not harm the par-
ticipant but help him. It also means
that its influence should be for good
to all who have any connection with
it. Christian recreation cannot
harm anyone either by act or by
influence.

Here are some questions we can
ask about an activity to determine
its wholesomeness. What about the
atmosphere in which it is done? Is
it well chaperoned and well super-
vised? Do you honestly think it is
pleasing to the Lord? What effect
does your participation in this activi-
ty have on your relationship to the
Lord? Is it constructive? Does it
build up rather than tear down?
Frank and honest answers to these
questions will tell us a great deal
about the character of our recrea-
tion.

FOURTH SPEAKER: Christian
recreation ought to be temperate.
This means that it should not be
excessive in any way. It should not
consume undue amounts of our time
and energy. Tennis is a fine sport,
good recreation, but it is not good
to play tennis until we reach a point
of dangerous exhaustion. Neither
is it good to play it so much that we
take time which properly belongs to
other important and necessary

YOUTH PROGRAM

For August 6, 1972

Recreation for Christian Young People

PAGE 19 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JULY 12, 1972

things.

In this respect, forms of recrea-
tion which are ordinarily good can
become bad. Along this same line,
recreation should not be overly ex-
pensive. It is said that some young
people work only to finance their
hobbies. Now, while we are young
people, is the best time for estab-
lishing our habits and philosophy of
recreation. Let us determine that
recreation be our servant and not
that we shall become slaves.

FIFTH SPEAKER: Recreation

Have you thought through to your
own satisfaction what the Bible
means when it says that the blessing
of God comes to men only through
Jesus Christ?

As we continue our survey of the
second half of Isaiah's prophecy, we
come to a section which is perhaps
the more significant to salvation than
any other in the entire Old Testa-
ment. It is a section in which the
work of God's Messiah, or Christ,
for our salvation is described. You
may want to read this section, chap-
ters 52 and 53, before continuing
with the lesson material.

God's Way To Life

The central theme of the Bible
is the problem of living and God's
provision for men that they might
have life.

The problem begins with the fact
that human beings, in themselves,
are unable — even unwilling — to
live as they must to enjoy eternal
fellowship with their Creator. The
Bible tells us this is so and explains
why it is so — men are sinners, in
rebellion against the God who made
them.

The Bible tells that sin brings
judgment, but that a gracious God
has provided a way for man to be
blessed rather than condemned.
That way is through the salvation
which God Himself provides, a pro-
vision which focuses upon One
chosen by God to make it possible
for mercy to replace condemnation.

The fact that this One was chosen

among Christian young people
ought to take into account the im-
portance of family life. It is only
normal for young people to want
time for privacy and time to be with
other young people, but it is wrong
and very shortsighted to ignore our
families. When we allow recrea-
tion to separate us almost complete-
ly from our families, we harm both
ourselves and them.

Ideal Christian recreation takes
the family into account, and fosters
family life rather than breaking it
down. Of course, adult family mem-

Isaiah 52, 53, 31:1-3

by God is why He sometimes is
called "the Anointed One." This
phrase, "the Anointed One," in He-
brew is translated "Messiah" and
in Greek it is translated "Christ."
According to the Bible it is God's
Anointed One (Messiah, or Christ)
who procures salvation and this sal-
vation is made available to anyone
who believes.

Because salvation is made avail-
able to those who believe, it is im-
portant to know what we are expect-
ed to believe. To make a long story
short, God's salvation was revealed,
as the letter to the Hebrews ex-
plains in its opening verses, "in
times past by the prophets (and)
in these last days by His Son." The
prophets of the Old Testament min-
istered primarily to make God's sal-
vation clear and to call the people
to be saved.

God's Law Is Changeless

Isaiah was such a prophet and
this means he interpreted Israel's
history to show them the promises
to which they could be heirs if they
obeyed the covenant God had made
with them. He further interpreted
Israel's conduct, to show them how
greatly they disobeyed God, and he
made plain to them what God would
do on account of their disobedience.

It is important to remember, in
any consideration of salvation, that
God's law is changeless. By that I

bers need to take the same precau
tion that their recreational pattern;
do not deliberately exclude youngei
family members.

PROGRAM LEADER: (Now asl
your young people to suggest five oi
six of their most popular recreation
al activities and then to discuss
their merits and demerits in the
light of the principles governing
Christian recreation just presented
in this program.)

Closing Prayer. 5

mean to say there never will be any
change in the rules laid down! As
the Lord Jesus said, "one jot or one
tittle shall in no wise pass from the
law till all be fulfilled" (Matt. 5:

18). I
In the law itself, however, there
was provision for the remission oi
sins upon the substitution of a suit-
able sacrifice. This central provi-
sion was demonstrated in the de-
parture of the Children of Israel
from Egypt, when the angel of death
destroyed the first born in every
house except where a lamb had been
killed and the blood of that lamb
had been sprinkled upon the out-
side of the door.

The meaning of that night, cele-
brated in the Passover, and then in
the Lord's Supper, was that God
would accept the substitution of a
suitable sacrifice in the place of the
one scheduled to die. And we re-
call that in the New Testament it
is expressly stated that "Christ our
Passover was sacrificed for us" (1
Cor. 5:7).

In the Old Testament, it was
Isaiah who was privileged to reveal
in greater detail than anyone else
the truth about the Messiah, the
Chosen One of God, who would be-
come the sacrifice offered to recon-
cile us to God. This revelation
through Isaiah became a great puz
zle to students of Scripture whc
came later. Peter even goes so fai
as to suggest that the prophets them-
selves were puzzled by the revelation
given them as it applied to the role
of the coming Messiah. (At this poinl

WOMEN'S WORK

Supplementary Circle Bible Study

August: Horses Are Flesh

Manford Geo. Gutzke, D.D., Ph.D.

PAGE 20 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JULY 12, 1972

* fbu may want to read I Peter 1:
10-12, where the apostle says that

s1 Sod disclosed His purposes to the
iincient prophets, not so much for
their benefit as for the instruction
af those who would follow, namely
us.)

The thing which puzzled the
prophets, and later students of the
Scripture, was how Messiah could
'be said to suffer and at the same
time rule as King of kings. How
jcould God's Anointed One die and
at the same time reign?
1 Some of the rabbis, trying to un-
derstand Isaiah, came to the con-
clusion that there would be two
Messiahs, one who would die on
behalf of the people and the other
who would rule over them.

This double expectation may ex-
plain a curious question which John
the Baptist on one occasion directed
|j to the Lord Jesus. You may remem-
ber that while he was in prison he
r sent two of his disciples to ask, "Art
i thou He that should come, or look
4| we for another?" (Luke 7:19) . Some
if: have interpreted this incident to
j: mean that John had some doubts
about the Messiahship of Jesus
ff : Christ.

i I do not think there ever was any
[ doubt in John's mind that Jesus of
i Nazareth was the Lamb of God. He
s had himself said, "Behold the Lamb

For Discussion

I Could you explain to a non-Chris-
I tian why death is such a central
1 preoccupation of the Gospel?

I of God that taketh away the sin of
I the world!" (John 1:29). Being a
prophet, he was interested in what
would happen after Jesus of Naza-
reth should die. Was there to be
another who would reign? John,
you see, had not seen the resurrec-
tion.

In Isaiah there is the clearest of
all prophecies concerning the Mes-
siah as the Lamb of God. This
prophecy begins in chapter 52 and
reaches its wonderful climax in
chapter 53. We are all familiar
with the language of this passage,
but I want to call attention to one
particular aspect of Isaiah's descrip-
tion. In 52:14 he says, "His visage
was marred more than any man and
his form more than the sons of
| men." In 53:2-3 he says, "He hath
no form nor comeliness; and when
we shall see Him, there is no beauty
that we should desire him. He is

despised and rejected of men;
man of sorrows and acquainted with
grief; and we hid as it were our
faces from Him; He was despised
and we esteemed Him not."

Here is the only place in the Bi-
ble where you get any clue whatever
as to the personal appearance of
Jesus of Nazareth. I call you to no-
tice that it is not the sort of appear-
ance which is customarily portrayed
in paintings.

The New Testament gives us no
hint as to how He looked and I do
believe the silence is in order that
we may never be tempted to create

images of Him and be tempted to
worship those images — He was the
Saviour of all men. But sometimes
artists, in an effort to portray the
"beauty of holiness" which was the
essence of His loveliness, have pic-
tured the Lord Jesus as a fine look-
ing, even handsome, man.

Isaiah gives us no such picture.
He says that His face was "marred
more than any man." He even says,
"there is no beauty that we should
desire Him." The implication is
that His appearance mirrored the

(Continued on next page)

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SEE THE MANAGER NEAREST YOU FOR CHURCH CARPET, ROBES, ETC.

PAGE 21 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JULY 12, 1972

I

weight of the burden He carried.

Actually, as I imagine it, Jesus
of Nazareth probably was not strik-
ing in appearance in any special way.
Remember that when Judas was go-
ing to betray Him, he gave a strange
sign of recognition to the soldiers
who accompanied him. He did not
say to them, "Look for a striking
man whom you will recognize by
this or that aspect or appearance."
He said, rather, "The one I shall
kiss is the one you are looking for.
Seize him." What does this imply?
It implies that Jesus of Nazareth
probably looked just like anyone
else of His time and country might
have looked.

Isaiah goes on to say something
else of significance about the Mes-
siah. He says, ". . . we esteemed
Him not." In other words, in His

suffering He did not evoke even nat-
ural compassion on the part of those
who were witnesses. He rather made
them think it was God Himself who
had smitten Him — those who saw
Him concluded that God must have
rejected Him.

Not Esteemed

You will remember that on the
cross He cried out, "My God, My
God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?"
Should you wonder about it you will
remember that the Bible says, "He
became sin for us"; and it also says,
"God is of purer eyes than to be-
hold evil." On Calvary Jesus Christ
was made to be sin on my behalf
and God treated Him the way I
should have been treated.

Isaiah says that He suffered be-

cause we, "like sheep have gone
astray" (v. 6) . That is, like sheep who
don't know where they are going,
but who wander aimlessly, we have
wandered from the path of right-
eousness — we have "turned every
one to his own way; and the Lord
hath laid on Him the iniquity of us
all-
Continuing his holy account, the
prophet says something very signifi-
cant. He says, "When thou shalt
make his soul an offering for sin,
He shall see His seed" (v. 10) . In
the Bible the word "seed" refers to
offspring, to children, to descend-
ants. It is when Christ was made
"an offering for sin" that His "chil-
dren" became apparent — that is,
by His sacrifice He made possible
that many should be called children
of God.

"YE ARE MY WITNESSES"
Isaiah 43:10 Luke 24:48

EVANGELISM CONFERENCE

sponsored by

Presbyterian Evangelistic Fellowship

MONTREAT, NORTH CAROLINA August 18-23, 1972

Earlier ads in the Journal listed the Main Address speakers, Bible Hour
speaker and the Music program. Future ads will feature information on
the 27 Evangelism seminar leaders. Listed below are those who will be
in charge of the YOUTH PROGRAM.

YOUTH PROGRAM

(College)
MR. RICK MILLS
N. C. Director,
Campus Crusade for Christ
Chapel Hill, N. C.

(Senior High)
MR. RONALD SMITH
Campus Crusade for Christ
Key Biscayne, Fla.

Director
REV. CARL WILSON
Campus Crusade High
School Evangelism Director
Decatur, Ga.

Please Mail

Your
Registration

In Now ! ! !
Don't Delay.

(Kindergarten)
MRS. FLOYD POWERS
Hopewell, Va.

EVANGELISM CONFERENCE
Registration and Fee

MAIL

To: P.E.F. Evangelism Conference
P.O. Box 808
Hopewell, Virginia 23860

REGISTRATION FEES: (please enclose)

Family — $10.00 (2 or more persons)
Individuals — $5.00 each (21 years or older.
Under 21 only with a family or a youth group).
Youth Groups — $15.00 (5 youths and 1
adult advisor)

Make check payable to: Presbyterian
Evangelistic Fellowship, Inc.
(Please type or print)

Name

Address
City __ ___
State .....

Zip.

Family members accompanying me

(Primary)
MRS. J. P. JENKINS
Charleston, W. Va.

(Junior High)
REV. LANIER ELLIS
Campus Crusade for Christ
Montgomery, Ala.

(Juniors)
REV. BILL JONES
Baltimore, Md.

(Nursery)
MRS. GEORGE SMITH
Hopewell, Va.

ACCOMODATIONS:

Each person is responsible for making his
own housing arrangement with Montreat.
Check below if you want P.E.F. to send you
a list of accomodations.

Please send list of available camping

and housing accomodations.
PROMOTION:

Please note: We have a surplus of EVAN-
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If you would like to have a sufficient amount
to insert one each in a Sunday Morning Wor-
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many you can use. We will be happy to fill
your request without charge.

PAGE 22 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JULY 12, 1972

And it is only through His sacri-
ice that we become children of God.
ie died for us. He took our place
n judgment. He paid the price we
iwed. He shed His blood that we
night be admitted into the presence
>f God and have our sins forgiven.

It is through His death that we
lave been reconciled to God, if we
liave come to believe and trust in
Tim as our Saviour. Have you
I rusted Jesus Christ as your Saviour?

Christians and War

In the Workbook lesson, a con-
clusion is attempted with respect to
;:he general principle of warfare,
[jased on Isaiah's advice to the peo-
jple of Israel that they should not
trust in the horses and chariots of
Egypt, but rather in the Holy One
Df Israel (Isa. 31:1-3) .
If there is anything that we have
■ learned from Isaiah, it is that the
prophet was not preoccupied with
political affairs and with the wars
then going on, from a natural view-
i point. He was interested in the
; spiritual welfare of Israel and the
i spiritual implications of Israel's en-
jrtanglements.

War is a terrible thing which oc-
I curs among men and by which men
t have sought to advance their selfish
i objectives. But warfare also involves
I men in spiritual considerations and
lit was these to which Isaiah pointed
I when he warned the people not to
I trust in human resources such as were
I represented by the horses and chari-
lots of Egypt. I do not believe that
t we can take Isaiah's words here and
consider them applicable as con-
crete instructions to the nations to-
day in their relations with one an-
' other.

Let me say something about this
whole business of using the Bible to
determine the course of human poli-

I tics. When you read the things said
about Jesus of Nazareth during His
ministry on earth, you are struck
by the absence of "political" refer-
ences. In respect to war, He never
made a point of the evil of war. In
fact there is only one reference to
war in all His teachings and this was
in a parable in which He used the
preparation of kings for war to il-

, lustrate the fact that believers must
be aware of the implications of their

I commitments (Luke 14:31).

Paul refers to warfare and he says
that in a sense the Christian should
consider himself as constantly at war.
Yet, "though we walk in the flesh,
we do not war after the flesh," he

said, meaning that our warfare is a
spiritual one and not a physical con-
test between men (II Cor. 10:3-4) .
Again, in Ephesians, the apostle spe-
cifically enjoins believers to prepare
for spiritual warfare (Eph. 6) , and
at the end of his own career he
wrote, "I have fought a good fight"
(II Tim. 4:7) .

Don't avoid it: As a Christian you
have a war on your hands — for ex-
ample, with respect to the integrity
of the faith. There will be those
who will attack the Bible and
the integrity of the faith and you
will find yourself at war with their
ideas (not with them) . The same
thing is true of other issues some-
times before believers — settling
them involves us in a spiritual war:
"against principalities and powers

and spiritual wickedness in high
places."

In all our dealings, we stand (and

fight) not in the wisdom of men

but in the power of God. That is

to say, we trust God, we trust the

Scriptures, we trust in prayer and we

take our stand. When the victory

comes, it is His.

# # # #

Dr. Gutzke is professor emeritus
of Biblical exposition, Columbia
Seminary, and broadcaster of "The
Bible for You." This study is avail-
able on tape recording, $3 per reg-
ular tape containing 4 lessons ($9
the set, Nos. 71, 2, 3) and $3 per cas-
sette containing 3 lessons ($12 the
set, Nos. 71-A, B, C, D) . Order from
The Bible for You, Box 15007, At-
lanta, Ga. 30333. IS

Good Books For Your Study

Halley's Handbook Regular Edition 4.50

Deluxe 5.95

A Foreign Devil in China, by John Pollock Cloth $ 5.95

Paper 1.45

Thy Kingdom Come — Studies in Revelation and Daniel,

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Exposition of Isaiah (Vol. 1, Chapters 1-39), by H. C. Leupold 7.95

Revelation — An Expository Commentary, by Donald G. Barnhouse 7.95

The God Who Shows Himself, by Carl F. H. Henry 3.50

Spurgeon on Revival — A Pattern for Evangelism Today, by Eric

W. Hayden 2.95

The Gospel for the Whole of Life — Romans, by Richard C.

Halverson 3.95

Living on the Growing Edge, by Bruce Larson 2.95

Revivals in the Midst of the Years, by Benjamin R. Lacy Jr. 3.95

Discern These Times, by S. I. McMillan 4.95

Billy Graham — The Authorized Biography, by John Pollock 4.95

The Reformation — A Rediscovery of Grace, by William Childs

Robinson 5.00

True Spirituality, by Francis A. Schaeffer 3.95

Is Your Family Turned On?, by Charlie W. Shedd 4.95

Your Fig Leaf Is Slipping, by Paul H. Sheetz 4.95

While Men Slept, by L. Nelson Bell 4.95

Order from

The Presbyterian Journal, Weaverville, N. C. 28787

PAGE 23 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JULY 12, 1972

BOOKS

IS THE FAMILY HERE TO
STAY?, by David A. Hubbard. Word
Books, Waco, Tex. 97 pp. $2.95. Re-
viewed by the Rev. Robert E. Wein-
m a n , pastor, First Presbyterian
Church, Columbiana, Ohio.

This is the third in a series of
books based on radio messages de-
livered by the author on the radio
program "The Joyful Sound." The
ten chapters are brief examinations
of marriage, the family, responsibil-
ity of parents, and other matters
that affect us all so deeply — an
examination of these in the light of
the Bible, the Word of God.

Criticism of present day family
life is coming from all sides. The
problem becomes more critical ev-
ery day. Where do we turn for
help? Since the time of Socrates it
has been an accepted part of West-
ern wisdom that in matters of so-
cial organization, it is necessary to
know what is right before we can
know what is wrong. Insofar as man
is reasonable the intelligent way to
begin is to consider first the end.
The only reason why a physician
can diagnose the nature of an ill-
ness is that he already has a vision
of what a really well body is.

"It is the whole definition and
dignity of man," said Chesterton,
"that in social matters we must ac-
tually find the cure before we find
the disease." Unless we know that
there is a target and unless we have
a fairly clear idea of its location, it
is surely nonsense to talk about
missing it.

David Hubbard knows the target!
He has clearly set forth the Biblical
origin of the family, and he presents
clear guidelines for solutions to a
wide variety of problems faced by
the modern family.

In the problem of the recovery of
family life, the common-sense ap-
proach of Dr. Hubbard is as neces-
sary as it is rare. Because the dif-
ficulties we encounter are more pro-
found than they appear, it is espe-
cially important that we start at the
right place. We need many books
on economics of the family, on sex-
ual behavior and on the details of
domestic education, but these ques-
tions are secondary to the central
question of what the family ought

to be. This book deals with family
life at the right place, with the Bib-
lical guidelines for healthy family
relationships. The family is here to
stay, but the real question, says Dr.
Hubbard, is, "Can your family stay
as it is?"

The guidance and principles set
forth in this book are not new, and
they did not originate with Dr. Hub-
bard. Their source is the Bible, and
when we obey God's Word our lives
and our families take on fresh sig-
nificance. H

THE OLD TESTAMENT PROPH-
ETS, by H. L. Ellison. Zondervan
Publ. Co., Grand Rapids, Mich. Paper,
160 pp. $1.95. Reviewed by the Rev.
Peter Pascoe, pastor, First Presbyte-
rian Church, Winona Lake, Ind.

If you want a keen and stimulating
understanding of the prophets of the
Old Testament, then read H. L. El-
lison! This son of a Hebrew Chris-
tian missionary among the Jews, an
ordained Anglican clergyman, mis-
sionary among the Jews in Poland
and Romania, professor of Old Tes-
tament in a number of colleges, now
retired at the age of 69, is still active-
ly writing books on the Old Testa-
ment prophets. His latest is The
Prophets of Israel (1969, Pater-
noster Press, England, Eerdmans,
American Publishers) .

The Old Testament Prophets was
first published in 1952 under the ti-
tle Men Spake from God; a second
edition was printed in 1958. This
third edition is in the form of a
study guide. Three editions of a
modern scholarly work on the proph-
ets is a rarity indeed. There must
be a reason. There is. This is an
excellent book.

This study guide to The Old Tes-
tament Prophets consists of an intro-
ductory chapter on the prophets,
followed by a study of the sixteen in-
dividual ones. Each study consists
of notes on the questions of author-
ship and date, an outline of the
book, historical background of au-
thor, message and times, an adequate
dealing with the critical questions in-
volved, an exposition of the central
message of the prophet. All of this
is done within a compass of 150
pages, allotting 20 pages to Isaiah,

id
fl-
it

18 to Ezekiel and 17 to Jeremiah.
Here is precise scholarship.

Ellison does not follow the ar-
rangement of the prophets in the
Hebrew canon. He deals with Joel
first: "His message underlies all
written Hebrew prophecy"; and
Daniel last: "Both the Hebrew can
on and nature of its contents put
outside the prophets in the strict
sense of the word."

Dates assigned follow the tradi-
tional early date conservative posi-
tion. Ellison argues for the unity
of Isaiah. "Isaiah is a literary unity
and a skillful one at that." He takes
the position that a completely literal
interpretation of Ezekiel 4:1-5:4 is
impossible. The author contributes
an interesting insight into the prob-
lem of "unfulfilled prophecy," claim-
ing that such prophecy is either
shirked when applied literally to the
millennium, or spiritualized when
referred to the Church. He offers
his own alternative.

In this balanced treatment of the
Old Testament prophet and his mes-
sage, I am amazed and pleased with
the amount of scholarly material put
into a book which is listed as "a
study guide." Read Ellison. You
will be richly rewarded.

JESUS' PROPHETIC SERMON, by
Walter K. Price. Moody Press, Chica-
go, 111. 160 pp. $4.95. Reviewed by the
Rev. Alex M. Mitchell, H.R., Colum-
bia, s. c.

This work is an exposition of Mat-
thew 24 and 25 from the premillen-
nial point of view. He writes: "Here
He (Jesus) deals with the future and
the nation of Israel, the future and
the Church, and the future and the
Gentile nations." To the author the
entire thrust of the passage concerns
the destiny of the nation Israel.

The time between the first and
second advent is said to be an inter-
lude in the history of Israel. "God's
timeclock stopped ticking when the
Messiah died on the cross." It will
start again after the rapture when
the true Church is taken out of the
world. "Jesus weaves the destiny of
the Church and the nations around
the nation of Israel," the author
writes.

Israel's history moves from travail
to tribulation to great tribulation,
followed by restoration. That resto-
ration is to be both national and
spiritual.

A seven page index makes refer-

ence easy.

ffl

PAGE 24 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JULY 12, 1972

i

OL. XXXI, NO. 13

JULY 26, 1972

$4.00 A YEAR

he

dvocating continuation of a Presbyterian Church loyal

to Scripture and the Reformed faith

Are You a Fisherman?

A lot of Presbyterians pride themselves on being good
fishermen and nothing makes them any happier than to be able
to go out and bring in a big mess of fish.

But my friends, Christ said that Presbyterians are to be
more than just fishers of fish. They are to be "fishers of men."
In fact, Christ said that if we are following Him, we will be
fishers of men, and He promised all those who followed Him
that He would make them into fishers of men: "Follow me,
and I will make you fishers of men," He said (Matt. 4:19).

Notice there that Christ didn't say, "Follow me and I
'might' make you fishers of men." He said, "Follow me, and
I will make you fishers of men." It's an absolute promise. This
means, therefore, that if you're not being a fisher of men, you're
really not following Christ. For if you were, then He'd be
making you into a fisher of men. You'd be going out and
"catching" them for Christ, whenever you had the chance.

-John S. Jennings
(See p. 7)

S. LESSON AND YOUTH PROGRAM FOR AUGUST 13

JHOD

tioTq.091100 o &

p

MAILBAG

LETTER FROM CANADA

After reading your May 31 ar-
ticle, "Are Our Differences So
Great?," I just had to write to tell
you that you are telling it like it still
is in the Presbyterian Church in
Canada, as just about everywhere
else where the WCC indirectly and
directly dictates the thinking of

the denominational management.
Thank you for sharing with us your
clearheaded understanding of the
issues of the day.

I have rewritten this letter three
times so as not to fill it with my
personal heartache about the condi-
tion of the Church. Having been
reading Calvin's commentaries on

the

PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL

Rev. G. Aiken Taylor, Ph.D., Editor
Rev. Henry B. Dendy, D.D., Managing Editor
Arthur H. Matthews, Assistant Editor

Circulation leader among independent publications in the Presbyterian-Reformed world

THIS WEEK— Vol. XXXI, No. 13, July 26, 1972

The Silent Majority 7

Presbyterians seem to be practicing some sort of spiritual birth
control with silence By John S. Jennings

The Priesthood of Christ 8

Only one sacrifice was sufficient to open the way to eternity
and the experience of grace By Ann F. Martin

Like the Honey Bees 10

Utter dedication to the task set before them characterizes
these remarkable creatures By Claude A. Frazier

Departments —

Editorials 12

The Layman and his Church 13

Sunday School Lesson, August 13 14

Youth Program, August 13 16

Book Reviews 17

THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL, a

Presbyterian weekly magazine, devoted
to the statement, defense, and propa-
gation of the Gospel, the faith which
was once for all delivered to the saints,

is published every Wednesday by the
Southern Presbyterian Journal Co.,
Inc., in Weaverville, N. C.

SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: $4 a year

for individuals, $3 for members of
Every Family Plan churches. All cor-
respondence regarding subscriptions,
advertising or other business matters,
should be addressed to the business
office in Weaverville, N. C. 28787.
Second class postage paid at Weaver-
ville, N. C. 28787.

POSTMASTER: Send Form 3579 to
Presbyterian Journal, Box 635, Wea-
verville, N. C. 28787. Subscribers
should allow three weeks for change
of address in continental U. S. Change
of address notices should include both
old and new addresses (with zip
codes) .

NEWS AND EDITORIAL correspond-
ence should be addressed to P. 0. Box
3108, Asheville, N. C. 28802. Editorial
offices located at 247 Charlotte St. in
Asheville.

TELEPHONES: (All area 704) edi-
torial office, 254-4015, 254-4016;
business office, 645-3310, 645-3962.

the Psalms for some years, I am no1
into Volume 5 and this mornin
from Psalm 122:6-9 this: "Pray fc
the peace of Jerusalem: may thos
who love thee prosper!" (Calvin
translation.) He goes on to say, "]
then salvation of our brethren is r<
garded by us as an object of impo:
tance, if religion is with us a matte
of heart-work, we ought, at the sam
time, as much as in us lies, to tak
an interest in the prosperity of th
Church. Whence it follows, tha
such as are indifferent about he
condition, are no less cruel and inn
pious; for if she is 'the pillar and
foundation of truth,' the inevitabl
consequence of her destruction mus
be the extinction of true piety. An<
if the body is destroyed, how cai
each of the members fail to be in
volved in destruction? Further, thi
passage teaches us, that the Churcl
is not an empty title, but must bi
sought for where the true religioi
prevails. When it appears, hoy I
foolish (are those) who, notwith
standing their having rejected anc
overthrown the doctrine of the Gos
pel, yet mightily boast of the narai
of the Church."

The true "relevance" (cuss thai
word) of these sentiments I thinl
is made abundantly clear by you:
article and the desire for a Churcl
that is the Church in the historic
Reformed and Biblical sense of th<
word. In Canada our "difference:
are so great" that there are tw(|
Churches walking under the namt
of one, and in Quebec the wore
Presbyterian has whatever meaning
the latest fad puts into it.

I pray that "true religion may pre
vail" in my own heart and in youi
valiant efforts for the truth as it is
in Christ. May your and our ef
forts to be faithful not lack the
blessing of God the Holy Spirit andl
a mighty moving in the famishedj
hearts of His people to seek Him
from whom our strength comes.
— John P. Lockwood

Chambly, Quebec, Canada

WRONG INITIAL

In regard to the article, "The Lou-
isville Story" in the June 21 issueJ
you speak of "Prof, jack B. McMi-
chael of Presbyterian Centre Col-
lege in Danville." Should that not
be the Rev. Jack R. McMichael, who
has quite a record?

— Challis S. Nixon
Rome, Ga.

The initial is "R," of course, and our
apologies. — Ed.

Jministers

i j Thomas J. Ballard, received from

tjj the Southern Baptist Convention,

J to the Pitts church, Sumter, S. C.

Emmett H. Barfield Jr., from Par-
si is, Ky., to the Woodland church,
i|jo New Orleans, La.
H! i Clarence M. Bassett, former mis-
1 1 sionary to Mexico, to the Faith
iJl church, Brownsville, Tex.
* Ladson M. Brearley from Charles-
"i ton, S. C, to the campus church
"f of Thornwell Home, Clinton,

11 ; s. c.

n Robert W. Cousar Jr., from King
College, Bristol, Tenn., to the Ray
Memorial church, Monroe, Ga.
Eric M. Faust from Warfordsburg,
Pa., to the Covenant church, Con-
cord, N. C.

L. Dudley Fletcher, former field
director for the Texas Presbyte-
rian Foundation, Dallas, is serving
as an evangelist in the Synod of

! Texas.

P. J. Garrison Jr., H.R., from
Richardson, Tex., to Lindale,

: Tex.

• The lead editorial in this issue
(p. 12) takes up the perennial ques-
tion of order in a "just" society.

I Some of our readers have commented
s on our seeming preoccupation with
I "crime and punishment," in the
I light of our professed interest in "the
Gospel only." We do have a pri-
mary concern for "the Gospel on-
ly," believing it to be the sole mis-
sion of the Church. But we believe
Christian people have a duty to see
to the social implications of the Gos-
1 pel. (Where have we heard that be-
fore?) And when churchmen, in the
name of the Gospel, become irre-
sponsible and destructive, not to say
non-Christian, in their influence in
society (as in the matter of abor-
tions and law and order) we consid-
, er a reaction to such as part of our
duty. It is one thing for a civiliza-
tion to come apart despite the best
efforts of Christians. It is quite an-
other thing for so-called Christians
to be leaders of movements which
endanger civilizations.

• The General Assemblies of the
Church of Scotland and the Presby-
terian Church in Ireland have

James E. Graham, Georgetown, S.
C, has been honorably retired by
Harmony Presbytery and is living
at Surfside Beach, S. C, eff.
Sept. 1.

Richard T. Harbison from Baton
Rouge, La., to the First Church,
Pensacola, Fla.

Blakely W. Harrison from Hugo,
Okla., to the Bethany, Okla.,
church as interim pastor.
James M. Hovland from Salem,
Va., to the Bunker Hill and Ger-
rardstown, W. Va., churches.
J. F. Ligon, H.R., from Black
Mountain, N. C, to Winston-
Salem, N. C.

W. Denver Lively from Beverly,
W. Va., to the Thomas and Davis,
W. Va., churches.
James H. Nash from Marietta,
Ga., to the First Church, Somer-
ville, Tenn.

George E. Staples from Edisto Is-
land, S. C, to the Thornwell
Home, Clinton, S. C, as assistant
administrator.

Joseph T. Sheeler from San An-
tonio, Tex., to the First Church,

agreed to proceed with the "down-
grading of the Westminster Confes-
sion" (their language) . Both As-
semblies decided to ask their presby-
teries to study a proposal that the
Westminster Confession be no long-
er regarded as the Church's "prin-
cipal subordinate standard but as a
historic document." In Scotland, a
new confession is to be presented to
next year's meeting of the Assem-
bly. In Ireland, the 1973 Assembly
will be asked to draft a new docu-
ment "which may assure the spiri-
tual independence of the Church."
The new Presbyterian US "declara-
tion of spiritual independence"
should be out in preliminary draft
form about the time these words ap-
pear in print. We'll be interested
to see how different it is from the
draft we commented on in the May
10 Journal.
• With Church union in the air,

Arkadelphia, Ark.
Ridley G. Smith from Greeley-
ville, S. C, to the Goose Creek,
S. C, church.

James O. Speed from Birmingham,
Ala., to the First Church, Mariet-
ta, Ga.

William P. Wood from graduate
study to the First Church, San An-
tonio, Tex., as associate pastor.
Robert L. Vining, H.R., from Ox-
ford, Pa., to the Orthodox Presby-
terian Church, Valdosta, Ga., as
interim pastor.

DEATHS

Mary Gillespie Thompson (Mrs.
Cecil) died in Jackson, Miss.,
June 14, after a long illness. She
was the daughter of a former pres-
ident of Columbia Seminary and
wife of a former professor.
Charles Franklin Stewart Jr., 68,
died in Hamilton, Miss., June 25,
while preparing to lead his con-
gregation in worship, having
served as pastor of the Hamilton
church for 42 years.

we were interested in a news story
from Australia, where Presbyterians,
Congregationalists and Methodists
are trying to put together one
Church. A leader of the United
Church of North Australia, which is
standing by to unite with the other
conglomerate as soon as union takes
place, wrote to the negotiating
Churches to encourage them to make
haste. "There is nothing to fear be-
tween people of good will over prop-
erty settlements and the like when
union takes place," said the Rev.
Douglas McKenzie. Nor should par-
ties to a union worry about any det-
rimental effects from loss of denomi-
national identity. "We have been
glad to be free of the restrictions of
denominational subcultures," he
wrote. It's because liberal Church
leaders talk like that, that we are
unwilling to trust them with the
writing of confessions as well! EB

ACROSS THE EDITOR'S DESK

PAGE 3 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JULY 26, 1972

i

NEWS OF RELIGION

UPUSA Advocates

(Editor's note: Because the President
of the U. S. often worships in Pres-
byterian churches, the word "Presby-
terian" no doubt reminds him not
only of the message of the minister
on Sunday morning, but also the of-
ficial "message" of the denomination.
After you have read the following
communication from the Office of
the General Assembly, United Pres-
byterian Church USA, ask yourself if
you do not wish there were a major
Presbyterian body in the U. S. which
would major on the religion of the
Lord Jesus Christ instead of poli-
tics.)

NEW YORK — Suspension of chrome
imports from Rhodesia, the termina-
tion of favorable sugar quotas to
South Africa, and an end of U. S.
financial support of Portuguese co-
lonial government were urged by
William P. Thompson, stated clerk
of the United Presbyterian General
Assembly, in a letter to President
Nixon.

Mr. Thompson also said that U. S.
firms overseas should be held to the
same non discriminatory employment
practices required by law in the
United States.

In his letter, Mr. Thompson ex-
plained to the President that the

SOUTHEAST ASIA — The first
World Vision evangelistic crusades
in a decade were conducted here
during March and April as special
meetings in the Philippines and
Cambodia.

Jun Galope coordinated planning
for local sponsoring churches.

Under the leadership of Dr. Stan
Mooneyham, World Vision presi-
dent, and his team, the first public
evangelistic crusade in the history of
Cambodia was held in Phnom Penh.

During the past two years, World
Vision has supplied $100,000 worth
of medicines and other relief goods
to the war-torn nation. The service
agency has also been granted permis-

184th UPUSA General Assembly
(1972), called on the U. S. govern-
ment to "cease violating United Na-
tions' sanctions against Rhodesia . . .
terminate favorable sugar quotas to
South Africa . . . end financial sup-
port of the colonial government of
Portugal," and ". . . request that
all firms having holdings in areas
of the world where oppression occurs
end discriminatory employment
practices so as to bring about equal
opportunity for all toward the end
that the sacred right of self-determi-
nation for people be recognized and
advanced."

The Presbyterian official acknowl-
edged that a State Department
spokesman had indicated the Admin-
istration's favorable support of the
McGee Amendment, which called for
repeal of the Byrd Amendment that
has enabled tire waiving of restric-
tions on trade in strategic materials
with Rhodesia.

In view of the fact that the McGee
Amendment was lost in a recent Sen-
ate vote, Mr. Thompson urged that
the Administration "enlarge its ef-
forts and exert its influence to en-
courage renewed legislation to repeal
the Byrd Amendment and thus re-
scind the current official policy of

sion to build the first Christian in-
stitution in the country, a hospital,
in the capital city.

A nation of 7,000,000 people,
Cambodia has fewer than 500 be-
lievers. The World Vision crusade
is part of the effort of the tiny
Christian community which has
seen three new churches established
at Phnom Penh during the past year.

Joining the World Vision team
for the Asia meeting was a contem-
porary musical group from San Fran-
cisco. The Danniebelles have re-
cently cooperated with such groups
as Young Life, Youth for Christ,
Campus Crusade, and the Oakland
Billy Graham crusade. 15

our government which permits vio-
lation of UN sanctions against Rho-I

desia."

South Africa is "disqualified"
from inclusion in the Sugar Act of
1971, which is intended as a sort of
subsidy to other nations, Mr. Thomp-
son suggested. He said the Foreign
Assistance Act of 1962 specifically
intends to deny assistance to govern-
ments practicing racial or religious
discrimination to American citizens.

Other Charges

It is well known, he wrote, that
many Americans, including Congress-
men, black athletes, crew members
of American vessels, and other Amer-
ican citizens have been victims of
discrimination in South Africa, in-
cluding the denial of visas. Also, he
said, factories and large landowners
in quota countries are required to
share with farmers and workers the
benefits from participation in the
premium-priced U. S. sugar market.

The average daily South African
field worker's wage of 70 cents does
not bear out compliance with this
stipulation, while white workers re-
ceive up to 20 times more than
blacks for the same labor, he said.

With regard to the government of
Portugal, Mr. Thompson said, "we
protest those agreements which fla-
grantly violate our deeper commit-
ments to justice and self-determina-
tion."

Referring to the recent Azores
agreement involving economic assist-
ance of up to $435 million in guar-
antees, loans, and grants as a "bla-
tant example of our government's
compromising justice and self-deter-
mination," he declared this pact was
entered into without the consent of
Congress.

The United Presbyterian leader
reiterated support for "efforts in
Congress directed toward abrogating
the Azores agreement" and ending all
forms of financial assistance to Por-
tugal in view of that country's "war
of repression against the people of
Angola, Mozambique, and Portu-
guese Guinea."

He said U. S. domestic and foreign
policy interests should be protected
by making fair employment practices
in South Africa enterprises of U. S.
firms a criterion for eligibility for
government contracts. H

THE CHURCH OVERSEAS

PAGE 4 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JULY 26, 1972

THE CHURCH AT HOME

Journal Day Speakers, Program Told

> homosexual Ordained
iy UCC Association

JiAN CARLOS, Calif. (RNS) — For
Ivhat is believed to be the first time,
^ i major denomination has knowing-
I, y ordained a homosexual to the
j ninistry.

J William R. Johnson, 26, was or-
Jlained here on June 25 by the Gol-

flen Gate Association of the United

Oiurch of Christ.

! The service at the San Carlos Com-
jnunity church coincided with the
Il5th anniversary of the founding by
1 nerger of the United Church.

It also came on "Christopher
' Street Day," an annual observance
| :n the homosexual community mark-
[ ing the "Stonewall Rebellion" in
1 New York's Greenwich Village, gen-
erally acknowledged as the begin-
ning of "Gay Liberation."

Mr. Johnson, a native of Houston
and a graduate of Pacific School of
Religion, Berkeley, was approved for
clergy orders by an ecclesiastical
council on April 30, with clergy and
; laity from 19 of the Golden Gate
(Association's 31 congregations vot-
ing 62 to 34 in favor of ordination.

However, in the UCC the author-
Iky to ordain rests with the local as-
sociation. On the day Mr. John-
( son's application was approved, the
Council on Church and Ministry of
' the United Church of Christ said
each situation involving a homosex-
I ual wishing to become a minister
i "must finally be judged on its
merits, bearing in mind the impera-
tives of justice and freedom, and the
good of the Church." EE

WCC Staffer Elected
To Dutch Church Post

GENEVA (RNS) —One of the most
widely known executives of the
World Council of Churches has been
elected general secretary of the
Netherlands Reformed Church.
The Rev. Albert van den Heuvel,

i 40, director of the WCC's depart-
ment of communication, is expected
to relocate in the Netherlands, his
native country, about November.

He was elected "for life" as the
chief executive officer of the 3.5 mil-
lion-member Dutch denomination

I by a Synod meeting in Dreibergen.

Supporters of the Presbyterian Jour-
nal will hear two major addresses
and a number of talks at "Jour-
nal Day" this year. The annual
gathering, to which all friends of the
publication are invited, will be held
Wednesday, August 9, at the North
Buncombe High School, approxi-
mately one mile north of Weaver-
ville, N. C.

This year's program has been
planned by the new Steering Com-
mittee for a Continuing Presbyterian
Church. The Journal board last
year was one of four organizations
which formed the committee. Its
formation was announced at the
1971 "Journal Day."

The major addresses will be deliv-
ered by the Rev. Edmund P. Clow-
ney, president of Westminster Semi-
nary, Philadelphia, and the Rev.
John W. P. Oliver, pastor of the
First Presbyterian Church, Augusta,
Ga.

Dr. Clowney's topic will be "The
Wonder of the Word." Mr. Oliver
will speak on, "The Amazing Gusto
for Amazing Grace."

Presiding during the morning ses-
sion will be the chairman of the
steering committee, the Rev. Donald
B. Patterson, pastor of First Church,
Jackson, Miss. Presiding during the
afternoon will be the secretary of the
committee, the Rev. Kennedy
Smartt, pastor of the West End
Church, Hopewell, Va.

Registration is scheduled to begin
at 9 a.m. The program will begin
at 9:50 with songs by Bill Hoyt. Mr.

Oliver

Hoyt, a Columbia Bible College mu-
sician, is returning by popular re-
quest. The Rev. James Baird, pas-
tor-elect of the First Church, Ma-
con, Ga., will lead devotions begin-
ning at 10 a.m.

New features of the program will
be testimonies by three Christians
and reports from three Journal staff
members.

Reporting on the 112th Presbyte-
rian US General Assembly and
"Where We Go from Here" after
lunch will be W. Jack Williamson,
a member of the steering committee
who was a commissioner to the As-
sembly. Dr. Patterson will offer a
summation to close the day.

As in the past, a complimentary
lunch will be served at noon.

Dr. Clowney is a graduate of
Wheaton College and Westminster
Seminary. He earned the S.T.M.
degree at Yale Divinity School and
received an honorary doctor of di-
vinity degree from Wheaton. He
was a pastor in the Orthodox Pres-
byterian Church 10 years before
joining the Westminster faculty. He
is professor of pastoral theology.

Mr. Oliver attended Denison Uni-
versity in Ohio and is a graduate of
Wheaton College and Fuller Semi-
nary. He earned the Th.M. degree
from Southern Baptist Seminary in
Louisville. He has been particular-
ly active in youth work and is in de-
mand as a speaker to youth. EE

New Trial Scheduled

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A mistrial was
declared here by the judge presiding
over the case of the former employee
of Westminster Terrace Presbyterian
Home charged with setting a fatal
fire at the residence for senior citi-
zens. A juror visited the scene of
the crime and talked to other em-
ployees. A new trial has been sched-
uled Oct. 2 for the aide who alleged-
ly started the blaze that led to the
death of ten persons. IS

PAGE 5 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JULY 26, 1972

National Ministries
Elects, Sets Priorities

ATLANTA — Faced with a General
Assembly mandate to begin turning
over its funds to its successor and to
begin winding up its affairs, the
Presbyterian US Board of National
Ministries decided here to concen-
trate its remaining energies on help-
ing presbyteries and synods.

"Except in extraordinary circum-
stances," the board will not involve
itself in congregational programs or
give direct aid to congregations
which are not a part of some larger
presbytery or synod program.

The board made the decision with
the prospect of staff losses and cur-
tailed funds during the 18 months
remaining before its functions are
taken over by the new General Ex-
ecutive Board.

In a summer meeting here the
agency also elected new officers,
adopted a revised budget and told
the staff to concentrate on eight
areas of activity.

The eight areas for concentrated
work are: Enabling lower judica-
tories to set goals for mission; re-
vitalizing the worship of the church;
planning for regional resource cen-
ters (in the new structure) ; contin-
uing consultations on small church
development; developing improved
channels of communication between
congregations and middle judica-
tories; developing new "life styles"
in churches; collaboration with oth-
er groups in getting better care for
children and the aging; providing
social action training.

In another action the board in-
structed the six members on the
new pan-Presbyterian Council on
Chaplains and Armed Forces Person-
nel to propose a plan to the council
which will insure a two-way review
of the performance of chaplains.
The chaplain himself will review
his work, as will a panel of per-
sons who understand his assignment.
The council is also to work out
plans for the assistance of men leav-
ing the chaplaincy for a return to
civilian ministry.

The six Presbyterian US repre-
sentatives on the council are: the
Rev. Robert Stamper, Stone Moun-
tain, Ga.; the Rev. Ben L. Rose,
Richmond, Va.; the Rev. Robert
Pfrangle, Arcadia, Fla.; the Rev.
John Crowell, Mobile, Ala.; Ed Mar-
low, Stone Mountain, Ga.; and Na-
vy Captain Winifred Love, Wash-

ington, D. C.

Three chaplains who spoke to the
board expressed the opinion that the
most viable form of ministry to the
military is by ministers within the
military. Some opponents of the
military chaplaincy have recently
been asking for civilians to serve the
military.

Named to lead the board during
its remaining time were Nat K.
Reiney of Barium Springs, N. C,
chairman (replacing Dr. Rose) , and
Wallace F. Armstrong, Baton Rouge,
La., vice-chairman (succeeding Dr.
Reiney) .

With them on the executive com-
mittee will be these committee chair-
men: Dr. Pfrangle, Mrs. Alice Day,
Paul E. Manners, Dr. Rose.

The board also:

— Heard of the resignation of Gor-
don A. Hanson, a staff member for
13 years. The director of homes and
health will become director of devel-
opment for the Evergreen School, a
synod institution at Minden, La.,
Sept. 1.

— Told the Council on Therapeutic
Abortion (COTA) that it will con-
tinue to provide financial services
until the study on abortion ordered
by the General Assembly is com-
pleted. 51

Synod E May Name
Executive In September

DALLAS — The way has been
cleared for nomination of an execu-
tive for the Presbyterian Church US
regional Synod E, to be elected at
the Sept. 26-27 organizational meet-
ing in Austin, Texas.

A "round table" executive body
for the new synod to be organized
by Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and
Louisiana was adopted by the steer-
ing committee, meeting here.

The proposal for organization,
with recommendations for staff po-
sitions, will be presented to the or-
ganizing meeting for change or
adoption.

The synod, one of seven redrawn
by the General Assembly from 16
PCUS synods, is being planned by
9 task forces appointed by the first
organizing meeting of Synod E in
March.

The steering committee, chaired
by the Rev. H. Richard Copeland,
heard task force reports and made
suggestions for consideration of the
task forces before the August 29-30

meeting of the steering committed [p
in Dallas.

These reports will be presented
with any suggestions for change h
the steering committee, to the Syn
od E convention meeting Septem
ber 26-27.

Proposals which were given aa
proval by the steering committee
for further task force planning were

— A synod executive search com
mittee, made up of three member;
to be appointed from the steering
committee by Chairman Copeland
and three members to be selected
from the mission and organization
task force.

— An executive committee called a
Round Table, made up of represen
tatives of staff, social services institu-1
tions, program institutions, campus
ministry, presbyteries (regional units i'
within the synod) , and advisory
councils for minority groups; plus
the synod executive and regional re-! >
source system director.

— Cooperation in all areas with the
corresponding United Presbyterian
Church USA synod structures, in?|a
eluding sharing a joint four-state
monthly newspaper, and giving a P
vote in the round table to the Unit- rJ
ed Presbyterian council chairman. W

The budget task force was asked
to reconsider the question of per
capita tax, with possibility of omit-
ting it in favor of writing the entire
budget on the basis of benevoleno
receipts.

r

Missions Giving Up
For First Half Year

ATLANTA (PN) — Contributions
to the general mission budget of the
Presbyterian Church US for the first
six months of 1972 increased 4.8 per
cent over the same period a year
ago.

Benevolence receipts from Jan. 1
through July 10 totaled $3,598,745,
compared with $3,433,735 for the
same period in 1971.

These funds are for the support
of 13 denominational agencies and
5 interchurch causes.

The total represents 39.6 per cent
of a $9,077,000 budget. At the same
time last year, 40.4 per cent of an
$8,500,000 budget had been raised.

Receipts for the 30-day period
from June 10 to July 10 amounted
to $537,738, compared with $388,556
for the same period in 1971. SI

PAGE 6 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JULY 26, 1972

Up, ye saints, arouse, be earnest! . . . Strive for souls while yet you may"

The Silent Majority

[t was once said of the German
General Von Moltke that he
ould be silent in seven languages.

While you and I may not be able
o be silent in seven languages, many
if us are silent in one, when it comes
o talking to people about Christ.
)ne of the most tragic things in life
oday is that most of those who are
n the Church are keeping silent
ibout Christ. They're what some
night call "the silent majority." Be-
ause they are being silent, thou-
ands upon thousands of people are
lying without Christ.

The Bible plainly teaches that tell-
ng people about Christ is to be done
lot only by ordained ministers, but
dso by Church members. When the
Hhurch at Jerusalem began to be
persecuted, following the stoning of
Stephen, the Bible tells us that all
Df those in the Church "scattered
abroad . . . except the apostles"
(Acts 8:1) .

In other words, when the persecu-
ion began, the apostles remained in
erusalem while everyone else in the
Church scattered out. As they "scat-
tered abroad," the Bible says that
they "went everywhere, preaching
the Word" (Acts 8:4) . Here the
word "preaching" means evangeliz-
ing, so that the message is clearly
that all those in the church at Je-
rusalem went everywhere evangeliz-
ing.

Because they did do this, untold
numbers were saved and brought in-
to the church, and "the Lord added
to the church daily, such as should
be saved" (Acts 2:47) . The Lord
will do the very same thing today, if
church members will get out and
share the good news of Jesus Christ

The author is pastor of the Farner
Presbyterian Church, Farner, Tenn.

with others.

The tragedy is, however, that most
people are not willing to do this. As
a result, saved people are not being
added to the Church daily; they're
not even being added weekly or even
monthly. In fact, in many churches
they aren't even being added yearly.

In 1970, a total of 1,424 Presbyte-
rian US congregations did not re-
ceive a single person on profession of
faith. The reason is that those who
are in the churches are not telling
people about Christ, so that through
faith the unsaved might be born
again into the family of God.

We hear a great deal being said
today about birth control, and the
truth is that the Church has been
practicing "birth control" for years,
keeping down the number of spiri-
tual births in a fantastic way. This
helps to explain why in 1970, the
Presbyterian Church US lost over 4,-
000 more members than it took in.
Face it; too many in our churches to-
day are failing to take seriously the
task of bringing people to Jesus
Christ.

And I wonder, dear Christian,
what you are doing?

Compleat Anglers

Speaking before the 1948 World
Council of Churches Assembly in
Amsterdam, Bishop Stephen Neill,
of India and Canterbury, quietly put
aside his papers. Looking down in-
to the faces of those Christians
gathered before him, he asked them
very plainly and sincerely: "When
did you last bring someone to
Christ?"

A lot of Presbyterians pride them-
selves on being good fishermen and
nothing makes them any happier than
to be able to go out and bring in a
big mess of fish.

JOHN S. JENNINGS

But my friends, Christ said that
Presbyterians are to be more than
just fishers of fish. They are also to
be "fishers of men." In fact, Christ
said that if we are following Him,
we will be fishers of men, and He
promised all those who followed
Him that He would make them in-
to fishers of men: "Follow me, and
I will make you fishers of men"
(Matt. 4:19) .

Notice, here, that Christ didn't
say, "Follow me and I 'might' make
you fishers of men"; He said, "Fol-
low me and I will make you fishers
of men." It's an absolute promise.
This means therefore that if you're
not a fisher of men, you're really not
following Christ. For if you were,
then He'd be making you into a fish-
er of men. You'd be going out and
"catching" them for Christ, whenev-
er you had the chance.

A young lawyer got onto a train
one day, and asked an attractive
young lady if he could have the seat
next to her. Being told that he
could, he sat down and talked to her
about different things. After riding
for a few miles, he began to talk
to her about Jesus Christ. As the
train finally pulled into the station,
the young lady walked down the
steps, and was greeted by her hus-
band. The lawyer with whom she
had talked followed a few paces be-
hind, and bade her good-bye.

"Who was that?" asked the hus-
band.

"Oh, just someone I met on the
train. I talked to him to kill time."

"What did you talk about?" he
pressed.

"Oh, just the weather, nothing in
particular. But you know, he asked
me the strangest thing. He asked:
'Are you a Christian?' "

Without the slightest bit of rever-
ence, the husband blurted out:

PAGE 7 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JULY 26, 1972

I

"Well, why didn't you tell him to
mind his own business?"

To this she replied, "That's just
the point. Had you heard him talk,
you would have thought it was his
'business.' "

She was right. For it was his busi-
ness to talk to her about Christ. And
it's your business also to talk to peo-
ple about Christ, for this is the busi-
ness of every Christian, regardless of
who he is.

The Bible tells us that when
Christ healed a certain man who was
possessed by demons, He said to the
man: "Return to your home, and de-
clare how much God has done for
you" (Luke 8:39). It's this that all
of us are told to do, for the Bible
says, "Let the redeemed of the Lord
say so" (Psa. 107:2) . We are to go
out and tell others what God has
done for us. We must tell them that
if they put their trust in Jesus
Christ, God can do the same thing
for them.

Someone has said that Christ's in-
vitation, "Come, see," was followed
by Christ's command, "Go, tell."

Christ is calling on all of you,
today, who have ever come and seen
what He can do, to go and tell others
about it. He's telling you to go out
and tell people the good news of
what He can do for them, if they'll
only trust Him.

I mentioned a few moments ago
the joy that comes to certain fisher-
men whenever they have a good
catch. But my friends, there's noth-
ing that creates joy like bringing
someone to Jesus Christ, for whenev-
er any individual is brought to Je-
sus Christ by some person, there is

great joy.

First of all, there is joy in heaven,
just as Luke told of the "joy in heav-
en over one who repents" (15:7) .
All of heaven desires to see individ-
uals saved, and whenever even one
person is led to Jesus Christ, there
is "joy in heaven."

Then, of course, the great joy of
the person who is saved. As soon
as a person is saved, he receives
what the psalmist called the joy of
God's salvation (Psa. 51:12). He
receives the joy which comes from
knowing that all of his sins are paid
for by Jesus Christ, that he himself
might never have to answer for them
on the day of judgment.

Joy, Joy, Joy!

Finally, there is also joy in the life
of the person who has led someone
to Christ. Early one morning, at
No. 10 Downing Street in London,
the great Christian Prime Minister
of England, William Gladstone,
heard someone knocking at his door.
Getting up from his desk where he
was writing an important speech
which he was to deliver that day in
Parliament, Gladstone went to the
door, and opened it.

Standing at the door was a small
boy whose friendship and confidence
he had won by little deeds of kind-
ness. The lad said, "Mr. Gladstone,
my brother is dying. Won't you
please come and show him the way
to heaven?" Leaving his own im-
portant work, Gladstone went to the
bedside of the dying brother, and in
a matter of moments, the dying boy
was rejoicing in his newly found

Saviour.

When he returned to his office, f
Gladstone wrote at the bottom of his
speech, "I am the happiest man in
London, England, today!"

What was true for William Glad-i
stone can also be true for you. Christ
can begin, today, to make you into
a fisher of men, and in doing this,
bring a kind of happiness into your
life that the world can never give.

The Dumb Can Speak

The Bible tells us that one of the
things Christ did here on earth was
to cause "the dumb to speak" (Mark
7:37) . In the Church now we need
to be healed of our dumbness, that
we might be able to speak to others
about Christ.

If this is your problem, I would
call upon you to turn to Jesus Christ,
and be healed of your dumbness,
that you may be able to speak to
others about Him.

A hymn by Charles C. Luther goes
like this:

"Must I go, and empty-handed?
Must I meet my Saviour so?
Not one soul with which to greet
Him:

Must I empty-handed go?"

The answer to that question is
"No, you don't have to go empty
handed, for Christ can take away
your dumbness, and make you into
a fisher of men." I would challenge
you, today, to give Christ that
chance, for this is God's will for ev-
ery Christian in our Church who be-
longs to the Silent Majority. II I

Through His Son, God has given us access to the throne of grace —

The Priesthood of Christ

ANN F. MARTIN

\\/ e often think of Christ as a
* * great teacher and healer;
some like Him best as the wee babe
of Bethlehem. Others remember
with delight His power and au-

The author is wife of the pastor,
Westminster Presbyterian Church,
Alamogordo, N. M.

thority as He stilled the sea or
cleared the temple of the desecrating
money-grabbers.

All these pictures of Christ are
good and true, but Christ in His
role as high priest is seen in His
most exalted and majestic position.
When we consider Him as our high
priest, we must bow down and wor-
ship!

Under the Old Testament priest-
hood, both priests and people
groped their way through the dark-
ness of rituals, feasts and sacrifices,
ever seeking and pressing on toward
that one high priest who would
bring reality out of types and fig-
ures, and substance out of the
shadows. Everything the Old Testa-
ment priests sought to accomplish

PAGE 8 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JULY 26, 1972

on behalf of themselves and the peo-
ple fell short. It never was good
enough.

The frequent sacrifices told too
well just how temporary was forgive-
ness of sins. The yearly approach
into the holy of holies with all the
precautions showed clearly that ac-
cess to God was impossible for the
people as a whole. Yet all these
institutions were appointed by God
to point to Christ who would per-
fect, consummate, and complete this

■ office foreverl

1 As we consider Christ as high
4 priest we must look deeply at His
i expiatory sacrifice. For in the full-
ness of time, Christ as our high
i priest offered Himself, the Lamb of

■ God, without spot or blemish as a
| blood sacrifice for the atonement for
i sins. The curse of the law was death
I to the breaker of the law.

All men did and do break the
J law, but Christ became the curse
I for us that His righteousness might
ibe in us. The just demands of a
1 just God had to be met with a suf-
I ficient sacrifice, and all the blood
I of all the bulls and goats were not
I sufficient.

Only a man could die for men.
? Only the holy Son of God was pure
I enough to qualify. That bleak
i place called Golgotha became the
it site for unlimited victory as our
I high priest offered Himself in our
I stead. That dark day when our Sav-
1 iour hung dying became the path-
( way to radiant eternity as He shed
I His blood for the cleansing of our
I sins.

He hung there and suffered. Yes,
( but more than that, He was per-
I forming His work as our high priest
I in history's finest hour. The tri-
umphant cry of "It is finished!" sig-
I! nified the completed work, not only
I of salvation, but of all those things
the Old Testament priesthood strove
to accomplish.

Our Redemption

Christ completed for us a right
; standing before God. In Him we
i have that righteousness which can-
I not be attained apart from Him,
I the righteousness necessary for en-
I trance into eternity. In order to
make the unrighteous righteous,
Christ provided the way through
I His high priestly work of offering a
ji sufficient, once-for-all sacrifice.

"For what the law could not do,
I in that it was weak through the
I flesh, God sending His own Son in

the likeness of sinful flesh, and for
sin, condemned sin in the flesh that
the righteousness of the law might
be fulfilled in us, who walk not af-
ter the law, but after the spirit"
(Rom. 8:3-4) .

Through His blood we have re-
demption and remission of sins, be-
cause God "sent Him forth to be a
propitiation through faith in His
blood, to declare His righteousness
for the remission of sins" (Rom. 3:
25) . In this way Christ becomes
the "end of the law for righteousness
to everyone that believeth" (Rom.
10:4) . He is our righteousness be-
cause He imputes or puts on us His
righteousness. And in that right-
eousness we stand before the judge
of creation declared faultless!

Only the Beginning

Christ's priestly work doesn't end
there, but continues to secure for be-
lievers benefits and blessings. Ro-
mans 5:1 says, "Being justified by
faith we have peace with God
through our Lord, Jesus Christ."

Out of the righteousness our high
priest attained for us comes that all
essential peace with God. What a
blessed state to be in, in this world
of turmoil! This peace heals the
terrible separation which sin caused
between man and his creator. Is-
suing from peace with God is that
practical peace which the Christian
experiences between himself and his
brother.

Christ purchased peace for us in
His atoning sacrifice, and when He
left this world in a physical sense
He bequeathed His peace to us as
part of our blessed inheritance.
"Peace I leave with you, my peace
I give unto you. Let not your heart
be troubled, neither let it be afraid"
(John 14:27) . When the enmity
between God and man is defeated
by making peace with God, then the
peace that Christ left to us becomes
a mighty power to overcome any and
all trials we may have in this world.

When Christ, our high priest, se-
cured for us this peace, He fulfilled
the verse found in Isaiah 32:17,
"The fruit of justice will be peace
and the effect of righteousness, rest
and security forever. My people
shall live in a habitation of peace,
in sure dwellings, and in quiet rest-
ing places."

As high priest Christ has given be-
lievers a glimpse into eternity. Im-
mortality becomes a reality because
of His high priestly work. When

Christ willingly went into the jaws
of death, the evil forces must have
waited with bated breath! If death
had devoured or detained Him, all
our hopes would be in vain. All we
could ever do or be in this world
would add up to nothing at death.
There would be no purpose to life.
Existence would be nothing more
than marking time to the grave, but
Christ swallowed death and re-
moved the fear of death forever.

Hebrews 2:14-15 tells us that
"through death He might destroy
him that had the power of death,
that is, the devil and deliver them
who through fear of death were all
their lifetime subject to bondage."
He died, and rose never to die again,
and in so doing gave the Church
unquestionable evidence of immor-
tality. Christ died as our high priest
and removed the curse of death so
that each believer can have a free
passage through death into eternal
life.

As a result of His death, that holy
place not made with hands was
opened up to Christians and the
prophecy of Isaiah came true, "He
shall destroy on this mountain the
veil which is upon all peoples and
the shroud that covers all nations.
He shall swallow up death forever,
and the Lord God shall wipe away
tears from all faces; He shall remove
from all the earth the reproach of
His people, for the Lord has spoken
it" (Isa. 25:7-8) .

The Way Is Open

Until we, too, shall pass through
death into life, Christ's priestly work
provides for us access to His throne
of grace. Under the Old Testa-
ment priesthood, God was always at
a distance. Approaches to Him
were made only infrequently by the
high priest, and then with precau-
tionary measures. No high priest
under the old dispensation had the
liberty and boldness given to indi-
vidual believers today. We can cry
out "Father, my Father" as we are
joined in that intimate relationship
of father and child through Christ's
death.

In Christ the way to God was
opened to us and through Christ we
may enter the throne room of grace.
In startling contrast to the Old Tes-
tament economy, believers today can
"come boldly unto the throne of
grace, that we may obtain mercy
and find grace to help in times of
need" (Heb. 4:16), and we may en-

PAGE 9 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JULY 26, 1972

ter the holiest of holies with bold-
ness through the shed blood of
Christ (Heb. 10:16).

In His finished work of the cross
and His high priestly office, our
Lord secures for us outstanding
blessings. Through His priestly

work we were made righteous, we
obtain peace and access to God. In
His death we find the doorway
and proof of immortality. How
right Paul was when he proclaimed,
"God forbid that I should glory,
save in the cross of Jesus, my

Lord."

"Wherefore, holy brethren, par-
takers of the heavenly calling, con-
sider (ponder deeply and meditate
on) the Apostle and high priest of
our profession, Christ Jesus" (Heb.

Bees work together and discipline themselves. People should do as well —

Like the Honey Bees

CLAUDE A. FRAZIER

For one already interested in
allergies and insects, it is espe-
cially interesting to study the be-
havior of honey bees. One could
compare some of the behavior of
worker bees, for instance, with the
way an ideal church member-work-
er should be.

The average worker bee is able
to carry a burden equal to half its
own weight. It flies as far as three
miles in search for raw materials for
honey, and it has been estimated
that a pound of honey represents
nearly 300,000 miles of flight. To
be busy as a bee is no idle comment!
A honey bee can travel 25 mph
when carrying a full load, but must
take frequent rest stops. A worker
bee seldom dies from old age, but
literally works itself to death.
Rather than stop working, it will
sacrifice itself by continuing work
until it is unable to make it back to
the hive, and thus dies.

The Bible tells us we are to be
workers for our Lord Jesus Christ.
"I appeal to you, therefore, brethren
by the mercies of God, to present
your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy
and acceptable to God, which is your
spiritual worship" (Rom. 12:1).
The Christian believes that his body
belongs to God. True worship is
the offering to God of one's body
and all that one does with it every
day.

The author, a physician specializ-
ing in allergy, is the author of In-
sect Allergy — Allergic Reac-
tions to Bites of Insects and Oth-
er Arthropods, a study of reactions
to insect bites and stings, and the
treatment of these reactions. He has
also studied the behavior of insects.

In a colony of bees there is a gen-
eral sequence of work which the
bees perform. However, this divi-
sion of labor is very flexible, con-
stantly changing according to the
conditions inside and outside the
hive.

Joint Effort

The work of the church also is a
joint effort. All the members must
work together to accomplish Christ's
purposes. Paul often used figures
to depict the church as the body of
Christ: "For as the body is one and
hath many members and all mem-
bers of that body, being many, are
one body; so also is Christ" (I Cor.
12:12) . The many members in the
church make up one body, the one
head of this body is Christ. "He is
the head of the body, the church"

Try It, You'll Like It!

If soul winning in a large way is
to be accomplished by the mass of
church members, the germ must first
find lodgment in the individual con-
sciousness, a heart aflame with love
for Christ and a passion for lost
souls. It will never come through a
general consideration of the case. No
use for a man to sit down with pen-
cil and paper to figure out how con-
tinents can be won to Christ and
how the Church as a great army may
move forward to the conquest, if he
has failed to personally give the
Gospel invitation to the poor dying
soul living next door to him. —
Wade C. Smith in New Testament
Evangelism.

(Col. 1:18).

As many as 50,000 bees can labor
together under one roof in harmony,
for the common good of the colony.
We who are members of the body
of Christ should work together in
harmony to build up the Church
which is His body. We are to love
one another as He loved us. "And
above all these put on love, which
binds everything together in perfect
harmony" (Col. 3:14).

Bees have definite rules to follow.
As Christians, we are to let Christ
rule our lives. "And let the peace
of Christ rule in your hearts, to
which indeed you were called in the
one body. And be thankful" (Col.
3:15).

When they are rearing brood, bees
maintain a temperature of about 92
degrees Farenheit in the nest during
the period of about 10 months a
year, and humidity is at a high level.
Such conditions would be favorable
for the growth of bacteria which
could destroy the bees.

As bacteria constantly endanger
the life of the honey bee, so does
Satan constantly endanger the Chris-
tian. "Lest Satan should get an ad-
vantage of us: for we are not ig-
norant of his devices" (II Cor. 2:
11).

Protective Mechanisms

Conditions would be favorable
for the growth of bacteria if the bee
colony did not have protective
mechanisms. Experiments have
been done to determine if bacteria
can live and multiply in honey. Ten
different types of germs were intro-
duced into honey, including the
germs that cause typhoid fever. The
germs were dead within two days.

PAGE 10 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JULY 26, 1972

As the power of the germs can be
lestroyed, so can the power of Sa-
J an over the Christian be destroyed
if >y God. "To open their eyes, that
ol hey may turn from darkness to light
t ]ind from the power of Satan to God,
i Ihat they may receive forgiveness of
ins and a place among those who
lire sanctified by faith in me" (Acts
|»6:18).

| Antibiotic activity, the ability to
lestroy germs, is found in royal jel-
y, the substance which worker bees
ijiecrete from glands in their head
ind feed to the larvae. Larvae which
will become queen bees get more
ij-oyal jelly than those destined to be-
come workers. This antibiotic is
jjibout one-fourth as effective as peni-
cillin against germs exposed to it,
(put its activity is high enough to
: *ive the royal jelly considerable
'protection against bacteria.

The Christian should pray to be
filled with the Holy Spirit, so that
Ifoe can be protected against Satan
l|and to be able to witness more ef-
fectively for the Lord. "That He
would grant you, according to the
riches of His glory, to be strength-
ened with might by His Spirit in
tithe inner man" (Eph. 4:16).

How do bees protect their stores
of pollen? I mentioned that bac-
i teria could destroy bees, yet it has
been found that bacteria-producing
lactic acid serves to protect pollen
[stored in the hive. The lactic acid
protects the pollen against destruc-
tion by other germs.

This reminds me of II Corin-
thians 12:7: "And lest I should be
exalted above measure through the
( abundance of the revelations, there
was given to me a thorn in the flesh,
the messenger of Satan to buffet me,
i lest I should be exalted above
measure." Paul saw that a divine
purpose had been worked out
through the physical ailment he had
to suffer. This would not break
him. This was the work of all suf-
ficient grace. It is the glory of life
that it is in our weakness that we
find this wondrous grace; man's ex-
tremity is God's opportunity.

A returning bee may enter the
wrong hive. If the stray bee has
been performing a housecleaning
task, such as removing a dead larva
or adult from its own hive, it may
by entering the wrong hive spread
the disease that killed the insect.

I "Your glorying is not good. Know
ye not that a little leaven leaveneth
the whole lump?" (I Cor. 5:6) .
Leaven was sin and in this instance

stood for a putrefying and corrupt-
ing influence. Paul was shocked by
the attitude of the Corinthian
church to a very blatant sinner. The
church had accepted the situation
and done nothing about it. This
poison could spread throughout the
church and destroy it, for an evil
influence in the church can corrupt
the whole church, as the leaven per-
meates the whole lump of dough.

Bees in a hive are quick to take
action against a foreign object. Even
if a bee is already occupied, it will
switch to the task of removing the
foreign object. Those foreign ob-
jects are not merely removed from
the hive; they are carried some dis-
tance from it, so that if they repre-
sent a source of danger or infection,
they are rendered unlikely to cause
trouble.

"Purge out therefore the old
leaven that ye may be a new lump,
as ye are unleavened. For even
Christ our passover is sacrificed for
us" (I Cor. 5:7) . Paul was saying
that the man who was very evil must
be put out of the church to bring
him to his senses.

Drones Don't Work

Discipline sometimes has to be ex-
ercised for the sake of the church.
It may be very damaging to the
church to shut our eyes to the evil
offenses. Discipline is designed to
mend the person who has sinned. It
is to make him — not break him.
It must be curative.

So far as is known, the drone bee
does no work at all. It evidently
does not have the same standards as
do the workers. The drone has a
short tongue which he uses to take
food from workers and from honey-
storage cells in the hive; he does not
collect food from flowers. Towards

A revival of religion is the only
possible thing that can wipe away
the reproach which covers the
Church and restore religion to the
place it ought to have in the estima-
tion of the public. Without a re-
vival, this reproach will cover the
Church more and more, until it is
overwhelmed with universal con-
tempt.

We may go and build a splendid
house of worship and line the seats
with damask, put up a costly pulpit

the end of summer when fresh nec-
tar becomes scarce, the other bees
prevent the drones from feeding.

We are not only to work for Jesus
Christ, but we are to work for the
good of ourselves, our families and
the community in which we live.
"For even when we were with you,
we gave you this command: If any
one will not work, let him not eat"
(II Thess. 3:10) . This has nothing
to do with the unfortunate man
who, through no fault of his own,
can find no work to do; but the re-
fusal to work is important. A tree
is known by its fruits and a man is
known by his work. The Christian,
just because he is a Christian, should
be a better workman than anyone
else.

The bees apparently "know"
what work is needed to be done at
any particular place or time and do
it. The answer to what makes the
bees realize the needs of the colony,
so as to make it run as a well-adjust-
ed society is still unknown. Whether
it is the "necessity" or a special fac-
tor or the food transmission or some
other stimuli, we do not know.

If we live close to God we will
know His will for our lives. We
will know His will and will want to
do His will. We will want to pray
as Paul did: "Lord what wilt Thou
have me to do?" (Acts 9:6) . "Jesus
said to them, my food is to do the
will of Him who sent me to accom-
plish His work" (John 3:34) . The
great keynote of Jesus' life was sub-
mission to the will of God. He was
perfectly obedient to the will of His
Father.

God has a plan for each of our
lives and a work that He has given
us to do. It is God's great desire
that we should be as He is. To do
the will of God is the way to peace,
happiness and power. SI

and get a magnificant organ, and in
that way procure a sort of respect for
religion among the wicked, but it
does no good in reality. Look wher-
ever they have surrounded the altar
of Christianity with splendor and
you will find that the impression
produced is contrary to the true na-
ture of religion. There must be a
waking up of energy and an out-
pouring of God's Spirit, or the world
will laugh at the Church. — Charles
G. Finney.

There Must Be Revival

PAGE 11 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JULY 26, 1972

EDITORIALS

Of Crime and Punishment (VII)

As we write, in Cherry Hill, N. J.,
doctors are battling to save the life
of Edwin James Grace, who went
berserk and killed six men and
wounded seven others, including
himself. And the U. S. Supreme
Court has just ruled that capital
punishment is "illegal."

Mr. Grace, a Pinkerton guard
whose duties required that he carry
a gun, was not as good a shot on
himself as on others, so he faces
charges of multiple murder if the
doctors manage to pull him through.
They are working valiantly to save
him from death so he can possibly
spend his life in confinement.

Then, because he used guns in his
shooting spree, no doubt increased
pressure will be put upon Congress
to outlaw the use of guns, even by

Not far from our office, a Presby-
terian college professor is beginning
to feel insecure in his tenure. The
reason? He has left the PCUS and
united with another Presbyterian de-
nomination and whispers of "disloy-
alty" are being wafted about.

Several presbyteries have declared
formally that graduates of Reformed
Seminary are not welcome in their
pulpits. The reason? "Their loy-
alty to the denomination would be
in question," we are told.

At least two presbyteries we know
have come under official displeasure
of the Board of World Missions for
endorsing and/or supporting mis-
sionaries overseas who went out un-
der other than official auspices
(meaning not under the control of
the Board of World Missions) .

So now we have just discovered
that at least two of the appointees
going out under the official board
this year are not even members of
the Presbyterian Church US. Not
even Presbyterians, in fact.

One is a Baptist and the other is
a Roman Catholic.

The staffer we asked about the
Roman Catholic bristled just a bit

guards.

In the same issue of the newspa-
per which carried the Supreme
Court story, there was another which
told of a new law going into effect
in North Carolina, making it illegal
to jail an inebriate, even for a short
time while other arrangements are
made to handle him. The local
sheriff said this would reduce the
regular weekend population of the
jail by somewhat. He said he didn't
know what they'd do with inebriates
from henceforth.

And on the editorial page, the edi-
tor, who has frequently expressed
himself against the "cruel and un-
usual" aspects of the death penalty,
wrote with satisfaction of the Su-
preme Court action. Too often the
death penalty has been inflicted for

when we inquired about it. "That
person knows Jesus Christ, I am con-
vinced," he said.

We are not questioning that. We
only would ask, "Do those ministers
on the field but not under the board
not know Jesus Christ?" "Are those
Reformed Seminary graduates not
Christians?" "Is that Presbyterian
college professor an unbeliever?"

Not at all. But they are "not un-
der the jurisdiction of our Church
courts."

Oh. Then the Roman Catholic
is under the jurisdiction of our
Church courts?

Yes. That person can be brought
home any time the board deems
wise.

Oh. Ecclesiastical control is what
counts. Faith, spiritual allegiance,
even Church affiliation matters not,
so long as the person is in such a po-
sition that the screws can be
tightened any time it should be-
come necessary.

Isn't that approach to religion ex-
actly what Martin Luther rejected
when he cried out, in conscience,
"Here I stand. God help me, I can
do no other"? EE

crimes for which it was inappro
priate, he wrote, such as "rape with
out bodily harm." Get that — j
"rape without bodily harm."

Ours (Asheville, N. C.) is a com
munity sometimes presided over b"
a state superior court judge who i
beginning to make a name for him
self in these parts — not as a "hang
ing judge" after the Old West pat
tern, but as a "turn 'em loose" judge

It isn't unusual to see a notice o:
$2,500 bail granted when the charg<
is murder, or the penalty of 5-to-l(
years assessed for killing someone.

Presumably, as the scale of value;
is adjusted downward, we are head
ing for the time when "rape without
bodily harm" will draw a $10 fine
and court costs. This is not simpl)
a trend in crime and punishment, al-
though that is the story in the head-
lines. It is a stage in the downward
plunge of a civilization. To say that
we now have "joined such countries
as England in our attitude towards
capital crimes" proves nothing.
Since when was England still count-
ed among the shining examples of
man's future prospects?

And what are the religious impli-
cations of all this? Our thoughts, at
this point, turn back to a moment
during the most recent General As-
sembly of the PCUS, when a staffer
from St. Andrews College trium-
phantly called attention to the way
Church pronouncements and agita-
tion have served to change abortion
laws in at least two states.

In the capital punishment matter,
there is no doubt whatever that lib-
eral religion has played a major role
in changing society's views as to the
value of human life. The latest
result proves only one thing: When
men start out to improve on God's
order for mankind, they invariably
manage to make matters worse.

By endeavoring to increase the val-
ue of human life, but without
grounding the effort in God's law,
they have only succeeded in making
life cheap. So cheap that you can
now take it without incurring too
great a penalty. EE

Don't Be Careless

We were listening to a Christian
radio station. "Our next number,"
said the announcer easily, on the
program, Music for Sunday, "will be
Montovani's lovely arrangement of
'Never on Sunday.' "

Who Is Head Of The Church?

PAGE 12 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JULY 26, 1972

THE LAYMAN AND HIS CHURCH

m

Explo 72

P15 In case you don't know, "Never
"I m Sunday" is the theme song from

" i film whose heroine is a prostitute.

[n the song, she sings that she will
oa take "customers" any day of the week

li but not on Sunday. She has to have
3 at least one day of rest!
jo A Christian radio station — "Never
in on Sunday."

)ai It reminded us of a discussion we

Ijf jhad with a young minister who is

j greatly successful with young peo-
ple. Quite "mod" in his own musi-
cal tastes, he enjoyed using some of

e the "mood" music of the Beatles in

J£ his youth programs.

!(j John Lennon in church?

a When "Jesus Christ Superstar"
first came out, we exchanged some
lively letters with a dedicated evan-
gelical minister after we mentioned
the rock opera critically in these col-
umns. He had used the records with
his youth groups and reported it had
been a "moving experience."
The Son of God is superstar?
So many of the new "forms" are

I billed as "new ways to proclaim the
old Gospel." But when you look at
what the new forms are actually say-
ing, too often it isn't the Gospel
at all.

We have no objection to guitars in
church. The editor recently partici-
pated in a week-long evangelistic ef-
fort in which the evangelist, together
with his wife and daughter, offered
an impressive musical program each
i night on trombone, banjo, ukelele,
. steel guitar, flute and piano. The
! music bore a Gospel message and
was delivered with a Gospel testi-
: mony.

And we don't mean Simon and

' Garfunkel.

Theology was once the queen of

i sciences. Today it is musical com-

! edy with a double entendre. Protes-
tantism was once a system of doc-
trine. Today it is a form of modem
culture. "Evangelical" once spoke
of convictions. Too often today it
speaks of a mood.

The man who dares to be a spokes-
man for the Almighty cannot af-

[ ford to be careless. If the trumpet
gives an uncertain sound, no one

i will be called to anything. !±)

I • • •

A school, college or seminary is
judged by its products, and if any
school, anywhere, by any name, pro-
duces modernism, infidelity, unbelief
and unrighteousness, let that school
and the guilty parties repent of sin!
J — Ramsey Pollard.

At Explo '72 we learned that as
Christians we can turn irritations in-
to spiritual motivation. If one word
could characterize a conference of
this size it would have to be "flex-
ible." Staff members who were
physically tired, pressured, and
facing new difficulties at every turn
were able to be flexible, but what
was recognizably unique was their
attitude of joy.

Likewise, many delegates had to
stand in lines for hours after travel-
ing for days; yet they learned, maybe
for the first time, we can thank the
Lord for all things. Many were
spiritually motivated at Explo '72,
but probably the one attitude which
prevailed throughout Explo was that
of giving.

We generally think of going to a
conference to receive, but rarely do
we experience, even remember, our
Lord's command that we will re-
ceive all the more by giving. This
attitude characterized Explo and be-
cause of it, Explo proceeded with a
smoothness which amazed many
skeptics.

Did Explo '72 accomplish its goal
of training young people to share
Jesus Christ with others? We believe
that around the world many newly
changed lives will echo a resound-
ing yes'. Thousands of Christians,
young and old, learned how to share
their faith and became excited about
doing so as they shared Jesus with
Dallasites. For these delegates who
had already received training in how
to witness through God's power,
there were advanced conferences.
These concentrated on personal
spiritual growth and following up
on new Christians. Included in this
training was how to deal with those
who have only made a superficial
commitment to Christ.

In addition to the intense train-

The authors of this column are
John Seel and Daly Dietrick, sons of
missionary parents in Korea and
summer student workers at the Casa
Linda Presbyterian Church, Dallas,
Tex.

ing, Explo provided inspiration.
Each evening over 70,000 delegates
met in the Cotton Bowl to sing,
pray, and to be challenged for world-
wide involvement for Christ. The
enthusiasm (which literally means
possessed by God) rocked the sta-
dium nightly. We will never forget
watching 70,000 Christians sit in the
Cotton Bowl for two hours singing
praises to our Lord in the driving
rain, or singing "Pass It On" as we
climaxed Explo by lighting over 50,-
000 candles.

Other words which were a part of
the week's vocabulary were, consid-
erate, punctual, generous and dis-
ciplined. People picked up hitch-
hikers without fear, as the spirit of
love prevailed.

Here in Dallas a company is paid
to clean the Cotton Bowl, but after
the first night's rally they reported-
ly found nothing to be cleaned. The
manager of the Cotton Bowl said
that the delegates were the best be-
haved of any crowd in the Cotton
Bowl's history. The general opinion
voiced by the Dallas law enforce-
ment officers was that, "They were
as happy and polite as you could
ask." We believe history will record
Explo as a mighty working of our
God.

Explo '72 began as a vision yield-
ed to the Lord's control and saturat-
ed with prayer. When will we catch
a vision for the Church? Why is it
that so many Christian organizations
are making headlines on the spirit-
ual battlefields while the Church at
large remains isolated and silent? Is
it because the local church has
copped out of its God-called min-
istry so that God has had to use new
tools to do His work? When will
we begin to yield our Church's min-
istry to God's control and Biblical
principles, saturating it at the same
time with prayer?

We must be involved in the tur-
moil of our culture. Yet God's work
must be done in His way, which is
by His power. Activity in the

(Continued on p. 20, col. 3)

PAGE 13 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JULY 26, 1972

I

SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON

For August 13, 1972

Worshiping in the Family

Rev. Jack B. Scott

I. THE FAMILY IN GOD'S
PLAN. From the beginning it is ap-
parent that the family had an im-
portant place in all of God's plans
for man. As we read the first two
chapters of Genesis, the account of
creation, we note two things in par-
ticular: 1) the world as created is
incomplete without man, the crown
of creation (Gen. 2:5) ; and 2) man
is incomplete without woman (Gen.
2:18, 20-23). Thus we see that God
established the family in the begin-
ning as the basic unit of His people
(2:24) .

Jesus in quoting this passage used
it to establish the sanctity of mar-
riage against divorce (Matt. 19:5) .
The establishment of the home here
indicates not only the importance of
the home but, as Paul said, also the
responsibility of the father to be
head of the home. "Adam was first
formed, then Eve" (I Tim. 2:13),
and "The husband is the head of
the wife as Christ also is the head of
the Church" (Eph. 5:23) .

Then after the sin of man and his
fall, God, in promising ultimate vic-
tory for those who trust in Him,
spoke in terms of a family again.
The seed of the woman "shall bruise
thy (Satan's) head" (Gen. 3:15).
This implies also a family through
whom God will bring the triumph
over Satan. Most conservative schol-
ars understand this to be speaking
of Jesus Christ, born of Mary, the
true victor over Satan.

When Cain killed Abel, God
raised up another seed in place of
Abel, Seth. Seth was not a separate
creation of God, independent of all
else, but was in fact the child of
Adam and Eve. God chose through
a family to continue to raise up the
seed of hope and promise. In Seth
and in his son's generation, men be-
gan to call upon the name of the
Lord (Gen. 4:26) . Again, this is in
the context of a family. The phrase
"call on the name of the Lord" is
a Biblical phrase indicating real
faith (Gen. 12:8, 21:33, 26:25; Joel
2:32; Rom. 10:13) .

When men sinned so greatly and

Background Scripture: Deuteron-
omy 6:1-9; Psalm 78:1-8; II Tim-
othy 1:3-7

Key Verses: Deuteronomy 6:1-9; II
Timothy 1:3-7

Devotional Reading: Psalm 78:1-8

Memory Selection: Joshua 24:15

spiritually deteriorated to the point
that God could no longer tolerate
them, God, being gracious, saved one
family through whom He deter-
mined to repopulate the earth. He
did not merely save one man
but his entire family (Gen. 6:8, 18) .
Through this family God began
again to establish a people for him-
self (Gen. 9:26, 10:21) .

From the very beginning the fam-
ily has been important in the plan
of God to have a people for himself
from among men.

II. THE FAMILY AND THE
CALL OF ABRAHAM. When God
called Abraham and began to work
toward the establishing of an identi-
fiable people of God in the world,
He dealt with Abraham in terms of
a family and a particular offspring.
He did not call isolated individuals
out of the pagan world of that day.
He called one man and his family
and through them began to estab-
lish His people. Furthermore He
spoke of future blessings in terms of
blessings through Abraham to all the
families of the earth (Gen. 12:3) .
When he was called, Abraham took
Sarai his wife (12:5) .

God began to promise to Abra-
ham that through that wife, Sarah,
He would bring the seed of promise.
In spite of Abraham's faltering from
time to time in regard to his own
wife's integrity and reputation
(Gen. 12:10, 20:1), God preserved
her integrity as Abraham's wife. God
determined that the seed of promise
should come from her. Not only the
wife of Abraham mattered to God,
but even the very seed. Thus when
Abraham had a child by Sarah's

The International Sunday School Lesson Out-
lines are copyrighted by The International
Council of Religious Education.

handmaid Hagar, that child was not
acceptable to God, for this was not
Abraham's family (Gen. 17:18-19). I

To emphasize the importance of j
the family even more, God estab-
lished a covenant seal or sacrament
between himself and Abraham by
which every male of the children of
Abraham would be circumcized.
This is the Old Testament sacra-
ment which expresses the inclusion
of all of the seed of the believers in-
to the covenant of God with those
who trust in Him. In the New Tes-
tament, this same truth was ex-;
pressed in terms of the infant bap-
tism of the children of believers into
the new covenant.

As God promised, Sarah bore the
seed of promise, Isaac (21:1-3).
Even before he was born, God had
spoken of the purpose He had for
Abraham's family and all succeed- I
ing families of God's people. God |
expressed quite clearly and in mem-
orable terms His purpose for the be-
lievers and their families. Speaking
of Abraham, He said, "I have
known him (chosen him) , to the
end that he may command his chil-
dren and his household after him,
that they may keep the way of the
Lord, to do righteousness and jus-
tice; to the end that the Lord may
bring upon Abraham that which He
hath spoken of him" (Gen. 18:19) .

Thus, what God promised to do
to and through Abraham, He pur-
posed to do in the family context.
Abraham would, as the typical be- I
lieving father, instruct his children '
so that they would learn God's will
and do it, being both righteous and
just as pleases God.

All of the Old Testament is a tes-
timony to the fact that God never
abandoned this plan in spite of nu-
merous failures on the part of many
of Abraham's descendants. Most im-
portant for us to note is that the
family plays the key role in God's
plan.

As God continued to select His
family, He chose Isaac and rejected
Ishmael; chose a wife for Isaac;
chose Jacob and not Esau; chose the

PAGE 14 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JULY 26, 1972

wives for Jacob and gave to Jacob
twelve sons by whom to establish the
nation of God in the world. In all
of this, it is to be noted that the
wives of those men whom He had
chosen did matter to God and the
particular seed also mattered. God
continued throughout to work
through families.

III. THE FAMILY AND THE
REDEMPTION OF ISRAEL.
When God called His people out of
bondage in Egypt, He did so in
terms of the individual families of
His people who were there. At the
Passover, the congregation of Israel
was to take a lamb for each family,
Jlto be offered to God. The lamb's
blood was to be sprinkled over each
household abode as a token (Exo.

; i2).

Thus the people would be re-
' deemed by families and it was by
families that they would be called
'i out of Egypt. The pagan families
I! of the Egyptians would be judged in
the loss of their firstborn, but God's
' people would not suffer this loss. So
J God's people would be prosperous
" and continue to be blessed by God.
I Later, the people were to teach
j their children in their families what
i this great event meant. Again we
.usee the importance of family instruc-
tion (Exo. 12:26).

Nowhere is the responsibility of
,1, the parents in the instruction of
!i their children in their home, more
. emphasized than in Deuteronomy 6:
1 1-9. After God had given the law,
He exhorted the parents to teach
, that word diligently to their chil-
dren. The continued prosperity of
, God's people depended on this
(v. 3).

First, the parents themselves must
i love the Lord with all their hearts,
J souls, and might (vv. 4-5) . They
were then to keep God's Word in
their own hearts lest they forget or
i ignore it (v. 6) , and to teach it dil-
[ igently to their children, talking of
I it all day long in every area and
facet of their daily life so that the
. children would be aware of God's
• Word in their lives from the time
. they got up in the morning until
, they went to bed in the evening (vv.
.7-9).

: Parental responsibility in Biblical
I instruction is a heavy and vital re-
sponsibility of all believing parents.
; This task cannot be pushed off on
I Sunday school, youth groups, or
Christian day schools. While they
i ! all have supplementary value, the

basic place of the instruction of chil-
dren is in the home.

In the very Ten Commandments
(Exo. 20:2-17; Deut. 5:6-21), this
plan is well illustrated in the ful-
crum which is the fifth command-
ment. Here the commandment in
regard to honoring parents is joined
by the promise "that thy days may
be long and that it may go well with
thee in the land which the Lord thy
God giveth thee" (Deut. 5:16) . This
command is placed right in between
those which pertain particularly to
our duties to God and those which
express our duties to our fellow
men.

Again we see the centrality of the
parents in God's plan for the instruc-
tion of His people. As Christian
parents, we cannot escape the sober-
ing responsibility that is ours. Not
only are we to instruct our children
but by applying it to our own daily
lives, we are to be examples to our
children of what God's Word means
in a practical, daily-living way.

IV. THE FAMILY AND THE
HISTORY OF GOD'S PEOPLE IN
THE OLD TESTAMENT. In the
time of the judges of Israel, it is ap-
parent that parents had failed in re-
gard to the teachings of Deuteron-
omy 6. The passage best illustrating
this failure is Judges 2:10: "There
arose another generation after them
(Joshua's generation) that knew not
the Lord, nor yet the work which
He had wrought for Israel."

This statement well expresses the
failure of parents to teach their chil-
dren. Evidently, so busy were the
parents in getting established, build-
ing homes, planting vineyards in
their new land, that they neglected
their primary responsibility. As a
result, the period of the judges is
the most chaotic and dark period
in Israel's history. However, this is
not the whole story. There were
some faithful parents even in those
dark days. We see evidence of this
in the story of Ruth and in the story
of Samuel's parents (I Sam. 1-2) .

From Ruth we learn of the ances-
tors of David, the man after God's
own heart. Both David and Samuel
were devout men who knew and did
God's will. Both came apparently
from believing homes where God's
Word was known and taught.

God continued to work through
families and promised blessings to
His people through them (Isa. 7:
14, 9:1, 11:1). The truth of God
continued to be known and taught

by the faithful families as the psalm-
ist related (78:1-8). By this means
only would there continue to be a
people who "set their hope in God
and do not forget the works of God"
(Psa. 78:6-7) .

V. THE FAMILY IN THE
NEW TESTAMENT CHURCH.
We cannot ignore the emphasis in
the New Testament placed on the
family. Jesus was born into a fam-
ily, subject to His parents as a child
(Luke 2:51, 52). When He was
grown, He taught the importance
of the integrity of the family (Matt.
19:5).

As the Gospel began to be pro-
claimed by the apostles after Pente-
cost, the promises were said to be
"to you . . . and to your children"
(Acts 2:39) . Paul said to the Philip-
pian jailer, "Believe on the Lord Je-
sus, and thou shalt be saved, thou
and thy house" (Acts 16:31) .

The continued importance of the
family in God's plan is reflected in
Paul's words to Timothy (II Tim.
1:3-7, 3:14). In both of these pas-
sages, the faith of the parents and
their faithful teaching of God's
Word to their children is vital in the
continuing work of the Church. Par-
ticularly we note in Ephesians that
parents are to nurture their chil-
dren in the chastening and admoni-
tion of the Lord (6:4) . Deuterono-
my 6:1-9 continues to be in effect
for God's people to this day!

CONCLUSION: If you have nev-
er read God's Word regularly to
your family or prayed with your
children in a time of devotion, then
as Christian parents you have failed
both God and your children.

This is no elective as far as God
is concerned, but an absolute im-
perative if God is to bring on you
and your family the blessings that
He has promised through the Gos-
pel. No substitute for the family
instruction in God's Word and
prayer together has ever been of-
fered by God and none is acceptable
to Him.

There are many good devotional
books and guides prepared for fam-
ily devotion, but in reality all that
is needed is believing parents who
will open and read God's Word to
their family regularly and then in
all of life apply by the example of
their life that which they have read
and instructed their children to be-
lieve. EE

PAGE 15 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JULY 26, 1972

YOUTH PROGRAM

For August 13, 1972

1H

»■

The Importance of Right Thinking

Scripture: Romans 7:15-25; Philip-

pians 4:8
Suggested Hymns:

"O for a Heart to Praise My
God"

"Take My Life and Let it Be

Consecrated"
"Take Time to Be Holy"

PROGRAM LEADER'S INTRO-
DUCTION: In the Sermon on the
Mount Jesus indicated very clearly
that the basic thing about sin is not
the word or the deed but the atti-
tude that lies behind it. Proverbs
23:7 says of man, "as he thinketh in
his heart, so is he."

The teaching of Jesus Christ en-
larges on this idea. A person may
be untrue to his real nature in what
he says and does because of various
pressures which may be brought to
bear upon him. But the thoughts
of his mind and heart are the true
measure of his character. If you
want to know what kind of person
you really are, then take an honest
look at your thoughts.

We must not think that what we
say and do is unimportant. Our
words and actions make an impres-
sion on people and may strongly in-
fluence their lives. Our influence is
always important. God is concerned
not only with our words and deeds,
He is concerned with our
thoughts. He knows why we do cer-
tain things as well as what we say
and do. God is most concerned with
our thoughts because He knows that
our thinking indicates what we real-

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Rev. B. Hoyt Evans

ly are. When He changes us, He
changes our thinking, and when He
changes our thinking, He changes us.

In this program we want to dis-
cover how to think in the right way,
in a way that will be acceptable and
pleasing to God.

FIRST SPEAKER: (Read Psalm
19:14.) Many of us have repeated
this verse often. Perhaps we have
made it our prayer at times. We
must understand, though, that if
our words and meditations are to be
acceptable in the sight of the Lord,
we must look to Him as our re-
deemer and enabler. God tells us
that by nature we do not think His
thoughts. (Read Isaiah 55:8-9.) If
we are to think His thoughts, our
lives must be changed. We must
be born again spiritually. (Read
John 3:7.) We must be made new
creatures in Christ.

(Read II Corinthians 5:17.) The
only way to be changed in this fash-
ion is to accept Jesus Christ by faith
as personal Saviour and Lord. When
we accept Him, we no longer live
our own lives. He lives in us.
(Read Galatians 2:20.) The only
way to have the "mind of Christ"
is to receive Him into our lives by
faith. Hear the Bible's description
of the "mind of Christ." (Read Phi-
lippians 2:5-8.)

SECOND SPEAKER: (Read Ro-
mans 7:15.) Paul was already a
Christian when he wrote these
words. We learn from his experi-
ence that we must continue to
guard our lives, and especially our
thoughts, even after we have accept-
ed Christ. It is possible for Chris-
tians to be very displeasing to the
Lord in the thoughts that fill their
minds.

Our souls are eternally safe when
we believe in Christ, but we ought
always to use our lives to honor
Him. To honor the Lord with our
lives, it is necessary that we guard
our thoughts. We should make a
practice of examining our thinking
in the light of God's revealed will.
It is often much easier for our words

and deeds to pass the test than it is
for our thoughts.

In this respect, we need to pray
for insight so that we may see our-
selves as we really are. We need also
to pray for strength to overcome
temptation with regard to wrong
thinking. We can continually of
fer David's prayer, "Create in me a
clean heart, O God; and renew a
right spirit within me" (Psa. 51:10)

:

i

THIRD SPEAKER: It is not
enough to guard against wrong
thoughts. We must make a posi-
tive effort to think right thoughts.
It has already been suggested that
we ought to make an honest ap-
praisal of our own lives and think-
ing, but we must not spend all our
time thinking about self.

One of the best ways to have
thoughts which will honor God is
to think about Him and the truths
revealed in His Word. The psalm-
ist said, "Thy Word have I hid in
mine heart, that I might not sin
against Thee" (119:11). In thej
book of Philippians Paul listed some
things which are good to think
about. (Read Philippians 4:8
again.)

God has given us so much that is,
beautiful and good to occupy our
thoughts that it is a shame to spend
time thinking about things that are
morbid, evil, and ugly. We cannot
ignore the realities of life, the sin I
and evil in the world, but many of |
us would surely be more pleasing tO;
God and happier ourselves, if we
gave more time to thinking about
Him and His goodness.

Questions for Discussion:

1. Do the things we see and read
have much influence on our think-
ing? What about books, magazines,
movies, and television programs?

2. What is the value of having
definite times for Bible reading and
meditation? Do you think we can
learn "right thinking" without prac-
tice?

Closing Prayer. SI

PAGE 16 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JULY 26, 1972

THE 'JESUS FAMILY' IN COM-
UNIST CHINA, by D. Vaughan
ees. The Paternoster Press, Exeter,
evon, Eng. Paper, 104 pp. $1.00. Re-
ewed by the Rev. J. Gary Aitken,
. istor, Mullins Presbyterian Church,
(ullins, S. C.

China is again in the headlines
I ecause of President Nixon's recent
Visit.

A missionary to China from
921 through 1949 has recorded the
ruly miraculous ministry of a com-
pletely indigenous Chinese denomi-
nation, the Ye-Su Chia-Ting, or "Je-
ns Family." The book is a record
f Dr. Rees' close fellowship and
rork within this group of congre-
gations composed of ordinary Chi-
nese peasants who literally patterned
heir lives after the New Testament
Ihurch.

The value of the book today is
bund first in learning through Dr.
Lees' personal observation some of
pe ways by which our sovereign
iod has preserved and extended
ilis Church in the alien environ-
ment of Communist China. Though
'tie account covers primarily the
pars from 1947 through 1949, the
/ays by which the Church has been
ble to survive are clearly described.

Secondly, there is a great value in
tudying this record as an illustra-
ion of the Scriptural directions in
yhich the Church should move if
he missionary enterprise is to be ef-
ective and enduring in this age of
lational and social instability. EE

HABITATION OF DRAGONS, by
jveith Miller. Word Books, Waco, Tex.
88 pp. $4.95. Reviewed by the Rev.
k. Culver Gordon, pastor, United Pres-
jtyterian Church of Paterson, Haw-
borne, N. J.

i If you want to know more about
ivhat it means to be a Christian in
iVmerica in the 1970's, then read this
|)ook. It is based in large part upon

BOOKS

life situations and attempted inter-
pretations in a candid, realistic,
Christian approach. Miller rejects,
without naming it as such, the "vic-
torious life" view of continuous de-
feat of our fallen natures. His il-
lustrations generally suppose a con-
tinuing struggle, in which Christians
are sometimes overcome and fail.

The title of the book (which in-
cidentally put me off) is taken from
Isaiah 35: "In the habitation of
dragons ... a highway shall be
there, and a way, and it shall be
called The way of holiness." An
apt title for his purpose.

Forty-two situations are discussed
with such intriguing titles as: "Any
Old Bush Will Do." "You Don't
Listen to Me Anymore 1" "A Wid-
ow's 'Might.' " They speak of live
issues. One discusses whether adul-
tery is a live temptation for church
members and/or officers. One, at
least, is a tear-jerker, and all offer
illustrations for the clergy.

In addition to his discussion, Mil-
ler includes quotations from writers
such as Trueblood, Tournier, Whale,
Bonhoeffer, William James, C. S.
Lewis, Tillich, William Temple.
Here is a wide gamut from St. Au-
gustine to Schweitzer and usually
very apt.

Also the prayers he uses are help-
ful. Here is one: "Lord, I am glad
that You made a moving drama of
the Christian life instead of a study
course in abstract philosophy. Thank
You that the role You have given me
is important to You as the Au-
thor . . . ."

In the nature of the case, I do not
always agree with the positions
taken, but I recommend this book
for all who take their Christian wit-
ness seriously. EE

THE LETTER TO THE HE-
BREWS: THE LIVING WORD COM-
MENTARY, Vol. 15, by James Thomp-
son. Sweet Publ. Co., Austin, Tex. 184
pp. $3.50. Reviewed by the Rev. Al-
bert J. Lindsey, pastor, First Presby-
terian Church, Tacoma, Wash.

The text used is the Revised
Standard Version in keeping with
the format in this series of commen-
taries. In this particular one there
is no foreword.

The contents are in two parts. The
first is the introduction, which cov-
ers such items as readers, circum-
stances, purpose, author, date, out-
line of contents and the bibliogra-
phy covering some thirteen pages.
The second part is the commentary
covering 164 pages. Like the other
volumes, the text is published at the
top of the page with the commen-
tary using the balance of the page
or pages as needed.

It is very easy to read because the
text is printed in bold type in the
midst of the commentary and the
divisions are marked with clear cap-
tions. Further, the commentary has
numerous cross references of both
the Old and New Testaments which
leaves little to be desired in seeing
the text not only in its content, but
in the total picture of the Bible.

The work is thoroughly scholarly,
up to date, sound and presented in
an easy to follow manner. The au-
thor has a direct and informative
style which makes the subject mat-
ter usually understandable and in-
viting. Here is a volume that Bible
students could well afford to have
as a reference work on Hebrews. As
the author states in his introduction,
this book "has been aptly described
as 'the riddle of the New Testa-
ment.' " EE

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PAGE 17 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JULY 26, 1972

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HEBREWS, by Geoffrey B. Wilson
The Banner of Truth Trust, London
Eng. Paper, 192 pp. $1.25. Reviewec
by the Rev. Wick Broomall, H.R., At
lanta, Ga.

Those who have the author's pre
vious commentary on Romans wil.
know what to expect in this new one
on Hebrews, for both are treated ir
somewhat the same way.

This verse-by-verse commentary i:
designed to interpret the profounc
truths found in this portion of God':
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This commentary occupies a place
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Practically nothing in this com
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God's Word under the faithful guid
ance of Geoffrey B. Wilson, pastoi
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dersfield, England.

The book is available througt
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17013, and the Journal. B

THE THINGS WHICH SOON MUSI
COME TO PASS, by Philip Mauro
Reiner Publications, Swengel, Pa. 622
pp. $6.95. Reviewed by Mrs. J. H. Arm
field, De Kalb, Miss.

This commentary on the book o
Revelation was published in 192!
under the title of The Patmos Vi
sion. Seven years later Philip Maun
added chapter 15, which is an exposi
tion of "the thousand years" (Rev
20:1-10) , showing his changed view
point. The present volume was r<|

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PAGE 18 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JULY 26, 1972

jrinted in 1971.

The author states that he "is not
in agreement with the postmillen-
jiialists, who hold that there will be
i thousand years of earthly peace and
jrosperity before our Lord's second
idvent; nor with the premillennial-
sts, who hold there will be such a
beriod following His second advent
ind preceding the new heavens and
fiew earth; nor with the amillennial-
Ists, who hold that there is no mil-
ennium at all. The viewpoint of
■".his exposition is neither preterist,
fior historicist, nor futurist." He asks
jiat one read and ascertain for him-
self what he is. Possibly his view-

point would be termed a modifica-
tion or combination.

Mauro says, "I believe that the
words of this prophecy refer to
events that were to happen in, and
not after, this present dispensation
. . . the very first verse states that
God's purpose in giving this revela-
tion to Jesus Christ was that He
might show unto His servants things
which must shortly come to pass."
The war in heaven (Rev. 12:7-9)
when Satan is cast out is the fulfill-
ment of John 12:31, and took place
"when Christ ascended to His Fa-
ther's throne."

Satan was bound at the time of
Constantine. "The complete change
which took place at that time (the
fourth century) in the attitude of
the nations constituting the Roman
empire towards Christianity is in
perfect accord with what the Scrip-
ture foretold as to the effect on earth
of the binding of Satan. This indi-
cates that the thousand years began
at or near that time." At present Sa-
tan is loosed again and deceiving
the nations as attested by the actions
of Russia and China.

(Continued on next page)

N-E-W
Peloubet's
Notes

for September 1972
to August 1973

New Editor!

Dr. Ralph Earle,
Kansas City, Mo.
New Format!
New Suggested Intro-
ductions — for Adult
and Youth, and New
Concepts for Children!
New Discussion
Questions!
New Contemporary
Application!

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j

PAGE 19 /

THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JULY 26, 1972

The plan of study "is to place
Scripture alongside of Scripture and
allow each passage to interpret the
others." With this method Mauro
uses Philippians 3:8-14 to explain
the meaning of Revelation 20:4
(". . . I saw the souls of them that
were beheaded for the witness of Je-
sus . . . they lived and reigned with
Chirst a thousand years") . The prize
that Paul was pressing toward was
"a special resurrection, antecedent to
the general resurrection of the dead,
and which was, moreover, a reward
for some special services and suffer-
ings in behalf of Christ." "The mil-
lennium passage refers to what hap-
pens to Christian martyrs after
death" in this age.

There are no footnotes although
he does quote from a number of au-
thors, Hengstenburg mainly; neither

is there a bibliography.

Mauro's book is interesting, if not
thoroughly convincing, and it does
cause one to turn to the Scriptures
to check; so in this it meets the au-
thor's expressed desire to "serve the
useful purpose of awakening great
interest at this time in the study of
the Apocalypse." 51

AN UTTERMOST PART, Eunice V.
Pike. Moody Press, Chicago, 111. 192
pp. $3.95. Reviewed by the Rev. Da-
vid Hamilton, missionary to Mexico.

This first person account of Mex-
ican missions describes the illiteracy,
poverty and spiritual vacuum of one
of the isolated tribes in Mexico.

The author went to Mexico's
Mazatec tribe in 1936 and still works
closely with her brother, Dr. Ken-

1

neth Pike, Wycliffe executive. To; i
gether with her Wycliffe Bible trans
lator coworkers, she authored or co
authored a series of Mazatec read
ing primers, composed many Indian
hymns, compiled a small dictionary
and translated the New Testament.

This readable story is an eyewit-
ness narrative of God's working in
one of the remote corners of the
globe.

Layman— from p. 13

"flesh" is not the answer. We have
the privilege to be co-workers with
our God — partners in His power.
As churchmen let us praise the Lord
for Explo, but more than that, let us
catch a vision for our churches, that
He might use them in a mighty way
for His kingdom.

"YE ARE MY WITNESSES"
Isaiah 43:10 Luke 24:48

EVANGELISM CONFERENCE

sponsored by

Presbyterian Evangelistic Fellowship

MONTREAT, NORTH CAROLINA August 18-23, 1972

Earlier ads in the Journal listed the Main Address speakers, Bible Hour
speaker and the Music program. Future ads will feature information on
the 27 Evangelism seminar leaders. Listed below are those who will be
in charge of the YOUTH PROGRAM.

YOUTH PROGRAM

EVANGELISM CONFERENCE
Registration and Fee

MAIL

To: P.E.F. Evangelism Conference
P.O. Box 808
Hopewell, Virginia 23860

REGISTRATION FEES: (please enclose)

Family — $10.00 (2 or more persons)
Individuals — $5.00 each (21 years or older.
Under 21 only with a family or a youth group).
Youth Groups — $15.00 (5 youths and 1
adult advisor)

Make check payable to: Presbyterian
Evangelistic Fellowship, Inc.
(Please type or print)

Name

(College)
MR. RICK MILLS
N. C. Director,
Campus Crusade for Christ
Chapel Hill, N. C.

(Senior High)
MR. RONALD SMITH
Campus Crusade for Christ
Key Biscayne, Fla.

Director
REV. CARL WILSON
Campus Crusade High
School Evangelism Director
Decatur, Ga.

Please Mail

Your
Registration

In Now ! ! !
Don't Delay.

(Kindergarten)
MRS. FLOYD POWERS
Hopewell, Va.

Address

City

State

Zip.

Family members accompanying me.

(Primary)
MRS. J. P. JENKINS
Charleston, W. Va.

(Junior High)
REV. LANIER ELLIS
Campus Crusade for Christ
Montgomery, Ala.

(Juniors)
REV. BILL JONES
Baltimore, Md.

(Nursery)
MRS. GEORGE SMITH
Hopewell, Va.

ACCOMODATIONS:

Each person Is responsible for making his
own housing arrangement with Montreat.
Check below if you want P.E.F. to send you
a list of accomodations.

Please send list of available camping

and housing accomodations.
PROMOTION:

Please note: We have a surplus of EVAN-
GELISM CONFERENCE brochures on hand.
If you would like to have a sufficient amount
to insert one each in a Sunday Morning Wor-
ship Service bulletin, please let us know how
many you can use. We will be happy to fill
your request without charge.

PAGE 20 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JULY 26, 1972

CO

"I

-he

OL. XXXI, NO. 14

AUGUST 2, 1972

PRESBYTERIAN

dvocating continuation of a Presbyterian Church loyal

$4.00 A YEAR

JOURNAL

to Scripture and the Reformed faith

Preach, Teach, Share, Live

Yes, you are a preacher. You are to preach the Gospel to
every single creature on God's earth. But you say, "I can't
preach," and maybe you can't, but you can live a holy life.
That's the declaration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. You can
quit running your life on your own ground rules and begin to
function in the way God would have you live.

— John A. Huffman Jr.
(See p. 7)

S. S. LESSON AND YOUTH PROGRAM FOR AUGUST 20

dHOO

i

OK IITH TQdtetjl)
DK jo Xq-jsasAttifl

U0T109T.T0Q 0 ft

MAILBAG-

WHERE AM I?

Yesterday I had a dream (or may-
be it was a nightmare) . I was at-
tending a meeting, and before me
was the agenda for the meeting. As
I carefully read each item, I sudden-
ly stopped and asked myself: Where
am I? The agenda went like this:

Centralization, Total Support of
the Organization, Vietnam, Food &
Medical Supplies for Africa, Wel-
fare Reform, Breakfast & Lunch
Programs in Public Schools, Minor-
ity Employment, Minority Banks &
Saving & Loan Associations, Public
Education, Realignment of Boun-

the

PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL

Rev. G. Aiken Taylor, Ph.D., Editor
Rev. Henry B. Dendy, D.D., Managing Editor
Arthur H. Matthews, Assistant Editor

Circulation leader among independent publications in the Presbyterian-Reformed world

THIS WEEK— Vol. XXXI, No. 14, August 2, 1972

God's Marching Orders 7

The command from Christ is clear and plain to all of us:
Go By John A. Huffman Jr.

A Plan for a Continuing Church 9

Each local congregation will soon find it necessary to make
a choice By W. Jack Williamson

Words and The Word 11

The theory of verbal inspiration is not that of mechanical
dictation By Palmer Robertson

De partments —

Editorials 12

The Layman and his Church 13

Sunday School Lesson, August 20 14

Youth Program, August 20 16

Book Reviews 17

THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL, a

Presbyterian weekly magazine, devoted
to the statement, defense, and propa-
gation of the Gospel, the faith which
was once for all delivered to the saints,

is published every Wednesday by the
Southern Presbyterian Journal Co.,
Inc., in Weaverville, N. C.

SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: $4 a year
for individuals, $3 for members of
Every Family Plan churches. All cor-
respondence regarding subscriptions,
advertising or other business matters,
should be addressed to the business
office in Weaverville, N. C. 28787.
Second class postage paid at Weaver-
ville, N. C. 28787.

POSTMASTER: Send Form 3579 to
Presbyterian Journal, Box 635, Wea-
verville, N. C. 28787. Subscribers
should allow three weeks for change
of address in continental U. S. Change
of address notices should include both
old and new addresses (with zip
codes) .

NEWS AND EDITORIAL correspond-
ence should be addressed to P. O. Box
3108, Asheville, N. C. 28802. Editorial
offices located at 247 Charlotte St. in
Asheville.

TELEPHONES: (All area 704) edi-
torial office, 254-4015, 254-4016;
business office, 645-3310, 645-3962.

daries, Membership in Outside Orj
ganizations, Women's Lib, Prisor
Reform, Movies, Low-Cost Housing
Secrecy and the Federal Govern
ment, Diplomatic Relations witl
Cuba, Homosexuality.

Where am I? At the Democrat^
National Convention? Or perhap
the Republican National Conven
tion? Am I attending a meeting o
the Urban League? Or is it th(
School Board? Am I at a meeting
of the Public Welfare Board? Oi
a congressional hearing? Perhaps ii
is a meeting of Women's Lib? Oi
the U.N.? Where am I?

I awoke from my dream and be
gan reading a copy of "The Assem
bly in Brief," published by the Gen
eral Council of the Presbyterian
Church US, and telling the story ol
the 112th General Assembly. I could
not believe my eyes. This had been
the very source of my dream, for the
agenda of my dream corresponded
exactly to most of the business trans
acted at the Assembly.

It came as a shock to realize that
such an agenda majoring on social
and political issues could occupy the
major time and efforts of a Church
court. Do these issues reflect the
purpose and mission of the Church
of our Lord and Saviour Jesus
Christ? I can not believe that such
an agenda really represents the major
business of the Church. Neither do
I believe that thoughtful Presbyte-
rians will "eat the whole thing"!
— (Rev.) Jack W. Bowling
Kingsport, Tenn.

SHE WANTS TO HELP

Enclosed is my check in support
of the Journal at this critical time.
I want to make this contribution
because I am concerned that noth-
ing shall stop the effort to bring
about a continuing Presbyterian
Church, faithful to the doctrines of
our Reformed faith.

As I see it, the conservatives may (
very well have a doubly difficult
time with so many "reconciling" ef-
forts at work in the denomination.
Many will be confused and probably
convinced by those who say that it
is possible to be faithful to Christ
by continuing a "witness" within
the denomination regardless of any
Church union or any departure from
the faith. These may not see the
fallacy of "reconciliation" on the
basis it is being offered until too
late.

— Mrs. Gilbert F. Dukes
Mobile, Ala.

IINISTERS

Robert F. Davenport from St. An-
drews College to staff of Pas-
toral Counseling and Consultation
| Centers of Greater Washington
(D. C).

i John R. Elliott from Sarasota,
Fla., to the First Church, Bartow,
I Fla.

Jerry Max Hilton from Aurora,
Mo., to the Covenant church, Mar-
shall, Mo.
i Robert Machen Holmes from
Greenwood, S. C, to the First
Church, Murfreesboro, Tenn., as
associate pastor.

J. Trent Howell Jr. from Quincy,
Fla., to the Waycross, Ga., church.
Smiley Eugene Johnson, received
from the UPUSA, to the First
Church, Canadian, Tex.
i William G. Karnes from Hamp-
ton, S. C, to the Curry Memorial
church, Memphis, Tenn.

• A tiny item may help you inter-
pret the story on p. 4 of this issue
[which tells of the organizational
meeting of the new board now run-
l ning all the affairs of the Presbyte-
i rian Church US. There were some
I (not many, but some) who wanted
to destroy all the records of exist-
ing boards and agencies, rather than
preserve them in the Historical
; Foundation, so as to start the
| Church's "new life style" from
■ scratch.

I • We honestly wish it were pos-
sible to portray the affairs of the

• Church in bright and attractive col-
ors. Every time someone writes in
to ask us for variety in the steady
output of bad news, we respond in-
wardly with more sympathy than
some of our readers imagine. It is
human to want to hear good news
— one reason for the immense ap-
peal of the Gospel. But just as there
can be no regeneration without an
awareness of the bad news in the hu-
man situation, so there can be no
hope for a dying Church without the
bad news of its condition. There is
no profit in being buoyed up with

J. Olen Kennell from Seymour,
Tex., to the First Church, Eagle
Lake, Tex.

Robert W. Kirkpatrick from Sara-
sota, Fla., to the First Church,
Dade City, Fla.

Lewis Koerselman Jr. from Kan-
sas City, Mo., to the Calvary and
Westminster churches, Indepen-
dence, Mo.

Stewart C. LaNeave Jr. from
Rocky Mount, N. C, to the Jason
church, LaGrange, N. C, and the
Snow Hill, N. C, church.
C. J. McClendon from Fischer,
Tex., to the Westminster church,
Midland, Tex., as assistant pastor.
John T. McCrea, Atlanta Counsel-
ing Center, will become director
of Aurora, a Presbyterian-Baptist
ministry to youth.

David W. Schulherr from Ac-
worth, Ga., to the Flat Branch and
Bunnlevel, N. C, churches.

false hope based on an occasional
encouraging item from some local
congregation where God is doing a
mighty work of grace — what's hap-
pening in Bethel congregation of
Podunk is not a true picture of the
Church any more than a sound pair
of lungs is a true picture of the
health of a man with advanced can-
cer of the stomach. The cancer ap-
pears in such situations as the one
recounted in the lead editorial in
this issue. And the following:

• Chalk up another first for West
Virginia. A PCUS member of that
synod has officiated at a "wedding"
between two male homosexuals, ac-
cording to the Washington Post. The
ceremony, which included "holy
communion," took place in the Cap-
itol Hill church of Washington, a
church for homosexuals. The hap-
py "couple" announced that later
they would like to adopt a child.
The minister is a member of Guy-

Larry L. Thornton, received from
the UPUSA, to the Second United
Church, Kansas City, Mo., as as-
sociate pastor.

William E. Shenk from Hunts-
ville, Ala., to Collierville, Tenn.,
as associate general presbyter for
Memphis presbytery.

David C. Stover from Atlanta, Ga.,
to the Hillside church, Decatur,
Ga.

C. W. Thomas West from Taze-
well, Va., to the Bethany and Ken-
tuck churches, Danville, Va.

Paul D. Young from Waco, Tex.,
to Lubbock, Tex., as general pres-
byter and stated clerk for Palo
Duro-Union presbytery.

George M. McGuire, formerly in
an independent pastorate, has
been approved for ordination and
installation, First Church, Claren-
don, Ark.

andotte presbytery. If the presby-
tery decides to do anything about it,
we'll let you know. (And we'll take
back about half of what we said in
the earlier paragraph.)

• In New Orleans, that maverick
presbytery has decided to move
against one of its prominent church-
es. The charge? The church (Ca-
nal Street) has declined to support
denominational benevolences. Ac-
tion taken by the presbytery: "For
the good of the congregation of the
Canal Street church, and for the
health of the Church at large, the
Presbytery of New Orleans by this
action approves the appointment by
the moderator of presbytery of an Ad-
ministrative Commission to visit the
Canal Street church and to inquire
into and deal with the difficulties
therein." (People who think they
are safe under the constitution of
the PCUS simply haven't had their
turn come up yet.) (±1

ACROSS THE EDITOR'S DESK

PAGE 3 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 2, 1972

NEWS OF RELIGION

GEB Takes Over, Sets New 'Life Style'

ATLANTA — After getting off to
an uncertain start in its organiza-
tional meeting here, the new Gen-
eral Executive Board of the Presby-
terian Church US pulled itself to-
gether and took firm hold of the
reins formerly held by the Church's
four boards and a dozen agencies.

What was likely to happen when
the 62-member board (later to be
increased to 71) cracked the whip
and called out, "Giddy-yap" re-
mained to be seen.

But there was little doubt the
board intended to take complete
charge. Proposals which seemed to
permit continuing independent ac-
tion by any agency, or which failed
to specify control by the GEB, were
amended or corrected.

The new body elected by the 1972
General Assembly will function for
a year until electing processes speci-
fied in the restructuring plan are
placed in effect.

Sometimes referred to as a "pro-
visional" board, there was very lit-
tle provisional about operations
initiated here. The 56 members
present were reminded by Vernol
R. Jansen, executive secretary for
the Synod of North Carolina and
spokesman for the restructuring pan-

SUDAN — Large numbers of people
in the southern part of this country
are turning to Christianity, accord-
ing to a report in the Church of
England Newspaper.

The Southern Sudanese, most of
whom are animist and Christian,
have suffered persecution from the
mostly Muslim people in the North
during recent years.

The paper also reported that one
pastor has baptized 10,000 people
in the last three years. The seeds
of Christianity, planted by mission-
aries from England and America, re-
ceived sufficient root so that in
times of crisis and struggle men

el, that "the only thing provisional
about this body is the way it was
elected. We are the GEB," he said.
Among other actions, the board:

• Elected an executive committee
of 11 members, including the im-
mediate past moderator (who will
act as chairman of the board for a
year) , the present moderator and 9
persons from the board;

• Moved to divide itself into 5
working divisions. Each member in-
dicated his (or her) preferences and
the chairman will bring a proposed
breakdown to the next meeting;

• Authorized the employment of
a temporary "coordinator" and the
securing of necessary "consultative
services";

• Authorized "task forces" to work
on staff hiring and on program pri-
orities for the Church;

• Took steps toward preparation
of a denominational budget for 1974;

• Requested existing boards and
agencies to continue furnishing help
in the area of program preparation
for another year, subject to any
changes the GEB may determine;

• Provided for preserving records
of existing boards and agencies in
the Historical Foundation, Montreat,
N. C.

found hope and harbor in the Gos-
pel of Jesus Christ.

The paper attributes this renewed
interest in Christianity to the wit-
ness of Christians who were prepared
to accept the great hardships and
danger for the sake of their faith.
They were very energetic, said one
source, in looking after those who
were sick and wounded.

Most of the civil leaders in the
South and the resistance leaders are
Christians. Observers say that this
could become a time of great
ingathering in the Church of Christ
in Southern Sudan. ffl

• Approved the appointment of a
special committee of professionals in
the area of investments and annuities
to study the request of the Board of
Annuities and Relief that it be kept
a separate agency.

It was pointed out that new divi-
sions will not perpetuate existing
board responsibilities or methods of
procedure. The Division of Interna-
tional Mission, for instance, will not
simply be the old Board of World
Missions under a new name, for the
selection, care and placement of mis-
sionaries will be the responsibility
of another division, that of Profes-
sional Development.

Staff Role Uncertain

Apparently aiming to guard its au-
thority against any undue influence
by hired staff, the board voted to
"docket for consideration at the next
meeting" the existing provision in
the plan of restructuring which gives
staff heads of divisions (yet to be
hired) a vote on the GEB.

And in the naming of new com-l
mittees they made certain no former
staffers landed in positions bearing
appointive or nominating responsi-
bility.

Long time employees of the
Church, from top executives down,
were assured that a committee will
begin functioning immediately to set
employment termination dates; and
another to match new job opportuni-
ties with available talent.

However, there was nothing said
to assure that present staff would be
chosen to new staff positions by the
GEB.

The organizational steps taken
here were hammered out in 5 work-
ing groups. These took to heart the
admonition of the restructuring com-
mittee that the board's task was not
one of consolidating existing pro-
grams, but of designing an entirely
new "life style," which will be
"open" and "process oriented."

Long time observers of board and
agency operations expressed the view
that the "operating style" of the new
body was more "political" than any
previous Church board or agency.

Recognizable factions appeared
early in the meeting and these jock-
eyed for power, especially in the se-
lection of the powerful executive

THE CHURCH OVERSEAS

PAGE 4 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 2, 1972

i

ommittee. Blacks, women, and lite-
ral activists were particularly vocal
n demanding procedures that would
avor their interests.

A nominating committee, chaired
>y the Rev. Frank Caldwell and
lamed by presiding chairman Ben
^. Rose, suggested a slate of 9 to be

!:lected to the executive committee

Ivhich would have represented 9
tates and which would have includ-
:d 3 women, 1 black, 5 laymen and
I: ministers. Presentation of the
late brought an immediate flurry of

jidditional nominations from the

lloor.

After the voting was over, the com-
nittee, described by a former execu-
ive as "the most powerful body in
|:he PCUS," was constituted as fol-
lows:

J The Rev. Ben L. Rose, chairman;
■Mrs. Gene R. Barnard, vice chair-
Jpan; Vernol R. Jansen, secretary; L.
JNelson Bell, ex officio as current
i moderator.

The Rev. Harvard Anderson, the
■Rev. Reuben Armendariz, the Rev.
IBetty L. Blanton, the Rev. David L.
JStitt.

1 Carl M. Hill, Joseph A. Norton,
fcMrs. Lewis Wilkins.
I In the final tabulations, three
i members of the original slate had
Ibeen replaced. These were the Rev.
-James L. Van Dyke, the Rev. John
|H. McKinnon and Willard Mc-
[Creight.

Observers took note of the "adver-
sary style" with which the GEB con-
| ducted its initial meeting. "These
i people are so accustomed to the ad-
i versary style they can't get used to
doing business without adversaries,"
| a synod's executive noted.

The reference was to hours spent
E in wrangling over who would have
I what authority within the GEB it-
I self, who would appoint committees
| and how they would be appointed,
and whether all minorities, and
women, would be equitably repre-
sented in all appointments.

Clearly impressed with, but un-
daunted by, the magnitude of their
assignment to take over some 59 ma-
jor areas of responsibility from the
more than 400 members of existing
boards and agencies, the General Ex-
ecutive Board launched its opera-
i tions in a spirit of "openness" to
" both the press and the public.

Noting that "as of today there is
(here) the complete ownership of
the national structure of the Presby-
terian Church US," Vernol R. Jan-
sen told the body in his introduc-
tory remarks: "The benchmark of
our plan is 'wholeness'; the style is
that of 'openness' and 'sharing.' "

It was indeed, as Mr. Jansen went
on to say, "moving day in the
PCUS."

Next meeting of the Board will
be in Atlanta, Sept. 22-24. til

Cleveland Registers
Unexpected Response

CLEVELAND — This Lake Erie
metropolis, with a reputation for be-
ing unreceptive to mass evangelism,
provided the greatest response ex-
perienced in any recent Billy Gra-
ham crusade. The city had been
avoided by many evangelists, and it
was the only remaining major Amer-
ican city in which Mr. Graham had
not held a crusade.

A total of 19,827 decisions for
Christ were registered during the ten
days. Daily attendance estimates
added up to 372,550 for the entire
crusade.

The campaign was conducted
amidst adverse weather conditions
and bomb threats. Site was the lake-
front stadium where the Cleveland
Indians play baseball and the Cleve-
land Browns play football.

Young people played a prominent
part in the crusade, with several giv-
ing testimonies and otherwise ap-
pearing on the platform. Many
worked behind the scenes as volun-
teers. One group, recruited at Ex-
po 72 in Dallas in June, canvassed
the city and shared their faith with
residents while inviting them to the
services. This group, which includ-
ed Northern Ohio youth as well as
some from as far away as both coasts,
also conducted street meetings down-
town.

More than half of the inquirers
who came forward in response to the
invitation were under 25.

The services were video-taped for
November telecasts in color at prime
time on over 300 United States sta-
tions. Other telecasts are planned in
Africa, Latin America, Australia and
some of the island nations. SI

Another Appeal Seen
In Iowa 'Baker Case'

IOWA CITY, Iowa — One of the
most involved and longest running
cases in Presbyterian discipline is
still alive and — according to a per-
son's view of the matter — well.

Dr. and Mrs. Joseph Baker have
been notified that the Permanent
Judicial Commission of the Synod
of Iowa reversed the action of South-
east Iowa Presbytery in their cases.
The presbytery had restored them
to communion in First Church here
last November.

They were originally suspended
from communion by the First
Church session in 1968 for opposing
plans to tear down an old church
building. When presbytery lifted the
suspension last year, the Rev. Jack
Zerwas of First Church appealed to
synod, alleging that the Bakers had
presented no evidence of repentance.

The drawn out case, which has
already been before the General As-
sembly, will go back again next year.
Dr. Baker, a college professor here,
has served notice that he will appeal
the synod commission's verdict. SI

Easter Offering Plans
Of Task Force Listed

ATLANTA (PN) — A list of model
programs for aid to the hungry and
poverty-stricken will be available to
Presbyterian US churches as objec-
tives for the denomination's 1973
Easter offering next spring.

The programs seek to alleviate
hunger overseas and in areas of the
General Assembly.

Although all of the Easter offering
will be channeled to the Board of
World Missions, 30 per cent of the
income is to be administered by the
Church's task force on world hun-
ger.

A portion (of the 30 per cent)
will also be allocated to presbyteries
for projects on that level.

The task force, meeting in Atlanta,
approved a grant of $20,000 for the
"Land for the Landless" project in
Brazil.

During its June meeting the task
force also:

— Heard a progress report on region-
al workshops on rural poverty and

PAGE 5 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 2, 1972

economic development. Five are
planned in the southeastern United
States, in cooperation with the Bap-
tists and Methodists, with intent to
encourage local congregations to be-
come concerned and do something
about the problem.
— Discussed the Consultation on
World Hunger and Development,
set for May 27-31, 1973, at the Uni-
versity of Georgia, Athens, Ga.
— Voted to ask the youth depart-
ment of the Board of Christian Edu-
cation to nominate one youth con-
sultant to attend future task force
meetings. ffl

Planners, Goals Listed
For Hunger Consultation

ATLANTA (PN) — Plans are pick-
ing up momentum for a Consulta-
tion on World Hunger and Devel-
opment, sponsored by a unit of the
Presbyterian Church US next May.

About 200 participants, mostly
from Presbyterian US constituency,
will be invited by the planning com-
mittee of the denomination's Task
Force on World Hunger to take part
in the May 27-31 event. It will be
held at the Center for Continuing
Education at the University of Geor-
gia, Athens.

A "statement of rationale and ob-
jectives" for the consultation from
the task force's planning committee
declared, "The purpose (of the con-
sultation) is to bring together per-
sons, principally from the Presby-
terian Church US, who by profession
and training or present position, can
have a great influence on attacking
the root causes of world hunger, to
plan strategy for marshaling the
strength of our Church, and for in-
fluencing the policies and practices
of government, business and other
sectors of our society with regard to
attacking hunger and promoting de-
velopment."

The statement urges the task force
to call "the Presbyterian Church US
to a serious consideration of what is
Christ's will for us as individual
Christians, as a Church, as American
citizens in such a time as this."

Objectives being proposed for the
consultation are: 1) to identify and
understand more deeply the root
causes of world hunger and point
out potential consequences of alter-
natives; 2) to identify the potential
within the denomination's member-
ship to deal with these causes and
to aid in world development; 3) to
work toward "attitudinal change" in

Church constituency; 4) to enable
people in positions of power to find
guidelines for decisions which can
have far-reaching influence; 5) to
identify the inter-relationships be-
tween problems of development in
the Southern United States and those
in the Third World; 6) to consider
the range of action-solutions which
are being undertaken by other
churches and groups and ascertain
their significance for the Presbyterian
Church US; and 7) to suggest long-
range strategy.

The planning committee named
by the task force for the consulta-
tion includes: Frank Miller, Atlanta
investor, representing business;
Frank Groschelle, regional director
of the U. S. Dept. of Health, Edu-
cation and Welfare, Atlanta, repre-
senting government; Grant Shockley
of the Candler School of Theology,
Emory University, Atlanta, repre-
senting a developing sector in the
United States; Lyle Conrad from
the National Center for Disease Con-
trol, Atlanta, as the expert from the
medical community; Jonathan West-
fall of the University of Georgia,
Athens, expert from the academic
community; Constance Conrad of
the Family Planning Program, Em-
ory University School of Medicine,
Atlanta, expert on the population
problem; E. T. Kehrer from th e
AFL-CIO Civil Rights Dept., Atlan-
ta, representing labor; Mrs. Don
Shriver of Raleigh, N. C, represent-
ing the Church-at-large; a represen-
tative of Presbyterian US overseas
missionary force, not yet named; Pro-
fessor Richard Bass, Columbia Theo-
logical Seminary, Decatur, Ga., rep-
resenting the seminary community;
Robert Anderson from the Southern
Regional Council, Atlanta, repre-
senting a non-government agency;
and Dr. Osmundo Miranda of Tusca-
loosa, Ala., representing a develop-
ing nation.

Thomas Mahler, director of the
Georgia Center for Continuing Edu-
cation at the University of Georgia,
will be technical consultant.

General Assembly staff personnel
include Mrs. Bluford B. Hestir of
the Board of Women's Work, Thad
Godwin, Board of National Minis-
tries, and James A. Cogswell, direc-
tor of the Task Force on World
Hunger, all of Atlanta.

Dr. Cogswell, task force director,
sent out a letter early in July to all
pastors and leaders, asking them to
suggest names of potential partici-
pants to complete the roster. 51

Two Davidson Buildings
Designated 'Historic'

DAVIDSON, N. C. — Two century
old Davidson College buildings, th<
Eumenean and Philanthropic Halls
have been officially accepted for thf
National Register of Historic Places
the official list of the nation's cul
tural property considered worth pre
serving.

Under the supervision of the Na-
tional Park Service, such buildings
and sites are given special considera
tion by a national advisory council
in case they are jeopardized by any
federal project such as a highway
or dam. Federal grants are also
available for preserving the histori-
cal places if needed.

Completed in 1849, the two halls
were recently described by the North
Carolina Department of Archives
and History as being among the few
true examples of Greek Revival ar-
chitecture in the state.

They are two stories high with
massive columns and porches in the
front and solid brick in the body of
the buildings. Much of their origi-
nal wood furniture is still in use.
The buildings were completely ren-
ovated in 1956 and subsequently air-
conditioned. II

Winners Announced
In Coverage Contest

ATLANTA (PN) — The Memphi
Commercial Appeal and the Castro-
ville (Tex.) News Bulletin are this
years's winners of the R. S. Reynolds
Award for Excellence in Religious
New Coverage in the daily and non-
daily divisions.

Announcement was made here by
William P. Lamkin, secretary of in-
formation for the General Council]
Presbyterian Church US, sponsor ol
the annual contest.

Competition was open to news-
papers in 16 southern and border
states in which the member denomi-
nation has churches. Entries were for
the calendar year 1971.

A $100 cash award and a plaque
will be presented to the winners.

The judges cited the "depth oB
reporting" and good display of arti-
cles in the Memphis entry. "Careful
analysis of the articles themselves
indicated to the judges that the
writer had developed real insight
into the material covered, and this
insight showed up in the excellence
of the copy . . . ."

hi

PAGE 6 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 2, 1972

•.very believer in Jesus Christ is a missionary —

God's Marching Orders

Biting out the words, the man
said, "I don't believe in world
missions! We've got enough work
io do here at home. Why spoil peo-
ple who have their own religion?
It's disgraceful to try to change their
thinking. "

Many a person has raised these
pbjections. Why send missionaries?
Because Jesus Christ commanded it
vhen He said, "Go ye into all the
ivorld and preach the Gospel to every
i:reature. He that believeth and is
paptized shall be saved, but he that
believeth not shall be damned"
(Mark 16:15-16).

' That is what I call strong lan-
guage. That is an order which
homes directly from God. Under-
lining the importance of these words
is the circumstance in which they
fvere given. Jesus made an appoint-
nent with His eleven disciples to
ineet Him at a mountain in Gali-
lee. When they saw Him, some
Lvorshiped, some doubted. Jesus
;aid to them, "All power is given
unto me in heaven and in earth"
(Matt. 28:18) . What a claim!

Then He immediately added, "Go
/e therefore, and teach all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the
Father and of the Son, and of the
Holy Ghost, teaching them to ob-
serve all things whatsoever I have
Commanded you. And lo, I am with
you always, even unto the end of
•he world. Amen" (Matt. 28:19-20).

This commission to go into the
world was based on Christ's claim to
all power and authority; also, these
(were His last words to His disciples
pefore He ascended into heaven. A
man's last words are extremely im-
portant. Jesus Christ didn't leave
this earth telling us to be good guys.

The author is pastor of the Key
Biscayne, Fla., Presbyterian Church.

Instead, He gave an order with mili-
tary precision, calling us to be wit-
nesses unto Him in Jerusalem, and
in all Judea and all Samaria and un-
to the uttermost parts of the earth
(Acts 1:8) .

You are to go into all the world.
Yes, I mean you. Are you a believ-
er? If not, you need a missionary.
If you have not repented of sin, re-
ceived Christ as Saviour and been
baptized, I, right now, am God's
missionary to you. I didn't ask for
this task. I have been called to
share with you the most important
message that you will ever hear. An
old saying goes something like this:
Either you are a missionary or you
need one.

Don't Just Sit There

Where do you stand? Have you
heard the Word of God? Have you
responded? If you are a believer,
you are commanded to go. No, you
can't sit there comfortably. You
have a job. You are a believer. You
are commanded to go. You must
get up and get going into all the
world. You are to preach the Gos-
pel, not just listen to the preacher
in the pulpit on Sunday; you are
given the same task.

Preaching is not playing orator.
Many of us see it only in those terms.
Charles Spurgeon, one of the great-
est preachers in history, could hold
his own in any contest of oratory.
Yet he noted that any attempt at
high flown oratory only desecrates
the Sabbath. Those of us who try
to wow other people with our elo-
quence are simply uttering smooth
sounds which lull men and women
to sleep.

Preaching is the simple declara-
tion of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
You need no talents of eloquence to

JOHN A. HUFFMAN JR.

declare the good news of salvation.
The Gospel is good news. It is the
good news that God accepts you as
you are. You've done a lot of liv-
ing. Have you ever thought what
it would be like to be a new baby
coming into life with a fresh start?
One advantage you'd have this time
around would be your previous ex-
perience. What would you do dif-
ferently with your life?

I imagine there are many changes
you would make if you could have
a fresh start. This Gospel is the
good news that you can have a fresh
start. Your mistakes, your sins can
be completely blotted out. You say,
"I know it. I have been forgiven."
Then you have the job of spreading
the word about what God has given
to you. Jesus said, "Go ye into all
the world and preach the Gospel to
every creature. He that believeth
and is baptized shall be saved. But
he that believeth not shall be
damned."

Share the News

If what Christ said is the truth
and you are not telling people about
it, you are the most selfish person
in the world. You're the person who
would hoard an endless supply of
cool, fresh, spring water from people
crawling their way in the Sahara
desert, dying from thirst. You are
an accomplice in the crime. Or per-
haps you are not aware of the high
value of this possession which is
yours. You'd better wake up! Sal-
vation is precisely what it is called.
It is eternal life, and it is yours to
share with others.

Yes, you are a preacher. You are
to preach the Gospel to every single
creature on God's earth. But you
say, "I can't preach," and maybe
you can't, but you can live a holy

PAGE 7 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 2, 1972

life. That's the declaration of the
Gospel of Jesus Christ. You can quit
running your life on your own
ground rules and begin to function
in the way God would have you live.

You can share a testimony of your
faith with a friend. Look at a teen-
ager who is in love. She doesn't
hide the fact. If anything, it's hard
to keep her quiet about it! No, you
don't have to step up into this pul-
pit. In the course of one week you'll
meet plenty of people who'll never
be touched by the declaration of the
Gospel from the pulpit of this or
any other church.

The Pulpit Is Yours

You can preach through the print-
ed word. Write a letter to a friend.
Give a book. That letter, that book,
that written testimony of what God
has done in your life can be the ve-
hicle of transformation. Or perhaps
you can speak to large groups. The
pulpit is yours. God wants you
in it.

Lane Adams, decorated war pilot,
night club entertainer, a man whose
life was being governed by a bottle,
encountered the risen Christ. He
went to seminary older than most
of his classmates, but he tackled the
job. Ben Haden, lawyer, highly suc-
cessful newspaper publisher, was
touched by the Gospel of Jesus
Christ. He left a successful career
behind him and went to seminary.
Today he preaches to hundreds each
week in his Chattanooga pulpit and
talks to thousands more each week
by radio. Faithful to God's com-
mission, these two men are doing
the job.

You can teach Sunday school. You
can give a testimony of your faith.
In small groups or large groups you
can reach the men and women who
are hungry for spiritual reality. You
can bring a friend to church. That's
your job. Christ has commanded
you: the task is clear, and there are
so many different ways of doing it
there can be no cop-out.

Spread the Word!

You are to preach to every single
creature. The job is to get the
Word out to every person. You are
to challenge the curiosity of the
world. This includes rich and poor.
Some of the individuals most starved
for the Gospel are the rich.

Often they don't hear the Word
from their own pulpits. Many a

preacher has found himself washed
into a compromise of the Word of
God to survive the pressures of a
large pulpit. The message comes
out a dull, inoffensive, bland word
which will shake no one's soul. The
prominent people of the community
will come for a while. Yet why
should they waste a morning when
they could be on the golf course if
they hear nothing more than vague
ethical pleasantries?

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is life
and death, the word for the rich
man which will reorganize his ex-
istence, the word for the poor man
who can't quite meet his bills or
educate his children. They both
have spiritual needs and they both
need to know God in reality.

This message is to old and young
and it takes all methods of presenta-
tion; it knows no boundaries of east
or west, north or south. This Gos-
pel cannot be blocked by iron cur-
tain or bamboo pall. It is for every
nation, not simply the Christian-
oriented world, the message for
Hindu, Moslem, Buddhist, Shinto-
ist, Jew.

Jesus Christ calls you to be a
proselytizer. That's basic to Chris-
tianity. Our message must get to the
ends of the world, for it speaks the
truth, no matter what the cost may
be. The cure for the cancer of sin,
that broken relationship with God,
is Jesus Christ, His death and resur-
rection. I am immoral if I do not
dedicate my life to letting others
know about that cure.

Excellent Strategy

That is the reason I am so sold on
the strategy of personal evangelism.
That's your job, to get the word
across, because you can reach people
I can never touch.

That is the reason I am sold on
preaching. In any church on Sun-
day morning there is someone with
a need, someone looking for the
Word of God. God pity the church
which does not put preaching, the
declaration of the Gospel, front and
center.

That is the reason I am sold on
radio and television ministries. One
night my wife and I walked along
the ocean front on South Miami
Beach. We sat down in the middle
of a gathering of about 100 elderly
Jewish people who were entertain-
ing each other with songs of their
youth. We could tell that each one
was lonely. Living in apartment

houses and small hotels, they are thf
people who can be reached only b\
the kind of radio or television min
istry which puts the Gospel intc
their living rooms. And that is wh}
we are here, to get the Word out tc
everybody.

What are the results? Some will
believe and some will disbelieve. No
where does it say that all men will
be saved. Christ himself put it terse
ly: "He that believeth shall be saved.
But he that believeth not shall be
damned."

There's no place for the subtle
heresy of Universalism. The procla-
mation of the Gospel is more than
a simple announcement that God
has saved all men. Nothing in Scrip-
ture leads us to believe that all will
be saved, that it makes no difference
what your religious background is.
That's our escape from responsibil-
ity. God is a God of love, but He
is also a God of judgment. We are
responsible to respond to Him. Our
job is to get to every single person
in this world.

Command from Christ

The purpose is to get the Word
around. You are a missionary, you
are to go into the world, you are to
get the Word to every person. It is
only when you see your responsibil-
ity as a missionary that we add to
this the unique ministry of foreign
missions. You cannot buy a mission-
ary to take your place, but you can
help reach out with men and women
whom God has called to declare His
Word in foreign cultures against
what seems to be impossible odds. I
know the classic reactions. The
world mission movement has been
accused of many abuses, and it is J
guilty of some.

Some say that world missions is I
phony, that it steps out in a judg-
mental attitude, but this is a tragic
distortion. Granted there have been
abuses. Where they have occurred,
it is wrong, a discredit to Jesus
Christ. Many a young man has died
in the prime of his life for his Lord,
however, and it takes a sincere man
or woman to make this kind of sacri-
fice.

Enough and More

Others say, "Isn't there enough to
do here at home?" Yes, there is.
And we're trying to do it, but the
whole world is our parish. Why? '
Because God has said, "Go." To

PAGE 8 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 2, 1972

stay home would violate the exciting
potential of serving God. The needs
are worldwide. No one man can do
it all. There's plenty to do at home,
but there's much more to do out
there.

The critics say that the world mis-
sion movement has simply exported
western culture. Often the traders
-have followed in the footsteps of the
missionaries, and fortunes have been
made putting muu muus on natives.
iYet many a tiny village in the heart

of Africa has a hospital because of
people who loved Jesus Christ and
other people. Many a hamlet in
southeast Asia has a schoolhouse be-
cause someone loved Jesus Christ
and shared education with other peo-
ple. World missions have brought
education and health, along with the
life-changing Gospel of Jesus Christ
to millions of people throughout the
world. Obedience is the word. Some
have been obedient.

Some say, "I can't go." Perhaps

you can't, but you can be a mission-
ary at home. You can have a part
in sending someone. By participat-
ing in the worldwide mission enter-
prise you are engaged in an excit-
ing opportunity. Plug in to the
evangelical enterprise for believers
everywhere. Do your job here. Help
those who go abroad.

The command is clear. Are you
following? Are you Christ's? If so,
you are a missionary. I challenge
you to get to work! 51

Wisdom is knowing what to do in the ultimate; ge?iius is knowing what to do next —

A Plan For a Continuing Church

Jj ivision is being forced on the
I -1— ' Presbyterian Church US, al-
I though many of us have attempted
I to fight, thwart, and reverse the
'trend within the courts of the
i Church. We may have been able
to slow it down somewhat, but that's
i about all.

i Generally speaking, the deter-
mined, radical ecumenists have re-
lentlessly and successfully pressed on
toward eliminating the distinctive
witness of our beloved Church, and
immersing us in some larger group
for organizational unity: The first
step is union with the United Pres-
byterian Church USA, then COCU,
and eventually union with Rome.

The Steering Committee for a
Continuing Church is determined
to continue a Presbyterian Church
loyal to Scripture and the Reformed
faith, despite efforts to liquidate it.
The ecumenists have forced us to ac-
cept the apparent inevitability of
division and we would be foolish
and derelict in our duty if we did
not make preparation for division.
Hence, we are suggesting a plan for
a continuing body of congregations
and presbyteries loyal to the Scrip-

The author, an attorney of Green-
ville, Ala., is secretary of Concerned
Presbyterians and an "unhappy"
member of the Joint Union Commit-
tee of 32, having been appointed
to that post by Moderator Ben Rose.

tures and the Westminster Stand-
ards.

Notice that we say "a" plan, not
"the" plan, and we use the indefi-
nite article for several reasons:

We recognize that the sovereign
Holy Spirit may be pleased to so re-
vive our Church that revisions in
this plan may be necessary. We do
not limit the power of God, for we
know that He can bring revival, con-
victing and changing those in posi-
tions of leadership in our Church.
In our human judgment, we see no
signs of any such revival; but we do
pray fervently for it.

We think this is the best plan at
this moment but, as many people
are to participate in any final plan,
we fully recognize that this one may
be revised as suggestions which
would improve it are made.

No Crystal Ball

Further events may require revi-
sions in our plan which contem-
plates the division of the Church
when amalgamation with theUPUSA
Church is adopted. If proponents of
union were to change their program
or seek to defeat us with unreason-
able delays, our plan would prob-
ably need some changes, but they
have promised the Church that their
proposal would be presented to the
1973 General Assembly. We will ac-
cept their good faith until events

W. JACK WILLIAMSON

prove otherwise.

Our plan assumes that the ar-
rangement for merger with the
UPUSA Church will contain an ac-
ceptable provision permitting those
churches which do not want to en-
ter the union to "elect not to par-
ticipate," and to continue as a Pres-
byterian Church. This is the so-
called "escape clause." The draft of
a plan of union, now in the
Church's hands for study, contains
such a provision. With certain mi-
nor alterations, we believe the pro-
vision is acceptable.

The leaders of the Committee
of 32 have publicly and privately
committed themselves to the preser-
vation of an equitable escape clause.
We believe that men of good will
shall prevail in recognizing that
when Christians have irreconcilable
differences, it is much better to de-
part in peace in a spirit of fairness
than to attempt to force a position
which violates the conscience of oth-
ers.

We fully realize that any plan
of union must be approved by the
General Assembly. If the General
Assembly fails to approve a plan of
union with an acceptable escape
clause, then our plan probably
would have to be revised.

These are some of the reasons why
we have suggested that this is "a"
plan for the continuation of a Pres-
byterian Church loyal to Scripture

PAGE 9 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 2, 1972

and the Reformed faith. We are
not suggesting it as the final plan,
for we recognize the possible neces-
sity for revision.

What then is this plan? It is really
very simple: To support any plan of
union with the UPUSA Church
which contains an acceptable clause
permitting local congregations and
ministers to elect not to enter the
union; and to exercise this election
not to enter the union and continue
our own Presbyterian Church.

Here Is Our Plan

Yes, we suggest support for such
a plan of union as the most effective
constitutional method of peaceful
realignment. The covenants of
agreement in the draft contain a
"conscience clause," which at pres-
ent reads, "a person might properly
support the plan of union while
conscientiously objecting to some
particular provision thereof." This
clause needs some refinement, but
there is hope that an acceptable
clause will be drafted which will
permit a person, in good conscience,
to vote for the plan either as a ve-
hicle for union with the UPUSA or
as a method of continuing our own
Presbyterian Church.

We believe that our proposal for
the preservation of a continuing
Church through the exercise of this
"election not to enter the union,"
is a good one for several reasons:

1) It will establish in the contin-
uing body a broader base with a
maximum number of churches be-
cause it forces a decision on a clear
cut issue. UPUSA union is a clear
doctrinal issue. Each congregation
will have to decide whether or not
it will go into the union or elect
not to enter.

2) It provides full protection for
any minister who elects not to en-
ter. A minister electing not to en-
ter will be on exactly the same basis
as the minister electing to enter the
union as far as the minister's an-
nuity is concerned. Any unconsti-
tutional method of our withdrawal
would leave the faithful minister in
a serious predicament.

3) It is a guaranteed constitution-
al method for a local church to elect
not to enter the union and still keep
its local church property.

Many Presbyterians erroneously
believe that the decision in the Sa-
vannah churches, case infallibly
guarantees that a Presbyterian con-
gregation may withdraw from the

PCUS and take its property with it.
This is not true. The case gives
us no such legal guarantee.

Churches in the state of Georgia
would have excellent chances so to
act and keep their property, but
churches in almost all other states
would have to count on the concur-
rence of their state Supreme Courts
if they were permitted to leave and
take their property. The Savannah
case, in any state other than Geor-
gia, would merely give a legal pos-
sibility which is a long way from a
legal guarantee.

This plan of union would insure
the fact that a local church could
elect not to enter, and keep its lo-
cal property.

4) It has the psychological ad-
vantage of moving together all the
like-minded at the same time. Oth-
er methods tend to cause individual
fragmentation. Under this plan we
continue in a group as a Presbyte-
rian Church.

5) It removes any taint of schism.
Our opposition has launched a prop-
aganda campaign to picture us as
the divisive separationists. Unfor-
tunately some of our dear friends
and fellow warriors have contrib-
uted to this propaganda image. We
know that the radical ecumenists
forced this division; and we know
it is unfair to label as divisive those
who merely wish to continue to up-
hold the doctrine and polity which
all have vowed to believe and ac-
cept. This plan would eliminate
this false issue.

6) It provides for the constitution-
al possibility of a national denomi-
nation. I know some people are
still suspicious of our northern
brothers, but there are many church-
es in other areas of the United
States that would be perfectly com-
patible with us in doctrine and pol-
ity. Presbyterianism in the United
States has been divided by geogra-
phy. Here is a possibility to unite

The Only Mortal Sin

It must be recognized that the
only mortal sin is unbelief. It is
only this sin that completely sunders
the mystical bond between the
Christian and his God. Indeed it is
this sin of refusing the grace and
mercy of God which is called the
sin against the Holy Spirit. — Donald
G. Bloesch.

Presbyterianism by theology. We
think that a national Presbyterian
Church loyal to Scripture and the
Reformed faith is desperately need-
ed in our time. This plan provides
such an opportunity.

Of course there are many prepa-
ratory steps to be taken in the ex-
pectation of continuing our Presby-
terian Church through election not
to enter the union with the UPUSA.
Every local congregation will need
preparation, for it is at the local
level that each decision will be !
made.

A first responsibility, then, would
be to ascertain that the members of I
the local church are fully informed
as to the issues so that they may
make an intelligent decision.

We recognize that the coming de-
cision is going to cause great trau- f:
ma in some local churches, as the
membership will be divided on the
issue and only one group can pre-
vail. However, we did not cause
this situation! It has been forced
upon us by the determination of
some to force their programs upon j
the Church. And the trauma will be i
equally great if congregations are not
permitted to participate in this cru-.I
cial decision.

Time Table

The time is rapidly approaching
when each local congregation shall
have to make this critical decision.
Although there are powerful forces j
at work to alter the time table for |
ecclesiastical political advantage, the |
present proposed time table remains p
as follows:

May-June 1973 UPUSA a n d |
PCUS General Assemblies cast first I
vote on the plan and send it down to I
presbyteries for advice and consent.

January 1974 All presbyteries in I
both Churches vote on plan; and j
stated clerks of the two Assemblies |
announce simultaneously the votes. 1

February-June 1974 Any congre-
gation and any minister may signify
election not to enter the new Church.

June 1974 The new Church and
the Continuing Church may simul-
taneously come into being by second j
vote of the two Assemblies.

Hence it is imperative that indi-
viduals, sessions and other judica-
tories study now the proposed plan
in order that each may be prepared
to face this coming hour of deci-
sion, ffl

PAGE 10 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 2, 1972

The Bible's words are the basic units of the Bible's ideas, both inspired by God —

Words and The Word

Every modern Biblical scholar
worth his salt knows of Ger-
hard Kittel's Wortebuch — in Eng-
lish, Theological Dictionary of the
New Testament. For the past 40
years scholars of international re-
nown have contributed the best of
their scholarly efforts in the produc-
tion of this multivolume, multipage
tribute to current Biblical studies.

Names such as Jeremias, von Rad,
Bultmann, and Stauffer indicate the
theological reputation which sur-
rounds this work. Already it has
become the indispensable tool of all
serious Biblical students. Regardless
of theological persuasion, the value
of Kittel's work is acknowledged on
every side.

Essential to the entire approach
of the study is the analysis of words.
Always, to be sure, the effort is made
to study words in context, but a dic-
tionary by self-definition deals pri-
marily with words. Inherently, rec-
ognition is given to the fact that the
basic denominator in human com-
munication is the word. Not the let-
ter, not the sentence, not the para-
graph, but the word.

The world's most learned Biblical
scholars, collaborating in the pro-
duction of Kittel's Wortebuch, have
spent their efforts in an exercise of
futility if words do not communicate
meaning. The meticulous tracing of
etymology, the comparative analysis
of words with other linguistic cog-
nates, the careful classification of
usages, all this painstaking labor
means nothing if words are not a bas-
ic unit of human communication.
The entire contribution of Kittel
builds on his implicit faith in words.

The methodology followed in the
production of Gerhard Kittel's
Theological Dictionary of the New
Testament has direct bearing on the
question of the extent of the inspira-

The author is a member of the
faculty at Westminster Seminary,
Philadelphia, Pa.

tion of the Bible. Often a person
suggests that he believes in the in-
spiration of the ideas of the Bible,
but does not believe in the inspira-
tion of the words of the Bible. How-
ever, if Kittel's studies have any va-
lidity whatsoever, this dichotomy be-
tween the "words" and the "ideas"
of the Bible is proven impossible.
The Bible's words are the basic units
of the Bible's ideas. Those who af-
firm their faith in the "verbal" in-
spiration of the Bible simply are
saying they wish to express fully
their faith in the inspiration of the
Bible's ideas.

Great confusion has occurred over
"verbal inspiration" by identifying
"verbal inspiration" with a theory
of "mechanical dictation." Such con-
fusion of categories may be com-
pared to the man who attempts to
apply the rule "three strikes and
you're out" to a football game! "Me-
chanical dictation" refers to a theory
concerning the method by which the
Bible was inspired. Very few would
hold exclusively to such a theory to-
day. "Verbal inspiration" refers to
the extent to which the Bible was
inspired.

What does believing in Jesus
Christ mean to you? Does it mean
this?

•He is the only begotten Son of
God, sent from God, to save His
people from sin (John 3:16-17).

• He was born of the Virgin Mary
(Luke 1:30-35).

• He was tempted at all points as we
are, yet He lived a perfect life
(Matt. 4:1-11) .

• He died on the Cross that we
might have salvation through His
shed blood (I Cor. 15:3-4) .

• He was raised from the dead the
third day to give us eternal life

PALMER ROBERTSON

It is not dishonoring or unschol-
arly to affirm faith in the words of
the Bible. Christ himself affirmed
His confidence not only in the
words, but in the letters, and even
in the portions of the letters of
Scripture (Matt. 5: 17-18) .

Neither is it denying the role that
men played in the production of
Scripture to affirm that God's Spirit
superintended the choice of words.
Men indeed were the ones "moved
by the Holy Ghost" in the produc-
tion of Scripture (II Pet. 1:21).
Chosen men, prepared by training
and temperament, used the modes of
expression common to themselves
to communicate God's Word. Yet
the words employed, being the basic
unit of communication, were selected
under the mysterious guidance of
God's Holy Spirit.

Why should any Christian object
to a faith that affirms the "verbal
inspiration" of Holy Scripture? Why
should not every confessor of Christ
gratefully acknowledge the won-
drous work of God in providing His
Church with the Bible, God's holy
and inspired Word, the "only infal-
lible rule of faith and practice"? EE

(John 11:25-26).

• He ascended into heaven after
His resurrection (Acts 1:9-11).

• He is coming again to receive us
into His Kingdom which He is pre-
paring for us (John 14:1-3) .

• He who believes in Him is not
condemned; he who does not believe
is condemned already, because he
has not believed in the name of the
only Son of God (John 3:18).

Believe in Him today. He will
give you a life of joy, peace, and
strength, to meet every need along
life's way. — Enise Kirby. EE

Believe in Him

PAGE 11 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 2, 1972

EDITORIALS

A Tale of Intrigue

In politics, one often hears refer-
ences to the "smoke-filled rooms"
where deals are made and the "real
business" is transacted, although the
people think they have control
through democratic election pro-
cesses.

The Church has its version of
"smoke-filled rooms" and the deals
made in them are fully as sordid as
any made in ward politics. Some-
times more sordid. But we'll tell
you a story and let you be the judge.

The key to appointments within
the Presbyterian Church US is the
Permanent Nominating Committee,
a body which has nominated people
to all the boards and agencies of the
Church, and which, things being as
they are, sometimes has been domi-
nated by ecclesiastical extremists.

For instance.

A couple of years ago Montreat-
Anderson College "cleaned house"
of undesirable students. Also, faculty.
Several dozen students were told that
their application for readmission
would not be approved. And two
or three faculty members were "en-
couraged" to seek employment else-
where.

One faculty member, in partic-

ular, improved the atmosphere on
campus immensely by leaving. To
say he had failed to be a wholesome
influence on the Christian life of
the community would be an under-
statement indeed.

Enter the Permanent Nominating
Committee.

It became known, early in the
spring of 1972, that the ivife of this
dismissed faculty member was being
proposed as a member of the con-
trolling Montreat College board of
directors. After they had managed
to catch their breath, certain influ-
ential people made certain overtures
to the Permanent Nominating Com-
mittee, in an effort to forestall such
a possibility.

By the time the General Assem-
bly had come and gone, and the
smoke from the rooms where deals
are made had abated, lo and behold,
the dismissed member himself was
on the Montreat College board of
directors.

That ain't all.

His wife is on the powerful 71-
member General Executive Board
which has started running all of the
affairs of the whole Church (see p.
4, this issue) . IE

Another Movement Starts

Theologians come and go and in
their coming and going often leave
behind spiritual and moral chaos.
It is characteristic of the liberal
mind that such chaos constitutes no
barrier to fame — nor to a ready
following, when the same theolo-
gian comes up with another bright
idea.

Remember Anglican Bishop John
A. T. Robinson? His book, Honest
to God, was the preface to the whole
"God is dead" movement and was
almost universally hailed in official
Presbyterian circles.

The former bishop, now promoted
to dean of Trinity College, Cam-
bridge, has done it again. As the in-
vitee! guest speaker for the British
Methodist Conference, he said the
current sex revolution should be
celebrated by lowering the legal age

of consent to 14. He also said he
thought the age of consent for homo-
sexual relations should be lowered
to the same age (from 21 to 14) .

Initial reaction, as was the case
when Honest to God first appeared,
appeared largely negative. Methodist
Conference President Harry O. Mor-
ton defended the dean's right to ex-
press his opinion, but said he
"frankly doubted" that his 13-year-
old daughter would be ready to
make mature decisions concerning
her sex life in another year.

Mr. Morton qualified his opposi-
tion by saying, "I welcome any
speech that helps us in this matter
to get away from sham and hypoc-
risy and which puts the real ques-
tions." He added that "as a Church
leader" he did not want to do any-
thing "to cast doubts on" the

Church's ability to discuss the issue
to its advantage.

An official of the Boy's Brigade,
a youth group claiming 160,000
members in England, said he felt
sure his organization definitely
"would condemn sex at the age of
14."

We'll try to keep up with the de-
bate as it proceeds. Sooner or later,
of course, it will cross the Atlantic
and wind up in a PCUS General As-
sembly resolution.

After all, won't the Church's abor-
tion program take care of any un-
desirable consequences? II

Things Have Changed

In one of his syndicated columns,
Sydney J. Harris, who does not pub
licly profess his religion, opined
that the greatest difference between
people living today and those who
lived in past ages is that today the
notion of heaven has been moved to
earth.

"In all past ages," wrote Mr. Har-
ris, "the Western world, at least,
was motivated by the hope and
promise of happiness in another
world to come. For most people
living today, this has been replaced
by the hope — if not the promise —
of a happy state in this world, for
future generations if not for us."

Mr. Harris observes further thaC
"eschatological notions have been
transferred, in great part, to the sec-
ular fields of politics, economics and
society."

He says ideas of "progress" have
replaced those of "providence"; that
the idea of a just society, a stable
society, a good society, or even an
improving society has replaced sal-
vation "as the ultimate goal for
many, if not most people."

All this Mr. Harris finds respon-
sible for the chaos and conflict in
modern society. "The seculariza-
tion of heaven into a Utopian goal
on earth gives us both our vitality
and our frictions, both our wild
hopes and our bleak fears. Things
never looked so bad before because
people never wanted them to look
so good," he concludes.

There's a world of wisdom in
those thoughts, we think. The sec-
ularization of religious ideas, and
particularly of religious eschatology
(a sophisticated way of saying,
"what's going to happen in the fu-
ture") , has been the opposite side

PAGE 12 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 2, 1972

THE LAYMAN AND HIS CHURCH

m

A Different View

of the coin from revealed religion
ever since Marx proposed that the
social implications of Christianity
operate as universal laws without
any spiritual considerations what-
ever.

The strength of Communism has
been its gospel that the future for
mankind does not consist of "pie in
the sky by and by" but rather "pie
on earth by and by" when the in-
equities of wealth have been elimi-
nated through revolution.

Mr. Harris has simply called at-
tention to the fact that Marxist phi-
losophy (aided and abetted by lib-
eral religion) , has had an enormous
effect on the world which Lenin
said would fall into the Communist
orbit like an overripe plum.

Once again, here's a thought to
underscore the urgent need for a
countering influence — a Church
faithful to the Gospel and to Scrip-
ture which will proclaim the truth
about God and man to a flounder-
ing world. IB

Presbyterian Baptism

The answer to the 165th question
in the Larger Catechism is a concise
yet comprehensive definition of bap-
tism. The Church of Scotland has
adapted it as the introduction of its
sacrament of baptism. The words
of this preface together with the
questions in our Book of Church
Order, fit into a proper Presbyterian
and Biblical baptism service:

Baptism is a sacrament of the New
Testament, ordained by Christ in
the Great Commission (Matt. 28:
19) . By the washing of water in the
name of the Father, and of the Son,
and of the Holy Spirit, God signi-
fies and seals our ingrafting into
Christ, the remission of our sins by
His blood and regeneration by His
Spirit, our adoption into His family
and resurrection unto everlasting
life. Thereby those baptized are
solemnly admitted into the visible
Church, and enter into an open and
professed engagement to be wholly
and openly the Lord's:

1) Do you acknowledge your
child's need of the cleansing blood
of Jesus Christ, and the renewing
grace of the Holy Spirit?

2) Do you claim God's covenant
promises in (his) behalf, and do you
look in faith to the Lord Jesus

(Continued on p. 19, col. 1)

I was a commissioner to the re-
cent General Assembly when Dr. Al-
bert Winn, president of Louisville
Theological Seminary, spoke against
the Vietnam war. He said, in part,
"There are powerful forces in our
society that are determined none of
us will ever again know anything
but a war-oriented society. The
powers that run our society are so
war-oriented that a public prayer for
peace is to them a subversive act.
The American people have not been
told the truth. We have been lied
to so long that even when the truth
comes out, we cannot hear it . . . ."

Although I had hoped to reply
to this at the General Assembly, I
was unable to get a microphone be-
fore debate time ran out. Since the
press was present and gave Dr.
Winn's speech so much publicity, I
want to present another view of the
situation, although it is old "news."
I respect the sincerity of Dr. Winn
and I respect his right to express
his view on the war in Vietnam. I
trust that he will not mind my hav-
ing the same privilege extended to
me through another medium.

I strongly disagree with Dr. Winn
in his implication that the United
States is primarily to blame for this
war and that this nation is not do-
ing much to seek a real peace. His
devastating attack on this nation
was unfair, unjust and unnecessary.

No doubt there will be great re-
joicing in Hanoi when his speech is
read there! Had he made his speech
in Hanoi, Peking or Moscow, attack-
ing those governments as he did our
nation, he would probably have gone
to prison for life — if he did not re-
ceive the death sentence — yet the
very nation he attacked is the one
which gave him the right to speak
his views.

More than 500,000 combat soldiers
have been brought home from Viet-
nam, leaving only 60,000 in that
country. We must protect these
men who are left there and the only

This week the layman's viewpoint
is brought by M. P. Niven, an elder
of Greenville , S. C.

way to do that is by bombing North
Vietnam and mining its harbors. If
we did not do these things, those
60,000 American soldiers would be
killed by the enemy.

The United States government of-
ficials have worked hard for peace
and our nation has offered Hanoi
a most reasonable peace settlement.
Our President has talked in person
with high officials in Russia and
China seeking peace. One of our
former moderators of the Presbyte-
rian Church US made a trip to Paris
in hopes of obtaining peace. He
failed, too.

We all want peace; we all deplore
war. Our enemies, however, do
not want peace; they understand on-
ly power and force. I will work for
peace and pray for peace, but I do
not want us to have the kind of
peace Chamberlain made with Hit-
ler. By the grace of God, let us have
peace with honor.

Our great nation has made some
grave mistakes and will continue to
make them. So has our General As-
sembly. It is because these bodies
are made up of human beings who
are not perfect. In spite of our mis-
takes and shortcomings, I would not
trade my country for any other in
the world.

I cannot and I will not sit idly
by and let someone run down Amer-
ica and Americans unjustly, even to
the stab in the back. We owe this
much to the honor and glory of
many thousands of our fighting men
who have died in battle so that all
of us can breathe the air of freedom
and enjoy our American democratic
way of life today.

This wonderful nation has more
Christians and more churches, than
any other nation on earth. The
people of the United States are more
generous with material wealth to
charitable causes, be they individ-
uals, or defeated or undeveloped na-
tions, than any other people in the
world's history. Here we enjoy more
freedom to worship, live and give.

So I do not condemn America as
Dr. Winn did. Instead, I thank God
for the United States; may America
live until Christ returns. 11

PAGE 13 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 2, 1972

SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON

For August 20, 1972

Sharing in Christ s Work

Rev. Jack B. Scott

INTRODUCTION: For several
weeks our topic has been the devo-
tional life, from various aspects. Now
as we near the end of this series of
studies, it is appropriate that we see
the implications of a devout life in
terms of service in God's kingdom.
From the beginning our Lord has in-
tended that His children bear much
fruit. That is, we are to conduct
ourselves in such a way that the
world may know that we are the
children of God. This is the way
we serve Christ best.

I. THE FRUIT GOD DESIRES
(Gen. 18:19). In calling Abraham,
God expressed His desire and intent
for Abraham and his children. It
was "that they may keep the way of
the Lord, to do righteousness and
justice . . . ."

In these two words, righteousness
and justice, we find the summation
of God's will for us. We are to live
lives that reflect the righteousness
and justice which God expects in
His children. By righteousness is
meant ethical Tightness or purity.
Only God's Word is the standard of
what is right. To be righteous, there-
fore, we must be right by the stand-
ards of God, ethically right before
God. By justice is meant that we
must apply God's law to our lives
in all of our relationships with oth-
ers. In His Word God teaches what
our relationship to our fellowman
must be. The task of God's child
is to apply this law to every facet of
his life.

Throughout Scripture these same
two demands are constantly made of
God's children. Continually God
searches our lives to determine
whether or not we have met them.

The prophets warned Israel and
Judah of the consequences of failing
in these areas and the importance of
righteousness and justice in their liv-
ing (Amos 7:8, 24; Isa. 1:21). Note
particularly the fifth chapter of
Isaiah. There God compared His
people to a vineyard. He planted
and cared for the vineyard, looking
for the expected fruit, righteousness

Background Scripture: Matthew

17:1-20; John 15:1-11
Key Verses: John 15:1-11
Devotional Reading: John 14:12-21
Memory Selection: John 14:21

and justice. But instead of justice
He got oppression (cruelty toward
other Israelites) . Instead of right-
eousness He got cries (either the cry
of evil itself as in Sodom, Gen. 18:
21; 19:13; or, the cry of distress from
those hurt by unrighteousness) .

The Lord makes clear that He will
judge the Church on the basis of
righteousness and justice and sweep
away all that is not according to His
will (Isa. 28:17) . At the same time,
men realize that they cannot attain
what God demands from them. By
themselves, they are not able.

No one in Israel could by his own
effort produce a life that matched
the will of God. The prophet
Isaiah himself cried out, "Justice is
far from us, neither doth righteous-
ness overtake us; we look for light,
but, behold, darkness; for brightness,
but we walk in obscurity" (Isa. 59:
9. Compare also 59:14) .

Our situation is shown to us clear-
ly from Scripture: What God expects
and demands from us, we cannot of
ourselves produce. The life of the
natural man is both unrighteous and
without justice. He can neither ethi-
cally before God or in his dealings
with his fellowmen do the will of
God. Therefore, as he is, man is
unfit for God's kingdom and unfit
to be God's colaborer in this world.

For this reason, Scripture also of-
fers us hope in the area of righteous-
ness and justice. First Hosea de-
clared: "I will betroth thee unto me
in righteousness, and in justice, and
in lovingkindness, and in mercies"
(Hos. 2:19). Thus by God's own
love and mercy, He will provide for
us what we can never provide our-
selves.

Similarly, Isaiah promised, "Zion

The International Sunday School Lesson Out-
lines are copyrighted by The International
Council of Religious Education.

shall be redeemed with justice and
her converts with righteousness" (1:
27) . Later Isaiah pointed out that
the expectation of God will be met
by the redeemer, the Christ. He will
uphold His kingdom with justice
and righteousness (Isa. 9:7. Compare
also Isaiah 32:1 and 51:4-5) . Christ
who died for our sins is the means
of our righteousness and justice (Isa.
53) . He lived a life of righteousness
with no sin and in all of His deal-
ings with men, He is just.

Then how is anyone to be just
and righteous in God's sight? God
expressed this truth: "Abraham be-
lieved in the Lord and He reckoned
it to him for righteousness" (Gen.
15:6) . Again, Isaiah taught that "he
that believeth in Him (Christ) shall
not be in haste (be put to shame) ."
Compare Romans 9:33 and 10:11. Fi-
nally, "The righteous shall live by his
faith" (Hab. 2:4) .

What we cannot possibly do by
ourselves is done for us through
Christ and by faith in Him we stand
righteous before God, just in His
sight. We can, therefore, do the will
of God, righteousness and justice, by!:
what Christ does in us through re-
demption.

It is important to establish this
truth so that we may know that on-
ly if we have faith in the Lord can
we ever be His servants and do His
will. As Isaiah said to Ahaz and to
Israel long ago, "If ye will not be-
lieve, surely ye shall not be estab-
lished" (Isa. 7:9. Compare II Chron. j
20:20) . The writer to the Hebrews
said, "Without faith it is impossible
to please Him for he that comes to
God must believe that He is, and
that He is a rewarder of them who
seek after Him" (Heb. 11:6).

II. THE FRUIT AND JESUS
CHRIST (Matt. 17:1-20; John 15:1-
11) . One day the disciples of Jesus,
Peter, James and John, had the privi-
lege of going to a mountaintop and
seeing Jesus transfigured before their
very eyes into the heavenly glory
which He had known before He
came to dwell with men. It was an

PAGE 14 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 2, 1972

awesome sight and it filled the dis-
ciples with fear; they heard the very
voice of God, praising His Son
(Matt. 17:5-6) .

When they descended from the
mountaintop to the level where men
were living, the disciples were im-
mediately confronted with a situa-
tion with which they could not cope.
A man had brought his epileptic son
to be cured by those disciples who
were at the foot of the mountain and
they were not able (17:16).

Jesus rebuked the disciples for
their lack of faith, then He showed
that He had the power to cure (v.
17) . The disciples had apparently
sought on their own, not through
Jesus, to cure the boy. They had not
had faith in Jesus, though He had
given them every reason to have such
faith.

Jesus' promise that if they had
faith in Him (for there is no mean-
ing to faith except in Christ) , they
could do many mighty things in
service in His kingdom. Nothing
would be impossible because with
God all things are possible (v. 20;
compare Mark 9:23 and Matt. 19:
26).

Jesus showed the relationship of
fruits in the believer's life to him-
self (John 15) . By the figure of the
vine with its branches and fruit, He
said that all of His believers are
totally dependent on Him, and the
only way they can bear fruit is by
abiding in Him. This is like the
parable in Isaiah 5. There the vine
(Israel) failed to produce the de-
sired fruit of righteousness and jus-
tice. Here Christ the true vine by
contrast, does produce the fruit God
desires (this same righteousness and
justice) .

The key word here is "abide" (v.
4, etc.) . Over and over Jesus called
on His own disciples to abide
(trust) in Him. Without Him they
could do nothing. Without Christ,
we cannot do any good thing (v. 4) .
The promise is that if we abide, we
will bear much fruit (v. 5) .

Jesus elucidated the sense of abid-
ing by saying that we abide in Him
as His Word abides in us. It is quite
improper to suppose that we can
maintain a right relationship with
Christ if we ignore His Word (the
Old and New Testaments) . We love
Christ as we seek to do His will in
our lives, so fruitbearing is not some
mystical experience but the product
of a life that trusts wholly in Jesus
and knows and loves His Word, ap-
plying it to all of life.

Jesus enumerated some of the fruit
which we can expect in our lives if
we do abide in Him: love (v. 10) ;
joy (v. 11). This indicates that the
true fruit of righteousness and justice
changes our lives from hate to love
and from despair to joy. This is the
way we glorify our Lord in this life.

III. THE FRUIT AND THE
HOLY SPIRIT (John 14:12-17) . Je-
sus promised that He would send the
comforter to abide with us (John 15:
26) . Through the comforter we shall
have Christ continually abiding in
us (John 14:17) .

This comforter is, of course, the
Holy Spirit whom Jesus sent at Pen-
tecost to be with His believers for-
ever. Without Him we cannot hope
to do the work of God or please God,
nor can we hope to bear much fruit.
The Spirit of Christ abides in us
and we in Him and by Him we bear
fruit. This is why the desired fruit
in our lives is called the fruit of the
Spirit (Gal. 5:22) . As He lives in
us, so Christ lives in us. He is sent
from Christ (15:26).

The fruits of the Spirit as enum-
erated in Galatians 5:22-23 include
those same fruits which Jesus men-
tioned in John 15, namely love and
joy. In addition, Paul added peace,
longsuffering, kindness, goodness,
faithfulness, meekness and self-con-
trol. These fruits of righteousness
(II Cor. 9:10; Phil. 1:11) which are
through Jesus Christ, are to the glory
and praise of God. As Isaiah said,
"The Lord of hosts is exalted in jus-
tice, and God the holy one is sancti-
fied in righteousness" (Isa. 5:16).

We can have the kind of lives that
Jesus desired only by our putting
our faith in Him and by abiding in
His Word, remaining faithful to His
teachings. As we do this, the Holy
Spirit, the author of that Word of
God, will teach us and guide us to
lives that not only hear but also do
the will of God.

Gradually, as a vine begins to

show fruit, so our lives will begin to
appear fruitful in God's sight. Grad-
ually, as the world sees us, it will
see in what we do and the way we
live that Christ truly lives in us.
This fruit of the Spirit seen in us
will be for God's glory, not our own.
As Jesus Himself put it, "Let your
light so shine before men that they
will see your good work and glorify
your Father who is in heaven"
(Matt. 5:16).

In this way only we share with
Christ in His work. Luke began the
book of Acts by noting what he
wrote earlier about what Jesus be-
gan to do and teach (Acts 1:1). By
this he implied that the book of
Acts is a record of the continuing
work of Christ, but as we read the
book of Acts we learn that it is a
record of the coming of the Holy
Spirit and the resulting testimony of
believers to the Gospel. It is the rec-
ord of the establishment of the
Church in the world, its reaching to
the Gentile world and to the ends of
the earth.

Subsequent history of the Church
shows how this has continued to our
own day. Christ continues to work
through believers whose lives bear
the fruit of justice and righteousness
which God demands. By them, He
is glorified and through them He
does many mighty works to the cast-
ing down of strongholds (of Satan)
(II Cor. 10:4) and the establishing
of His kingdom. SI

If you are moving to an area where
there is no congregation of the
Presbyterian Church in the U. S.
you may find an Orthodox Presby-
terian Church nearby. A Directory
of Churches and Chapels of the
Orthodox Presbyterian Church
will be sent upon request. Please
address: Orthodox Presbyterian
Church Directory, 7401 Old York
Road, Philadelphia, Pa. 19126.

§ook-Uf> Lodge and Camp

MAX M. RICE, Director, Rt. 1, Travelers Rest, S. C. 29690
Phone 836-6392 (AC 803)

OUTSTANDING SUMMER RETREATS

You bring your group — We do the work — Proven Results
Life-changing Bible study — Recreation — Good Food
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PAGE 15 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 2, 1972

YOUTH PROGRAM

For August 20, 1972

The Importance of Right Speech

Scripture: James 3:1-12
Suggested Hymns:

"Lord, Speak to Me, That I

May Speak"
"I Love to Tell the Story"
"We've a Story to Tell to the

Nations"

PROGRAM LEADER'S INTRO-
DUCTION: Last week we consid-
ered the basic importance of our
thought life. This week we want to
look at the very close connection be-
tween the words of our mouths and
the meditations of our hearts.

Of course, it is possible for a per-
son to talk one way and think an-
other, but ordinarily, it is not so.
Jesus said, "Out of the abundance
of the heart the mouth speaketh. A
good man out of the good treasure
of his heart bringeth forth good
things: and an evil man out of the
evil treasure bringeth forth evil
things" (Matt. 12:34-35). As a
usual thing, the words of our mouths
are simply the overflow of our minds
and hearts.

One of the modern methods used

Rev. B. Hoyt Evans

in training people for public speech
is to record what they say and then
play it back so the speaker can hear
himself. It would surely be helpful
if all the words we speak could be
played back to us while we kept in
mind that what we say is indicative
of what we think.

The only way to be sure that our
speech will be right before God is
to make sure first that our hearts are
right before Him. This can take
place in only one way — we must
yield ourselves to Christ to be saved
and transformed by Him.

Even after our hearts have been
changed by Christ we must still be
careful about the words we speak. In
the passage we read from the book
of James, he was writing to people
who were already Christians about
the use of the tongue. In this pro-
gram we want to consider the impor-
tance of our words and some of the
ways we can make our speech more
acceptable to the Lord.

FIRST SPEAKER: Our speech is
important because of the harm it can
do. It is by words that we give and

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receive instruction. Through the
use of words, false information can
be given whether it be by careless-
ness or by design. Many people have
been led to commit serious and even
dangerous mistakes because someone
was not careful in giving instruc-
tions. Wrong words can lead peo-
ple astray physically, morally and
spiritually.

The thoughtless use of words of-
ten needlessly wounds feelings and
brings discouragement to people. A
word, like a bullet from a gun, can-
not be brought back once it has been
released. We ought to be sure that
our words will not cause wounds be-
fore we speak them. What is true
of the damage which may be done
to a person's feelings is also true of
his reputation. Many a person has
had his good name destroyed by ug-
ly, untrue or unnecessary words.

Whenever it is necessary for us to |
speak, we ought to tell the truth and
nothing but the truth. There are
many times, however, when it is best
to remain silent. God knows all the
truth about everything, but He does
not tell all He knows. Why should
we? There is no reason for spread-
ing evil reports about a person, even
though they may be true, if no good
can be accomplished by it. We
need to ask God to keep us from all
malicious speech, and even from the
unwise use of the truth.

SECOND SPEAKER: On the posi-
tive side, our speech is important be-
cause of the good it can accomplish.
The very finest use we can make of
speech is to praise God. He desires
our words of praise. The Scriptures
say: "Take with you words, and turn
to the Lord: say unto Him, take
away all iniquity, and receive us
graciously: so will we render the
calves of our lips" (Hos. 14:2) .
Words of sincere praise are always
an acceptable offering to the Lord.

Our words are useful in helping
other people and enriching their
lives. We can use our words to com-
fort the sorrowing, to encourage
those who are disheartened, and to
advise and instruct those who need

I
:

PAGE 16 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 2, 1972

■knowledge. We can use words to de-
ll end good things and to combat evil
things.

! A wonderful use we can make of
Ipeech is to bear witness to others
[lor Christ. (Read Romans 10:13-
1.5.) We might also ask, "How can
I1 hey preach or witness without
Ivords?" The Gospel comes to us
I n words, and it is our privilege to
epeat those words of good news to
)thers. The Lord uses spoken words
In the saving of souls. May we have
[ he blessing of speaking those words.

THIRD SPEAKER: We who are
) Christians need to make a more de-
j.ermined effort to practice Christian
i .peech. We need to practice it neg-
uively and positively. That means
we must endeavor not to say things
that are dishonoring to God and
harmful to others, and we must try
[earnestly to make every word we
;peak count for good and for God.

If we are Christians, our hearts
pave already been changed. We need
to practice speaking like the kind of
people we really are. A person who
thinks the thoughts of Christ will
surely speak Christian words. Like-
wise, a person who tries to speak
good words will find it easier to
ithink Christian thoughts. The hab-
its of the tongue can become the
habits of the heart, whether they are
good or bad. If Christ does not con-
trol all of us, especially our tongues,
can it be said that He controls us at
all?

Questions for Discussion:

1. How do the stories and jokes
we tell indicate our spiritual condi-
tion and our relation to Christ?

2. What are some of the specific
ways we can honor the Lord in our
speech?

3. The Bible says: "This com-
mandment have we from Him, that
he who loveth God love his brother
also." How do our words show our
love for God and man?

4. "Words are weapons." How
can this statement be true?

Closing Prayer. BF]
• • •

Let us remember here that on the
whole subject of religion one rule
is to be observed, and it is this — in
obscure matters not to speak or
think, or even long to know, more
than the Word of God has delivered.
— John Calvin.

BOOKS

THE COMMUNIST CONQUEST OF
SHANGHAI, by Paolo Alberto Rossi.
Twin Circle Publ. Co., New York, New
York. Paper, 171 pp. $2.75. Reviewed
by the Rev. C. Darby Fulton, Nash-
ville, Tenn.

What happened to Shanghai, the
once proud and flourishing nerve
center of commercial and cultural
activities on the Asian mainland,
when the Communists took over in
1949?

Here is a vivid and authentic an-
swer from one who lived through
those eventful years from 1948 to
1952 as a prominent member of
Shanghai's international community
while serving as the Consul General
of Italy. His qualifications as au-
thor hardly need to be presented, as
they are clearly reflected in the qual-
ity and thoroughness of the account
he has written. They come from
his direct involvement in the events

recounted, his objectivity in report-
ing, the breadth and variety of his
experience, and his natural gifts of
intelligence and perception.

The book is not primarily a dis-
cussion of the philosophy of Com-
munism, but of the manner and
method of its application. Nor does
the author deal in detail with the
actual military conquest of the city.
Rather, this is the story of Shang-
hai's deliberate suffocation by a pol-
icy of repression "which saw the
thriving metropolis known as 'the
New York of the Far East' reduced
at a rate scarcely believable, from
the fourth largest port in the world
and great international clearing-
house for trade and ideas, to a sul-
len Chinese provincial town under
the iron heel of a Communist agra-
rian bureaucracy."

This appalling result was accom-
plished not only by outright liqui-

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PAGE 17 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 2, 1972

dation of many of the city's great
commercial and cultural institutions,
but also by the fostering of ill will
and suspicion, by intimidation and
fear, by limiting personal rights and
freedom through authoritarian con-
trol, by obstructionism and red tape,
and by exorbitant taxation, confisca-
tion of assets, nationalization of
properties, false charges, fixed ver-
dicts, house arrest, imprisonment, in-
quisition and execution. These in-
dignities were visited on all, both
foreign and Chinese, who were reck-
oned as unfriendly to Communism,
but fell with particular weight on

the international community, espe-
cially on the consulates and represen-
tatives of other governments, on
Western business interests, on the
foreign residents themselves, on West-
ern cultural institutions such as
schools, hospitals and the foreign
press, and on the Christian Church.

This is an eyewitness account. It
is not a collection of quotations
from other sources, yet the book is
completely documented. Indeed, it
is its own documentation since it re-
cords the reliable testimony of one
who was there and relates graphical-
ly what he saw and heard and felt

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and experienced in Shanghai.

The book is presented as a warning
to the West. Writes Dr. Anthony Ku
bek, research professor of history ai
the University of Dallas, in the intro
duction:

"To know what the poison o|
Communism can do ultimately to i
whole nation, one has to survey the
damage done to China during the
past twenty years; to know w h a l
Communism can do quickly to i
great metropolis, one has only tc
look at what it did to Shanghai twc
decades ago . . . ." F

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PAGE 18 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 2, 1972

events involving her prayers, the au-
:hor has included some homespun
nterpretations of Scripture. She
iolves the problem of the authorship
}f Hebrews by ascribing the epistle
to an unknown writer more than a
:entury after the crucifixion. There
is very little about the book to com-
mend it. EB

Editorial— from p. 13

Christ for (his) salvation as you do
or your own?

3) Do you now unreservedly dedi-
cate your child to God, and promise,
in humble reliance upon divine
^race, that you will endeavor to set
before (him) a Godly example, that
you will pray with and for (him) ,
that you will teach (him) the doc-
trines of our holy religion, and that

you will strive, by all the means of
God's appointment, to bring (him)
up in the nurture and admonition
of the Lord?

Thus do we, in accord with Ro-
mans 6:3, baptize into the death of
Christ. — Wm. C. Robinson. IB

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and evangelical. Write "Pulpit Supply,"
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Luke 24:48

EVANGELISM CONFERENCE

sponsored by

Presbyterian Evangelistic Fellowship

MONTREAT, NORTH CAROLINA August 18-23, 1972

Earlier ads in the Journal listed the Main Address speakers, Bible Hour
speaker and the Music program. Future ads will feature information on
the 27 Evangelism seminar leaders. Listed below are those who will be
in charge of the YOUTH PROGRAM.

YOUTH PROGRAM

EVANGELISM CONFERENCE
Registration and Fee

MAIL

To: P.E.F. Evangelism Conference
P.O. Box 808
Hopewell, Virginia 23860

REGISTRATION FEES: (please enclose)

Family — $10.00 (2 or more persons)
Individuals — $5.00 each (21 years or older.
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Make check payable to: Presbyterian
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MR. RICK MILLS
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Chapel Hill, N. C.

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MR. RONALD SMITH
Campus Crusade for Christ
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REV. CARL WILSON
Campus Crusade High
School Evangelism Director
Decatur, Ga.

Please Mail

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In Now ! ! !
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(Kindergarten)
MRS. FLOYD POWERS
Hopewell, Va.

Address

City .

State

Zip_

Family members accompanying me

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(Primary)
MRS. J. P. JENKINS
Charleston, W. Va.

nor Hign
REV. LANIER ELLIS
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Baltimore, Md.

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Hopewell, Va.

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PAGE 19 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 2, 1972

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PAGE 20 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 2, 1972

VOL. XXXI, NO. 15

AUGUST 9, 1972

$4.00 A YEAR

the

PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL

idvocating continuation of a Presbyterian Church loyal

to Scripture and the Reformed faith

Chapter I God

0)

We believe in God.

We put our trust in him.
We serve him.
We worship him.

(2)

He alone is God.

We may not set our ultimate reliance on any other help.
We may not yield unconditional obedience to any other power.
We may not love anyone or anything more than we love him.

Our words cannot adequately say who he is or how he works.
His requirements of us are not always what we think is best.
His care for us is not always what we want.
His thoughts are not our thoughts.
Our ways are not his ways.

(4) Jesus of Nazareth shows us who God is and what God does.

His involvement in the human condition is God's involvement.
His compassion for the unloving, unloved, and lost
is God's compassion.

His demand for justice, truth, and faithfulness is God's demand.
His vulnerability to human rejection is God's vulnerability.
His love for the very people who reject him is God's love.

(5) God is at work in our time and place.

His presence, power, and love are not self-evident.
But his Spirit moves when and where he wills.
He is the living God.
His purposes will prevail.

He calls us to discern his work and to join him in it.

(6) We joyfully thank and honor him.

We celebrate life as his gift.
With the church in all ages we say:
"Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised!"

(3)

He is not at our disposal.

Chapter I of proposed
New Confession of Faith
(See p. 3)

S. S. LESSON AND YOUTH PROGRAM FOR AUGUST 27
CIRCLE BIBLE STUDY FOR SEPTEMBER

dWOD

YISLZ ON TTIH leoteno

MAXLB AG-

will YOU HELP?

I have just learned from a Pres-
byterian elder that about 80 far-ad-
vanced tuberculosis patients living
in a rest home near here are "out of
food." They can eat for the mod-
est sum of $300 a month, or $10 a
day for all 80 patients, but they
don't have that.

They are existing through the fact
that this elder of modest means has
put his name on the line to be re-
sponsible — and on this basis a lo-
cal grain merchant is giving them
enough to exist. But it is a debt
that must be repaid.

We treat most of these patients in
our TB hospital clinic here and most
are Christians. They are very pa-
tient with their lot, but it does seem
that this amount could be found
somewhere so they can eat.

I am glad to hear that our
Church's Easter relief offering is go-
ing to Bangladesh where there is
such great need. But we still need
some more concern for such as these
here.

— (Dr.) Herbert Codington
Kwangju, Korea

A great deal is being said in some cir-
cles about serving the poor at home

the

PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL

Rev. G. Aiken Taylor, Ph.D., Editor
Rev. Henry B. Dendy, D.D., Managing Editor
Arthur H. Matthews, Assistant Editor

Circulation leader among independent publications in the Presbyterian-Reformed world

THIS WEEK

Vol. XXXI, No. 15, August 9, 1972

The Proposed Confession 7

Reprinting portions of a proposed doctrinal standard

De partments — -

Editorials 16

The Layman and his Church 17

Sunday School Lesson, August 27 18

Youth Program, August 27 20

Circle Bible Study, September 21

THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL, a

Presbyterian weekly magazine, devoted
to the statement, defense, and propa-
gation of the Gospel, the faith which
was once for all delivered to the saints,

is published every Wednesday by the
Southern Presbyterian Journal Co.,
Inc., in Weaverville, N. C.

SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: $4 a year

for individuals, $3 for members of
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NEWS AND EDITORIAL correspond-
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TELEPHONES: (All area 704) edi-
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and overseas. If you mean what yo
say, here's your chance, in additio
to the Vietnam opportunity mentione
in these columns June 28. — Ed.

THEY SIGNED THEMSELVES

In the June 15 issue of the J out
nal there was an editorial title*
"Politics in Japan" about an opei'
letter to the President asking fo1
peace in Vietnam.

The editorial quoted a note fron
a missionary saying, "They scruplec
not to swell the list by inclusion o
even their children's names." Wi"
are some of those children. We livi
away from home and heard aboul
the letter primarily from friends a
school. The decision to sign it wa
our own and we did not consult oui
parents.

— Jane Todd and Jean Reagan
Montreat, N. C.

IF THE SHOE FITS . . .

Congratulations! Your article
"The Louisville Story," in the Jun(
21 issue of the Journal reaches tht
ultimate in "character assassination,'
"ugly name calling," "guilt by associ
ation," and numerous other in
famous techniques characteristic o]
"yellow journalism."

Your goal in life has been appar
ent for some time. It now appear.1
that you have reached it in the pub
lication of "The Louisville Story." j
— (Rev.) Paul Tudor Jones
Memphis, Tenn. j

LOVE IN THE CATECHISMS

Do the Westminster catechisms
fail to teach God's love for us? In
statements which reflect upon oui
standards and which urge a new
confession, it is being said that at
this point the catechisms "miss the
mark." In reply, I request a re-read-,
ing of the catechisms. The Confes-
sion, of course (II, 1) describes God
as "most loving."

The Shorter Catechism (Q. 36)
lists as the first benefit which ac-
companies or flows from justifica-
tion, adoption and sanctification,
the assurance of God's love. In the
Larger Catechism (Q. 83) , this is
phrased as enjoying the sense of
God's love. For both of these an-
swers, the proof text given is Rom.
5:5, which declares that God's love
for us is shed abroad in our hearts
by the Holy Spirit who opens these
hearts to behold Christ dying for the
ungodly.

■i

Again, according to the 67th an-
swer of the Larger Catechism, our
tj, ffectual calling is out of His free
nd special love for His elect. Here
he primary proof text is Titus 3:4-5,
yfiich speaks of the kindness and
ove of God our Saviour toward
nen.

The climax of the definition of
iod in the Larger Catechism is that
I <Ie is "most merciful and gracious,
ongsuffering and abundant in good-
less and truth." Here the proof text
o|s Exo. 34:6 — a peak in the Bibli-
al revelation of the God of grace
5 n His goodness, lovingkindness,
y teadfast love to us, His undeserving
jeople.

— (Rev.) Wm. C. Robinson
Claremont, Calif.

ii

MINISTERS

Ruben P. Armendariz from associ-
ate pastor of St. Martin's Episco-
pal Church, Corpus Christi, Tex.,
to associate in evangelism for del
Salvador Presbytery.

• Arthur Matthews doesn't like to
lear us say that he is responsible for
whatever integrity may be attributed
Ito the Journal's news coverage —
being a sometimes irritating but
ieldom irritable perfectionist, he is
seldom willing to admit that the high
standards he expects from everyone
Ihe works with are ever met. Since
Ide came to this ministry twelve years
■ago, Arthur has built a reputation
•for himself among the professionals
las a newsman's newsman. "They"
•may scorch the Journal publicly,
iibut privately there is hardly a mem-
J.ber of the Establishment who does
not admit that the best and most
l; objective coverage of Church news
3 comes from Arthur's typewriter. Con-
stantly on the go, covering meetings
|of boards, conferences and ecumeni-
cal agencies, he has added to the
\journals news pages the element of
■personal, eyewitness knowledge, and
I not just the rehash of a handout
llfrom some public relations person.
[Other publications and offices (in-
jicluding the denomination's official
office of information) have tried to
woo him away from us, but until

Allen Brown, received from Wash-
ita Presbytery (UPUSA) , to Trin-
ity church, Wichita Falls, Tex.
Charles Edwin Holland from Long
Beach, Miss., to the Covenant
church, Monroe, La.
William L. Hufham, formerly in
Enterprise, Ala., has been received
by Wilmington Presbytery as mili-
tary chaplain.

C. William Hull, former mission-
ary to Japan, is now pastor of the
Seffner, Fla., church.
John C. Laughlin from Charlotte,
N. C, to Roanoke, Va., as General
Presbyter of Montgomery Presby-
tery.

Gerald L. Niece, received from
UPUSA, to Rocky Mount, N. C,
where he will be engaged in a
"marketplace ministry" in Tarry-
town Mall.

William Andrew Stewart Jr., re-
ceived from UPUSA, to serve as
General Presbyter for Orange
Presbytery, in the Division of Edu-
cation and Mission.

J. Gaynor Phillips from Loris, S.
C, to the Reedy River church,
Greenville, S. C.

DEATH

T. Stanley Soltau died July 19 in
Memphis, Tenn. An internation-
al missionary statesman, he had
served 25 years in Korea under
Presbyterian Church USA and at
his death was a leader in the Re-
formed Presbyterian Church Evan-
gelical Synod. He was 82.
H. M. Washburn, 88, of Martins-
ville, Va., a missionary in the Con-
go from 1912 to 1949, died July
19.

ELDER

Edwin Morgan, Laurinburg, N.
C, who died July 1 1 at age 79, has
been memorialized by the session
of the Church in the Pines, Laurel
Hill, N. C, of which he was a
long-time member.

ACROSS THE EDITOR'S DESK

now none was successful. Which
leads us to the point of the whole
paragraph: Arthur has accepted the
invitation of Dr. Billy Graham to
join the team in the capacity of
newsman. He says something about
his new assignment in the Layman's
feature in this issue (p. 17) . When
he leaves, in a few weeks, he will be
missed.

• The proposed new confession of
faith for the Presbyterian Church
US has come in. Entitled "tentative
draft," it is radically different in for-
mat and style from the "tentative
draft" we commented on in the
May 10 Journal. Because this docu-
ment is difficult to describe and eval-
uate, we have reproduced two-
thirds of it (6 chapters out of 9 —
the others omitted for reasons of
space limitation) in this issue, in
order that Journal readers may be

able to make up their minds about
it for themselves. Editorial com-
ment appears on p. 14. This new
confession poses an interesting dilem-
ma for those who have postponed
their decision to support the move-
ment for a continuing Church loyal
to Scripture and the Reformed faith
"until a proper theological issue
comes along." What excuse does one
use to reject an affirmation which
manages (in modern ecclesiastical
shorthand, to be sure) to tip its hat
in every necessary direction?

• May we ask a special favor? The
post office continues to increase its
rates in all categories, one of which
is notification of change of address.
Perhaps you are unable to support
the Journal with your gifts (a con-
dition we devoutly hope is not the
case) but you can notify us in ad-
vance when you move. Please? IB

PAGE 3 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 9, 1972

NEWS OF RELIGION

Board Starts Latin Ecumenical Expansion

MONTREAT, N. C. — Initial pro-
jects in the Presbyterian US Board
of World Missions' new "concerted
witness in Latin America" emphasis
will be through ecumenical organiza-
tions that have been shunned by Lat-
in American evangelical Churches.

Approval of two projects came
during the board's July meeting
here, when it also elected officers,
made three additional missionary
appointments, took a series of ac-
tions on the subject of race and in-
stituted a new policy on investments.

1SAL (Church and Society in Lat-
in America) and UNELAM (Move-
ment for Evangelical Unity in Latin
America) will get appropriations
from the board for two new pro-
grams as a part of the "concerted
witness" it plans as it disengages
from Church support in Mexico.
The two organizations have been
supported by the World Council of
Churches or its member communions
outside Latin America but have had
little success in gaining significant
support from the predominantly con-
servative Protestant denominations
on their continent.

ISAL was voted $15,000 per year for
three years by the board for a com-
munity development project among
two groups of Indians in the Andes
of Southern Peru. According to the
staff proposal to the policy makers,
the grant will "help the Indian peo-

ple identify their own community
needs, equip them with the basic
skills for self improvement, and train
them in community organization for
meeting the more complex needs of
society."

Up to $10,000 in 1972 was au-
thorized for UNELAM "to contact
various churches in Latin America
for the purpose of establishing a pro-
gram of missionary interchange." Af-
ter six months of attempts to make
such contacts, UNELAM is expected
to request more appropriations to en-
courage a personnel exchange.

The Peruvian Indian project, ac-
cording to the staff report, was ac-
tually proposed by "the Church and
Society Team (ISAL) in Puno, Pe-
ru" and not by the continental ISAL
organization. The board's secretary
for Latin America, the Rev. Charles
R. Hughes Jr., told members that
approval of the grant would not con-
stitute an endorsement of ISAL as a
whole.

He also said the leaders of the
movement "are committed Chris-
tians" who see the Peruvian project
as "evangelistic" though not in the
sense of seeking conversions or start-
ing churches.

The board approved both the
ISAL and UNELAM grants without
dissent.

Four types of projects were antici-
pated by the board when it asked

THE CHURCH OVERSEAS

GUATEMALA — Maricarmen has
long been in the spotlight as one of
this country's top TV personalities.
Now she is presenting the claims of
Christ to the thousands who, for
many reasons, are awake in the late
hours of the night.

Before she found the One who
filled the emptiness of heart and
gave her real peace, Maricarmen
twice tried to escape her loneliness
through suicide. Now she is on the
staff of radio station TGNA, and
for four hours before and after mid-
night, she talks to lonely people.

Response has been exceptional, as

people from all walks of life have
called or written to talk about their
problems. The follow up is being
handled by Campus Crusade.

In the first two months of "Oper-
ation Nightwatch," as the program
is called, nearly 500 have responded
in one way or another.

In the meantime, Maricarmen is
growing in the Lord, despite the
many problems in her home and the
demands upon her time and talent.

Her burning desire is to tell lonely
people like herself about Jesus
Christ, the only one who can give
true happiness. EE

its staff to make specific proposals
The two approved at this meeting: a
are the initial recommendations in
two categories.

No staff proposals have reached
the plenary sessions of the board yet
on the two other categories: "joint
Christian witness with the Romam si
Catholic Church in the fied of evan-
gelism, education or related areas"
and "Christian witness related to the
situation of people in squatter vil-iji
lages surrounding the major urban n
centers in Latin America."

The board heard of plans for de- s
ployment of personnel who have
been working in Mexico and encour-
aged staff members to seek other op-
portunities in Latin America. One
of the newly appointed couples will
work in a Moravian institution in
Nicaragua, and the possibility of
sending others to help in the
Moravian mission is being investi-
gated.

Of the 73 appointments made by
the board this year, 13 are mem-
bers of the United Presbyterian
Church USA. Its overseas agency
has been hard hit by budget cuts. Of
the 13, five are former UPUSA
missionaries to Brazil and two are
former UPUSA missionaries to
Guatemala.

OJC Bilateral Meet

Brazil, the board's largest field, is
scheduled to get 22 of those appoint-
ed or reappointed during the last
year. In another action on Brazil, a
consultation was authorized with
representatives of the Presbyterian
Church of Brazil to determine pat-
terns of cooperation for the future.
Brazilian leaders had refused to
agree to a trilateral consultation
including representatives of the
UPUSA Church, so a bilateral con-
ference is now being planned.

To help celebrate the centennial
of the National Presbyterian Church
of Mexico, the board approved ar-
rangements for holding its October
meeting in Mexico City.

The fall meeting will be the first
in the board's history outside the
United States.

All of the unprecedented actions
of the board were not limited to Lat-
in American affairs. The agency ap-
proved a rural health insurance pro-

PAGE 4 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 9, 1972

:ct in Korea which will seek to en-
311 the entire population of two
ounties. There are hopes that as

pilot program it will be followed
i other areas of the country. Ap-
•ropriations of $38,869 over a three
ear period were approved.

The Presbyterian Medical Center
t Chunju has operated a medical
nsurance program, but the new
iirust is to cover all the residents of
wo deprived rural jurisdictions. Ko-
ean government subsidies are also
.xpected when a new insurance law
;oes into effect.

An unusual property transaction
vas approved for Japan, where a mis-
ion-owned lot in Kobe has grown
ncreasingly valuable over the years.
Authorization was given to construct
t condominium apartment structure
m the land, with the mission retain-
ng some housing and office space
ji the new building and realizing
:he income from the other space.

Chairman Re-Elected

Re-elected chairman of the board
was the Rev. David L. Stitt of Hous-
ton, Tex. New vice-chairman is the
Rev. Wayne Todd of Florence, Ala.
Serving with them on the executive
committee will be the Rev. E. Lee
Stoffel of Jacksonville, Fla., interpre-
tation chairman; the Rev. George D.
Jackson, Danville, Va., program ad-
ministration chairman; the Rev.
George Ogilvie, Richmond, Va., pro-
gram personnel chairman; Richard
L. LeTourneau, Longview, Tex., and
Mrs. Sam B. Hicks, Shreveport, La.

Three appointments were made at
the meeting, which was held prior to
the Montreat World Missions Con-
ference and the commissioning serv-
ice for new missionaries. They are
the Rev. and Mrs. Harry Peters of
Philadelphia and Kansas City, spe-
cial three year term evangelistic mis-
sionaries to Nicaragua, and Barbara
L. (Mrs. Scott D.) Nichol of Lee's
Summit, Mo., volunteer teacher of
missionaries' children in Korea.

On the subject of race, the board
heard the report of a missionary task
force and took six actions growing
out of that report. It requested the
Council on Church and Society to
consider the subject of interracial
marriage, recognizing "with appreci-

ation the contribution to better hu-
man relations in the world commun-
ity that may come from Christian
marriage across cultural, national
and racial lines."

It also backed more seminars on
racism and mission, asked presbyte-
ries to consider inviting missionaries
(nationals) from other countries to
serve in their midst, encouraged
white and non-white congregations
to meet together to hear missionary
programs, and urged Presbyterians to
consider children from overseas for
adoption.

On the subject of investments, the
policy makers informed their invest-
ment committee that security and in-
come are not to be the sole criteria
in future transactions. To be avoid-
ed are investments in concerns which
manufacture military weapons or
products injurious to personal health
or morals, those judged to have un-
just labor practices and those with
"deleterious foreign investment."

The board also decided to take an
active role in encouraging businesses
which promote the social goals it
considers important and in influ-
encing those it judges to have a
"negative" effect. The vote was
eight to five on the investment cri-
teria proposal.

In other actions the board:
— ■ Expressed appreciation to Jule
Spach for his work as recruiting sec-
retary during the past year and
named another furloughed mission-
ary, Stewart G. Bridgman, to recruit
during the coming year.

— Decided to continue having youth
delegates, missionary delegates and
delegates from the World Missions
Chairman's Association until the im-
plementation of retructuring dis-
solves the board.

— Authorized §1,500 per year for a
Korea study project of the National
Council of Churches.

— Approved of the expenditure of
up to five per cent of the 1973 Easter
Offering for promotion of that of-
fering.

— Named John C. Pritchard to a
staff position in the interpretation
division (removing him from mis-
sionary status) .

— Thanked the Medical Benev-
olence Foundation for its support of
work overseas but asked MBF to "an-

nounce a policy of not accepting
gifts from congregations" and re-
minded missionaries to "itinerate on
behalf of the base support for the
board's medical program rather than
for the program of an independent
foundation." IB

UPUSA Panel Announces
Colombian Grant Proper

NEW YORK— Members of a special
committee appointed after the 1972
United Presbyterian USA General
Assembly to investigate a controver-
sial grant have reported here that
the appropriation to a group in
Colombia was made within the guide-
lines in force at the time the $75,000
was transferred from the UPUSA.

Guidelines have been changed
since the money was given to Rosea
de Investigacion y Accion Social
(Social Research and Action Circle)
in Bogota. The funds came from the
UPUSA's National Committee on the
Self-Development of People.

Some Assembly commissioners ob-
jected to the grant on grounds that
it had been made against the wishes
of the Colombian Presbyterian
Church. The new guidelines pro-
vide for consultation with the appro-
priate judicatory before grants are
approved, but the endorsement of the
judicatories is still not necessary.

The special committee was ap-
pointed by 1972 Moderator Willard
Heckel and chaired by the Rev.
Stewart MacColl of Wilton, Conn.
It met in Colombia June 13-17.

The seven member committee, in-
cluding Stated Clerk William P.
Thompson, reported it was "deeply
impressed by Rosca's programs" and
"convinced that Rosea is fulfilling
the aims set forth in its original pro-
posal."

Colombia Presbyterian accusations
that some of Rosca's leadership is
Marxist motivated were rejected by
the committee.

Impressed "with the sincerity and
dedication of Rosca's leaders," the
panel declared, "we believe they are
committed to the dream that legal
and non-violent methods can be
adopted and used widely to improve
the lot of the oppressed before the
desperation the people experience

PAGE 5 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 9, 1972

brings more drastic and destructive
actions."

Rafael Cruz, an elder in the First
Spanish Presbyterian Church of
Miami, dissented from some of the
conclusions of the majority about
Rosea, but the report said he agreed
with "the larger part" of the com-
mittee's document.

In regard to future Church rela-
tions, denominational officials were
urged to "affirm our affection for
and our close ties with the Presby-
terian Church of Colombia," but the
Commission on Ecumenical Mission
and Relations was urged to open dis-
cussions with that Church to stress
"our commitment to cooperate on
common projects" while not denying
each other "the freedom and auto-
nomy to provide funds and person-
nel to independent work."

The Rosea project for which the
grant was given has as its goal to
help Indians, peasants, fishermen
and urban working people to
identify their problems and discover
solutions for them. SI

'Birthday' Aims Listed,
1972 Totals Announced

MONTREAT, N. C. (PN) —Presby-
terian women, through a double-
barrel offering next May, will ad-
vance an evangelism program to pi-
oneers in Brazil and mount an attack
against world hunger.

An announcement made here at
the women's conference of the Pres-
byterian Church US revealed that
the 1973 Birthday Objective of Pres-
byterian Women of the Church will
be aimed at two causes, "Amazon
Breakthrough" and "Hunger Mobil-
ization."

An annual offering is made by the
denomination's approximately 340,-
000 women and commemorates the
founding of organized women's
work in the 16-state Church. It al-
ternately goes to specific overseas and
homeland projects.

Fifty per cent of the 1973 offer-
ing will go for evangelism along the
Trans-Amazon highway in Brazil.
The funds will be used primarily
for establishing churches in rapidly
expanding population centers on
opening frontiers; for educational
centers, and as challenge funds for
church construction in areas along
the Amazon basin.

The other 50 per cent of the 1973
offering will be used particularly for
employing hunger specialists to
stimulate and facilitate action against

Montreat Dedicates L. Nelson Bell Library

View from the library's main entrance

MONTREAT, N.C. — L. Nelson
Bell was hailed as a missionary,
family man, neighbor and church-
man when Montreat-Anderson Col-
lege dedicated its new library build-
ing in his honor here.

The $725,000 structure is located
between College Hall dormitory and
the new science building on the
site of the old W. H. Belk summer
home. It has a capacity of 60,000
volumes and space for 278 readers.

Dr. Bell, a retired physician and
Montreat resident who was elected
moderator of the 1972 Presbyterian
US General Assembly, unlocked the
doors of the library after tributes
were paid to him by a series of
speakers. His wife, who served as a
missionary in China with him, was
the first to enter for a tour and re-

ception.

In a brief response after the
speeches, Dr. Bell said he had the
privilege of placing the first book in
the library, a Bible which he in-
scribed "the Book among many
books."

Principal speakers were: C. Darby
Fulton, retired executive secretary
of the Board of World Missions; B.
Clayton Bell, son of Dr. and Mrs.
Bell; C. Grier Davis, retired presi-
dent of the college; and Donald R.
Mitchell, dean of the college. Pre-
siding was Montreat's new president,
Silas Vaughn. H. Kerr Taylor,
former missionary colleague, pro-
nounced the benediction.

The dedication service was a fea-
ture of the World Missions Confer-
ence here. IB

hunger at grass roots level, and for
funding carefully selected hunger
action projects at home and abroad.

Literature being issued by the de-
nomination's Board of Women's
Work which sponsors the annual
Birthday Objectives states that 5V2
million people in the world die
every year from starvation.

Mrs. Marion F. Reynolds of New
Orleans, chairman of the board, an-
nounced the 1973 objective.

Mrs. Reynolds also announced the
total received in support of the 1972
objective. More than $300,000 has
been given for translations of por-
tions of the Bible and for increasing
opportunities for business studies at
Stillman College, Tuscaloosa, Ala.

Specifically, the funds will go for
a translation of the New Testament
into the Cherokee language, for a '
revised translation into the Navajo
language, for a Cherokee-English
edition of the Gospel of John, the
Psalms in Choctaw, a Spanish-En-
glish edition of the New Testament,
and toward publishing and distrib-
uting additional copies of Today's
English Version and Scripture pack-
ets.

The American Bible Society will
receive $50,000 of the offering for
these purposes.

The balance will be used to en-
dow a professorship of business at
Stillman and create scholarships for
business students there. SI

PAGE 6 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 9, 1972

The Proposed Confession (from page one)

CHAPTER II GOD AND HIS PEOPLE

(1) The human race rejected God from the start.

Man and woman refused to trust and obey him.
They sought to be their own god.
They became estranged from their true humanity,
alienated from each other and from the natural world.

So it is with all humankind to this day.

The hostile barriers that separate men from women,

brothers from brothers, races from races, nations from nations,

human beings from their environment —

all root in our rebellion against God.

(2) In such a world we have heard good news.

God has been on the move with his people

to reconcile all people to himself and to each other,

to establish his just and loving rule.

We are confident God is active
beyond the confines of our particular history.
But this story forms our memory and our hope.
It tells us who we are and what we are to do.
We are eager to share it with others.

(3) God chose one people for the sake of all peoples.

He called Abraham and his descendants
that he might bless all nations through them.
They had done nothing to deserve his favor,
but he loved them and gave them his promises.
When they became slaves in Egypt, he set them free.
He bound Israel to himself in covenant.

He charged them to respond to his love by observing his law,
that their lives might express his justice and compassion.

God still sets undeserving people free,

still binds himself to them in love,

still lays his claim upon them.

We are such a people,

chosen, not for our own sake,

but as servants of God for the sake of the world.

(4) The people of Israel broke their covenant with God.

They chose gods they could manage rather than the living God.

They failed to seek his justice j they oppressed the poor.

They put their trust in military alliances and their own strength.

God sent the prophets to cry out warning

and pronounce judgment,

but his people would not listen.

So their kingdoms fell and they were taLen captive.

In the upheavals of our time we see God's judgment
against our idolatry and injustice,

our efforts to achieve security no matter what it costs others.
He still works against every alternative to his intended
kingdom of peace.

PAGE 7 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 9, 1972

(5) Yet God remained faithful.

He restored his people to their land, under alien rule.
He renewed his promise of a ruler from David's line
to reign in justice and peace.
They continued to sing his praises,
to cry out to him in desperation,
to discern his ways in the world.

We, too, can be honest about our doubts,
vocal in our despair,
open to joy and wonder,
bold in our prayers,

confident that God's promises are still alive,
despite our weakness.

(6) The Jews are still a distinct and special people.

They remind us that God does not take back his promises.

We are ashamed that Christians have persecuted them.

Jews and Christians do not agree about Jesus Christ.

Yet we acknowledge that their forebears are our fathers and

mothers in the faith.

Our debt to them is beyond measure.

CHAPTER IV GOD IN CHRIST

(1 ) God sent the promised deliverer to his people.

He came as a child,

born of woman as is every child,

yet born of God's initiative as was no other child.

He lived as a Jew among Jews.

In him God's promises came true

in ways that few expected or immediately understood.

We confess that Jesus Christ

fulfills the true purpose of the whole history of Israel.
We see in his life

what the law and the prophets required of God's people.

(2) Jesus was one of us.

He lived the life of a real man

in the same world we live in.

He grew to maturity in a family and a society

beset by the common problems of this world.

He experienced pain and anger.

He knew happiness and sadness, hope and despair,

strength and weariness.

He faced the temptations we face.

He was a man for others.

He associated with all kinds of people.

He had compassionate concern for the poor, the sick,

the despised, the sinful.

He never asked whether they deserved his help.
He felt deeply the joy of friendship
and the hurt of being rejected.

He was a man for God.
He prayed.

His delight was to do God's will.
PAGE 8 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 9, 1972

We recognize in Jesus what genuine humanity is.

The one uniquely sent from God was completely human.

We have no cause to be ashamed of our humanity.

We can affirm the humanity of our brothers and sisters.

It is when we are inhuman that we sin.

God's purpose is to heal our inhumanity and make us truly human.

(3) Jesus was God with us.

He confronted and overthrew the evil powers
that enslaved and dehumanized people.
He forgave sinners.
He spoke with authority.

He condemned or corrected religious and ethical ideas
that everyone took for granted.

He demanded that his followers place loyalty to him

above loyalty to family, friends, or country.

His enemies properly accused him

of claiming to do what only God can do.

We acknowledge that God was uniquely his Father

and he was uniquely God's Son.

In his love that made no exceptions,

in his power that set people free,

in his justice that would not compromise,

in his authority that made all other authorities relative,

we recognize the work and word of God himself.

(4) Jesus died for sinners.

He condemned pride and intolerance,

and the religious leaders hated him.

He accepted social outcasts and ate with them,

and the respectable citizens were shocked.

He defied and attacked hallowed structures

that exploited and excluded human beings,

and the authorities called him a revolutionary.

At length the evil forces he assaulted so relentlessly

united to destroy him.

One of his own followers betrayed him.

His own people rejected him

and turned him over to be executed by the Romans.

They mocked him, beat him,

and crucified him as a common criminal.

In the execution of Jesus we see

the depth and reality of mankind's sinfulness.

We kill the only true man

because he exposes our inhumanity.

We reject the only true God

because he unmasks our worship of false gods.

In the execution of Jesus we also see

the depth and reality of God's love.

Jesus Christ identifies with sinful mankind.

He accepts the punishment due us.

He wins the victory over all the powers

that dehumanize us.

In his immeasurable sacrifice

the Son does the Father's will.

God does not love us because Christ died for us;

PAGE 9 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 9, 1972

Christ died for us because God loves us.

God, in Christ, was reconciling the world to himself,

not holding our sins against us.

(5) Jesus lives.

He was dead and buried

and his followers scattered in hopeless despair.

But God raised him from the dead and gave him authority

over the whole world.

He is alive and present with us to this day.

He intercedes for us and gives us joy and courage.

Therefore we say: Jesus is Lord!

He has been Lord from the beginning.

He will be Lord at the end.

Even now he is Lord.

The world appears to be dominated

by persons and systems that usurp his power

and do not recognize his authority.

Yet we believe that ultimate sovereignty belongs to Jesus Christ.

He rules over society, politics, and economics,

as well as the church, the family, and personal life.

His lordship is loving power.

It demands our loyalty

and sets us joyously free

from all lesser lords who would enslave us.

We need fear none of them!

CHAPTER VI THE WORD OF GOD

(1 ) The Spirit armed God's people with God's word.

They did not go out into the world empty handed.
They were bearers of God's message to all mankind.

We affirm that God does not wait to be discovered.
He takes the initiative and speaks.
What he has to say to mankind takes many forms, but
it is one word.

In that word is all the authority we have.

In that word, not in ourselves, is our confidence.

(2) Jesus Christ is the living Word of God.

The first Christians saw clearly

that everything God had to say to them was said in Jesus Christ.
The Holy Spirit added no different word from God.
He led them deeper and deeper into what God meant
in sending Jesus.

In Christ we hear God's word of acceptance.

We are set right with God,

adopted as children of God,

not because of anything we have done,

but because of what Christ has done.

In Christ we hear God's word of demand.
To love God and neighbor as he did
is to fulfill what God requires of us.

We therefore declare that the one Word of God
which we have to hear

PAGE 10 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 9, 1972

and which we have to trust and obey

in life and in death

can be no other than Jesus Christ

as he is attested for us in Holy Scripture.

(3) The Bible is the written word of God.

Led by the Holy Spirit,

the people of Israel and of the early church

set down in writing their experiences with God.

These writings came slowly into being in the life

of the community.

They took various literary forms,

appropriate to various historical situations.

As they were read and expounded in the church,

they proved sufficient and reliable

as witnesses to Jesus Christ, the living Word.

Therefore the church acknowledged the Old and New

Testaments

as the canon, or rule of faith and practice.
Led by the same Spirit,

we gladly subject all our understandings of faith and life

to the judgment of the Lord who speaks in Scripture.

It is for us the word of God

as no other word written by human beings.

We must test any word

that comes to us from the church, world, or inner experience,

by the word written in the Old and New Testaments.

We do not worship the Bible.

We worship Jesus Christ who is its center.

Because the Bible is the decisive testimony to him,

we require no new Scripture.

It is our joy and duty to interpret the Scriptures

relying on the Holy Spirit.

As we try to understand their intent

in their own historical and cultural setting,

we honor the real human conditions

through which God has given us his word.

We do not expect to find

in specific sentences of Scripture

detailed directions for every decision we face.

Rather, as we discern God's ways with his people in the past

we anticipate that his way with us today will be made clear.

We cannot regard any interpretation of Scripture, including

this confession, as valid for all times and places.

The word of Scripture is always contemporary

because the living Lord speaks through it

in every new moment of our lives.

(4) True f reaching of the word of God is the word of God.

In every age the word has been proclaimed and taught.
Preachers, teachers, writers have spoken it.
Musicians, artists, builders have given it form.
A host of faithful Christians have lived it.

We are to listen for the word of God

when the church gathers

to communicate and celebrate the gospel.

PAGE 11 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 9, 1972

In worship we affirm God's presence among us,
still under way toward his purpose for the world.

We remember from Scripture

that God may address his people in unexpected ways.

We must be open to his word

from other religions,

from the oppressed and excluded,

from movements we regard as radical or

reactionary or irreligious.

(5) The sacraments are the word made visible.
In the common life of God's people,
the word has not only been read and proclaimed,
but also seen, tasted, and touched.

Any of God's gifts may speak of his present love for us.

But the water of baptism

and the bread and wine of communion

make God's saving action real to us

with unique vividness and power.

We believe that God acts in baptism.

He calls us by name to be his.

He cleanses us from corruption.

He gives us new life.

He sets us in the fellowship of believers.

The baptism of little children visibly reminds us

that God loves us long before we can love him.

His promise is to us and our children.

They are rightly entitled to this sign of inclusion in his people
In the baptism of adults we see
the necessity of faith and repentance
as our response to God's act.
Though we are baptized but once,

our response should continue and deepen throughout life.

We believe the risen Christ is present at the Lord's Supper.

He makes himself known to us

as the one who stood in our place

and has conquered death for us.

He offers us bread and wine as powerful symbols

of his broken body and shed blood.

We offer ourselves to him in return.

We sense our continued dependence on him to sustain our lives

We anticipate the joyous feast that

awaits us in his coming kingdom.

In him we receive joy, peace, and courage for

our life in this world.

CHAPTER VIII THE MISSION OF GOD'S CHURCH

(1) God sends the church into the world.

The church does not exist for its own sake,
but to glorify God and to serve the world.

We must not exhaust our energies and resources
on our own comfort and spiritual development.
We must mark where God is at work in the world
and join him there.

PAGE 12 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 9, 1972

God is involved in the struggle for justice.

He is on the side of all who suffer injustice.
His judgment is aroused

when rich nations grow richer at the expense of poor nations,

when courts seldom punish the guilty who can pay

and often condemn the innocent who cannot,

when barbarous prisons breed crime instead of correcting it.

His wrath is provoked

when racism denies minority people position and power
and sexism prevents women from rendering full service
in the life of the church itself.
He is at work to liberate people
from all that enslaves and dehumanizes.

God sends us

to help the poor and the weak get resources and power,

to work for better laws, fairer courts,

prisons that are more humane,

to put the welfare of all people above national

or personal self-interest,

to alter customs and structures and systems,

in the church and in the world,

that deny persons their basic human rights

and rob them of essential human dignity

because of race, sex, life-style, or political opinion.

God is compassionate.

He has given us new skills for relieving pain and healing hurt

fresh insights for understanding and relating to each other.

He is at work where people are open to each other

and can be human together,

where they help each other

in ways that respect each other's dignity,

where organizations care for persons as well as programs, *

where individuals become names and not numbers.

God sends us

to risk personal peace and comfort

in compassionate concern for those whose lives touch ours,
to give, to take, to be involved,

to affirm the personhood of every human being we meet,

to be sensitive to those who suffer in body or mind,

to break through the barriers of coldness and paternalism

in the ways the church ministers to people,

to humanize the world's helping agencies.

We may not limit our compassion to those we judge deserving

for we ourselves do not deserve the compassion of God.

God is involved in the effort to end war.

He wills peace on earth and calls peacemakers his children.

His purposes are thwarted

when nations amass and aim weapons

that can annihilate millions of human beings,

when armies uproot people from their homes,

slaughter helpless children and old people,

destroy the earth's productivity,

when the military and industries allied with it

control and determine the quality of national life.

PAGE 13 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 9, 1972

He is at work where people see war for what it is
and demand in growing numbers that it be ended.

God sends us

to attack the causes and roots of war,

to end the church's rhetoric that glorifies and blesses war,

to discover ways to employ church investments for peacemaking,

to declare that the Christian faith is not identical

with our national way of life

and that opposition to foreign ideologies

is not the heart of religion,

to unmask the idolatry that places national security
above all else,

to urge the nations to take the risks of peace,
to minister to all on all sides:

the victims who are wounded, bereaved, and homeless,
the participants who are often confused and guilt-ridden,
and those who in conscience refuse to participate.

God is at work leading all people to know him.

He has made human beings so they cannot be satisfied

even with justice, compassion, and peace on earth.

They are hungry for God himself.

He is grieved when many remain ignorant of his love,

when the misdeeds of Christians turn people away,

and distortions of the gospel inoculate them against the truth.

He is at work

where his word is translated

into languages of people who could not read it before,

where the gospel is proclaimed

in places where it has not been heard,

where men and women are concerned

to share faith with their neighbors in word and life.

He sends us

to tell the good news to all humankind,

to risk encounter with people who are different,

to seek new language and thought forms for the gospel,

to point to Christ and not to ourselves,

to commend him by our deeds as well as our words.

CHAPTER IX GOD AND THE FUTURE

God's work gives us hope for the future of the whole world.
God's just and loving rule will surely come.
His design for the wholeness of humanity will be realized.
Creation will be renewed.

We do not base this hope on measurable success in our mission
to the world or on inevitable progress in human history.
Neither in the world, nor in the church, nor in our own lives
do we see the end of injustice, lovelessness, suffering, and death.
We hope for the final fulfillment of God's promises
because they are all confirmed in Jesus Christ.
In him we glimpse the shape of the world God intends.

God's justice will be done.

Evil will be rooted out of God's good creation.
People and nations will be held accountable.

PAGE 14 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 9, 1972

All will be set right.

We possess no maps or timetables.
But this we know:

human history has not heard the last of Jesus Christ.

He is at its center.

He will also be at its end.

Because judgment is in his hands

we are filled with hope.

(3) The last enemy to be destroyed is death.

All living creatures die,

yet death is for man an unnatural enemy.

Death seems to prove that love is futile,

that justice is transient,

that violence and disease have the last word.

In the death of Jesus Christ

God's way in the world seemed finally defeated.

But death was no match for God.

The resurrection of Jesus Christ was God's own victory

over death.

Therefore death is already a broken power.

No life is cut short so soon or tragically

that its meaning and value are destroyed.

In the midst of death we can celebrate life.

Death does not have the last word about us or about this world.

In the end death will die.

(4) Beyond death is God's love and justice.

We do not know or need to know

exactly what lies beyond death for us or others.

We know that neither death nor life can separate us

from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

We take with utmost seriousness the biblical warnings
to those who reject God's love in Christ.
We take with equal seriousness the soaring declarations
that in Christ all mankind shall receive the gift of life.
We are confident that God's future for every person
will be both loving and just.

(5) Our hope is no opiate.

We who hope cannot put up with the world as it is.
Our God is not the champion of the way things are.
He promises and demands that things shall be different.

Hope does not devalue the present moment.

It does not tempt us to sit and wait.

It plunges us into the struggle for a better world

in obedient anticipation of God's final victory.

We cannot bring in the kingdom by our own efforts.

But hope gives us courage, confidence, and a sense of humor,

to contend against all opposition,

however invincible it may seem,

for the new heaven and the new earth that are surely coming.

PAGE 15 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 9, 1972

EDITORIALS

The New Confession Is Released

While he was describing the pre-
liminary work of his committee on
a new confession of faith for the
PCUS, Dr. Albert C. Winn, presi-
dent of Louisville Seminary, said he
hoped the document, when finished,
would help to bring together the sep-
arated polarities in the Church.

We don't know how much bring-
ing together the new confession will
accomplish, but the remarkable doc-
ument just across our desk (and re-
produced in large part in this issue
of the Journal) manages to say about
anything that people who insist on
proper affirmations customarily de-
mand.

The new confession is only for
study. A further redraft is promised
for presentation to the 1973 General
Assembly. Judging from the differ-
ences between this draft and the
earlier draft we commented on in the
May 10 Journal, the committee is
willing to use the editorial blue pen-
cil promptly and lavishly.

Since our earlier report, items criti-
cized have been "cleaned up" con-
siderably. The confession's version
of the virgin birth has been im-
proved. Whereas the private draft
spoke of Jesus as "a man born of
God's initiative," the public version
now refers to Him as "born of God's
initiative as was no other child,"
(see p. 8, this issue, IV, 1) . It also
says, "We acknowledge that God was
uniquely His Father" (see p. 9, IV,
3).

In our earlier report we noted that
Jesus was described as one who
"shared all our limitations of hu-
man knowledge in His time and
place in history." This unnecessary
bit of disparagement has been re-
moved altogether.

A rather explicit universalism in the
earlier draft ("God ... is at work to set
us and all men free to be His") has
also been removed and a lesser hint
of universalism remains: "God is at
work leading all people to know
Him" (VIII, 5) , and, "We take with
equal seriousness the soaring declara-
tions that in Christ all mankind shall
receive the gift of life" (IX, 4) .

Incorporated in the new draft are
numerous references we noted as

missing from the earlier draft. This
one makes reference to man's sinful-
ness (IV, 4) , to the fact of Christ's
death for sins (IV, 4) , and to the
need of repentance from sin (V, 2) .
It says the Holy Spirit brings people
from death to life (V, 2) .

It mentions the resurrection of
Christ, expressly declaring that "God
raised Him from the dead" (IV, 5) ,
speaks of personal "trust in Christ"

(V, 2) , and mentions "adoption" as
the way we enter the family of God

(VI, 2) .

It calls the Bible "the written
word of God" (VI, 3) , and it says
that God's word is "all the author-
ity we have" (VI, 1) . It even goes
so far as to say we must "test every
word that comes to us from the
church, world, or inner experience,
by the word written in the Old and
New Testaments" (VI, 3) .

To be sure it also says, "we must
be open to (God's) word from oth-
er religions . . . from movements we
regard as radical or reactionary or
irreligious" (VI, 4) . But presumably
this is part of the process of saying
something for everybody.

The new confession even mentions
God's xurath! Of course the refer-
ence is a rather curious one, but it
is there:

"His wrath is provoked when
racism denies minority people
position and power and sexism
prevents women from rendering
full service in the life of the
Church itself" (VIII, 2).
Other combinations of ideas are
equally curious. For instance:
"We recognize in Jesus what
genuine humanity is. The one
uniquely sent from God was
completely human. We have no
cause to be ashamed of our hu-
manity" (IV, 2) .
The Freudian reference could be
considered quite explicit, if one were
looking for it.

The confession includes all the af-
firmations a dedicated liberal would
consider vital, in the areas of race,
sex, economics and political action.

In fact, it can be considered a
mandate for anything imaginable in
liberal religion or social action, while

at the same time not avoiding the
language that evangelicals consider
essential in a confession of faith.

To be sure, those who take Bible
truth seriously could (and no doubt
will) find all kinds of omissions and
perversions of that truth. But it
won't be easy to condemn something
which "sounds" as good as this.

For those who wish to take this
matter seriously we have a sugges-
tion. The confession is offered as a
Christian statement of faith. Im-
agine that you are not a Christian.
Now, as a gentleman (or lady) with
human sensitivity, but without com-
mitment to Jesus Christ as your
Saviour, go through the preceding
pages and underline, in red, every
statement that you simply could not
accept. (For instance, a Jew would
have no trouble with line 6, section
2 of Chapter IX: "Human history
has not heard the last of Jesus
Christ." He might have trouble with
the next line.)

We await with interest the reaction
of that segment of the Church that
calls itself conservative but has
shown itself both willing and able
to accommodate itself to just about
anything. IS

For The Record

The new General Executive Board
of the Presbyterian Church US, a
single body replacing more than 400
ministers and laymen on some 16
boards and agencies (see Journal,
August 2, for the story of the or-
ganizational meeting of the new
board) , has assumed a responsibility
so huge that not even its severest
critics can fully take it all in.

Here are 71 persons who have full
time jobs elsewhere and for whom
this is only one of many part time
assignments, now responsible for and
expected to be knowledgeable about
some 59 major areas of concern, like
these:

Evangelism
Stewardship
Developing Church literature

Overseas ministries
Relations with other Churches

All Church institutions
Ministerial relief and annuities
Conference program (Montreat)
Family, Women, Youth work
Health and Welfare services
Relations with overseas Churches
NCC, WCC, COCU, JSAC, UMHE
Etc., etc., etc., etc.,
Heart of the new board's opera-
tions will be its executive commit-

PAGE 16 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 9, 1972

THE LAYMAN AND HIS CHURCH

Leaving Home But Not Family

tee. Small wonder that in its organi-
zational meeting the membership of
this committee became a major bone
of contention, with anyone who even
bore the lingering aroma of conser-
vatism rejected.

It was clear to observers that the
Church's "new breed" had taken
over. More than once we heard ref-
erences to "the Presbyterian equiva-
lent of the 1972 Democratic Nation-
al Convention." The "old guard"
liberals on the new board fought to
maintain some semblance of influ-
ence, if not control. With former
moderator Ben L. Rose firmly in the
saddle as chairman, they managed to
succeed, temporarily. But whether
the "new style" will bear any resem-
blance to traditional programs re-
mains to be seen. It won't, if the
vocal members of the new board
have their way.

For the record, credit for the rules
under which the GEB is operating
belongs to the Ad Interim Commit-
tee on Restructuring Boards and
Agencies, appointed by the 1969
General Assembly in response to an
overture from the Presbytery of
Northwest Missouri. The commit-
tee put in 3 hard years of work un-
der the chairmanship of the Rev.
William J. Fogleman of Houston,
Tex.

Credit for the membership of the
board, and thus for most of the
radical actions it is likely to take,
belongs to the moderators of the
1968, 1969 and 1970 General Assem-
blies. Their appointees constituted
the Permanent Nominating Com-
mittee which named the 62 people
on the GEB.

Conservatives have always been in
the minority on the Permanent Nom-
inating Committee. But never has
the balance shifted so far to the left
as it did after Dr. William A. Ben-
field, 1970 Assembly moderator, put
his three appointees on it.

It was the "new" Permanent Nom-
inating Committee which eliminated
a third term for nearly all members
of boards and agencies suggested to
the 1972 General Assembly, and
which picked the people who are
now in charge.

A seminary professor, watching the
behavior of ministers trained in our
seminaries and laymen trained by
ministers trained in our seminaries,
said to a friend with a trace of alarm
in his voice, "I had no idea we were
in such shape as a Church."

Hindsight, they say, is clearer than
foresight. EH

Leaving home is difficult, espe-
cially when it is a home you appreci-
ate. Vocationally, the Journal has
been my home for 12 years. At the
end of this month I will leave it.

This departure is particularly dif-
ficult because it is open to misinter-
pretation. I appreciate the Journal
for the very reasons that some peo-
ple criticize it. My leaving is not
intended as more ammunition for
the critics' fire.

I have asked the editor for the
privilege of explaining my situation
in this column so that Journal read-
ers will understand I am leaving a
particular vocational home but not
the family. After all, most readers
of this publication are employed
elsewhere. In the sense that they
consider themselves in the Journal
family, so will I.

Laymen working full time in the
world of religion are just not in the
same league as the preachers. Voca-
tional opportunities are much more
limited. Within evangelical Chris-
tianity, the field of journalism is
very small.

Thus, when an opportunity opens
up in this field one must consider it
seriously. When two offers ap-
peared for me almost simultaneous-
ly, I thought the Lord must be tell-
ing me something about moving!
Accepting either one, of course,
would mean leaving the employment
of the Journal.

It was the most difficult decision
I ever faced in my life. During the
weeks the matter was under consid-
eration I greatly appreciated the pa-
tience and understanding of Aiken
Taylor and Henry Dendy and the
prayers of others.

The final decision was that I
could not turn down a unique op-

Arthur Matthews came to the
Journal from the staff of the Alex-
andria (La.) Daily Town Talk in
1960. A former secretary of Assem-
bly Men's Council, he was one of
the Church's official delegates to the
1970 General Assembly of the World
Prebyterian Alliance in Nairobi,
Kenya.

portunity for service in the Billy
Graham Evangelistic Association. It
is my hope that as Mr. Graham's
press aide my training and experi-
ence can be of greater use in extend-
ing the message of the Gospel.

The decision, therefore, was one
of whether it would be possible to
be of greater service elsewhere. It
was not a question of agreement or
disagreement with my present em-
ployer.

My departure, in fact, reflects no
disagreement with the Journal on
issues. Very specifically, the stand
taken by this publication's board of
directors last August is one with
which I agree. Even though this has
been widely misunderstood, I join
with the board in support of a move-
ment to plan for a continuing Pres-
byterian Church.

With the governing bodies of three
other groups, the Journal board cre-
ated the Steering Committee for a
Continuing Presbyterian Church.
This committee's work has been a
great interest of mine during the
past year. From time to time I have
been asked to help these 12 men
with their work. I have gladly done
what I could as a public relations
consultant.

To me, it seems to be only good
stewardship to plan for what seems
to be inevitable. For years, the
brethren have heard me appeal for
more and better planning. Now,
they are doing it! I rejoice.

This committee is made up of fal-
lible men, and they are the first to
admit their imperfections. As all of
them have not approved of every
sentence and every paragraph I have
written in their behalf, so I have
not agreed with some of the individ-
ual actions of the committee and
some of its members. But these men
have put up with me and my short-
comings graciously, and I appreci-
ate it. Most of all, I appreciate
their dedication to a task which I
believe God has put before them.

The overall thrust of the steering
committee's work is of great impor-

(Cont. on p. 23, col. 2)

PAGE 17 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 9, 1972

SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON

For August 27, 1972

Sharing Through Witness

Rev. Jack B. Scott

INTRODUCTION: The subject
before us today is of great impor-
tance as we consider the task of evan-
gelism. It is not a task for the
Church alone but for every individ-
ual member of Christ's Church, that
is, every true believer in the salva-
tion granted us through Jesus Christ.

The lesson for today is based on
two passages from the book of Acts.
However, it seems to me that a more
profitable study would include a
general study of Acts on the topic,
Christian Evangelism. I have there-
fore utilized more than the given
text for today's lesson so that we may
get a broader and more complete
view of New Testament evangelism.

I have divided our material into
six specific subjects:

I. THE COMMISSION. Simply
put, Jesus, before He ascended, com-
missioned His disciples and through
them all future believers to be His
witnesses (Acts 1:8). The vision of
Christ here clearly comprehended
the whole world but the pattern set
was to begin where the disciples
were, at home.

We see then the whole scope of
evangelism from the point of view
of Jesus the Lord of the harvest
(Matt. 9:35). The conviction that
they were witnesses sent by Christ
continually permeated the thought
of the disciples (Acts 5:32, 10:39,
42; 22:15) .

So compelling was this commis-
sion which Jesus laid on His disci-
ples that for them there was no oth-
er course. When threatened by the
Sanhedrin, their reply was: "We can-
not but speak the things which we
saw and heard" (4:20) . When arrest-
ed for their activity, they again re-
plied, "we must obey God rather
than men" (5:29) .

They are frequently described as
speaking boldly in the name of
Christ (9:27, 14:3). Indeed the
closing picture of Paul given in Acts
is of his boldness, even while im-
prisoned for the faith (28:31) .
Their boldness is seen in their readi-
ness to die for their faith as many

Background Scripture: Acts 4:13-

21, 8:26-40
Key Verses: Acts 4:13-21
Devotional Reading: Acts 8:26-40
Memory Selection: Acts 4:20

were required to do (Stephen,
James) .

Nevertheless, in their obedience to
the commission of Jesus to be His
witnesses, they were by no means
sent out alone. Jesus Himself who
had, as Lord of God's people from
the beginning, assured Moses that
He was with him (Exo. 3:12), like-
wise assured His disciples of His
presence with them wherever they
went in His name (Matt. 28:20) .
When Paul in a time of weariness
and discouragement needed reassur-
ance, Jesus again appeared and com-
forted him with those same words,
"I am with you" (Acts 18:10).

Within the general commission we
find Paul particularly singled out to
lead the way in the evangelism of
the Gentiles, heretofore outside the
special grace of God for the most
part. Ananias was the first to know
of this special commission and was
instructed to go to Paul with this
message (9:15) . But the special com-
mission also came to Paul and Barna-
bas by the direct word of the Holy
Spirit when they were in Antioch
worshiping with some of the devout
members of the church there (13:2) .

The interesting point to note here
is that as the Holy Spirit led the be-
lievers in Antioch to single out these
two men, the church in response sent
them forth (13:3) . Thus there was
a two fold sending: that of the Holy
Spirit who called them and that of
the church in obedience to the Holy
Spirit (13:3, 4) . Paul's own sense
of his call is clearly seen and beau-
tifully expressed in 26:18. He sees
his work of being Jesus' witness to
these people as an opening of the
eyes of the Gentiles so that they
would turn from darkness to the

The International Sunday School Lesson Out-
lines are copyrighted by The International
Council of Religious Education.

light, that is, from Satan to God, to
receive remission of sins and an in-
heritance among God's people. Note
that. Those who are not in God's
kingdom are in Satan's kingdom.
There is no neutral ground. We are
to bring people out of the power of
Satan to Jesus Christ.

II. THE OCCASION. It is im-
portant to see that the disciples used
every occasion given to them by the
Lord to witness. When a large mul-
titude was attracted to the disciples
at Pentecost, Peter immediately used
the occasion to witness (2:4) . Again,
when they responded, he followed
the lead of the Lord to tell them
more about repentance and faith (2:
37) .

On the occasion of a crowd being
gathered at the temple after Peter
had healed the beggar, Peter again
took advantage of the assembly (3:
12) . Whenever God opened the
door the disciples were ready to move
in. But they also spiritually pre-
pared themselves and prayed for the
Lord of the harvest to send them
forth as we have seen in the exam-
ple of the Antioch believers (13:3).

One of their frequent opportuni-
ties came when they found people
reading or interested in the Scrip-
tures, such as Philip with the Ethio-
pian (8:30) , or Paul and Barnabas
at Antioch of Pisidia (13:15).

They were sensitive to particular-
ly good opportunities to witness.
When the Philippian jailer was
moved by the thoughtfulness of
Paul, the apostle used the occasion
to witness (16:26). At Athens, a
pagan altar was the occasion Paul
used to witness (17:23). In short,
the apostles were always ready to
witness. They prayed for opportuni-
ties and then on any occasion, they
moved in with their testimony.

III. THE EFFEC TI VE A GENT.
The question arises, how could these
uneducated and poor men be such
effective witnesses? We know of
course the answer. They were given
the Holy Spirit. Here Jesus was

PAGE 18 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 9, 1972

keeping His promise to be with them
always, through the indwelling Holy
Spirit. As the Lord assured the Old
Testament believers of His presence
with them (Exo. 3:12; Josh. 1:5; Jer.
1:8), so in the New Testament this
Same Lord gave the same assurance
(Matt. 28:20; Acts 1:8). In this lat-
ter passage He promised the Holy
Spirit by Whom they would be made
effective witnesses. In Acts 2:4, we
see just how the coming of the Holy
Spirit did give them boldness and
ability to witness.

It is interesting that Peter who
just a few weeks before had trem-
bled in the courtyard at Jesus' trial
when he was accused by a little girl
of being a Jesus-follower, now could
stand and preach Jesus to those very
people who had crucified Him (2:

Ii4).

Particularly associated with the
coming of the Holy Spirit is power
(1:8) . The Holy Spirit by His pow-
er not only gives to us the words to
speak and the boldness with which
to speak, but also convicts the hear-
ers and pricks their hearts to respond
to the Gospel (2:37) . The power of
the Holy Spirit in the apostles was
evident to all (4:33) .

In connection with this power
which Christ provided, at the same
time His witnesses realized they must
rely on Him. Humility and lowli-
ness of mind are therefore also essen-
tial for effective witnessing. It is
not by our persuasive words but by
God's power through the Holy Spirit
that people will believe. Paul well
knew this and therefore was success-
ful in God's eyes (20:19. Compare
also I Cor. 2:1-5) .

IV. THE SUBJECT MATTER.
We come now to the most important
question: "What did the apostles
preach?"

In answer to this question I want
to move from the general to the spe-
cific. In general, the subject mat-
ter is described in Acts as "the
mighty works of God" (2:11). Sim-
ilarly, Paul describes his preaching
as "anything that was profitable"

! (20:20) . In the same context, Paul
affirmed that he declared the whole

! counsel of God (20:27) .

In these general descriptions we
see that the concern of those witness-

j ing was to glorify God, not them-
selves; and to meet the needs of men,
not themselves. They preached
God's message and not their own. It
was God's counsel, that is, what God
had revealed.

More specifically they preached
Jesus (8:35). Concerning Jesus they
told of His historical identity — He
was Jesus of Nazareth, a known his-
toric personality (2:22) . But He
was more, He was also Lord and
Christ (2:36) and God's servant (3:
13) . They told of His being anoint-
ed by the Holy Spirit and of His go-
ing about doing good, as evidence
that God was with Him (10:38) . In
short, they did not hesitate to dwell
on the humanness of Jesus as they
anchored their doctrine in the his-
torical Jesus.

But they did not stop there. They
went on to tell of the supernatural
elements of His historical life. Most
particularly, they stressed His bodily
resurrection (2:24, 32; 4:33, 13:30) .
From Pentecost on this was the key-
stone of their testimony. The one
the Jews had crucified, God had
raised from the dead (4:10, 5:30).
Closely related to the resurrection al-
so they taught the doctrine of
Christ's exaltation which is men-
tioned in Acts 2:33, 5:31, but further
developed in the epistles.

However, the apostles did not stop
by merely revealing the facts about
Jesus: His birth, life on earth, death,
resurrection, exaltation. As basic as
these facts are, they are not of them-
selves the whole counsel of God
about Jesus. The apostles therefore
went on to apply these facts in a
meaningful way. They gave the
reasons why, that is, the significance
of these facts.

They spoke of the tidings of peace
by Christ (10:36) pointing back to
the Prince of Peace foretold through
Isaiah in Isaiah 9:6, 7. They point-
ed out that Jesus was ordained by
God to be the Judge of the living
and the dead, that is, the One to
whom all men are accountable (10:
42) . Jesus the historical person was
clearly connected to the promise of
a Saviour from David's family (13:
23) . So the promise to the fathers
(the Old Testament believers) was
fulfilled in Jesus' resurrection (13:
32, 33).

From this the plan of salvation
was developed. Salvation would be
by faith in Jesus' name (3:16) . Not
by works which we do but by the
grace of the Lord Jesus, are we saved
through faith (15:11. Compare Eph.
2:1-9). You must therefore believe
on Christ to be saved (16:31).

So positive were the apostles of
this that they could affirm that in
no other name was salvation possible
(4:12). Only through Christ could

sin be dealt with (10:43, 13:38) .
What the law could not accomplish,
God through Christ has done. He
has justified us from all sin (13:39) .
Christ therefore has purchased (re-
deemed) the Church with His own
blood (20:28).

In particular, repentance of sins
and a turning to faith in Jesus are
the essence of the plan of salvation
which the apostles preached (2:38,
3:19, 26; 5:31, 8:22, 20:21). This
was often accomplished by promises
of blessings from God (3:19).
Furthermore, such salvation was but
an introduction to a life of good
works which was to be lived by the
new believer to the glory of God
(26:20) .

Since the apostles understood the
present world to be under condemna-
tion, they called people to come out
of the present world and follow
Christ (2:40).

Particularly noticeable is that
when the apostles witnessed to pa-
gans with no prior foundation laid,
they spoke specially of God as cre-
ator and provider, appealing to
God's natural revelation. But always
they moved quickly to the miracle
of the resurrection of Christ and the
sureness of judgment as essential doc-
trines for all who are to be saved by
faith (14:15-17; 17:24-31; 19:26) . To
Gentiles as to Jews, the call was to
turn from vanity and to believe in
the living God.

V. THE BASIC AUTHORITY
FOR THEIR WITNESS. Through-
out the book of Acts, we see God's
Word variously described as the
Scriptures, the Prophets, or the Law,
as the authority and basis for the
Gospel (2:16; 7:1; 8:35; 10:43; 13:
15, 33; 17:2, 3, 11; 24:14; 28:23).

From beginning to end, there
was no other infallible authority
used than this Word. To this au-
thority the apostles appealed and it
is evident that their testimony re-
flected a thorough knowledge of
God's written Word.

VI. THE RESULTS. The results
were not always the same. The apos-
tles witnessed but God gave the in-
crease. He added daily to the total
of believers (2:47) . Not only did
He add believers but He gave great
grace to the whole witnessing Church
(4:33) . He continually poured out
the Holy Spirit on new believers evi-
dencing His having saved them, even
Gentiles (11:17; 15:8) .

But not all believed. Some refused

PAGE 19 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 9, 1972

the Gospel (13:46) . Some were
hardened by the testimony of salva-
tion (19:9) . But whether they be-
lieved or disbelieved (28:24) , God
was glorified by the testimony. As
Paul said, "For we are a sweet savor
of Christ unto God, in them that are
saved, and in them that perish; to
the one a savor from death unto
death; to the other a savor from life
unto life" (II Cor. 2:15, 16). We
please Christ if we faithfully witness
to the truth. Only God can bring
the results which please Him (I Cor.
3:6).

CONCLUSION: The lessons

learned here about first century
evangelism certainly apply to us to-
day. The commission to be Christ's
witnesses is as much ours as theirs.
We, as they, must be ready at all
times to testify, redeeming the time,
using every occasion and praying the
Lord of the harvest to open the door
of opportunity. We too must be
willing to give our lives as they were
ready to do. At the same time, we
too are assured that Christ is with us
and His Holy Spirit will be the ef-
fective agent in our testifying.

Certainly the subject matter has
not changed. It is Jesus Christ, the
same yesterday, today and forever

YOUTH PROGRAM

Scripture: Mark 10:35-45
Suggested Hymns:

"Stand up, Stand up, for
Jesus"

"More Holiness Give Me"
"Jesus Calls Us: O'er the
Tumult"

(Distribute slips of paper and pen-
cils to the young people. Ask them
to prepare two lists: Marks of suc-
cess from the Christian viewpoint,
and marks of successful life accord-
ing to the world's way of measure-
ment. Mark two corresponding col-
ums on the chalkboard, and list the
different ideas suggested.)

PROGRAM LEADER'S INTRO-
DUCTION: From our experiment
here with the two lists, we see that
there is not always agreement be-

For August 27, 1972

What Is Success?

Rev. B. Hoyt Evans

tween the Christian idea of success
and the worldly idea. The passage
of Scripture we read from the tenth
chapter of Mark shows the same lack
of agreement.

The sons of Zebedee were sure
they would be successful if only Je-
sus would promise them the places
of highest importance in His king-
dom. Their idea of success was to
be in a position where they could
"lord it over" other people. Jesus
refused their request, and explained
to them at the same time how their
idea of success was altogether wrong.

He did not merely give them ad-
vice about the matter, He made it
clear that He was following His own
formula for success. Jesus said His
way to success was not through being
served, but through service, not
through saving His life, but through
giving it as a ransom for others. This

(Heb. 13:8) . No message is more
relevant for the world today than Je-
sus Christ, crucified and risen for
our sin and our justification before
God. Our authority also is the same:
God's written Word, the Old and
New Testaments. They are still
God's only infallible Word and
alone are worthy of being heard to- fi|
day.

If we so witness, we can be assured
of the same results, as individuals
and as churches. Not all will believe
but many will. Above all, whether
they believe or not, our Lord will be
known and glorified in the world. SI

is not only Christ's way of success, it
is the only way for His people, for
all of us who call ourselves Chris-
tians.

All of us are surely aware that this
idea of becoming servants is not very
acceptable to ordinary human na-
ture. By nature, we would rather
receive service and honor from oth-
ers than give it to them. We would
rather have others look up to us than
look up to them. We enjoy being
considered important more than we
enjoy recognizing the importance of
others. In short, Christ's notion of
success is not very popular with hu-
man nature. That is perfectly nat-
ural, because unchanged human na-
ture is always seeking to honor and
satisfy itself.

Before a person can seriously ac-
cept Christ's formula for success he
needs to have his nature changed.
He needs to be made a new creature
in Christ. The only person who can
follow the Christian way of success
is one whose life has been trans-
formed by Jesus Christ. The only
way a person can have life trans-
formed is by accepting Christ as his
personal Lord and Saviour.

FIRST SPEAKER: Not just any
kind of service will lead to success.
It must be genuine Christian serv-
ice. In order to lead to success, the
service we give must be helpful to
others and it must be done in the

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PAGE 20 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 9, 1972

j ame of Christ and for the sake of
,hrist.

A person can give himself to serv-
n lg in a bar room or a gambling den.
c bu would not expect this kind of
;rvice to lead to success in the
christian pattern because it harms
le people being served rather than
elping them. If what we do for peo-
ple does not make them better then
ur service will not result in success.

Hundreds of thousands of young
»eople are serving unselfishly and
edicatedly in the cause of Commu-
ism. You cannot expect their serv-
:e to lead to true success because
he thing they serve is wrong. Some-
imes young people think that suc-
ess is sure to come if only they will
;ive themselves fully to the service
tf some great cause. The nature of
he cause is of utmost importance.
The highest success comes when that
.ause is the greatest one of all, that
»f Jesus Christ.

SECOND SPEAKER: If we some-
imes have the wrong ideas about
vhat is required to make a success-
ul life, we may also have the wrong

Do you realize that when God is
ible to bless His people to the full-
est degree, the effect will be right-
eousness and peace?

The prophecy of Isaiah is remark-
able in that it begins with vivid de-
scriptions of the judgment of God
and ends with descriptions of the sal-
vation of God that are equally vivid.

If we learned anything from our
study of the first part of Isaiah, it
was that God is not mocked. He is
nobody's fool. By that I mean to say
that sin can lead us to the point
where there is no other end but de-
struction. Make no mistake: The
God of love can, and will, destroy
evil.

Yet there is a marvelous aspect to
the relationship between God and
mankind and this, too, we learned:
In mercy, He is willing to save those
who repent, who confess their sins
and turn to Him. No matter how
dreadful the condition, He is will-

ideas about who are the truly success-
ful people among our acquaintances.

The world insists so loudly on its
own terms of success that Christians
are apt to be swayed and misled.
Along with the world, we are tempt-
ed to think that the person with a
great deal of wealth or a high posi-
tion is successful simply because of
his position. We are also tempted to
think that the person who has not
attained these things is not success-
ful.

If we find ourselves yielding to
such temptations, we need to read
again what Jesus said about His own
life, that He came to serve and to
give His life as a ransom for sinners.
He had few of the things the world
claims are necessary for success, but
He was the most successful man who
ever lived on this earth.

THIRD SPEAKER: There is an-
other danger which we need to avoid
in our thinking about the nature of
true success. The last speaker made
it clear that wealth, position, and
worldly importance do not guaran-
tee genuine success, but neither do

Manford Geo. Gutzke, D.D., Ph.D.

Isaiah 54-57; 31:4-5

ing to hold out His hand in forgive-
ness and acceptance to a remnant.

The idea of the remnant appears
strongly in the Old Testament
prophecies and is repeated even more
strongly in the New Testament.
The prophets foretold that while the
people of Israel would be carried
away captive and the land would be
destroyed, a remnant would return
and from that remnant God would
build up His kingdom which would
have no end. This was the message
of the latter part of Isaiah's proph-
ecy.

Paul, in Romans, talks about the
remnant even more explicitly. He
asks, in the 11th chapter: "Hath God
cast away His people?" Then he an-
swers: "God forbid! God hath not
cast away His people which He fore-
knew." And then: "Even at this

they make such success impossible.

Sometimes our attitude toward
rich and important people is like
that of the fox toward the "sour
grapes," — one of resentment and
bitterness and pretended disdain.
Some of the most successful people in
the world, judged by Christ's formula,
have been those who were both
wealthy and important. We also need
to realize that being poor and in-
significant in the eyes of the world
does not insure our being successful
in the eyes of Christ.

The fact is that neither wealth nor
property, importance nor insignifi-
cance, have anything at all to do
with the success experienced by those
who walk in the way of Christian
service. Not every person is a suc-
cess, but any person can be. All that
is required is to yield all that we
have to Jesus Christ.

PROGRAM LEADER: Let us all
bow our heads for a time of silent
prayer, self-examination, and rededi-
cation. (After allowing time for this
prayer, close the meeting by singing
"Take My Life and Let It Be Con-
secrated.") ffl

present time also there is a remnant
according to the election of grace."
The lesson in that passage is that
even though the Jews seemed to be
rejecting their Messiah, Jesus Christ,
some would turn to Him and would
be saved. And so it has been.

There is always a remnant who in-
herit the promises of grace. Those
promises, made to all Israel generi-
cally, are fulfilled in the remnant,
through the grace and salvation ex-
tended the few who believe. In the
remnant God keeps His covenant
promises made to Abraham and to
David.

Not By Whim

All this is not to say that God
brings judgment upon some who sin,
but upon others, equally sinful, He
overlooks the necessity of judgment.
Not at all. The law applies uni-
versally and equally: The soul that

WOMEN'S WORK

Supplementary Circle Bible Study

September: The Lion Undaunted

PAGE 21 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 9, 1972

sinneth it shall die.

How then can God extend mercy
unto those who repent? This truth
does not come through reason or ob-
servation but only by revelation:
While mankind was yet sinful, God
sent His only Son to pay the pen-
alty of sin, so the law might be satis-
fied and justice prevail.

From the very beginning, we are
told, God had in mind that His Mes-
siah would enter the world for the
express purpose of offering Himself
a vicarious (a substitutionary) sacri-
fice for God's remnant. He would
die for them so they might be for-
given. In His capacity as their King,
He would make it possible for them
to attain righteousness and He would
bring them into a life of peace and

This great vision of hope was
given to Isaiah in the latter part of
his ministry and constitutes the lat-
ter part of his prophecy. Repeated-
ly, in the closing chapters of his
book, Isaiah sets out the prospect
of wonderful blessing when the will
of God has been accomplished. The
book which begins with such a dark
tone of judgment, finally concludes
with an almost blinding vision of
grace and mercy.

A very important part of the prom-
ise to those who would know the
grace of God through His anointed
One, the Messiah, was that they
would never be abandoned. They
would not be perfect in this world.
That is, they would never be with-
out sin and they would often act in
ways that would be contrary to the
Father's will. But God would not
let them go. They would belong to
Him and He would keep them for-
ever.

All this would be done through
God's Servant, whose coming would
effect salvation to the uttermost to
all who put their trust in Him.

Once again: This great truth is
not apprehended by the natural
mind but is revealed only in Scrip-
ture and must be accepted by faith.

As you go through the closing
chapters of this wonderful book,
these truths become ever clearer. We
do not have the time even so much
as to skim all the material in this
lesson, but I would urge you to read
it through and underline verses that
speak especially to your heart. These
can be shared with the others in your
circle.

For instance, the promise in the
10th verse of the 54th chapter: "For
the mountains shall depart, and the

hills be removed; but My kindness
shall not depart from thee, neither
shall the covenant of My peace be
removed, saith the Lord that hath
mercy on thee."

In chapter 55 there is the familiar
invitation so often read at Christmas
time: "Ho, every one that thirsteth,
come ye to the waters, and he that
hath no money; come ye, buy, and
eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk
without money and without price."
The blessing of God upon the rem-
nant would be utterly free and
would be entirely by grace.

Then there is the promise that
many of us have learned by heart

For Discussion

When the Lord Jesus said the
gates of hell would not prevail
against His Church, did that mean
He would preserve every denomina-
tion intact until the day of His re-
turn?

(Chapter 55, verses 6-7) : "Seek ye
the Lord while He may be found,
call ye upon Him while He is near:
let the wicked forsake his way and
the unrighteous man his thoughts;
and let him return unto the Lord and
He will have mercy upon him; and
to our God, for He will abundantly
pardon." This is a marvelous prom-
ise that seems extended to everyone
in the world. It is, in a sense, ex-
tended to all, but you can also see
that it is for those who repent and
turn to God.

In chapter 56 the prophet makes
explicit an aspect of the promise of
God that was not always clear to the
people of God in Old Testament
times. The day would come when
God's blessing would be freely made
available to Gentiles as well as Jews
— in fact, to all nations.

This worldwide extension of
mercy and grace was so foreign an
idea to the Jews that the disciples
found it hard to accept, even after
the Lord Jesus Christ had returned
to heaven and sent the Holy Spirit
at Pentecost. Paul takes much of
his letter to the Romans to explain
how God could be faithful to His
original promises to Abraham when
the Gospel seemed to pass from the
Jews to the Gentiles. It was because
the "children of Abraham" in the
spiritual sense were not necessarily
the "physical descendants" of Abra-
ham in the natural sense. To be a
spiritual child of Abraham it was
necessary to believe as he believed.

(

ill'

d

Those who so believed became
"heirs of the promises."

In the 57th chapter the prophet
describes what it is that qualifies a
sinner for the blessing of God. "I
dwell in the high and holy place
with him also that is of a contrite
and humble spirit," he writes by in-
spiration in the 15th verse, "to re-
vive the spirit of the humble and to
revive the heart of the contrite
ones."

It is not our works, nor our
achievements, nor even our prom-
ises, that bring us into a saving re-
lationship with God. It is our hum-
ble recognition of our need and our
repentance of our sins. Those who
come in humility and repentance
will be healed (v. 18) .

In the final chapters of the book,
which we will not have time to cov-
er, it is made plain that all these
wonderful promises will be fulfilled
in a new heaven and a new earth
"wherein dwelleth righteousness."
We should never think that this old
world will become another Eden. It
will not. It is in a new world that
God's richest promises will be ful-
filled.

The Lion Undaunted

In the Workbook lesson the theme
seems to be the certainty of God's
victory on behalf of His people even
though real events of contemporary
history (in Isaiah's time the destruc-
tion of Jerusalem) will force a re-
assessment of what we are to under-
stand by the nature of the expected
victory.

It is true that sometimes things do
not work out, in the providence of
God, as we have been led to believe
they would. And sometimes God
does seem to do new things with His
people that do not seem to fit the
old patterns. But this one thing is
certain: When God does a new
thing in the midst of His people, it
is by way of restoring the old paths
and returning His people to the
original integrity of that relation-
ship He has always desired.

At the time of the Protestant Ref-
ormation God did a new thing
among His people. But that new
thing was a restoration of Biblical
Christianity.

From time to time, in revival
periods, God does a new thing. To-
day many people believe they are
witnessing a new work of God in the
powerful evidences of the Holy
Spirit's work outside the institution-

PAGE 22 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 9, 1972

1 Churches. But an interesting
hing about the modern evidences of
iod at work: The result is Biblical
eligion according to the historic
aith of the Lord Jesus Christ. It
sn't something new in the sense that
t is different from the ways God has
leak with His people before.

The traditional faith of Christians
tas included certain definite and
listinct elements: belief in the Bible,
>elief in Jesus Christ, belief in heav-
n, belief in hell, belief in salvation
hrough the new birth, belief in the
jower of God through the Holy
•pirit. From time to time human
visdom, in the name of the Church,
las tried to alter or amend these ele-
nents. And God, from time to time,
las come along to work a mighty
lew work of revival — sometimes
hrough a revitalizing of the Church,
.ometimes through the emergence of
i new form of the Church. But when
;uch a work has been accomplished,
t always has had the effect of re-
itoring those same definite and dis-
:inct elements.

This final word: Churches that
aear the name "Christian" some-
limes reach the point where the lead-
ership is human in its aims and ob-
jectives and the Church is led away
from the plain teaching of Scripture
and the truth of God. In such situa-
tions we can trust God to be faith-
ful to His promise to heal and to
raise up new witnesses unto Him-
self. But God is not committed to
perpetuate any particular denomina-
tion and He does not promise that
any institutional form of the Church
will last forever.

He may reconfirm original experi-
ences of salvation through the Holy
Spirit in a new denomination, al-
though it can also happen in the
old denomination itself.

# # # #

Dr. Gutzke is professor emeritus
of Biblical exposition, Columbia
Seminary, and broadcaster of "The

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Persons of all ages are eligible, except
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I Virginia Life Company. Write today to

■ Robert U. Woods, General Agent, (Elder,
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Bible for You." This study is avail-
able on tape recording, $3 per reg-
ular tape containing 4 lessons ($9
the set, Nos. 71, 2, 3) and $3 per cas-
sette containing 3 lessons ($12 the
set, Nos. 71-A, B, C, D) . Order from
The Bible for You, Box 15007, At-
lanta, Ga. 30333. ffl

Layman— from p. 17

tance. Its mandate is to plan for
a denomination that will be Re-
formed in doctrine, presbyterian in
polity and obedient to Christ's great
commission. I pray that these men

will continue to be led by God as
they prepare for such a Church.

I have been very conscious during
the past 12 years of the practice of
some Journal family members of
praying daily for me. It is my ear-
nest hope that they will continue
this, adding my new work to the list,
as well as the Journal and the steer-
ing committee. ffl

RETIRED MINISTER invites correspond-
ence with pulpit committee and/or ses-
sion seeking Stated Supply. Conservative
and evangelical. Write "Pulpit Supply,"
C/O The Journal, Weaverville, North
Carolina. 28787.

31 stores in 8 states serving you
with this pledge ....

• To give prompt courteous service, treating our customers as you would a gueit
in your home. • To give the best selection of merchandise trom Top Quality
Fashions to basement bargains, meeting everyone's need. • To give satisfaction
guaranteed with every purchase. • To give credit terms arranged to meet your
budget needs in Stores doing credit business.

Since the opening of the first Belk-Simpson Store, it has been our
endeavor to be more in a community than just another merchant.
We have set forth a united concentrated effort, dedicated to the task
of securing superior quality merchandise, giving our customers a
better value than any other merchant.

SOUTH CAROLINA

Belk-Simpson Co.
Greenville, S. C
J. A. Ellison, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson-Plaza Store

Greenville, S. C.

R. Grier Robinson Jr., Res.

The Dollar Store

Greenville, S. C

R. P. Crumpler, Res. Mgr.

Belk's of Pleasantburg

Greenville, S. C.

A. M. Smith, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store
Lancaster, S. C.

B. L. Plyler, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store

Camden, S. C

J. A. Hagins, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store

Clinton, S. C.

D. B. Smith, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.
Darlinqton, S. C.
Paul E. Broome, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store

Laurens, S. C.

David Middleton, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Abbeville, S. C.

J. S. Hagins, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Hagins Co.
Kershaw, S. C.

C. E. Hinson, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.
Easley, S. C.
R. J. Womack, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Beaufort, S. C.
Al Wilson, Res. Mgr.
Mgr. Belk-Simpson Co.
Fountain Inn, S. C

E. J. Copeland, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Woodruff, S. C.

F. B. Hagins, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Honea Path, S. C.

T. R. Martin, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Whitmire, S. C.
Clyde Smith, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Manning, S. C.

W. M. Gettys, Res. Mgr.

OHIO

Belk-Simpson Co.

Athens, Ohio

Joe Kelly, Res. Mgr.

MISSOURI

Belk-Simpson Co.

Carthage, Mo.

Charles Wilson, Res. Mgr.

OKLAHOMA

Belk Dept. Store

Miami. Oklahoma

J. T. Holmes, Res. Mgr.

NORTH CAROLINA

Belk-Simpson Co.

Hendersonville, N. C.

R. E. McCormack. Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store

Brevard, N. C.

J. M. Felty, Res. Mgr.

KENTUCKY

Belk-Simpson Co.
Harlan, Ky.

Delmar Tolliver, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Corbin, Ky.

W. C. Ashley, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Winchester, Ky.

T. L. Beckham, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Mt. Sterling, Ky.

Willoughby Smith, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Frankfort, Ky.

J. D. Prow, Res. Mgr.

GEORGIA

Belk-Simpson Co.
Bainbridge, Ga.
M. D. Ashley, Res.

ARKANSAS

Belk-Simpson Co.
Paragould, Ark.
W. H. Wade, Res.

Belk-Simpson Co.
Osceola, Ark.
K. R. Cline, Res.

Mgr.

Mgr.

Mgr.

These stores are a small part of the entire Belk or-
ganization and have been in existence approximately
50 years. The Belk stores were launched in 1886-88.

SEE THE MANAGER NEAREST YOU FOR CHURCH CARPET, ROBES, ETC.

PAGE 23 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 9, 1972

Earlier Ads in the Journal listed the Main
Address speakers, the Bible Hour speaker,
the Music Program and the Youth Program.
This ad will feature the leaders of the 27
SEMINARS ON EVANGELISM.

Preparation for Crusades
REV. CHARLES McNUTT
Roanoke, Va.

A Closer Walk With God
REV. DAVID WHITE
Gastonia, N. C.

Crusade Follow-up
REV. RICHARD LITTLE
Richmond. Va.

How to Find the
Will of God
DR. ROBERT REYMOND
St. Louis, Mo.

The Evangelistic Church
REV. PAUL SETTLE
Montgomery, Ala

Evangelism and
Christian Psychiatry
DR. MIRIAM SMITH
Decatur, Ga.

Evangelism through the

Sunday School
DR. THOMAS CROSS
Greenville, S. C.

Evangelism through
Bible Study Groups
REV. FRANK BARKER
Birmingham, Ala.

Ministers Clinic on
Evangelistic Preaching
REV. KENNEDY SMARTT
Hopewell, Va.

Revivals and Evangelism
in Presbyterian History
DR. GREGG SINGER
Salisbury, N. C.

Overseas Evangelism
DR. GEORGE HUDSON
Atlanta, Ga.

Evangelism and the
Reformed Faith
REV. JOHN SAR TELLE
Cedar Bluff, Va.

Christian Witness in
the School
MRS. E. P. ELLIOTT, SR.
Manassas, Va.

Proofs of the
Christian Faith
REV. DEWEY MURPHY
Denver, N. C.

Evangelism to the

Alcoholic
REV. JIM CLAFFEE
Lenoir, N. C.

"YE ARE MY WITNESSES"
Isaiah 43:10 Luke 24:48

EVANGELISM CONFERENCI

sponsored by

Presbyterian Evangelistic Fellowship

MONTREAT, NORTH CAROLINA
August 18-23, 1972

Please Mail
Your Registration In Now ! ! !
Don't Delay.

Evangelism to the

Inner city
REV. BILL BROWN
New Orleans, La.

Evangelism to the Negro
REV. T. M. FLOWERS
Savannah, Ga.

Wives In Evangelism
MRS. FRANK BARKER
Birmingham, Ala.

Evangelism and the
Christian Coffeehouse
Ministry
MR. & MRS.
GLEN BONDURANT
Pompano Beach, Fla.

Evangelistic Music
MRS. INER BASINGER
Parkersburg, W. Va.

Evangelism to the Jews
MR. JACK HEINTZ
Palm Beach, Fla.

Youth Workers
REV. CARL WILSON
Decatur, Ga.

DR.

Evangelizing
Roman Catholics
MARIANO DIGANGI
Ontario. Canada

Personal Evangelism
REV. ARCHIE PARRISH
Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.

Specialized Areas of

Evangelism
REV. ARNIE MAVES
Pensacola, Fla.

Lay Witness Schools
No. 1

MR. HENRY THIGPEN
Florence, Ala.

Lay Witness Schools No. 2
MR. "CHIP" HOWELL & MR. BILL STEVENSOI*
Smyrna, Ga. Smyrna, Ga.

EVANGELISM CONFERENCE
Registration and Fee

MAIL

To: P.E.F. Evangelism Conference

P. O. Box 808

Hopewell, Virginia 23860
REGISTRATION FEES: (please en
close)

Family — $10.00 (2 or more persons!
Individuals — $5.00 each (21 yeare
or older. Under 21 only with a fam-
ily or a youth group).
Youth Groups — $15.00 (5 youths
and 1 adult advisor)
Make Check payable to: Presbyter-
ian Evangelistic Fellowship, Inc.
(Please type or print)

Name

Address

City

State Zip

Family members accompanying me.

Church represented

ACCOMMODATIONS:

Each person is responsible for mak-
ing his own housing arrangement
with Montreat.
Check below if you want P.E.F. to
send you a list of accommodations.

Please send list of available

camping and housing accom-
modations.

PROMOTION:

Please note: We have a surplus of
EVANGELISM CONFERENCE bro-
chures on hand. If you would like
to have a sufficient amount to insert
one each in a Sunday Morning Wor-
ship Service bulletin, please let us
know how many you can use. We
will be happy to fill your request
without charge.

PAGE 24 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 9, 1972

VOL. XXXI, NO. 16

AUGUST 16, 1972

$4.00 A YEAR

the

Idvocating continuation of a Presbyterian Church loyal

to Scripture and the Reformed faith

In Vain

One scans World Council of Churches publications in vain
for an expression of concern that men know Jesus Christ, be
baptized as He has commanded and be added to the Lord in
the Church of Christ. Conciliar leaders plead constantly that
mission must be to "the whole man." What they mean is that
mission must be to bodies, minds and social organizations. Con-
cern for the immortal souls of men is not only neglected: it is
scorned.

The articles, pamphlets and books pouring forth from Ge-
neva and the conciliar mission boards are directed very largely
(and in many cases exclusively) to carrying on mission con-
ceived as humanization.

Some denominations abroad have ceased evangelizing —
and growing. Some boards recall missionaries who are active
in evangelism . . . Publicity, personnel and cash are given to de-
velopment, not discipling. The focus remains unswervingly
on man.

— Donald McGavran

(See p. 7)

S. S. LESSON AND YOUTH PROGRAM FOR SEPTEMBER 3

dWOQ

ITS A3 OR IITH TsdBqQ

<W1 OK JO llJS*9AZU£l

MAILBAG*

PRAISE THE LORD!

My father left a copy of the Pres-
byterian Journal which I have been
reading. I am, to say the least, con-
fused.

You see, my parents, now divorced,
were (and still are) members of the
United Presbyterian Church here in
Oak Hill. When I was about 12

years old (I am now 23) , I became
a member. But I have only been a
Christian for about 3 months. It
wasn't through a Presbyterian church
that I found my Lord and Saviour
Jesus Christ. Why?

I was never taught salvation or
blood atonement there. In fact, I
was always told people who took

the

PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL

Rev. G. Aiken Taylor, Ph.D., Editor
Rev. Henry B. Dendy, D.D., Managing Editor
Arthur H. Matthews, Assistant Editor

Circulation leader among independent publications in the Presbyterian-Reformed world

THIS WEEK — Vol. XXXI, No. 16, August 16, 1972

Uppsala Betrayal 7

What has the World Council of Churches done in the last
four years for missions? By Donald McGavran

Doing Your Own Thing 9

A current slogan reflects valid insights, but there are great
dangers too By Ronald J. Brady

The Sexual Jungle 10

God chose sex for propagation of the race, not for the
preoccupation some experience By A. D. Dennison Jr.

De partments —

Editorials 1 2

The Layman and his Church 13

Sunday School Lesson, September 3 14

Youth Program, September 3 16

Book Reviews 17

THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL, a

Presbyterian weekly magazine, devoted
to the statement, defense, and propa-
gation of the Gospel, the faith which
was once for all delivered to the saints,

is published every Wednesday by the
Southern Presbyterian Journal Co.,
Inc., in Weaverville, N. C.

SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: $4 a year

for individuals, $3 for members of
Every Family Plan churches. All cor-
respondence regarding subscriptions,
advertising or other business matters,
should be addressed to the business
office in Weaverville, N. C. 28787.
Second class postage paid at Weaver-
ville, N. C. 28787.

POSTMASTER: Send Form 3579 to
Presbyterian Journal, Box 635, Wea-
verville, N. C. 28787. Subscribers
should allow three weeks for change
of address in continental U. S. Change
of address notices should include both
old and new addresses (with zip
codes) .

NEWS AND EDITORIAL correspond-
ence should be addressed to P. O. Box
3108, Asheville, N. C. 28802. Editorial
offices located at 247 Charlotte St. in
Asheville.

TELEPHONES: (All area 704) edi-
torial office, 254-4015. 254-4016;
business office, 645-3310, 645-3962.

their religion seriously were a bunch
of fanatics. Now I am married and
have a young child. I have been
born again through Jesus Christ. I
have come to see the UP Church for
what it is.

But what's this? Evangelism in
your Journal? A quote from Ram-
sey Pollard that schools that teach
modernism have sinned? A strong
stand against permissiveness in an
editorial? Praise the Lord! The en-
tire UP Church is not apostate!

But what of local churches? What
about local UP members whose lives
have been blackened by divorce, al-
cohol and spiritual confusion? What,
about the UP Church in Chillio-
cothe that is popularly referred to
as a country club? Honestly, I won-
der if the UP Churches I have been
to — here and in Florida — are
even connected to the same organi-
zation which publishes this Journal!

Why don't you spread the wonder
ful truth of salvation to the UP
ministers so they can tell their con
gregations about it? We need unity,
but not in apostate organizations
such as the National and World
Council of Churches. Rather in the
name of Jesus Christ. We need born
again believers who are looking for
their Utopia in heaven (where there
will be no denominations) and not
the liberal modernists who think
they can build a perfect society on
the earth and that this is Christian
doctrine.

If my family and I had known Je-
sus earlier, there wouldn't have been
two divorces (my parents and my
own) . If we had been "fanatics"
earlier, we all would have found hap-
piness. I hate to say it, but some of
the UP churches are sending a lot
of people to hell by not letting them
know about the salvation which is
available in Jesus Christ. They let
tradition and formalism take the
place of Jesus.

No, we don't really need churches
to find Jesus. He can be found any-
time, anyplace. But it certainly is
a shame to have so many buildings
and so much money going into "dig-
nified country clubs." I pray for re-
vival!

— Mike Needham
Oak Hill, Ohio

There's a letter expressing both the
frustration and the hope of this min-
istry. God willing, there will be a
Presbyterian Church in this country
through which people will find Jesus
Christ. — Ed.

H(J RE: THE NEW CONFESSION

d I have just read the new "Pro-
s posed Confession of Faith" in your
l August 9 issue. I pray that I may
J be permitted to retain my faith,
hope and guidance from the Word
in of God as passed to us by Moses,
mf the prophets, Christ and Christ's
ici apostles. I cannot hold that God
nj was unable to express Himself clear-
in ly, nor can I hold that God was too
aj short sighted to provide ample cov-
erage. I do hold that man-made
j "improvements" of God's Word
B have only a debasing effect how-
jj ever highly motivated,
j In the practice and preservation
« of Christianity, I pray the good

10 Lord will protect us from the semi-
j narians!

It seems to me that the liberals
, in the churches contrast with the
• conservatives in the same manner

11 as in the state. When confronted
with sympathy for someone in bad
circumstances, the liberal reaches
for someone else's purse, whereas
the conservative reaches in his own
pocket. The liberal considers him-
self the genesis and sole repository
of the supreme intelligence, whereas
the conservative is heedful of the

• The first formally adopted four-
day work week we've noticed was
put into effect by a denomination:
the Church of the Brethren. Miss
Hazel Peters, personnel director of
the Church's general offices in El-
gin, 111., explained the decision:
"The four-day work week has the
advantages of saving on transporta-
tion to work by cutting out one day
and of less start-up and clean-up
time, making for a more productive
operation. And it gives the em-
ployee more time for his family." A
Journal staffer who saw the notice
added this irreverent comment:
"Hmm. Let's see. Some preachers
I know should go to a four-day week
and count Sundays one of those
days."

• Speaking of church employees,
the swinging Glide Memorial Meth-
odist Church of San Francisco has
added a genuine rabbi to its staff.
Said the Associated Press, in telling
the story: "Glide's pastor, Rev. Ce-
cil Williams, assisted by actor Sam-
my Davis Jr., installed Rabbi Abra-
ham L. Feinberg as the church's
first 'rabbi in residence.' Williams,

great minds which went before and
co-exist with him.

I am dismayed at those who pre-
sume to speak for me as a Presbyte-
rian in advocacy of fornication,
adultery, perversion, enslavement
by the state through taxation, riot,
rebellion, mayhem and murder. In
my opinion, we must publicize the
agenda well ahead of any meeting
called to transact Church business,
so as to elect delegates in confor-
mity with and limited to positions
of the Word of God and the con-
gregations they represent.

— Harry DeFore
Spartanburg, S. C.

THIS AND THAT

The virtue of Christian courage
is not necessarily in winning the bat-
tle. Rather, it is in bravely defend-
ing the faith even when facing what
seems to be certain defeat.

Reformed stalwarts are God's men,
strong and secure in the knowledge
that His truth, revealed inerrantly
in the Bible, will be standing long
after those who forsake it and the
historic faith of the Gospel have
been forgotten. For me, this also

whose flock of hippies, homosex-
uals, social and religious dropouts
overflows Glide's aisles every week,
called the rabbi's appointment a
'giant step forward into the ecu-
menical movement.' " The rabbi,
who posed for a photograph hold-
ing an ornate cane presented to him
by Ho Chi Minh during a visit to
North Vietnam five years ago, will
concentrate on counselling Jews
who come to the church. He sees
no difficulty in a Jew working in a
"Protestant" church. "Glide does
not have a theological doctrine be-
cause, as Cecil Williams has often
said, Glide is interested in people,
not in defining indefinable terms,"
he explained.

• We are writing the column this
week just before the annual meet-
ing of the Journal board and the
Journal Day program (Aug. 8-9) .

means that magnificent human
achievement, the Westminster Con-
fession of Faith.

"But the Word of the Lord en-
dureth forever. And this is the Word
which by the Gospel is preached un-
to you" (I Pet. 1:25) .

■ — Robert G. Kennington
Jackson, Miss.

MINISTERS

William B. Ward from Columbia,
S. C, to the Covenant Church,
Charotte, N. C, as assistant pastor
for pastoral care.

Jerry O. Davis from College Park,
Ga., to the Hatchett Creek and
Goodwater, Ala., churches.
Charles P. Handte Jr., from East
Point, Ga., to the Dahlonega,
Ga., church.

Wayne C. Herring from Rock
Hill, S. C, to the Forest, Miss.,
church.

Jerry Lee Tabler, Nashville,
Tenn., has been called by First
Church, Alexandria, La.
Alex W. Williams from Atlanta,
Ga., to Athens, Ga., as campus
minister for Athens Presbytery.

With the needs of this publication
in mind we were interested in a pro-
posal outlined in Atlanta's Central
Presbyterian Church Weekly, which
suggested a practical and seldom
thought of way to increase one's sup-
port of the Lord's work. The idea:
make the church the sole owner and
beneficiary of a life insurance pol-
icy. The premiums you pay are tax-
deductible to you, the face amount
is exempt from all estate taxes up-
on your death, and as owner of the
policy the church could, if needed,
borrow upon the cash value of the
policy at any time!

• Oh yes. Out in New Mexico
we heard about a preacher who an-
nounced that there are 86 differ-
ent kinds of sins. He has been be-
seiged with requests for the list,
mostly from people who think they
are missing something. H3

ACROSS THE EDITOR'S DESK

PAGE 3 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 16, 1972

NEWS OF RELIGION

Red Drive Against Religion Continues

SAN ANTONIO (RNS) — A
Southern Baptist minister, just re-
turned with 46 members of his
church from the Soviet Union,
charged that the group was "de-
tained, questioned and harassed" by
Russian officials when they arrived
in Moscow.

He said a 3 Ms-hour "interroga-
tion" was spurred by the fact that
each member of the group carried
a Russian Bible which they were
going to present to members of the
Baptist Church in Moscow "as a
gesture of Christian love and
brotherhood."

The Rev. Buckner Fanning, pas-
tor of Trinity Baptist Church, San
Antonio, was shepherding a singing
group from his church called the
"Sound Foundation" when the in-
cident occurred.

The Baptist minister pointed out
that the Soviet government had re-
peatedly announced that the ex-
change of Bibles was a "permissible
practice" and that "there is no re-
pression of religion in Russia."

Mr. Fanning said one Soviet of-
ficial told him: "The Bibles will be
burned."

In addition, Soviet officials con-

AFGHANISTAN — After person-
ally reviewing famine conditions
here, Dr. W. Stanley Mooneyham,
president of World Vision Interna-
tional, announced that World Vi-
sion had pledged $65,000 in aid,
the amount is equivalent to 5,395,-
000 units in local currency.

During his five days in Afghani-
stan, Dr. Mooneyham was accom-
panied by various government of-
ficials and representatives of the
Kabul Community Christian
Church, whose pastor World Vision
has supported for several years.

"I have seen refugees in all parts
of the world and none have been
more tragic than the Afghans," Dr.
Mooneyham said. "Many of the ref-
ugees are living in caves and eating
grass and roots and drinking animal

fiscated some of the personal Eng-
lish Bibles belonging to the group,
other Christian books, tape record-
ers and 60 of the new stereo albums
cut by the singing group. Most of
these items were not returned
when the contingent left Russia.

Mr. Fanning declared: "Every
Christian in America should be
loudly protesting the persecution
of Christians now taking place be-
hind the Iron Curtain. To remain
silent is to deny both our faith and
our brothers who are suffering
physical and psychological repres-
sion."

He said that while he was in Rus-
sia only a short time he learned of
many instances of "wholesale de-
nial of basic human rights."

Despite intimidation, Mr. Fan-
ning said, the "Sound Foundation"
sang in the hotels and restaurants
of Moscow and Leningrad and the
minister himself spoke in the Mos-
cow Baptist church recently visited
by President Nixon.

He said the group was warmly
received by the Russian people and
a large crowd waited outside the
Baptist church to greet and welcome
their American visitors and "hear

blood to survive."

Food provided by U. S. and U.N.
agencies is in the country and the
Afghan government is doing all it
can to distribute it, but the prov-
inces are so remote one can hardly
get to them.

The World Vision funds will be
used to support a program which in-
cludes family medical care and the
construction of 25 village clinics.
Each of the five major medical cen-
ters will serve as a distribution point
for milk, wheat and oil, as well as
provide medical services. Immuni-
zation shots will be given against
diptheria, whooping cough, tetanus,
smallpox and measles, as well as
treatment for tuberculosis. All
these services can be provided for
one year for only $16 for each fam-
ily, ffl

Christian young people sing."

Mr. Fanning and the singing ■
group left Moscow for Warsaw
where they sang in the streets one] ^
evening. The next night the min-, ^
ister led an evangelistic service for q
a large crowd in the local Baptist (..
church.

"After being in six Iron Curtain >.
countries over the past three years," ^
said Mr. Fanning, "I am convinced j
that a spiritual revival is surging be- :
neath the surface, and God is do-
ing some fantastic things in peo- .
pies' lives."

"We must pray for our brothers
in those countries and help them in i ,
every possible way," he added. SI

(

Discrimination? 'It's Us,
Not Jews'-USSR Baptists

NASHVILLE (RNS) — A Russian I
Baptist leader said here that reports
of oppression of Jews in the USSR
are exaggerated.

And a second Baptist from the I
Soviet Union added that discrimina-
tion there is aimed against Chris- j
tians, not Jews.

The Rev. Alexsi M. Bichkov, gen-
eral secretary of the All Union Coun-
cil of Evangelical Christians in Rus-
sia, was asked by reporters about the
situation of Soviet Jews.

"I know of no oppression of them
(the Jews) ," he responded.

The Rev. Michael Zhidkov said:
"We Christians are the ones discrim-
inated against, not the Jews because
they can leave the country and we
cannot."

Mr. Zhidkov is pastor of the Mos-
cow Baptist church which was visited
by President Nixon in May. He was
asked whether Christians are denied
freedom in the Soviet Union. "We
are not oppressed, just limited," he
stated.

Mr. Bichkov and Mr. Zhidkov and
two colleagues came here as guests
of James L. Sullivan, executive
secretary of the Southern Baptist
Sunday School Board. They were
en route to Washington, D.C., to
visit the headquarters of the Baptist
World Alliance. They came from
Kingston, Jamaica, where they at-
tended a meeting of the Alliance's
executive committee.

During a press conference at the

THE CHURCH OVERSEAS

PAGE 4 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 16, 1972

puthern Baptist Convention's execu-
ive offices, Nicholai Melnikov, vice-
resident of the All Union Council,
lso denied that Jews are persecuted
a the Soviet Union.

Claims that Jews are not perse-
uted in the USSR are common from
Lussian churchmen visiting the
Vest.

At the start of the press conference,
Ar. Bichkov said: "We have heard
if the tremendous work you do here
'the U.S.) for Jesus Christ. We do
air best in the name of Jesus Christ."

Mr. Zhidkov said Baptists in Rus-
ia "have the freedom of worship
ind the freedom of preaching the
Gospel but we have no opportunity
propagate except through our
personal witness." IS

Norwegians Seek Help
For Persecuted Faiths

MEW YORK (RNS) — A transcript
)f the debate by the Norwegian Par-
iament on the persecution of Chris-
tians behind the Iron Curtain ap-
pears in the latest issue of Religion
in Communist Dominated Areas
(RCDA) .

RCDA, edited by Blahoslav S.
Hruby, is published here by Re-
search Center for Religion and Hu-
man Rights in Closed Societies.

"No speaker on the debate denied
that religious persecution had been
;aking place for more than 50 years
in the Communist states," Bishop
Monrad Norderval, chairman of the
Mission to Iron Curtain Countries,
said in a preface to the published de-
bate. He said he is sending govern-
ments of all countries a transcript of
the discussion, translated into Eng-
lish.

"I am also taking the liberty of
ippealing to all governments — sep-
arately and jointly," he said, "to take
up this matter, so as to put an end
to religious persecution, which today
is a disgrace to humanity."

Members of all five parties in the
Norwegian Parliament took part in
the debate on the question: "Can
anything be done on the part of Nor-
way to end the persecution of Chris-
tians in the countries on the other
side of the Iron Curtain?"
Several speakers expressed the feel-

ing that the United Nations was the
proper body to deal with religious
persecution and must be given more
power to act. They called for the
establishment of a U.N. High Com-
missioner of Human Rights to deal
with the problem, wherever it ex-
ists.

Foreign Minister Andreas Cap-
pelan, a member of the Labor Party,
said that each year the U.N. receives
about 7,000 reports of alleged in-
fringements on human rights about
which the U.N. "is expected to do
something." El

Czechs Export Bibles;
Importers Face Arrest

LONDON (RNS) —For the first time
since World War II, Scriptures have
been produced in an East Euro-
pean Communist country for export
to a Bible Society outside the conti-
nent, according to a United Bible
Societies announcement.

The country — believe it or not!
— is Czechoslovakia. The same
country which in mid-July con-
demned reports of religious perse-
cution yet said: "The aim of our
criticism of religion is to show the
absurdity of the belief in God."

The same country which, also in
July, tried a British Pentecostalist
minister for "sedition" because po-
lice nabbed him for carrying Bibles
and other religious material
through a Czech frontier station.

The Czechoslovakia announce-
ment said 1,000 copies of the Ku-
ranko New Testament are ready to
be dispatched from Prague to Si-
erra Leone, West Africa, to fulfill
an order made by the Bible Soci-
eties in West Africa. Kuranko is
spoken by some 85,000 people in
Sierra Leone.

United Bible Societies said ar-
rangements for the order were made
through the Czechoslovak export
and import company, ARTIA. The
transaction was handled by the
Continental European Production
Fund of the United Bible Societies,
which said it was satisfied both
with the cost and the quality of the
New Testaments.

More production of Scriptures for
Africa is also scheduled for Prague,
the Bible agency said. BE)

Australian Presbyterians
Expect Continuing Church

SYDNEY (RNS) — Establishment
of the "Uniting Church of Aus-
tralia" came a step closer when
members of the Congregational and
Methodist Churches voted strongly
in favor of uniting with the Presby-
terian Church to form a new de-
nomination.

Result of the Australia-wide vote,
released here, revealed that 82.93
per cent of the Congregationalists,
84.97 per cent of the Methodists,
and 75.4 per cent of the Presbyte-
rians endorsed a united Church.

However, 39.4 per cent of the
Presbyterian congregations elected
to remain in the Presbyterian
Church if it continued to exist af-
ter the required majority for unity
is obtained in the presbyteries, state
and general assemblies.

This latter development has con-
fused the Australia-wide vote be-
cause unity would not take place if
only one-third of the Presbyterian
congregations decided to hold out.

The nation-wide vote is not final.
It will serve as an indicator to the
state assemblies of the three denomi-
nations meeting later this year and
to the national assemblies scheduled
to meet in May 1973. II

Religious Press Groups
Favor Nelson Postal Bill

WASHINGTON (RNS) — Three
major religious press associations in
the U. S. have endorsed legislation
introduced by Sen. Gaylord Nelson
(D.-Wis.) aimed at providing sub-
stantial relief from scheduled post-
al-rate increases affecting Church
publications.

Spokesmen for the Associated
Church Press, the Catholic Press As-
sociation and the Evangelical Press
Association urged executives of U.
S. religious publications to support
the Nelson bill which is designed
"to encourage . . . the dissemina-
tion of news, opinion, scientific, cul-
tural and educational matter
through the mails."

One section of the bill would
freeze second-class rates for the first

PAGE 5 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 16, 1972

250,000 copies of a publication at
levels of June 1, 1972. Another pro-
vision prohibits per-piece surcharges
on top of pound rates.

The per-piece surcharge has been
the primary target of the press
groups in their battle against in-
creased rates recently approved by
the Board of Governors of the U. S.
Postal Service.

In their bulletins to members, Al-
fred Klausler, ACP executive secre-
tary, and James A. Doyle, CPA ex-
ecutive director, urged letters to key
committee chairmen in the U. S.
Congress, asking support of Sen.
Nelson's bill.

The CPA bulletin also suggested
that member publications edi-
torialize on the matter and ask read-
ers to contact their Congressmen.

Russell T. Hitt, postal affairs
chairman of the EPA, listed in a
letter to his association's member-
ship the names of senators and rep-
resentatives who can play strong
roles in getting favorable action.

These included: Sen. Gale Mc-
Gee, Wyoming, chairman of the
Senate Post Office and Civil Service
Committee, Rep. Thaddeus J. Dul-

Panelists Assigned
Theological Studies

ATLANTA (PN) — With new as-
signments from the 1972 Presbyte-
rian General Assembly, the Assem-
bly's Permanent Theological Com-
mittee has taken initial steps toward
preparing papers on the subjects of
'Abortion" and "Universalism."

The two topics were assigned to
the committee by the Assembly in
June with request for studies.

At its first session since adjourn-
ment of the Assembly, the perma-
nent committee, meeting at Colum-
bia Theological Seminary at Deca-
tur, Ga., discussed various aspects of
the subjects and ways the committee
might approach the topics. Wade P.
Huie, member of the faculty at Co-
lumbia Seminary, is chairman of the
committee.

The Assembly asked the commit-
tee to name four of its own mem-
bers and to co-opt five women to

ski, New York, chairman of the
House Post Office and Civil Service
Committee, and Rep. Morris K.
Udall, Arizona, chairman of the
House Subcommittee on Postal
Service.

National Free Will Unit
Quits Evangelical Group

FORT WORTH (RNS) — Dele-
gates attending the convention of the
National Association of Free Will
Baptists here took action to extend
the denomination's traditional stand
for local autonomy and separation
from other Church bodies.

By a vote of 257 to 225 they ap-
proved a recommendation by the
General Board of the denomination
to withdraw from the National As-
sociation of Evangelicals, a loose co-
alition of conservative groups and
individuals.

The resolution favoring withdraw-
al noted that membership in the
NAE could be continued by individ-
uals. It said that membership by the
denomination was not consistent
with local autonomy. El

make up a work group for the abor-
tion paper. The Rev. B. Harrison
Taylor, pastor of St. Andrews Pres-
byterian Church, Beaumont, Tex.,
is chairman of this task force and
will work with William H. Albrit-
ton, a lawyer from Andalusia, Ala.,
the Rev. R. David Kaylor, professor
at Davidson College, Davidson, N.
C, and William Swain, member of
the faculty at Florida State Univer-
sity, Tallahassee, Fla. The five
women have not yet been named.

C. Benton Kline, president of Co-
lumbia Seminary, is chairman of the
subcommittee preparing the initial
draft on "Universalism," with Dr.
Swain and Jesse de Boer, professor
at the University of Kentucky, Lex-
ington, Ky., serving with him. El

$307,306 Reported

ATLANTA — Funds received
since the total for the 1972 Presby-
terian US Women of the Church

1972 Birthday Offering was an it
nounced at Montreat have brougb
the amount to $307,306. This is th(
50th year the women's organizatior
has conducted a special offering foi
designated mission projects. Tht
first $50,000 of this year's fund wil
go to the American Bible Society
with the bulk destined for the busi
ness department of Stillman Col-
lege. E

73 Are Commissioned
By Board of Missions

MONTREAT, N. C— With a neai
capacity crowd on hand in Ander-t
son Auditorium here, the Presbyte-
rian US Board of World Missions
commissioned the largest class of f
new personnel it has sent overseas 1
in many years. A total of 73 was' '
announced, but several of them1 *
were absent and already on the! !
field. Among the 73 were several |
who had previously been under ap-| *
pointment by the board and were "
going back overseas for additional, ;
terms.

Principal speaker at the service
was Walter D. Shepard, New Or-
leans architect who was commis-
sioned as a missionary 25 years ago
and who subsequently served as an
area secretary on the staff.

Recalling the original mission-
ary commissioning at Antioch, he
told the candidates that the Holy
Spirit is the "real sending agency."
If the denomination's new struc-
ture for overseas work fits into the
Holy Spirit's plans, the results will
be great, he suggested. The or-
ganization will quickly take a place
on the "ecclesiastical junk heap" if
it does not, he warned.

Organizations created by the
Church should validate the calls re-
ceived by candidates for missionary
service, pray for those who are called
and then turn them loose to serve, ,
Mr. Shepard contended.

He said he was encouraged by
signs of renewal in the Church.

Also speaking was the 1972 Gen-
eral Assembly moderator, Dr. Lj
Nelson Bell. He described the com]
missioning as a "great night in the
life of our Church" and charged
members of the denomination to
take home the challenge of support
for missions.

• • • j

A man is known by the company
he avoids. — Unknown.

THE CHURCH AT HOME

PAGE 6 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 16, 1972

7i<? two billion who have never heard of Christ may never hear of Him —

Uppsala Betrayal

Four years ago in the May 1968
issue, Church Growth Bulletin
sked: "Will Uppsala Betray the
Wo Billion?" The circumstances
/ere as follows: The World Council
f Churches was about to convene
cs Fourth Assembly at Uppsala,
weden. Early that year the WCC's
commission on World Mission and
'/vangelism had published a docu-
lent on mission, titled Renewal in
iission, which, at the Uppsala meet-
tig was to be discussed, possibly re-
ised, and issued as the council's
ilan for mission and evangelism in
he seventies.

The faculty at Fuller Seminary's
chool of Mission studied Renewal
n Mission with care and were
larmed to see that it contained no
)lans for evangelism and interpret-
d "mission" solely as horizontal rec-
mciliation of man with man.

The document called for a radi-
al diversion of mission away from
he Great Commission, away from
he proclamation of Jesus Christ as
-ord and Saviour, and particularly
way from church-planting evange-
ism. Renewal in Mission was not
ailing Christians to renewed zeal
n making the Saviour known and
jersuading men to believe in Him,
epent of their sins, be baptized and
ncorporated in His Church, and
hen venture forth in the power of
he Holy Spirit as salt and light in
he world, full of righteousness, jus-
ice, and brotherhood, thus bringing
ibout substantial changes for good
n the social order. Renewal in Mis-
ion, while freely using the great

The author is dean emeritus of
7uller Seminary's School of World
Mission and Institute of Church
~rowth. This article, copyrighted
'972 by Christianity Today, is re-
produced with permission.

words of mission, was using them in
radically new ways.

For example, changing the social
order through revolution (apparent-
ly regardless of what the revolution-
aries believed about Jesus Christ)
was called reconciling men to God.
Instead of affirming that mission
takes place at points of unbelief, the
document says that "mission takes
place at the points of tension."

Points of Tension

Mission's "places of opportunity"
are "the unresolved religious, social
and political problems, the situa-
tions which deprive men of the hope
of renewal and cry out for the good
of the new humanity."

At the very time that great move-
ments toward Christ were develop-
ing in scores of countries, the basic
mission concept of inviting men to
become Christ's followers in His
Church was notable by its absence.
Instead of calling on men to believe
on Jesus Christ and persuading them
to become responsible members of
His Church, the Fourth Assembly of
the World Council of Churches was,
it seemed, about to place its sole em-
phasis on exhorting Christians to act
justly toward their fellowmen.

Since at least two billion have not
heard of Christ, the proposed action
would condemn these multitudes to
live without the power of Christ in
their lives and die without even
hearing of the way of salvation.
This, the Fuller mission faculty be-
lieved, would leave the two billion
without hope. It would deprive
them of that radical renewal which
comes through justification by faith
and being "in Christ."

It would withhold from nations
that power they need above all pow-
ers, that wisdom they need above all

DONALD McGAVRAN

wisdoms, if they are to develop as
God wishes them to develop. It
would focus their hopes on men in-
stead of on God.

It would leave them without the
Bible, without the Church, and with-
out the means of grace. It would, in
short, betray two billion.

The School of Mission faculty de-
voted the May 1968 issue of Church
Growth Bulletin to an extended
plea to the Fourth Assembly to see
the fatal error of the preparatory
document and revise it radically.

That issue created a storm. World
Council leaders wrongly considered
it an attack on them. Actually it
was a plea for them to turn from
excessive concern with humanization
and to lay at least equal stress on
proclaiming Christ as divine and on-
ly Saviour and persuading men to
become His disciples and respon-
sible members of His Church.

A Plea Rejected

At the Fourth Assembly of the
World Council, the two-page theo-
logical section of Renewal in Mis-
sion was, through the efforts of John
Stott, David Hubbard, Paul Rees,
and a few other evangelical leaders,
considerably revised.

Unfortunately the outcome was a
patchwork in which opposite opin-
ions were written side by side. In
the practical section, Douglas Web-
ster, an Anglican, on the third at-
tempt, backed up by Norwegian
churchmen and by a resolution
passed in the plenary session of the
World Council, got inserted men-
tion of the hundreds of millions
who have not heard the Gospel and
of the duty of the Church to take
it to them.

Some took great comfort in these
small concessions. But the great

PAGE 7 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 16, 1972

question remained: Would the
World Council of Churches regard
the document as revised and passed
at Uppsala its marching orders in
mission, or would it disregard the
few words on Great Commission mis-
sion and divert mission to horizon-
tal reconciliation?

Four years have passed, and that
question has been answered. The
articles, pamphlets, and books pour-
ing forth from Geneva and the con-
ciliar mission boards are directed
very largely (and in many cases ex-
clusively) to carrying on mission con-
ceived as humanization.

Some denominations abroad have
ceased evangelizing — ■ and growing.
Some boards recall missionaries who
are active in evangelism. Funds are
readily available to establish agri-
cultural centers for distributing new
strains of rice or wheat; but for
carrying on nationwide campaigns
of evangelism there is nothing.

The result of the convenient doc-
trine that evangelism is the task of
the younger Church has often been
that little evangelism occurs. Pub-
licity, personnel, and cash are given
to development, not discipling. The
focus remains unswervingly on man.

One scans WCC publications in
vain for an expression of concern
that men know Jesus Christ, be bap-
tized as He has commanded, and
be added to the Lord in the Church
of Christ. Conciliar leaders plead
constantly that mission must be to
"the whole man." What they mean
is that mission must be to bodies,
minds, and social organizations.
Concern for the immortal souls of
men is not only neglected: it is
scorned.

The immensity of the change fre-
quently escapes Christians. Two fac-
tors camouflage this huge revolution
in mission.

Hostile to Evangelism

First, while the theory, theology,
and methodology of mission emana-
ting from the World Council and its
subsidiaries are remarkably consist-
ent in their hostility to evangelism,
conciliar denominations and mis-
sionary societies have many evan-
gelicals in their ranks. These evan-
gelicals go on preaching Christ, ac-
tively seeking members, baptizing
converts, starting new churches, and
obeying all those commands of
Christ that the official line seldom
if ever mentions.

The younger Churches on the

whole are conservative. Although
some of their leaders have been
taken to Europe and America and
"educated" in the new fashion in
missions, most of their ministers,
bishops, and elders are Biblical
Christians. The new line does not
affect them much — yet. They may
even use the "in" words while con-
tinuing vigorously to evangelize.

If they really understood the
heresy they would refuse to go along
with it; but in a permissive age,
when heresy is no longer recognized,
they are inclined to say, "Let them
do their thing. The fringe is always
doing something peculiar. We shall
simply do the right as God gives us
to see the light."

Thus the seriousness of the devia-
tion is masked. It appears as if the
conciliar denominations were doing

People See It

When Moses came down from
Mount Sinai after talking with God,
the Bible tells us that he was not
aware that the skin of his face shone
(Exo. 34:29). He didn't know it,
but the people saw it. If you have
been with Jesus, people will be con-
scious of the difference He has made
in you. — R. Earl Allen.

considerable evangelism and church
planting. What is being done should
not conceal the fact that their evan-
gelistic effort is commensurate
neither with their strength nor with
the amazing opportunities of the
day.

The second aspect of the camou-
flage is deliberate concealment of
the magnitude of the change in
theory and theology of mission. The
present leaders have learned from
the experience in 1933 of William
Hocking, who was head of the Lay-
men's Commission on Mission.
Hocking proposed that the age of
church-planting missions was over,
and that the age of coexistence with
the great religions, each reconceiv-
ing itself in the light of the others,
had begun.

Hocking was an honest man and
made his recommendation quite
openly. It was rejected unanimously
by churches, mission boards, mission-
ary leaders, and churchmen all
around the world.

In contrast, the present change
has been most carefully camou-
flaged. Nowhere, for example, do

the Uppsala documents say that
there should be no more conversion
evangelism and church multiplica-
tion. Indeed, some escape hatches
have been built in. But J. C. Hoek
endijk, who is the source from which
much of the Geneva Line on mis-
sions has sprung, writes openly: "It
is impossible to think of the plan
tatio ecclesiae as the end of evan-
gelism. It is too poor a conception
and betrays too clearly a lack of ex-
pectant hope."

The writings on mission that ema
nate from conciliar sources are full
of the old sacred, emotion-laden
words: God, salvation, conversion,
evangelism, mission, priorities for
mission, mobilizing the people of
God for mission, proclaiming the
Gospel by word and deed, and the
like. But these words have been
systematically humanized. The Bib
lical meanings held by generations
of scholars of all the various branch-
es of the Church have been jetti-
soned in favor of new meanings, sud-
denly discovered after 1955 to be
the real ones!

Thus "conversion" is no longer
the turning of individuals and
groups from idols to serve the true
and living God, but is rather turning
to new and better forms of social
structure, to new and more just
forms of labor-capital relationships,
and to forms of land owning that
give the masses a fair deal. Thus
in a WCC book called Salvation To-
day, one article is entitled "Saved
by Mao."

"Mission" has become, not pr
claiming Christ and persuading men
to become His disciples and respon
sible members of His Church, but
rather "everything God wants done."
For instance, cooperating with a rev-
olution in Brazil or Chile is called
mission. There is no end to the re
interpretation.

Wrong Destination

The plane of missions winging its
way to Jerusalem has been hijacked.
Most of the passengers are unaware
of the event. It is the same plane,
the same stewardesses, the same
flight crew, but the destination is
different. The multi-million dol-
lar income, the headquarters build-
ings, the property around the world
amounting to hundreds of millions,
the good will which keeps the dol-
lars and pounds, marks and yen roll-
ing in — all this, given for and dedi-
cated to propagating the Gospel, is

0

PAGE 8 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 16, 1972

now being devoted to mission con-
sidered solely as social action.

The plane is heading to Havana,
not Jerusalem. The "gospel" being
advocated is that of a fair deal in
this world — not eternal salvation,
good both in this world and the
next. Mission is working toward
the "new humanity," not by recon-
ciling sinners to God through Jesus
Christ His Son, but by bringing
about just and humane structures of
society.

All this continues in the face of
earnest pleas by evangelicals that
Christians emphasize both vertical
and horizontal reconciliation. The
Frankfurt Declaration says:

"We affirm the determined advo-
cacy of justice and peace by all
churches, and we affirm that 'as-
sistance in development' is a timely
realization of the divine demand for
mercy and justice as well as of the
command of Jesus: 'Love thy neigh-
bor.'

"We see therein an important ac-
companiment and verification of
mission. We also affirm the hu-
manizing results of conversion as
signs of the coming Messianic
peace.

"We stress, however, that unlike
the eternally valid reconciliation
with God through faith in the Gos-
pel, all of our social achievements
and partial successes in politics are
bound by the eschatological 'not yet'
of the coming kingdom and the not
yet annihilated power of sin, death,
and the devil, who still is 'prince of
this world.' "

Away From the Gospel

While many conciliar leaders have
— as individuals — commended and
even taken part in Evangelism in
Depth, New Life For All, Billy Gra-
ham's crusades, and the like, the
councils as councils have stayed
aloof. The only comment on Evan-
gelism in Depth was an attack on it
in the WCC's International Review
of Mission. And to combat the con-
cept of church growth, the Interna-
tional Review assembled eight writ-
ers from all over the world — Or-
thodox, Syrian, Roman Catholic, Lu-
theran, Anglican, and others — who
on many counts found unacceptable
the idea that the growth and multi-
plication of Christian churches
should be a chief determinant of the
policies of missionary societies.

The conciliar forces seem unable
to diminish polarization by declar-
ing that, of course, salvation of men
through belief in Jesus Christ, rec-
onciliation with God in the Church
of Jesus Christ, always has been, is
now, and ever will be a major end
of Christian mission in which all
Christians should engage, while at
the same time they work steadily
forward "doing good to all men"
and changing the structures of so-
ciety as they are able so that the
structures themselves add to human-
ization.

The net result is that the power-
ful direction from Geneva and the
offices of the great "missionary" so-
cieties veers farther and farther away
from the propagation of the Gospel.

Yes, Uppsala has betrayed the two
billion at their point of greatest
need. We can only pray that lead-
ers of the conciliar Churches will re-
verse Uppsala, and return the hi-
jacked plane of missions to its prop-
er course. In the meantime, may
God raise up men and women from
every nation who as missionaries of
the good news, in true missionary
societies, will liberate these hun-
dreds of millions into the glorious
liberty of Christ. ffl

Following God's will is doing the right thing for the right reason —

Doing Your Own Thing

I he cry today, especially from
young people, is "Do your own
thing." It is a cry for independence,
a call for freedom from restraint and
regulation, a plea for self-determina-
tion, a desire to avoid heavy and un-
pleasant responsibility.

The attitude often sounds like
this: "I'll do what I want to do,
when I want to do it, in whatever
way I want to do it, and I don't care
what anyone else says. This is my
thing and I've got to do it to be
real."

The author, formerly assistant
minister of the First Church, Plan-
tation, Fla., now teaches Bible and
Christian education at the Jamaica
Bible School and College, Mande-
ville, Jamaica.

Reflected in this plaintive refrain
are some valid insights. For ex-
ample, there is a need for personal
freedom — when there is commen-
surate responsibility. There is va-
lidity in the rejection of being
squeezed into society's mold (Rom.
12:2, Phillips) . Many times one is
correct to reject being made to do
someone else's "thing."

This modern cry is also correct
when it recognizes that not all of our
traditions, habits and values are
good. They need to be examined,
evaluated, and often changed.
Furthermore, we must recognize that
behind this cry for independence
and freedom may very well lie de-
sires and motives that are good.

Again, it is true that personal de-
sires and capabilities, especially for

RONALD J. BRADY

a Christian, may be good indicators
of what God has for him to do in
life. The great error, which over-
rides all profitable insights, lies in
making "my thing" supreme. The
whole attitude boils down to extreme
self-centeredness.

Old Testament Samson provides
a fitting example of this contempo-
rary attitude. (Is any contemporary
attitude really new?) Samson wanted
to "do his own thing." That is, he
wanted to do what he wanted in the
way he wanted when he wanted. And
it didn't much matter to him what
anyone, including God, thought
about it. He was living for himself
alone.

When it came to marriage he had
to "do his own thing," which was
not only against the customs of his

PAGE 9 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 16, 1972

f

people but against the law of God.
He made his own arrangements to
marry a heathen girl, a marriage that
turned bitter through the woman's
treachery. His strength, a gift from
God, he used in his own way to get
revenge, to vent his anger, or to
show off. Finally, it was in his free
and irresponsible relations with
women that he was betrayed and de-
graded to an object of ridicule and
insult. But he did his "own thing"
— an independence which became
tragic bondage.

Self-Centered Dead End

The attitude we are talking about
is one that flows from feelings rather
than responsibility, from pleasure
rather than duty. It evaluates peo-
ple, money, church, and things ac-
cording to how they help or please
or support us personally rather than
what is good and right according to
God's revealed values.

What is extremely important to
see, especially for church people, is
that this habit of life is not limited
to a few young people and adults
who dress and act out of the ordi-
nary. This attitude is a very real
part of the Establishment as well as
of those who fight the Establish-
ment!

Are there not many professing
Christians whose values and priori-
ties are no different from the unre-
generate world? They are "doing
their own thing." They spend mon-
ey, health, energy, family, their own
souls to get to the top of the ladder,
only to discover it's on the wrong
wall.

If I insist upon "doing my own
thing," building my own world in
my own way, God just may let me
succeed — for a while. And there
I'll be at the center of my selfish lit-
tle world, a success. I'll also be
there to see it crumble around me
as dishonesty, distrust, betrayal, de-
cay, age, illness and death take their
toll.

God deliver me from making my
"thing" in life that which can be
destroyed by some destructive agent
or force, something temporary and
earthbound.

A true principle of life, enunci-
ated by our Lord on more than one
occasion, is that when I seek to es-
tablish my own life I will end up
losing it; but when I give my life
and my right to it to the Lord I
find real life, satisfying and eternal
(Matt. 10:39; 16:25) .

Doing God's Thing

I speak with no disrespect, but I
think the meaning is clear when I
say that what is important in life is
not doing my own thing, but doing
God's "thing." This doesn't mean
that everybody should be a minister,
missionary or a director of Christian
education, but it does mean that as
I live in God's place for me, I will
be motivated by God's values. When
it comes to the use of time, money,
possessions, effort, I will live with
eternity's values in view. I will be
involved in doing His "thing," not
mine. This involves the salvation
of people, their edification, their
sanctification, their service. It in-
volves loving and caring for people,

not things.

The Scripture says, "What does
the Lord require of you but to do
justice, and to love mercy, and to
walk humbly with your God?" (Mic.
6:8) . The Apostle Paul said, "You
are not your own; you were bought
with a price. So glorify God in your
body" (I Cor. 6:19-20 RSV) . Again
he declared that those who are alive
in Christ are to "live no longer for
themselves but for Him who for
their sake died and was raised" (II
Cor. 5:15 RSV) .

Living in Christ is what really
frees one from hypocrisy, from the
Establishment, and from society's
mold.

This means that "my thing" will
die so that I can do His, or better,
that God can do His will through
me. Then I really find life, which
has been the search all along, never
before satisfied. Then I am fulfilled,
for God's will becomes my desire
and we do "our thing" together, but
He is Lord. He calls the shots.

"My thing" can be summed up in
these words of Scripture: "There is
a way which seems right to a man,
but its end is the way of death"
(Prov. 14:12 RSV). For the Chris-
tian whose heart is intent on doing
God's will there is the beautiful
promise: "He who does the will of
God abides forever" (I John 2:17
RSV).

As a Christian I am called not to
do my own thing, but to do the will
of my Saviour and Lord. God grant
that this be my daily desire and ac-
complishment.

"Not my will but Thine be
done!" 51

J.

i idt
I Hi'
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21

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1

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1

How to find the way back to sanity

The Sexual Jungle

ii

i

W he looked as though she should
^ have been jumping rope, yet
here she was in my examining room
to see if she was pregnant. At the

This article first appeared in For
Real, a "Jesus paper" published by
Living Issues.

ripe old age of 14, Loretta had re-
fused to talk to her parents, but had
agreed to see me. Although my spe-
cialty isn't gynecology, I knew the
family well and consented to ex-
amine her on a Sunday afternoon.

"You're pregnant," I had to tell
this slip of a girl. "Do you know
the father, dear?"

A. D. DENNISON JR., M.D.

She did and named the 15-year-old
son of another couple I knew well.

I would have advised sending Lo-
retta to an unwed mother's home,
but the families didn't seek my coun-
sel further. Her father was almost
like the man who brought a strap-
ping boy to the doctor's office with
a broken jaw. "We had a friendly

PAGE 10 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 16, 1972

I

ttle discussion, doc," he said. "Fix
im up so he can say 'I do.' "
Ginny and I attended the small
itimate wedding. We saw the young
ride and groom sitting side by side
lunching cookies at the reception,
)0 young to make it educationally,
ntiotionally, maritally, or parentally,
iut the parents had tried to salve
jeir consciences and preserve their
;lf-respect.

Last year there were 200,000 shot-
un marriages in the good old U.S.A.
l third of a million girls had their
abies outside of marriage, and up
} a million more took the abortion
Dute.

A Diseased Society

Venereal diseases are now classi-
ied as endemic — a step beyond the
pidemic stage. Over 1,700,000 cases
if gonorrhea were reported in 1970
>y the American Social Health As-
ociation. Syphilis, far more serious,
ttacked 80,000 sexual violators last
'ear. And the ASHA says doctors
eport only 12-19% of the infectious
yphilis cases they treat and 11-17%
>f the gonorrhea cases.

The editor of the American Jour-
lal of Psychiatry says premarital sex
tas "greatly increased the number
)f young people in mental hos-
pitals," and conforming to current
iexual mores has "imposed stresses
)n some college women severe
enough to cause emotional break-
down."

Dr. Lofton Hudson, a veteran
:ounselor, observes that sexual
promiscuity "leads to a kind of su-
perficiality" in relationships. "I see
this in people I counsel — bachelors
in their 30's who have been promis-
cuous through the years. They don't
love anybody; they don't know what
it means to love. They have loved
superficially so long they just
can't form a deep attachment and
can't feel deeply towards anyone."

"The trouble with man," column-
ist Sydney Harris thinks, "is that he
wants variety in sex and constancy
in love. He can't have both."

"Today I am bored," Italian play-
boy and film star Marcello Mastrioi-
ianni tells critic Rex Reed. "I am
fed up with life. Nothing is amus-
ing. To amuse oneself in this su-
perficial world, what must one in-
vent? To drag the slightest smile
lout of someone, a drunken woman
jhas to undress herself in one's living
room, but even that doesn't amuse
! anymore. You say this is silly, be-

cause my life is 'La Dolce Vita.' I
hate my life ... I cannot bear to
see myself naked in a mirror. There
is no adventure left. Only the mem-
ories of an adult who has had a hard
time becoming a man."

What will the sexual anthropolo-
gist of a future century think when
he examines the pill, a Harold Rob-
bins paperback, a 'Tween Bra or an
"X"-rated film? A friend of mine
claims he went to a drive-in and
watched a love scene for 25 minutes
before he realized he was facing the
wrong way. What used to be under
the counter is now shouted to mil-
lions with the Supreme Court ben-
eficently looking on. Pubic hair
has replaced goodnight kisses on the
theater screen. The orgy has beat
back the romantic interlude in nov-
els.

Historians plotting the decline
and fall of the American empire are
taking copious notes.

Orgy Replaces Romance

Guess who said this:

"I feel that the 'sex explosion' and
pornography are destructive to civi-
lization. This is not the first time
that this has happened. When a so-
ciety gets to the point where it is
eating its own entrails and its civili-
zation is about to crumble, it im-
mediately returns to the expression
of sexuality as the only thing left to
somehow titillate and excite. What
we're seeing now is a kind of decay
and destruction of the Judeo-
Christian society with its ethics and
values."

Would you believe it was the pro-
ducer of "Oh, Calcutta," the Broad-
way play that swept away every
vestige of morality and raked in mil-
lions of dollars? He ought to know.

How Did It Happen?

The pendelum has swung 180 de-
grees to the left. From one extreme
where society said sex is nothing to
where we now say sex is everything.
We've moved from repression to an-
archy, from denial to where we let
everything hang out, from a time
when the legs of pianos were covered
and pregnancy was called "an inter-
esting condition" to when the living
room has a picture window with
spotlights beamed on the marriage
bed.

How did it all happen and how
do we get back to sanity?

Let's start at the beginning. A

script writer for "Love American
Style" didn't create sex. God did.
Sex was there in the beginning when
Adam and Eve raised a little Cain
plus Abel and Seth. About the only
evidence of sex around some church-
es is the nursery, but there's plenty
of sex in the Bible.

No matter that Martin Luther
said, "Had God consulted me ... I
should have advised Him to con-
tinue the generation of the species
by fashioning human beings out of
clay as Adam was made." God chose
sex to propagate the human race.

Not in God's Plan

Before the first man and woman
decided they needed to know more
than God, and sinned, sex was beau-
tiful. "They were both naked, the
man and his wife, and were not
ashamed" (Gen. 2:25) . They en-
joyed perfect sexual love without a
guy sitting in a director's chair
coaching their performance.

Please note that sexual intercourse
wasn't the original sin. Some in-
hibited church fathers read that be-
tween the lines.

Have you heard the old doggerel
by Francis Breisch Jr.?

Hoggamus, Higgamus,
Men are polygamous.
Higgamus, Hoggamus,
Woman monogamous.

That wasn't in God's ideal plan.
God said one man and one wife.
How else could there be "one flesh"
in a marriage? Later, the patriarchs
and some great men of Israel saw
variety as the spice of sexual life and
took extra wives and concubines. I
heard about a Sunday school teach-
er asking his six-year-olds to tell
what they knew about Solomon. One
said, "He was very wise and had 700
wives and 300 cucumber vines."

The Bible tells us that it was Sol-
omon's wives who led him away from
the Lord and he seems to have ended
his life a disillusioned man. In his
writings he confessed that preoccu-
pation with the flesh is all "vanity
and vexation." Over and over in his
proverbs, he warned of the serious
consequences of sexual sin. Appar-
ently he came to see that God's origi-
nal pattern was best. 11

• • •

Though Christ a thousand times
in Bethlehem be born, it will avail
you nothing unless He is born in
you. — Unknown.

PAGE 11 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 16, 1972

m

EDITORIALS

How God Works In Evangelism

Two of the many magazines com-
ing regularly across our desk are read
with particular appreciation. Con-
tact of the Christian Business Men's
Committee, and The Gideon of the
organization by the same name, fea-
ture personal testimonies by people
who have been reached for Jesus
Christ through the ministry of the
organization.

These magazines interest us for
two reasons. In the first place, they
represent laymen's organizations,
and it seems to us that an enormous
amount of effective evangelism is be-
ing done today by laymen's organi-
zations, not the institutional Church.
(There are others besides these, but
we mention these as typical.)

In the second place, an interesting
pattern appears in the personal testi-
monies carried in these publications.
With minor variations, the pattern
is this:

The person recounting his ex-
perience was lost, or prodigal —
without Christ.

— There was a time when he (or
she) was confronted with the Gospel,
through someone else's testimony, or
through the Scriptures, but without
effect. In fact, the reaction was of-
ten of distaste, if not actual hostil-
ity-

— Then something happened. Of-
ten as the result of some crisis, but
sometimes for no apparent reason at
all, the spirit of this person became
restless. A definite consciousness of
need, or of spiritual hunger, devel-
oped, although the person may not
have been as aware of it at the time
as he was later, looking back in re-
trospect.

■ — The next time someone wit-
nessed to him, or he read his Bible,
the Lord spoke with telling effect.

This pattern suggests several
things to us:

• When someone rejects an evan-
gelistic effort through a word of tes-
timony, a sermon or the Scriptures,
it is not necessarily the last word on
the subject. The seed may have been
planted.

• The incubation of the Gospel
seed in the heart of a person may
be for a short period of time or a

long one, but in any case, it is a
process over which the Holy Spirit
has absolute control. No amount of
human persuasion can hurry the pro-
cess. On the other hand, the Holy
Spirit quite often incubates that seed
apart from any human instrumen-
tality whatever.

• After the Holy Spirit has done
His work and the heart has been
made receptive, the Gospel, in what-
ever form it is offered, now comes in
with liberating power. In an enor-
mous percentage of cases, the person
is astonished at his own reaction to
the very good news he before had re-
jected.

• The work of regeneration is
quite obviously of God the Holy
Spirit. However, the human wit-
ness, or the Scriptures, play a vital
role even when they may seem to be
rejected.

• Before the moment of "libera-
tion" there is always a moment (how-
ever brief) when the person feels
keenly his emptiness, or "lostness."
Every decision for Christ wells out
of such a feeling. No decision can be
"forced" apart from such a feeling.

Conclusion? Anything said or
done, in the name of Christ but al-
ways with the Word of God in sup-
port, is potentially valuable in evan-
gelism. 51

How to Know Christ

Jesus Christ is the most important
person who has ever lived on this
earth. Since He is no longer with
us in physical form, how may we
see Him today?

When we wish to know an impor-
tant person better, we read all the
available information we can find
about him. It is the next best thing
to meeting him personally.

We will meet and see Jesus if we
will make a careful study of God's
Word each day. We will get to
know Him there.

We also will see Him and know
Him through our daily conversa-
tion with Him. He will become real
to us through prayer.

For these contacts we m u s
believe in Him. "Believe on th(
Lord Jesus and you will b<
saved" (Acts 16:31). "For the wage
of sin is death, but the free gift o:
God is eternal life in Christ Jesu;
our Lord" (Rom. 6:23) .

"For this is the will of my Father
that every one who sees the Son anc
believes in Him should have eterna
life" (John 6:40) . Believe in Him
and have this free gift today. —
Enise Kirby.

Of Fanatics and Such

If you haven't read the first lettei
in the Mailbag of this issue, turn tc
it before reading further in this col-
umn. If it doesn't "grab" you with
a special poignancy, you've saved
yourself some trouble, for the rest
of these comments will not appeal to
you.

Somehow we haven't been able to
get away from that letter. The Num-
ber One problem in the Church from
the days of the Apostle Jude to the
present is reflected in that letter.
There's even an echo of the reason
why that problem is so perennial.

The organized Church consists of
those who know what the author is
talking about and those who think
he is some sort of fanatic.

He is not alone. Not long ago we
were in correspondence with a suc-
cessful business man in his late for-
ties, a leader of his community, an
elder in his church, who had just
met the Lord Jesus in a personal en-
counter. He told us his life was
now filled with a joy unspeakable.

We showed a letter from this busi-
ness man to a friend in the ministry
who used to be his pastor — when
he was the leading elder on the ses-
sion, but had not yet met Christ.
The former pastor could only shake
his head. It was obvious he thought
his former parishioner had become
some sort of fanatic. Like the au-
thor of that letter in the Mailbag.

A few years ago a group of peo-
ple petitioned a presbytery with
which we are familiar, asking for
the organization of a second Presby-
terian church in their city. There
was no doubt the city could support
a second Presbyterian congregation,
but the reason annexed to the peti-
tion was interesting.

The petitioners felt the leadership
and the majority of members of the
only existing Presbyterian church
were some sort of fanatics. They ex-

PAGE 12 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 16, 1972

THE LAYMAN AND HIS CHURCH

Launch Out Into the Deep

Dressly sought a more "liberal" at-
nosphere in which to gather and the
1 oresbytery granted their request ex-
at> pressly on that basis — with the con-
I :urrence of nearly all the other fa-
es natics in the presbytery.

Today the presbytery is rather
! well in the hands of the liberals.
aa Fanatics of the kind represented
by the author of that letter in the
Mailbag may grow, and even mul-
tiply, in the established Church. But
when their multiplication becomes
so inhibited by the established
Church that it becomes something
of an astonishment to find one wear-
ing the label of the established
Church, then the time has come to
do something drastic about the pub-
lic witness of the Church.

Such a time has come in the fam-
ily of Presbyterian Churches. That
is why the movement for a contin-
uing Church loyal to Scripture and
to the Reformed faith is calling all
! fanatics. Ill

On Having
A Tidy Theology

There are a couple of crisp doc-
trinal and moral statements in the
! Bible, namely, the Ten Command-
ments and the Beatitudes. Other-
wise we have pieces and fragments.
It is not as simple as we might guess
to put them all together in a co-
herent, credible whole, especially if
we are not very fond of creeds any-
way.

How do we tidy up our theology
if we believe that Christian experi-
ence is more important than Chris-
tian propositions? By and large,
Wesleyans are strong for experience
i and Reformed theologians (Presby-
terians) for propositions. But even
the latter are not as neat theological-
ly as they used to be.

I am sorry to speak of a new theo-
\ logical trend as a "fad" or a "craze,"
but I am ready to. Here are ten,
over the last decade, which have fol-
lowed each other in dazzling se-
quence: ecumenical theology, renew-
al theology, hermeneutical theology,
evangelical theology, secular theo-
logy, death of God theology, hope
theology, radical theology, process
theology, celebration theology.

Most of these have had noted au-
thors and books supporting them.
Many have been quite provocative
and helpful. There still may be
much good in them.

Think of the theologian, or the

"Launch out into the deep," our
Lord said (Luke 5:4) . How deep He
did not say. The depth into which
we launch will depend upon how
perfectly we have given up the shore,
and the greatness of our need, and
the apprehension of our possibilities.
The fish were to be found in the
deep, not in the shallow water.

So it is with us. Our needs are
to be met in the deep things of God.
We are to launch out into the deep
of God's Word, which the Spirit can
open up to us in crystal, fathomless
meaning. When He does, the same
words we have accepted in times past
will have such new meaning in them
their first meaning will seem shallow.

Into the deep of the atonement
until Christ's precious blood is so
illuminated by the Spirit that it be-
comes an omnipotent balm and food
and medicine for the soul and
body;

Into the deep of the Father's will,
until we apprehend it in its infinite
minuteness and goodness, and its far
sweeping provision and care for us;

Into the deep of the Holy Spirit,
until He becomes a bright, dazzling,
sweet, fathomless summer sea in
which we bathe and bask and
breathe, losing ourselves and our
sorrows in the calmness and peace of
His everlasting presence;

Into the deep of the Holy Spirit
until He becomes a bright, marvel-
ous answer to prayer, the most care-
ful and tender guidance, the most
thoughtful anticipation of our needs,

Miss Thelma Hall, an elect lady
of Bryson City, N. C. is author of the
layman's viewpoint this week.

earnest layman, trying to put his
beliefs all together. Year by year he
is walloped by some new trend. In
all humility he may say, "This is the
way I am making up my mind."
Most of us who work at it know that
"systematic theology" is not very sys-
tematic. Yes, it is untidy.

A most hopeful sign is the re-
newed recognition of the impor-
tance of the Bible. Theologies
change, but the Word doesn't.
Theology must always be subject to

the most accurate and supernatural
shaping of all our events;

Into the deep of God's purposes
and coming kingdom, until the
Lord's coming and His blessed reign
are opened up to us; and beyond
these the bright entrancing ages on
ages unfold themselves, until the
mental eye is dazed with light, and
the heart flutters with inexpressible
anticipations of its joy with Jesus
and glory to be revealed.

Into all these things Jesus bids us
launch. He made us and He made
the deep, and to its fathomless
depths He has fitted our ongoings
and capabilities.

The deep waters of the Holy Spirit
are always accessible, because they
are always proceeding. Will you not
this day claim afresh to be immersed
and drenched in these waters of life?

How far have we as His children
advanced into this river of life? The
Holy Spirit would have a complete
self-effacement, we ourselves hidden
out of sight and bathed in this life-
giving stream.

Let go the shore lines and launch
out into the deep. Never forget, the
One with the measuring line is with
us today and will be always.

I personally feel and see that we
as Christians today need a complete
abandonment to the will of the
blessed Holy Spirit so that as His
witnesses we will be ready always to
give an answer to everyone that asks
us, a reason of the hope that is in us
with meekness and fear (I Pet. 3:
15).

And above all that we will be
ready to meet Him when He
comes. El

correction by the Word, and not the
Word by theology.

Does my untidy theology add up
to a zero as far as faith and commit-
ment are concerned? Far from it.
We don't have to recite profound
theology in order to begin the
Christian life. We give ourself to
as much as we know in Christ Jesus.
We simply walk in the light. Our
experience outruns our theology, but
it won't outrange it. — Gene W.
Newberry in Vital Christianity. (E

PAGE 13 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 16, 1972

SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON

For September 3, 1972

The Bible in Our Changing World

Rev. Jack B. Scott

INTRODUCTION: Today we
begin a new quarter of lessons. The
subject for the quarter is, "The Bi-
ble Speaks to Issues of Our Time."
Its purpose is to relate Biblical teach-
ing to modern living. Based on the
conviction that God's Word is rele-
vant for all ages and periods of man's
history, and that the Bible is the
only infallible guide for believers, we
shall approach these lessons from the
point of view that all modern-day
problems can ultimately be best met
by a study of God's Word to know
His will for our lives in every indi-
vidual circumstance.

I. THE UNCHANGING WORD
OF GOD IN A CHANGING
WORLD (Josh. 1:1-9; Isa. 40:6-8;
Daniel 1; John 8:14). Moses was
the law-giver whom God chose to
lead His people out of bondage in
Egypt to the promised land. In do-
ing so, Moses was the mediator be-
tween God and the people. He re-
ceived the will of God written on
tablets and instructed the people in
that will. But he did more.

He wrote down for the Old Testa-
ment believers the history of God's
dealing with His people from the
very beginning to that day. He re-
corded God's Word concerning cre-
ation, Adam, Adam's sin, the flood,
the patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob. He told of the move to
Egypt and the four hundred years
of enslavement. Moses further laid
a great foundation of Biblical truth
for the people of God before he died.
Would his writing die with him?

God spoke to Joshua after Moses'
death and made clear that Moses'
death did not change at all His will
and purpose. The only change was
in the leadership of the people and
even this would not be a great
change for the real leader was still
God, 'As I was with Moses, so I
will be with thee; I will not fail thee,
nor forsake thee" (Josh. 1:5).

Joshua was to lead the people on
the basis of God's Word revealed
through Moses. He was told: "Ob-
serve to do according to all the law,

Background Scripture: Joshua 1:1-
9; Isaiah 40:6-8; Daniel 1; John
8:12

Key Verses: Joshua 1:1-9; Isaiah

40:6-8; John 8:12
Devotional Reading: Psalm 119:17-

27

Memory Selection: Isaiah 40:8

which Moses my servant command-
ed thee" (1:6) . Not one word had
become irrelevant in Joshua's gen-
eration. Though all of Moses' gen-
eration were now dead and though
Joshua's generation would live not
in the wilderness but in the land of
Canaan, the timeless element of
God's Word is strikingly emphasized.

The promise attached to the ex-
hortation is also notable, "that thou
mayest have good success whitherso-
ever thou goest." The key to the be-
liever's success and the Church's suc-
cess in God's eyes is plainly in a
faithfulness to that Word.

The same respect for the Word
was taught to Joshua and to us: We
are to meditate on it day and night.
It is worthy of our greatest attention
and primary time (1:8). (Compare
Psalm 1.) As well as studying the
Word, we are also to be doers of it
(1:8). (Compare James 1:22.)
Once again prosperity and success in
God's eyes is promised to those who
take God's Word seriously.

Over half a millennium later, that
same Word is still the most impor-
tant guide of God's people. The
prophet Isaiah learned that people
are not dependable. In the period of
time from the exodus until the fall
of the capital of Israel, Samaria, the
Bible records many lives which are
full of sin and error. Even men such
as the judges, David, Solomon, and
the long list of kings who followed
them, failed the people many
times. In Isaiah's time, Judah was
threatened with captivity. Babylon
was rising on the horizon. What were
the people to depend upon? Surely

The International Sunday School Lesson Out-
lines are copyrighted by The International
Council of Religious Education.

j Hi
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they could not depend on their i
prophets, for many of these proved
to be false. Neither could they de-
pend on their priests. Many of them
sold out for bribes and profit.

For the most part, the kings also
failed the Lord and reigned wicked- 1
ly. Isaiah stated the situation as it
existed in his day: "All flesh is grass,
and all the goodness thereof is as the
flower of the field. The grass wither- \
eth, the flower fadeth . . . surely the
people is grass. The grass withereth,
the flower fadeth, but the Word of
our God shall stand forever" (Isa.
40:6-8) .

Jesus, eight hundred years after
Isaiah and over a millennium after
Joshua, could still say the same thing:
"Till heaven and earth pass away, I
one jot or one tittle shall in no wise
pass away from the law, till all
things be accomplished" (Matt. 5:
18) and "heaven and earth shall
pass away, but my words shall not
pass away" (Matt. 24:35) .

By this testimony we see that the
same Word of God is indeed relevant
for every age. It had utmost mean-
ing for the ages of Moses, Isaiah and
Jesus. It has great meaning for us
today also. The Bible speaks to peo-
ple, not to things. Things and cir-
cumstances may change. People do
not. Our needs today spiritually and
physically are the same as they were
in each of those other ages. Our
character is certainly no better and
probably no worse than theirs. Nat-
ural man is always a sinner in need
of the spiritual light that only God's
Word gives.

The book of Daniel records the
life of one group of Jews who lived
long after Isaiah, but long before Je-
sus. Even at an early age, Daniel's
life was committed to God. Though
Daniel had many gifts of which to
boast and an excellent mind, so as
to prove superior to all around him,
(Dan. 1:20) , he realized that his wis-
dom and ability were gifts from God
(1:17) . His own life was one of de-
votion to God, and even when his
life was threatened, he would not
cease to worship the Lord (Dan. 6:

PAGE 14 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 16, 1972

0) . We are told that this was no
nere show of religion, but his life-
ime practice.

Daniel was accustomed to reading
[Jod's Word and on one occasion he
particularly studied the Word of God
*iven through Jeremiah, seeking to
enow from God the meaning of that
particular passage which he read and
Arhich had been written some one
lundred years before his time. He
;onsidered it important for him and
lis generation to understand it, and
le had no hesitation to seek to ap-
ply God's Word to his own life and
ircumstances (Dan. 9:2) .

Finally, in Jesus' time, our Lord
declared Himself to be the light of
Lhe world and the source of all true
light (John 8:12). (Compare John
1:9.) When Jesus was ready to as-
cend to heaven, the commission
which He gave to His disciples was
to teach all nations until the end of
time, all things, whatsoever He had
commanded (Matt. 28:20) . When
we realize that the Lord Jesus who
5aid this is the same Lord both of
the Old and the New Testaments, we
realize that the "all things" include
that which is in the Old and the
New Testaments.

Thus Paul declared the Scriptures
to be profitable for teaching, for re-
proof, for correction, for instruction
in righteousness, that the man of
God may be perfect, thoroughly fur-
nished for every good work (II Tim.
3:16-17). This is the same thing
which the Lord had said to Joshua
so long before — in keeping this
word you shall have good success
and have a prosperous way (Josh.

Over the 1,500 years of Old Testa-
ment revelation, from beginning to
end, all of it is considered relevant
wand applicable to our daily needs.
I The way Jesus used that written
iWord in His most important struggle
I against Satan (Matt. 4) is a clear
i teaching of the relevance of Scrip-
Ijture and its dependability, even
I though the words which Jesus quoted
I to refute Satan and which He ap-
i plied to His own immediate circum-
| stance, were 1,400 years old!

What this says to you and me is
that that same Word over the past
[2,000 years continues to be equally
relevant and suitable to our needs
| today. Every believer knows this
land as he has sought God's will for
I all facets of his life, he has had dem-
onstrated to him how true it is.

This leads us to the second main
topic of our study today: How can

we know God's will for us today in
our present life and time?

II. GOD'S WILL FOR YOU.

A. The infallible source. The
Word of God written is the only in-
fallible source of God's will. Com-
pare chapter 1 of the Westminster
Confession of Faith. God has re-
vealed all that He desires us to know
about Himself, about ourselves, and
about our duty to Him (Deut. 29:
29) . The Scripture itself is not
man's thoughts about God, but what
God has willed for us to know (II
Pet. 1:21). It is, therefore, our life
and a more sure guide for our daily
living even than a voice from heav-
en (II Pet. 1:17-19) .

B. The importance of knowing
and doing God's will. Jesus first re-
minded us that it is not he who says
"Lord, Lord" who shall enter into
God's kingdom, but he who does the
will of God who will enter (Matt.
7:21) . This alone is sufficient rea-
son for us to seek continually to
know what God wills for us in all
circumstances of life. It is the doer
of God's will who shall abide for-
ever (I John 2:17) , and it is of ut-
most importance to all of us that we
be attentive to the Word of God
written so that we may understand
His will for us.

C. The proper attitude for those
seeking God's will. First, we are to
pray always: "Thy will be done"
(Matt. 6:10). This prayer which
Jesus taught to His disciples is not
a matter of mere words to be re-
cited, but an attitude of heart to be
cultivated. We will never under-
stand God's will for our lives unless
we sincerely pray for God's will to
be done.

Here we have the example of Jesus
himself. In the Garden of Gethsem-
ane before His crucifixion, He
asked His Father to let the cup of
suffering pass from Him if it were
possible, but He concluded: "Never-
theless not my will, but thine, be
done" (Luke 22:42) .

In a similar vein some in the
early Church, apparently including
Luke, the writer of the book of Acts,
sought to persuade Paul against go-
ing to Jerusalem for fear for his life.
Yet when they could not persuade
him, they committed the whole mat-
ter to the Lord, saying: "The will of
the Lord be clone" (Acts 21:13-14) .

This latter illustration shows us
that sincere believers can differ in
what they believe God's will to be,
but each man must act as he believes

God's Word has taught him. More
important, each believer must de-
sire above all, not his way but God's
way.

Second, we must say always: "If
the Lord will, we shall live, do this,
or that" (Jas. 4:15) . From this we
see that as Christians we have the
freedom and obligation to plan our
day's activities in the light of our
knowledge of God's Word and will,
and yet plan it under the condition
that our plans are always subject to
God's will. We believe He can and
we ask Him to overrule our plans if
they are not in accord with His will.
This is our proper desire if we are to
live in the will of God.

D. God's will stated. In a gen-
eral way, God's will is stated in terms
that are all-inclusive of our whole
life. Yet we must understand this
general will if we are to be led to
more specific aspects of His will for
us daily.

First, He says: "This is the will of
God, your sanctification" (I Thess.
4:3) . We understand from this that
God desires us to grow spiritually,
living more and more according to
His standards, moving gradually to-
ward lives that are sinless and lives
reflecting Christ in us. Again we
learn that it "is the will of God, that
with well doing ye may put to
silence the ignorance of foolish
men" (I Pet. 2:15).

God desires us to do good works
as His children, not for our own
glory but rather that our testimony
before the world be effective against
the discreditors of our Lord. We are
His ambassadors and represent
Christ on earth. It is a sobering re-
sponsibility and one which cannot
be well met unless we continually
desire to do God's will.

E. Applying God's will to your
life. To know the will of God, we
must first present our bodies as liv-
ing sacrifices to Him. Here is some-
thing concrete which we can and
must do if we are to know His will
(Rom. 12:2) . Do not think of do-
ing God's will if you have not done
this.

Next, you prove what is well pleas-
ing as you walk as children of light
(Eph. 5:10). This means that in
accord with what we already know
of God's will in His Word (the
light) , we shall learn more accurate-
ly how to please Him. We must act
in accord with what we already know
of His will if we are to expect to be-
come more knowledgeable of His
will for our lives.

PAGE 15 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 16, 1972

Next, we are to pray for His will
to be known to us and that we may
stand in His will (Col. 4:12) . If it
is proper for others to pray this
prayer on our behalf, then surely it
is proper prayer for us also.

Finally, we are to work out our
own salvation (put it to work) with
fear and trembling (Phil. 2:12). By
this we understand that it is no easy
thing to follow God's will or to know
it in every area of our lives but this
is what God expects of us. By seek-
ing His will daily through study of

Scripture: Psalm 1
Suggested Hymns:

"All the Way My Saviour

Leads Me"
"Living for Jesus"
"Lead on, O King Eternal"

PROGRAM LEADER'S INTRO-
DUCTION: Most of us have
joined, or soon will be joining, mil-
lions of other American young peo-
ple in the trek back to the classroom.
The matter of going to school is so
routine that it is quite likely that
many of us never give it a serious
thought. The fact is, however, that
going to school is our main occupa-
tion for twelve to sixteen (or even
more) years of our lives. Any ac-
tivity which requires so much of
our time is deserving of serious
thought.

Just why do we go to school?
There are many true but superficial
answers. The law requires it, our
parents demand it, and we have to
complete a minimum of schooling
in order to qualify for certain jobs.
All of these statements are true, but
they do not supply a thoughtful, re-
sponsible answer to the question
"Why do we go to school?" As Chris-
tians we are stewards of our time and
abilities, and we ought to be able
to justify the years we spend in
school. As Christians we ought also
to give some serious thought about
the way we spend time in school as
well as the reason for going to school
in the first place. In other words,

His Scripture, we a r e growing in
sanctification. He could have given
to each of us a book of day-by-day
instructions for our every step but
He did not. Instead, God chose to
have us grow as we walk by faith,
step by step, applying His Word to
every facet of our daily lives. But
remember, "it is God who works in
you both to will and to do of His
good pleasure" (Phil. 2:13).

In seeking God's will for your life
there is no magic formula, we have
to work at it. The more we know

For September 3, 1972

Back to School

Rev. B. Hoyt Evans

we need to ask ourselves why we go
to school and what we do there.

FIRST SPEAKER: School is a
training experience for life. A real
reason for going to school is to pre-
pare for useful, purposeful living.
In school we gain knowledge which
is needful in meeting the demands of
life. In the learning process we not
only store up valuable knowledge,
but we also develop our abilities.
Our intellectual capability increases
as we stretch our minds ... as we
exercise our mentality by thinking
about things and trying to solve
problems. We also gain certain phys-
ical and mechanical skills in our
schooling, such as typing, writing,
cooking, sewing, and woodwork. The
parable of the talents teaches us that
we are responsible for developing the
gifts God has given us, and surely
our mental and mechanical skills are
precious gifts from God. Since one
of the chief aims of school is to de-
velop our abilities, schooling has sig-
nificant value for a Christian. Our
main reason for going to school
should be to meet our responsibility
to God by exercising and develop-
ing the abilities we have received
from Him.

SECOND SPEAKER: When some-
one asks, "What do you do at
school?," how do we answer? More
to the point, how should we answer?
If the main aim of going to school
is to encourage the learning, grow-
ing process, then the main business

the written Word of God, the better
decisions we can make about all of
life. The more faithfully we live in
accord with what we do know al-
ready of God's will, the more He
will give us understanding. Remem-
ber that He desires His will in you'
more than you do and He will help
you if you really desire to do His
will. If you approach your daily
life with this sincere desire and have
committed your life to Him, then
He will lead you and you will
grow. I

I

of the student ought to be learning
and growing. There is an old and
worn joke about the student who
determined not to allow his studies
to interfere with his education.
There are many interesting, whole-
some, helpful activities connected
with the modern schooling experi-
ence, but our studies are still our
chief business at school. One stu-
dent who asked his father about get-
ting a part-time job during the
school year in order to earn spend-
ing money was told very forcefully,
"You have a job." The Bible teaches
very definitely that we are respon-
sible for doing diligently whatever
God calls us to do. If we are stu-
dents, God has called us to study.

Assuming that we do give our
studies first place and devote our
best energies to them, we can profit
richly from participating in the sec-
ondary, extracurricular activities at
school. Through involvement in
athletics and various school organi-
zations we can learn valuable things
about being followers and leaders.
We can learn about the fine art of
getting along with other people. So-
cial skills and graces are not worth
much if we fail to gain essential
knowledge and wisdom, but "booB
learning" likewise has limited value
if we do not know how to apply it
or if we do not know how to get
along well with other people.

THIRD SPEAKER: There is an-
other important thing that Christian
young people are responsible for do-

YOUTH PROGRAM

PAGE 16 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 16, 1972

ig at school. They are responsible
>r bearing witness to Jesus Christ,
we have believed in Christ as our
iviour and have acknowledged
[im as our Lord, then we ought to
e willing to make it known. There
e many ways of witnessing for
hrist. It is possible to do it in such
way that we appear self-righteous
ad arrogant. Of course, we want to
void giving this appearance, but
lat does not give us an excuse for
ot witnessing at all. In our con-
ersation we ought to let it be
nown that we believe in Christ and
rat we are grateful for what He has
one for us. We can let it be known,
ithout seeming self-righteous, that
re go to church and that the life
nd work of the church is important
3 us. Just as the words we speak
bout Christ and His Church are im-
ortant, so is it important that we
ve lives consistent with the words
;e speak. This means that our
jeech will be clean, wholesome and
everent ... no dirty jokes and
tories and none that make light of
oly things. It means being clean
nd honest in our conduct ... re-
jecting the character and reputa-
on of the people we date. It means
eing kind and considerate of other
tudents and of teachers. When
ve say that Christ means much to
is, our lives ought to show it.

The purpose of witnessing is to
lonor God. We do this not only
)y telling and showing how much
Christ means to us but also by try-
ng to win others to believe in Him
ind to trust Him as their Saviour.
vVe do not do all that witnessing de-
nands until we at least try to lead
omeone else to Christ. In the school
ituation we have some splendid op-
portunities to speak to our friends
md acquaintances about their need
)f Christ and His love for them.
Christ is not ashamed of us. Does
t sometimes appear that we are
ishamed of Him?

PROGRAM LEADER: As we be-
*in another school year let us not
make the mistake of thinking that
ichool is just an interval of time to
be endured until we can get down
to the real business of living. Our
ichool years are a very important
part of our lives, and we need to en-
ter into this time with seriousness of
purpose and with the prayer that
God will enable us to make the best
use of it for our good and His glory.

Closing Prayer. IB

BOOKS

JOHN CALVIN VS. THE WEST-
MINSTER CONFESSION, by Holmes
Rolston 111. John Knox Press, Rich-
mond, Va. Paper, 124 pp. $2.95. Re-
viewed by the Rev. William C. Robin-
son, Claremont, Calif.

The Marrow issue in Scotland and
the antinomian controversy in Eng-
land show that it has not been easy
for Reformed theology to steer a
safe course between the Scylla of le-
galism and the Charybdis of license.
Thornwell put the matter thus:
Christ is always crucified between
two thieves, neonomianism that
steals from Him the glory of justify-
ing His people, and antinomianism
which deprives Him of the honor of
sanctifying them. If the thesis of
this book can contribute toward eas-
ing these tensions, by all means let
us consider it.

Rolston sees grace preceding law
in Calvin and law coming before
grace in Westminster. For the Re-
former, grace is at the center of God
with law as its instrument or means.
Sin is primarily the failure of man
to be grateful for grace, then dis-
obedience to God's will. As created,
man is grace-receiving. His first ob-
ligation is to own and trust in God.
He is not made to achieve righteous-
ness on his own and glory in him-
self. Abraham believed in giving
glory to God. If there are riches of
grace that we have not yet found in
Calvin, let us by all means do so.
We fear, however, that Rolston has
made the contrast more absolute
than his sources warrant. Certainly
there is grace in the covenant of life
according to such federal theologians
as Rollock, A. A. Hodge and Dab-
ney, and much law in Calvin.

Thus we have reservations con-
cerning the presentation of the sig-
nificant thesis of this book: the de-
scription of Adam as myth; the re-
duction of Calvin's three uses of the
law to two, omitting that the law is
given to restrain transgression; the
use of Calvin to fault federal
theology for not teaching universal
grace at creation, and then faulting
Calvin for not carrying through a
complete universalism.

Rolston credits Calvin with teach-
ing a righteousness of God com-
municated to man both by imparta-
tion and by imputation. Then he
insists that there is not the slightest

hint in Westminster that righteous-
ness in God is anything more than
a demanding attribute. And yet our
standards teach a communication of
righteousness by imputation in jus-
tification, and an infusion of grace
to renew the whole man after the
image of God in sanctification (Larg-
er Catechism, 75,77) .

In the midst of this discussion,
Rolston quotes portions of a
sentence from Calvin's refutation
of Osiander (Institutes, III, xi, 3) .
In so doing he omits from Calvin's
sentence, "that Christ may justify
us by the power of His death and
resurrection." Osiander derives our
righteousness from Christ's divine
nature by a pantheistic transfusion
without any reference to what Christ
wrought for us in His human life
of obedience and His death for our
sins.

The emphasis in Calvin falls on
what Osiander omits, for example:
"When we say that grace was im-
parted to us by the merit of Christ,
we mean this: by His blood we are
cleansed, and His death was an ex-
piation for our sins .... If the ef-
fect of His shedding of blood is that
our sins are not imputed to us, it
follows that God's judgment was sat-
isfied by that price" (Institutes, II
xvii, 4) . In a magnificent summary
of what Christ has done for us in
His incarnate ministry, Calvin bids
us ever "see that our whole salva-
tion and all its parts are compre-
hended in Christ. We should,
therefore, take care not to derive the
least portion of it from anywhere
else" (Institutes, II, xvi, 19) .

By all means let us magnify the
grace of God with Calvin, but at the
same time let us with him give to
Christ all the glory for what He suf-
fered and did — yes, and is doing
and will do — for us and for our
salvation. The grace of God is only
fully revealed in the sinless Son of
God giving himself for us fallen,
guilty, undeserving sinners. Thus
does He bring us, clad in His
righteousness, to our gracious heav-
enly Father. IB

WANTED— SERMONS regarding the War
in Vietnam and/or Patriotism preached
from Jan. 1, 1971, to present. Please
send to: P. O. Box 221, Columbia
Theological Seminary, Box 520, Decatur,
Ga. 30031.

PAGE 17 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 16, 1972

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For Your Church or Personal Library

Davis Dictionary of the Bible — New, revised, enlarged type $8.95

New American Standard Bible — Hardback 10.95

The Modern Language Bible — The New Berkeley Version, hardback 8.95

The Layman's Parallel New Testament — Comparing 4 popular translations 7.95

The Amplified Bible — Hardback 9.95

The Four Gospels, A Commentary, Critical, Experimental — David Brown 8.00

The Sermon On The Mount — by D. Martyn Lloyd Jones, 1 Vol. Edition 8.95

The Defense Of Christianity and My Credo — by Cornelius Van Til 1.00

Peter Speaks Today — A Devotional Commentary of First Peter

by Gordon Clark 3.75

Peloubet's Notes on the International Sunday School Lessons,

Sept. 1972 - Aug. 1973 Cloth 3.95 Paper 2.95

The Log College — by Archibald Alexander 4.00

Romans — by Geoffrey B. Wilson, paper 1.25

Hebrews — by Geoffrey B. Wilson, paper 1.25

Romans — An Exposition of Chapters 3:20 - 4:25 by D. Martyn Lloyd Jones 5.95

A Historical Commentary on St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians

by W. M. Ramsey 6.95

New Bible Dictionary 12.95

New Bible Commentary: Revised 12.95

Young's Concordance 13.75

Young's Concordance — Thumb indexed 15.50

Set of above three volumes 38.50

Order from

The Presbyterian Journal, Weaverville, N. C. 28787

GET YOUR HANDS OFF M
THROAT, by David Wilkerson. Zoi(
dervan Publ. House, Grand Rapid;
Mich. 124 pp. $3.95. Reviewed by tl
Rev. A. Hubert Rust, pastor, Eas
minster Presbyterian Church, Kno
ville, Tenn.

This volume is one which ever
adult and young person, drug use:
and nonuser should read. Few me
know the "untapped generation" a
does the author of this book. H
has met them, worked with then
and helped many to find themselvt
through Jesus Christ. His exper]
ence has resulted in a new look a
a hungry, spiritually starved genen
tion of teenagers. The result ha
been a new and positive attitude t(
ward the drug scene, long hair, roq
festivals, and runaway kids.

David Wilkerson says, "Marijuan
has become an element of youth cu
ture and has taken a deep root i
the soil of this generation's rebe!
lion against society. It cannot b
uprooted by lectures, warnings, am
threats. Drug users will not dimir
ish as long as those in authorit
spend all their time dealing with th
symptoms rather than getting at th
cause."

The author has spent many heat
searching hours praying about hoi
to reach this generation of youn
people, and he shares with us hi
new found compassion and method
in coping with these problems.

THE ROYAL ROMAN ROAD, b
John B. Schaal. Baker Book House
Grand Rapids, Mich. Paper, 122 pi
$2.95. Reviewed by the Rev. Harol
Borchert, pastor, Waynesville Presbj
terian Church, Waynesville, N. C.

The retiring editor of S u n d a
School Publications of the Christiai
Reformed Church and dean of R(
formed Bible College, Grand Rap
ids, has performed a consummat
work of Bible teaching. The geniu
of communication is not possessed b
many and it is rare to find it amon
theologians, but the author has tha
skill.

Not a rehash of older commeri
taries, this one speaks to young pec
pie and adults, utilizing the wisdon
of the years, combined with to
verve and warmth of contemporar
phrasing. It is faithful to the Serif
tures, and the author comes acros
as one who is in love with the Soi
of God.

John Schaal spent time durin
World War II as a serviceman's pas

PAGE 18 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 16, 1972

ar in Louisiana. Having been a
irt of his ministry in those days, I
low that his heart beats with con-
trn for the lost. This is what the
.inistry is all about!
Writing about Paul, the "pastor-
fcrher for all seasons," Schaal says
lat Romans is needed now: "This
listle is not controversial, but sets
irth a clear-cut statement of the
ospel from a reasoned defense of
le faith."

"Paul wanted to show," Schaal
3es on," "that basically all men —
ie unlearned pagan, the fine reli-
ionist and moralist, the educated
gentile, the covenant Jew — are on
ie same level as far as God is con-
;rned. All are sinners. Therefore,
uvation — coming into the fellow-
lip with the living God — is the
ime for all. Justification by faith
i Jesus Christ, through the work of
lie Holy Spirit, is a basic necessity
ir all."

If this book illustrates the quality
f Bible teaching at Reformed Bible
College, one can praise God for a
chool which stands on the rock and
reaches and teaches the Gospel of
*ur Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Thank God! IB

' GOD, A personal Bible Study Guide,
ky Alfred and Dorothy Martin. Moody
'ress, Chicago, 111. Paper, 64 pp. $.95.
Reviewed by the Rev. A. H. Rust, pas-
or, Eastminster Presbyterian Church,
Cnoxville, Tenn.

This paperback Bible study in-
vestigates the Scriptural teaching
)n the doctrine of God — who He
s and what He does. It is designed
:or the use of anyone who wants to
enow God, and who is willing to
iccept the Scriptures of the Old and
New Testaments as the inspired and
nfallible Word of God. It is in His
Word that God has chosen to reveal
Himself as the source of all wisdom
ind knowledge.

The study guide should prove
useful for personal study, family de-
votions, or home Bible classes.
Thought provoking review ques-
tions and Bible memory selections
add to the interest of this volume. II

THE POWER OF POSITIVE
PREACHING TO THE LOST, by John
R. Bisagno. Broadman Press, Nash-
ville, Tenn. 128 pp. $3.50. Reviewed
by the Rev. Henry M. Hope Jr., pastor,
Vineville Presbyterian Church, Macon,
Ga.

The author, pastor of the First
Baptist Church, Houston, Texas, is

a leader in the Southern Baptist Con-
vention, and he is widely known as
an evangelist.

This present book (he has written
four others) is a compilation of 12
evangelistic sermons. By way of in-
troduction the author says, "These
sermons are not presented as pol-
ished literary gems. They are sim-
ple, direct, hard-hitting revival ser-
mons as actually preached in the
heat of revivals in some of America's
outstanding evangelistic churches."

These messages are uncomplicated
and are refreshing for that quality,
as also for the soundness of their
Biblical content. 11

MIAMI CHURCH needs an associate pas-
tor .. . Pinelands Presbyterian Church
of Miami is seeking a minister of educa-
tion to work with the pastor in designing
a Biblical curriculum to meet the needs
of a congregation located in an area of
rapid growth. Send resume to (Rev.)
William R. Johnson, Pinelands Presby-
terian Church, P. O. Box 336, Miami,
Florida 33157.

MIDDLE EAST JOURNEY OF fellowship
and understanding — November 20-
December 10. Geneva, Beirut, Cairo,
Bahrain, Kuwait, Muscat, Jerusalem.
Travel with Christian friends. Visit church
and government leaders. Send for details.
REFORMED CHURCH TOURS, Room
1802, 475 Riverside Drive, New York,
N. Y. 10027.

'ef/c Simpson

31 stores in 8 states serving you
with this pledge ....

• To give prompt courteous service, treating our customers as you would a guest
in your home. • To give the best selection of merchandise from Top Quality
Fashions to basement bargains, meeting everyone's need. • To give satisfaction
guaranteed with every purchase. • To give credit terms arranged to meet your
budget needs in Stores doing credit business.

Since the opening of the first Belk-Simpson Store, it has been our
endeavor to be more in a community than just another merchant.
We have set forth a united concentrated effort, dedicated to the task
of securing superior quality merchandise, giving our customers a
better value than any other merchant.

SOUTH CAROLINA

Belk-Simpson Co.
Greenville, S. C.
J. A. Ellison, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson-Plaza Store

Greenville, S. C.

R. Grier Robinson Jr., Res.

The Dollar Store

Greenville, S. C.

R. P. Crumpler, Res. Mgr.

Belk's of Pleasantburg

Greenville, S. C.

A. M. Smith, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store
Lancaster, S. C.

B. L. Plyler, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store

Camden, S. C.

J. A. Hagins, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store

Clinton, S. C.

D. B. Smith, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.
Darlinqton, S. C.
Paul E. Broome, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store

Laurens, S. C.

David Middleton, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Abbeville, S. C.

J. S. Hagins, Res. Mgr.

Mgr.

Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Easley, S. C.

R. J. Womack, Res. Mgr

Belk-Simpson Co.
Beaufort, S. C.
Al Wilson, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Fountain Inn, S. C

E. J. Copeland, Res
Belk-Simpson Co.
Woodruff, S. C.

F. B. Hagins, Res.

Belk-Simpson Co.
Honea Path, S. C
T. R. Martin, Res.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Whitmire, S. C.
Clyde Smith, Res.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Manning, S. C.
W. M. Gettys, Res

OHIO

Belk-Simpson Co.

Athens, Ohio

Joe Kelly, Res. Mgr.

MISSOURI

Belk-Simpson Co.
Carthage, Mo.
Charles Wilson, Res.

Mgr.

Mgr.

Mgr.

Mgr.

Mgr.

Belk-Hagins Co.
Kershaw. S. C.
C. E. Hinson, Res.

Mgr.

OKLAHOMA

Belk Dept. Store

Miami, Oklahoma

J. T. Holmes, Res. Mgr.

NORTH CAROLINA

Belk-Simpson Co.

Hendersonville, N. C.

R. E. McCormack, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store

Brevard, N. C.

J. M. Felty, Res. Mgr.

KENTUCKY

Belk-Simpson Co.
Harlan, Ky.

Delmar Tolliver, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Corbin, Ky.

W. C. Ashley, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Winchester, Ky.
T. L. Beckham, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Mt. Sterling, Ky.
Willoughby Smith, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Frankfort, Ky.

J. D. Prow, Res. Mgr.

GEORGIA

Belk-Simpson Co.

Bainbridge, Ga.

M. D. Ashley, Res. Mgr.

ARKANSAS

Belk-Simpson Co.

Paragould, Ark.

W. H. Wade, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Osceola, Ark.

K. R. Cline, Res. Mgr.

These stores are a small part of the entire Belk or-
ganization and have been in existence approximately
50 years. The Belk stores were launched in 1886-88.

SEE THE MANAGER NEAREST YOU FOR CHURCH CARPET, ROBES, ETC.

PAGE 19 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 16, 1972

QUESTIONS

PEOPLE ARE
ASKING ABOUT

REFORMED
THEOLOGICAL

SEMINARY

Q. What is meant by the commit-
ment of the Reformed Theological
Seminary to the full authority of
the verbally inspired and infallible
Bible?

A. By our unqualified commitment
to the Bible, we express our belief
that although the Scriptures were
written by human authors, their
words were God's words. God used
the individual talents and person-
alities of the authors in giving the
Bible, while at the same time preserv-
ing their work from error. The
whole of the Bible, therefore,
carries Divine authority.

By our commitment to these
Scriptures, we mean that since they
are God's Word, they are to be
obeyed, exemplified, and defended
by us in all of life so that we do
only what God's Word commands
and ignore no part of his will.

/ REFORMED
THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY

5422 CLINTON BOULEVARD
JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI 39209
PHONE 601-922 4988

The Seminary has a racially
non-discriminatory admissions policy

I WILL BUILD MY CHURCH, by
Alfred F. Kuen. Moody Press, Chicago,
111. 366 pp. $6.95. Reviewed by the
Rev. Richard Allen Bodey, professor,
Reformed Theological Seminary, Jack-
son, Miss.

In recent years the Church has
turned the searchlight of its theologi-
cal inquiry back upon itself, in order
to probe afresh the very basic ques-
tions of its own nature, purpose, and
inner spiritual resources. Even evan-
gelicals, who have long been faulted
for their rather contemptuous atti-
t u d e toward the institutional
Church, have begun to show a more
wholesome respect for the subject.

Stressing the importance of the
Church in God's plan of redemption,
the present volume reflects this new
evangelical concern. The author, a
professor at the State Teachers'
Training College in Strassburg,
France, seeks to discover what the
New Testament teaches about the
Church: its structure, organization,
conditions for membership, minis-
tries, worship, and sacraments. The
result is a comprehensive and thor-
ough study, blending careful Bibli-
cal exegesis with a wealth of well
documented references from the
early fathers, reformers, and modern
theologians of various schools.

The book is written against a
European background, where bap-
tism, confirmation, and Church
membership are traditionally as au-
tomatic as national citizenship. This
"multitudinous Church" with its
consequent spiritual deadness, pro-
tests Kuen, stands in open contradic-
tion to the New Testament, which
restricts Church membership and
its privileges to regenerate believers.

Siding with the moderate Anabap-
tists of the sixteenth century, he
faults the reformers for shortstop-
ping the Reformation by lingering
"in the groove of Roman Catholic
Church doctrine," instead of return-

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28364.

ing full way to the apostolic mode ^
He quotes Luther and Calvin t
show that they originally set out t
reshape the Church according to th i
New Testament norm, but were hiit
dered by historical forces and ci
cumstances. Under this externa
pressure they retreated from thei
ideal and generated new varieties c
the familiar multitudinous Churcl

For Kuen, this misunderstandin
of the Church, which has cast ii
lengthening shadow over most c
Protestantism, constitutes the grea
tragedy of the Reformation. He sure
mons modern ecclesiastical leaders t
complete the Reformation in ou
time by restoring the apostolic dot
trine and pattern of the Church.

Admittedly, the book is not with
out its faults and blemishes. Fo
example, the author rejects th
spiritual identification of the Churcl
with Old Testament Israel on tht
grounds that this interpretation con
fuses the covenants. He also charac
teristically insists on "believer's bap
tism" and immersion. But evei
those who vigorously disagree or
controversial issues like these wil
find much to glean and gain froir
what is indisputably a high calibr<
effort to deal constructively anc
remedially with the current sicknes:
of the Church. ft

AMERICANS SPEAK OUT, bj
Charles E. Blair. Moody Press, Chi'
cago, 111. 119 pp. $2.95. Reviewed bj
the Rev. W. H. Morrison, pastor, Sun.
nyside Presbyterian Church, Fayette^
ville, N. C.

This book is the result of exten
sive interviews with residents of Den
ver, Colorado and its purpose is tc
discover what Americans believe are
the ten greatest problems facing us
today. Among these are pollution,
financial problems, peace, the teen-
age problem, the drug problem, the
degeneration of government, and
people who no longer have religion.

The author, however, doesn't stop
with presenting these problems. He
presents, on a personal level, what
can be done to solve the problems,
or enable us as individuals to com-
bat them.

This is not an evangelical sermon
on the evils of our world. This is
what the world thinks is wrong with
itself and what God's Word says can
be done.

The author is the pastor of the
interdenominational Calvary Tem-
ple, Denver, which has a member-
ship of 6,000 people. ffl'

PAGE 20

/ THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 16, 1972

3 n>9

YOL. XXXI, NO. 17

tflG

PRESBYTERIAN

idvocating continuation of a Presbyterian Church loyal

AUGUST 23, 1972

$4.00 A YEAR

JOURNAL

to Scripture and the Reformed faith

Presbyterian Character

Presbyterian doctrines and practices, as they have been
preached and taught through the centuries, have produced a
certain type of Christian character which we may call the Pres-
byterian type.

Men and women who have been brought up on these doc-
trines have iron in their blood and stamina in their character.
They have deep and abiding convictions for which they are
willing to live, and, if need be, to die. They have the fear
of God in their hearts, but do not fear the face of man.

With their Westminster Confession of Faith they believe
that "God is alone the Lord of the conscience." They believe
with all their hearts in civil and religious liberty and in repre-
sentative self-government.

The system of doctrine contained in our Presbyterian
standards is known as Calvinism, named for John Calvin who
expounded these doctrines a hundred years before the meeting
of the Westminster Assembly. John Calvin went back to the
Bible for everything. Others had discovered these doctrines be-
fore, but John Calvin, with his clear, logical mind, took them
from the Bible and arranged them in a great system which from
that day to this has been known as Calvinism.

— Walter L. Lingle

S. S. LESSON AND YOUTH PROGRAM FOR SEPTEMBER 10

dKOO

OK ITTH iecteq;o
Q.TT DK jo Xq.jSJGAXUfl

tioTq.OQT:xoo 0 £

MAILBAGr

ABOUT THAT CONFESSION

I sat down this morning to in-
spect the new confession of faith as
reproduced in the August 9 Journal.

The technique employed in the
framing of this confession of faith is
amazing. How adroitly it sets forth
at the beginning truths which no
Bible believing Christian could de-
ny, and then "yesses" him on (a
trick of salesmanship) to humanism
and universalism. Then, if per-
chance the Christian should have
misgivings about most of chapter
VIII and part of IX, the soothing
salve is applied to gather him safely

into the fold of complacency as the
liberal continues his relentless task
of destroying Biblical Christianity.

I am reminded of a verse in the
Bible: "Be not deceived, God is not
mocked. For whatsoever a man
soweth, that shall he also reap."

I believe that God is shortly go-
ing to make a visible difference be-
tween Christians and professors.
— Willis H. Owens
Sanford, N. C.

ANOTHER VIEWPOINT

I have just read the proposed
Confession of Faith in the August

the

PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL

Rev. G. Aiken Taylor, Ph.D., Editor
Rev. Henry B. Dendy, D.D., Managing Editor
Arthur H. Matthews, Assistant Editor

Circulation leader among independent publications in the Presbyterian-Reformed world

THIS WEEK— Vol. XXXI, No. 17, August 23, 1972

The Proposed Confession 7

Publishing additional chapters of a creedal draft

De partments —

Editorials 12

The Layman and his Church 13

Sunday School Lesson, September 10 14

Youth Program, September 10 16

Book Reviews 17

THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL, a

Presbyterian weekly magazine, devoted
to the statement, defense, and propa-
gation of the Gospel, the faith which
was once for all delivered to the saints,

is published every Wednesday by the
Southern Presbyterian Journal Co.,
Inc., in Weaverville, N. C.

SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: $4 a year
for individuals, $3 for members of
Every Family Plan churches. All cor-
respondence regarding subscriptions,
advertising or other business matters,
should be addressed to the business
office in Weaverville, N. C. 28787.
Second class postage paid at Weaver-
ville, N. C. 28787.

POSTMASTER: Send Form 3579 to
Presbyterian Journal, Box 635, Wea-
verville, N. C. 28787. Subscribers
should allow three weeks for change
of address in continental U. S. Change
of address notices should include both
old and new addresses (with zip
codes) .

NEWS AND EDITORIAL correspond-
ence should be addressed to P. O. Box
3108, Asheville, N. C. 28802. Editorial
offices located at 247 Charlotte St. in
Asheville.

TELEPHONES: (All area 704) edi-
torial office, 254-4015, 254-4016;
business office, 645-3310, 645-3962.

9 issue of the Journal. As a youn^
person I found comfort in thr
words. It speaks of many thing:
that the younger generation is con
cerned about.

I am not acquainted with the ok?
Confession of Faith, but I certainh
give the people who wrote the new
one my thanks for answering a loi
of questions I've had for a lonj
time.

— Susan Lazar
Stockbridge, Ga.

WATCH THAT CHALICE!

I cannot refrain from commenting
on the item (Aug. 2, "Across the Edi
tor's Desk") telling of the PCUJ
minister who helped unite twc
homosexuals in holy wedlock — with
the crowning added note that the)
hoped to adopt a child. Either the,
Church has sunk to a new low oi
Satan has risen to new heights. Be
it a sickness or sin (I think the lat,
ter in most cases) , accepting their
on their own terms is surely nol
treatment in the remotest sense.

I am reasonably certain that were
the rank and file to contemplate the
repulsive intimate activity of these
people, they would agree that St
Paul's recommendation in the case
of the Corinthian immorality (dif
ferent though no more abhorrent)
would be in order in this situatior
(I Cor. 5:1-8) .

However, if the Church should de
cide that holy wedlock is the way tc
express God's love in the matter, i
seems that rather than a pre-marita
blood test, a pre-marital throat cul
ture would be in order. The Journa
of the American Medical Associatior
(June 5) reported that a study o
79 middle class homosexuals dis
closed that 15 per cent of them hac
gonorrheal throat contamination

Aside to our Episcopal brethren
Perhaps you best consider changing
your policy of a common com
munion chalice.

—Omar C. Mehl, M.D.
Tampa, Fla.

FROM INTER-VARSITY

My heart was blessed at the Jour
nal Day proceedings and the mes
sages that were so inspiring and in
formative. Thank God for the Jour
nal, a voice "crying in the wilder
ness." The enclosed is my gift in
fulfillment of the pledge made oi
Journal Day.

It occurred to me as I attended
j he program that Journal readers
J night be interested in occasional
J lews items concerning a ministry

hat is seeking to fill some of the
A leeds referred to by the speakers. As
■J i staff member of Inter-Varsity
J christian Fellowship I would not

vant to be construed as seeking free
' idvertising, but it seems possible
1 hat many of your readers do not

enow that this organization is at

vork on college campuses, "holding

'orth the Word of Life."
Parents and students who are dis-

:urbed about spiritual conditions on

:he campus today may be encour-
'? iged to hear that Inter-Varsity is a
!jj Christian fellowship offering a vi-

able alternative to some of the na-
™ clonal denominational student min-

istries.

ie! Many of our staff have come
either from Presbyterian churches

01 or were trained in Presbyterian
schools. We receive a large propor-

51 tion of our support from evangeli-

'D cal Presbyterian churches so we have

o

!

• In person, by mail, and by long
distance telephone late at night,
Journal readers have indicated al-
most unanimously that they want
to see the whole thing! We mean
the proposed new confession for the
Presbyterian Church US, three chap-
ters of which we omitted for space
reasons from the August 9 issue.
Never unwilling to give our readers
what they want, we've reproduced

; those missing chapters in this issue
(see p. 7) . That makes a total of

: 9 chapters, compared to the existing
Confession of Faith's 35 chapters.

'• Obviously it would be impossible
to carry parallel sections side by
side, as some readers have request-
ed. For another thing: Nothing in
this liturgical bulletin parallels any
part of the Confession of Faith. But
watch for next week's Journal. Our

; inimitable Clydie will say all that
needs to be said about this amateur-
ish exercise in childishness.

• Journal Day 1972 brought to-
gether concerned Presbyterians from
a wider area than ever before. We
saw auto license tags from 16 states,

! including Ohio, Illinois and even
Texas. A few visitors seemed dis-
appointed that the mood of the au-

close ties with the Reformed move-
ment.

— Will Townsend
Chamblee, Ga.

MINISTERS

Thomas J. Ballard, received from
the Southern Baptist Convention,
to the Pitts church, Sumter, S. C.
Charles M. Carlsson Jr. from
Woodstock, Va., to the Trinity
church, Herndon, Va.
William R. Goodman Jr. from
graduate study, to the faculty of
Damavand College, Teheran,
Iran.

David E. Hamilton, former mis-
sionary to Mexico, has been
called by the Northside church,
Burlington, N. C.
William H. Johnson from Louis-
ville, Ky., to the District Heights
church, Washington, D. C.
Walter E. McCrory from Louis-
ville, Ky., to the Cove and Rock-
fish churches, Covesville, Va.

dience was for firm action on behalf
of a continuing Church faithful to
Scripture and to the Reformed faith
as soon as it can be taken. A much
larger number (it seemed to us)
were disappointed by lack of sup-
port for separation before the Joint
Committee on Union decides what
it intends to do with the plan of
union between the UPUSA and the
PCUS. That decision is scheduled
for February, 1973.

• Organizations working towards
a strong Presbyterian and Reformed
witness in our day now have three
full time executives. Representing
Presbyterian Churchmen United,
the Rev. Paul G. Settle has offices
in Montgomery, Ala. (3436 Welling-
ton, Montgomery, Ala. 36106. Phone
[205] 262-5126.) The steering com-
mittee which represents those four
conservative organizations in plan-
ning for a continuing Church is
served by the Rev. John E. Rich-
ards. (P.O. Drawer 1024, Perry, Ga.
31069. Phone: [912] 987-3133.) Fi-

J. Harris Langford from the mili-
tary chaplaincy to the Town
North church, Reformed Presby-
terian Church Evangelical Synod,
Dallas, Tex.

Bailey P. Phelps from Quanah,
Tex., to the First Church, Winns-
boro, La., and the Union church,
Baskin, La.

Charles Harry Sarles from Has-
kell, Tex., to the First Church,
Coleman, Tex.

Lewis Earl Trotter from Mem-
phis, Tenn., to the First Church,
Lakeland, Fla., as associate pas-
tor.

Roger E. Williams from St. Jo-
seph, Mo., to the Broadway
church, Sedalia, Mo.

DEATH

Richard T. Baker, 75, of Penney
Farms, Fla., died Aug. 6. He
served pastorates in North Caro-
lina from 1925 until his retire-
ment in 1964.

nally, as you will see on p. 5 of this
issue, the National Presbyterian and
Reformed Fellowship has called the
Rev. Donald C. Graham, who will
continue as pastor of First Church,
Montgomery, Ala., until he takes
over the work of NPRF Sept. 15.
(52 Adams Ave., Montgomery, Ala.
36104. Phone: [205] 263-2565.)
These organizations are all tax-ex-
empt and deserve a portion of the
Lord's tithes.

• In full time, or nearly full time,
service on behalf of Concerned Pres-
byterians is a corps of field men,
mostly serving at a sacrifice to them-
selves: W. C. Anderson, Nashville,
Tenn.; Willis H. Owens, Sanford,
N. C; Jasper H. Wilson, Charlotte,
N. C; Joseph B. Nails, Huntsville,
Ala.; Rollins E. Wampler, Bristol,
Tenn.; James H. Campbell, Va.
Beach, Va.; P. Y. Matthews, Atlanta,
Ga. Address for Concerned Presby-
terians is 100 Biscayne Blvd., Miami,
Fla. 33132. Phone: (305) 371-
3592. EB

ACROSS THE EDITOR'S DESK

PAGE 3 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 23, 1972

NEWS OF RELIGION

"Good Faith' Challenge Given Ecumenists

Until radical ecumenists in the Pres-
byterian Church US demonstrate
their good faith with some very spe-
cific actions, planning will go ahead
for a continuing Presbyterian
Church.

That was the message of one of
the principal speakers at "Journal
Day 1972" at Weaverville, N. C.
Some 450 Journal supporters from
18 states attended the day-long pro-
gram, the first since formation of
the Steering Committee for a Con-
tinuing Presbyterian Church was an-
nounced a year ago.

It was the 23rd Journal Day in
Weaverville. Chairman Donald B.
Patterson of the steering committee
recalled that when the first such
gathering was held in 1949, there
was recognition of a then existing
"continuing Church" movement. A
number in the 1972 audience indi-
cated that they had been present in
1949.

W. Jack Williamson, a member
of the steering committee and sec-
retary of the Concerned Presbyte-
rians organization, told the throng
that the radical ecumenists could do
two things to show conservatives
their good faith. One would be to
get the 1973 Presbyterian US Gen-
eral Assembly to vote on the plan

of union with the United Presbyte-
rian Church USA. Another would
be to postpone until after the vote
on that question the effective date
of new synod and presbytery boun-
daries.

"As we wait and hope and pray
that God will so motivate these
radical ecumenists to such acts of
reconciliation," Mr. Williamson de-
clared, "Christian statesmanship re-
quires us to continue to plan for
the alternative of a new structure.
We would be both foolish and dere-

S. A. White Introduces Dr. Bell

THE CHURCH OVERSEAS

KOREA — John Lee of the Korea
Baptist Mission has recently gone
to Whittier, Calif., to record sound
tracks in the Korean language for
seven science films produced by the
Moody Institute of Science. Seven
other films are scheduled for com-
pletion soon.

In another project, ten Moody
films will have Russian language
sound tracks which are being pre-
pared in cooperation with the Sla-
vic Gospel Mission.

These new films will be among
those to be shown during evangelis-
tic efforts at the Olympics in Mu-
nich this summer. Using special
multilingual equipment, the films
will offer Russian, German, French,
Spanish or English sound tracks.

AFRICA — AFROMEDIA is the
name of a concentrated film and
television production effort of the
Africa Inland Church and Mission
in Kenya. In cooperation with oth-
er evangelical organizations, broad-
cast efforts will be enlarged to 100
broadcasts per month, all on sustain-
ing time, to meet the challenge
brought by an invitation to produce
telecasts for the Voice of Kenya,
which first began producing radio
programs in 1950.

AFROMEDIA's first goal is to
create quality films for Kenya's tele-
vision station. Other goals are a
videotape unit to augment film
production and a communications
center to operate in other areas of
Christian mass media. IB

-

lict in our duty of leadership if we
did otherwise."

Little was accomplished toward
genuine reconciliation by the 1972
Assembly, the Greenville, Ala., law-
yer said in reviewing actions of that
court. To the contrary, he charged
that "ecclesiastical, political gerry
mandering" was achieved in the
"mad march toward liquidation" of
Southern Presbyterianism.

He continued, "Relentlessly abus
ing the power in their hands, these
radical ecumenists, in total disregard
of the historic witness of our be
loved Church, cut her up piecemeal
in preparation for her final demise.
The 112th General Assembly simp-
ly added emphasis to the consensus
we believe the Holy Spirit led us
to declare last year."

Dr. Patterson, in an address sum
ming up the day's presentations, a&
serted, "We believe God has given
us a job to do ... . We press on."

The steering committee chairman
said the situation in the denomina-
tion was not changed materially by
the 1972 Assembly's election of
Journal founder L. Nelson Bell as
its moderator. Dr. Patterson, who
was a commissioner to the Assem
bly from Central Mississippi Pres
bytery, said there was no evidence
of change in the denominational
boards and agencies.

Dr. Bell was a special guest at
Journal Day and spoke briefly dur-
ing the morning. He was greeted
by the customary standing ovation
accorded Assembly moderators.

In acknowledging the greeting, he
said it was a miracle that he could
be elected to the Church's highest
post. He requested Journal sup-
porters to pray for him and urged
them to "never lose your urgency"
and to "stick to witnessing for Jesus
Christ." He made no reference to
his resignation from the Journal
board and staff last August.

Dr. Patterson reviewed the work
of the steering committee and the
cooperating organizations during
the past year. He expressed appreci-
ation for the financial and moral
support which has been extended
and requested sustained prayer sup-
port.

Meetings of the steering commit-
tee have been conducted monthly,
the chairman reported. He revealed

PAGE 4 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 23, 1972

lat much study has been given to
onstitutional questions and that
raft copies of proposed constitu-
tonal documents for the continuing
church soon will be circulated
mong some congregations for study.

Even though considerable atten-
ion has been given to the issue of
hurch property, that is not the
■aain issue, Mr. Williamson said in
ds address. He was applauded when
le declared, "If we are forced by
:ur convictions to risk the loss of
.11 property for the sake of the hon-
>r and integrity of the Church of
mr Lord Jesus Christ, such a risk
ve are fully prepared to take."

There are signs of revival in
Vmerica, but they are outside the
tructures of the Presbyterian
Hhurch US, speakers during the day
uggested. The Rev. John W. P.
Dliver of Augusta, Ga., reviewed ex-
imples of "Christ centered" minis-
ries to which students are respond-
ng while turning away from
Church sponsored "socio-economic
rrusading and political diatribes."

He said, "To those with eyes to
>ee it appears that young people are
increasingly willing, even hungry, to
lear of our great Saviour though
they often show marked disinterest
in customs and traditions which
have become sacrosanct in our
midst."

The pastor of Augusta's First
Church declared, "The amazing
gusto for amazing grace gives us
confidence that we shall be heard
when we declare in love the truth."

The incarnate Word of God can-
liot be separated from the Word of
God written, another speaker said.
President Edmund C 1 o w n e y of
Westminster Seminary, Philadel-
phia, reminded that Jesus Christ "is
the living Son of God and He speaks
the words given Him of the Father.
No man receives Christ the living
Word who does not receive His
• spoken words."

Comparing the American indus-
trial smog to the theological smog
in the churches, Dr. Clowney said
the "noxious miasma" in the church-
es "is the more lethal when we take
it for granted." He suggested such
smog "obscures the difference be-
tween truth and error, between the
faithfulness of God and the wiles
of the devil." |fj

Don Graham Appointed
Fellowship's Executive

WEAVERVILLE, N. C. — Donald
C. Graham, pastor of the First Pres-
byterian Church, Montgomery, Ala.,
since 1964, will become the first ex-
ecutive director of the National
Presbyterian and Reformed Fellow-
ship.

His appointment by the NPRF
steering committee was announced
at "Journal Day" here by the or-
ganization's president, Presbyterian
Journal Editor G. Aiken Taylor.
Formed in 1969, the fellowship in-
cludes members of eight denomi-
nations with Calvinistic back-
grounds.

Mr. Graham is a New Jersey na-
tive and a graduate of Wheaton Col-
lege and Westminster Seminary. He
was ordained in the Ortho-
^^j^^^^^ do x Presbyterian^

became a minister in the Presby-
terian Church US in 1950, serving
until 1961 as pastor of Pensacola's
M c 1 1 w a i n Presbyterian Church.
During that period the Pensacola
Theological Institute was started,
bringing together each summer
scholars from throughout the Re-
formed family. He was pastor of
the Bethany Church in Ft. Lauder-
dale before assuming the Mont-
gomery pastorate.

His office and home will be in
Montgomery, but he will travel
widely to acquaint churchmen with
the new fellowship and to promote
its goals. 51

Ostenson Is Picked
For PCU Presidency

WEAVERVILLE, N. C. — Robert
J. Ostenson, pastor of the Granada
Presbyterian Church, Coral Gables,
Fla., is the new chairman of Pres-
byterian Churchmen United.

He was elected at PCU's annual
business meeting here to succeed the

Rev. Donald B. Patterson of Jackson,
Miss., who was chairman of PCU
from its inception in 1969. Dr. Pat-
terson, who also has been chairman
of the Steering Committee for a
Continuing Presbyterian Church
since it was organized last August,
requested to be relieved of the PCU
responsibility.

Other PCU officers were re-elect-
ed. They are the Rev. Kennedy
Smartt of Hopewell, Va., vice-chair-
man, and the Rev. Morton H.
Smith of Jackson, Miss., secretary.

Speaker at the annual dinner
meeting of PCU members and their
wives was the Rev. Gary Aitken of
Mullins, S. C. His theme was
"Biblical Radicalism." EE

Hanover Adopts Paper
On Property Doctrine

RICHMOND — Who owns the
property?

"A local congregation could
hardly expect to withdraw from the
denomination with its property" un-
less it has the permission of presby-
tery or unless it is taking advantage
of special provisions made by the
General Assembly in a plan of
union.

That's the answer given by Han-
over Presbytery in adopting a paper
that some members of the court
have labeled deceptive and divi-
sive.

The paper, proposed by a presby-
t e r y administrative commission
formed after four groups announced
a year ago they would support plan-
ning for a continuing Presbyterian
Church, was adopted by an over-
whelming vote at a meeting at
Union Seminary. The commission
had interviewed two Hanover min-
isters who are on the Steering Com-
mittee for a Continuing Presbyte-
rian Church.

Created with broad powers, the
commission is charged with advising
the presbytery on actions it should
take to forestall division.

Adoption of the paper at the
Union Seminary meeting will pro-
mote instead of prevent division, one
commissioner to the meeting sug-
gested. Walther Fiddler, an elder in
the Milden church and a Richmond
lawyer, called the document "a

PAGE 5 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 23, 1972

bootstrap action." He said, "In-
stead of contributing to the unity of
the Church, I'm afraid it's going to
have exactly the opposite reaction."

He reminded the court of the
voluntary nature of religion, urging
fellow commissioners not to "rock
this frail little boat."

Speaking for the paper and ask-
ing for its passage was a member
of the commission, retired Union
Seminary Professor Ernest Trice
Thompson.

Presbytery's powers of "review and
control" are stressed in the question-
and-answer document.

A Petersburg pastor, the Rev. Lin-
wood Wilkes, described the paper
as "deceptive at best."

One of the eight answers has this
blunt language: "Presbytery can
reverse actions of the session which
it holds to be irregular, unwise, in-
equitable or not suited to promote
the welfare of the Church, under its
power of general review and con-
trol. It can also, if need be, act
promptly to remove church officers
from their posts and itself assume
jurisdiction, or even dissolve the
church, in which case the property
comes under the control of presby-
tery."

Another answer contends that in
case of union with the United Pres-
byterian Church USA "ownership
and control of church property by
local PCUS churches will not be af-
fected in any way." El

Youth Group Conducts
Its First Conference

BRISTOL, Tenn.— Some 110 young
people of high school age probed in
depth the tenets of the Reformed
faith in the first annual Reformed
Youth Conference, held on the cam-
pus of King College here.

The conference was sponsored by
a new organization, the Reformed
Youth Movement Inc., originated by
three young Presbyterian US minis-
ters: the Rev. Wayne C. Herring,
new pastor of the Forest, Miss.,
church; the Rev. Pete Hurst of Coe-
burn, Va., and the Rev. Wayne Rog-
ers of York, S. C.

Featuring a program of addresses
and classes on the sovereignty of God
and the Lordship of Jesus Christ in
various aspects of Christian growth,
the conference attracted minister
and youth participation from several
synods. ffl

New Super board Names
Woman First Executive

ATLANTA (PN) — Mrs. H. Kerr
(Margaret) Taylor has been elected
temporary coordinator of the pro-
visional General Executive Board
(GEB) of the Presbyterian Church
US.

She assumed her responsibilities
as executive officer for the new
board Aug. 16.

Her term runs until July 1, 1973,
when the provisional GEB phases
out to be replaced by the first reg-
ular board. She has been program
secretary for the General Council
since 1964.

The GEB was created in a mas-
sive restructuring ordered by the
June meeting of the General Assem-
bly. It held its first meeting last
month. The functions of a dozen
existing boards and agencies will be
reshuffled into its five divisions.

In announcing her election by
GEB's Executive Committee, Chair-
man Ben L. Rose of Richmond said
Mrs. Taylor "will serve as sort of a
bridge between the initiating work
of the GEB and the phasing-out
work of the other boards and agen-
cies in the existing structure."

Mrs. Taylor was born in
Ninety Six, S. C. She was grad-
uated from Ers-
kine College
and Presbyterian
School of Chris-
t i a n Education.
She did graduate
work at Peabody
College and Perk-
ins School of
Theology. She has served as a di-
rector of Christian education, mis-
sionary to Brazil, an associate edu-
cational secretary of the Board of
World Missions, co director of fam-
ily education for the Board of
Christian Education and director of
personal faith and family life of
the Board of Women's Work.

Her husband is a former mission-
ary to China. ffl

Panel Is Completed

ATLANTA — Appointment of the
32nd member of the Joint Commit-
tee on Union of the United Presby-
terian Church USA and the Presby-
terian Church US has been an-
nounced by PCUS 1972 Assembly
moderator L. Nelson Bell. In keep-

ing with an Assembly directive, he
named a Mexican-American, Abra-
ham Torres of Kingsville, Tex. Mr.
Torres, a ruling elder, has been on
the faculty of Pan-American School
at Kingsville.

'Eye Opener' Service
Is Offered to Golfers

MIAMI (RNS) — "The foursome
that prays together, plays together,"
according to the Rev. Donald E. Da-
vis of Sunrise Presbyterian church.

He has demonstrated the validity
of this philosophy with the special
services and programs his church
provides to the golf addicts and oth-
er sports fans who frequent the
nearby Country Club of Miami.

An 8 a.m. "sunrise eye-opener,"
consisting of a breakfast and wor-
ship service, finds many a golfer,
boating enthusiast and tennis player
in the fellowship hall and sanctuary
each Sunday. Mr. Davis, a "20-
handicap" golfer, reports that
church membership has gone from
35 to more than 200 in two years,
and an attendance of more than 50
is "par" for the early Sunday morn-
ing service.

For teenagers and children, Sun-
rise Presbyterian maintains a sum-
mer recreation program. "It's a rec-
reation, arts, crafts and moral teach-
ings type of program based on the
idea of giving a Christian philos-
ophy of life through use of leisure
time," Mr. Davis explained.

The program, which has an en-
rollment of about 50 youngsters
ranging in age from 4 to 12 years,
uses the facilities of the Country
Club of Miami from 9 a.m. to noon
on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday
and Friday.

There is also an evening program
of recreation, music, rap sessions,
and Bible study for teenagers that
meets twice a week. About 30 take
part in it.

The effectiveness of these pro-
grams was attested to by Bill Hun-
shumaker, the country club's man-
ager, who said: "I never got there
(to church) on my own as a young-
ster. But I'm a regular at Rev. Da-
vis' place. It's his informal ap-
proach to religion that gets the
message across." El

• • •

No one is a firmer believer in the
power of prayer than the devil; for
he suffers from it. — Guy King.

PAGE 6 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 23, 1972

The Proposed Confession

(Editor's note: Below are three chapters of the proposed new confes-
sion for the Presbyterian Church US that were omitted from the Au-
gust 9 Journal. Readers seem unanimous in their desire to have all 9
chapters available.)

CHAPTER 111 GOD AND THE WORLD

(/) God's story with his people is part of a larger story.
Time and again God judged and rescued them
by peoples and individuals outside of Israel.
Time and again God called them
to be a light to all nations.

All people were made by God for companionship with him.

All have come short of that high destiny and suffer estrangement.

God's love includes them all.

We have no exclusive claim on God.

He is not a national deity.

He is not the property of one class or race.

He is not confined within the church.

He does not limit his working or speaking to what we say or do.

(2) God created everything that is.

The people of God came to recognize
that God who met them in history
was maker of heaven and earth.

They saw in land and sea, day and night, plants and animals

signs of his majesty and power.

One day in seven they rested

to share God's joy in what he had made.

It is not by accident or necessity that the world is here;

God chose to give reality and goodness

to something other than himself.

The material world is not evil and opposed to God.

Nor is it sacred, to be confused with God.

Human beings may investigate it, use it, reshape it.

We may love it and affirm it because God calls it good.

God gives us leisure as well as work.

We are to include in the rhythm of our lives

times to enjoy the world's goodness

to marvel at its beauty,

to adore its Creator.

(3) God holds the human race responsible.
The people of God acknowledged

that God charged mankind to care for the earth.
They saw the world of nature deeply involved
in their alienation from God
and in their hope for reconciliation.

We affirm that God holds us responsible for the world we inhabit.
Our technology is God's gift,

PAGE 7 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 23, 1972

enabling us to manage the earth, to use it, to enrich it.

To our shame we have used technology

to strip earth of irreplaceable resources.

We have destroyed whole species of our fellow-creatures,

polluted air and water,

amassed weapons of nuclear destruction.

We believe God calls us
not to abandon technology
but to use it responsibly.

We are to refrain from ostentation and waste

that deprive our brothers and sisters of the good things of life.

We are to limit human reproduction

to numbers earth can support in lives of meaning and dignity.

We are to protect the slender chains of life

on which we and all our fellow-creatures depend.

(4) God continues to act in his world.
God's people acknowledged that his care
sustained them moment by moment along their way.
They celebrated seedtime and harvest

as signs of his faithfulness.

They experienced his saving and judging action in the world.

He could and did change things

in response to their cries and prayers.

We affirm that the world is not a closed system

in which God cannot act or acts only rarely.

He is present in its order and regularity

as well as in its apparently random happenings.

He is present in our human freedom,

giving us choices that are real, though limited.

There is no event from which he is absent,

and his purpose in all events is just and loving.

God makes himself vulnerable to our decisions,

open to our prayers.

He is able to use them to move toward his purposes.

(5) God sustains us in the 'presence of evil.
The people of God agonized over evil.
They pondered the suffering of the innocent,
the prosperity of the wicked.

They encountered senseless pain and natural disaster,

war, famine, human cruelty and perversity.

They found no simple explanation

why such things should be in a world made good.

We cannot solve this riddle.

Evil in baffling forms pervades our world.

It cuts off for many persons the possibilities of full human life.

But God sent his Son into our world

to share its evils with and for us.

This gives us courage to endure evil and to combat it.

It is God's enemy, as well as ours.

It is not a permanent part of creation.

God will overcome it.

PAGE 8 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 23, 1972

CHAPTER V THE SPIRIT OF GOD

(/) The Spirit of God came in a new and 'powerful way.
The followers of Jesus lacked courage and wisdom
to live as his new people
until the Spirit came to them all.
Then they began to proclaim with boldness
the new thing God had done in Christ
and to exhibit a new way of life in the world.

By the power of the same Holy Spirit

the church is set on its way again

when it seems dead and beyond hope of renewal.

He gives us courage to fight despair and lethargy

and to point to Christ in word and deed.

(2) The Spirit enlarged the people of God.

He added to their number men, women, and children

of all races, classes, and nations.

Before they heard the good news

he was at work in their moral struggles

and in their hunger for God.

When they heard the gospel

he made them eager to accept it.

We acknowledge that the same Holy Spirit

brings people into the Christian community today.

He brings us out of death into life,

out of separation into fellowship.

No subsequent gift or blessing surpasses this one.

He shows us our sinfulness and need.

He invites us to put our trust in Christ.

He leads us to abandon our old way of life

and to adopt Christ's way.

We are awesomely responsible for this decision

and have the fearful ability to say no to God.

But when we have trusted and repented

we see very clearly that God's Holy Spirit worked this in us.

We have nothing to boast of

and everything to be thankful for.

(5) The Spirit enabled believers to grow in likeness to Christ.
It was painful growth,

a bitter struggle between old habits and new patterns.
Yet the Spirit produced in them
love, joy, peace,

and strength for the contest with evil.

We believe that the Spirit works today

in any growth we make toward maturity in Christ.

His presence assures us

that God will complete what he has begun in us.

In the end he will make us all that he intended us to be.

(4) The Spirit was the ground of unity between believers.
The church was torn by conflict.
Yet there was one Spirit and one body.

PAGE 9 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 23, 1972

We confess we have grieved the Holy Spirit
by splitting the church into numerous competing bodies.
Within the same church we form warring parties,
and lines of race and class separate congregations.
The Spirit does not let us rest easy with our divisions.
He drives us to heal the brokenness of the church,
not ignoring the threat and pain of our real differences.
Despite our divisiveness the Spirit makes us one
and holds before us the promise of greater unity.

(5) The Spirit equipped the Christian community for mission.
He would not let it live for itself alone.

We confess that the Holy Spirit is not the private possession
of the church.

He works beyond us, even among those we may despise or suspect

He is our Lord, not our servant.

He gives his gifts,

not to elevate some above others,

but for our witness to Christ in the world.

We should desire those gifts

that make our message plain.

The greatest gift is love.

CHAPTER VII THE CHURCH OF GOD

(/) God's story with his people continues.
He has accompanied the church through
human history until today.

Ours is a story of faith and faithlessness, of glory and shame.

We acknowledge every part of the church's history

to be a part of our own story with God.

We may not disown any century

or the record of any branch of the church

or the continuous interaction of the church and society.

We rather confess that through the whole ambiguous story

God has made us who we are.

He still calls us to be his people in the world.

(2) God established his church in the Roman empire.
From small beginnings,
in the face of persecution,

it eventually became the empire's official religion.

Under imperial protection it gained power and wealth,

solidified its order, liturgy, and doctrine.

Yet its faith was diluted by many forms of paganism.

It marched to the beat of surrounding society.

It yielded to subtle pressures or overt opposition.

When the empire divided the church divided.

Where the church is persecuted today

we trust God's grace to sustain it.

Where the church is in favor with state and culture,

we rejoice in its opportunities,

but we tremble for its integrity.

PAGE 10 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 23, 1972

(3) God purified the church again and again.

When the church became wealthy and self-indulgent

God called men and women to live lives of purity and holiness

through monastic disciplines.

When people suffered under ecclesiastical and political tyranny

God sent reformers to stand at great cost

for the authority of his word.

They reaffirmed the centrality of faith in Christ.

Yet the Reformation divided the church

and led to arrogance, repression, and bloody wars.

In our own day

we see God correcting and cleansing the church.

Because sinful people are involved

no reform is unambiguous.

We have made of past reformations

idols that obstruct the changes we need to make now.

The church is always in need of further reformation.

(4) God spread the church to the ends of the earth.
In a great outpouring of life and devotion
Christians proclaimed the gospel

in every continent and island.

Too often they imposed their own culture

on those they sought to serve.

Yet the church has taken root in almost every land.

We affirm that the church is a world-wide community.
It must not be identified with any one nation,
culture or economic system.

There is one mission and one missionary imperative.
Every people brings to the gospel fresh understandings
that can enrich their fellow Christians
across bounds of nation, race, and class.

(5) God has disestablished the church.

In the Enlightenment philosophers and scientists fought free
from the church's control over human thought.
Art and music are no longer the church's servants.
The rise of the secular state

ended many of the special privileges of the church
in education, the courts, and political life.
Yet the church often clings tenaciously
to the fragments of establishment that remain.

We confess that the secularization of society

involves the loss of important values.

Yet we accept it as God's chastening and liberating work.

He strips us of power and prestige

to free us from an easy truce with culture

and make us more dependent on his Spirit.

We believe God can use a disestablished church

to confront the world in fresh ways.

PAGE 11 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 23, 1972

EDITORIALS

Parable of a Sinking Ship

It is being said in the Presbyte-
rian Church US that if those work-
ing for a continuing Church faith-
ful to Scripture and the Reformed
faith do not cease and desist, they
have "predetermined that it is im-
possible for God's Holy Spirit to
work in the Church during the com-
ing year."

In other words, if we don't stick
with the slowly sinking ship whose
decks are now completely awash,
we will be denying the remote pos-
sibility of a miracle that could
make the ship float again.

But when a ship is sinking and
you have been calculating carefully
the rate of sink and how much
longer it will be safe to remain
aboard, there comes a time when
you have to decide between making
an effort to get off, or resigning
yourself to going down with the
ship. When that moment arrives,
you either move, or you commit
yourself to the depths. It's as sim-
ple as that.

We were going through some old
volumes of the Journal when we
came across the account of the very
first Journal Day ever. The head-
line read thus: "Southern Pres-

It is very important how you say
a thing.

It is equally important to hear
and understand how a thing is said.

The preacher was talking about
today's favorite subject: the mission
of the Church. "Christianity is not
just a religion of salvation," he said.
"It is a religion of the redemption
of history. It differs from the cults
in that it does not call men out of
the world but rather calls upon men
to go into the world to change the
world."

Would you agree?

Well, it could depend on what the
preacher meant. When he said that
Christianity is a religion whose ob-
jective is to redeem history, he could
have meant that Christ intends one
day to effect a new heaven and a

byterian Journal Supporters and
Representatives of Continuing
Church Committee Hold Meeting
in Weaverville."

In the body of the story appeared
this interesting sentence: "Plans
have been made for holding a num-
ber of regional conferences of the
Continuing Church groups through-
out the Church during the coming
months."

Apparently there were some who
recognized, almost a generation ago,
that the ship was sinking. From that
day to the present, they and their
successors have been keeping watch
over the progress of things, trying
to determine if the rate of sink is
increasing or diminishing, trying to
plug the holes and trying to decide
just when the moment will arrive
when it will be "now or never."

During the 1971 Journal Day pro-
gram it was announced that four
conservative groups have come to
the painful conclusion that it is
"now or never." Preparations for
launching the lifeboats have be-
gun. Concerned passengers have
been assured that the lifeboats will
be launched in time.

But voices are now beginning to

new earth. This would be Biblical.

But if he meant that Christ came
to create a new social order by giv-
ing men a new economic system, a
chicken in every pot and two cars
in every garage, he would not be
Biblical.

When he said that God does not
call men out of the world, he could
have meant: "Go ye into all the
world and preach the Gospel to ev-
ery creature." This would be Bibli-
cal.

But if he meant that Christians
are not to separate themselves from
"the world, the flesh and the devil,"
which is the view of the new theol-
ogy of "secularization," he would not
be Biblical.

It is important to order your
words and your thoughts aright. SI

be heard saying that such prepara-
tions are foolish, that the ship has a!
stopped sinking, indeed that there ^
is every reason to believe the pumps >
are gaining over the inrush of wa-
ter. (Or, more accurately, that we 1
should remain on board for a while "
longer to see if the pumps will not
gain over the inrush of water.)

For the four groups making up
the so-called coalition of conserva-l
tives, the basic question has already!
been answered and the "wait and
see" period has expired. Indeed
the very latest measurements indi-J-j
cate an increase in the rate of sink.

For these groups, obedience to
the Holy Spirit precludes further
delay.

We would rather, in the day of
judgment, have it remembered that
we tried to launch the lifeboats,
than that we persuaded people to
remain aboard after it was too
late. El

'The Louisville Story'

That article in the June 21 Jour-
nal, "The Louisville Story," prompt-
ed by the news that a member of
Louisville presbytery had become an
official elector of the Communist
Party for Kentucky, evoked quite a
bit of reaction from our readers.

Perhaps you would be interested
in what happened after the Depart-
ment of Ministerial Relations (that's
a union presbytery's version of
"Commission on the Minister and
his Work") looked into the matter
at the request of the presbytery.

The commission reported back '
that it had spent an hour and a half
with the minister in question, the
Rev. Terrence H. Davis. Mr. Davis
says he is not himself a member of
the Party. While he is not fully in
agreement with their principles (he
says) , he does believe that some of
their ideas have merit.

The commission says, in its writ-
ten report, that the conversation fo-
cused on three issues: 1) Whether
Mr. Davis had considered the effect
on his own ministry of such an ac-
tion, 2) Whether he had considered
the effect on the presbytery, and 3)
How the presbytery itself might deal
with "the deep-seated and frequent-
ly irrational fears associated with
Communism" in our society.

With respect to No. 1, Mr. Davis
had, indeed considered the effect of
his action on his own ministry, but

Take Care What You Say

PAGE 12 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 23, 1972

THE LAYMAN AND HIS CHURCH

Challenge From Our Heritage

te had been moved by a profound
ense of conviction.

With respect to No. 2, Mr. Davis
lad, indeed, thought of the effect on
he presbytery, but unfortunately,
'one price we pay for membership
n a connectional Church is that the
ictions of some, even though taken
is individual citizens, may place a
mrden on others."

With respect to No. 3, the com-
nission had this to say:

"The very fact that the action of
Vlr. Davis was referred to the depart-
nent (commission) , however, points
o the need for education in relation
:o Communism. To say that the day
Allien Communism was considered
The Enemy seems to be passing, or
to point to the growing dialogue,
particularly in European countries,
between Christianity and Commu-
nism, indicates that the time may
now be ripe for deeper understand-
ings.

"Recommendations: In the light
of the above dialogue held by the
department, the following recom-
mendations are offered:

"1. That this report be received
and printed in the Minutes;

"2. That presbytery direct the
Department of Education to estab-
lish a task force to, a) Prepare an
educational program for a meeting
of presbytery on the subject of Com-
munism, and b) Develop resources
which may be used by local church
groups which may wish to study this
issue."

End of report.

Surely no knowledgeable Presby-
terian expected Louisville presbytery
to be critical of Communism? EE

Receiving Sight

After the blind beggar received
his sight, those who had known him
began to ask questions. Some said,
"Is it he?" Others said, "No, but
he is like him." They asked him,
"How were your eyes opened?" He
answered, "The man called Jesus
anointed my eyes with clay made of
His spittle. He told me to go and
wash in the pool of Siloam. I
went and washed and received my
sight."

Just as the blind beggar received
his physical sight, we receive our
spiritual sight. We are blind. Our
hearts are dark with sin. We re-
ceive spiritual sight by coming to Je-
sus and turning away from all our

Too often the evangelical suc-
cumbs to the temptation to regard
the pages of Church history as a
barren wasteland of theological con-
troversy unrelated to the live issues
of the present. But this is far from
the case and the history of the
Southern Presbyterian Church has
much to say to us today.

Conditions facing Presbyterians
in the decade before 1861 were
quite similar to those facing us to-
day, theologically, politically and so-
cially and the temptations facing the
leadership of that day had much in
common with those of the present.

It is unfortunate that such names
as Thornwell, Dabney and Palmer
have been all but forgotten. Should
we listen to them we would be force-
fully reminded that as they were
speaking to their own day they were
also speaking to us. To read their
works and those of their colleagues
who were called to take a stand
against the forces which threatened
to silence the preaching of the Gos-
pel over a century ago is to see again
the majestic Biblical foundations of
our heritage and something of the
theological granite on which those
foundations were laid.

We sometimes forget that the
forces of unbelief in alliance with
the political and social movements
of the day threatened historic Chris-

This week the layman's vieivpoint
is brought by Dr. C. Gregg Singer,
a professor at Cataiuba College,
Salisbury, N. C.

sins. He takes our darkened hearts
and renews a right spirit within
them. "There is salvation in no one
else, for there is no other name un-
der heaven given among men by
which we must be saved" (Acts 4:

12) • .

Our lives will be changed although
we are the same persons. The dif-
ference is Jesus. When we receive
Him as our Saviour, He comes into
our hearts, making them new. He
will do the same for you. Receive
Him as your Saviour today. — Enise
Kirby. EE

tianity as well as a secular culture.
Then, even as today, the Westmin-
ster Confession of Faith was the ob-
ject of scorn and ridicule. Dabney,
Thornwell and Palmer were keenly
aware of the nature of the crisis con-
fronting them both in state and
Church. Indeed both Dabney at
Union Seminary and Thornwell at
Columbia used their inaugural ad-
dresses at these two venerable insti-
tutions to apply the theism of Cal-
vinism and Presbyterianism to the
issues confronting the Church.
Their remarks continue appropri-
ate to our time.

Said Dr. James H. Thornwell
when he was inducted into the chair
of theology at Columbia Seminary,
October 13, 1851:

"I am not ashamed of the Confes-
sion of Faith. I am not ashamed
of the men who framed it, of the
men who adopted it, of the noble
army of martyrs and confessors who
have sealed its doctrine by their
blood. What is truth? What is the
truth of God? The answer of this
venerable conclave of learned, pray-
ing, godly divines was the Confes-
sion of Faith .... Ashamed of the
Westminster Confession of Faith?
The inspiration of heroes and sages,
of martyrs and philosophers? A faith
that has founded states, im-
mortalized kingdoms and redeemed
countless multitudes of souls from
the thralldom of slavery to sin? . . . .
No, never! .... I would say of her
(the Presbyterian Church) as Da-
vid of his darling Jerusalem: 'If I
forget thee, let my right hand for-
get her cunning.' "

In a sermon preached at about
the same time, Thornwell said of the
warfare in which the evangelical
Church of this country was then en-
gaged: "The parties in this con-
flict are .... atheists, socialists,
Communists, red republicans, Ja-
cobins on the one side and the
friends of order and regulated free-
dom on the other. In one word, the
world is the battleground — Chris-
tianity and atheism are the com-
batants and the progress of hu-
manity is at stake."

(Continued on p. 20, col. 3)

PAGE 13 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 23, 1972

p

m

SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON

For September 10, 1972

Man's Dominion in God's World

INTRODUCTION: Psalm 8 de-
scribes man in terms of God's pur-
pose for creating him. It describes
the ideal man, the man God desires.
It is not a glorification of man, but
of God who made man. Neverthe-
less, the psalm describes the relation-
ship which God established for man,
a little lower than God, crowned
with glory and honor.

No doubt this relationship and
picture of man has been seen on
earth only in Adam before his fall
and in the person of Jesus Christ,
pointing to redeemed man as he shall
be in glory. Certain parts of the
psalm are applied in the New Testa-
ment to Jesus Himself (vv. 4-5 —
Heb. 2:6-8; v. 6—1 Cor. 15:27) . In
Christ, the portrait given of man al-
so applies to us who believe.

In today's lesson we shall endeavor
to see what God first purposed for
man in creation and what happened
to fallen man. Then we shall con-
sider the redemption of God's origi-
nal plan in the life of the believers.

I. GOD'S PLAN IN THE CRE-
ATION OF MAN (Gen. 1:24-31; 2:
19-20) . Genesis 1, in giving to us
the order of creation, shows that in
sequence man was created last, after
all other creatures. Thus man
is the climax and crown of creation.

In the process of creation, after
God had made all other creatures,
He distinguished man from all the
rest as special, when He said, "Let
us make man in our image, after
our likeness; and let them have do-
minion over the fish of the sea
(Gen. 1:26).

The phrase "in our image" has
been variously interpreted and prob-
ably has a wide range of meanings.
However, it seems essential from
the context to conclude that among
its most important meanings is that
man has a personal relationship
with God. Man is able to com-
municate with God. He is on the
same wave-length, so to speak. He
can know God and respond to God's
will, communicate and have fel-
lowship with God. This truly sets

Rev. Jack B. Scott

Background Scripture: Genesis 1:
24-31, 2:19-20; Psalm 8

Key Verses: Genesis 1:26-28; Psalm
8

Devotional Reading: Deuteronomy
6:4-13

Memory Selection: Psalm 8:6

man off from all other creatures.

But man is still under God and
not equal with God. He is God's
servant who is responsible to God.
When the Lord created man, He
gave him a task: to have dominion
over the creatures and to subdue
them (1:28). Whatever else this
might imply, it certainly teaches us
that God created man with a sense
of responsibility to God and with
an initiative and will to work.

These things are essential to the
very fiber of man as God made him.
He is active, responsible, and gov-
erning all under him. In this, he
reflects the image of God. God,
too, is active, responsible, and gov-
erning all under Him. Thus man
is a little lower than God and bears
(reflects) the image and glory of
God.

God saw all that He had made
and declared all very good (Gen.
1:31). The application of this
judgment, that it was very good,
is not only to what He created but
to the interrelationships of all He
created as well. That is, man un-
der God, over all the creation of
earth, is a good relationship.

In Genesis 2 creation is from a
different perspective, this time,
from that of man as the center of
creation. Here, not order, but the
centrality of man is the emphasis.
All is created for man's good ulti-
mately.

Man in action began to subdue
and rule over all which God had
made on earth (Gen. 2:19-20). He
named all of the creatures, thus
symbolizing the authority of man,
the overlord, to name and distin-

The International Sunday School Lesson Out-
lines are copyrighted by The International
Council of Religious Education.

i »

I to

til
,[1
I If
I If
I 1)

guish as he pleased.

No doubt we have the right to j
infer from this man that man was E(
given the authority from God andj -t
the ability to control and develop j
the whole world, to enable all ^
things created to meet their full ,
potential of usefulness and glory
to God. Man could have enjoyed
forever the good things which God \\
had given him and could rule the ,
world for good for all.

II. SIN AND ITS EFFECTS !

ON THE WORLD WHICH GOD k

HAD CREATED (Gen. 3). Not b
only man but the whole creation1"

fell under a curse when Adam ""J

sinned (Rom. 8:19). "Creation 21

was subjected to vanity," wrote i

Paul, it is in "the bondage of cor- 1

ruption." The sad account of man's \

failure (Gen. 3) reveals his desire *

to be, not a little lower than God, *

but equal to Him (3:5). It is the «

story of man's failure to subject the 11

creature to his rule as God had 3i

commanded him (2:28), and in- 1 ^

stead to be led by a creature who I
was put under him (3:1).

In sinning that day, Adam i[

brought not only on himself but It

on all creation a curse, first of all (
on the serpent, "cursed more than

all cattle and every beast of the ff

field" (v. 14) . This clearly im- |o

plies that all are cursed, the serpent *
merely more than the rest (the

phrase, "above all cattle" equals ii

"more than") . Furthermore, worn- !:

an thereafter bore children only by *

toil and labor, and man did his la- !*

bor through the sweat of his brow It
(vv. 16:17).

The ground was cursed and in- ft

stead of the good fruit it was in- *

tended to bear, it bears thorns and ^

thistles except by the greatest ef- h

fort of man (vv. 17-18) . Ultimate- «

ly, man who was made from the I

soil will return to it (v. 19) . All »

of this is the beginning of the curse !

on all creation, but it is by no 1
means the end.

The first murder was a direct re- 1

suit of the first sin (Gen. 4) . This I

PAGE 14 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 23, 1972

Bras followed by rapid degeneracy
If the line of Cain (4:16-24) . Note-
worthy in this tracing of the de-
pendants of Cain is the fact that
com his seed came many of man's
arliest inventions: the first cities
pere built (v. 17) ; the first tents
pere made (v. 20) ; the first cattle
Iras kept (v. 20) ; the first musicians
ippeared (v. 21) ; the first metal
istruments and tools were devel-
ped (v. 22) ; and the first poetry
Vritten (v. 23) . The termination
f the line in Lamech simply fo-
uses on the degeneracy of man who
ould not only murder but even
/rite a ditty about his crime.

Thus we see that these gifts
/hich, no doubt, had been instilled
n man at creation, gifts for music,
>oetry, arts, crafts, varied occupa-
jions, building, designing, and the
ike, were, through fallen man, per-
erted in their use.
Archaeology has helped us to re-
liscover much of man's early abili-
ies and achievement. They are as-
onishing. They give some slight
ndication of what man's full poten-
ial must have been before the fall:
A. The literary field. Writing,

0 far as we can tell from archaeo-
ogical discoveries and ancient his-
ory, developed in the Near East
Lmong a people known as the
iumerians. It advanced from pic-
ure writing to a style of writing by
naking wedge-shaped letters in
:lay. This oldest style of writing
s known as cuneiform. The in-
renters of this style of writing were

1 non-Semitic people who lived in
Vlesopotamia before the Semites
(ancestors of the Jews) lived there.

Thousands of their writings have
)een found. The Semites merely
:ook over this style of writing and
tdapted it to their own language,
\kkadian, (a Semitic language) .
\mong their writings they tell of
:reation as they understood it, how
-he ancient gods fought and one
*od gained superiority over the rest.
He took the goddess called Tiamat
ind slit her, placing half of her
body in the sky (making heaven)
md half of her body he made into
the earth. From this brief descrip-
tion, one can see how debased their
concepts were.

The Egyptians in similar manner
>oon after the Sumerians developed
a writing style and recorded their
mythologies also in stone and else-
where.

In the early cultures, early litera-
ture was filled with many debased

stories of men's thoughts about the
gods. The men who had the abil-
ity to invent writing, and literature
and literary style, used these for
corrupt purposes.

B. Music. We know little of
music in the ancient world but we
do have many poems written which
express both man's hopelessness and
his frustrations. They often de-
scribe in detail the most debased
picture of men and women. La-
ntech's poem (Gen. 4) clearly
boasts of murder.

C. Art. By art I mean here
buildings and works of art and
handcraft. The first cities which
men built were built by Cain's de-
scendants (Gen. 4) . Archaeological
evidence records among some of the
most ancient buildings, the Pyra-
mids of Egypt and the Ziggurats of
Mesopotamia. The former were
built for the glory of the Pharaohs
and at great expense to the people.
The latter were apparently attempts
to build little mountains on which
the gods of the early Mesopotamians
could dwell and be worshiped. De-
spite his ability man failed to hon-
or God.

Many beautiful examples of pot-
tery and other works of art can be
found in the ancient Near Eastern
world, but we also find many de-
based reflections of art. In Canaan,
for example, we find many nude
statues of women which were ap-
parently symbolic of fertilization
and of fertilization cults active in
those days. They reflect a most de-
based manner of worship of their
pagan gods.

D. Administration and govern-
ment. The ancient world saw the
rise and development of many
mighty empires, such as the o 1 d
Babylonian empire, and those of
Mesopotamia and Egypt. These and
other empires of the ancient Near
East developed skills of government
and great ability to organize and
legislate.

Long before Moses, great law
codes were written and apparently
applied to the daily lives of people
living along the Euphrates and the
Nile rivers, but these governments
were also oppressive. For example,
the Egyptian empire and its oppres-
sion of God's people are described
in the opening chapters of Exodus.

D. Property. The conquest and
subjection of land was one of the
primary tasks of the ancient Near
Eastern empires. Wars were con-
tinuous. When any nation con-

quered another, it exploited that
nation for its own good. Many cor-
rupt uses of the land were made.
In Canaan the inhabitants who oc-
cupied the land filled it with de-
based worship and sexual orgies
which were held in the name of
"worship of the gods."

Even in Egypt and Mesopotamia,
where the greatest empires existed,
there is a long record of oppression
and cruelty to the poor and weak.
The life which developed in these
lands was far from the glory of
God.

III. RECLAIMING THE WORLD
FOR THE LORD. Though
man left to his own sin will debase
all of the talents and abilities with
which God created him, God de-
termined not to allow man to run
this course without His interven-
tion. By His grace and mercy, God
did intervene to have a people, and
by that people He began to reclaim
much that had been lost.

When Cain had killed Abel, God
raised up Seth in his place and then
men began to call on the name of
the Lord (Gen. 4:25-26) . Gradual-
ly through His believers, God be-
gan to take the inventions of men
and to reclaim them for His glory.

A. Literature. In contrast to La-
ntech's poem boasting of evil, God
inspired holy men to take that same
invention of writing and to record
God's wonders. After Moses had
learned the art of writing, God
called him, no doubt in Pharaoh's
very palace to record God's first
messages to His people.

The old pagan stories of creation
and of the flood gave way to God's
revealed truth which we have in
Genesis. Thus writing, invented by
sinful men, was to be the means of
preserving God's truth for all gen-
erations down to our own day.

B. Music. Music and musical in-
struments, invented by Cain's line,
were used to praise God (Exo. 15:
20-21) by His people in worship.
Note David's skillful use of the
harp by which he probably com-
posed many of the psalms in our
Bible.

C. Art. The arts and crafts were
used to build the tabernacle (Exo.
35:5-36:1). Where did all of the
jewelry and gold and silver come
from that were donated by these
people so recently come out of
slavery? Read Exodus 12:33-36 and
see that they were reclaimed from
the pagan Egyptians. How beauti-
fully this illustrates how God takes

PAGE 15 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 23, 1972

the things which were originally
dedicated to paganism and uses
them for His glory.

D. Administration and govern-
ment. Again, while Israel was sub-
ject to Egyptian oppression, Moses
was learning all about government
in the king's palace. Later, what
he learned he put to use to the ad-
vantage of God's people in the wil-
derness. God claims men's inven-
tions for His own glory.

E. Property. The conquest of
Canaan is an example of how God
takes away land from those who
have defiled it and gives it to those

whom He pleases to have it, in this
case His own people. God has that
right (Jer. 27:5) and the basis for
dispossession is clearly given in Deu-
teronomy 9:1-5, not Israel's righ-
teousness but the Canaanites' wick-
edness.

CONCLUSION: Here, in a few
examples we have seen God show
the way to the redeeming of all
things for Him and His glory. To-
day, as believers in Christ, we must
see the world around us as God sees
it — debased. While sinful men
have invented many marvelous

things, it is the task of believers to
claim all of these things as instru-
ments for God's glory: TV, jet
planes, tape recorders, publications,
space travel, indeed all things can
be for God's glory.

Christian workmen, artists, mu-
sicians, skilled laborers, administra-
tors, owners, housewives, publish
ers, and all children of God, what-
ever skills they may have, have this!
task. God's command in Genesis1
1:28 has never been revoked. Sin
entered and corrupted man's works'
but they are redeemable through
Christ. m

YOUTH PROGRAM

Scripture: Luke 19:29-40
Suggested Hymns:

"How Firm a Foundation"
"Faith of Our Fathers"
"So Let Our Lips and Lives
Express"

PROGRAM LEADER'S INTRO-
DUCTION: Have you ever heard
people speak of creeds and Christian
teachings in a tone of contempt?
Some people do. Have you ever
heard anyone hold orthodox beliefs
up to scorn? Sometimes it is done.

Some of the people who were in
Jerusalem during the Passover week
when Christ was crucified might
have taken a dim view of doctrine.
Obviously, their belief about Christ
was inadequate. They did not real-
ly know who He was or what He had
come to do. As long as He could
put food in their mouths and excite
them with His miracles, they were
enthusiastic about Him. As long as
they saw in Him a hope of political
deliverance, they were ready to fol-
low Him. When it became apparent
that His mission was something oth-
er than these obvious things, a spiri-
tual mission, they were ready to join
in the cry of the Jewish leaders,
"Crucify Him!"

There is a popular idea that doc-
trine — our Christian beliefs — is
simply the expression of our reli-
gious feelings and experiences. It is

For September 10, 1972

Creed Before Conduct

Rev. B. Hoyt Evans

believed that these expressions, these
doctrines, change from age to age,
even from day to day. What was
true yesterday may not be true to-
day.

According to this view there is no
such thing as solid, absolute truth.
Truth is whatever a particular per-
son feels at a given time in a given
set of circumstances. It may never
be the same thing twice. It may be
different things for different people
at the very same time.

This is unbelief of the worst kind,
and it can be very dangerous. It
does not merely deny individual
truths, it denies truth itself. Be-
havior does not determine belief,
but belief determines behavior, doc-
trine determines duty, and creed de-
termines conduct.

FIRST SPEAKER: The answer to
the third question of the Shorter
Catechism says: "The Scriptures
principally teach what man is to be-
lieve concerning God, and what duty
God requires of man." This is put-
ting the two things in their proper
order. Doctrine always comes be-
fore duty in the Bible.

The Bible begins with a doctrine,
a statement of fact, a statement of
truth: "In the beginning God cre-
ated the heaven and the earth." The
Bible begins by telling us about
God, not by telling us what to do.
Even the Ten Commandments are

...

preceded by a doctrinal statement:
"I am the Lord thy God, which
brought thee out of the land of
Egypt, out of the house of bond-
age."

The doctrine of the saving Lord
is given before the moral law. Jesus
began His preaching by saying
"Repent, for the kingdom of heaven
is at hand." The response He
called for was to be based on their
belief in the truth about His per-
son and His work. When Peter
preached after Pentecost, he spent
most of his time on the doctrines,
the facts of Christianity. Only at
the end did he call for a response.
Only at the end did he tell the peo-
ple what they were to do.

Study the writings of Paul, and
you will see that his standard meth
od was to give the teachings, the
doctrines, first, and then, in the
light of the truth, to challenge his
readers to make the proper re
sponse. The Bible deals with both
doctrines and duties, but the doc
trines always come first, and the
duties grow out of the doctrines.

When people begin to play down
the importance of Christian beliefs,
they are well on the way to spiritual
anemia. A religion without doc-
trines is a religion without a foun
dation. Dr. C. Gregg Singer of Ca
tawba College says that when peo-
ple lose interest in their beliefs
they often substitute for them an

PAGE 16 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 23, 1972

I

lcreased formality in worship or
a increased complexity of church
rganization.

There is evidence of a trend in
lis direction. It is a dangerous
rend, but there is something we
an do to arrest it and reverse it.
Ve can increase our knowledge of
le basic teachings of the Bible.
)ne specific way of doing this is to
lemorize the Shorter Catechism,
hich is a wonderfully clear brief
.atement of Bible doctrine in ques-
on and answer form. When we
ave memorized the words, we
lould continue to study them,
:eking a fuller understanding of
hat they mean.

SECOND SPEAKER: The Chris-
ian faith is not just a simple in-
ellectual matter. The intellect is
nvolved, but this is not the whole
f it. As we have already said that
aith is not a matter of our feel-
ngs about things, but of our knowl-
dge of the truth. When all this
s said, it is possible for a person
o know all the right answers and
till not have faith. Faith is also a
natter of the will, of commitment,
t means not only knowing the
ruth but being committed to it.

If conviction determines conduct,
hen conduct indicates conviction,
t is here that the shallowness of
nuch of our so-called faith is re-
ealed. We say God is sovereign,
)ut we do not honor Him and obey
rlim as a king deserves to be hon-
ored and obeyed. We say Jesus is
3ur Saviour and Lord, but we show
o little evidence of having trans-
ormed lives. We often show so lit-
le of the morality, spirituality, and
iove that ought to characterize
Christ's people. It is true that it
Lakes a sound creed to produce
worthy conduct, but where there is
no worthy conduct, we had best ex-
amine our creed and our commit-
ment to it.

BOOKS

THE OLD TESTAMENT: ITS
CLAIMS AND ITS CRITICS, by Os-
wald T. Allis. Baker Book House,
Grand Rapids, Mich. 509 pp. $9.95. Re-
viewed by the Rev. G. Coleman Luck,
chairman, department of Bible, Moody
Bible Institute, Chicago, 111.

This volume represents indeed a
major contribution to evangelical
literature by a distinguished scholar
who for long has been known not
only for his erudition but also for
his staunch defence of "the faith
which was once for all delivered un-
to the saints." The author has
been especially effective in de-
fending the Scriptures against the at-
tacks of the destructive critics in such
works as The Five Books of Moses,
and The Unity of Isaiah. Again he
does yeoman duty along this line.

The book begins with an impres-
sive positive note as Allis cogently
discusses in two chapters, which ex-
tend to some 170 pages, the facts,
doctrines, literary form of the Old
Testament. If the volume ended
here, it would be well worthwhile,
but this is actually less than half of
the content. "The Old Testament
from Without" discusses in a bal-
anced way the archaeological discov-
eries which pertain to the Old Tes-
tament.

The chapter on the critics shows a
thorough knowledge of the latest
claims of liberal scholars and care-
fully evaluates these. Attempts to
deny the uniqueness of Old Testa-
ment religion are well answered in
"Comparing the Incomparable." A
final chapter on chronology is en-
lightening. Allis warns against the
danger of "attempting to force the
Hebrew chronology to conform to
the Assyrian."

Fifty-seven pages of notes contain

some exceedingly valuable state-
ments. Indexes of subjects, persons,
authors cited, and Scripture texts
mentioned add to the book's useful-
ness. The jacket statement can be
endorsed: "It is a book to restore
confidence and composure, to bol-
ster faith, and to give firm founda-
tion for wavering feet." Highly rec-
ommended for minister and teacher,
but hardly suitable for the average
layman who would profit from some
portions but would find much of the
book heavy reading. 51

MARK, by Irving Jensen. The
Moody Press, Chicago, 111. Paper, 112
pp. $1.50. Reviewed by the Rev. A.
H. Rust, pastor, Eastminster Presby-
terian Church, Knoxville, Tenn.

The purpose of this study manual
is to provide the individual an op-
portunity to search the Scriptures for
himself. It's so easy to pick up a
commentary and read what discov-
eries others have made. In contrast,
how thrilling and rewarding it is to
make those discoveries for oneself.

This personal involvement is a di-
rected first hand study of the Gospel
according to St. Mark, and can be
most profitably used by individuals,
groups, or in class study. The author
makes this personal study of the Gos-
pel most rewarding by presenting
comprehensive helps, numerous out-
lines, charts, maps, and diagrams. SI

MIAMI CHURCH needs an associate pas-
tor .. . Pinelands Presbyterian Church
of Miami is seeking a minister of educa-
tion to work with the pastor in designing
a Biblical curriculum to meet the needs
of a congregation located in an area of
rapid growth. Send resume to (Rev.)
William R. Johnson, Pinelands Presby-
terian Church, P. O. Box 336, Miami,
Florida 33157.

PROGRAM LEADER: God has
revealed His truth in His Word, the
Bible. We do not have to speculate
about what we are to believe or what
we are to do. All we have to do is
to believe it and obey it. This means
knowing it with our minds, believ-
ing it in our hearts, and submitting
our lives to it. When we do this,
both our creed and our conduct will
be right before God.

Closing Prayer.

m

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PAGE 17 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 23, 1972

HOW TO PREACH TO PEOPLE'S
NEEDS, by Edgar N. Jackson. Baker
Book House, Grand Rapids, Mich. Pa-
per, 192 pp. $2.95. Reviewed by the
Rev. Bernard Brunsting, pastor,
Greenville Community Reformed
Church, Scarsdale, N. Y.

I don't believe I have read a book
on preaching during my 25 years of
ministry that has been of more help
to me than this one. I guess one
reason for this is that I decided some
time ago that the way into a person's
life is through his need. This I have
practiced from the pulpit, but with
a sort of guilt-feeling that this was

the way "liberals" did things. Read-
ing Dr. Jackson's book removes the
cloud of suspicion. That was its big
blessing for me. But there were
many others.

He has given me a great deal of
help in designing sermons which are
concerned with man's needs. The
Gospel comes alive in sermons when
people feel their burdens lifted,
know a closeness to God and find
their souls healed by the Gospel of
love.

I used to ask the question when
preparing a sermon, "What shall I
say?" I have found a much more sat-

"ef/c Simpson

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isfying question which this bool
emphasizes: "To whom am I speak ;tj
ing?" What is their need? When,
are they hurting? What is God':
word of healing for such? Sermon:
which answer questions like that an
like water to a thirsty person.

I

TWELVE STRIKING SERMONS
by Charles H. Spurgeon. Baker Bool
House, Grand Rapids, Mich. Paper
152 pp. $4.50. Reviewed by the Rev
Richard W. Gray, pastor, Calvary Prei
byterian Church, Willow Grove, Pa

What can one say about the ser,
mons of Spurgeon? Since they reac
so well one wonders what an experi
ence it would have been to listen tc
them!

One of Spurgeon's greatest gifts
was his observation of the simple
things of nature and life. Such ob
servation is reflected in some of these
sermon topics: There Go the Ships
Silver Sockets, The Minstrel, The
Talking Book, Among Lions. Thest
are the kinds of things that preach:
ers today ought to be able to use tc
make messages concrete.

With the advance of exegetica
study in preaching, such observa
tions would find their way into the
sermon via illustrations rather thar.
texts. In effect, such phrases from
the Bible amount to preaching or
general revelation rather than spe
cial.

Some may disagree with this, bui
it is worth thinking about. "Is it
wrong to preach on truths of genera'
revelation?" is another question tha:
might be asked in connection witfc
this. This would not be preaching
the Word but it might be preach
ing the truth. Does the ministei
have this liberty? I question it, bu
if it's to be questioned regarding
preachers today, then it ought to be
questioned also regarding the great
est of preachers.

a

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PAGE 18 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 23, 1972

THE SCIENTIFIC ENTERPRISE &
-IRISTIAN 7AITH, by Malcolm A.
eves. Inter- Varsity Press, Downers
rove, III. 168 pp. $4.50. Reviewed by
e Rev. Donald M. Green, pastor, Mc-
innon Memorial Presbyterian Cburch,
larleston, W. Va.

Thirty-six scientists spent a week
>gether discussing science and
hristian beliefs. The author was
ie of these and in this book he ex-
xinds some of the major confer-
lce themes, basing his writing on
apers prepared for the conference
id discussions held during the
eek.

The first half of the book is de-
Dted to developing a Biblical view
f the relation of God to His cre-
don, a proper evaluation of science
nd the knowledge it gives us. The
*cond half is an exposition of some
f the key concepts in modern sci-
hce and their relation to Christian
eliefs.

Mr. Jeeves, a professor of psychol-
gy, points out the impact of science
in our daily lives. He writes so that
loth the scientist and nonscientist
an understand: "The scientist who
S a Christian can engage in his work
nthusiastically and with an attitude
>f enjoyment, that of a son enjoying
he inheritance given to him by his
rather . . . the Christian will seek to
ise the knowledge derived by all sci-
:ntific endeavor in order that he may
:arry out more effectively the great
:ommandment to love his neighbor
is himself." EE

THE PERMISSIVE SOCIETY, by
Boris Sokoloff. Arlington House, New
Rochelle, N. Y. 254 pp. $8.95. Re-
viewed by the Rev. C. H. Patterson,
pastor, Westminster Presbyterian
Church, Bluefield, W. Va.

The author, a physician and bi-
ologist, appears to be out of his field
in analyzing a problem related pri-
marily to sociology and ethics. He
makes no apology except to remind
his readers that a terminal malig-
nancy in the body also has its ethical
and spiritual involvements.

His thesis is well defined. Amer-
ican left-wing intellectualism, having
eliminated the need for God, sought
a reasonable philosophy to fill the
void, and found a friendly prophet
in Sigmund Freud who furnished the
dominant power of sex as the alpha
and omega of man's being. Today's
degenerating social fabric can be ex-
plained best in the acceptance of
Freud and rejection of God. The

first half explains the origin of error,
and the last half of this volume de-
picts clearly the degenerating effect
which we all see today.

Many would like to deny the
whole thing and call the author a
prejudiced liar; but then there are
none so blind as those who will not
see. For a jar and a jolt well written,
this is a good book. EE

INSIGHT, by Robert J. Little.
Moody Press, Chicago, III. 223 pp.
$4.95. Reviewed by the Rev. John
Eddie Hill, associate minister, Casa
Linda Presbyterian Church, Dallas,
Tex.

The author is radio pastor of the
Moody Bible Institute and has an-
swered thousands of questions in his
30 years of service, and his book is a
compilation of discussions given in
his radio ministry. Approximately
seventy-five questions under ten ba-
sic topics are discussed.

I question the value of this book.
It is neither a commentary nor a theo-
logical text book. Therefore, it is
limited in its discussion of each ques-
tion. Although its answers are
broadly evangelical, Journal readers
will be disappointed in many areas.
He questions the classical under-
standing of predestination, has a
weak answer concerning Christian
liberty and is basically a dispensa-
tionalist in interpretation.

He does view the question of the
filling of the Spirit in sound, tem-
pered language but rules out any
manifestation of gifts in this age. His
approach to prophecy is premillen-
nial but his answers do not appeal
to the spectacular.

Because he does have such a far
reaching ministry it would seem that
his answers would show more atten-
tion in the area of apologetics, espe-
cially with such authors as Van Til,
Pinnock and Schaeffer providing
such outstanding answers to modern
questions. With so many other help-
ful books on the current market,
readers will be disappointed if they
seek answers from Insight. EE

• • •

Beware of the danger of "keeping
Christmas" and losing Christ. —
Ironside.

MIDDLE EAST JOURNEY OF fellowship
and understanding — November 20-
December 10. Geneva, Beirut, Cairo,
Bahrain, Kuwait, Muscat, Jerusalem.
Travel with Christian friends. Visit church
and government leaders. Send for details.
REFORMED CHURCH TOURS, Room
1802, 475 Riverside Drive, New York,
N. Y. 10027.

Books That Matter!

DOES MY FATHER KNOW I'M HURT?
by David John Seel $ 1.45

SENT BY THE SOVEREIGN, by
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(5 or more @ $2; 10 or more @ $1.50)

WHAT DO PRESBYTERIANS BELIEVE?,
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SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY, by

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MANUAL OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE,
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PAGE 19 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 23, 1972

1

QUESTIONS

PEOPLE ARE
ASKING ABOUT

REFORMED
THEOLOGICAL

SEMINARY

Q. What is the denominational
affiliation of the Reformed Theo-
logical Seminary?

A. The Reformed Theological Semi-
nary as an institution has no
denominational affiliation. Individ-
ual Faculty and Board members of
the Seminary represent at least four
traditionally Reformed bodies in
America. Students are welcomed
from any ecclesiastical background.

Q. Is the Reformed Theological
Seminary accredited?

A. The Reformed Theological Semi-
nary is accredited to grant degrees
in theology by the Board of Edu-
cation of the State of Mississippi.
Accreditation is being pursued ac-
tively by the Board of Trustees and
by the Faculty of the Seminary in
consultation with the American As-
sociation of Theological Schools.
Reformed Seminary became an as-
sociate member of the AATS in
June, 1970.

( REFORMED
THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY

5422 CLINTON BOULEVARD
JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI 39209
PHONE 601-922-4988

The Seminary has a racially
non-discriminatory admissions policy

MAN TO MAN, by Richard C. Hal-
verson. Zondervan Publ. House, Grand
Rapids, Mich. Paper, 160 pp. $.95. Re-
viewed by Carl C. Riedesel, professor,
the University of the Pacific, Stock-
ton, Cal.

With only eight chapters, each
subdivided into sermonettes, the
book is described as containing
"thought-provoking meditations for
men." It could be used to advantage
in the family-worship setting.

The sermonettes are well written
and easy to read. If carefully used
the book could serve as a good Bible
study guide in family worship. As
a measure of its worth, it is in the
11th printing, with some 50,000 cop-
ies in print. IB

THE HUNGRY INHERIT, by Zane
Clark Hodges. Moody Press, Chicago,
111. 128 pp. $3.95. Reviewed by the
Rev. A. Rynbrandt, Holland, Mich.

Anyone scanning the chapter sub-
jects should not conclude that this
is just another book of sermons. It
is that, for it has ten sermons based
on the Gospels, James and Revela-
tion. For a reviewer who has read
far more sermons than he has tried
to prepare and preach in 47 years,
Hodges gives refreshing and chal-
lenging insights. Maybe you will al-
so say, "Why didn't I see that be-
fore in the Scriptures?"

While the form is sermonic, it is
far more than so many good sermons.
There is one clear theme thread that
goes through all the chapters: dis-
cipleship. No matter how much you,
as an average Christian, may have
read, thought, heard, experienced
and spoken about the meaning of
discipleship, it would be a wonder
to me if this didn't excite you.

The author contrasts the "water
of life" (salvation) with the "meat"
(discipleship) of John 4. All who
drink the "water of life" are saved,
but only those who go on to a meat
diet will inherit a full share of the
kingdom. "The thirsty live, but the
hungry inherit."

He says, "Eternal life is free. Dis-
cipleship is immeasurably hard. The
former is attained by a faith alone,
the latter by a faith that works. The
former brings with it the righteous-
ness of God so that a man is 'justi-
fied freely by His grace' (Rom. 3:
24) . The latter develops a per-
sonal righteousness, based on good
deeds, so that a man is also 'justi-
fied by works' (Jas. 2:24) . The for-
mer constitutes the believer as God's
workmanship, the latter fulfills the

(OL

wondrous purpose for which he ha
been created. The former costs mai
nothing, the latter costs him ever}
thing, including life itself. Thus th
former assures man his entrance in
to God's kingdom, but the latter as
sures him of heirship there."

There are not two justifications
nor two righteousnesses, but two ex
periences, salvation and discipleship
which follow from the one justifica
tion and the one righteousness,
would seem every reader would fee
a measure of indebtedness to th< Jj
brother from Dallas, who is current
ly assistant professor of New Testa
ment literature and exegesis at Dal
las Theological Seminary. E

Layman— from p. 13

As in that day, so today our op-
ponents would have us believe that
the issue is not the very foundations
of Christianity and of a just social
order. Rather they would have us
believe that it is merely a matter ol
differences of opinion over where
the emphasis should be placed in
the mission of the Church. They
would say that in this day a greater
emphasis is needed on the social im-
plications of the Gospel than on the
personal redemptive message of the
Gospel.

This is no more true today than
it was in the days of Thornwell,
Dabney and Palmer. They were
not misled by such arguments and
neither should we. In their time
their passionate devotion to Jesus
Christ launched the Southern Pres-
byterian Church at what would cer-
tainly seem to have been a most
inauspicious time for such a ven-
ture, when the nation was being en-
gulfed in fratricidal warfare. But
it was the right time because it was
God's time for the launching of a
Church dedicated to the purity of
doctrine and of life found in the
Gospel.

Today, for most of the graduates
of our seminaries, the issues of the
day are purely social. Freud and
Marx dominate their thinking and
"personality adjustment" replaces
conversion as the primary personal
objective.

Would that once again the Lord
should raise up a mighty army
of ministers, elders, deacons and
church members who will echo, each
in his own way, the convictions of
God's great servants of a century
ago.

PAGE 20 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 23, 1972

S 7Z-p

$4.00 A YEAR

JOURNAL

to Scripture and the Reformed faith

Shades of Bonhoeffer!

The confession goes on to say, "It is when we are inhuman
that we sin. God's purpose is to heal our inhumanity and make
us truly human." Hey, now wait a minute. They've already
announced that man and woman "became estranged from their
true humanity" in the Garden of Eden, so am I supposed to
understand "human" as the condition of man before or after
the fall?

Here's another: If to be "human" is God's ultimate in-
tention for us, does "truly human" therefore mean "divine"?
And if so, then are we to understand Christ's divinity as His
true humanity?

That committee must have been knitting on circular
needles. Their start is also their finish, and it all leaves me
asking myself this: Am I, as a sinner redeemed by Christ,
really human-in-a-divine-sense or really divine-in-a-human-
sense? That is to say, humanly divine or divinely human?

— Clydie
(See p. 7)

VOL. XXXI, NO. 18 AUGUST 30, 1972

the

PRESBYTERIAN

Advocating continuation of a Presbyterian Church loyal

S. S. LESSON AND YOUTH PROGRAM FOR SEPTEMBER 17

0.11 D& JO &lTSJd*7UA

A

MAILBAG

HE CASTS HIS LOT

To me, action speaks louder than
words!! While I appreciate the
fact that Dr. L. Nelson Bell was
elected Moderator by the 1972 Gen-
eral Assembly, the following actions
of the Assembly caused me to find
little solace since they told so much
more of the direction and intent of
the Assembly.

It is now apparent that the last
particle of the Presbyterian form of
government at the General Assembly
level has been eliminated by the

restructuring to an "episcoterian"
(or is it prescopalian) form
through the General Executive
Board which already seems to have
overstepped its provisional status.

Since I have not had a chance to
study my copy of the new confes-
sion, but have had to rely on ex-
cerpts which have appeared in the
press, my hopes have not been
strengthened here either.

I have a great affection for the
Moderator and his evangelistic zeal,
and I am sure that he will be a help

the

PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL

Rev. G. Aiken Taylor, Ph.D., Editor
Rev. Henry B. Dendy, D.D., Managing Editor

Circulation leader among independent publications in the Presbyterian-Reformed world

THIS WEEK

Vol. XXXI, No. 18, August 30, 1972

Confession of Confusion 7

Even with the Bible and a dictionary, the new confession is
not easy to understand By Clydie

Common Grace 9

Christian or not, the person who observes God's moral laws
will benefit By Linwood G. Wilkes

De partments —

Editorials 1 0

The Layman and his Church 1 1

Sunday School Lesson, September 17 12

Youth Program, September 17 14

THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL, a

Presbyterian weekly magazine, devoted
to the statement, defense, and propa-
gation of the Gospel, the faith which
was once for all delivered to the saints,

is published every Wednesday by the
Southern Presbyterian Journal Co.,
Inc., in Weaverville, N. C.

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TELEPHONES: (All area 704) edi-
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during his term of office. This does
not ease my discomfort with the ac-
tions of an Assembly which 1) ac
tually debated the singularity of Je
sus Christ concerning salvation; 2)
found it difficult to express fellow
ship with one of the greatest Chris
tian assemblies in the history of our
country — Explo 72; 3) continued
the endorsement of murderous
abortion while condemning the
killing in Vietnam (with no word
against the Viet Cong killing
by careless shelling of civilian
areas) ; 4) continued to ignore the
Book of Church Order regarding
union presbyteries, while waving the
same book over the heads of those
who do not bend their knees in glee
over PCUS/UPUSA union possibili-
ties — and several other matters that
escape me at the moment.

In fact, I find myself strangely out
of fellowship with the Assembly
when I hear the word "reconcilia-
tion" and then see the actions of con
demnation against and disregard for
those who cannot agree with liberal
ism in God's Word. Action does
speak louder than words . . . and
the 112th General Assembly of the
Presbyterian Church US is proof
positive.

I do have a dream though! It is
a beautiful dream. It concerns a
continuing Church faithful to the
Scripture and Reformed Faith with
a General Assembly that faithfully
labors to spread the Word of God
throughout the world as the impera-
tive work of the Church; and whole-
some polity replaces politics. In that
Assembly there will be the sounds
of "Amen and Amen" when the
name of Jesus is praised and lifted
"above every other name."

I have sincere hope that this may
no longer be just a dream. I take
comfort that there are others willing
to say, "I yield no more," and look
to that day of blessing when it will
take less than one minute to endorse
a statement that declares the Word
of God to be infallible and that con-
fesses men are lost and can be saved
only by faith in the only begotten
Son of God, our blessed Redeemer,
Jesus Christ.

Without apology, least my lot
with this continuing Church with
the same zeal that others have cast
their lots with the "new" Church.
I pray that they may find their peace
as I have found mine.

— (Rev.) Adrian R. Munzell
Miami, Fla.

CREDIT IDENTIFIED

In the Journal for July 12 you
minted "Red Riding Hood Today"
/ith the notation that you did not
now the origin of the piece.

This appeared originally in
Ihristian Crusade Weekly, Tulsa,
)kla. I have distributed it with
>ermission.

— Herbert F. Stevens
Miami, Fla.

HER FIRST JOURNAL DAY

Today was my first Journal Day.
iod willing, it shall not be my last!
The day will be remembered in the
veeks ahead as one filled with in-
piration and blessing as I listened
o men who first of all love the
L,ord Jesus deeply and who are wili-
ng to stand in places of leadership
n our Church, holding faithful to
he Reformed faith in times when
his stand is not easy.

I am thankful for these who are
billing to give their time and their
efforts to keep the laymen informed
md for the Journal which is willing

• When 1969 Assembly Moderator
Matthew Lynn's new confession
committee deposited the fruit of
their labors before the Church we
hardly knew whether to laugh or
cry. When a child crawls up in
your lap with a poem she has writ-
ten, you take it with utmost serious-
ness because it is a serious matter
to the child. But you do not ex-
pect that magnum opus to meet
adult standards. So it is with the
proposed new "confession" offered
to the Presbyterian Church US. It
will hardly be considered adequate
by any mature Presbyterian — or
Christian, for that matter. But it
evidently is a source of pride to the
committee, so it must be taken seri-
ously. We finally decided the most
appropriate way to handle the mat-
ter was to turn it over to Clydie.
Her reaction will be found on p.
7 of this issue and we are inclined
to believe she has said just about
all that needs to be said.

• We've been exchanging corre-
spondence with the Rev. David

to publish the facts. Only as we are
kept abreast of the situation can we
intelligently make proper decisions
in the light of God's will for our be-
loved Church.

Our appreciation and continued
prayers for your faithfulness (and
all the Journal family) .

—Mrs. T. B. McCorkle
Greenville, S. C.

MINISTERS

Frank M. Brown from graduate
study to Rochester, Minn., as
chaplain supervisor of Presbyte-
rian Hospital Ministries, Inc., in
conjunction with the Mayo Clinic.
Lawrence W. Corbett from Cleve-
land Heights, Ohio to the Lake-
view church, St. Petersburg, Fla.
L. Robert DeWester II, from Co-
hutta, Ga., to the Spring Hill
church, Mobile, Ala., as associate
minister.

Ronald M. Guinn, Beaumont,
Tex., has entered secular work but
will continue to serve as stated
supply.

Wilkinson of Charlotte, N. C, who
still feels that we gave a false im-
pression in our news story concern-
ing his participation in the "uni-
versalism" debate at the 1972 PCUS
General Assembly (Journal, June
28, p. 7) . Because accuracy is im-
portant to us, we've transcribed Mr.
Wilkinson's entire remarks in order
to be fair to him: "Mr. Moderator,
let me say first of all that I cannot
accept this statement, 'Recognizing
that all men are lost apart Irom
faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and
Saviour,' I think simply because for
many years I have looked for an
answer to people who have said,
'Well, how about the people who
don't have opportunity to gain
faith or to have presented to them
the fact of faith in Jesus Christ?' —
and I am still struggling with this

George F. Ganey Jr., Durham, N.
C, has accepted a call to the Perry,
Ga., church.

Ronald C. Hieber from Mont-
gomery, Ala., to the Palmetto
church, Miami, Fla., as assistant
minister.

Gerald G. Latal from Manteca,
Calif., to Faith Reformed Church,
Anderson, Calif., as minister of
evangelism.

William C. Robinson (H.R.)
from Decatur, Ga., to Claremont
Manor, Claremont, Calif.

James M. Reading from Florence,
S. C, to Columbia, S. C, where
he heads the training program for
the South Carolina Alcoholic
Training Centers.

Ernest L. Stoffel from Saltville,
Va., to the Brittain and Union
Mills churches, Rutherfordton,
N. C.

R. Murphy Williams Jr., from
Myrtle Beach, S. C, to graduate
study, Union Seminary, Rich-
mond, Va.

question. Therefore I would favor
heartily the substitute motion that
this be referred to the Theology
Committee. And I would like to
ask if there is anyone here who can
give me the answer to this question.
If so, I would like to hear it. 1 have
always come up with this: 'I must
leave that in the hands of God.'
But it seems to me that is begging
the question. I am not satisfied
with that but it is the best I can
come up with. But I cannot accept
the fact that those who do not have
the opportunity for faith in Christ
are lost. Now maybe the Assembly
will want to defrock me right here,
but I can't go along with that."

• Worth pondering: "The Bible
continues to survive the ignorance
of its friends as well as the hatred
of its enemies." — Unknown. SI

ACROSS THE EDITOR'S DESK

PAGE 3 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 30, 1972

NEWS OF RELIGION

World Council Names Potter Top Exec

UTRECHT, the Netherlands —
Philip A. Potter, mentioned for many
months as the leading candidate to
succeed Eugene Carson Blake as gen-
eral secretary of the World Council
of Churches, was elected to that posi-
tion in a closed session of the WCC
Central Committee here.

The 51 -year-old West Indian Meth-
odist minister has been an associate
general secretary and director of the
council's division of world mission
and evangelism since 1967.

He is the third general secretary
for the WCC, which was formally
organized in 1948 in the Nether-
lands. W. A. Visser 't Hooft, a Dutch
Reformed clergyman, held the top
post first and was succeeded six
years ago by Dr. Blake, a minister
of the United Presbyterian Church
USA. Dr. Blake expects to retire in
October.

Vote of the 120 member Central
Committee was reported to be unan-
imous.

The new chief executive of the
council has literally grown up in the
ecumenical movement. After pri-
mary and secondary education on his
native Dominica in the Windward
Islands, he went to Jamaica in 1944
to study at United Theological
Seminary. Upon his anival there he
was made study secretary of the Stu-
dent Christian Movement.

He earned his bachelor of divinity

and master of theology degrees from
Richmond College of London Uni-
versity. He attended a World Student
Christian Federation (WSCF) con-
ference in Sweden in 1947 and in
1948 addressed the First Assembly of
the WCC in Amsterdam on behalf of
youth delegates.

For two years he was overseas
secretary for the British Student
Christian Movement. He went to
Haiti as a pastor but kept up his
international contacts. He went to
the 1954 Evanston Assembly of the
WCC as chairman of its youth de-
partment. He began his first stint
on the council staff in 1954 as secre-
tary of that department.

Missions Executive

He left that position in 1960 to
become secretary for West Africa and
the West Indies of the Methodist
Missionary Society of London. He re-
joined the WCC staff in 1967. In
1961 he was a Bible study leader at
the Mexico City meeting of the Com-
mission on World Mission and
Evangelism.

He is the first top executive of
the World Council to come from its
"mission" side (as differentiated
from its "life and work" and "faith
and order" branches) . He is also the
first black, the first from a Wesleyan
theological background and the first

THE CHURCH OVERSEAS

NEW GUINEA — On a 30-day
evangelistic missionary journey, the
Rev. Ralph Bell spoke to 94,000
people in seven towns, with 9,795
coming forward as inquirers to be
counseled about the Christian way
of life.

Papua, New Guinea, the second
largest noncontinental island in the
world, is a land of contrasts, peo-
pled by stone age men forced into
the space age. The scattered tribes,
many of them hostile and some still
dominated by sorcery, speak over
700 languages.

At the town of Kieta on Bougain-
ville Island, more than 9,000 peo-
ple attended the meetings and 522
came forward to "meet with Jesus."

A significant part of the crusade
in Rabaul, New Britain, was Mr.
Bell's ministry to groups of high
school students and other groups.

Stops at Madang, Lae, Goroka
and Port Moresby brought great
crowds.

The Evangelical Alliance of the
South Pacific Islands issued the in-
vitation for Mr. Bell to preach in
the islands. ffl

from the "Third World."

A former colleague on the staff
said he has "little patience with nar t,
row denominationalism" and is!
"capable of rage at racial injustice.'

Passion for Unity

i

Appearing before the policy mak-
ing Central Committee after his
election, the West Indian remarked 51
that a passion for "Christian unity'
was woven into the texture of his life
as the son of a Roman Catholic
father and a Protestant mother. He
said his early experiences in youth
work also gave him a desire for the
"unity of mankind."

In the acceptance speech and at a
later press conference he pledged to
continue working for Christian
unity, including closer relations be
tween the council and the Roman
Catholic Church. He also said he
would intensify efforts in the areas of
mission and development, extend the
fellowship of the WCC, and press
forward the work in justice and
unity begun by his predecessors

He emphasized his belief that
faith and action are indivisible.

"The nearer we come to the cross,
the closer we come together," he told
the Central Committee. "Only as the
cross becomes a central part of our
life will we come closer together."

He went on to plead with the
WCC leaders to face the world with
both love and justice and to under-
stand that programs in social jus
tice, international affairs, and devel
opment are part of "an incarnate en-
gagement with the world."

He and his wife, who have been
married since 1956, are childless
They have had young relatives liv
ing with them in Geneva, the head
quarters of the World Council, in
order to study in Switzerland.

Dr. Blake, in his final report to the
Central Committee, said Church
leaders have less need to fear "heresy,
schism and anarchy" than to make
sure that "the structures and fellow-
ship" of the Churches include all
who call upon and serve Jesus. He
noted that in his term as the top
executive he has tried to make
polarization in the Churches "crea-
tive rather than destructive."

He declared, "Such disappoint-
ments as there have been, such un-

PAGE 4 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 30, 1972

esolved problems as continue to be

00 complex for early solution, such
>ersonal and ecclesiastical confron-
ations which wound our fellowship
ind leave their scars, have not
haken my belief that God is the
nspiration of the ecumenical move-
nent and that the World Council is

1 unique instrument of that move-
ment. I shall leave my post with the
,ame hope as that with which I came
;o it."

The American Presbyterian dis-
:ussed WCC relations with the Vati-
:an but noted that early application
;or Roman Catholic membership is
lot expected.

He plugged the "Salvation Today"
conference planned by the WCC in
Bangkok later this year and said,
'We have discovered today that in
the diverse situations of the world-
wide Church there are many experi-
ences of salvation and there can be
many theologies. The Bangkok con-
ference will not aim at a new ecu-
menical consensus about salvation.
Rather it will seek to show some-
thing of the fullness and diversity
of salvation as Christians experience
it and hope for it today." El

Seventh Day Baptists
Consider Leaving NCC

DENVER (RNS) — The Seventh
Day Baptist General Conference
voted here to retain membership in
the National Council of Churches,
but to consider the issue again at its
annual meeting next year.

Meanwhile, the denomination's
Council on Ecumenical Affairs is to
analyze the advantages and disad-
vantages of membership and share
the information with local churches.

The denomination reports a mem-
bership of 5,331 in 66 congrega-
tions.

The conference included a two-
hour debate over what instructions
to give the denomination's delegates
to the NCC General Assembly to be
held in December.

The Council on Ecumenical Af-
| fairs asked that the delegates be
authorized to vote for the restructure
proposal that is to be presented to
the General Assembly, but there was
a move to have the delegates in-
structed to oppose it.

Under a compromise they were
simply asked to reflect the general
conference position adopted in 1970.
According to the Rev. Alton Wheel-
er, executive secretary, the position
essentially favors decentralization of
the NCC's "government," discon-
tinuance of policy statements by the
NCC's general board and support
for a "consortia plan" that would
enable member Churches to com-
bine for work on particular pro-
grams in which they were inter-
ested. El

Basel Group Leaves
South India Church

CALICUT, India (RNS) — The
Presbyterian Basel Mission Church
has withdrawn from the Church of
South India (CSI) and set plans to
become an independent denomina-
tion.

It is the first major defection
from the United Protestant Church
established in 1947. The Church of
South India has been a model for
unifying Protestant groups across
Asia.

Reinstitution of a separate Basel
Mission Church adds to the already
confusing religious situation in
Kerala State, where competition be-
tween Christian groups is aggressive
and long-standing.

Some see the withdrawal as end-
ing the possibility for a single Prot-
estant Church in all of India. This
likelihood has been strong since for-
mation of the united Church of
North India in 1970.

It was not immediately known
how many of an estimated 16,000
Presbyterians in the North Kerala
Diocese of the CSI would follow the
Basel Mission into independence.

The Mission was launched about
150 years ago by Swiss and German
Presbyterians. It operated with aid
from Churches in those countries
and came into the united Church
along with other Presbyterian tradi-
tions in India.

Other constituting groups of the
CSI included British Methodists,
Anglicans and Congregationalists.

Basel Mission people were joined
with some 12,000 Anglicans in the
North Kerala Diocese, headed by
Bishop T. B. Benjamin. El

One-Sided Science Book
Target Of Federal Suit

WASHINGTON (RNS) —A Wash-
ington journalist has filed suit in
U. S. District Court here against the
National Science Foundation and
the University of Colorado Board
of Regents enjoining them from dis-
seminating textbooks which present
only the Darwinian theory of the
origin of man.

William F. Willoughby of Fair-
fax City, Va., the religious news edi-
tor and a columnist for the Washing-
ton (D.C.) Star-News, said the ex-
clusive presentation of the Dar-
winian theory in the widely used
biological sciences curriculum
study (BSCS), published by the
university, is "hostile" to his and
his children's religious beliefs.

He said that insofar as the Na-
tional Science Foundation receives
its funds from the federal govern-
ment and the foundation in turn
made a grant of $7 million to the
University of Colorado for the stud-
ies resulting in the textbooks, the
foundation's acts are unconstitution-
al. Such acts, he said, pertain to
the establishment of a religion.

The textbooks are used in up to
47 percent of the nation's high
schools and cover the biological sci-
ences, presenting the evolution
theory as the only credible theory of
origins.

Mr. Willoughby, who has three
children in Virginia public schools,
said the action is not an attempt to
argue the merits or demerits of the
Darwinian theory as against the cre-
ationist theory, which he holds,
"but an attempt to get the govern-
ment away from excluding another
credible theory held by many credi-
ble scientists."

"It's an attempt at fair play in
the classrooms in America and fair
play for American taxpayers," he
said.

Through Washington Attorney
James L. Fisk, Mr. Willoughby has
demanded that the foundation and
the regents "withdraw the official
endorsement of the government" to
the representation that the Dar-
winian theory is the only credible
theory of the origin of man. They
have refused to withdraw the "im-

PAGE 5 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 30, 1972

primatur," he said.

Mr. Willoughby said the books,
in representing the Darwinian
theory exclusively while the regents
and the foundation are aware that
there is a widely held and credible
alternative in effect, coerce him to
pay taxes to support "anti-religious
acts against his beliefs that man was
created by God."

The anti-religious acts, the legal
brief said, consist in publishing an-
ti-religious textbooks and support-
ing the distribution of these anti-
religious publications in the public
schools that the children of the
plaintiff are required to attend and
the plaintiff is required to finan-
cially support.

The suit specifically asks that the

National Science Foundation Act of
1950, as amended, be declared un-
constitutional and that the acts of
the defendants in publishing, dis-
seminating and endorsing the text-
books be declared an unauthorized
application of the act.

"There is no attempt in the suit
to eliminate dissemination of the
evolution theory," Mr. Willoughby
said. "Rather, it is an attempt to
have the creationist theory be given
fair treatment as well."

"By rights, because of the element
of fair play that is being violated,"
he said, even an honest atheist could
have filed the case. In fact, I'm
surprised that such a group as the
American Civil Liberties Union
hadn't beat me to it." SI

THE CHURCH AT HOME

Criticism of Confession
Is Issued by Moderator

MONTREAT, N. C. — Voicing the
hope that there will be "many
changes and improvements" before
the document is presented to the
Church for a vote, Moderator L.
Nelson Bell of the 1972 Presbyte-
rian US General Assembly has
sharply criticized the draft of a new
confession now being studied.

The draft has been released by an
ad interim committee charged by the
1969 Assembly with proposing a new
confession and book of confessions.

Dr. Bell said in a statement is-
sued to the press that the commit-
tee's product is "universalistic,"
"vague," "obscure" and "weak on
the atoning work of Jesus and strong
on man's work for the welfare of
man."

The moderator and former mis-
sionary added, "The emphasis of
the new confession seems to be to
change the world, while the empha-
sis of Christianity is to change men
through faith in Jesus Christ."

While the Bible teaches "that sin
is primarily man's revolt against, or
disobedience to, God," Dr. Bell
noted, "the new confession seems to
teach that sin is primarily man's
inhumanity to man."

On the question of the future
life, he calls the draft "universalistic
in its rosy optimism."

The document's view of the Bible
leaves "much to the interpretation of
the individual," he commented. The
moderator suggested this position
leaves the door open for social ac-
tivism to be "the Church's main call-
ing" and for "some form of vague
universalism which can well cut the
nerve of evangelism at home and
abroad."

In releasing the draft, the com-
mittee chaired by President Albert
C. Winn of Louisville Seminary
asked for comments from persons
throughout the denomination. The
panel has said that after a period of
study by individuals, the confession
will be sent to judicatories for a
period of study and response before
a final draft is submitted for Assem-
bly approval. [t|

Agencies Get 44 Per Cent

ATLANTA — Most Presbyterian
US General Assembly agencies had
received 44.3 per cent of their bud-
geted benevolence receipts by Aug.
10, the central treasurer reported
here. The amount received during
the seventh accounting period,
$560,886, was less than in the same
period a year ago, $649,520, but
total receipts during the first seven
months were up from 1971. The
1972 figure was $4,159,631, while for
the same period last year it was
$4,083,256. E

Montreat Dedicates Pool,
Science Hall, Dormitories

MONTREAT, N.C. — Two dormi-
tories, the science building and the
swimming pool were dedicated in
Montreat Patron's Day ceremonies.

Davis Hall, initially called New
Hall, was named in honor of the
Rev. and Mrs. C. Grier Davis. Dr.
Davis was president of the Mountain
Retreat Association and Montreat-
Anderson College from 1959 to 1972.

McGregor Hall, formerly known
as College Hall, was named in mem-
ory of the late J. Rupert McGregor,
president of Montreat from 1948 to
1957, and his wife.

Morgan Science Hall was named
for Edwin Morgan and his son,
James L. Morgan, of Laurel Hill,
N. C. James Morgan is chairman of
the Montreat board.

The McNair-McMillan Swim-
ming Pool was named in memory of
Mr. and Mrs. John F. McNair Jr.
and Dr. and Mrs. L. G. McMillan.

Earlier, the L. Nelson Bell Library
was dedicated at the college.

A Patrons' Day highlight was a
concert by singer Ethel Waters. The
75th anniversary of the Presbyterian
US conference center is being cele-
brated this year. 31

Hampden-Sydney Plans
Memorial Loan Fund

HAMPDEN-SYDNEY, Va. — The
family of a student who attended
Hampden-Sydney College over 20
years ago has established a $100,000
student loan fund at the college in
his memory, creating one of the larg-
est endowed scholarships in the 196-
year history of the institution.

In announcing the fund, from
which initial awards will be made
for the 1972-73 academic year, Col-
lege President W. Taylor Reveley
said that it will be known as the Ed-
mund Baker Davenport Scholar-
ships, a memorial to Edmund Baker
Davenport of Richmond, who was a
member of the junior class when he
died in May, 1950, from injuries sus-
tained in an automobile accident.

The fund was created by Mr. Da-
venport's mother, Mrs. Claude R.
Davenport; a brother, Claude R. Da-
venport Jr.; and two sisters, Mrs.
Charles C. Chewning and Mrs.
George L. Fosque. All are residents
of Richmond with the exception of
Mrs. Fosque, who makes her home
in Onancock. ffl

PAGE 6 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 30, 1972

rhe committee should have repeated II Timothy 1:13a every morning before breakfast —

Confession of Confusion

The first person who ever saw
an elephant looked it over
rarefully and said, "Surely this beast
Las created by a committee." The
same thought occurred to me after
reading the portion of the proposed
lew Confession of Faith printed in
:he Journal a couple of weeks ago.

Now I have a confession: I am
confused, and it is a feeling I do not
ilike. Of course I cannot explain
complicated doctrines like effectual
calling so that anyone else could un-
derstand them, but I deem this a
[forgivable lack because I make no
pretense of being Clydie, Girl Theo-
logian. However, it does bug me
mot to be able to understand from
the new confession what ought to be
the simple parts: God, Jesus Christ,
[the Bible, the Gospel and the mis-
sion of the Church.

One thing does shine through
clearly, and that is the composition
of the committee who wrote the
confession. One member was the
expert on jargon, another specialized
in editorial writing, and the third,
obviously outnumbered but gamely
in there trying, insisted on includ-
ing a few simple statements of
Christian belief.

The fourth member of the com-
mittee contributed the baffletalk
and obviously his was the dominat-
ing influence. In fact, I think he
should be awarded the 1972 baffle-
talk prize, awarded to whoever is
best at combining good English
words in such a way that the syn-
tactical result guarantees no coher-
ent thought is expressed.

I settled down with the proposed
confession, the Bible and the dic-
tionary to see what I could make
of what the committee says a good
Presbyterian believes.

Mr. Baffletalk got in his first
licks early, in the part about God:
"We may not set our ultimate re-

liance on any other help. We may
not yield unconditional obedience
to any other power. We may not
love anyone or anything more than
we love him."

Six lines into the document and
I was already heading for the dic-
tionary. May? How do they mean
may? To be able? To have the lib-
erty, opportunity, permission, possi-
bility, as in he may go to town? De-
sire or wish, as in a prayer, may you
be happy? Contingency, used espe-
cially in clauses of purpose, result,
concession, as he flatters so that he
may win favor?

This sure is a funny way to ex-
press the thou-shalts and thou-shalt-
nots of the commandments, and to
me there is a world of difference
between may and shalt. Really,
now, I don't see that the Bible of-
fers any option between "Thou
shalt have no other gods before me"
and "we may rely on and obey him
and we may not love anyone more."

How Now?

Then they say that God's "pres-
ence, power, and love are not self-
evident." They're not? Not to
them, maybe, but they're evident to
me every day of my life. I think
they were evident to Paul, too, be-
cause he wrote to the Romans that
God's invisible nature — His eter-
nal power and deity — has been
clearly perceived since creation in
the things He has made. Maybe the
committee members never raised a
border of nasturtiums from seed or
got caught in a thunderstorm.

The next two chapters devote so
much attention to human, human-
ity, human beings and other words
related to human that for a min-
ute I forgot this confession is sup-
posed to outline Christian beliefs
in what is divine.

CLYDIE

Humanity, so says Webster's, is
simply the quality of being human;
and human is defined as belonging
to or relating to man, the character-
istics of man, having human form
or attributes. So far so good. This
much I understand.

'Genuine Humanity'

But these same words in the hands
of the committee become something
less than manageable as Mr. Baffle-
talk turns in a stellar performance:
"We recognize in Jesus what gen-
uine humanity is." I suppose I
might be able to go along with that
sense of humanity if they'd said He
was also genuinely divine, and if
they hadn't added in the same
breath, "We have no cause to be
ashamed of our humanity." How
can we possibly not be ashamed of
our humanity which never measures
up to what God expects of us?

See how baffletalk works? Which
humanity is whose? Human in the
sense that Jesus was fully human or
that fallen man is? No Christian
would argue that Jesus was not both
human and divine, nor that He es-
caped grief and pain and despair.
The difference between human and
divine shows up in the response to
these experiences. The reaction of
a sinner would likely be, "Don't
get mad, get even," but our Lord
clearly demonstrated something en-
tirely different.

The confession goes on to say, "It
is when we are inhuman that we
sin. God's purpose is to heal our
inhumanity and make us truly hu-
man." Hey, now wait a minute.
They've already announced that
man and woman "became estranged
from their true humanity" in the
Garden of Eden, so am I supposed
to understand "human" as the con-
dition of man before or after the

PAGE 7 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 30, 1972

fall?

Here's another: If to be "human"
is God's ultimate intention for us,
does "truly human" therefore mean
"divine"? And if so, then are we to
understand Christ's divinity as His
true humanity?

That committee must have been
knitting on circular needles. Their
start is also their finish, and it all
leaves me asking myself this: Am I,
as a sinner redeemed by Christ, real-
ly human-in-a-divine-sense or really
divine-in-a-human-sense? That is to
say, humanly divine or divinely hu-
man?

It's a puzzlement.

Here the baffletalk expert stepped
aside so that the Stater of Simple
Statements could do a bit of inter-
lining in pencil. He wrote a reg-
ular little jewel with which I
wholeheartedly agree: "Jesus died
for sinners."

Naturally, Mr. Jargon wanted to
get in the act so they let him have
a say or two: Jesus Christ "identi-
fies with" sinful mankind and He
gives us "fresh insights" for "relat-
ing to" each other. Next, Mr. J.
tipped his hat to God's "design for
the wholeness of humanity," scat-
tered a bunch of "dehumanizes"
and observed that God is at work
"where people can be human to-
gether." You'll be glad to know,
too, that he didn't fail to mention
that God affirms "the personhood
of every human being," wants us to
"humanize" the world's helping
agencies and to seek new "thought
forms" for the Gospel.

Caps the Stack

The lid-flipper, though, was this:
Jesus Christ "defied and attacked
hallowed structures that exploited
and excluded human beings, and the
authorities called him a revolution-
ary." Where in the Bible does it say
any of that?

Back to the dictionary to see if
this is pure or adulterated jargon.
Hallowed means blessed or conse-
crated. Structures in the old sense
meant buildings, or the interrela-
tion of parts as dominated by the
general character of the whole; in
newer use structure has become an
all-purpose word like thing, mean-
ing whatever the user happens to
want it to mean.

In paraphrase, then, they must be
trying to say that Jesus defied and
attacked: (Please check one)

( ) the blessed, consecrated
buildings;

( ) the blessed, consecrated
interrelation of parts as dominated
by the general character of the
whole; or

( ) the blessed, consecrated
thing.

This is a new, simplified confes-
sion?

". . . and the authorities called
him a revolutionary." Oh, gentle-
men, come off it. The scribes and
Pharisees called Him a lot of things,
but revolutionary was hardly one of
them.

In this same section I found a
more or less straightforward account
(some secretary must not have been
able to read the committee's hand-
writing) telling that Jesus was be-
trayed, rejected, mocked and cruci-
fied. True. Then the statement
jumps into the present tense to com-
ment, "We kill the only true man
because he exposes our inhuman-
ity." (There's that word again.)
"We reject the only true God be-
cause he unmasks our worship of
false gods." This may be all very
true, too, but perhaps it more prop-
erly belongs in a catalog of sins
than a confession of faith.

Something for Everyone

What the confession says about
the Bible is not exactly what the Bi-
ble says about itself: "Led by the
Holy Spirit, the people of Israel
and the early Church set down in
writing their experiences with God."
That isn't quite the same as "All
Scripture is inspired by God." Then
it adds, "Therefore the Church ac-
knowledged the Old and New Tes-
taments as the canon, or rule of
faith and practice."

To me this says the Church gra-
ciously condescended to permit it-
self to be informed by Scripture, a
position I think un-Biblical and in-
defensible. Furthermore, I already
knew what canon means.

Agree or disagree, at least you can
understand what they've said. But
I just can't fathom what this means:
"As we try to understand their
(Scriptures') intent, in their own
historical setting, we honor the real
human conditions through which
God has given us his word." Why
in tunket would anybody want to
"honor the real human conditions"?

Or why should I confess that I
"must be open to God's word from
other religions, from the oppressed

and excluded, from movements we $
regard as radical or reactionary 01 J,
irreligious"? Either Scripture is au „
thoritative or it isn't. If it is, and \ ^
believe it is, how can it be if God's EK
Word also comes from every othei
source of noise and confusion?

The Editorial Writer had obvious tn
ly been saving himself for the sec p
t i o n , "The Mission of God's f
Church." I can imagine he sent the y.
others back to their congregations u
or seminaries, telling them not to >c
worry, he'd tend to this part person
ally. After studying it, you can tell
what he's against better than what
he's for: I j

Register Republican?

God's judgment is aroused (can
you arouse judgment? I thought
judgment was meted out) when
"rich nations grow richer at the ex-
pense of poor nations, when courts
seldom punish the guilty who can
pay and often condemn the inno-
cent who cannot, when barbarous
prisons breed crime instead of corl
recting it." Can you "correct":
crime? I thought the trick was to
prevent it — at the least to pun-
ish it.

This lively denunciation of the
way things often are, instead of the;
way they ought to be, is followed
by his version of the Church's mis-
sion: "God sends us to help the
poor and weak get resources and
power, ... to alter customs and
structures and systems . . . that deny
persons their basic human rights
and rob them of their essential hu-
man dignity because of race, sex,
life-style, or political opinion."

Whew. I'm curious to see wha|
Scripture portions they'll produce
to support that! And I wonder if
I should infer that God wants me
to hurry out and register Republi-
can because it is actually the mi-
nority party, or vote Democrat be-
cause it is not represented in the
White House now that John Con-
nally has gone back to Texas.

This section on mission would al-
so have me confess that God's
wrath is provoked when "sexism pre-
vents women from rendering full
service in the life of the church."
Oh go speak for yourselves, gentle-
men; when I need your help I'll ask
for it. Let me be the one to decide
if I am in any way hindered from
spreading the good news without
at the same time disobeying I Corin-;

PAGE 8 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 30, 1972

lians 14:34 or I Timothy 2:11-12.
To round out this section on the
lission of the church, the Editorial
Vriter gives us a polemic on the
tate of the world, a diatribe against
rax, and an exhortation to "discov-
r ways to employ church invest-
ments for peacemaking." Ha! I can
ardly ever balance my check book
gainst the bank statement on the
irst try and I know God wouldn't
/ant me tinkering in high finance
mh church investments, no matter

how worthy the purpose.

The best thing about the confes-
sion comes at the last: "Our hope
gives us courage, confidence, and a
sense of humor." Perhaps my friend,
the Stater of Simple Statements,
suddenly realized that if he couldn't
laugh he'd cry.

The young people today have a
great way of saying "like I mean,
you know," to acknowledge their in-
ability to express themselves clearly.
A rising inflection in using those

words seems also to imply, ". . . but
I hope you have enough intelligence
to follow what I think I mean." If
I didn't know differently, I could
easily believe this committee had
youth representation.

Presbyterians who might be in-
clined to adopt this confession of
confusion would do well to remem-
ber what my friend Mary Jane al-
ways says: "It's too late to holler,
'O Lord!' after the devil has got
you." [1

Ve know the sun shines on the just and the unjust. Do you know why? —

Common Grace

All over the world, there is a
host of people who are not
Christians, people who have no love
for Christ, no love for His Church,
people who have no time for God,
nor for religion. This fact often
icomes to mind when we think of
how the righteous suffer and the
non-Christian seems so well blessed.

Berkhof's Systematic Theology
describes the situation this way:
"Alongside the Christian life with
all its blessings, there is a natural
course of life, which is not redemp-
tive and yet exhibits many traces of
the truth and things which are good
and even beautiful."

Our minds will quickly raise the
question before God: Why? Why,
if sin is so terrible, can society keep
going? Why can many non-Chris-
tians have some knowledge of God,
know the difference between good
and evil, and even exhibit virtue in
outward life? Why can an atheistic
people and their nation have an or-
derly society?

The Bible answers these impor-
tant questions, and putting togeth-
er the answers from the Bible, we
have what we call the doctrine of
common grace. Psalm 145 is a good
example of God's work in common
grace. "The Lord is gracious, and
full of compassion; slow to anger,

The author is pastor of the Tabb
Street Presbyterian Church, Peters-
burg, Va.

and of great mercy. The Lord is
good to all: and His tender mercies
are over all His works" (Psa. 145:
8-9).

Definitions of Grace

Grace is the word we use to sum
up all of God's benevolent, kind,
good, generous actions on our be-
half. Before God we have no rights,
we can make no demands. He is
the creator, we are the creature. As
the pot does not tell the potter what
it wishes, so we do not earn nor de-
mand anything from God.

Thus, grace is God's unmerited,
unearned favor. All nature is the
grace of God. Everything good is
the grace of God. As a youngster
in Sunday school years ago, I
learned this little song: "Oh, Who
can make a flower?/I'm sure I can't,
can you? /Oh, Who can make a flow-
er?/No one but God it's true."

On the other hand, there is a won-
derful working of God which we
call grace. This is that "amazing
grace" about which we sing: "How
sweet the sound! That saved a
wretch like me/ 1 once was lost, but
now am found/Was blind but now
I see."

We must remember that we are
talking about two things: God's
common grace and His saving grace.
God's kindness which leads you to
accept Jesus Christ and rely upon
Him now and for eternal salvation
is saving grace. God's kindness to

LINWOOD G. WILKES

the world of His creation sends rain
upon the just and unjust, brings
comfort and aid to Christian and
non-Christian. This is common
grace, but remember that it does
not save people from the conse-
quences of their sin.

Let us see how God is at work
in the world today through this
common grace. First, note that gen-
erally speaking most people will rec-
ognize the concept of the "con-
science" in the natural man. Of
course this innate knowledge of God,
that some things are right and oth-
er things are wrong, can be blotted
out. Certainly, the ideal of "con-
science" did not make a better per-
son of Adolph Hitler; yet for the
average person, "conscience" works
for the good of mankind.

"For when the Gentiles, which
have not the law, do by nature the
things contained in the law, these,
having not the law, are a law unto
themselves: Which shew the work
of the law written in their hearts,
their conscience also bearing witness,
and their thoughts the mean-
while accusing or else excusing one
another" (Rom. 2:14-15).

Perhaps the greatest working of
common grace is done by civil gov-
ernments. Our army has often sur-
pressed a greater evil than the war
in which it was engaged. Our police-
men are constantly on the side of
what is right and just, and constant-

(Continued on p. 15, col. 2)

PAGE 9 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 30, 1972

EDITORIALS

To Subscribe Or Not To Subscribe

As important as is the issue of
the new confession of faith, anoth-
er issue matters far more, namely,
how binding is the confession of
faith?

This issue historically has been
recognized as that of subscription
— whether or not an officer truly
believes the doctrines of the Church
and what he means when he says
he subscribes to them.

There was a time when Church
leaders took the question of sub-
scription seriously. They may have
wrangled over how many of the
Church's doctrines should be con-
sidered essential, or if any of them
should be considered essential. But
they understood that when they
said, "I do receive and accept such-
and-such a doctrine as the position
of Scripture and my own," they
meant precisely that.

Today things have changed. Not
only do many ministers reject the
historic doctrines of the Church,

With whom should Christians of
Presbyterian and Reformed persua-
sion try to develop a common, unit-
ed witness in the continuing
Church faithful to Scripture?

As congregations lift their sights
to the horizons of the Christian
world around them, to whom should
they feel attracted in the bonds of
Jesus Christ and how far should
they project that horizon?

The radical ecumenists intend to
organize the whole mass of the coun-
try's population wearing any sort of
label associated with the word
"Christian" into a sort of gigantic
ecclesiastical labor union.

We obviously want our associa-
tions to be with God's "forever fam-
ily." More specifically, we want the
public testimony of the Church to
which we belong to be Scriptural:
that is, Reformed in doctrine and
Presbyterian in government.

Beyond that central requirement,
how much more exclusive can we
afford to be and still mean what we
say when we profess the following:
"The visible Church, which is also

they now feel perfectly comfortable
affirming their subscription to those
doctrines when they do not, in fact,
so subscribe.

The issue has produced pangs of
conscience in some — witness a sym-
posium in the student newspaper of
a PCUS seminary a few years ago in
which students and faculty mem-
bers discussed ways of getting by in
presbytery examinations when they
were asked if they subscribed to
doctrines they could not in con-
science accept.

It was precisely the issue of sub-
scription which led to an overhaul
of the ordination questions in the
United Presbyterian Church USA.
Today ministers and officers of the
UPUSA are not required to sub-
scribe to any specific doctrines —
they are only asked if they are will-
ing to be "guided" by the confes-
sions of the Church. (This is chief-
ly the reason why we have not hesi-
tated to say the UPUSA is no longer

catholic or universal under the Gos-
pel (not confined to one nation as
before under the law) , consists of
all those throughout the world that
profess the true religion, together
with their children" (Westminster
Confession of Faith, XXVII, 2).

We are quick to condemn the lib-
eral for professing to accept the
confession when he does not really
believe some vital statement in it.
Where would we stand in this mat-
ter of subscription if we should in-
sist that the Church to which we
belong must be limited to 100, 200,
or 300 select congregations with
PCUS background exclusively, or
located south of the Mason-Dixon
line only?

"Continuing Church" is a phrase
implying the continuation and pres-
ervation of a vital ecclesiastical
bond of unity. In the crucial days
ahead we must beware lest we de-
fine that bond more tightly than
the Lord Jesus Christ defines it, or
draw the boundaries of that unity
more strictly than our own constitu-
tion would draw it. ttl

■

a confessional Church.)

This indifference towards doc*'1
trinal preciseness appears in the pro ^
posed new confession of the PCUS *
One gains the clear impression thai Jr
the committee's aim is not to pr<N \-
duce a document true to Scripture (
and the Reformed faith — it is; it
rather to produce a document which Hi
will say everything that anyone' . '
wants to say and not offend anyone
to the breaking point.

Editorial changes made since a ai
previous draft was discussed in the
May 10 Journal support this impres-i at
sion. Virtually every bone of con-
tention we mentioned has been elim- 3
inated. It is as though the com- s
mittee were saying: "You've got ai
something bothering you? We'll 11
take it out. You've got something 2
you want said? We'll find some 2
place to say it. We aim to please, m

"If the effect is inconsistent, orl
even incoherent, so what? The im-jii
portant thing is to express the mood
of our general commitment, not t<L i
spell out conclusions in such detail j
that it will spark unnecessary con- ;|
troversy." i I

Even conservatives have been If,-
caught up in the changing attitude h!
towards subscription. We were talk- .
ing to a top conservative leader in,i
the PCUS about the proposed new; Co
confession. Would the adoption^
of such a document change his mind
about remaining with the existing
Church? Not at all. "It would not
hinder me from witnessing to myj
own convictions," he said.

In other words, "Let the Church
adopt a new confession. I don't in-
tend to subscribe to it anyhow." (

Doesn't the Bible say something (
about people trying to walk togeth-i
er when they are not agreed? IS

Of Wrath
And Judgment

United Presbyterian minister Har-
ry J. Jaeger Jr. poured out his feel-1
ings about the universal application
of the Gospel in a recent issue of
Presbyterian Life. He had preached1
the fact of judgment and of hell for
25 years, he wrote, until he camlj
to see that God is a God of love and
not of judgment. Then he said:

"Judgment is foreign to God's na-
ture. Beyond time is a refurbished
universe wherein all men shall know
the Lord. Even the judgments prom-
ised, should they prove necessary,
are actually merciful, an interven-

Who's In the 'Family'?

PAGE 10 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 30, 1972

on by God to spare the earth from
ashing the self-destruct button
Mark 13:20) . The task is ours to
[iderstand the true meaning of Cal-
iry and the true nature of our call-
ig. And to get with it speedily.
"God was in Christ, reconciling
ie world unto Himself, not infl-
ating their trespasses against them,
s in Adam all die, so in Christ
lall all be made alive . . .
"Judgment fell on that guileless
ead of Jesus for the whole world,
et's have done with our invidious
iterpretations that find an ade-
uate provision for all men's salva-
on but find no universal effective-
ess. The Suffering Servant did not
ear our sins in vain . . . He did
ot vainly wrestle with death, chok-
lg it to death, in order that it
tight be revived to gobble up the
onelect in fiendish glee ....
"I am so angry with myself that
or so long I accepted that very out-
ok . . . . The purpose of God is
learly stated: The eventual triumph
indeed a universal restoration of
11 things."
Let it be said to the credit of
resbyterian Life that they permit-
d two evangelical ministers to an-
wer the rejection of man's need of
le Gospel. The Rev. Arthur C.
ochrane wrote: "The Gospel is the
ower of God for salvation precise-
y because in it the wrath of God is
evealed against all ungodliness and
vickedness of men" (Rom. 1:16-
8).

Acknowledging that "no one en-
oys thinking about divine judg-
nent," Dr. John Calvin Reid point-
d out the fallacy in Mr. Jaeger's ar-
ument that in Christ all men are
ictually reconciled to God and that
it does not depend upon the unre-
iable will to accept or receive the
act of the matter." Said Dr. Reid:
"Here are two friends (or a hus-
jand and wife) . One sins grievous-
y against the other. Now no mat-
er how ready the offended one is

0 forgive, no matter how many
overtures of forgiveness are offered,
econciliation is never 'an accom-
plished fact' until the offer is ac-
epted and the two begin living to-
gether upon the terms of reconcilia-
ion."

One cannot blame another for
finding judgment impossible to be-
"ieve or accept. It is of the nature

01 the natural man to be optimistic
one can sit at one's desk and

rather easily overlook the Neros,
Hitlers, Stalins, Maos and Richard

THE LAYMAN AND HIS CHURCH

The Bible Is God's Word

m

In these days of departure from
the faith, it is well to examine care-
fully what is meant by the statement
that the Scriptures are "the Word
of God, the only infallible rule of
faith and practice."

The Westminster Confession of
Faith positively states that "the
Holy Scriptures, or the Word of
God written," including "all the
books of the Old and New Testa-
ments . . . are given by inspiration
of God, to be the rule of faith and
life . . . unto which nothing at any
time is to be added," and that "be-
ing immediately inspired of God,
and by His singular care and provi-
dence kept pure in all ages, are
therefore authentical."

Historically, this has been a basic
doctrine held by all truly evangeli-
cal churches and denominations,
even those who say they have no
creed but the Scriptures. But now
many are saying that the Bible is
not the Word of God, but merely
contains it, that it is merely a "wit-
ness to revelation," a human book,
retaining the error, folklore, and
myths current when written. Never-
theless, they concede it contains a
revelation of God's truth, which
each reader must discover for him-
self. Thus man is made the judge
of God's Word, instead of allowing

This week the layman's viewpoint
is brought by Vernon W. Patterson,
an elder of Charlotte, N. C.

Specks in contemplation of a young
child, a happy family, a virtuous
woman or a good man. Only one
who is supremely aware of what the
Lord Jesus Christ has saved him
from can think straight about the
worth of the Gospel to those who
do not personally know Him.

But the Church of Christ has no
business tolerating the Jaegers in its
midst. Certainly not as ministers
of a Gospel they do not believe. No
small part of the reason for the dif-
ference between what the Church
is and what it ought to be (and by
grace will be in a continuing
Church) is that such tolerance is
well-nigh universal. IB

it to judge him.

Against such unbelief, the Bible
speaks plainly. "Forever, O Lord,
thy word is settled in heaven" (Psa.
119:89). Christ said, "The Scrip-
ture cannot be broken" (John 10:
35) , and "Heaven and earth shall
pass away, but my words shall not
pass away" (Matt. 24:35).

Some say they "believe in in-
spired men, not inspired words."
"Thus saith the Lord," or similar
words, are found thousands of times
in the Bible. "Every word of God
is pure: . . . Add thou not unto His
words, lest He reprove thee, and
thou be found a liar" (Prov. 30:5-
6) . "All Scripture is God-breathed"
(literal translation of II Tim. 3:
16) . "Holy men of God spake as
they were moved by the Holy
Ghost" (II Pet. 1:21) .

Jeremiah was commanded by God
to write "all the words that I have
spoken unto thee." When the king
burned the writing, God gave him
again "all the words" which had
been burned and "many like words"
(Jer. 36) .

Many of the greatest doctrines of
the faith are sustained by only one
word. Against the Sadducees, Christ
upheld the fact of the resurrection
by quoting God's statement, "I am
[not was] the God of Abraham, the
God of Isaac, and the God of Ja-
cob," and then adding, "God is not
the God of the dead, but of the liv-
ing" (Matt. 22:32) .

Jesus also declared His deity by
saying to the Pharisees, "Before
Abraham was, I am" (John 8:58) ,
and again by reminding them that
David had called Him "my Lord"
(Matt. 22:44) .

Paul based his teaching of salva-
tion by grace alone on one word,
"seed," not "seeds, as of many; but
as of one, And to thy seed, which is
Christ" (Gal. 3:16).

Denial of the Scripture is rebel-
lion against authority, even the final
authority, God Himself, and in-
evitably results in delusion, division
and ultimately destruction.

All the attacks made on the Bi-
ble by men and Satan have failed,
and will fail. But every Word of
God will stand forever. EE

PAGE 11 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 30, 1972

p

m

SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON

For September 17, 1972

Does Scientific Knowledge Threaten Faith?

Rev. Jack B. Scott

INTRODUCTION: In creating
man in His own image, God built
into man many abilities which were
given for man's reflection of the
glory of God. In sinning, man per-
verted the good things which God
had given him. Nevertheless man's
abilities in spite of sin continue to
be impressive.

Today's lesson asks the question,
"Does scientific knowledge threaten
faith?" The question is not mine
but that of the lesson designers. I
find no reason in God's Word for
believers to be threatened by scien-
tific knowledge because Scripture
makes clear that man is never a
threat to God.

One problem is that people often
misunderstand the meaning of the
word faith as the Bible uses the
term, so we should begin here.

I. THE CERTAINTY OF BIB-
LICAL FAITH. Often when peo-
ple today say, "I believe this is
true," they mean by that statement,
"I think (or I hope, or I feel) but
I am not sure it is true." Faith to
many today is an alternative to cer-
tainty. "I have faith in him"
means to them, "I am not sure
about him, but I don't believe he
will let me down — I may be wrong,
however. In other words, to many,
even to Christians, faith is some-
thing less than certainty. It is not
"scientifically provable." Therefore,
it is less certain than, say, the re-
sults of a laboratory experiment.

Such a position is however far
from the Biblical sense of the mean-
ing of the word "faith." In Biblical
terms, faith is the most certain thing
we can have. It is far more sure
than any human knowledge, under-
standing, or so-called proof.

The word "faith" in the Old Tes-
tament comes from a word which
meant originally "to support, hold
firmly." It is used in such con-
texts as, for instance, a man hold-
ing firmly a little babe in his strong
arms. That baby is secure, under-
girded by the strong arms of the
adult.

Background Scripture: Job 38, 42;
Proverbs 3:13-20; I Corinthians
1> 2

Key Verses: I Corinthians 2:6-16
Devotional Reading: I Corinthians
1:18-31

Memory Selection: I Thessalonians
5:21

Then in a causative sense, the
word came to mean "to cause to be
sure, certain" and this is the form
from which the Biblical words for
"faith" and for "to believe" come.
Literally then, in the Hebrew lan-
guage of the Old Testament "to be-
lieve" means "to come to be cer-
tain, sure." It is a far cry from the
modern day concept of faith as
"maybe" or "perhaps."

Jesus Himself used this basic root
word of the Hebrew frequently in
His discourses when He desired to
stress the certainty of a mat-
ter. Usually in an English Bible,
this favorite phrase of Jesus is trans-
lated "truly, truly" or "verily, veri-
ly." Jesus did not mean by that
"perhaps" or "I am not certain."
He meant just the opposite.

Actually the word He used and
the Old Testament word for "faith"
or "certainty" is a word we still use
today although most of us never
think of its real meaning. It is the
word we hear and we frequently use
on Sunday morning. It is the word
amen! When we say "amen" at the
end of a prayer, its meaning is not
"1 have come to the end of the
prayer or hymn." The real mean-
ing is, "it is certain."

Sometimes so misused and so mis-
understood is the Biblical term faith
that I could wish we would accept a
new wording, such as "certainty" in-
stead of "faith." Instead of saying
"I believe in Jesus," say "I am cer-
tain about Jesus." "My certainty is
in Him." Thus we could say "with-
out certainty it is impossible to be
well-pleasing unto Him, for he that

The International Sunday School Lesson Outlines
are copyrighted 1972 by the Committee on the
Uniform Series of the National Council of Churches
of Christ.

cometh to God must be certain tha
He is and that He is a rewarder o
them that seek after Him" (Heb
11:6) . Or: "by certainty" or "we an
certain that the worlds have beer
framed by the Word of God" (Heb
11:3).

From where does this certaint'
come? Paul said that "faith (cer
tainty) comes from hearing, anc
hearing by the word of Christ'
(Rom. 10:17) . In other words, oui
faith is certain because we have ii
anchored in the very Word and truth
of God who alone is sure. So long
as our certainty, "faith," is anchorec
to God's Word, we can be sure that
it is not fallible.

Thus the writer to the Hebrews
could affirm that by faith we under
stand that the worlds have been
framed by the Word of God so that
"what is seen hath not been made
out of things which appear" (Heb.
11:3). Here is a certainty which
far exceeds any human ability to dis-
cern or discover. Here are facts
which are based not on human dis-
covery but revealed truth of God's
Word.

II. THE FALLIBILITY OF
HUMAN KNOWLEDGE AND
WISDOM. In the fall of man, the
excellent mind of man was pervert-
ed. Man could no longer rely on
the conclusions he came to in any
area of knowledge. While he had
the ability to discern and investi-
gate many things, as we saw in the
last lesson, he invariably perverted
what he discovered and put the
things to evil use because his heart
was not right with God. All was
out of kilter.

Paul most clearly stated this con-
cept of fallen man in Romans: Men
hide the truth in unrighteousness
(1:18). Men therefore, because of
sin, become vain in their reasoning
and their senseless hearts are dark-
ened (1:21). Professing wisdom,
they become fools (1:22). They ex-
change the truth of God for a lie
and worship and serve creatures in-
stead of God the Creator (1:25)

PAGE 12 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 30, 1972

"hus men have a reprobate mind
1:28).

Now he who insists that the con-
lusions of men, with minds like
hose just described, are more re-
iable than what God has said in
lis revealed word simply shows the
ruth of what Paul has said. It is
Impossible to see how believers in
I'esus Christ could ever feel threat-
I ned by scientific knowledge. Men
Jpay discover facts about themselves
End the world around them, but
lis long as they interpret these facts
In accord with their own reprobate
Inind instead of in accord with
liod's perfect Word, then their con-
clusion can never be sure or even
fiiear the truth.

| As Christians who take the Word
I)f God as an anchor, we need never
I)e afraid of what man may discover.
IM1 truth is related to and subject
jo the revealed Word of God. In-
lleed without that Word there is no
[|:ertainty!

Does this mean that there is no
givisdom or knowledge in man? Not
lit all. Scripture itself speaks of a
;.iuman wisdom. This general wis-
dom which enables even natural
man to make discoveries and invent
, things useful for his life, is various-
t'ly described in Scripture. In Job
12:12 we are told that it comes with
age. Thus as men mature they in-
crease in knowledge and in wisdom.
iThey are better able to understand
[their world in which they live.
I An accumulation of scientific
[data and information has been
building up over the ages and from
i which all men draw. New concepts
of men are built on the old founda-
' dons and Edison or the Wright
brothers did not build on a new
i foundation. They simply brought
together and applied what had al-
ready been discovered, and they
i started from there.

Such human wisdom is of great
value to all mankind. The Bible
says of such wisdom that it is bet-
[ter than strength and better than
■weapons of war (Eccl. 16, 18) .
' That is, human wisdom can advance
man's good in the world far more
* than brute force. Many other crea-
tures have more brute force than
. man. Yet man rules them all. Man,
made in God's image, though hav-
' ing fallen, still has great ability and
has done much which has been
i beneficial to humanity. Neverthe-
' less, his knowledge and ability are
: fallible, that is, not reliable.

This fact is no more clearly

spoken than in I Corinthians 1.
First, Paul quoted from Isaiah 29:
14, "I will destroy the wisdom of
the wise, and the discernment of
the discerning I will bring to
nought." Then he went on to say
that God has made the wisdom of
the wise foolish (v. 20) . With all
of its wisdom, the world could not
know God (v. 21) . Therefore,
Paul testified that when he preached
the Gospel he did not rely on hu-
man wisdom or the persuasive words
of men's thinking, so that our faith
(certainty) should not stand in the
wisdom of men, but in the power
of God (2:1). This leads us then
to the third point in this lesson.
What is true wisdom?

III. WHAT IS TRUE WIS-
DOM? (Job 38, 42; Prov. 3:13-20; I
Cor. 1,2). A Biblical study of wis-
dom particularly needed is found
in I Corinthians 1 and 2. After
speaking of the fallibility of human
wisdom, Paul said that believers do
have a wisdom and a knowledge
which is far superior to human fal-
lible knowledge. It is the wisdom
not of this world (2:6) , but wisdom
from God (v. 7) , coming from the
Spirit of God who dwells in believ-
ers (v. 10) . Natural man does not
have this wisdom since it comes
from God and not from man (vv.
13-14) .

In the Old Testament also much
is said of this supernatural wisdom
which is given to God's children.
Clearly, the source of this heavenly
wisdom is always God. God gives
it to us to enable us to do His work
in the world (Exo. 28:3, 36:1). It
is described as a gift from God (I
Kings 4:29) . Finally, it is God who
enables us to know wisdom (Psalm
51:6) .

Another important truth taught
in Scripture about wisdom is that
it is directly related to the revela-
tion of God in His Word. Wisdom
is not in merely knowing God's
Word; many unbelievers can recite
great portions of Scripture, yet have
no supernatural wisdom. Wisdom
is in knowing that word and apply-
ing it to our own lives. In keeping
and doing God's commandments
and words is found our wisdom and
understanding (Deut. 4:5-6) .

But where is our wisdom to be
found? Eve sought wisdom by dis-
obedience to God's word. That is,
she sought wisdom by seeking inde-
pendence from God and His Word
(Gen. 3:6) . She failed.

Job asked the question, "Where
is wisdom found?" (Job 28:12).
God gave him the answer. It is not
found in men (v. 13) , it cannot be
purchased (v. 15) , it is not natural-
ly known (v. 21) . We must go to
God. Only He is the source of wis-
dom (v. 23) . Job concluded: "Be-
hold, the fear of the Lord, that is
wisdom, and to depart from evil is
understanding" (v. 28) . Compare
Proverbs 1:29 and 9:10, etc.

But to go one step further, what
is the "fear of the Lord"? In Prov-
erbs 19:9-10 it is clear that the "fear
of the Lord" is synonymous with the
revealed Word of God, the Scrip-
tures about which the psalmist
wrote: "The fear of the Lord is the
beginning of wisdom, a good un-
derstanding have all they that do
them (the commandments) " (Psa.
111:10). Thus, we see again what
we stated to begin with. Knowing
and doing God's will as revealed in
His Word, this is true wisdom. The
world may think it is a foolish way
of life but we shall not be intimi-
dated by the reprobate minds of
men.

We need to catch that glimpse of
the Lord which Job had when he
saw that it is God who is in charge
of the whole universe. The heavens
above and the creatures on earth,
all are in His control and under His
watchcare and all were made by
Him (Job 38, 42) . Only He, there-
fore, can rightly interpret for us the
world around us. We should un-
derstand that the written Word of
God is the only sure basis of our
knowledge and wisdom.

Men seek happiness by all of their
wisdom and knowledge but never
attain it. The Bible assures us that
the believer who has found wisdom
from God does have a happiness
which the world can never know
(Prov. 3:13, 18). As believers, we
may suffer and have many trials, but
we have a certainty about the
meaning of life now and a certainty
about our future. The world de-
sires this but by its wisdom and
knowledge can never know it.

CONCLUSION: We come back
to the original question: "Does
scientific knowledge threaten faith?"
Certainly not! It is a threat to the
unbeliever because he is subject to
such knowledge and looks to the
wisdom of men for his answers and
his needs; he is threatened because
human wisdom over and over is
shown to be fallible and not reli-

PAGE 13 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 30, 1972

able. He is threatened because,
having no anchor in God or God's
Word, he is adrift on the changing
seas of man's discoveries, theories,
conclusions, and despair.

No believer can be threatened by
scientific knowledge because he has

Scripture: Romans 12
Suggested Hymns:

"In Christ There Is No East

Nor West"
"What a Friend We Have In

Jesus"

"Rise Up, O Men of God"

PROGRAM LEADER'S INTRO-
DUCTION: There is no way to
measure adequately the value of
friendship. In times of both trou-
ble and joy nothing means as much
to us as real friends.

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It is far better to have this protection
and never need it than to need it, and
not have it. Underwritten by Old Line
Virginia Life Company. Write today to
Robert U. Woods, General Agent, (Elder,
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28364.

a far better foundation, the solid
rock of Jesus Christ and His Word.
He is firm in the midst of the
stormy seas. Like Peter, he must
keep his eye on Christ, however, for
once he looks to the world for the
answers, he will begin to sink.

For September 17, 1972

To Be a Friend

Rev. B. Hoyt Evans

Children, and older people as well
for that matter, show their desire
for friends. Sometimes they go to
strange extremes, even unreasonable
extremes, to attract friends. One
child was so hungry for friendship
that he went through the neighbor-
hood stealing things which he then
took to school to give away in the
apparent hope that he could buy
friends.

In our own lives we know how
much we treasure our friends and
how much their friendship means to
us. Since this is true, it should be
obvious that one of the most impor-
tant things we can do as Christians
is to be friends to others. In this
program we will be looking at some
of the qualities of Christian friend-
ship and at some of the practical

MIDDLE EAST JOURNEY OF fellowship
and understanding — November 20-
December 10. Geneva, Beirut, Cairo,
Bahrain, Kuwait, Muscat, Jerusalem.
Travel with Christian friends. Visit church
and government leaders. Send for details.
REFORMED CHURCH TOURS, Room
1802, 475 Riverside Drive, New York,
N, Y. 10027.

As believers, we have a respons
bility to share with the world th:
certainty which we have. As Pat
has affirmed, "I am not ashamed c
the Gospel: for it is the power c
God unto salvation to everyone tha
believeth." (Rom. 1:16) . \

ways we can practice the art of bf
ing friends.

FIRST SPEAKER: To be a friem
one must be unselfish, but unselfish
ness is not a quality that can be ac
quired by simply deciding that w«
will be unselfish.

Human nature tends to put itseL
first. In order to become genuine
ly unselfish, it is necessary that ou
natures be changed, and this mean
yielding our lives to Christ in orde:
that He may transform us and giv<
us new natures. "If any man be h
Christ, he is a new creature: olc:
things are passed away; behold, alj
things are become new."

When we are aware of Christ''
love for us and how much He suf
fered for our sakes, our own selfisl
desires seem so unimportant and w<t
begin to want what He wants. Whei
we accept Christ's selfless sacrifice
for us, then we begin to have thi
frame of mind that makes us see thti
need of other people for our friend
ship as being more important thar

When you are in Auburn, Alabama
COVENANT PRESBYTERIAN
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ROBERT H. COX, Minister
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YOUTH PROGRAM

PAGE 14 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL /AUGUST 30, 1972

hat we would like to have others
o for us.

SECOND SPEAKER: Being a
1 iend requires that we be thorough-
' \ honest with others, and this is

ot always easy. For instance, if

'e want to encourage someone, it is
tard to have to tell him a truth
fbout himself that we are quite sure
rill hurt him.

Suppose a person asks you to tell
|im how he looks, and the truth is
llat he doesn't look very good.

Vhat do you do? Do you avoid the
juestion, or do you tell an untruth,
|r do you tell him honestly that he
|oesn't look good?
, Suppose a friend asks your

pinion about something he wants
Id do and you are persuaded that
ifhat he wants is wrong. What do
Kjjou say? Do you tell him how you
jj'Onestly feel or do you avoid dis-

greeing with him in order to make
ifcim happy?

% Friendship calls for gentle hon-
isty in these difficult situations. If
% person discovers that you have not
ieen honest, even though you have
i lone it out of a desire to spare him
nain, he will know that he cannot
lespect you or trust you. Friendship
i temands both respect and trust.

J THIRD SPEAKER: When the
Previous speaker mentioned the
iieed for "gentle honesty," that sug-
gested that being a friend calls for
Kindness and thoughtfulness. Some-
times we make the mistake of think-
' ng that if we are sufficiently close
Q'o our friends we can be brutally
<)lunt in what we say and in the
1 hings we do.

It doesn't take very much brutal

iluntness to cause hurts, even when
|t is among friends. When a person
|s concerned about being a real
" riend to another he will be very
■conscious of the feelings of that
1 riend and how those feelings will
be affected by what he says and does.
lOver and over again the Bible en-

oins the practice of kindness as a

Christian virtue.

FOURTH SPEAKER: To be a
■ :riend is to be patient and forgiving.
, Jhis is most obvious in the friend-
1 i.hip of the Lord Jesus Christ for us.

He has not dealt with us according
v.o what we deserve, but He has been

wonderfully patient and forgiving.
When we offer our friendship to

others it cannot be based on their
fieserving it. It is never a reward

that we bestow on those who have
earned it.

He who would be a friend must
learn to listen patiently and not be
quick to make judgments. Being
patient and forgiving does not mean
that we are condoning what is
wrong, but that we are willing to
deal with our friends as God has
dealt with us.

PROGRAM LEADER: The most
important thing a friend can do is
to try to introduce his friends to the
best friend of all, Jesus Christ. As-
suming that our friends already
know the Lord, we ought to seek to
make our relationship with them
such that they will be encouraged
to draw nearer to Him.

Closing Prayer. IB

Grace— from p. 9

ly against evil and wrongdoing.
Look at our law books and see there
the laws for the punishment of
wrongdoing. We Presbyterians will
understand this better as we see ra-
dar on the highways. Here is the
law, slowing us down for our own
benefit, even though we know that
speed is dangerous (Rom. 13) .

Public opinion is another means
by which the common grace of God
functions. Not all public opinion
is godly, it even may be the opposite
in the form of mob rule. Yet, usual-
ly simple justice is easily seen by the
public. This is the very avenue of
approach being used by the groups
seeking release of our prisoners of
war held in North Vietnam. Even
the Communists have shown respon-
siveness to public opinion.

Then, there is the fact of punish-
ment and reward which is a provi-
dential arrangement in every day
life. Moral goodness is greatly en-
couraged by this arrangement: The
armed robber runs the risk of being
killed in his hold-up; the adulterer
runs the risk of contracting venereal
disease; the dishonest person runs
the risk of a bad credit rating, and
so forth. However, Christian or
non-Christian, if a person observes
the moral laws of God, he will
benefit.

These are the ways in which com-
mon grace works; now let us see the
results of these actions.

I have often thought that the
world would not last 24 hours if
God withdrew His common grace.

Can you imagine every potential
robber, rapist, and murderer com-
pletely free to do as he pleased? We
can quickly recognize that the first
result of the presence of common
grace is the restraint of sin. Make
no mistake, sin is debasing, disgust-
ing and, in the end, destroying.

Also, notice that we enjoy some
truth, morality and religion in every
society in the world. Another result
is the performance of outward good
and civil obedience within every
society. This is not the nature of
sinful man, but God's common
grace at work.

But most important is the stay of
execution from God. When man
was infected with sin, God pro-
nounced the sentence of death, both
the physical death and the spiritual
death from which there is no resur-
rection. But through common grace,
God is granting to all men ample
opportunity to accept His saving
grace in Christ.

Recently I read something which
seems to pull together many deep
thoughts on the common grace of
God. It is a personal experience of
David Benson, the author of Chris-
tianity, Communism, and Survival.
It happened in Russia, where to get
very far in any field one must be a

(Continued on next page)

The Presbyterian Journal
Weaverville, N C. 28787

PAGE 15 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 30, 1972

Good news apparently travels faster than
we had dared hope! From all over the
world we are receiving inquiries about the
work and purpose of Reformed
Theological Seminary. God has given us
every evidence of His blessing on this
work. He has sent His very finest men to
this campus. This is evidenced by our
ninety six students' zeal and dedication
to their task here at Seminary. Our men
come from 19 states and four foreign
countries: Australia, India, Taiwan, and
Korea. We think you will find this
geographical spread interesting
Mississippi, 23; Florida, 21; Alabama, 9
Illinois, 1; Tennessee, 5; California, 1
Virginia, 6; Georgia, 6; Pennsylvania, 1
North Carolina, 9; Arkansas, 2; Iowa, 1
Maryland, 1 ; Michigan, 1 ; Delaware, 1
Louisiana, 4; Ohio, 1; Kentucky, 1; and
Oklahoma, 1.

Pray that God will continue to bless our
work as we prepare men to go forth into
all the world, and preach the Good News
to every creature!

REFORMED
THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY

5422 CLINTON BOULEVARD
JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI 39209
PHONE 601-922-4988

The Seminary has a racially
non-discriminatory admissions policy

member of the Community party.
By law, a Communist must also be
an atheist, and every party member
is expected to be an active atheist,
against any religion.

Benson says, "... a young woman
approached me and began to speak
in very broken English. When I
told her that I could understand
Russian, she said, 'I prefer to speak
English lest someone understand
what I am saying.' (We were in a
crowded place.) 'I am an atomic
physicist here in Russia,' she said,
'and I want to ask you, do you think
the structure of the atom shows

signs of a mind that made it.
When I replied that I did, this won
an broke into tears, 'So do I,' sh
sobbed. 'There must be a Goc,
There must be a God!' "

Here was one who had no knoW
edge of God, but with her intell
gence saw the stream of commo
grace and traced it backward to
source.

"The Lord is good to all: and H
tender mercies are over all H
works."

• •

Socialism is Communism withot
the firing squad. — Tom Andersoj

"I
0
li

31 stores in 8 states serving you
with this pledge ....

• To give prompt courteous service, treating our customers as you would a guest
in your home. • To give the best selection of merchandise from Top Quality
Fashions to basement bargains, meeting everyone's need. • To give satisfaction
guaranteed with every purchase. • To give credit terms arranged to meet your
budget needs in Stores doing credit business.

Since the opening of the first Belk-Simpson Store, it has been our
endeavor to be more in a community than just another merchant.
We have set forth a united concentrated effort, dedicated to the task
of securing superior quality merchandise, giving our customers a
better value than any other merchant.

SOUTH CAROLINA

Belk-Simpson Co.
Greenville, S. C.
J. A. Ellison, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson-Plaza Store

Greenville, S. C.

R. Grier Robinson Jr., Res.

The Dollar Store

Greenville, S. C.

R. P. Crumpler, Res. Mgr.

Belk's of Pleasantburg

Greenville, S. C.

A. M. Smith, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store
Lancaster, S. C.

B. L. Plyler, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store

Camden, S. C.

J. A. Hagins, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store

Clinton, S. C.

D. B. Smith, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.
Darlinqton, S. C.
Paul E. Broome, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store

Laurens, S. C.

David Middleton, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Abbeville, S. C.

J. S. Hagins, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Hagins Co.
Kershaw. S. C.

C. E. Hinson, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.
Easley, S. C.
R. J. Womack, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Beaufort, S. C.
Al Wilson, Res. Mgr.
Mgr. Belk-Simpson Co.
Fountain Inn, S. C

E. J. Copeland, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Woodruff, S. C.

F. B. Hagins, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Honea Path, S. C.

T. R. Martin, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Whitmire, S. C.

Clyde Smith, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Manning, S. C.

W. M. Gettys, Res. Mgr.

OHIO

Belk-Simpson Co.

Athens, Ohio

Joe Kelly, Res. Mgr.

MISSOURI

Belk-Simpson Co.

Carthage, Mo.

Charles Wilson, Res. Mgr.

OKLAHOMA

Belk Dept. Store

Miami, Oklahoma

J. T. Holmes, Res. Mgr.

NORTH CAROLINA

Belk-Simpson Co.

Hendersonville, N. C.

R. E. McCormack. Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store

Brevard, N. C.

J. M. Felty, Res. Mgr.

KENTUCKY

Belk-Simpson Co.
Harlan, Ky.

Delmar Tolliver, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Corbin, Ky.

W. C. Ashley, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Winchester, Ky.

T. L. Beckham, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Mt. Sterling, Ky.

Willoughby Smith, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Frankfort, Ky.

J. D. Prow, Res. Mgr.

GEORGIA

Belk-Simpson Co.

Bainbridge, Ga.

M. D. Ashley, Res. Mgr.

ARKANSAS

Belk-Simpson Co.

Paragould, Ark.

W. H. Wade, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Osceola, Ark.

K. R. Cline, Res. Mgr.

These stores are a small part of the entire Belk or-
ganization and have been in existence approximately
50 years. The Belk stores were launched in 1886-88.

SEE THE MANAGER NEAREST YOU FOR CHURCH CARPET, ROBES, ETC.

PAGE 16 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / AUGUST 30, 1972

DL XXXI, NO. 19

SEPTEMBER 6, 1972

$4.00 A YEAR

he

dvocating continuation of a Presbyterian Church loyal

to Scripture and the Reformed faith

Faith, Not Flattery

Peter confessed the distinctive faith of the Christian
Church in sharp contrast to the flattering unbelief of the crowds.
The people called our Lord a prophet, Peter called Him the
Christ. The people hailed Him as the greatest of God's ser-
vants, Peter worshiped Him as the Son of the living God.
When the Church says of Jesus what all men will say of Jesus,
it denies Him. When it says what flesh and blood cannot con-
ceive, then it confesses Him whom only the Father in heaven
can reveal.

The disciples who confessed the divine Sonship of Jesus
Christ were thereby prepared to hear the heavy tidings of His
sufferings and death. Here was the acid test of the obedience
of their faith. Jesus was not to be the political messiah of
worldly hope. Instead, He was the suffering servant of Old
Testament prophecy. Whoever would follow Him must take
the path to the cross.

— Edmund P. Clowney
(See p. 7)

S. S. LESSON AND YOUTH PROGRAM FOR SEPTEMBER 24

TO DK JO -£qjStI8ATUH

moo

m

MAILBAG

A CASE OF MISTAKE of the picture which Mike perhaps

We have read with interest the re- unwittingly has discolored in his zeal

cent letter in the Mailbag by Mr. to make his personal problems and

Mike Needham of Oak Hill, Ohio, joys known.

entitled, "Praise The Lord!" We This local church is perhaps one
are heartened that Mike has found of the few still teaching the Shorter
His Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, Catechism to all its classes. Had
and we pray that it will now be his Mike faithfully attended Sabbath
firm conviction to persevere unto school regularly, including divine
the end. (See Aug. 16 Journal — Ed.) worship, mid-week services, and spe-
As our local congregation appears cial Lenten services, etc., he would
to be involved, and may leave your have found His Saviour more mean-
readers in some shadow of a doubt ingful. Where was he?
in regards to our Celtic and Re- As Mike has pointed out, he was
formed Faith, we venture our side twelve or thirteen when he united

the

PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL

Rev. G. Aiken Taylor, Ph.D., Editor
Rev. Henry B. Dendy, D.D., Managing Editor

Circulation leader among independent publications in the Presbyterian-Reformed world

THIS WEEK — Vol. XXXI, No. 19, September 6, 1972

Hear Him! 7

God has spoken through His beloved Son to those who will
heed the message By Edmund P. Clowney

Keep the Church Press Open 10

Telling all the news, bad and good, is a responsibility of the
fourth estate By Robert J. Hastings

De partments —

Editorials 12

The Layman and his Church 13

Sunday School Lesson, September 24 14

Youth Program, September 24 16

Book Reviews 17

THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL, a

Presbyterian weekly magazine, devoted
to the statement, defense, and propa-
gation of the Gospel, the faith which
was once for all delivered to the saints,

is published every Wednesday by the
Southern Presbyterian Journal Co.,
Inc., in Weaverville, N. C.

SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: $4 a year

for individuals, $3 for members of
Every Family Plan churches. All cor-
respondence regarding subscriptions,
advertising or other business matters,
should be addressed to the business
office in Weaverville, N. C. 28787.
Second class postage paid at Weaver-
ville, N. C. 28787.

POSTMASTER: Send Form 3579 to
Presbyterian Journal, Box 635, Wea-
verville, N. C. 28787. Subscribers
should allow three weeks for change
of address in continental U. S. Change
of address notices should include both
old and new addresses (with zip
codes) .

NEWS AND EDITORIAL correspond-
ence should be addressed to P. O. Box
3108, Asheville, N. C. 28802. Editorial
offices located at 247 Charlotte St. in
Asheville.

TELEPHONES: (All area 704) edi-
torial office, 254-4015, 254-4016;
business office, 645-3310, 645-3962.

with the Church, making his pr
fession in the Lord and Saviour Jes
Christ, and at this "confirmatioi
he promised "to be Christ's faithf
disciple until death." But where w
Mike?

We are pleased that Mike final
picked up a copy of the Jourm
which has been sent to each fami
of our parish for now going on seve
years. Our Westminster Fellowshi
groups (junior and senior high) u
the Youth Program faithfully eac
Sabbath evening, and the Women
Division uses the Circle Bible Studi
and seven Sabbath school teache
use the Sabbath school lessons regi
larly. Most of the articles, writinj
and editorials are shared with all <
our church officers each month du
ing stated session meetings. Mil
where were you?

Indeed, we are not amazed thz!
Mike may have been confused, fc
he was not with us in his earl
formative years. In regards to Mike
own marriage and that of his famil;
we are sorry for those particula
failures. Nonetheless, we are fille
also with joy when we note that th
Lord is merciful and slow to ange
and that He will not always chidi
for in Christ there is plenteous r<'
demption.

May we say a kind word for th
United Presbyterian Church in Chi
licothe, guided and led by perhap
one of the most Christ-centere
clergymen in the entire denomim
tion, the Rev. Dr. Benjamin Franl
lin Judd Jr., a son of the manst
himself. This is our first time o
ever hearing the label, "country clu
church" in respect to the parish o
Chillicothe. It is a fine congregatioi
and, we might add, it is growing am
giving leadership to our conservative
Presbytery of Scioto, Synod of Ohio
one which truly teaches the Evangel

In regards to Mike's opinion con
cerning the National and Work
Council of Churches, he is withou
question correct! Too many pro!
nouncements, too much "tradition,'
and too much "formalism" appear
to be creeping into Church struci
tures, as many of us in the UI
Church and in the Presbyterian U!
fully realize. Mike is correct ono
again about so much money goinj
into, as he pointed out, "dignifiec
country clubs." We, too, pray for :
revival each day in the hearts of al
our parishioners as well as others.
— (Rev.) James A. M. Hanna
Edmund A. Schwinke, Clerl
Oak Hill, Ohio

THE SHOE FITS

II

m I am the otherwise unidentified
ill Dr. Howe" in your article of June
J 1 ("The Louisville Story") , pro-
essor of history at the University of
,jj ^ouisville.

n This article to which the Rev.
mj 'aul Tudor Jones takes exception
:H (Mailbag, Aug. 9) is factually ac-
i|j airate and indeed quite restrained,
i The situation here is worse than the
ilirticle says. As a Christian and a
a listorian, my duty is to bear witness
di o the truth (John 18:37) ; but no
ie ight shines in the darkness for those

vho will not receive it, like the Rev.

VTr. Jones.
We must not underestimate our

idversary. I first found out about

Dr. Winn on the Louisville Seminary
|:ampus when I debated Mrs. Anne

Braden there on the Vietnam war
Hand civil disobedience. I knew him
lilthen for what he was and is (I Kings
(|21:20) ; like King Ahab, he has many
Mvirtues and talents, else he would be

• Beginning with this issue (see
p. 7) , we are publishing the ad-
dresses delivered on Journal Day,
|1972. While Church politics are
[uppermost in the minds of most
(i Presbyterians these days, we want
• to try to keep ourselves reminded
J that spiritual considerations can
, never leave the heart and center of
I a Christian's preoccupation. That
lis why Journal Day has always fea-
:! tured messages of profound spiritual
j import — why, in fact, the best part
[of the program this year was a half
; hour devoted to testimonies. The
I crowd at Weaverville will not soon
I forget the ringing witness to Christ
t by William A. Poole of the Briar-
i wood church, Birmingham, Mrs.
t Andrew McDonough of the Coral

Ridge church, Fort Lauderdale, and
it William W. Manor, a student at Re-
. formed Seminary.

• A witness of another kind con-
tinues to be made by more main-

: line Presbyterians. Louisville Semi-
nary professor George R. Edwards
was back in the news during the
: week of August 6. This time he was
' marching up and down, picketing a
responsible camera shop in Louis-
ville. The complaint? In the stock

less dangerous. He is polite and
plausible.

The priestlings whom he trains
are less so. They giggled when I cited
St. Paul (Romans 13) on civil obedi-
ence. The audience was some 90
per cent anti-Christian, anti-Ameri-
can and pro-Communist. Mrs.
Braden herself was almost the only
person who treated me with civility.
The seminarian who drove me out
in his car refused to take me back to
my own campus. Luckily, my wife
was there with our car, together with
friends from our church, First Pres-
byterian.

Dr. Winn's committee did its work
well: The "New Confession" will
delude many. Seeking to be all things
to all men, it begins innocuously — if
one does not know that it aims at
replacing the Presbyterian confes-
sion. The text on your August 9
cover is plausible, and the "Confes-
sion" does not become idiocy, heresy,
and treason until about p. 9.

of Schuhmann's Click Clinic are
items of photographic equipment
manufactured by Honeywell. This
company manufactures dandy elec-
tronic flash equipment (some of
which, by the way, is made in Japan
under close Honeywell tolerances)
and we have a couple of their units.
They also have a couple of defense
contracts, and this is why Mr. Ed-
wards wants the public to boycott
the camera shop. Mr. Edwards,
whose salary is paid by Presbyterians
of the several synods supporting
Louisville Seminary, says he will pick
out other stores selling Honeywell
products for future picketing.

• Somehow that reminds us that
the United Presbyterian Church has
come out in support of a barber of
Rochester, N. Y. who specializes in
selling $75 Divorce Yourself kits. Be-
lieving that divorces cost entire-
ly too much money, James A.
Winder has been selling kits to help
divorce-seekers get divorced without
hiring an expensive lawyer. Ulti-

The poison is deep in the bait;
even an old coyote such as I sniffed
at it. It is a way that will seem
good to others who will eat and die
(Prov. 14:12).

—Laurence Lee Howe
Louisville, Ky.

MINISTERS

Robert Armistead from Mexico
to Center of Theological Studies
of the United Evangelical Church,
Ecuador.

William H. Edwards II, recent
graduate of Union Seminary, to
the Brownson Memorial church,
Southern Pines, N. C, as assistant
minister.

Joseph A. Warner from Belzoni,
Miss., to the Delray Beach, Fla.,
church, eff. Sept. 15.

CORRECTION

George E. Staples will be director
of children's services, Thornwell
Home and School, Clinton, S. C.

mately he had hoped to corner the
market in uncontested divorces, of
which there were some 768,000 in
1971. Business Week, from which
we gathered this interesting item,
says that in New York the price tag
recommended by the bar association
for a divorce goes as high as $750,
so the association has been under-
standably upset at Mr. Winder's
thriving business in cheap divorce
kits. The state bar association pro-
tested Mr. Winder's kits as "unli-
censed practice of law." The associ-
ation was upheld by State Supreme
Court Justice James H. Boomer,
who issued a permanent injunction.
And that is where the Presbyterians
came in. The United Presbyterian
Task Force for Justice filed a sup-
porting brief in the State Supreme
Court when the case got that high,
and has announced that it will file
a supporting brief in an appeal from
the State Supreme Court's decision.
Presbyterians, it seems, believe cheap
divorces are of the Gospel. 33

ACROSS THE EDITOR'S DESK

PAGE 3 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 6, 1972

NEWS OF RELIGION

Council Decides To Boycott US Firms

UTRECHT, the Netherlands — In
an action which retiring general sec-
retary Eugene Carson Blake called
"probably the most important" of
its 1972 fall meeting here, the Cen-
tral Committee of the World Coun-
cil of Churches voted to divest it-
self of all investments in companies
trading or operating in southern Af-
rica. Virtually all involved are U.S.
firms.

The policy-making unit represent-
ing 255 Protestant and Orthodox
Churches also increased its contro-
versial Special Fund to Combat Rac-
ism from $500,000 to $1 million,
and supported a black national Rho-
desian organization against the pres-
ent white government of Rhodesia.

Originally set at $200,000, the
allocations from the Special Fund
to southern African "liberation
movements" in 1970 and again in
1971 created controversy around the
world. Critics, including the South
African Council of Churches,
charged the money went to groups
advocating violence and supporting
guerrilla tactics against existing gov-
ernments.

Not all African groups designated
as recipients of WCC gifts have ac-
cepted them. In 1971 the Revolu-
tionary Government of Angola in

Exile (RGAE) rejected its share,
amounting to $7,500, criticizing the
World Council's "political" dona-
tions.

The action taken here was not
unanimous. It was opposed by,
among others, a World Council
President, Bishop A. A. Zulu, top-
ranking black churchman in South
Africa. Bishop Zulu said he also op-
posed the withdrawal of investments
in companies doing business in
southern Africa.

However, Canon Burgess Carr of
the All Africa Conference of Church-
es made it clear that he disagreed
with the bishop.

In the matter of investment with-
drawal, debate during the Central
Committee sessions centered on a fi-
nance committee's attempt to have
the WCC try to change corporate
policy by using the influence of
stockholders' proxies. Only in the
event of the failure of this effort
should complete divestment be ef-
fected, the committee argued.

Since the WCC has only about
$3.5 million in investments, the fi-
nance unit did not think divestment
would have as much impact as stock-
holders' proxies. The vote to divest,
however, was overwhelming among
the 120 members of the Central

P

THE CHURCH OVERSEAS

AFRICA — Early reports from
Burundi indicate that the Church
has suffered heavy casualties in the
civil war being waged against the
Hutu tribe by the Tutsi tribesmen.

Evidence indicates that the vio-
lence was not directed specifically
against Christians, but the systematic
elimination of members of the Hutu
tribe with any training, status or
wealth has naturally made heavy in-
roads in the Christian leadership.

Most of the Protestant schools
served the Hutu tribe, and most of
the teachers, medical workers and
pastors were also Hutus.

Of the 14 members of the execu-
tive committee of the Burundi Bap-

tist Union, only one or two are alive,
according to reports reaching Rwan-
da. The toll among pastors is be-
lieved to be equally high.

An American mission reports that
six out of eight of its national
church committee are believed to
have been killed.

The World Relief Commission of
the National Association of Evan-
gelicals has sent money to mission-
aries to help meet the immediate
needs of refugees from the violence.
EFMA missions working in Burundi
are the Child Evangelism Fellow-
ship, Free Methodist Church, Kan-
sas Yearly Meeting of Friends, and
World Gospel Mission. EE

Committee.

In response to inquiries, WCC o
ficials named some 20 United Stat<
corporations as those involvec
There was no list offered of Britis
or other European firms in whic
the WCC holds stock.

In other action the World Coui
cil body deplored the decision of th
United States to ignore a Unite
Nations' sanction against Rhodesi
by lifting an embargo on the impoi
tation of chrome. It called on th
U. S. government to reconsider it
action.

Vietnam War

Predictably, the World Counci
of Churches' unit reserved some
its strongest language for the issu
of the Vietnam War. Backing it
retiring general secretary, who eat
lier had condemned the Unitei
States for bombing dikes in Nortl
Vietnam, the committee went on t
say that continued U. S. militar
presence "whether through Vietnam
ization, the air war, or in any forn
is detrimental to peace in Indc
China."

The churchmen asked for tota
and immediate withdrawal "as sooi
as possible and in no case later thai
December 31, 1972."

A statement on human right
called for a WCC consultation oil
relating standards of human right
to cultural, socio-economic and poj
litical settings in different parts oj
the world. The consultation wa j
set for the latter part of 1974.

A Norwegian Lutheran bishoj]
asked conference planners and th(|
World Council generally to giv< i
more attention to the abridgment o
human rights in countries of Easterr
Europe. The Rt. Rev. Kaare Stoy
len said, "We shall have to raise the j
question of how the different merai
ber Churches and the World Coun
cil of Churches itself support the op
pressed ones," in the light of wha
happened in such places as Czech
oslovakia.

In his final report as general sec!
retary, Dr. Blake enthusiastically
described a forthcoming WCC con
ference on the meaning of salvation L
scheduled for Bangkok in late 1972 ]

"The Bangkok conference wil
seek to show something of the full

PAGE 4 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 6, 1972

]j iness and diversity of salvation as
I3H Christians experience it and hope
V9 for it today," Dr. Blake said. He sug-
J gested that "we have discovered to-
; day in the diverse situations of the

worldwide Church that there are
)B many theologies."

Dr. Blake will be succeeded in

October by the Rev. Philip Potter,
• a West Indian Methodist who since
J 1967 has headed the WCC's Com-
ij mission on Mission and Evangelism,
j the unit sponsoring the conference

on salvation.

'Liberation' Argued

^ The theme for the next General
( Assembly of the WCC came in for
u an unusual share of attention, with
committee members unable to agree
on the exact meaning that should
be given to "liberation."

A subcommittee deadlocked on a
tie vote between members who felt
| that the Fifth Assembly, to be held
in Djakarta, Indonesia in 1975,
i should celebrate Christ's finished
■ work of "liberation" and those who
I believed the Church should consid-
1 er Scriptural references to Christ's
1 mission of "liberation" (Luke 4:14-
21) to be a mandate for further ac-
I tion today.

The Central Committee asked for
responses from member Churches to
"liberation" as a theme, postponing
final decision until its next meeting
in Helsinki in August, 1973. SI

WCC Official's Election
Is Invalid, New Vote Set

UTRECHT, the Netherlands— The
election of the Rev. Albert H. van
den Heuvel, director of the Com-
munications Department of the
World Council of Churches, as
general secretary of the Dutch Re-
formed Church, has been declared
. invalid by a three-man Church tri-
bunal.

Mr. van den Heuvel's election,
which took place at the Synod of the
Church in June, was declared void
i on the grounds that only one candi-
date was proposed. The ecclesiastical
judiciary has ordered an extraordi-
nary session of the Synod to take
another vote.

While the ecclesiastical court case

involved only the election proce-
dures, his opponents have publicized
a letter in which the communica-
tions executive of the World Coun-
cil is opposed on three grounds: that
he is theologically liberal, that he
has been out of the country for over
12 years, (first as youth director and
then as communications director of
the WCC) , and that he has never
served in a local parish.

The Dutch Reformed Church has
3.5 million members in 1,400 local
parishes.

The general secretary of the
Dutch Reformed Church is elected
for life. The retiring general secre-
tary has held the post 40 years and
some opponents of Mr. van den
Heuvel feel a life tenure is too
long. SI

Church Groups Busy at
Munich Olympic Games

MUNICH, Germany — From the
religious point of view, the 1972
Olympic Games here received the
full treatment.

Numerous members of the clergy
were assigned by their respective
Churches to look after the spiritual
well-being of more than 10,500
athletes plus the throngs of specta-
tors, attendants, officials and guests.

A Jesus Festival was held by
evangelical youth. An American stu-
dent organization presented daily
film shows and distributed 100,000
copies of the Gospel of John. An-
other evangelical youth organization
distributed an equal number of the
Gospel in newspaper format to area
residents and visitors.

Two church information centers
functioned, one near the center of
Munich and the other near the
stadium. These gave information in
at least three official languages —
German, French and English. Chap-
lains were also assigned to Augsburg
and Kiel where other competitions
were held.

In one action with political over-
tones, the Evangelical (Protestant)
Churches of Germany and the
Roman Catholic Church joined to
house the Rhodesian Olympic team,
which was ousted from the games
through a last minute technicality.

The Rhodesians' expulsion oc-

curred after several black nations and
the black members of the U.S. team
threatened to boycott the games if
the group from the white-governed
African nation was allowed to com-
pete.

The Churches offered their acad-
emies in Munich and in Tutzing
to the Rhodesian athletes, about a
third of whom were blacks. SI

NAE Theme Announced
For World Day of Prayer

WHEATON, 111. — "My Life I
Give" is the theme for the 1973
World Day of Prayer observance set
for March 2, 1973, it was announced
here by Dr. Billy A. Melvin, execu-
tive director of the National Associ-
ation of Evangelicals.

Produced by NAE for churches
across the nation and around the
world, the program emphasizes per-
sonal, spiritual renewal and is de-
signed to complement the year of
evangelism during which more than
a hundred denominations will be en-
gaged in evangelism thrusts.

Author of the program is Bishop
Henry A. Ginder, Brethren in Christ
Church, Mechanicsburg, Pa. Bishop
Ginder is a member of the Central
Committee in the continent-wide
call to evangelism known at Key 73.

Bible-centered worship materials
for the World Day of Prayer are
available free of charge from the Na-
tional Association of Evangelicals.
A sample copy may be secured by
writing NAE, P. O. Box 28, Whea-
ton, 111. 60187. 11

Louisiana Asks Congress
For Prayer Amendment

WASHINGTON (RNS) — The
Louisiana State Legislature has
asked Congress to adopt a constitu-
tional amendment permitting the
citizenry to decide whether or not
prayer shall be permitted in public
schools.

A concurrent resolution of the
state's House of Representatives
and Senate stated that "our nation-
al tradition and heritage of public
and civic prayer give purpose and
meaning to our union as a nation,
without which we could only suffer

PAGE 5 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 6, 1972

I

the anarchy or tyranny of the op-
pressed peoples in less enlightened
parts of the world."

It adds that "education is a
worthless, if not (an) evil and dan-
gerous thing, if limited to merely
the dissemination of factual infor-
mation without the expression and
understanding of ideas, ideals,
theories, customs and beliefs of oth-
er men, whether designated as being
of a religious nature or by some oth-
er appellation."

The resolution also contends that
the "Supreme Court of the United
States has had occasion to so con-
strue our Constitution as to pro-
hibit public prayer in public
schools." It urges Congress "to
immediately take the necessary
steps to provide the citizens of this
great nation an opportunity by way
of a proposition to amend the U.S.
Constitution to determine whether
or not public prayer shall be per-
mitted in the public schools of the
several states." IB

al Ministries will speak Saturday,
Sept. 23, on "Techniques of Plan-
ning for Strengthening Local Con-
gregations."

"Christian Education in the Lo-
cal Black Church" will be the topic
of Emory University professor Grant
Shockley.

Rev. Mance Jackson of ITC will
speak on "The Black Church in
Community Involvement."

Some of the matters slated for con-
sideration during business sessions
are the recruitment of blacks for the
ministry, Christian education and
the missionary force; new concepts
in campus ministry; how to deal with
attitudinal change in communities;
strategy for involving black youth;
and strengthening black women's '
work.

Predominantly black churches
in the denomination may send four
delegates to the convention, and in- :
tegrated, but predominantly white,
churches may send one delegate. IB i

Church Women Plan
Cooperative Event

ATLANTA (PN) — A joint com-
mittee of ten women of the United
Presbyterian Church USA and the
Presbyterian Church US has taken
steps to move women in the two de-
nominations toward greater coopera-
tion.

The respective boards of each
Church several months ago approved
establishment of the committee and
members representing them.

At their one-day meeting here, dis-
cussions focused on areas of com-
mon concerns, with major attention
given to possible ways to assist wom-
en's work in union presbyteries.

In another action members of the
joint committee made tentative
plans for a "cooperative event" to be
held sometime in 1973. It must first
be approved by the women's nation-
al agency of each denomination.

"In seeking possible ways of co-
operation," Mrs. Gene Barnard of St.
Louis, Mo., chairman of the Presby-
terian US Board of Women's Work, j
stated, "The group agreed to work
and plan together whenever we can."

The joint committee was com-
posed of 10 members: four from
the executive committee of United
Presbyterian Women; four from the
Presbyterian US Board of Women's
Work, plus the staff executive from
each Church. IB

THE CHURCH AT HOME

Presbytery Will Ponder Church's Fate

RICHMOND, Va. — Hanover Pres-
bytery will hold a special meeting
on Sept. 11 to consider action
against the Tabb Street Presbyterian
Church of Petersburg, Va., which
voted to withdraw from the Presby-
terian Church US.

Presbytery officials declined to
comment on any action the presby-
tery might take. However, the Rev.
A. M. Hart, executive presbyter,
earlier had told the congregation
their action "puts your property in
considerable jeopardy."

Calling the action "unconstitu-
tional," Mr. Hart said the presby-
tery will have to decide which is the
rightful congregation of the church
— the majority or the minority.

The congregational vote, taken on
Aug. 20, was 87 to 26 in favor of a
resolution which declared the con-
gregation to be "a continuing inde-
pendent Presbyterian church."

The resolution charged that "the
thinking, philosophy and teaching
of the Hanover Presbytery (are)
alien to the teachings of God, and
more political than religious . . ."

The Rev. Linwood C. Wilkes, pas-
tor of the 270-member congregation,
said many had been unhappy with
"anti-Christian actions" of denomi-
national agencies and governing
bodies.

He referred specifically to the in-
volvement in social and political af-
fairs, citing a $5,000 contribution by
the Board of National Ministries to
a Washington march last spring, the
General Assembly's stand on abor-
tion and a $1,500 contribution by
the Board of Christian Education to
one party's effort in the Florida pres-
idential preference primary.

The presbytery could dismiss the
congregation, or it could move to re-
tain the property for use of the loy-
al minority.

In the latter case, a court fight
could ensue that might go all the
way to the U. S. Supreme Court, as
was the case when two churches in
Savannah, Ga., withdrew in 1966. IB

Black PCUS Leaders Plan
1973 Program, Elections

ATLANTA (PN) — The Black
Presbyterian Leadership Caucus of
the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.
will chart its 1973 program at a
three-day meeting here this month.
Some 100 to 125 delegates will gather
Sept. 22-24 for the annual BPLC
convention at West End Presbyte-
rian Church.

One of the major items of busi-
ness will be election of regional and
national officers. The delegates al-
so are expected to employ a full-time
executive.

Each of BPLC's four regions will
elect a director, assistant director,
secretary and three at-large commit-
teemen. The regional officers make
up the BPLC Council.

National officers to be chosen are
chairman, vice chairman, secretary
and treasurer. The Rev. Snowden I.
McKinnon of Dallas is current chair-
man.

Theme for opening night will be
"Celebrating Black Survival." Lead-
er for the program will be the Rev.
Cecil Cone of Interdenominational
Theological Seminary.

Mrs. Lucy Clark of the Research
Department of the Board of Nation-

PAGE 6 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 6, 1972

Behold the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ! —

Hear Him!

Smog has become a national haz-
ard in industrial America. The
evening news report includes a pol-
lution index, made graphic by a
gray veil drawn halfway across the
city pictured on the television
screen. Smog is the more dan-
gerous, of course, because we take
for granted the smoke of the city
along with its noise and dirt. In the
grayness we have forgotten the glory
of sparkling sunlight.

A more deadly smog pollutes the
atmosphere in America's Churches,
a noxious miasma that is the more
lethal when we take it for granted.
It is the smog that obscures the dif-
ference between truth and error, be-
tween the faithfulness of God and
the wiles of the devil. The light of
glory has departed from contempo-
rary theology, and the experts warn
against its return. Doctors of theol-
ogy tell us that final answers spell
disaster, because they close our
minds to the changing shapes of
truth for today.

Half a century ago controversy
raged in the major American de-
nominations as those dubbed "fun-
damentalists" contended for the faith
against the ecclesiastical power of
theological liberalism. Today we
are assured that this struggle was
not only hopeless but meaningless.
Imagine the naivete of arguing
about whether the virgin birth of
Jesus is essential to Christian faith!

Did Jesus have a human father,
or was He conceived by the Holy
Ghost in the womb of the virgin
Mary? Both the old-fashioned lib-
eral and his contemporary succes-
sor seek to avoid that question. An

The author is president of West-
minster Theological Seminary, Phil-
adelphia, Pa. This is the substance
of his message on Journal Day.

unequivocal answer would make all
too clear who confesses the historic
Christian faith and who denies it.
Liberalism old and new has there-
fore sought to make the question ir-
relevant. Religious truth, we are
told, does not communicate objec-
tive matters of fact. It is a structure
of symbolism, "a human expression
in propositional language of some
deeper pre-positional or not-yet-
thematized level of experience . . ."

The older liberalism rather bald-
ly found the meaning of the sym-
bols in religious consciousness. The
newer liberalism seeks a more am-
biguous point of reference in the ex-
istential encounter of the individual
(or, perhaps, of society) with the
"ground of being."

Modern Ambiguity

Inhaling this new formula of
truth, the contemporary liberal both
affirms and denies the virgin birth.
As religious symbolism it is "true."
In the Hellenistic age it was under-
stood literally, for such things could
happen in the ancient world. In
the modern age it is a myth which
must be translated if its religious
meaning is to be interpreted. There
is no need to deny that it could
have occurred; after all, anything
can happen in an open universe. But
there is also no need at all to affirm
that it did happen, since its mean-
ing is religious, not scientific.

In the darkening twilight of our
age it is easy to be persuaded that
the old antitheses are gone, that
truth changes with the times, and
that we should be grateful to those
who offer a believable version of the
Gospel to modern man.

Then we turn to Scripture and
our dimmed eyes are dazzled by the
glory. Neither poets nor phioloso-

EDMUND P. CLOWNEY

phers, the apostles were eyewitnesses
to glorious events. On the mount of
transfiguration Jesus was praying
while Peter, James and John kept
watch. The scene was monotonous-
ly familiar to the disciples, and mys-
tic ecstacy was far from the experi-
ence of these fishermen. No ex-
istential angst troubled their hearts.
In fact, they were almost asleep.

Peter's Confession

Suddenly their heavy eyes were
wide with amazement. Jesus stood
before them as they had never seen
Him before, His robe white with
unearthly brilliance and His face
shining with the glory of God. They
saw His glory, and the light of that
cloud of glory still dispels the
smoke of our doubts. In this day
when the glory has departed from
the Church of Christ, the command
comes again: "Arise, shine, for thy
light is come and the glory of the
Lord is upon thee" (Isa. 60:1) . To
see the glory now we must behold
the glory of God in the face of Je-
sus Christ.

The mount of transfiguration
stands in the midpoint of Christ's
ministry. Jesus had refused to lead
Israel's revolution and the crowds
were leaving Him. Peter confessed
the distinctive faith of the Christian
Church in sharp contrast to the flat-
tering unbelief of the crowds. The
people called our Lord a prophet,
Peter called Him the Christ; the
people hailed Him as the greatest
of God's servants, Peter worshiped
Him as the Son of the living God.
When the Church says of Jesus what
all men will say of Jesus, it denies
Him. When it says what flesh and
blood cannot conceive, then it con-
fesses Him whom only the Father
in heaven can reveal.

PAGE 7 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 6, 1972

The disciples who confessed the
divine Sonship of Jesus Christ were
thereby prepared to hear the heavy
tidings of His sufferings and death.
Here was the acid test of the obedi-
ence of their faith. Jesus was not
to be the political messiah of world-
ly hope. Instead, He was the suf-
fering servant of Old Testament
prophecy. Whoever would follow
Him must take the path to the cross.
Peter promptly failed the test. He
dared to rebuke Christ for taking the
cross. Peter, who had been taught by
the Father in heaven, became the
mouthpiece of the devil. Called to be
an apostolic rock of foundation, he
became a stone of stumbling and a
rock of offense.

But what the Father had revealed
in illumining Peter's mind had to
be manifested before the apostle's
eyes. The glory of heaven shone
from the Saviour as He turned to
the cross. A week after Peter con-
fessed Christ by revelation of the
Father, the Father himself confessed
His Son before the three apostles.
The glory of the mount calls us to
worshiping faith, to receive the Lord
on His terms, not ours, to confess
Jesus Christ as the divine Son ful-
filling in His life the will of the
Father, displaying in His person the
nature of the Father. From the
cloud of glory came the voice of
God, "This is my Son, my chosen:
hear ye Him."

Hear Him! This command must
pierce our ears and our hearts and
shape our obedience to Jesus Christ.
We must hear Him who is the
prophet of glory, the priest of glory,
the king of glory.

The Prophet of Glory

The scene on this mount of rev-
elation attests the glory of the
prophetic authority of Jesus Christ.
True faith in Christ cannot reject
the revelation on the mount. One
of the confusions of contemporary
theology is to set Jesus Christ as the
living Word against the Bible as the
written Word. However, no such
contrast is possible when the real
Jesus of the Bible is taken seriously.
He is not an enigmatic Christ-event
to which various witnesses point
with fallible and conflicting utter-
ances.

No, He is the living Son of God
and He speaks the words given Him
by the Father. No man receives
Christ the living Word who does not
receive His spoken words. Hear ye

Him! God who spoke of old by the
prophets has now spoken by His
Son, and that which was spoken by
the Lord was confirmed to us by
them that heard, God bearing wit-
ness with them (Heb. 1:1-2; 2:3-4).

The mount of transfiguration re-
vealed Christ as the final prophet.
Moses and Elijah, the two pivotal
prophets of the Old Testament his-
tory of redemption, appeared with
Him in glory. The great model of
God's revelation was the giving of
His covenant on Mount Sinai. The
living God kept His promise to
Abraham when He redeemed Israel
from Egypt and assembled the peo-
ple before Him to hear all the
words of His gracious covenant.

When the people could not bear
to hear the voice of God, the Lord
called Moses alone up into the
mountain to receive the words of
God's covenant, spoken in His ears
and written on tablets of stone by
the finger of God (Exo. 24:18; 31:
18).

Moses, the mediator, receiving the
words spoken and written by God,
provided the pattern for the office
of the prophet. When the prophets
said, "Thus saith the Lord . . . ,"
they were doing what Moses had
done: receiving the words of God
and giving them to the people. Mo-
ses, with whom God spoke "mouth
to mouth" (Num. 12:8) , towered
above all the prophets who were
like him — until the promised
prophet came.

Warning, Loving

With Moses was Elijah. He, too,
had heard God speaking on Mount
Horeb. Jealous for God's holy name,
Elijah was bitter because the fire
that fell at Carmel did not consume
all the idolaters. But God revealed
Himself to the prophet, not in the
fire or the storm, but in the whis-
pered word of His counsel. God's
Word appointed Jehu, Hazael and
Elisha as instruments to destroy the
worship of Baal.

Moses and Elijah on the mount
with Jesus again heard the word
from the cloud, but God did not
speak ten words nor promise the
coming of other prophets. Rather,
He said: "This is my Son, my chosen:
hear ye Him."

Hear Him, for the Word of the
Father is spoken by the beloved
Son in glory and in grace.

Hear Him as He declares the holy
will of His Father: "But I say unto

you, Love your enemies, and pray
for them that persecute you; that
ye may be sons of your Father who
is in heaven . . ." Hear Him, too,
as He warns, "He that rejecteth me,
and receiveth not my sayings, hath
one that judgeth him; the word
that I spake, the same shall judge
him in the last day" (John 12:48) .

Hear Him, for "how shall we es-
cape if we neglect so great a salva-
tion? Which having at the first
been spoken through the Lord, was
confirmed unto us by them that
heard . . . See that ye refuse not him
that speaketh" (Heb. 2:3, 12:25) .

Hear Him as He calls "Come un-
to me, all ye that labor and are
heavy laden, and I will give you
rest" (Matt. 11:28). Hear Him, for
the words that He has spoken are
spirit and are life (John 6:63) .

The wind and the sea hear Him:
"Peace be still!" The deaf hear him:
"Ephphatha" "Be opened!" (Mark
7:34) . The dead hear Him: "Laz-
arus, come forth!" Whoever has ears
to hear must hear Him, for He who
speaks is the Word of God alive.

Do not divide between Christ and
the Bible. He who turns from the
words of Christ turns from Christ
the Word. See Him in His glory,
standing between the prophets and
the apostles, and you see the speak-
ing Lord who unites the apostles
and the prophets in the Amen of
His mighty word. The Bible is one
because Christ is one, and He fulfills
all things that are written in the
law of Moses, and the prophets, and
the psalms concerning Him (Luke
24:44) . Whoever does not believe
Moses' writings will not believe
Christ's words (John 5:47) .

No Choice

The Bible is not primarily a hu-
man witness to God's redemptive
acts. It is God's own witness, God
who spoke from the cloud, from the
lips of prophets and apostles
through the Spirit of His Son, and
from the lips of the Lord of glory.
It is true that prophets and apostles
bear witness to what they have seen
and heard, but they do so as they
are borne along by the Holy Ghost.
Even the prayers and praises given
by the Spirit are part of God's tes-
timonies, given as His witness to His
people (Deut. 31:19; II Sam. 23:
1-2).

To describe Scripture as the pro-
duct of the reflection of the "faith-
community" evolving from its ex-

PAGE 8 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 6, 1972

jerience and approved in its use is
k j substitute reflection for revela-
H ion, the word of man for the word
S f God, the faith of the community
H or the authority of the Son of God.
Jetween the apostles and the proph-
ts stands Jesus Christ, and God
2 lays, "Hear Him!"
i)i To suggest that after God's final
ford in Christ we are to hear as
Jod's word the sentences of Chair-
aan Mao or the ancient darkness
|if the Bhagavad Gita is to reject the
i'oice of the living God. God is
ealous for His name. He will not
;ive His glory to another, and there
s none other name under heaven
;iven among men, whereby we must
i)e saved.

No doubt much more than we
imagine is at stake when men
refuse to believe that God can
peak words to men. We begin to
|;ee the corrosion in our litera-
ture when words are cut off from
Intimate meaning. Fabricated truth,
iliormed for the day, cannot under-
) *ird the mind of man or estab-
lish his heart. But we are not
! adrift in empty galaxies babbling
| verbal signs without meaning. We
pre God's creatures, lost in our re-
! bellion, vain in our thoughts, but
jto us God says, "This is my Son,
f hear Him!"

Priest of Glory

Yes, hear Him, for the Son of
God is the priest of glory. Moses
on the mountain was the great medi-
ator between God and the people.
When Israel sinned, Moses stood be-
fore God to intercede for a rebel-
lious nation. Elijah built an altar
on Carmel, and after the fire fell
kept vigil in prayer until the prom-
ised rain came. These great servants
of God fulfilled priestly roles as they
stood between God and the people.

When Jesus was transfigured He
was praying. He who is a priest
forever after the order of Melchiz-
edek poured out the agony of His
soul as He looked from the mount
of transfiguration to the mount of
Calvary. Made like His brethren,
Jesus prayed then as He prays now,
the representative priest. What Mo-
ses and Elijah prefigured, Christ ful-
filled.

The glory was given not only for
the disciples' sake, but as part of
Christ's strengthening for the con-
flict. As angels ministered to Him
after the temptation in the wilder-
ness and later in Gethsemane, so the

heavenly glory came to refresh His
human nature on the way to the
cross.

Hear Him as He talked with Mo-
ses and Elijah. They spoke of His
death and resurrection, for toward
this their ministries had pointed.
They could not join in His priest-
hood. Theirs was a passing min-
istry and it was over. Christ is the
abiding priest who ever lives to
make intercession for them who
come unto God by Him. Priest and
sacrifice, He put away sin by the
sacrifice of Himself. There is one
God and one mediator between God
and man, Christ Jesus.

King of Glory

When He had made purification
of sins, He sat down on the right
hand of the majesty on high (Heb.
13) . Hear Him, for He is the king
of glory.

The radiance of the Saviour's face
was not like the luster of Moses'
countenance when he came down
from Mount Sinai. That glory had so
dazzled the people that Moses had
put a veil over his face. Yet for all
of its brilliance it was reflected
glory, the afterglow of encounter
with the glory of the Lord. The
glory of Christ on the mount was
His own glory, a bursting forth of
the glory that He had with the Fa-
ther before the world was. The glory
of God did not first appear in the
cloud, as on Sinai, and then by re-
flection on the Saviour's face. In-
stead, it shone forth like the sun
from Christ himself, the true light
who came into the world.

God's glory came down in the
cloud to rest upon the tabernacle in
the wilderness. Glory dwelt among
the people, but Israel rebelled in the
land of the promise, and Ezekiel saw
the glory of the Lord departing
from the temple. Yet the glory
dawned again with the coming of
the Lord, and the disciples were wit-
nesses of the presence of the Lord
of glory. Who is the king of glory?
The Lord of hosts, He is the king of
glory.

Moses had prayed on Mount Si-
nai "Show me, I pray thee, thy
glory." He knew that when God's
glory was manifested all the bless-
ings of the covenant were secure. On
Sinai God passed by Moses, covering
him in the cleft of the rock, but Mo-
ses who once saw the glory of God's
back in the theophany later saw the
glory of God in the face of Jesus

Christ. The glory of the true taber-
nacle streamed forth from the light
of the world.

Reflecting on Christ's kingship,
we better understand the tabernacles
Peter proposed to build. The feast
of booths or of tabernacles was the
last great feast of the sacred year,
the harvest-home of God's salvation.
Peter may have concluded that the
time for the feast of the kingdom
of God had come.

The king had come in His glory,
but it was not time for the feast of
glory. From the mount of transfig-
uration Jesus went to the cross. Have
you reflected on the testing of Christ
on this mountain? It was complete-
ly different from the temptation,
when Satan had taken Christ into a
high mountain to show Him the
glory of the kingdoms of this world.
Yet in another way, Christ's dedica-
tion to the path of His kingship was
searched out more deeply. Christ
was tasting the glory of heaven. How
He must have yearned to return
with Moses and Elijah to the glory
of the Father! Chariots of fire had
carried Elijah to heaven.

Could not the Son of God have
ascended from the mount of trans-
figuration rather than from the
Mount of Olives? We catch some-
thing of Christ's yearning when He
came down from the mount to con-
front His disciples who could not
perform a healing because of their
little faith. "O faithless and perverse
generation," said Christ, echoing the
words of Moses, "how long shall I
be with you, and bear with you?"

Peter Knew

Jesus might have returned to
heaven from the mount, but not
with Moses and Elijah. Christ is
the way to heaven for Moses and
Elijah, as well as Peter, James and
John. Only because the king of
glory went willingly to the cross is
there salvation for any man. Moses
and Elijah departed, but the king
remained. He descended the mount
of transfiguration and climbed the
mount of Calvary where the super-
scription on the cross read, "This is
the king of the Jews."

Only after Calvary's conquest did
the cloud again appear. Christ was
lifted up on the cross before He was
lifted up to the throne of heaven.
Yet the glory of His transfiguration
is a pledge of the glory that will be
revealed when Christ comes again
as He promised.

PAGE 9 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 6, 1972

Listen to the witness of Peter as
he knows his death is near: "For we
did not follow cunningly devised
fables, when we made known unto
you the power and coming (that
word is "presence" — parousia) of
our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were
eyewitnesses of His majesty. For He
received from God the Father hon-
or and gloiy, when there was borne
such a voice to Him by the majestic
glory, This is my beloved Son, in
whom I am well pleased: and this
voice we ourselves heard borne out
of heaven, when we were with Him
in the holy mount" (II Pet. 1:16-18).

No, these are not fables. God

speaks to us and we have the word
of prophecy made more sure. He
says concerning His Son: "Hear ye
Him!"

Have you heard and heeded the
Word of Christ? Have you heard
Him as He speaks of His death and
the glory to follow? Will you hear
Jesus, Jesus only, forever? For
your life, for your Church there is
one Lord who rules by His revealed
Word in the power of His present
Spirit.

His Word is not gray, not a yes
and no. His Word is truth and
glory, the light of heaven to our
path. "For how many soever be

the promises of God, in Him is th<
yea: wherefore also through Him i:
the Amen, unto the glory of Goc
through us" (II Cor. 1:20).

Presbyterians may have been toe
restrained to say, "Amen" in the
past. But the time has come wher
we must confess Christ by saying
"Amen" to His revealed Word. In
our lives and in o u r Church, we
must hear and obey Him who is the
Lord of the Word and who speak*
to us the Word of the Lord. Nol
counting the cost, we must obey God
rather than men, and hear Him, the
final prophet, the eternal priest, the
returning king of gloryl ffi

"He put i?i his thumb and pulled out a plum and said, 'What a good boy am V "

Keep the Church Press Open

Some readers have the same
idea about the church press as
little Jack Horner did about him-
self. They feel that church papers
and magazines should always be a
mirror, reflecting how "good" are
the churches and denominational
bodies.

Traditionally, we have drawn a
line between what we think is
"good" church news, and what is
"bad" secular news. We often ex-
pect the secular press to print only
what is "bad," and the church press
to publish only what is "good."
Both viewpoints are distortions, for
not all secular news is bad, and not
all church news is good!

"But I read all I want to about
political intrigue, crime, corruption
and the like in the daily papers,"
Mr. Church Member complains.
"When I pick up a religious jour-
nal, I want to find something good,
something inspirational."

Certainly the church-related peri-
odical should major on good and
wholesome articles and news report-

The author is the editor of the
Illinois Baptist, and author of a
new book, A Nickel's Worth of
Skim Milk: A Boy's View of the
Great Depression.

ing. But what if something hap-
pens in one's church or denomina-
tion that is not-so-good? Should we
hang up our wash in public for ev-
eryone to see?

What brought this to my atten-
tion with force was something that
happened in a couple of prominent
congregations in my own denomina-
tion in 1970-72. I am referring to
the First Baptist churches in Bir-
mingham, Alabama and Atlanta,
Georgia. The Baptist Press, news
service of the Southern Baptist Con-
vention, released stories on the in-
ternal problems of both churches.

Reader reaction among Baptists
was mixed. A number of readers
wrote to Baptist papers, saying,
"This kind of material is altogether
out of place in a religious publica-

The Basic Rule

Let us remember that on the
whole subject of religion one rule
of modesty and soberness is to be
observed, and it is this: in obscure
matters, not to speak or think, or
even long to know, more than the
Word of God has delivered. — John
Calvin.

ROBERT J. HASTINGS

tion." Their arguments ran some-
thing like this:

Internal church issues resemble a
"personal family problem" and
shouldn't be plastered over the front
pages. "These are local problems
to be solved locally, and are of no
business or interest to outsiders,"
they argued.

Others said churches get enough
bad publicity without the press
adding to it. "Why, some people
might read those stories and never
want to go to church," they rea-
soned.

I think both arguments are
faulty. Here's why:

First, who is to say that any par-
ticular church problem is only a
"local family affair of no concern
to anyone else?" If so, would not
the same be true of dissension in
regional, state and national church
bodies?

No church or denominational
body is an island to itself. If for
no other reason, we should be aware
of unusual tensions so we can pray
for and better understand each
other.

The second objection, that unfa-
vorable stories might turn some peo-
ple off, is not valid, either.

If this reasoning is correct, then

PAGE 10 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 6, 1972

f t follows that churches are justi-
fied in "fooling" the public into
l:hinking they are cases of perfec-
tion. Surely we don't mean this. It
livould be much like a hospital ad-
Jlvertising that it has no sick pa-
Jtients, or asking the newspaper to
Jjwithhold the names of patients who
fed!

M The cases I have cited happened
jjin churches of my own denomina-
jjtion, but I am certain that examples
"■could be multiplied in every church

and denominational body in the
Jworld. Churches are made up of

people, and whether they are Meth-
:s odist people or Presbyterian people
lor Lutheran people, they have cer-
litain common and human traits.
Without knowing the church or

denomination, I can tell you two or

three things about the problem.
•First, there are some things that
I happen in that church which are
• regrettable. Second, there are lead-
lers in that church who would like
Ito keep it quiet. And third, there

■ are members in that church who

■ would resent any publicity, even
though they might not be involved

| in the fracas themselves.

A Controlled Press . . .

As far as church publicity is con-

I cerned, we've been in a rut too long,
and that rut is the fear that the
world might discover that we don't

I always pull out a good plum when
we reach in the Christmas pie! Yet
we want to live in such a pie-in-the-

I sky illusion, an illusion of grandeur,
of pious make-believe, of every-
thing's-under-controlitis.

Efforts to hush-hush an issue
sometimes come from church and
denominational leaders; the man in
the pew may unwittingly encourage
them by his insistence that he find
nothing in his paper that is shock-
ing or upsetting.

I However, church and denomina-
tional leaders should fear publicity
only if they are doing something
they shouldn't. If they are above
board, they should welcome inquiry
and the full sharing of information.

Actually, an open press is the best
friend that a conscientious church
leader can have. In that open press,
the issues will be aired and debated
until truth eventually comes to the
front. The honest and dedicated
leader is at a disadvantage whenever
rumor-mongers run rampant in per-
sonal conversations and telephone
calls, yet never are forced out into

the open in the public press.

If church leaders want a con-
trolled press, they should at least be
honest enough to admit that this is
the identical tool used so effectively
by totalitarian states.

Pulitzer-prize-winning novelist
James Michener was one of the writ-
ers who went with President Rich-
ard Nixon on his precedent-break-
ing trip to Peking in February of
1972.

Michener tells about a visit with
Premier Chou En lai, who was 73
years old at the time, and probably
the strongest man in China. They
were interrupted when the editor of
the Peking People's Daily arrived to
show Chou the dummy of a front
page for his approval!

Is it any wonder, Michener sur-
mised, why most Chinese are still
unaware that man has walked on
the moon?

. . . Controls People

Premier Chou controls the Chi-
nese newspapers because he wants
to control the Chinese people. The
goal of church leadership is not to
"control" the members, but rather
to serve. If our goals in the church
are manipulation, self-seeking, and
power, then let's live under the illu-
sion that all the plums in the pie
are good, and say that they are good,
in our magazines and newspapers.
However, if our goal is service, then
honesty and openness in the church
press is a necessity.

In the spring of 1972, a federal
judge in Washington, D. C. set aside
the 1969 reelection of W. A. (Tony)
Boyle as president of the United
Mine Workers union. The judge
found, among other things, that
Boyle had illegally used the United
Mine Workers Journal as a "cam-
paign instrument." This is another
example of how a manipulated press
can lead to a manipulated people.

Letters of Praise

"Oh, but that wouldn't happen
in a church organization," someone
complains. We certainly hope it
wouldn't, but that doesn't mean it
can't happen. It also means that it
is wrong — morally wrong — to
name a person to a responsible
church position and then dangle be-
fore him the temptation to use his
powers to control the church press.
Such powers should never be grant-
ed in the first place.

If these examples are not enough,
then take a look at the visit of Presi-
dent Nixon to Russia in the spring
of 1972. In a release from Moscow,
the Associated Press said, "The So-
viet press is often called upon to
prepare the public for a major pol-
icy decision and to create an air of
unanimous support for government
moves."

One way the Soviets managed the
press during Nixon's visit was to
print a number of letters to the edi-
tor, praising the wisdom of the gov-
ernment in hosting President Nix-
on. The letters, from all walks of
Russian life, had one thing in com-
mon. All of them were letters of
praise. The official Soviet press al-
lows no criticism.

The Communist party controls
the Soviet press for one reason. It
wants also to control the Soviet peo-
ple. So it is not a question of press-
control, but of people-control.

These examples from China, the
UMW, and Russia are not for the
purpose of saying that ulterior mo-
tives are found among all church
leaders. The purpose is not to raise
suspicions about the rank and file of
church leaders, most of whom are
conscientious and dedicated per-
sons.

No Timid Authors

The only purpose is to reinforce
the necessity of a free and open
church press. We may not always
like what we read, but remember,
we don't always like what life of-
fers. So if we want to live in a real
world — including the world of re-
ligion — we must read what is ac-
tually going on in that world. Not
what we would like to go on, or
should be going on!

Had you been writing the New
Testament, would you have men-
tioned the dissension in the church
at Corinth? Or the disagreement
between Paul and Barnabas?

I'm glad God didn't use timid au-
thors to write the New Testament.
Instead, we have a book that dealt
with actual life in the first century.
Because it faced those issues, we
have Biblical solutions to similar
problems in the 20th century.

How can we solve disputes if we
hesitate to air them? The problems
that turn sour and give food poison-
ing to Christian people are those
buried in damp cellars of secrecy —
not those exposed to the light of
public opinion. ffl

PAGE 11 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 6, 1972

k

EDITORIALS

The Issue To Be Resolved

Predictably, some of those who
said they were waiting for a "theo-
logical issue" before deciding to let
the established Church go on its way
without them, now are saying they
can see nothing in the proposed new
Confession of Faith to restrict their
own witness — so they intend to go
into the theological wilderness with
the institution.

These evangelical Presbyterians
(and some are in places of conserva-
tive leadership) think of their rela-
tionship to the establishment in
much the same way they think of
their marriage — they married "for
better or for worse." Now that the
worse has come, they still view them-
selves as married and they don't be-
lieve in divorce.

But a Christian isn't married to
the visible organization to which he
belongs, he belongs to Christ. And
if the visible organization rejects
Christ and becomes hostile to Him,
the Christian who continues to pro-
test, "This is my Church," when it
is not a Christian Church, and it
has become clear he can do nothing
about it, stands to answer for dis-
obedience to Christ.

Two major fallacies accompany
the argument that there is never any
reason to disassociate from a Church

The United Church of Christ is
a multimillion member denomina-
tion in the Congregational tradition.
It is also the most liberal of the
major denominations. Further, it is
a denomination with which the
Presbyterian Church US has many
connections, such as Colloquy mag-
azine, various educational projects,
and membership in COCU.

The King's Garden, Inc., is a
Christian company which operates
a radio station in Edmonds, Wash.
As Christians, the operators of
KGDN naturally believe their staff
people should be Christians.

Not so, according to the United
Church of Christ, which has peti-
tioned the Federal Government to
take away the station's license be-

which once represented the Gospel
in the world but which no longer
does.

First, such an argument carries
with it the suggestion that it does
not matter, for a Christian, whether
the Church to which he belongs is
Christian or not — he could belong
to anything at all. This, it seems
to us, does such violence to so many
New Testament precepts it hardly
seems necessary to labor the point.

Second, to argue that there never
is any reason to disassociate from a
Church which once represented the
Gospel in the world means (if you
believe it) that you could not be-
long to any Protestant Church at all.
You would have to acknowledge the
Roman Catholic Church (the only
visible body with unbroken physical
continuity with the early Church)
as the one to which you must belong.
The Presbyterian Church US repre-
sents a separation, a departure, a
split, as it now stands.

It seems to us that the upcoming
issue, which every Presbyterian will
have to resolve for himself in the
future, is that of obedience to Jesus
Christ vs. obedience to a humanized
institution.

That shouldn't be a difficult is-
sue to resolve. SI

cause it hires Christians only. That's
discrimination, in the view of the
UCC. (This is the denomination,
by the way, which successfully chal-
lenged the renewal of a TV station
license in Jackson, Miss., which ulti-
mately had the effect of taking the
Sunday worship services of the
First Presbyterian Church off the
air.)

Somewhat sympathetic with the
Christians' argument that a business
which operates to spread the Chris-
tian Gospel should be permitted to
make its own decision respecting
staff, the Federal Communications
Commission has proposed that ra-
dio and television stations owned by
religious organizations should be
exempted from the requirements of

the 1964 Civil Rights Act (the law
upon which the UCC bases its pe-
tition) .

That proposal by the FCC has \
just brought a new flurry of activity
from UCC officials, who now have
filed a legal brief in opposition to
the notion that a religious organi-
zation should have the right to hire
members of its own faith only —
if that organization has been grant-
ed a Federal license.

We think such activities on the j
national scene fairly cry out for a
major denomination which stands
for Biblical principles and the
Christian Gospel. In the absence of
such a denomination, the public has
every right to believe that Churches
such as the United Church of Christ,
and the Presbyterian Church US,
represent America's Christian com-
munity, ffl

What Distinguishes
Presbyterians?

Appearing on the back of a
church bulletin was the statement,
"The one thing which, more than
any other, distinguishes Presbyte- 1
rians from Baptists, Methodists, or '
any other Protestant body is Presby-
terian government." The state-
ment then went on to explain brief-
ly the uniqueness of the Presbyte-
rian form of government, and ap-
pealed to us as good citizens of the
Presbyterian Church US to study
our government to understand it
better.

Presbyterian government is not
the only, not even the principal
thing which distinguishes Presbyte-
rians. We also have a body of doc-
trine which is distinctive and
unique, and which differs from oth-
er Protestant systems of thought
and interpretation of the Bible,
sometimes radically.

The term "presbyterian" is de-
rived from the Greek word in the
Bible translated "elder," and thus
means a government by elders joined
together. The term "Reformed" !
relates to our system of doctrine, of-
ten called "Calvinism" from John
Calvin who organized the teachings
of the Bible into a system of
thought.

Both the form of government and
the system of doctrine, therefore,
are rooted in the Scriptures.

There are Churches all over the
world in what is known as the Pres-
byterian or Reformed family of

When the Church Tries To Gut Off Its Own Nose

PAGE 12 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 6, 1972

THE LAYMAN AND HIS CHURCH

We Can't Lose!

hurches. In our country some de-
ominations go by both names. The
ne thing which unifies them all
octrinally is that they all have of-
cial standards which are Reformed,
r Calvinistic.

Another unifying factor is the sys-
em of government which is Presby-
srian.

• A great deal of talk abroad these
ays concerning Church unions cut-
ing across all sorts of denomina-
ional lines minimizes doctrinal dif-
erences, and attempts to say that
jhe only real differences which we
nust iron out are organizational,
hat is, having to do with forms of
Church government.

Most people are willing to make
LCijustments in Church government
f that is all it takes to bring about
rue Church union and unity (even
hough forms of Church government
ire also matters of Church doc-
rine) . If we all believe more or
ess the same thing, why should
iome organizational structure stand
n the way of a united witness for
Christ?

But it is not that simple. Our
doctrines are such that a compatible
anion outside the Reformed family
would not be unity at all, but a
Itnere marriage of convenience. How,
|for example, could one super-Church
Iteach two antithetical doctrines
[about how a lost sinner becomes a
redeemed sinner? What about the
1 matter of the covenants? Can a sin-
Igle constitution be written for those
who believe that the infant seed of
believers are included in the
Church, and those who anathema-
tize any baptism but that of adult
; believers?

There is no need for us to apolo-
Igize for being Calvinistic. We need
mot hang our heads in shame be-
cause we believe the Westminster
Confession of Faith contains the sys-
tem of doctrine taught in Scripture.
Nor should Presbyterians try to
hide the fact that we differ in really
important ways from other Protes-
tant bodies in matters of doctrine
as well as government.

There is a powerful dynamic in
the Calvinistic theology of grace; it
is only when these doctrines are di-
luted or denied by those who pro-
fess officially to hold them that their
superiority ceases to be evident.

To say that it is principally Pres-
byterian government which distin-
guishes us from other Protestants is
to hide our brightest light under a
bushel. — Loren V. Watson. IB

The 1972 presidential election
campaigns are about to begin, and
political strategists in both parties
are sounding a note of unusual cau-
tion in their traditional exhortations
to the faithful. The reason is sim-
ple: The attitude of many cam-
paign workers as they look toward
November is one of unreasonable
overconfidence. This politically
dangerous trend of overconfidence
reminds me of the attitude of many
evangelical Christians.

We are living in a time of un-
precedented interest in the things
of God. Rock groups belt out their
new arrangements of such old stan-
dards as "O Happy Day" and "Amaz-
ing Grace," and their records are
bought by the millions by young
people who have been spiritually
starved in their homes and Sunday
schools.

The same young people come to
Christ in ever increasing numbers,
swarming into Dallas for Explo 72
activities, and prompting Billy Gra-
ham to devote a bestselling book to
them. Christian literature is being
produced and sold in such quantity
that such secular publishers as Dou-
bleday and Harper and Row are
snatching manuscripts up. Evangeli-
cal pastors and laymen, while being
disenfranchised by the great denomi-
nations, are growing in number,
and they are hitting the streets with
a bright new zeal.

Campus Crusade for Christ sends
Spirit-filled missionaries to Harvard
and the Sorbonne; Coral Ridge
church mobilizes hundreds of pew
sitters in one of the most encourag-
ing evangelical enterprises in years.
Housewives gather for mid-morning
Bible studies, while their husbands
follow the lead of businessmen like
Art DeMoss in taking Christ to the
world of Wall Street.

It is indeed a marvelous time for
Christians, and if we gave God His
proper thanks for it all, we would
never get off of our knees. Howev-

Bill Melden of Lookout Moun-
tain, Tenn., is author of the Layman
column. He was a youth delegate to
the 1972 General Assembly.

er, the very blessings which He is
bestowing upon us often tend to
make us stagnant, because we are
just as prone to overconfidence as
are the political workers.

As we watch the Holy Spirit push
back the evangelical frontiers, we
are tempted to relinquish our status
as sweaty activists and become air-
conditioned spectators. This, as ev-
ery page of Scripture shrieks at us,
is hardly what God wants us to be.

The Christian Church has always
been crippled by the attitude of
"Let George do it." In the past,
George was usually the pastor, who
was regarded as the only full-time
Christian in the place. Today, the
attitude still prevails, but for dif-
ferent reasons. The Spirit of God
is most observably abroad in the
land, and too many of us are con-
tent to watch His work, instead of
providing an additional channel for
it. We are quite happy to give God
the glory, but we will not give Him
ourselves. We will praise Him for
His moving among us, but we will
not allow Him to work through us.

This is one of Satan's favorite re-
sponses to revival and, although we
have not yet seen a full-scale revival
in our nation, the old serpent has
nevertheless trotted out his answer.
For he is nothing if not clever, and
he realizes that the inevitable prod-
uct of overconfidence and super-
satisfaction is apathy, an apathy
which will choke off any real re-
vival before it is born.

"We can't lose!" cry the Demo-
crats and Republicans, and their cry
is echoed by a great many Chris-
tians. "Look at all that God is do-
ing," we are tempted to say, "Why
should I add my own paltry efforts?"
And so we become Satan's specta-
tors, giving God our praise while
our lives remain our own.

We forget that the harvest is un-
believably great, and the workers are
still few. It was true when Jesus
Christ walked the earth, in that first
century which we all claim to be
wistful for, and it is true now. Let
us concentrate on the harvest; our
fellow laborers will be rewarded by
God. IB

PAGE 13 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 6, 1972

SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON

For September 24, 1972

INTRODUCTION: The lesson
for today introduces us to one of the
greater problems of our time. Men
probably have more leisure time and
less happiness than ever before in
history; leisure, more widespread
among men, is a social change that
has occurred in the lifetime of many
of us who came out of the depres-
sion era when leisure was almost un-
known.

Today, thanks to efforts of unions
and man's desire to have time for
fun and pleasure, we are talking of
the four-day work week and even
the three-day work week. How does
this fit with Scripture? What of the
six day week of work?

As we know, when sin entered the
picture man's life was complicated.
All of man's desires and drives came
to be to please man and not God.
In saving man from sin God saved
men for a work more in accord with
God's original purpose for man,
that is, to glorify God and enjoy
Him forever.

In this lesson we shall first study
the problem of leisure and its uses,
then God's design for man, and fi-
nally, seek to find the proper place
for leisure in today's world.

I. LEISURE AS THE PURSUIT
OF LIFE (Eccl. 1-12) . The book of
Ecclesiastes is an excellent source for
it is the study of the vanity of life
when lived in leisure or for leisure's
sake. It is not certain who the writer
is. The book undoubtedly contains
many words of Solomon himself. In
fact, one of the chief themes of the
book, "vanity of vanities, all is van-
ity" (1:2, 12:8) is said to be the
word of the preacher (probably
Solomon) .

This does not mean, however,
that he is the author of Ecclesiastes.
The book was written by someone
who disagreed with this theme of
Solomon and who wove into Sol-
omon's vain outlook on life a far
better position.

We are told that the preacher
sought meaning in all facets of life.
He was surely a man of leisure. This

Work and Leisure

Rev. Jack B. Scott

Background Scripture: Genesis 3:
17-19; Exodus 20:8-11; Ecclesi-
astes 2:1-3:9; Colossians 3:17, 23

Key Verses: Exodus 20:8-11; Ec-
clesiastes 2:4-11, 24-25

Devotional Reading: Ecclesiastes
12:1-13

Memory Selection: I Corinthians
10:31

fits exactly the time of Solomon (I
Kings 4:25, 32-34) . He tried every-
thing. He sought wisdom (1:13),
mirth (2:1), wine (2:3), building
gardens and parks (1 :4-5) , pools (1:
6), great possessions of cattle (1:7),
amassing of gold and silver (1:8).
He tried every joy known to man
(1:10) but everything he did, he
hated (1:18). He always came to
the same conclusion, "all is vanity"
(1:14, 2:1, 11:17, etc.) .

All he did was vain (1:14). All
wisdom was vain (2:19) . He found
nothing new, nothing challenging
under the sun (1:9). Furthermore,
he found no permanence in any-
thing, nothing solid in life (9:6) .
Everywhere he looked, wickedness
seemed to prevail (3:16). For him,
the future was uncertain (6:12) . He
could only conclude, after having
used all of his resources to find
meaning in life, that "vanity of van-
ities, all is vanity" (12:8) .

This is an excellent example of
the pursuit of leisure by one who
had all the time and all the means
to pursue it. Today we see just
this same problem as many people
have more money and credit and
more time than ever before. They
read books, watch TV, and join
clubs in pursuit of wisdom or enter-
tainment. They drink wine, or
worse, until they live in a drunken
stupor. As one ad on TV put it,
they squeeze every bit of zest out of
life (by drinking a certain kind of
beer) .

They build gardens, pools, and
homes with every modern con-

The International Sunday School Lesson Outlines
are copyrighted 1972 by the Committee on the
Uniform Series of the National Council of Churches
of Christ.

venience. They buy trailers, boat
and even airplanes to give theni
pleasure. They buy farms, own cat
tie, ride horses, they build up store
of wealth, play the market, inves
and reinvest, building bigger barn
all the time.

But in the end, what do we have
We have increase in the use o
drugs to escape the miseries of thi:
kind of living. Rich children rioti
ing and killing and stealing, just foi
the kicks. Fathers and mothers leav
ing their children to their own lux!
uries and swapping partners to try
to find some spice, some joy in life
We have increasingly large number;
of suicides, the destructions of mam
families and homes through divorce
In short, we have a whole genera
tion or several generations of peo
pie echoing Solomon's complaint— i
vanity of vanities, all is vanity.

The writer of Ecclesiastes is ver)
familiar with this conclusion and
seeks to show that there is a bettei
way, a better life. To the back
ground of Solomon's vanity, he
weaves a different point of view. It
can perhaps be summed up in the
words: "joy in work."

II. WORK AND GOD'S DE
SIGN. The writer of Ecclesiastes
sees joy in work as a gift from God
to man, no doubt anchored in Gen
esis 1 and 2 where God at creation
instilled in man's very fiber a sense
of responsibility for doing a work
before God and unto God.

He takes this sense of work as a
gift from God to be the key to real
joy and meaning in life. He says:
"I know that there is nothing bet
ter for them than to rejoice, and to
do good so long as they live. And
also that every man should eat and
drink, and enjoy good in all his la-
bors, is the gift of God" (Eccl. 3:
12-13).

He sees this joy in work as the
portion of man from God. This is
what God made man for. Therefore,
here and only here meaning is to be
found in life (3:22, compare 5:18),

All of the various pursuits of man

PAGE 14 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 6, 1972

liiall pass away and fail, as demon-
[jrated by Solomon's testimony. To
Jve for leisure and one's own plea-
||ire without a sense of responsibil-
ly to God is hopeless as a source of
l:al joy. Only joy in work as a gift
l orn God has any lasting value. On-
that will abide (8:15). Further-
more and most important, God ac-
ppts this kind of life. He is pleased
ith it (9:7) .

I But how, we may ask, do we do
[ur work in joy before God? We
[rust see that a life lived in joy in
[ur work is based on what God has
lone, and on our own consequent
bar of Him (faith in Him) (3:14) .
The fearer of the Lord shall always
pme out well (7:18). As Joshua
ras told, when we fear the Lord
[obey His Word) , then we shall
ave good success (Josh. 1:7-8). Or
s Paul put it, "All things work to-
gether for good to them that love
iod, who are called according to
lis purpose" (Rom. 8:28) . Com-
>are Ecclesiastes 8:12-13.

The main point of the writer of
ixclesiastes is that we find our real
[(leaning in life not by the pursuit
)f our own pleasure, but by doing
She work God has given us to do in
he joy that comes from knowing and
earing the Lord. As he summed it
lp in the end of the book: "Fear
Sod, and keep His commandments;
■or this is the whole duty of man"
(Eccl. 12:13).

God gave man six days in which
o labor and do all of his work. The
vork He gave to man was basically
o subdue and rule over all the
:arth (Gen. 1:28, 2:15). After his
fla, creation was no longer submis-
ive to man, but was cursed so that
le could subdue it only by the
"jreatest effort (Gen. 3:17-19).

After God had redeemed a peo-
ple for Himself and brought them
o Sinai to teach them His will,
imong the commandments express-
ng God's will for His people was
3ne concerning work and the Sab-
bath observance. God taught not on-
y an observance of the Sabbath, but
ilso commands that men work six
lays each week (Exo. 20:8-11). As
a basis for this command, God went
all the way back to creation and
His own resting after He had made
.he world.

Two things are quite clear. First,
man is expected by God to work six
iays a week. This is that gift of
God of which the writer of Ecclesi-
astes spoke. Second, man is expect-
ed to rest one day each week and to

spend that day with the Lord.

In Isaiah 56 we see the proper
concept of Sabbath observance ex-
pressed. There we are assured that
the man who keeps the sabbath is
blessed or happy (v. 2) . He will
not profane it (live it as an ordi-
nary day) , or do any evil on it. On
that day, particularly, he will choose
the things that please God (56:4) .

Isaiah 58 expounds on the right
observance of the Sabbath. It con-
sists in not doing one's own plea-
sure on that day, that is, not doing
one's own ways or seeking one's own
pleasure, but rather seeking all de-
lights that day in reference to the
Lord. In short, the Sabbath day of
rest is a day to lay aside all cares
and human pursuits and enjoy
spending time with the Lord.

It should be a wonderful day, de-
signed by God to be enjoyed, a de-
light, not a burden to be dreaded.
It is a taste of heaven itself, a sam-
ple of that heavenly rest in which
forever we will enjoy our time with
the Lord. I think it can and must
be said that if we cannot enjoy our
Sabbaths with the Lord in this
world, we are not ready for that
eternal Sabbath with the Lord in
heaven. See Hebrews 4:9-11.

When we speak of the Sabbath
day, we speak not of a time of hu-
man leisure such as envisioned by
most people today. We speak of a
day of enjoying fellowship with
God in our home, in His church
and throughout the day. It is not
a day for our seeking our own plea-
sure and recreation but for delight
in the Lord. As Christian parents
and believers, we should study to
make that day all that the Lord in-
tends for it to be. What then of
our leisure time? What of that
time in the six days when we are
not on the job?

III. THE PLACE OF LEISURE
(Col. 3:17,23; I Cor. 10:31). Be-
fore God we are to enjoy work as a
gift from God six days a week.
Where does this leave us in respect
to the four-day work week? Or the
five-day work week? Or the three-
day work week?

When the fourth commandment
says, "Six days shalt thou labor and
do all thy work" it does not neces-
sarily mean that we must punch a
clock in some office or factory, or
report for duty somewhere six days
a week from 8 to 5. It does mean,
however, that we should fill our
time with work for God's glory, in

service to Him, whether we are paid
for it or not. It does mean that God
holds us responsible for six days of
work, for use of our time that will
reflect honor and glory to Him and
demonstrate our sense of responsi-
bility to Him.

Leisure as a pursuit of fleshly lust
and human pleasure is not what
God expects. We will be held ac-
countable to God for our time and
the way we have used it. We must
be like Paul who spoke of our life
as a building built upon the founda-
tion of Jesus Christ. Some will
build with gold, silver and precious
stones. Others will build with
wood, hay and stubble.

However, every man's work will
be tested. Some lives, even Chris-
tian lives, will be wasted because
they have not been lived for God in
that sense of joy and work before
and unto God, as the writer of Ec-
clesiastes had expressed it (I Cor.
3:10-15).

Does this mean that we cannot
ever do anything which the world
calls leisure? Can we not enjoy an
athletic event or participate in
sports or just soak up the sun on the
beach or hike in the mountains or
enjoy a good time with friends in
our home? Certainly we can, but
even this we should view as unto the
Lord.

In Colossians 3:17, 23 we are
given an excellent guide: 'What-
soever ye do, in word or deed, do all
in the name of the Lord Jesus, giv-
ing thanks to God the Father
through Him . . . whatsoever ye do,
work heartily, as unto the Lord, and
not unto men." This includes ev-
erything. "Whether therefore ye
eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do,
do all to the glory of God."

If I spend my leisure hours in
service to God, with my family,
among my friends, in rest, or exer-
cise for my body, and do it to please
the Lord, in a sense of service to
Him, then I have found joy in this
work also. But if I pursue pleasure
in places where God's name is not
glorified or where H i s children
ought not to go, or if I do things
with people with whom I cannot
share the Lord Jesus, then I should
question whether such pursuits of
leisure are pleasing to God or ac-
ceptable according to His will.

Motivation of the heart is impor-
tant to God. Going back to Colos-
sians 3:23, the word there actually is

(Cont. on p. 17, col. 1)

PAGE 15 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 6, 1972

YOUTH PROGRAM

For September 24, 1972

What Difference Does It Make?

Scripture: II Corinthians 5:1-17
Suggested Hymns:

"Wonderful Words of Life"
"My Hope Is Built on Nothing
Less"

"Take the Name of Jesus with
You"

PROGRAM LEADER'S INTRO-
DUCTION: Sometimes a cynical
person will ask, "Does it really make
any difference whether a person is
a Christian or not?" We are sure
that it does make a difference. The
Bible says, "If any man be in Christ,
he is a new creature ..." This sug-
gests that being a Christian makes
a very real difference, but sometimes
the difference is hard to put into
words.

A person who has become a Chris-
tian is made up of virtually the
same molecules that he was before.
He still looks like the same person.
There is no change in his physical
appearance, but this does not say
that there is no real change in the
person. If being a Christian does
make a difference, what is it?

Rev. B. Hoyt Evans

FIRST SPEAKER: In the first
place, a Christian has a different re-
lationship to God. This is a dif-
ference we cannot see with our eyes.
It is a matter of believing what the
Bible says, of taking God at His
word. The Bible says of those who
believe in Jesus, "But as many as
received him, to them gave he pow-
er to become the sons of God, even
to them that believe on His name"
(John 1:12).

Jesus said that those who believed
in Him were born anew, spiritually,
that is. Those who believe in Christ
and in His saving work are forgiven
and are no longer under the con-
demnation of their sins. "He that
believeth on Him is not condemned,
but he that believeth not is con-
demned already, because he hath
not believed in the name of the on-
ly begotten Son of God" (John 3:

18)-.

Being a Christian makes the dif-
ference between eternal life and
eternal punishment. "He that be-
lieveth on the Son hath life: and he
that believeth not the Son shall not
see life, but the wrath of God abid-

i

:

8

[J

:

eth on him" (John 3:36) .

SECOND SPEAKER: Anothe
difference we find in a Christian i
that he has a whole new way o
thinking. "For they that are afte
the flesh do mind the things of thi!
flesh; but they that are after the
Spirit the things of the Spirit'
(Rom. 8:5) .

After Paul had become a Chris1
tian he said, "For to me to live i
Christ" (Phil. 1:21). This mean
that his whole goal, his aim in lift
was to do the will of Christ. Hi
wrote to those same Philippians (41
8) "Finally, brethren, whatsoever
things are true, whatsoever thing
are honest, whatsoever things an
just, whatsoever things are pure
whatsoever things are lovely, what
soever things are of good report; i
there be any virtue, and if there b<
any praise, think on these things.'

Not only does the Bible tell ii.
that being a Christian makes a grea
difference in one's way of thinking
Christians themselves tell us thi
same thing. Countless persons havi
testified that when they became
Christians they began to think abou
Christ and about pleasing Him
rather than dwelling on their owi
selfish wants and hurts. They full
ther testified that when they pu
Christ first in their lives they knev
peace of mind and heart for thi
first time.

THIRD SPEAKER: Christian^
not only have a different relation
ship to God and a different way o
thinking, they have a different wa1
of living. "For we are His work
manship, created in Christ Jesus un
to good works, which God hath be
fore ordained that we should wall
in them" (Eph. 2:10). Christian
live in a different way because Goc
lives in them and works througl
them. "For it is God which work
eth in you both to will and to d(
of His good pleasure" (Phil. 2:13)
We learn of this difference fron
the Bible and from the witness o
Christians themselves. In addition

Quality education focused on the individual

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PAGE 16 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 6, 1972

ffi

live learn it by observing their lives.

■Vlany times we have seen the re-
markable change that comes over a
ijerson's life after he has become a
reliever in Christ. His attitudes
ire different, his words are differ-
ent, and his deeds are different.
This is why Paul said that a person
n Christ is a new creature.

PROGRAM LEADER: In the
;ight of these things that have been
,aid, why is it that the cynics claim
jthat being a Christian makes no dif-
ference? Part of the reason, un-
doubtedly, is that cynics do not
want to believe that Christ is real
jand that He makes a difference in
the lives of those who believe in
Kirn.

Another reason, and this one calls
for honest self-examination on our
part, is that many who profess to
believe in Christ are little or no
better than unbelievers in their way
of living. What does our manner
of life say to a critical, questioning
world about the power of Christ to
transform human lives?

(Ask your members to suggest
specific deeds and traits in the lives
of young people that testify to the
transforming power of Chiist.)

BOOKS

Closing Prayer.

S. S. Lesson— from p. 15

ffil

"work from the soul (or heart) as
unto the Lord." That is why neither
I nor anyone else can tell you or tell
others that this or that particular
pursuit (unless forbidden in God's
Word) is right or wrong. Why do
you do it? Is it seen as something
done before the Lord as a child of
God, or is it done to escape God
and your obligations to Him?

CONCLUSION: Since the use of
leisure time is increasingly impor-
tant for Christians today, we must
be careful not to be caught up in the
world's pursuit of leisure which is
entirely selfish and based on human
lust for pleasure. We have to give
a good accounting of our lives as
God's children, lest all that we have
done be burnt up in the end. EE

MIAMI CHURCH needs an associate pas-
tor .. . Pinelands Presbyterian Church
of Miami is seeking a minister of educa-
tion to work with the pastor in designing
a Biblical curriculum to meet the needs
of a congregation located in an area of
rapid growth. Send resume to (Rev.)
William R. Johnson, Pinelands Presby-
terian Church, P. O. Box 336, Miami,
Florida 33157.

JAMES: A Self Study Guide, by
Irving L. Jensen. Moody Press, Chi-
cago, III. Paper, 112 pp. $1.50. Re-
viewed by the Rev. Peter Pascoe, pas-
tor, First Presbyterian Church, Wi-
nona Lake, Ind.

One in a series of self-study guides
designed for individual and/or
group study, this volume contains
ten lessons on James with each les-
son divided into six parts (prepa-
ration, analysis, application, etc.) .
Survey and analytic charts are used
to illustrate and emphasize the text.
Blanks to be filled in and questions
to be answered by the student com-
plete the format of the study
guide. ffil

JOB: A Study Guide, D. David Gar-
land. Zondervan Publ. House, Grand
Rapids, Mich. Paper, 107 pp. $1.50.
Reviewed by the Rev. Peter Pascoe,
pastor, First Presbyterian Church,
Winona Lake, Ind.

The author of this addition to
Zondervan's Study Guide Series is
professor of Old Testament, South-
western Baptist Seminary. In nine
chapters, each prefaced with an out-
line of the Scripture portion to be
studied, he takes us on a journey
through the book of Job. Each chap-
ter closes with a series of searching
questions designed to tell how much
we have learned of the sorrow and
tragedy of the message of Job, and
of the ultimate meaning of life it-
self, ffil

SAYINGS OF MAO, OF JESUS, by
Dick Hillis. Gospel Light Publications,
Glendale, Calif. Paper, 127 pp. $1.25.
Reviewed by Norman Cook, Asia Area
Director, Overseas Crusades, Inc.,
Palo Alto, Calif.

Although the sayings of Chairman
Mao are bywoids to millions of Chi-
nese, and the sayings of Jesus Christ
are equally familiar to millions of
Christians, the editor is rightly con-
vinced that many do not know what
Mao and Jesus have to say about the
issues confronting us today.

The author has indulged in a pro-
ject of contrasting the ideologies ex-
pressed in the sayings of Mao and Je-
sus. He has wisely refrained from
personal comment or editorializing.
His format is to quote Chairman
Mao on one page and give the con-

trasting sayings from Jesus on the
opposite page.

Before the reader is halfway
through the book he finds, as I did,
that no one is able to simultaneously
accept the doctrines of both.

In this helpful book the ultimate
goals of Chairman Mao and Jesus
Christ stand together in sharp con-
trast. The reader, standing at the
crossroads, is challenged to question,
"To which cause do I want to pay
my allegiance?" Even to the reader
who may already pay his allegiance
to Jesus, it is worthwhile to see why
masses of the world's idealistic youth
seem intoxicated by the revolution-
ary thoughts and slogans of Chair-
man Mao. IS

THE BOOK OF ISAIAH, VOL. Ill,
by Edward J. Young. Wm. B. Eerd-
mans Publ. Co., Grand Rapids, Mich.
579 pp. $9.95. Reviewed by the Rev.
Bernard Brunsting, pastor, Greenville
Community Reformed Church, Scars-
dale, N. Y.

A few years ago I had the good
fortune of spending several weeks
with the late Dr. Edward Young on
an archaeological trip to Palestine.
The many hours we had together are
of inestimable value to me. He was
a student of excellence and a man of
warm and congenial spirit. I am sor-
ry he is no longer with us but he has
left behind a monumental contribu-
tion in his books and in the lives of
those he taught.

He was able to complete the three
volume commentary on the book of
Isaiah. Like the other two volumes,
reviewed by me on these pages, this
volume is exhaustive in nature, evan-
gelical in spirit and allows the mes-
sage of Isaiah to be clearly heard. It
may be a little unusual today to have
a commentator insist on the unity of
authorship. But then it is also un-
usual to insist that God is the pri-
mary author of all Scriptures! I
found myself, in reading page after
page, drawn to greater love and
adoration of God.

As I mentioned in the reviews of
the other volumes, this is really too
much for most of us. It is clear; it
is helpful; it is sound but few of us
will use a commentary of 600 pages
that covers only one third of one
book; however for those who do,
here is the best. ffil

PAGE 17 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 6, 1972

NEW TESTAMENT INTRODUC-
TION, by Donald Guthrie. Inter-Var-
sity Press, Downers Grove, 111. 1054
pp. $11.95. Reviewed by the Rev. J.
Julius Scott, associate professor of
religious studies, Western Kentucky
University, Bowling Green, Ky.

The word "introduction" as used
in the title of this work refers to
matters which should be considered
before a study of the New Testa-
ment documents themselves. "In-
troduction" is in itself a distinctive
field of study which includes such
considerations as texts and manu-
scripts, the identity of the author

and his sources of information, the
date and circumstances of the writ-
ing, the literary and theological
characteristics, and the purpose of
the individual New Testament
books.

It also includes descriptions and
evaluations of the various scholarly
tools, methods, procedures, and
theories which have been and are
being used in attempts to under-
stand the background and character
of the various portions of the New
Testament.

In short, far from bing an intro-
ductory survey of the content of the

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SEE THE MANAGER NEAREST YOU FOR CHURCH CARPET, ROBES, ETC.

New Testament intended for the be-p
ginner, this massive volume deals
with critical and technical data. It
is intended for the professional
scholar, the trained pastor, and the
layman with some acquaintance
with the academic study of the.
Scriptures.

Although readers of the Presby-
terian Journal may know of Donald
Guthrie through his commentaries,
The Pastoral Epistles (Tyndale
Commentaries) and Galatians (New
Century Bible) , and as New Testa-
ment editor of The New Bible
Commentary: Revised, he is prob-
ably better known in Great Britain
than in this country. He received
his education, including his doc-
torate, at the University of London
and is presently lecturer in New
Testament and registrar for ad-
vanced studies at London Bible
College. His expertise in New Tes
tament studies is recognized by those
of all theological positions.

Introductions frequently include
discussions of the text and canon of
the New Testament or surveys of
the general historical and cultural
backgrounds of its world. Dr. Guth
rie has included none of these,
Rather, he has devoted himself to
those areas arising from an investi
gation of the literature itself. In
so doing he has tackled areas which
have all too frequently been ignored
or handled superficially by some
evangelical writers.

Dr. Guthrie presents adequate
factual summaries of the relevant
data, fair statements of the prob-
lems raised by these data, and out
line-type summaries of the content
of each New Testament book. He
also provides his own analysis and
interpretations of topics under con-
siderations. These personal opin
ions are firmly grounded in his own
competent, scholarly training and
background and in his evangelical
perspective. He also provides ex-
tensive bibliographies to assist the

If you are moving to an area where
there is no congregation of the
Presbyterian Church in the U. S.
you may find an Orthodox Presby-
terian Church nearby. A Directory
of Churches and Chapels of the
Orthodox Presbyterian Church
will be sent upon request. Please
address: Orthodox Presbyterian
Church Directory, 7401 Old York
Road, Philadelphia, Pa. 19126.

1

PAGE 18 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 6, 1972

eader in continuing his study on
iny given topic.

i The strength of Guthrie's book
is its completeness and the author's
villingness to face even the most dif-
ficult problems. He refuses to ac-
;ept traditional, simplistic, easy so-
utions if he feels they do not ade-
|uately explain all of the facts. Fre-
quently, for an example, in dealing
.vith the synoptic problem, the au-
thor suggests "guiding principles"
|:o assist the reader in seeking his
own understanding or solution
rather than supplying pat answers.

Only the present single-volume
form of this work is new. Most of
Ichis material appeared earlier in
khree separate volumes, The Synap-
tic Gospels and Acts (1965) , The
iPauline Epistles (1961) ) , and He-
brews to Revelation (1962, 2nd ed.
1966) . Professor Guthrie has used
(this printing as an opportunity to
jslightly enlarge and revise, and oth-
erwise to bring the earlier works up
to date. Indices have been includ-
ed for the one volume edition.
! With his New Testament Intro-
eduction Donald Guthrie has made
a substantial contribution to the en-
tire field of New Testament stud-
ies. The book is already well on
its way to becoming the standard
textbook and reference tool in this
area in conservative circles. It is
highly recommended to all who are
in need of an up-to-date survey in
the field of New Testament intro-
ductory studies. IS

CALVIN ON THE SCIENCES, by
Francis Nigel Lee. Sovereign Grace
Union, Redhill, Eng. Paper, 48 pp.
$.60. Reviewed by Robert M. Metcalf
Jr., Memphis, Tenn.

The word "science" has gained a
too limited meaning for us. The
author of this gem of a little book
says, "to Calvin the term 'science'
covers systematized knowledge not

only of the natural science but also
of the cultural sciences or humani-
ties as well, and even of the sciences
of theology and philosophy."

Dr. Lee says that his work makes
no attempt to be original: "In an
age when so many professing Chris-
tians either revile or revere 'Cal-
vinism,' yet so few have even read
Calvin, my only concern here has
been to present the unadulterated
views of that most typical of all Cal-
vinists — John Calvin himself. And
from this presentation it will, I
think, be established that 'Calvin-
ism' is no human innovation devised
by Calvin or his followers, but that
it is nothing other than the consist-
ent application of Biblical and his-
torical Christianity itself."

About half of the book consists of

(Continued on next page)

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PAGE 19 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 6, 1972

Get These Paperbacks

A Look At The New Testament $1.50

A Look At The Old Testament 1.50

Christianity, Communism, and Survival

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quotations directly from Calvin.
Their aptness is remarkable in be-
ing pulled from an astoundingly
broad range of his writings; they are
fitted perfectly to give us new in-
sights into the amazing reach of
mind of this giant founder of our
Reformed faith.

The author gives some of the
most pointed lessons one could ever
read on the consequences of the fall,
on the Word's sustaining power
even after that radical event, on
common grace, on general revela-
tion in nature and conscience, on all
works as a calling of God, on the
pursuit of God's truth as the high-
est calling of all, especially philos-
ophy.

Dr. Lee is an eminent scholar in
several wide fields himself. Though
from South Africa, he has taught
and lectured in the U. S. and has
other books published in this coun-
try. With an adroit hand he pro-
vides understanding why the sci-
ences have so flourished since Cal-
vin's encouragement of the sci-
entist's work under God. Again take
note: that means the student of all
truths in God's universe; those that
affect man in all his societal con-
cerns are emphatically included.

We must continue in that tradi-
tion as penetrating students in
Christ, obedient to the law and
Word, under God.

Available through the Presbyte-
rian Journal Book Store, Weaver-
ville, N. C, 28787, or Religious
Book Discount House, Wilmington,
Del. 19899. SI

JOl

TURNING TO GOD, by William,
Barclay. Baker Book House, Grand
Rapids, Mich. Paper, 103 pp. $1.50.
Reviewed by the Rev. Joseph A,
Scharer, pastor, First Presbyteriar
Church of Plantation, Plantation, Fla.

Few would question this author's,
qualifications to write on the sub-
ject of conversion- — he is well known
among evangelicals. The author
takes the study of conversion from
that of the early Church. He does
a thorough job. Language has suf
fered many changes and we are
sometimes confused because words
have meanings different from those
they used to have.

The popular meaning of conver-
sion today differs from that found-
ed on a sincere commitment to the
Lord Jesus Christ. Repentance is
not stressed in many churches and
there most certainly is a demand
made on the convert. Dr. Barclay
reminds us that "not only salvation
but penitence is the gift of Jesus
Christ." Jesus Christ is as much the
agent of repentance as He is of for-
giveness.

Quite evident throughout this
easy-to read booklet is the plea on
the author's part for a much closer
tie of conversion, and out of that a
growing life of productivity. A
truly converted soul will produce
fruit, fruit pleasing in the sight of
the Lord. ffl

Too many believers get angry over
trifles and are unmoved by tragedies
— Leonard Ravenhill.

????????????

MISSISSIPPI
RECONCILIATION

????????????

TO: Programs Of Reconciliation Committee
Synod of Mississippi
Box 362, Meridian, Mississippi 39301

Send copies of "Some Presbyterian Reflections on Reconciliation

in Mississippi in 1972" at $1.00 per copy, a modest booklet authorized by
Synod and published by the above Committee containing writtten statements of
a broad cross section of today's Mississippi Presbyterians on this timely
subject. Please send payment with your order. We pay postage.

Name

Mailing address

City, State and Zip

PAGE 20 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 6, 1972

/OL. XXXI, NO. 20

SEPTEMBER 13, 1972

$4.00 A YEAR

the

Idvocating continuation of a Presbyterian Church loyal

to Scripture and the Reformed faith

Lady of Zaire

When we definitely felt God leading us back to Zaire for
this term of service, I began wondering what my work should
be. Gradually the idea began to form in my mind of helping
women in the villages. In our home church at that time I was
teaching a junior age class cardinal Bible doctrines: God, Jesus,
the Holy Spirit, Satan. I could adapt and translate these les-
sons.

— Eudene Keide]

(See p. 7)

S. S. LESSON AND YOUTH PROGRAM FOR OCTOBER 1
CIRCLE BIBLE STUDY FOR OCTOBER

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EVANGELISM MATERIALS

Except for one or two authors of
evangelical persuasion, much of the
material offered the PCUS in prepa-
ration for Key '73 is vague in its
definition of evangelism. Writers
from a host of other denominations
are recommended, and virtually

none from known conservative bod-
ies. All this in the "Year of Recon-
ciliation"!

The "sermons" and articles on
evangelism recently sent out to min-
isters from the Board of National
Ministries have one thing in com-
mon: Nearly all downgrade an

the

PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL

Rev. G. Aiken Taylor, Ph.D., Editor
Rev. Henry B. Dendy, D.D., Managing Editor

Circulation leader among independent publications in the Presbyterian-Reformed world

Vol. XXXI, No. 20, September 13, 1972

THIS WEEK —

Take Good Care of Mama 7

In Africa one lady wears the hat of wife, mother, teacher,
nurse, friend By Eudene Keidel

First Things First 9

To put the moral law first and neglect faith in God is to end
up with neither By John H. Eastwood

Published by PCUS 10

A look at the Gospel according to "St. Irving" in a denomi-
national paper By the Editor

De partments —

Editorials 12

The Layman and his Church 13

Sunday School Lesson, October 1 14

Youth Program, October 1 16

Circle Bible Study, October 1 7

Book Reviews 20

THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL, a

Presbyterian weekly magazine, devoted
to the statement, defense, and propa-
gation of the Gospel, the faith which
was once for all delivered to the saints,

is published every Wednesday by the
Southern Presbyterian Journal Co.,
Inc., in Weaverville, N. C.

SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: $4 a year

for individuals, $3 for members of
Every Family Plan churches. All cor-
respondence regarding subscriptions,
advertising or other business matters,
should be addressed to the business
office in Weaverville, N. C. 28787.
Second class postage paid at Weaver-
ville, N. C. 28787. '

POSTMASTER: Send Form 3579 to
Presbyterian Journal, Box 635, Wea-
verville, N. C. 28787. Subscribers
should allow three weeks for change
of address in continental U. S. Change
of address notices should include both
old and new addresses (with zip
codes) .

NEWS AND EDITORIAL correspond-
ence should be addressed to P. 0. Box
3108, Asheville, N. C. 28802. Editorial
offices located at 247 Charlotte St. in
Asheville.

TELEPHONES: (All area 704) edi-
torial office, 254-4015, 254-4016;
business office, 645-3310, 645-3962.

"old, out-worn fundamentalism,"
and have a negative approach to
what has been known as "Biblical
evangelism."

In a message at a synod meeting
recently, one of the executives who
spoke in introduction of Key '73,
made it very clear that groups such
as Campus Crusade (responsible for
Explo 72) , Inter-Varsity and the like
really did not understand what evan-
gelism was all about. His remarks
were so cleverly caustic that a dis-
cussion later developed around the
podium as to the reasons for the ob-
vious bitterness.

All this in the "Year of Reconcili-
ation"!

Another denomination, not men-
tioned in any of the publicity hand-
ed out by the PCUS, has produced
its own materials for Key '73. This
body is the Christian Reformed
Church. As in all their publications,
there is a faithfulness to the Word,
and a depth of scholarship found in
few other major denominations to-
day.

Two of the outstanding pieces
available are Called To Serve and
Who In The World?. The former is
a series of seven in-depth studies
designed for small group discus-
sions of Biblical call to witness as
presented in the latter. The book-
let is designed so that every group
member may have a copy to aid him
or her in setting goals, and under-
standing one's personal role in the
evangelism process. Called to Serve
is completely Biblical, and is the
best material of its kind available.
It is new and original in concept
and design.

Who In The World? is a popular
Biblical study of the role of God's
people in today's world. It was ed-
ited by Clifford Christians, Earl J.
Schipper, and Wesley Smedes. The
Rev. Mr. Smedes is director of evan-
gelism with the Christian Reformed
Board of Home Missions.

Should any readers of the Journal
desire sound, solid yet warm, evan-
gelism materials for their participa-
tion in KEY '73, we suggest that you
write this address: Evangelism
Thrust, 2850 Kalamazoo Ave., S.E.j
Grand Rapids, Michigan 49508.

Barely mentioned in the Presby-
terian material listing is Jim Ken-
nedy's Evangelism Explosion. This,
and the film concerning this minis-
try, are a must for the evangelistic
church or presbytery. Additionally,
every pastor, committee, and church
should own and read J. I. Packer's

Evangelism and The Sovereignty of
God, an Inter-Varsity paperback.
Mot mentioned in "our" listings, it
s without doubt the outstanding
Reformed book on evangelism to-
day.

Leighton Ford's The Christian
Persuader is mentioned in the Pres-
byterian mailing, and is outstand-
ing. Again, "our" bibliographies
>eem to have missed Paul E. Little
and his well-known and excellent
volume, How To Give Away Your
Faith. This too is an Inter-Varsity
■Press paperback.

Three other books that would
■make good reading in preparation
ifor an evangelistic emphasis in 1973
lare: The Church Before the Watch-
ting World, by Francis A. Schaeffer,
land also the same writer's True
^Spirituality. Clark Pinnock's new
land comprehensive Biblical Revela-
Mtion should certainly be read by the
■ evangelical pastor and made avail-
able in the church library.

Perhaps in this last half-year of
preparation before Key '73 and its
"evangelism across all denomina-
tional lines" it might be well if a
church spent some time in an inten-
sive study along the lines suggested
in the volumes listed above. It just
might be that there would follow
a true revival of spiritual interest,
a deepening interest in Bible study,
and the conversion of many to Jesus
Christ, our Lord!

— (Rev.) Harold Borchert
Waynesville, N. C.

See Book Reviews in this issue for
"Who in the World" — Ed.

MINISTERS

Michael D. Bolus, Johnson City,
Tenn., will be full time evangelist
with Presbyterian Evangelistic
Fellowship, continuing to live in
Johnson City.

George C. Boone from Olanta, S.
C, to the Kentyre church, Hamer,
S. C.

John C. Dudley from graduate
study, Union Seminary, Rich-
mond, to the First Church,
Monticello, Fla.

John M. Duncan from Salem, Ind.,
to the Yanceyville, N. C, church.
Dorsey D. Ellis, former stated
clerk of Guyandotte Presbytery, is
now General Presbyter for that
presbytery, continuing to live in
So. Charleston, W. Va.
Robert E. Fields Jr., from Mont-
gomery, W. Va., to the Hudson
Memorial church, Raleigh, N. C.
John Frederick Fife, recent grad-
uate of Columbia Seminary, to
the Broadmoor church, Shreve-
port, La., as assistant pastor.
Thomas A. Fry Jr., Dallas, Tex.,
has been called by Second Church,
Memphis, Tenn., as associate pas-
tor.

R. Eugene Hunt from Greenville,
Ala., to the Emmanuel church, At-
lanta, Ga.

ACROSS THE EDITOR'S DESK

• In this issue appears the first
lesson in the new series of Circle Bi-
ble Studies by Dr. Manford Geo.
Gutzke (see p. 17) . This year some-
thing new has been added. The
studies are not only available in the
Journal and on tape recording (as
announced at the end of each les-
son) , they also are available in book
form. Born To Serve is the title of
the book into which they have been
rendered, published by Gospel Light
Press as a volume in their Regal
series. The price is $.95 plus post-
age and the book is available from
The Bible for You, Box 15007, At-
lanta, Ga., 30333, or from the Jour-
nal book store in Weaverville.

• Every time we think the de-
pravity of the Church has hit bot-
tom and maybe we'll have something
pleasant to talk about for a change,
something else comes along to top
anything we've seen before. "Pub-
lished by PCUS" on p. 10 of this is-
sue calls attention to Focus, a news-
paper for which the Presbyterian
Church US is partially responsible
and about which it is very hard to
say anything good. We've tried to
explain why we consider this sort
of thing important in an editorial

on p. 12. Previous issues of Focus
have encouraged youth to resist the
"power structure" of their schools
(Sept., 1970) , to take over their
schools (Jan., 1971), and to start a
high school underground newspaper
(March, 1971) . The paper also has
condoned and encouraged the use
of drugs (Nov., 1970) , and specifi-
cally counseled tax evasion (Nov.,
1971) . It also has been strongly de-
fended on the floor of two General
Assemblies, where unsuccessful at-
tempts have been made to disasso-
ciate the PCUS from its publication.

• Speaking of unpleasantness in
Church affairs, there's been a strong
reaction from Journal readers to a
letter to the editor in the Aug. 23
issue in which a Tampa physician
detailed some of the physical impli-
cations of the growing acceptance
of homosexual practices by the
Church — as evidenced by the
"marriage" of two homosexuals per-
formed by a PCUS minister from
West Virginia. Several readers

thought we should not have pub-
lished the letter at all. While we
often wish to our God that the de-
pravity of the Church need not be
told, we are even more impressed
with the truth that without exposure
there can be no healing of any ill-
ness. If the Church thinks this or
that deviation from rectitude can be
tolerated, it needs to be reminded
of all the consequences. A good
case for "telling it like it is" was
made by Robert J. Hastings in last
week's (Sept. 6) Journal. We hope
everyone read it.

• Anyone wanting copies of any
of the 1972 Journal Day addresses
may secure same by writing Mr.
George Calhoun, Mount Olive Pres-
byterian Church Tape Library, Box
142, Bassfield, Miss. 39421. Mr. Cal-
houn, who has volunteered to take
a chore out of our hands, informs
us that he can put one message on
a cassette for $1.50 (that's a steal)
or two messages on a regular reel
for $2.00 (that's a double steal) . EE

PAGE 3 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 13, 1972

NEWS OF RELIGION

French Catholics Object To Sermons

PARIS — French Roman Catholics
are as concerned over the content of
the sermons they hear as American
Protestants, if a lively debate still go-
ing on in two French newspapers is
any indication.

It all began with a letter to the
editor from a young Frenchman
complaining that what the faithful
hunger for is God and the supernat-
ural, and not "long, boring, 'trendy'
sermons on everyday affairs."

Jean Menu's letter was published
in Le Monde, influential Paris news-
paper. It wasn't long before a
flood of correspondence began to
appear in the letters column of Le
Monde and in France Catholique, a
leading Roman Catholic weekly
which joined the debate with edi-
torials supporting Mr. Menu.

Target of Mr. Menu's ire was a
series of five sermons he had listened
to in as many weeks.

The first sermon, he said, dealt
with "communal re-grouping"; the
second, with "the spirit of the (sum-
mer) holidays." The third consist-
ed of the priest's inviting the assem-
bly "to speak from the top of its

head." The fourth was a summary
of a French comedy film, "Every-
one is Beautiful, Everyone is Nice."
And the fifth developed the theory
that "capitalism and fraternal life
are incompatible."

The trend represented by such
sermons, said Mr. Menu, is danger-
ous. "Parish priests are treating less
and less with what we come to
hear."

He continued: "When I listen to
a sermon, I expect to have my faith
shaken a bit, or at least the ashes of
my faith. I expect the priest to talk
to me of God, that he enlighten me
about the Christian revelation.

"I couldn't care less what the rev-
erend father thinks about changes
in government."

Commenting on the priestly vo-
cational crisis in the world and the
thousands reported to have left the
priesthood, the young man remarked
that "considering the incompetence
of those who remain, one wonders
whether enough have left." The crux
of the matter, he observed, is that
many priests "no longer believe in
what they are doing."

THE CHURCH OVERSEAS

ZAIRE — President Mobutu Sese
Seko of Zaire (the former Belgian
Congo) has ordered the arrest and
expulsion of a Roman Catholic
priest for baptizing a baby girl un-
der a Christian name.

A "Voice of Zaire" radio broad-
cast did not identify the priest. The
report said the priest had baptized
the infant under the name "Marie-
Salvatrice," after the Virgin Mary.

The action was in conformity
to Mr. Mobutu's earlier decision to
abolish all Christian names, in pur-
suit of his declared policy of "a re-
turn to (African) authenticity"
and the obliteration of every trace
of the colonial past.

The broadcast added that the gov-
ernment has ruled that from now
on all Zairans must always call them-
selves by their "authentic" names,

and that Christian names may not
even be printed in brackets.

Any citizen of Zaire, who contin-
ues to refer to himself or herself by
a Christian name, the radio said,
will henceforth be regarded as a
"reactionary" and a "counterrevolu-
tionary."

In line with his "authenticity"
programs, Mr. Mobutu changed
his name from Joseph Desire,
to Sese-Seko-Kuku-Ngheandu-Wa-Za-
Banga. (For journalistic purposes it
is shortened to Sese Seko.)

The name of the country, the
Democratic Republic of the Congo,
was changed to Zaire. The Congo
river and the national currency were
also designated Zaire, which is a
Portuguese distortion of Nzadi, the
original name of the river. EB

The letter found support in
France Catholique, which editori-
alized: "What the young man tells
us about his sermonizers and of their
nearly unbelievable failure is in
proportion to his own thirst for God,
to his own appeal — an appeal and
a thirst which is shared by nervous
youths and adults alike."

Prompt Reactions

Opinions pro and con poured in-
to the offices of Le Monde and
France Catholique.

A doctor from Mulhouse in east-
ern France recalled, wryly, that at
the marriage of his son fours years
ago, the officiating minister con-
fined his marriage sermon to reflec-
tions on the Biafran war in Nigeria
and on highway accidents.

University student Daniel Linotte,
from the Gironde region, said that
"we would like to hear sermons
about God and the Gospel and not
have to listen to comments on the
latest television programs or the
rise in the cost of living."

On the other hand, a professor of
medicine at Besancon, Pierre Agache,
expressed surprise that Mr. Menu
was able to find so many churches
where "in vogue sermons" were
preached. "There are too few in
France," he complained.

Rose Meunier, 24, of Paris, re-
called the commandment, "Thou
shalt not kill," and commented:
"And you — Mr. Menu — want
priests to speak only of spiritual
peace and not of Vietnam!"

Lady Disagrees

A Protestant woman disagreed
with Mr. Menu. "Although I am a
Protestant," she said, "it happens
that on vacation, I sometimes go to
the mass. I have always found the
sermons interesting. Perhaps Mr.
Menu and I do not go to church to
find the same thing."

A theology student, Jean-Yves
Lecat, 26, argued that the era of
"entertainer-priests" and "planetary-
priests" should be ended.

"Our era," he said, "demands that
priests speak of God, in the manner
of Jesus Christ, in the language of
the people, and not after the manner
of Scribes and Pharisees." 51

h

PAGE 4 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 13, 1972

i Women's Lib Service
Held in Washington

WASHINGTON, D. C. (RNS) —
live, first woman of the Old Testa-
Inent, made the "original leap of
laith" when she chose to eat the
Iruit of the tree of knowledge in the
ISarden of Eden,
i This was the theme of the first
|)f what may become regular "All
[Women's Inter-Denominational Re-
' igious Services" here. The service
|»vas sponsored by the National Cap
jital Area Chapter of National Or-
ganization for Women (NOW) .

The liturgy, written by a NOW
committee, consisted of an opening
statement developing the theme that
the "heritage of responsibility" was
j^iven mankind "through Eve."

"It was Eve who was the initiator
!of civilization," said the Rev. Jeanne
Clarke, assistant pastor of Provi-
dence Presbyterian church, Fairfax,
|Va., and chief liturgist for the ser-
vice. "We as women have the right
and responsibility to claim her as
our own: Eve, in touch with all as-
pects of herself, her body, her mind,
her creatureliness, her creativity, her
ability and her responsibility to her-
self."

One prayer stated: "We pray for
all those so burdened with a sense
of mediocrity or guilt that they can-
not let go of supposed security. God,
give them other ground to stand on.
Show them that to renounce com-
plicity is the beginning of true be-
longing in the sisterhood."

Six women, three black and three
white, delivered "mini-sermons."
Ruth Whitney, a Ph.D. candidate at
Catholic University here, said the
current women's movement is a re-
ligious movement because women
have begun to "look into themselves
very deeply" and are "identifying
their humanity, the humanity taught
to us by the Scriptures."

Virginia Mills, president of the
Washington chapter of Church
Women United, said Jesus was a
"feminist" who demonstrated His
belief in the "humanity of women."
His humanitarian attitude toward
women, she said, was "scandalous"
for His day, when women were con-
sidered inferior to men. "It's time
we let our men know that we are

now reading and interpreting the
Scriptures for ourselves," she said.

Music leader for the service was
the Rev. Imogene Williams, minis-
ter of the "Church of What's Hap-
pening Now." IS

World Church Leaders
Plan World Congress

LOS ANGELES — Church leaders
from all six continents met here this
week with the Rev. Billy Graham to
plan for an International Congress
on World Evangelism.

The Congress will be convened by
150 leading churchmen from around
the world. More than 100 have al-
ready accepted invitations to serve
on the convening committee and
further invitations are being issued
following this week's meeting.

Dr. Graham has been named hon-
orary chairman of the Congress and
he announced today that a decision
on dates and location will probably
be made in the next few weeks. He
also announced that the Congress
would have a large representation
of people from the so-called third
world areas.

"Since the Berlin Congress on
Evangelism in 1966," Dr. Graham
said, "many Church leaders — pas-
tors, evangelists and missionaries —
have urged that there be another
world congress on evangelism."

A 25-member planning commit-
tee formed from the membership of
the convening committee will be
headed by A. Jack Dain, assistant
bishop of the Anglican Diocese of
Sydney, Australia. Bishop Dain
said today, "We want to recall
Churches to the task of world evan-
gelism under the dynamics of the
Holy Spirit."

The executive chairman added
that 3,000 people will be invited to
attend the Congress, and the pro-
gram will have a major emphasis on
delegate participation. "It is hoped
that 60 per cent of the delegates
will be under the age of 45," he
added, "and that a large number of
them will be moving into positions
of leadership in the Christian
Church."

Speaking of the planning commit-
tee, Bishop Dain said, "It will be

truly international in character
with wide geographical and cultural
representation. It is envisioned that
this committee will meet regularly
between now and the time of the
Congress."

At the conclusion of this week's
consultation, a small group will visit
a number of overseas cities being
considered as a location for the Con-
gress.

Also announced was the appoint-
ment of Donald E. Hoke, Tokyo,
Japan, as coordinator of the Con-
gress. IB

Korean Church Leader
Asks Continued US Help

NEW YORK (RNS) — If the U.S.
withdraws from South Korea now,
it would be "an invitation to a
Communist invasion," a South
Korean Church leader said here.

Dr. Won Yong Kang, director of
Korea Christian Academy and vice-
chairman of the East Asia Christian
Conference, expressed his concern to
members of the Executive Commit-
tee of the Research Center for
Religion and Human Rights and
Closed Societies.

The Center publishes the periodi-
cal, Religion in Communist Domi-
nated Areas, of which Dr. Kang is
an advisor.

The South Korean, who came to
the U.S. for a brief visit after attend-
ing the meeting of the Central Com-
mittee of the World Council of
Churches in Utrecht, the Nether-
lands, declared that "as Christians
we must be concerned about the
safety and the very lives of our fel-
low Christians and other people in
Asian nations."

Although he said he was "for
peace and for peaceful unification
of both Koreas," referring to cur-
rent negotiations between North
and South Korea, Dr. Kang added
that "these goals cannot be achieved
without maintaining a balance of
power in that area.

"Since North Korea is supported
by the U.S.S.R. and the People's Re-
public of China, it is essential that
the U.S.A. continue her presence in
and honor her commitment to South
Korea."

Commenting on the negotiations

PAGE 5 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 13, 1972

to end the Vietnam war, he suggest-
ed that the problem of South Korean
prisoners in North Vietnam and the
withdrawal of South Korean troops
from South Vietnam should be in-
cluded.

He also called for more consulta-
tion on these matters between the
U.S. and South Korea. SI

Southern Church-Related
Schools Get Ford Grant

NEW YORK (RNS) — Three
Southern colleges with religious af-
filiations have received $450,000 in
grants for undergraduate programs

Reformed Seminary
Opens Seventh Year

JACKSON, Miss. — With an enter-
ing class of 64 and a total enroll-
ment approaching 130, the Reformed
Seminary got off to another year
with a convocation in Grace Chap-
el. The convocation marked the
opening of the seventh regular ses-
sion at the independent academic in-
stitution.

Convocation speaker was W. Jack
Williamson, ruling elder in the First
Church, Greenville, Ala., and senior
partner in the law firm of William-
son and Taber.

A former moderator of East Ala-
bama Presbytery and currently presi-
dent of the council of that presby-
tery, Mr. Williamson is also secre-
tary of Concerned Presbyterians Inc.,
and a member of the Steering Com-
mittee for a Continuing Presbyte-
rian Church. He is also a member
of the Journal board of directors. SI

New Stillman Academic
Program Is Launched

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Stillman
College has enlarged and expanded
its College Educational Achievement
Project (CEAP) , under which stu-
dent level of achievement was im-
proved, and given it a new name.

The new Educational Develop-
ment Program is a refinement of the
earlier venture, under which stu-

from the Ford Foundation.

They were among eight institu-
tions in the South getting a total of
$1.65 million in grants under the
foundation's Venture series.

Two schools, related both to the
Presbyterian Church US and the
United Presbyterian Church USA,
each received $150,000. These are
Centre College of Kentucky, Dan-
ville, and Florida Presbyterian Col-
lege, St. Petersburg. Alderson-Broad-
dus College, Philippi, W. Va., a
Baptist institution, also received that
amount.

The Ford Foundation previously
awarded $3 million to schools in the
West under its Venture series. SI

dents not yet ready to enroll in a
full college program were given spe-
cial preparation to bring them from
their present level of achievement
to the point where they could rea-
sonably expect to succeed in college.

Under the new program, students
not only will be helped to overcome
pre-college educational handicaps,
they will be phased into the regular
college program with credit given
for satisfactory work at the college
level.

As soon as their average warrants,
students under the Educational De-
velopment Program will be permit-
ted to take a normal load of college-
level courses. SI

Overseas Missionaries
Hold Annual Conference

ATLANTA (PN) — Approximate-
ly 50 furloughed missionaries from
nine denominations or Church agen-
cies gathered in Atlanta Aug. 10-16
for a concentrated, five-day interde-
nominational conference of overseas
personnel.

It was sponsored by the Commit-
tee on Overseas Personnel of the Di-
vision of Overseas Ministries, Na-
tional Council of Churches.

Miss Mae Ross Taylor of New
York, until recently personnel rela-
tions secretary for the UPUSA Com-
mittee on Ecumenical Mission and
Relations, was dean of this seventh
annual event.

The conference was held at the In-

terdenominational Theological Cen
ter, one of a number of prominent
predominantly black educational
institutions in this southern metro
politan area.

The theme, "Mission on Six Con
tinents," centered on topics such as
mission in a time of the self determi
nation of people, mission and social
justice, mission within and without
Church structures, relationships con
ducive to spiritual growth and gen-
uine mutuality, the missionary as a
change agent, and selfhood ol
Churches on six continents.

Persons attending the meeting rep-
resent overseas mission service in 14'
countries. They were invited to the
conference by their respective de-i
nominational boards of mission.

Although denominations faded in-
to the background at this ecumeni-
cal gathering, missionaiies present
were from the United Methodist
Church, American Baptist Church,
United Presbyterian Church USA,
Church of the Brethren, the United
Church of Christ, Jesuit Missions,
the Ecumenical Institute of Canada,
the Disciples of Christ, and the Pres-
byterian Church US.

Two Presbyterian US missionary
couples from Brazil attended the
conference. They are Harvey Mus-
ser, who is in education work at
Ceres, and David Hopkins, who is
an industrial missionary at Garan-
huns, and their wives. SI

Birthday Offering
Continues To Rise

ATLANTA (PN) — Since an-
nouncement of the 1972 Birthday
Offering of the Women of the
Church (PCUS) , approximately
$11,000 more has been received.

The total now stands as $311,615.

This year's offering marks the
50th anniversary of annual gifts by
Presbyterian women for special over-
seas and homeland causes. Since
1922 the Women of the Church have
given approximately $7,580,000 to
various Birthday Objectives.

Part of the 1972 offering will en-
dow a professorship of business anq.
create scholarships for business stu-
dents at Stillman College, Tuscaloo-
sa, Ala.

A portion of the receipts goes for
translations of sections of the Bible
in Spanish and certain Indian lan-
guages, and for publishing and dis-
tributing additional copies of To-
day's Version of the New Testa-
ment and Scripture packets. SI

THE CHURCH AT HOME

PAGE 6 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 13, 1972

Out off from civilization for a week in a small village in Zaire —

Take Good Care of Mama

We drove our four-wheel drive
pickup off the dirt road onto
•the lush grass of the large, palm-
Ishaded yard. Paths like neat brown
Mribbons crisscrossed it, leading to
■school classroom buildings on either
■side, and to a cement-block, sheet-
Imetal roofed church on its far end.
■This was a large population center
iknown as Mbau, along a little used
■road 45 miles north of our mission
Istation at Tshikapa, Zaire.

My husband eased the truck be-
tween the palms and across the paths
to a large thatch-roofed home be-
hind the church. As we got out of
the truck, people popped out from
everywhere to greet us — the elder
by whose home we had parked, the
pastor, the school principal, and
many others. They pumped our
■ hands warmly with various exclama-
! tions of joy.

"Rains have so ruined this road
that no vehicle has passed here for
a week," the pastor said. "But when
a jeep went by this morning, we re-
joiced. We said, 'Mama will come
! today.' "

"Mama" is their familiar respect-
i ful term for a missionary woman.
: They showed Levi and me to an old
wobbly wicker double chair on the
[ veranda of a hut on one side of the
yard, and the crowd gathered to
take it all in.

It had taken us three and one-
half hours to come these 45 miles.
We crossed a bridge where we first
\ had to arrange pieces of broken
{ planks and tree limbs along one
side to keep the wheels from falling
through between the iron girders.
The truck had ground its way

The author is a fourth-term mis-
sionary under the Congo Inland
Mission, mother of four, and t h e
wife of missionary Levi Keidel. She
specializes in nursing and women's
work.

through deep sand, had tipped dan-
gerously where one track had
washed out, had pulled itself
through a series of large stagnant
ponds which covered the road for
miles through deep forest the sun
never penetrates.

Now scores of people had gathered
in a semicircle to look at us. Wom-
en in turn brought me gifts of wel-
come: a pineapple, some eggs, a
chicken. It was very much worth
it. I'd been looking forward to this
moment for a long time.

When we definitely felt God lead-
ing us back to Zaire for this term
of service, I began wondering what
my work should be. Gradually the
idea began to form in my mind of
helping women in the villages. In
our home church at that time I was
teaching a junior age class cardinal
Bible doctrines: God, Jesus, the Holy
Spirit, Satan. I could adapt and
translate these lessons.

I am a nurse. During last term
I wrote a simple booklet on preven-
tative care for children's diseases.
Why not use this booklet as a guide
for preparing a series of health les-
sons? Artists prepared for me two
large visual-aid chart rolls, one on
diseases and the other on nutrition.

Position Wanted

When we had returned to Zaire
Levi advertised my offer: I would
come spend a week with the women
of any village of our region who
would send me an invitation and
enclose two zaires ($4.00) to help
cover my travel costs. (Income here
is about 1/20 of what it is in the
states; such a contribution would
prove that their hearts were in it) .
Many weeks passed, and I wondered
if anyone would invite me.

Then came this invitation with
two zaires from Mbau. I sent them
word that I couldn't come before
the end of the month. This hap-

EUDENE KEIDEL

pened to be during full moon,
which proved to be important.

Our crowd of spectators had
dwindled now. Two small boys, each
with a precious marble, played on
the ground to one side. Two more
sat crowded against each other in a
big people's wicker arm chair in the
grass before us. One of them, prob-
ably for lack of pants, wore a dress.
They were lost to themselves, look-
ing into the distance and talking
about the great issues of their little
world. It seemed these small chil-
dren were basking in the aura of
this rare and august occasion.

Greeted With Smiles

The church elder came. His name
was Timothy. He was my host. He
was a funny, energetic, little old
man whose face and shaved head
seemed always wreathed with a
tooth-spangled smile.

"We have put things on the table
for you," he said in his high crisp
voice.

This was the first of many meals
I was to eat with them. I was their
guest for the week. All I took was
my cot and necessary clothing, so I
tried to fit into their customs of en-
tertaining an honored visitor. I
could eat no meal with the women;
I ate every meal with the head men
— Timothy, the pastor, and the
school principal. The only time I
sat at a table with a woman during
the week was when I was honored
guest at the home of the local high
government official; that was also
the only meal where we used silver-
ware.

For breakfast every day we had
sweetened tea heavily diluted with
milk, and bananas. For almost ev-
ery other meal we ate native mush
(a mixture of manioc and corn
flour cooked to a heavy constituen-
cy) and chicken. Timothy later told
me that it would have been shame

PAGE 7 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 13, 1972

for them not to feed an important
guest at least a chicken for every
main meal. Christians in the vil-
lage took their turns furnishing a
chicken. Timothy always gave me
a plate for my meat. He said "Mama
likes her food close to her chest." As
for the mush, we used our washed
fingers and ate out of a common
bowl.

Daily Routine

Levi stayed that Saturday night,
preached the Sunday morning ser-
mon at church, and prepared to re-
turn home. He would be on a trip
150 miles in another direction that
week, and confessed that he was con-
cerned for me. I would be totally de-
pendent upon the Zairans, with no
medical facilities, and no means of
communication with home except a
bicycle messenger in case of emer-
gency. He shook hands with the el-
der, said, "Take good care of Mama;
I don't have another one," and left.
All that week two trucks passed.

A school teacher vacated his home
for me for the week. It was typical:
wattle walls, thatch roof, and dirt
floor. What he didn't move out
with him was a rat, and a pen of
seven guinea pigs. The rat came ev-
ery night to gnaw something on top
of the bamboo ceiling. I tucked my
mosquito net in good and didn't
worry about him. Generally the
guinea pigs were quiet.

Teaching Classes

My work began Sunday evening,
the day Levi left. I went on foot
with Timothy, the pastor, and a
group of Christians, for a service in
the village. Mbau is a long village.
It was a 50-minute walk. We re-
turned by moonlight. That was our
daily evening activity, an open-air
service in some part of the village.

On Monday morning Timothy
told me the women wanted classes
every day from 8:30 to 11 a.m. Quick
mental calculation told me that I'd
finish all my Bible and health les-
sons in three days at that rate. So
every morning I started the service
with a 15-20 minute accordion "re-
cital." They couldn't sing the
hymns with me, because they weren't
used to an instrument; but they en-
joyed the music and often hummed
with it.

First I would review yesterday's
material. Then I would teach the
Bible lesson. After a brief rest

(which the women agreed was only
for my sake) , I presented a practical
health lesson. If the women did not
practice what I taught, they at least
understood it. In one health lesson
I stressed the need for mothers to
set their babies on a mat instead of
the ground as a preventative against
intestinal parasites.

Once one woman standing in a
group saw me coming. She quickly
ran and picked up her baby saying,
"Oh my. Here comes Mama, and
the baby is sitting on the ground."
Generally we were in session about
two hours daily. During the after-
noon I rested, and visited with vil-
lage women. Then early evenings
we went to conduct the village meet-
ings.

I averaged speaking three times a
day. Our morning meetings were
attended by 35-60 women. Some
walked 10 miles bringing food and
staying all week. Others walked
with school children every morn-
ing from their village two miles
distant. An old blind man from
that village came for every morning
service, his hand on the shoulder of
the child leading him. Timothy had
led him to Christ a few years ago;
he had a wonderful testimony.

There was a real hunger for the
Word. One woman asked, "Why
hadn't someone told us these things
before?" I'm sure it was not all new,
but maybe put into a different form
so that they better understood it.
My heart rejoiced as I saw how God
used humble efforts.

At the late afternoon village serv-
ices I spoke to audiences of 50-200
people. I used my lesson on the
Holy Spirit several times, because
there are cults in the area which say
they have special inside information
on Him. I felt the Holy Spirit help-
ing me. Sometimes people's atten-
tion was literally fastened upon me
the full time I spoke.

Friends of the Cross

Let us follow those preachers who
are friends of the cross. Let us have
fellowship with those who have fel-
lowship with Christ. Preachers who
have caught the spirit of the age are
of the world and the world loves its
own. We must disown them, but in
so doing we must embrace those who
accept the offense of the cross. —
C. H. Spurgeon.

Often after a service the local host
would say we were going to have "a
little coffee." I soon learned that
meant a full meal. One Christian
man who always walked with us to
our village services made sure he
served me coffee. He knew I didn't
want much of it in the evening, so
he gave me enough to satisfy proto-
col, and I could sleep too. We held
a service in every sub-chief's section
of the village.

Eighteen services, some 20 foot-
miles, and 14 chickens later. Levi
came to get me. It was late after-
noon. Before going to bed that
night, he determined to do some-
thing about that rat. We left the
lantern lit all night to discourage
him. But that created another prob-
lem. The guinea pigs thought it
was morning and time to eat; so
they gnawed their way out of the
pen to hunt food.

Nocturnal Expedition

We finally got all in but one, gave
up, and shut the door. But that one
must have been their grandmother.
They wouldn't be quiet without her,
and soon were all out again. Can
you imagine my husband in his pa-
jamas at 2 a.m. chasing seven scam-
pering guinea pigs first from behind
a box, then from beneath a bed?

That was more trouble than I had
had all week. Finally in exaspera-
tion he walked out into the brilliant
moonlight (just as he was) , found
the teacher, and aroused him. Soon
the pigs were all back inside the pen,
happily munching on a mountain
of sweet potato vines.

Sitting around the fire behind the
elder's house for the last time, Tim-
othy said to Levi, "I've taken good
care of Mama like you told me to.
But she's become like our daughter
now. The only way you can take
her to your home is to pay us bride
price."

Levi retorted, "It is time for usi
to go, so that the chickens have a
chance to multiply again."

It was a very tiring week. Days
were needed to rest up from it. But
it was very rewarding. Two weeks
later the Mbau pastor came for a
visit. He said that after I left, two
men from a cult came to him saying
they wanted to come back into the
Church.

I don't know where the next in-
vitation will come from, but when
it comes, I'm ready to do it all over
again. ffl

PAGE 8 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 13, 1972

Second things come as a dividend when we put everything in proper sequence —

First Things First

There is a certain order to things
in God's universe. Jesus said,
"First the blade, then the ear, af-
ter that the full corn in the ear."
The harvest is dependent upon the
planting and to expect a harvest
without first working at planting
is vain.

The law of the harvest applies al-
so to the goals for which we live.
They are not equal; some are
subordinate and dependent upon
others. Both the Bible and life it-
self teach us that it is very impor-
tant to keep things in proper per-
spective, but here we are not think-
ing of good as opposed to evil, but
of what is good and valuable and im-
portant as opposed to things which
are of less value. The law govern-
ing the relationship of first and sec-
ond things can be stated both posi-
tively and negatively.

Good Choices

When first things are placed first
in our lives, second things are given
as a bonus. Jesus said, "Seek ye
first the kingdom of God, and His
righteousness; and all these things
shall be added unto you." He had
been speaking of the necessities of
life: food, raiment and shelter. He
assured us that if we put the king-
dom of God and His righteousness
first in our lives, the necessities of
life will be provided.

In the Old Testament we find a
beautiful example of how this
worked out in the life of Solomon.
Soon after he was made king, he
went to Gibeon and there the Lord
appeared to him in a dream. God
said, "Ask what I shall give thee."

The author is pastor of the Cov-
enant United Presbyterian Church
(UPUSA) , Hammond, Ind.

In that hour Solomon showed him-
self to be humble and asked for an
understanding heart to judge his
people.

The request pleased the Lord,
and God said, "Because thou hast
asked this thing, and hast not asked
for thyself long life; neither hast
asked riches for thyself, nor hast
asked the life of thine enemies; but
hast asked for thyself understanding
to discern judgment; behold, I have
done according to thy word: lo, I
have given thee a wise and under-
standing heart .... And I have al-
so given thee that which thou hast
not asked, both riches and honor
. . . . And if thou wilt walk in my
ways, to keep my statutes and my
commandments, as thy father Da-
vid did walk, then I will lengthen
thy days" (I Kings 3:9-14) .

When man chooses the highest,
God sees to it that the lesser bless-
ings of life are his also. The psalm-
ist expressed the same thought when
he wrote, "I have been young, and
now am old; yet have I not seen the
righteous forsaken, nor his seed beg-
ging bread" (Psa. 37:25) .

When second things are chosen
in place of first things, even these
second things are lost for which
the sacrifice was made. C. S. Lewis
stated the law thus: "You can't get
second things by putting them first;
you can get second things only by
putting first things first."

When Judas valued thirty pieces
of silver higher than his relation-
ship to Jesus, he not only lost Jesus,
but when the deed was done the sil-
ver lost its luster and he cast it
down on the temple floor and went
out and hanged himself. To choose
silver above Christ is in the end to
sacrifice both.

In Christ's parable, the rich
farmer placed material things above
his responsibility to God and that

JOHN H. EASTWOOD

night he not only lost his soul, but
the treasured crop fell to another.
Now let us apply the law governing
first and second things to a num-
ber of areas in our lives.

First we will think of the moral
law and pleasure. Here are two
goods. Certainly the moral law is
good and it is right that man should
be happy and enjoy life. Scripture
teaches that a careful observance of
the moral law will produce a happy
life. If we choose God's righteous-
ness, joy will be given to us as a
bonus.

Moral Law and Pleasure

The moral law is not given to us
to make us miserable, or cheat us,
but to show us how to get the most
out of life. John wrote, "This is
the love of God that we keep His
commandments; and His command-
ments are not grievous" (I John 5:
3) , and the psalmist sang, "Happy
is that people, whose God is the
Lord" (Psa. 144:15).

All through the ages man has
made the fatal mistake of elevating
pleasure above God's moral law, only
to find that pleasure itself is taken
away. The moral law is a higher
good than pleasure. Or we might
say, pleasure is subordinate to the
moral law and whenever the moral
law is sacrificed in the interest of
gaining pleasure, both are lost.
When we visit those places that spe-
cialize in offering pleasure at the
expense of breaking God's law, we
do not find happy people. When
we make pleasure the chief end of
life, it escapes us, but when we live
God's way, we find it.

The moral law, however, is not
our highest good. It must always be
viewed as subordinate to faith in
God. To elevate the moral law to
first place and neglect faith in God,

PAGE 9 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 13, 1972

is to put second things first and to
end up having neither. The moral
law cannot stand alone. Without
faith in the law giver there is no
motivation or power to keep the
law.

We can no more obey God's com-
mandments without God, than we
can keep alive flowers which have
been severed from their roots. If
you want your children to be moral,
then bring them to Christ and He
will inscribe the moral law on their
hearts.

A culture, or Church, that at-
tempts to retain the Christian ethic
without Christ is headed for disap-
pointment and disaster. This is our
situation today. Far too many have
made social reform the program of
the Church, to the neglect of saving
faith in Jesus Christ as the risen
Son of God. The message has been:
better race relations, peace as op-
posed to war, economic justice for

the poor and population control.
Many of these programs are good and
have been motivated by sincere men,
but they are second things.

Those things which should be
first for the Church — the regenera-
tion of man's heart, saving faith in
Christ, heaven and hell — have been
neglected. And what is the result?
For millions, faith in God has been
lost and neither has society been re-
formed. In spite of this tremendous
emphasis on reform by the Church,
crime and immorality are on the in-
crease, homes are breaking up, class
and racial tensions become greater
and the poor become poorer.

The Wrong Cur!

This whole situation reminds us
of an incident that occurred in Eng-
land. An American soldier boarded
a crowded train and noticed a large,
tweedy woman whose large, tweedy

dog was occupying a seat. Politely
he asked if the woman would mind
moving the dog to the floor. "Leave
the dog alone!" the woman snapped.

The American left the compart-
ment, walked the length of the train,
but failed to find a seat, so he re-
turned and pleaded with the wom-
an again. "I told you to leave the
dog alone!" she said. The Ameri-
can reached over, opened the win-
dow, tossed the dog out and sat
down.

There was a stunned silence, then
an elderly Englishman across the
aisle looked up over his Times.
"You Americans amuse me very
much," he said. "In the first place
you eat with your fork in the
wrong hand. You drive your cars
on the wrong side of the road. And
now, by George, I believe you've
thrown the wrong cur out the win-

i,

(Continued on p. 24, col. 2)

Another sample of the literature supported and paid for by Presbyterians —

Published by PGUS

THE EDITOR

One of the publications support-
ed by the Presbyterian Church
US is called Focus. Billed as "a
newspaper for youth and adult plan-
ners and leaders," the tabloid-size
paper goes on to say, "It is designed
to give stimulation, vision and sup-
port for new ministry."

Stimulation, no doubt. Vision
doubtful. Focus has come in for at-
tention at the General Assembly,
where unsuccessful efforts have been
made to terminate PCUS support of
it and its sister publication, Collo-
quy. Both originate with the United
Church of Christ, but only Focus
now carries the name of the Pres-
byterian Church US on the mast-
head.

Most of Focus is devoted to radi-
cal objectives of one kind and an-
other. A recent issue featured, for
example, the conspiracy trial of the
Berrigan brothers, draft "counsel-
ing," an "Afro-Cuban Mass," the
Gospel in Dixieland jazz, and a po-
litical "fairy tale."

Taking up the entire cover of this
issue was a piece called "the Gospel
According to St. Irving," written
by a high school senior. We don't
know whether this was published to
show what youth think, what they
ought to think, or that they don't
think. The "gospel" starts out as
follows:

Chapter 1.

And it came to pass in those days
that a child was born unto Mary
in a small stable in the town of
Bethlehem. And the child was
named Jesus. And the father of the
child was a carpenter named Joseph,
who was poor and could not afford
proper lodging. And the father was
a nobody. And the child, named
Jesus, was a nobody. And it came
to pass that they took the child to
the temple, as was the custom, and
in the temple was one Simeon. And
this man was just and devout, wait-
ing for the coming of the Saviour,
for it was revealed to him that he

should not die until this thing
should come to pass. And when the
parents of the child brought him to
the temple, this Simeon held the
child in his arms and sighed sadly
that such a child should be brought
forth into the world with so little,
because the child was a nobody. And
this man Simeon lived for many
years afterward, still waiting for the
Saviour, until he died in sad de-
spair. So it goes.

After a similar "chapter" cover-
ing the visit of Mary, Joseph and Je-
sus to the temple when the Lord
was 12, the "gospel" goes on:

Chapter 3.

And it came to pass that the years
turned by and the child grew. And
when he had reached the age of
thirty there was a marriage in Cana,
and the mother of Jesus was there.
And Jesus was there also with her.
And after a while there was no more
wine to drink. And the mother of

PAGE 10 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 13, 1972

i

lesus said unto him: They have no
■ciore wine to drink. And Jesus said
|jo her: Woman, what am I to do
Ijbout it? And his mother told the
■Servants: Do whatever he tells you.
There were there six waterjars, and

■ esus said unto them: Fill the wa-
I erjars and bring them unto me. And
■his was done, and when they were
i)efore him Jesus said: Fetch the
4 lead steward and tell him to taste
It. And when the head steward had
| asted it, and knew not where it had
I ome from, he called the bridegroom
! ind said to him: What manner of
trickery is this, that you would of-
ler water for wine? And Jesus spoke
• into his mother saying: Have I not

■ old you Woman, who am I to be
■working miracles?

£ Chapter 4.

j:\nd it came to pass that Jesus was
Stalking upon the shore of the Sea
Ipf Galilee. And he saw him there
|i few fishermen. And he called to
|:hem saying: Come with me and be
Ipshers of men. And they asked
Iimong themselves: He is but a no-
Ibody with foolish words to offer us.
iBut Jesus called to them again cry-
ling: Come with me and be fishers
Ipf men. And they laughed among
themselves and set out upon the wa-
iter, calling back to Jesus: Come and
,:get us. And Jesus looked for a long
i time at the water as the boats sailed
Ifurther away. Then he leaped into
Ithe water and swam to the boats.
■And when he had reached the boats
■he climbed into one and said to
< those who were there: I am but a
i man. I cannot offer you miracles,
■all I can offer you is faith. I say
■to you, come with me and we shall
■fish for men. And if we cannot
make a catch, at least we can say
that we have tried. And they laughed
again, and then said: We shall come
I with you.

; Chapter 5.

; And three years passed. And Jesus
> went out into the land, and cried to
ithe people: Listen my people. I can-
not offer you miracles, I can only
offer you love, for what little worth
that is. And if you will only come
with me, we will put our love to-
gether, and the miracles will come,
j And the scribes and the Pharisees
■said: Who is this Jesus? And they
answered: A nobody. And they said:
■Let the people have their fun, for

■ they will see what comes from such
Ij rabble-rousers who cry: I have love,

love, love. And someone asked

Jesus the nobody: What can you do
with your love? And he answered:
Nothing. And therefore they asked
him: Why then? And he answered:
Why not? And the scribes and the
Pharisees said: look at us, we have
built great cities from work and not
from love. And Jesus said unto
them: Build your great cities. With
both.

Chapter 9.

And it came to pass that the Pass-
over came on. And Jesus went into
Jerusalem on the back of a donkey.
He could not afford a horse. And
the twelve went with him also. And
they went into a house and there
had supper. And when they were
at supper, Jesus spoke to them say-
ing: I have told you that I am a no-
body, and verily you see that I am.
The only thing that I have to give
you is my love. And that is noth-
ing. And the only thing you have to
give me is love. And that is noth-
ing. But somehow, together they
are something. Soon I shall leave
you. The world has little patience
with nobodies. And when I leave
you, do not try to remember me.
Only, try to love. And through your
love, try to work. And with your
work, try to build, that nobodies can
all be somebodies some day.

The crucifixion (and the "gos-
pel") ends as follows:

Chapter 13.

And at the third hour he cried out
and said: Why? And the crowd
laughed and yelled: Why not. And
he bent his head upon his chest.
And a guard went to collect his gar-
ments so that they might roll dice
for them. And a guard went to
spear him in the side to see if he
was dead. And then there came
over the land a great cloud.

Chapter 14.

And the land was turned and rent
by the storm. And the earth shook
below the people. And they cov-
ered their heads and wailed: What
is this? What is this? And sudden-
ly a great voice came down upon
them and said: This is my beloved
son, in whom I am well pleased. And
the voice said: From now on I will
punish horribly anybody who tor-
ments a bum who has no connec-
tions. For I take this nobody as my
son. And so on.

And that, friends, is a publication
of an organization which goes by
the name, the Presbyterian Church
in the United States. (See editorial,
p. 12.) You think nobody will take
it seriously? We know a youth
minister in Asheville who did.

The thing we went home think-
ing: Somebody taught that boy in
Sunday school! 33

Youth Ministry Issues,
Actions,

and Resources

Volume 2, Number 4
March, 1972

FtCWJ

ON THE NEW GENERATION

The Gospel
According To St. Irving'

ugh

'ho said Yes, he is a nobody . And so
8uf together we are a somebody
5e same people when they had sick,
i to the others and said Help u

And tl

vith

k got better.
I some ol the sick died So it goes And
ie same people, when they had dead.
I to the others and said Help us to bury
dead And they helped them to bury
r dead, and cried with them And when
i asked Jesus who he was. he replied I

Chapter 1.

And il came to pass in those days that a child
was born unto Mary in a small stable in the
lown ot Bethlehem And the child was
named Jesus And the father ot the child was
a carpenter named Joseph, who was poor
and could not altord proper lodging And the
lather was a nobody And the mother was a
nobody And the child, named Jesus, was a
nobody And it came to pass thai Ihey took
" i to the temple, as was the custom,

by Doug DeNatale

High School Senior, 1971

Chaptei

And the

And sor

ibes and the Pharisees said This
aother We must get rid ot him.
;uggested lhal they offer Jesus a

mghoi

! plai

-hen they
ind when

and ii

ii pie

ind devt

i en the part

hey lound f
by the leet of the elders,

Woman. I

And

e, for

And i

was a nobody And fhi!
e Savior, until he died i

□ pass thai the year;

i age and wisdom il

looked lor a long I

ind gel us And Jesus
! at the water as the
way Then he leaped
am to the boat;. And

Chapter 9.

And it came
on And Jes

And 'hey wi

PAGE 11 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 13, 1972

EDITORIALS

The People Must Know

We thought a long while before
taking up valuable space with a re-
view of Focus (see p. 9) . What
useful purpose might be achieved
by publishing material which is
clearly blasphemous by any con-
ceivable measurement?

If it had been published as a par-
ody, that would be bad enough. If
it had been published for the pur-
pose of comparing it with the truth,
that might have seemed reasonable,
though doubtful. But it was pub-
lished as a serious effort to explain
Jesus.

There is no reason to believe that
the people in charge of Focus are
unaware of the significance of the
material they publish, or that they
would disapprove such an exercise
in irreverence as, "The Gospel Ac-
cording to St. Irving." What use-
ful purpose it might serve escapes
us, but modern Christian educators
evidently believe this sort of thing
is a valuable teaching tool, or they
would not have featured it on Page
One.

Nor is there any reason to believe
the General Assembly would frown
on this material. The Assembly has
looked at this sort of thing before
and refused to condemn it — amid
the pleas of directors of Christian
education and youth delegates for
whom it evidently is deemed indis-
pensable.

Why then call Focus to the atten-
tion of people who would not touch
it with a ten foot pole?

For two reasons: First, this is
your magazine. No matter how far
away from it you may live or think,
if your name is on the roll of a Pres-
byterian church (US or UPUSA)
this is your magazine and according
to our connectional view of the
Church, you are responsible for it.
If you read it, then put it down
and go away and forget it, a part
of the shame of it will be yours.

Second, too many Presbyterians
remain uncritically loyal in their
support of the Church which can
produce such a thing as Focus. From
the monthly financial reports pub-
lished by the General Council, con-

servative Presbyterians as well as the
other kind continue to pour their
tithes into the treasury. Whether
they do it because they are persuad-
ed that they are supporting the
Lord's work, or whether they do it
out of a proper love for the Lord
with the intention of letting some-
one else worry about it after it
leaves their hands, we do not know.

It is one thing, we believe, to pro-
ject continuing fellowship within a
body of believers among whom small
differences of opinion have come up.
It is quite another thing to project
continuing fellowship within a body
that insults the majesty of the Most
High. ffl

Signs of Hope

Amid all the evidences of
spiritual retreat today, there are
signs of real hope.

This is not to say that there has
been any change for the better in
the official circles of the established
Church.

But there are signs of hope, both
in the pulpit and in the pew.

Increasing numbers of ministers
have a burden for their people.
Many of them are preaching with
an unaccustomed urgency. They are
seeking one another out and meeting
together to share their concern with
one another . . . and to pray.

The basic simplicity of the Gos-
pel is returning to many pulpits.
Congregations are hearing of sin
and redemption and the blood of
Jesus Christ as never before. The
people are being called to accept
Him as Lord and Saviour as never
before. Here and there an invita-
tion is being given spontaneously
for the first time. And here and
there the breath of revival has swept
unexpectedly over a congregation.

Lay men and women are taking
an interest in the life and ministry
of the Church in greater numbers.
There is evidence of growing lay
spiritual perceptiveness. When a
man of the cloth takes the morning

hour on the Lord's day to speak of
reciprocal trade agreements, eco-
nomics and the exploration of space,
the people are no longer complacent
about it. They ask: "Next time we
would see Jesus!"

There are signs of a healthy re-
action against the recently popular
notion that everything new is neces-
sarily good. Just a decade ago the
cry was for "a new theology for the
space age!" Today there is a more
sober evaluation: "We must recap-
ture the vitality of the Reforma-
tion."

A growing company of concerned
Presbyterians is saying it is not will-
ing just to give Presbyterianism a
decent burial. Those who would
save the Presbyterian Church with:
all its vital distinctives are no longer
supported by only a few "reaction-
aries."

Of course neither the Bible nor1
the present circumstances give us anf
reason for complacency or self-
esteem. But those who pray for a
Church without spot or blemish or
any such thing, doing the Lord's
work in the midst of a crooked and
perverse generation, have many rea-l
sons for thanksgiving in the signs of
hope that continue to appear.

Praise the Lord! IS

Last Warning

In the closing verses of Revela-
tion there is a solemn warning: "I
warn everyone who hears the words;
of the prophecy of this book: If any-
one adds to them, God will add to
him the plagues described in this
book, and if anyone takes away
from the words of the book of thk
prophecy, God will take away his
share in the tree of life and in the
holy city, which are described in
this book" (Rev. 22:18-19, RSV) .

A warning is not the same as a
threat. A warning is intended to
keep you from evil. A threat is an
announcement of evil.

Parents are forever giving warn-
ings to their children. "Be careful
when you cross the street." "Don't
take rides from strangers." When
the children grow up they joke
about it and they tease their folks
a bit. But they really appreciate
those warnings. Because it shows
how much their parents love them.

And when the son or daughter
leaves the house they get a kiss and
. . . a last word of warning.

PAGE 12 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 13, 1972

THE LAYMAN AND HIS CHURCH

What's Wrong With The Sunday School?

x And so, when you are on the last
K' jage of the Bible, when you are

lbout to close the Book, you re-
ft ;eive a last word of warning. It is

iimply this: Don't tamper with the

Book.

We have received a Word from
the Lord God. This is His revela-
tion. He has told us what He has
done, what He is doing, and what
He is going to do. And God ar-
ranged to have it all written down
for us.

You may have your little differ-
iences about the interpretation of
some of His words. There is not
one single man who understands it
all. We'll need each other and we'll
need God's Spirit to understand.
But for your life's sake, don't
tamper with the Book.

That's God's final warning. He
loves you so much. He cannot help
warning you. Because your life de-
ipends on what you do with the
Book. — From The Family Altar
of the Back-To-God Hour. EE

How To Be Wise

Most of us, at one time or anoth-
er, have studied the story of Sol-
omon with mingled feelings of ad-
miration and perplexity. Admira-
tion for the wisdom, which is de-
scribed as being greater than any
other man's; perplexity, that such
homely and simple observations as
are found in his proverbs, should
be the evidence of such wisdom.

"After all," we have said to our-
selves, "everything in the writings
and proverbs of Solomon is but the
expression of something perfectly-
obvious. Why should that show great
wisdom?"

That is just the point. Wisdom
consists of recognizing the obvious.
Wisdom consists of knowing truth
to be true, when confronted by it.
Wisdom consists of finding eternal
value in things which a fool is like-
ly to disparage.

Wisdom sometimes is enough
sense to come in out of the rain.
(You'd be surprised how many peo-
ple don't know when to come in out
of the rain.)

Wisdom is most often knowing
and acknowledging the being and
the power of God; and the willing-
ness to set aside human pride and
take Him as He offers Himself in
Jesus Christ.

That is the last word in recogniz-
ing the obvious. Efl

Is this generation about to wit-
ness the demise of the Sunday
school? We feel that such an event
would have tragic results, but yet
we see evidence of such a "happen-
ing" from numerous sources.

A prominent Protestant minister
said recently, "The Sunday school is
an increasingly marginal influence
on our culture, and we'll have to
find a more responsive way of carry-
ing on our teaching ministry." Ac-
cording to this minister, we are not
living in the simple kind of world
today in which the Sunday school
could and did meet a need.

Let me bring to your attention
some opinions of those who ought
to know whereof they speak. The
late J. Edgar Hoover, that great
Christian statesman who served his
country well for almost half a cen-
tury, believed that the Sunday school
was a deterent to crime. "Children
brought up in Sunday school," he
said, "are seldom brought up in
court." His belief was that crimi-
nals are not born. They are the
products of neglect, and the lack of
Christian teaching and influence,
first of all in the home. It is often
the case, however, that a child is
first introduced to the Bible by a
Sunday school teacher.

Mr. Hoover paid a glowing tribute
to the loyal men and women who
are serving unselfishly as teachers in
our Church schools. "We in law
enforcement," he said, "look upon
them as companions-in arms in the
fight against crime." If we are to
make progress in the fight against
crime, we must make certain that
the children of the nation attend
Sunday school, was his advice.

And may I add: Don't send your
children to Sunday school — take
them. How can we "train up a child
in the way he should go" without
giving him Bible training and with-
out going that way ourselves?

A prominent psychologist is often

The layman's viewpoint this week
is brought by Mrs. Charles C. Gal-
braith, an elect lady of Lubbock,
Tex., who is the mother of a Pres-
byterian minister.

asked by well-meaning parents of to-
day, "What do you think about in-
doctrinating children in religious
matters? Don't you think it's best
to let them grow up and make their
own choices?"

His reply is, "I think it (Sunday
school) is wonderful — it did so
much for me. Amidst all there is
to know, nothing is as important or
as satisfying as a knowledge of the
Bible."

It is true that the need is great
for better trained teachers, but not
those who follow some of the mod-
ern methods that minimize the use
of the most important textbook —
the Bible, God's Word.

Is your Sunday school teaching
the Bible? Of course, you say. But
a fairly recent survey of college stu-
dents who had attended Sunday
school all their lives revealed an ap-
failed to identify Solomon as the
most widely known Biblical facts.
They woefully mixed events and per-
sonages of the Old and New Testa-
ments.

For instance: Sixty-five per cent
failed to identify Solomon as the
famous wise man of the Old Testa-
ment. One student named him as
John the Baptist, another as Paul.
Thirty-one per cent were unable to
name the first book of the New
Testament. Genesis, Mark, James
and John were given as answers to
this question. Mary Magdalene was
identified as the sister of Moses.

Such "profound" knowledge came
from college students who had at-
tended Sunday school from child-
hood. What is wrong? Well, ob-
viously for one thing, their teachers
didn't know much about the Bible.
Therefore, in many instances they
talked about other things.

God our Creator communicates
with us and makes known His will
to us through the Bible. We need
more Bible study in the homes and
in the churches today. EG

• • •

It is not our task to evangelize
the world ultimately, it is to evan-
gelize the world anew in every gen-
eration. — Unknown.

PAGE 13 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 13, 1972

p

SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON

For October 1, 1972

Mass Communication

INTRODUCTION: The past
century has seen a veritable revolu-
tion in mass communication. A
hundred years ago the telegraph was
still in its infancy. Radio and tele-
phone had not yet been invented
and, of course, TV was a long way
off. Men were still confined to the
earth for travel and news moved
across the world at a relatively slow
pace.

All of that has changed. Today an
event happening in any part of the
world can be known in all parts of
the world in a matter of minutes.
What is done in Peking today can
greatly influence Washington tomor-
row. The standards or mores of
any people anywhere can be instan-
taneously influential on all the rest
of the world. Almost any point of in-
terest can be and is broadcast
throughout the world and is received
not only by the ear but also by the
eye.

In a sense, the result is that we
have achieved a kind of tower of
Babel in our own time. Though
men are still scattered over the face
of the earth and though they still
speak in innumerable tongues, for
the most part all of the world comes
right into our den, coming in
through the TV. All kinds of ideas,
philosophies and standards are con-
stantly coming right into our homes.

Words are uttered which we
would not say nor allow our chil-
dren to say and yet we hear them
nightly. If the morals being ex-
pressed in the TV world are bad
now, it's only a matter of time un-
til they get worse. What is happen-
ing on the movie screens down the
street at the X-rated movie will soon
be happening on our TV screens.

The far left and radical philos-
ophy peddlers can get an audience
almost any time on the 5:30 news
broadcast. All that is being thought
and said throughout the world is be-
ing heard right in our homes. Do
not think that it is not having its ef-
fect on all of us.

The Christian task today is in-
creasingly difficult. We need to rec-

Rev. Jack B. Scott

Background Scripture: Ephesians
4:11-16, 25-32; Philippians 4:8-
9; II Timothy 4:1-5; James 3:1-
12

Key Verses: II Timothy 4:1-5; Phi-
lippians 4:8-9

Devotional Reading: Romans 15:
14-25

Memory Selection: Ephesians 4:25

ognize that Satan and those subject
to his control have, for the most
part, monopolized the means of com-
munication and we must make every
effort to reclaim the inventions of
men for God's glory. Basic to this
is the realization that Christ gave to
His Church the task of communi-
cating the Gospel and God's truth
to the whole world. All of the news
ever broadcast by men on earth by
whatever means is nothing in com-
parison to the importance of the
message we believe about Christ. Yet
of all people, we seem most slow
and reluctant and hesitant about de-
claring our good news. The world
is under judgment and we have the
only hope to declare to men. Mass
and individual communication is
very much our business and should
be our concern.

I. THE GOAL OF CHRISTIAN
COMMUNICATION (Eph. 4:11-
16) . When Jesus had died and risen
again, He equipped His Church for
communication to the world. Im-
mediately they used every available
means of reaching the world with
Christ's message! They used occa-
sions of public gatherings such as at
Pentecost and times of worship, and
house-to-house visitation; they trav-
eled by ship to port after port, and
over land as rapidly as was then pos-
sible.

In short, they used the best means
in the Roman Empire to spread
the word of Christ. To do this, Je-
sus appointed communicators in His
Church (v. 11); apostles (the sent
ones) ; prophets (who spoke forth

The International Sunday School Lesson Outlines
are copyrighted 1972 by the Committee on the
Uniform Series of the National Council of Churches
of Christ.

i in
. U

Christ's message) ; evangelists (the
preachers of good news) ; pastors
(who went house-to-house in carry-
ing the Gospel to every creature) ;
and teachers (who followed up the
original message with patient in-
struction in God's Word) .

The threefold goal of all this com-
munication follows in a certain
developmental sequence: for the
perfection of the saints; unto
the work of ministering; and unto
the building up of the body of
Christ (v. 12) . We see the sequence.
The receivers of God's Gospel,
the believers, are themselves to
grow spiritually so that they ap-
pear in the world as spiritual lights
able to glorify God and testify to
the world the power of Christ.

Thus they must mature from
babes in Christ through sanctifica-
tion. As they grow, they begin to
serve Christ (the work of ministry) .
They become Christ's bondservants.
This results in a great testimony to
the world so that Christ's Church is
built up by the addition of more
believers who hear, see, and believe
(v. 13). Compare Acts 2:27, 5:14,
6:7, and 11:24.

Stability is implicit in all that
Christ is doing by appointing mes-
sengers for His people and by estab-
lishing this threefold goal. He de-
sires that we all be no longer chil-
dren, tossed to and fro by human
ideas, but be stable, anchored to the
solid rock. Only from such a base
as this can the Gospel of Christ go
forth to the world (v. 14) .

In summary we can say that the
goal ultimately is that the Church
should reach the world for Christ,
but only as the Church is itself built
up spiritually. God's concern for
the Church in numbers does not su-
persede His concern for the matur-
ing of the faithful.

II. THE CHANNEL OF
CHRISTIAN COMMUNICATION
(Eph. 4:25-32; Phil. 4:8-9; Jas. 3:
1-12) . The channels of Christian
communication are the ones who
are to bear the message. In the first

■

PAGE 14 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 13, 1972

■entury what did the Lord demand
if those chosen by Him to bear the
liospel to the ends of the earth?
lince they were to give a clear, cer-
tain call to men in the world, God
|»articularly stressed the spiritual
leadiness of those who would bear
[hat message.

Invariably in the passages cited
Ibove, emphasis is on personal puri-
ly. We who are to bear the Gospel
|o the world are to have lives that
■trill not hinder that Gospel. If we
llo not speak truth in our ordinary
jonversation with men, then who
Ivill believe us when we testify of
i Christ? If we do not act honestly
In our dealings with one another
laily, then who will believe we are
. tonest in our witness? If we do not
.peak what edifies and builds up
Dthers in our daily speech, then who
,vill listen when we speak about the
Gospel? (Eph. 4:25, 28-29) .

The Christian layman or minister
who tells dirty jokes, who ridicules
others or who gossips, will not be
heard by the world. To use a cur-
rent phrase, a credibility gap will
immediately arise between himself
and those to whom he witnesses.

James in particular dwelled on
this point in his epistle. He warned
against the careless speech of teach-
ers of the Word, but what he said
would certainly apply to any believ-
er who expects others to hear his tes-
timony. When we praise the Lord,
then later go out and curse men, we
cause others to stumble and are un-
der God's judgment (3:1,9).

If I have in my automobile some-
one to whom I am talking about the
Gospel or God's Word, and as I
drive on, speaking God's praise, sud-
denly I curse or show anger toward
a driver ahead who has been care-
less, then my whole testimony is an-
nulled. I have given the lie to all
I was saying of the power of the Gos-
pel. To the hearer it would dem-
onstrate that I do not really believe
what I said or, even worse, that
Christ and the Gospel cannot really
change a life for good. It is incon-
sistent for a vessel of the Gospel to
act like a vessel of Satan.

Paul urged Christians not to
grieve the Holy Spirit who is in them
to enable them to glorify God (Eph.
4:30) . Not only dirty speech and
foul language are to cease, but even
every expression of bitterness and
anger (4:31).

However, the channel of the mes-
sage of the Gospel is to be not only-
one who turns from evil, but also

one who positively represents Christ
by his actions as well as his words.
We are to be kind to others, ready
to forgive. In short, we are to bear
the image of Christ before men (4:
32) . If we cannot demonstrate by
our lives the saving power of the
Gospel, then we cannot be fit ves-
sels for proclaiming that Gospel.

The channel of Christian com-
munication must be a fit example
of the power of the Gospel to clean
up a life and to change one from
sinner to saint. Pious words them-
selves are never enough. Inconsist-
ent Christians have been a great
stumbling block to many, and
Christ himself frequently warned
against anyone who causes stumbling
(Matt. 13:41; 18:7).

To take things a step further, we
are to think on what is pure and
true and right and lovely. Long
ago Jeremiah warned that the heart
is the source of all evil. What a
man thinks in his heart is what he
really is (Jer. 17:9-10) .

Jesus later stated the same thing
to the Pharisees who criticized the
disciples for eating with unclean
hands. He taught that it is out of
the heart that man's real defilement
comes, that evil thoughts are really
what make one evil. One's speech
and actions can never please or
glorify God unless the heart itself is
clean (Matt. 15:18-20) .

Paul urged the believer to have
clean, pure thoughts, thoughts that
honor God, so that their appearance
will honor God (Phil. 4:8-9) . Chris-
tians are to be preoccupied with the
things of God. This is stressed in
Psalm 1: "The righteous meditate
on God's Word day and night."

The evidence from God's Word is
conclusive that the channel of com-
munication of the Gospel must it-
self be a demonstration of the re-
ality of the power of the Gospel to
change lives. Jesus could raise from
the stones a testimony to Himself
and the world, but He has chosen
to use us. It is a great privilege
and a heavy responsibility.

III. THE URGENCY OF CHRIS-
TIAN COMMUNICATION (II
Tim. 4:1-5). The message of the
Gospel is not a matter of indiffer-
ence to our Lord and it should never
be to us either. Now is the time!
Today is the opportunity. There
may not be a tomorrow. This is
what Paul was saying, the time will
come when they will no longer lis-
ten.

In the dramatic book of Revela-
tion, we are shown the urgency of
getting out the message. John told
us that as he heard the pronounce-
ment of impending judgment on the
world, he was commissioned just at
that moment once again to go and
proclaim the Gospel to all nations
(Rev. 10) . Our proclamation of
salvation to the world is always un-
der the cloud of God's impending
judgment. When men or Churches
no longer believe in the judgment
of God, then they no longer listen.

Paul urged Timothy to make use
of every opportunity to be busy in
his witness, no matter whether it
seems a propitious time or not (4:
2) . Why? Because Jesus will come,
and when He does the world will be
judged! There will be no second
chance! (4:1) .

Christians have often taken for
granted that they had all eternity to
tell the world about Jesus. This is
a tragic mistake. Time is always
short. Satan is always at work. The
nation or people or person respon-
sive today may not be tomorrow.

Today, many nations which at the
beginning of the 20th century were
open to the Gospel are no longer
open. Doors have been opened and
other doors have been shut.

Many Churches which at the be-
ginning of the 20th century had op-
portunity to hear the Gospel no
longer have such an opportunity.
Their ears are closed to the hearing
of the truth as Paul warned would
happen (4:3-4) . How tragic if these
who had the opportunity did not
take advantage of it. Look around.
What opportunities do you have to-
day? With your family? With your
neighbor? With your business associ-
ate? With your friends? Your club
members? We cannot presume up-
on God to keep the doors open for-
ever. The Bible is plain.

CONCLUSION: We have taught
primarily in this lesson about readi-
ness to be channels of communica-
tion and this is where the emphasis
ought to be. However, on the basis
of our lesson a few weeks ago, it
is imperative that we avail ourselves
of every means of making the Gos-
pel known. The airwaves bear all
kinds of messages of the virtues of
this or that product. It is sad that
the message of the Gospel is all too
often muffled and uncertainly
heard.

(Continued on p. 23, col. 3)

PAGE 15 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 13, 1972

YOUTH PROGRAM

Scripture: Daniel 1
Suggested Hymns:

"I Would Be True"
"In the Hour of Trial"
"Stand up, Stand up for Jesus"

NOTE TO PROGRAM LEAD-
ER: (This is to be a Bible
study program based on chap-
ters 1-6 of the book of Dan-
iel. Be sure that all your young
people have Bibles, paper, and pen-
cils. Try to have the study ques-
tions duplicated so each person can
have a copy. If this is not possible,
write them on a chalk board or a
large piece of paper where all can
see. Ask the young people to write
out answers to the questions, using
their Bibles. When all have com-
pleted their work, compare answers
and encourage discussion.)

PROGRAM LEADER S INTRO-
DUCTION: When we first read of
Daniel, he was a relatively young
man. Perhaps for this reason, as
well as for his admirable traits of
character, he has always been held
up as an example for young people.
A great many of them have found
inspiration and strength through a
consideration of his life.

Daniel and his companions were
committed to a simple, wholesome
way of life. They refused the way
of indulgence and debauchery,
which was almost forced on them by
their captors, and their own whole-
some way of living produced such
good results in their health and ap-

For October 1, 1972

Dare to Be a Daniel

Rev. B. Hoyt Evans

pearance that even their pagan over-
lords were impressed.

Daniel was recognized as a wise
man even though he was quite
young, and more than once he was
called upon by the Babylonians to
interpret dreams and visions. Per-
haps we cannot give a "modern sci-
entific explanation" of this remark-
able ability he had, but we can be
sure it was a gift from God. Also
we can be sure there was a relation-
ship between this gift and Daniel's
closeness to the Lord, his prayer life,
and his faith in God.

Daniel was a man to whom loy-
alty to God was more important
than fame, comfort, and even life
itself. He refused to refrain from
praying to his God when to do so
was to defy the unchangeable decree
of Darius, king of the Medes. The
penalty, as we know, was to be
thrown to the lions. Daniel had
no guarantee that God would spare
his life, but to him obedience and
loyalty to God were more dear than
life itself.

We shall now turn to chapters 1-6
of Daniel, and, through the use of
the study questions that have been
provided, we can take a first hand
look at the life of this man who
loved God and was blessed by Him.

Study Questions:

1. The fact that Daniel and his
companions were specially chosen by
the Chaldeans indicated what about
their abilities and personalities?

2. What proposal did Daniel

make to Melzar concerning his way
of life, and what was the result of it?

3. Why did Nebuchadnezzar's
own wise men say his request was
unreasonable?

4. From whom did Daniel seek
wisdom and help in knowing and
interpreting the dream, and to whom
did he give credit for his success?

5. What, in brief, was the inter
pretation of the dream?

6. What was the decree that
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego
disobeyed, and what was the penalty
of disobedience?

7. What was Nebuchadnezzar's
reaction when the Israelites were
spared?

8. What was Nebuchadnezzar's
second dream, and what was its
meaning?

9. What splendid thing was
Nebuchadnezzar moved to say about
God in Daniel 4:34-35?

10. What made Belshazzar and his
guests afraid, and what was the
meaning of the writing?

11. What became of Belshazzar
and his kingdom?

12. What and who prompted the
decree of Darius, and what was the
decree?

13. What became of Daniel's en
emies, and what decree did Darius
make concerning Daniel's God?

PROGRAM LEADER: It is not
hard to understand why the life of
Daniel has been an inspiration to
many. The most encouraging as-
pect of this story, however, is the as-
surance we have that the same God
who strengthened and upheld Dan-
iel is our very own present and pow-
erful God and Saviour. He is the
one who died for our sins, who rose
again, and who is ever present to en-
able us to live the life of joy and
victory to which He has called us.

Closing Prayer. 5.

God seldom reveals an entire blue-
print. What He does most frequent-
ly reveal is the next step in His will.
— Paul Little.

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PAGE 16 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 13, 1972

WOMEN'S WORK

Supplementary Circle Bible Study

October: The Mind of the Servant

Do you realize that any service
endered by any Christian begins
lecessarily in the obedience of that
[oul to the will of the indwelling
Christ?

Everything that ever happens in
ny group of Christians is the per-
onal action of individual believers
n that group.

It is a common practice today to
lse the collective noun "the church"
or the actions and the activities of
christians. While the word
'church" may be used to refer to a
jroup of believers by way of record-
ng their actions, or by way of re-
ferring to their attitudes and plans,
t can be misleading. "The church"
nay be conceived as an entity in it-
self; as if it were something with a
.nind and plans of its own. This is
aot true.

There is, strictly speaking, no such
thing by itself as the church. The
Dnly way that word is used is when
we have a number of believers in
mind.

The primary unit of all human
Ibehavior, and thus of all Christian
Ibehavior, is the individual. If any-
thing is ever going to be done, it is
Igoing to be done one by one by one;
leach one in turn is going to do it.
lit is true the people may work to-
Igether, but they are individuals.

When I say the primary unit, it is
la good deal like saying, "How much
Imoney do you have in your pocket?"

"I have $3.00. How much money
Ido you have?"

"I have $10.00." Perhaps on pay-
day you could say, "I have $52.00"
but in each case the dollar is the
unit. This is what is meant by say-
ing as far as the church is concerned,
5 Christians, 10 Christians, 623
Christians; always the individual
Christian is the primary unit of that
particular group of people. This is
very important when one begins to
think about serving the Lord.

If the person is not careful, he will
speak about serving the Lord, and
will say, "Well, the church ought to
do it."

"Who?" "Well, the church." And
I can tell you something, that will

Manford Geo. Gutzke, D.D., Ph.D.

Philippians 1:27-2:13

mean nobody. It will be a case of
everybody's business and it turns out
to be nobody's business.

The primary unit of all human
behavior is the individual. The unit
of Christian behavior is the individ-
ual. It is the single soul, the one be-
liever, that will be saved.

This is seen in the sacrament of
the Lord's Supper. The whole con-
gregation may be sitting in their
pews, with the officers of the church
sharing the sacrament of the Lord's
Supper and the minister may say,
"Take, eat. This do in remem-
brance of me." The eating is go-
ing to be done by one at a time. The
bread is put in one mouth, down
one throat, one at a time. The
church as a whole never eats, as it is
incapable of doing so. It is the in-
dividual who eats.

Again the minister can take the
cup and say, "This cup is the New
Testament in my blood which is
shed for many for the remission of
sins. Drink ye all of it." True,
there may be 100, 1,000, or there may
be 10. But when he says, "Drink ye
all of it," the only way that drink-
ing ever will be done is when the
cup will be held to one mouth, and
that drink will go down one throat.

One By One

That is the way salvation is; the
way the service of God is. In this
connection, on the very night of the
Last Supper while at that table, the
Lord Jesus said, "One of you shall
betray me." You will remember the
response of the disciples. "Lord, is
it I?" When it was "one of you
shall betray me," each person
thought that the Lord meant him.

Again, on that very same occasion
when they were all there He made
this remark, "All of you shall for-
sake me." You remember the re-
sponse? "Not I!" Peter said, "Not
me. You don't mean me." You
see when you say "everybody," it
turns out you mean "nobody." But

when you come down to one per-
son, then right away each person
wonders if you mean him.

The first transaction that takes
place between the individual believer
and Christ is in relation to the fact
that Christ Jesus died for his sins.
Now I know God created the per-
son, but that would not save him.
God in providence has surrounded
him with His grace and mercy, and
that would not save him. God may
have given him a good family; God
may have arranged to see to it that
he would always be well taken care
of and have everything he needed;
but that would not save him.

There is not anything in the
world, under heaven, that can save
anyone except Christ Jesus' dying
on Calvary's cross. When Christ Je-
sus died for his sins and carried
them away, that individual sinner
could accept that truth and belong
to God. Christ Jesus took the guilt
away for that particular soul.

Basic Response

The basic response to God on the
part of any believer is love. You
will read in I John 4:19: "We love
Him because He first loved us." It
all starts with God. God loved me
and gave His Son to die for me;
when I believe that to be true, and
take that into my own life, my re-
sponse to Him is like His action to-
ward me. He loves me, and because
He loves me I respond in love to
Him.

The believer is regenerated. He
is born again, a child of God as
Paul writes: "Therefore if any man
be in Christ, he is a new creature"
(II Cor. 5:17) . Notice that "If any
man be in Christ" is singular. There
is no such phrase as "If any group
were in Christ." It is the individ-
ual that counts. "If any man be in
Christ, he is a new creature: old
things are passed away; behold, all
things are become new."

We read further that the Holy
Spirit has been given to him. Paul
writes to the Galatians: "And be-
cause ye are sons, God hath sent

PAGE 17 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 13, 1972

forth the Spirit of his Son into your
hearts, crying, Abba, Father" (Gal.
4:6) . The essential relationship be-
tween the Christian and God is that
of a son and his father. The Chris-
tian, therefore, is first of all a child
of God.

We are going to be thinking about
the Christian serving; the Christian
as God's servant. However, before
the Christian has any notion of serv-
ing, he is born again as a child of
God. The basic truth is that as a
child of God this Christian is guided
and enabled by the Holy Spirit. The
Holy Spirit is given to him by God.
The Spirit reveals the will of Christ
Jesus and activates the response in
the believer to the living Lord. The
inward power of Christian living
that causes a Christian to live as he
lives, is "Christ in you, the hope of
glory."

Christians are able to work to-
gether. They are to be together and
they are able to work together in
true unity, because in each believing
heart the living Lord is working. So
when each one responds to the work-
ing of the Lord within, he will find
himself together with the other
Christians. Paul wrote of his desire
for the Christians in Philippians 1:27
". . . that ye stand fast in one spirit,
with one mind striving together for
the faith of the Gospel."

Christians work together in one
spirit and with one mind, very much
like the fingers of my hand work
together. The fingers of the hand
are all different, yet if my hand is
normal, those fingers move as if they
were one. They work together in
unison. They are all controlled by
the one mind. The head is over
them all.

They Work Together

So it is with the Christian. Chris-
tians work together with an inner
cooperation as they are led by the
Spirit. This cooperation is made ef-
fectual in them by the working of
the Holy Spirit, who inclines each
one into a personal humility.

Thus it is written in Philippians:
"Let nothing be done through strife
or vainglory; but in lowliness of
mind let each esteem other better
than themselves. Look not every
man on his own things, but every
man also on the things of others"
(2:3-4) .

This is a wonderful message but
it is not natural and is therefore
unacceptable to the natural man. A

human being seeks his own way.
When he was just a baby he reached,
grabbed and held on to everything.
This is human nature, except when
a person is born again. When he
is born again, he has in him a new
nature. Now he is born a child of
God and has in him the Holy Spirit
who puts into his heart and mind
the mind of the Lord Jesus Christ,
who never did anything for Himself.

The Holy Spirit activates the life
of Christ within the believer. Chris-
tians in a group, as they are in a
congregation, work together to serve
God. They promote the Sunday
school, missionary effort, evangelism,
or prayer meeting. This cooperation
between Christians is possible only

For Discussion

1. What is the basic attitude of
a Christian toward his Lord, since
he is a member of the church? (Eph.
5:23-32).

2. How does the Holy Spirit af-
fect the inner life of a believer?
(Eph. 3:16-19; Rom. 5:5).

3. How does the grace of God
in his heart prepare a Christian to
serve? (II Cor. 8:9) .

4. How did Paul regard Timothy
as a Christian? (Phil. 2:19-22; II
Tim. 3:15) .

as the life of Christ is within each
one. Because He is one, they can
work together as one.

In the book of Philippians there
is an interesting outline of charac-
teristics shown by the individual
Christian when he is in a group and
is seeking to serve God: "Let this
mind be in you, which was also in
Christ Jesus: who, being in the form
of God, thought it not robbery to
be equal with God: but made Him-
self of no reputation, and took up-
on Him the form of servant, and was
made in the likeness of men: and
being found in fashion as a man, He
humbled Himself, and became obedi-
ent unto death, even the death of
the cross" (2:5-8) .

This refers to Jesus of Nazareth
and His humility. Note this again:
"Let this mind be in you, which was
also in Christ Jesus: who, being in
the form of God," (He was with
God before He ever came into this
world) "thought it not robbery to
be equal with God." That word
"robbery" is an awkward translation
of the Greek word which -meant "a

thing to be grasped," and of cours< ^
that is what a robber does. The Sor 1
of God did not think it was some '
thing to be held on to, to be equa
with God. He was equal with God
and was in the presence of God, bu:
He did not hang on to that, "bu
made Himself of no reputation.'
Other translations say, "He emptiee
Himself:" "Made Himself of no rep
utation and took upon Him the fonr
of a servant."

Jesus Not a Servant

Mark my words, this does not sa^
that Jesus of Nazareth was a servant
The Scriptures reveal that Chrisi
Jesus will tell you, "I am among
you as He that serveth." But thiJ
does not mean that He is a servant
This was vividly impressed on iae
long ago. My father-in-law heard me
speaking about the Lord Jesu:
Christ when I was expressing my per
sonal impression of His willingness
to serve. Since the Lord Jesus usee
the phrase, "I am among you as Irm
that serveth," I was inclined to tall
of Him as a servant. My father-in
law used this illustration: "Suppose
you went into a bank building late
at night. In the lobby you saw i
scrubwoman carrying a heavy par
of water and her mop. The dooi
opens and a well dressed man, the
president of the bank, greets her. He
picks up her pail of water and hei
mop and walks beside her, talking
to her as he goes." My father-in
law said, "Now don't make the mis
take of thinking that man is the
scrubwoman. He carried the par
for her, but he was the president o!
the bank."

Because Jesus of Nazareth cam*
into this world and took upon Hirr:
the form of servant and was found
in fashion as a man, do not make
the mistake of thinking that He was
a servant. You may remember the
occasion when the Lord washed the
disciples' feet. After He had gone
around and had overcome Peter's ob
jection, and had washed all then
feet, He said: "Ye call me Mastei
and Lord: and ye say well, for so 1
am. If I then, your Lord and Mas
ter have washed your feet, ye alsc
ought to wash one another's feet'
(John 13:13-14) .

This is the point. The most won
derful thing about the work of the
Lord Jesus Christ is that He was the
Son of God while He was doing it
He was the Son of God that came
into this world. He was the Son ol

PAGE 18 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 13, 1972

IJod that took upon Him the form
[if man. And if you think about it,
It will increase your understanding
Iff the virgin birth. You will know
why He was not a child of Adam.
He was the Child of God. He came
hto this world as the Son of God
n the form of man. He was sub-
ect to all things such as we are. He
ook upon Him a body that had a
Mature like our own so that He was
empted in all points like as we are,
et without sin. But all the time He
vas the Son of God and He went
rom there to the cross.

Humility

"But made Himself of no reputa-
ion," (emptied Himself) "and took
ipon Him the form of a servant, and
^as made in the likeness of men"
(Phil. 2:7) . In the book of Genesis
/ou read that Adam was made in
he likeness of God. That did not
make Adam God because he was
made in His likeness. Also, the Son
Df God was made in the likeness of
men, but that does not make Him a
man.

"And being found in fashion as a
man, He humbled Himself, and be-
came obedient unto death" (Phil.
2:8) . When the time does come in
the providence of God that I will
pass out of this world, it will not be
a case of me humbling myself to die.
It is appointed unto man once to
die, but not for the Son of God. It
was the Son of God who did all of
this. It was done with such humil-
ity that He humbled Himself, be-
came obedient unto death, even the
death of the cross: the death of a
criminal. "Wherefore God also hath
highly exalted Him, and given Him
a name which is above every name."
It is important to understand that
humility is one of the major things
that the Lord Jesus Christ demon-
strated.

Consideration for others is stressed
in the case of Timothy: "But I
trust in the Lord Jesus to send Tim-
othy shortly unto you, that I also
may be of good comfort, when I
know your state. For I have no man
likeminded, who will naturally care
for your state. For all seek their
own, not the things which are Jesus
Christ's. But ye know the proof
of him, that, as a son with the fa-
ther, he hath served with me in the
Gospel" (Phil. 2:19-22). Timothy
showed consideration for other peo-
ple's welfare. This is also an im-
portant characteristic to be seen in

the Christian who is God's servant.

Epaphroditus was a wonderful
person. "For he longed after you
all, and was full of heaviness, be-
cause that ye had heard that he had
been sick" (Phil. 2:26) . He actually
had worked himself down in serving
others. "Because for the work of
Christ he was nigh unto death, not
regarding his life, to supply your
lack of service toward me" (Phil.
2:30) . The right word to indicate
this is "zeal." This man, Epaph-
roditus, was filled with zeal. He put
himself into his work and laid him-
self out for it, until he just fairly
made himself sick. He worked that
hard in seeking to help other peo-
ple to know the Lord Jesus Christ.

Finally, turn to Philippians 3:7-
14 and you will see the fourth char-
acteristic brought out in the case
of Paul himself. Here you will see
the consecration and total commit-
ment to the Lord, to serve Him.

These are four traits found in the
servant: humility, consideration for
others, zeal for the work in his spirit,
and consecration in his life. These
things belong in the mind of the
servant. This is the case with the
Christian with the Holy Spirit of
God within him that takes the things
of the Lord Jesus Christ and brings
them to pass within the person him-
self, to the glory of the living Lord
Jesus Christ. This is "Christ in you,
the hope of glory." These are the
characteristics in the believer as he
seeks to serve God. El

Dr. Gutzke is professor emeritus
of Biblical exposition, Columbia
Seminary, and broadcaster of "The
Bible for You." This study is avail-
able on tape recording, $3 per reg-
ular tape containing 4 lessons ($9
the set, Nos. 72—1, 2, 3) and $3 per
cassette containing 2 lessons ($18
the set, Nos. 72—A,B,C,D,E,F) . Or-
der from The Bible for You, Box
15007, Atlanta, Ga. 30333.

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WHO IN THE WORLD?, ed. by
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PAGE 20 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 13, 1972

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Camden, S. C.

J. A. Hagins, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store

Clinton, S. C.

D. B. Smith, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.
Darlinqton, S. C.
Paul E. Broome, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store

Laurens, S. C.

David Middleton, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Abbeville, S. C.

J. S. Hagins, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Hagins Co.
Kershaw. S. C.

C. E. Hinson, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.
Easley, S. C.
R. J. Womack, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Beaufort, S. C.
Al Wilson, Res. Mgr.
Mgr. Belk-Simpson Co.
Fountain Inn, S. C

E. J. Copeland, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Woodruff, S. C.

F. B. Hagins, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Honea Path, S. C.

T. R. Martin, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Whitmire, S. C.

Clyde Smith, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Manning, S. C.

W. M. Gettys, Res. Mgr.

OHIO

Belk-Simpson Co.

Athens, Ohio

Joe Kelly, Res. Mgr.

MISSOURI

Belk-Simpson Co.

Carthage, Mo.
Charles Wilson,

Res. Mgr.

OKLAHOMA

Belk Dept. Store

Miami, Oklahoma

J. T. Holmes, Res. Mgr.

NORTH CAROLINA

Belk-Simpson Co.

Hendersonville, N. C.

R. E. McCormack. Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store

Brevard, N. C.

J. M. Felty, Res. Mgr.

KENTUCKY

Belk-Simpson Co.
Harlan, Ky.

Delmar Tolliver, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Corbin, Ky.

W. C. Ashley, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Winchester, Ky.
T. L. Beckham, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Mt. Sterling, Ky.
Willoughby Smith, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Frankfort, Ky.

J. D. Prow, Res. Mgr.

GEORGIA

Belk-Simpson Co.

Bainbridge, Ga.

M. D. Ashley, Res. Mgr.

ARKANSAS

Belk-Simpson Co.

Paragould, Ark.

W. H. Wade, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Osceola, Ark.

K. R. Cline, Res. Mgr.

These stores are a small part of the entire Belk or-
ganization and have been in existence approximately
50 years. The Belk stores were launched in 1886-88.

SEE THE MANAGER NEAREST YOU FOR CHURCH CARPET, ROBES, ETC.

PAGE 21 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 13, 1972

THE PASTORAL EPISTLES: A
Study Guide to I & II Timothy and
Titus, by E. M. Blaiklock. Zonder-
van Publ. House, Grand Rapids, Mich.
Paper, 127 pp. $1.50. Reviewed by the
Rev. Peter Pascoe, pastor, First Pres-
byterian Church, Winona Lake, Ind.

A classicist — Professor Blaiklock
is internationally known for his writ-
ings on Greek drama and Latin lit-
erature — writing an inspirational
exposition of the pastoral epistles?
Yes, and an excellent exposition at
that. The president of the Bible
College of New Zealand, and presi-

dent (1971) of the Baptist Union
of New Zealand, has, in this volume,
prepared a rare treat for Bible schol-
ars.

Some lazy scholars, however, may
not be prepared to accept the good
professor's statement that "an hour's
work learning the Greek alphabet
will allow one to pronounce a word
in Greek script, and will usefully
open up important reference works
which can be found in church or
public libraries." Has Professor
Blaiklock not heard that many of
our American seminaries no longer

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The Amplified Bible — Hardback 9.95

The Four Gospels, A Commentary, Critical, Experimental — David Brown 8.00

The Sermon On The Mount — by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, 1 Vol. Edition 8.95

The Defense Of Christianity and My Credo — by Cornelius Van Til 1.00

Peter Speaks Today — A Devotional Commentary on First Peter
by Gordon Clark

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The Log College — by Archibald Alexander
Romans — by Geoffrey B. Wilson, paper
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Gospel ministry?

Here is brilliant exposition. Hei
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portive resource material. In
comment on I Timothy 2:9 and 3:1
Adlai Stevenson, Seneca, Goeth
are all quoted! A rare work. A pui
delight.

O
Th

■

:

MARK'S SKETCHBOOK
CHRIST, by Helen Tenney.
Banner of Truth Trust, London, En;
Paper, 104 pp. $2.50. Reviewed by tb
Rev. A. H. Rust, pastor, Eastminstc
Presbyterian Church, Knoxville, Tent

This paperback workbook on th
Gospel of Mark should be most we
come to those who would like
put into the hands of children an
young people reading material
stimulate interest in personal Bibl
study. In the 16 chapters, the av
thor has prepared a thorough reviei
and study of the Gospel by mean
of comments and questions witi
spaces left for written answers. Ac
ditional helps include, "Tips fo
Teachers," "Special Projects," a glo;
sary and four specially designe<
maps.

This workbook, published in Jar
uary, 1972, is a slightly revised edi
tion first published in 1956 in th
U. S. A. It is available througl
Puritan Publications, Inc., Carlisle
Pa. 17013. B

A GENERAL INTRODUCTION T(
THE BIBLE, by Norman L. Geisle
and William E. Nix. Moody Press, Chi

cago, 111.
the Rev.
Jamaica
Jam.

This

480 pp. $6.95. Reviewed b
Ronald J. Brady, professor
Bible College, Mandeville

excellent, up-to-date bool

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PAGE 22 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 13, 1972

general Biblical introduction cov-
s three main areas: inspiration,
nonization and transmission of the
blical text, three links in the chain
communication from God to us.
The book provides a scholarly,
adable treatment of these impor-
nt areas of the Christian faith, dem-
lstrating the authors' thorough un-
;rstanding of the field. It deserves
ide reading not only from pastors,
achers and theological students,
jt from other knowledgeable Chris-
ans who want to deepen their in-
ght into the inspiration of Scrip-
ire; its recognition, acceptance, and
paration from other religious lit-
alure; and the process by which
ie Scriptures have come from the
riginal Hebrew and Greek writings
own to our contemporary versions
rid translations.

About 100 pages are devoted to
consideration of the inspiration of
cripture. Here Biblical claims of
Ispiration, supporting claims, and
apporting evidences are dealt with.
Various theories of inspiration are
onsidered and a verbal, plenary
iew is defended. One brief defi-
ition is: "Inspiration is that mys-
rious process by which the guid-
nce of God on the human prophets
nvests their writings with divine
uthority. It is the process by
vhich Spirit-moved men (II Pet. 1:
10-21) produce Spirit-breathed writ-
tags (II Tim. 3:16) ."

The next quarter of the book
reats the subject of canonicity, dis-
ussing how the particular books of
he Bible came together and gained
icceptance as holy, inspired Scrip-
ure. An important principle is un-
derscored in the historical discus-

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sion: canonicity is determined by
God, not the Church. The Church
in God's providence recognized
which books were already canonical
Scripture, that is, inspired by God;
it did not make any book canonical.
In this section there is also a good
treatment of Old and New Testa-
ment Apocrypha and spurious writ-
ings.

Fully half of the book is devoted
to an excellent treatment of the
transmission of the Bible from its
original writers to our present ver-
sions and translations. The reader
is instructed in such interesting mat-
ters as the original languages of the
Bible, early writing materials, manu-
script preparation and transmission,
various translations and versions
down through history, the transmis-
sion and restoration of the Hebrew
and Greek texts, and the background
of most of our English versions and
translations today — a fascinating
journey through the history and de-
velopment of the Bible we hold in
our hands.

A helpful glossary of terms joins
the 12 page bibliography to con-
clude this valuable book. El

S. 5. Lesson— from p. 15

The world of Satan is seeking to
dominate the minds of men and
crowd out the Gospel. Are we equal-
ly determined to make that Gospel
heard? It will cost time and money
to compete with Satan. Are we ready
for this? Or are we willing to let the
Sunday 1 1 a.m. service by our
preacher suffice, now and then
placing a small contribution in the
offering plate to support that mes-
sage?

The Church today must keep up
with the changes. We must be able
to adapt to the modern means of
communication, but we cannot and
must not change the message nor
the vessels of that message from
what God in His Word has de-
manded.

In spite of all of the modern ways
of communication, still the best and
most effective witness for Christ is
through the voice of a believer
whose life demonstrates the change
that Christ has worked in him. It
is here that the Church is falling
behind. It is here that stress must
be given. 3D

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PAGE 23 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 13, 1972

FOR YOUR LIBRARY

THE DEATH OF CHRIST,

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DELIVER US FROM EVIL,

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Weaverville, NC 28787

First— from p. 10

dow!"

Society's fundamental problem is
man's sinful heart. If the Church
across our land would return to its
fundamental and primary purpose
for being, and proclaim the power
of the Holy Spirit to regenerate the
heart and the power of Christ to
save the soul, we would experience
revival and God would give us a re-
formed society as a gracious bonus.

Let us think of the law of first
and second things in regard to art.
Art is one of the second things
in life. It cannot stand alone.
Art cannot be an end in itself. It
must have a message to proclaim;
a master to serve; a God to glorify.
It must have something to say. Art
that says nothing, or says whatever
the viewer wants it to say, is noth-
ing. It is unworthy of our atten-
tion. The great artists have dared
to put first things first and were
given their art as a dividend.

Art and Culture

Culture, like art, is a second. It
is the product of great fundamental
truths that produce it. Today our
culture is undergoing great change.
Some want to give up our free en-
terprise system for a socialist state.
Even marriage and the home are
under attack. Many are fearful,
and they long to preserve things that
are dear to us.

Let it be understood that we can-

not pressure our culture by conce^x)
trating on culture; rather, we w
have to return to the basic teachii
which produced it. We believe th
the free enterprise system is intimat
ly related to such great truths as s?
vation by faith alone and the prie
hood of all believers. The sancti
of the home is preserved by faith
Scripture as the Word of God a
the validity of the Ten Comman
ments.

fit

The Church

When we apply our law to tl
Church, we readily see that it is n(
an end in itself. The Church is nc
worthy of first place in our live
The Church is a second good, a b
product. It is sad to see people aj
plying artificial respiration to a d1
ing Church by putting on bazaar
raffles and fairs, or introducin
worldly programs which the Stat
can do far better. Such endeavoi
are the kiss of death to the Churcr.

The Church is kept alive whe:
we devote our time and energy to
still higher purpose. It is renewe*
when we exalt Christ. Forget abou
saving the Church and ask the Hoi
Spirit to use you in saving souls! A
souls are saved, the Church is mad
secure.

To put second things first is t<
lose both that which we sacrific
and that which we seek to gain. Th
only way to get second things, is t<
put first things first.

"Praise God from whom all bless
ings flow." E

????????????

MISSISSIPPI
RECONCILIATION

????????????

TO: Programs Of Reconciliation Committee
Synod of Mississippi
Box 362, Meridian, Mississippi 39301

Send

copies of "Some Presbyterian Reflections on Reconciliation

in Mississippi in 1972" at $1.00 per copy, a modest booklet authorized by
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PAGE 24 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 13, 1972

he

)L. XXXI, NO. 21

SEPTEMBER 20, 1972

PRESBYTERIAN

Ivocating continuation of a Presbyterian Church loyal

t;

$4.00 A YEAR

JOURNAL

to Scripture and the Reformed faith

Listen to Faith Speak

Faith listens neither to despair, nor to cowardice, nor to
precipitancy, nor to presumption, but it hears God say, "Stand
still," and immovable as a rock it stands. Stand still, keep the
posture of an upright man, ready and prepared for action, ex-
pecting further orders, cheerfully and patiently awaiting the
directing voice. It will not be long — maybe tomorrow, or
next month, or next year — before God shall say to us, as dis-
tinctly as Moses said it to the people of Israel, "Go forward."
Dear brothers in Christ, then we shall march forward toward
God's destiny for us, clothed with His blessing and armed with
His power.

— W. Jack Williamson
(See p. 7)

3. S. LESSON AND YOUTH PROGRAM FOR OCTOBER 8

moo

fcTS^g ON TTIH TQGteno
<VF1 OK jo &*j6j;9Apin
tio^osTloo p K

i

MAI LB AG

WE MISS OUR SHARE

Regarding John S. Jennings' ar-
ticle, "The Silent Majority," (July
26 Journal) I agree with the moti-
vating content of his article but not
with every point of his theology.

He says because we are silent,
"thousands upon thousands of peo-
ple are dying without Christ." He
also says, "1,424 Presbyterian US

congregations did not receive a sin-
gle person on profession of faith."

Shame on our Church for sure!
But let's not be un-Biblical and con-
fine to hell all the folks we did not
witness to. Let's just say the Pres-
byterians missed their share of the
harvest. That's why the Baptists
have 13 million members and we
have one million. That's why God

the

PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL

Rev. G. Aiken Taylor, Ph.D., Editor
Rev. Henry B. Dendy, D.D., Managing Editor
William G. Bolus, Assistant Editor

Circulation leader among independent publications in the Presbyterian-Reformed world

THIS WEEK-

Vol. XXXI, No. 21, September 20, 1972

Where We Go From Here 7

The best of four solutions to the problem conservatives
face By W. Jack Williamson

A Strange Boast 10

Paul's glory in the cross is all the more amazing because he
was a Jew By Gordon Chilvers

De partments —

Editorials - — 12

The Layman and his Church 13

Sunday School Lesson, October 8 14

Youth Program, October 8 16

Book Reviews 17

THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL, a

Presbyterian weekly magazine, devoted
to the statement, defense, and propa-
gation of the Gospel, the faith which
was once for all delivered to the saints,

is published every Wednesday by the
Southern Presbyterian Journal Co.,
Inc., in Weavei'ville, N. C.

SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: $4 a year

for individuals, $3 for members of
Every Family Plan churches. All cor-
respondence regarding subscriptions,
advertising or other business matters,
should be addressed to the business
office in Weaverville, N. C. 28787.
Second class postage paid at Weaver-
ville, N. C. 28787.'

POSTMASTER: Send Form 3579 to
Presbyterian Journal, Box 635, Wea-
verville, N. C. 28787. Subscribers
should allow three weeks for change
of address in continental U. S. Change
of address notices should include both
old and new addresses (with zip
codes) .

NEWS AND EDITORIAL correspond-
ence should be addressed to P. O. Box
3108, Asheville, N. C. 28802. Editorial
offices located at 247 Charlotte St. in
Asheville.

TELEPHONES: (All area 704) edi-
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business office, 645-3310, 645-3962.

has raised up the likes of Campu
Crusade, Young Life, Navigators, th
Billy Graham organization, and otl
ers, to reap the harvest of this gei
eration.

God is still sovereign. Ephesiar
1 is still in effect. God's will wi
be done on earth as 'tis in heavei
If Presbyterians won't do it, Go
will find somebody else who wl
But those who are ordained to etei
nal life will find it!

It's just a shame we missed on
share, though!

— (Rev.) Michael G. DiPalma
Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico

OFF THE SINKING SHIP

The editorial, "Parable of a Sinl
ing Ship," in the August 23 Journa
is a masterpiece of wisdom. But ma
I venture a few words of corrobora
tion from my 50 years of churchman
ship?

Launching the lifeboats is goin;
to take a while. In the meantime, i
you are now in a liberal church
jump overboard — even in shark-ir
fested waters!

Beware of a liberal minister wfr
says in his first message to a ne\
charge (or at any other time) :

"I do not believe in the virgii
birth; I do not believe in angels
Jesus, by his own admission, was ;
social drinker; an angel did not re
move Peter from prison, a courage
ous man did it; I do not believi
there was an angel Gabriel; the re
surrection cannot be proved."

That minister is not going t«
change with the passing years, bu
you are going to become sick ant
angry if you stay with him.

Angry with yourself because yoi
did not jump overboard, even ii
shark infested waters.

— Wilbert Edwards
Tyler, Texas

THIS AND THAT

I have just finished reading Mr
M. P. Niven's article {Journal, Au
gust 2) in reply to Dr. Alber
Winn's speech before the Genera
Assembly on Vietnam.

I would like to thank Mr. Nivei
for speaking out in behalf of ou:
leaders who are trying for peaci
with honor, in bringing this Viet
nam War to an end.

It is very unfortunate that w(
have folks like Dr. Winn, Jant
Fonda and others giving encourage
ment to Hanoi.

— Mrs. Edmond V. Johnston
Huntington, W. Va.

1INISTERS

Curtis F. Crowther from graduate
study to Weston (W. Va.) State
Hospital as chaplain.

Sidney N. Harris from Welsh,
La., to the First Church, Milton,
Fla.

G. Carswell Hughs, Springfield,
Va., has been called by the First
Church, Charlotte, N. C.

Minus B. Jackson, received from
the Cumberland Presbyterian
Church, to King College, Bristol,
Tenn., as chaplain and instructor
in Bible.

William T. Lawrence, former
missionary to Mexico, to the First
Church, Pleasanton, Tex.
Cheves K. Ligon from Fayetteville,
N. C, to the Oldtown church,
Winston-Salem, N. C.
J. Phillips Noble from Anniston,
Ala., to the First Scots Church,
Charleston, S. C.

James A. Turner from Jackson,
Miss., to the First Church, Co-
lumbus, Miss., as assistant pastor.

• This has been a week of gen-
erally good news, both in and out
of the office. The Bible enjoins us
to "rejoice with them that do re-
joice" and we ask you to rejoice
with us in the addition of the name
of William G. Bolus to the mast-
ff head of the Journal as assistant edi-
I tor. Mr. Bolus is a lifelong Pres-
byterian, born in Johnson City,
l| Tenn., and broth-
j er of Presbyterian
I US minister Mi-
'I chael D. Bolus.
| With a b a c k -
f ground of grad-
I tiate work in jour-
| nalism and some
J 16 years as a newspaper reporter,
"j public relations staffer, speechwriter
f: and photographer, Mr. Bolus comes
to the Journal uniquely qualified to
! improve the ministry of this publi-
1 cation at a critical time. He is raar-
''I ried to the former Margaret Bain of
i Johnson City, Tenn., and they have
i four children. If that isn't enough,
I Mr. Bolus served in the Pacific dur-
ij ing World War II with the Marines.

Robert E. Love, recent graduate
of Louisville Seminary, received
by Wilmington Presbytery to be
institutional chaplain at North
Carolina Memorial Hospital.
Huw Christopher, who has been
serving First Church, Hickory, N.
C, as a candidate of Concord
Presbytery, has been ordained and
installed pastor of First Church,
Washington, N. C.
William J. Kerr, Austin, Tex., is
now director of the McLennan
County Council on Alcoholism
and alcoholism program director
of the Waco-McLennan County,
Tex., Mental Health and Mental
Retardation Center.
Lewis H. Lancaster Jr., former
missionary to Japan, will help es-
tablish the first PCUS Office of
Interchurch Relations, Atlanta,
Ga.

Ralph E. McCaskill from Bishop-
ville, S. C, to the First Church,
Quincy, Fla.

Daniel W. Massie, recent graduate
of Union Seminary, Richmond, to
Third Church, Norfolk, Va.

Jack M. Kennedy from Monroe,
La., to the Minden, La., church.
Vernon B. McGehee from Charles-
ton, W. Va., to Panama City, Fla.,
as educational consultant for
Florida Presbytery.
William E. Pryor from graduate
study, Union Seminary, to the
First Church, Victoria, Tex.
D. Edward Renegar from Banner
Elk, N. C, to the Bryson City, N.
C, church.

Julian Stennis from Evans, Ga., to
the Boligee, Ala., church as stated
supply.

Robert N. Watkin Jr., from Dal-
las, Tex., to the Rivermont
church, Chattanooga, Tenn.

DEATH

Mrs. Robert J. McMullen, for
many years a missionary to Chi-
na, died in High Point, N. C.
Aug. 13.

Hezekiah M. Washburn, PCUS
missionary to the Congo for 47
years, died July 19 in Martins-
ville, Va. He was 88.

ACROSS THE EDITOR'S DESK

• We were watching a traffic
court session in which cases involv-
ing minor infractions of the rules
were coming up for disposition.
One neatly dressed young man, who
appeared to be in his twenties, was
charged with operating a motor ve-
hicle in violation of the stipulation
on his license that he wear glasses
while driving. He stood before the
judge (without glasses) and when
asked if he had any explanation he
announced in a clear voice: "The
Bible says we should walk by faith
and not by sight." After a moment
of startled silence, the judge kindly
looked over his glasses and told the
young man that he also had full re-
spect for Holy Writ, but he didn't
think the Lord would look kindly
on the young man if he hit someone
with his car because he couldn't
see him. Ten dollars and costs. On
the way out, the young man handed

everyone in sight (including the of-
ficer who testified against him) a
tract.

• Another development over which
we would ask you to join us in re-
joicing is somewhat more personal.
Unfortunately, only those Journal
readers who prefer a view of the
world from above the heavy smog
layer will understand our feelings
about this one. After an interlude
of more than a year since N5663P
left our care for someone who could
better keep her in the manner to
which she wanted to become accus-
tomed, we have a lovely replace-
ment. Comanche N8004P, parked
out at Asheville's municipal airport,
is nine years old, but full of pep
and we think she will make our
traveling much more convenient as
well as pleasant. Join us, if you
will, in the hope that we can keep
this one! ffl

PAGE 3 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 20, 1972

NEWS OF RELIGION

Jewish Christians Hold "Jesus' Concert

NEW YORK — Jewish Christians
were the center of attention at a 5%
hour "Jesus Joy" rock concert in the
Felt Forum of Madison Square
Garden on Labor Day.

Moishe Rosen, founder of a group
called "Jews for Jesus," told the
audience of 4,000 that "every Chris-
tian who wants to serve Jesus must
begin thinking of himself as a
spiritual Jew."

Wearing denim trousers and jac-
ket and a yarmulke (a Yiddish skull-
cap which is the traditional garb of
Jewish males in the synagogue) ,
Rosen declared that Jewish Chris-
tians support such Jewish causes as
freedom for Soviet Jews and main-
taining the borders of Israel. He
said his group insists on remaining
Jewish.

Charlie Rizzo, a member of the
Maranatha Band from New Milford,
N. J., told the audience that the
modern state of Israel is a fulfill-
ment of Bible prophecy.

"The Jewish people are a modern
day miracle, and if you don't like
Jewish people I suggest you check
yourself out because you're in a lot of
trouble with the Big One," Rizzo
said.

Music for the program included

SUDAN — A coalition of evangeli-
cal organizations, known as the
Committee for the Rehabilitation
of Southern Sudan (CROSS) , has
begun relief activities in the wake
of Sudan's 16-year civil war which
recently ended.

Among the groups represented by
CROSS are Sudan Interior Mission
(SIM) , Sudan United Mission, Af-
rica Inland Mission and Missionary
Aviation Fellowship, all of which
had worked in Sudan prior to the
1964 expulsion of missions from the
south.

Under the Addis Ababa Agree-
ment, which ended the civil war,
Southern Sudan received self-gov-
ernment within the larger nation.
Arabic will continue to be the of-
ficial language, English the work-

performances by such "Jesus People'
groups as The Archers, Lillian Park-
er, Danny Lee and the Children of
Truth, and Danny Taylor. Among
the most popular singers was Katie
Hanley, of the Broadway cast of
"Godspell." She sang "Day by Day,"
one of the show's feature songs.

Speakers included Bob Mumford,
author and evangelist from Fort
Lauderdale, Fla.; Scott Ross, who
hosts a Christian rock radio program
heard on 120 stations; and Tom
Skinner, black author and evange-
list who was once a Harlem gang
leader. The Rev. Jack Sutton, a
Roman Catholic hospital chaplain
from North Arlington, N. J., gave
the invocation.

A group of about 20 Jews from the
New York area, obviously protesting
the "Jews for Jesus" theme of the
concert, created a minor disturbance
while Rizzo was speaking. They were
peacefully escorted outside by police.

The protestors rose while Rizzo
was speaking and began singing in
Hebrew. The remainder of the
audience outsang them, however,
with a rendition of "Amazing
Grace."

The meeting was picketed prior
to its opening by a New York group

ing language of the south. Free-
dom of religion has been promised,
as well as the rights of minority
groups to use their languages and
develop their culture.

Refugees are reportedly return-
ing to Sudan in large numbers. Dur-
ing the conflict an estimated 280,-
000 people fled across the borders
into Uganda, Ethiopia and Zaire,
to escape the ravages of the war
with its religious overtones. Many
of the refugees were Christians,
while the dominating power has
been Muslim.

The Rev. Darrell Welling, a
SIM missionary in Khartoum, and
Dr. Ken Tracey, who headed the
relief program in Nigeria, are co-
ordinating the relief activities in the
Sudan. ft]

of college and seminary student
who called themselves "Jews fo
Judaism." Led by Rabbi Shalor
Hecht, 26, they distributed litera
ture outside the Felt Forum an(
said they were composed of Con
servative, Orthodox and Reforri
Jews.

Speaker Rosen, the "Jews fo
Jesus" leader, said he and others o
his group were physically attackec
after he left the forum and headec
for his hotel. He said about 2(
unidentified youths "grabbed oui
yarmulkes."

Rev. Jerry Davis, 31, of North
Arlington, N. J., one of the concert';!
organizers, told reporters, "There
are many people here who are
anxious for the music to end so the)
can hear what the speakers have tc
say. And that's a good sign."

Concert sponsors are planning an
other gathering for New Year's Eve.
Rev. Paul Moore, of Maranatha
Church of the Nazarene in New
Milford, N. J., said plans are being
made for a watchlight communion,
at which sponsors hope to have
noted authors and speakers. EE

Minnesota House Calls
Follow Up Explo 72

MINNEAPOLIS (RNS) — In com-
munities across Minnesota, pairs of
young people are making house to
house calls sharing their faith in
Christ.

They are doing this as a follow-up
to Explo 72, the mammoth Chris-
tian training conference held in]
Dallas in June that attracted more
than 75,000 persons, including some
2,500 from Minnesota.

Some Minnesotans who were at
Explo and more who weren't re-
ceived training at two sessions of
"Operation Penetration" conducted
at Carleton College, Northfield. Like
Explo, they were sponsored by the a
interdenominational Crusade for
Christ International.

Douglas Sutherland, campus di-1
rector for Campus Crusade at the
University of Minnesota, said that j
on the whole most people visited by
the pairs of young people provide
"positive" reception.

"Some people slam the door in
their faces," he reported. "But most

THE CHURCH OVERSEAS

PAGE 4 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 20, 1972

"j be willing to listen even though they
y on't agree with everything."

Normally, about one person in
J /ery 10 visited received Christ or
)E ^pressed a desire to grow in his
J (ith, he said.

Referring to the multiplying ef-
j ?ct of recruiting ever more young
eople to witness to their faith, he
J ommented:

j "If we can win a city, we can win
jl state. If we can win a state, we

| an win a nation. If ..." IS

in

Christian Endeavor Union
folds Meeting in Samoa

!

i AMERICAN SAMOA — The sixth
PiLrea I Conference of the world's
li christian Endeavor Union brought
ogether here 1,200 people represent-

0 ng 15 countries.

el A Southeast Asian and Pacific
Conference was held Aug. 2 in Pago
'rago preceding the Area I meeting,
ifpleeds of the Pacific Area were re-
viewed and plans made to extend
Christian Endeavor work, especially
! n Indonesia.

1 Clyde W. Meadows, president of
fhe Union said, "The cooperation
|)f the pastors of churches in the area
in attending the conference sessions
jvith their people not only demon-
litrated their interest in the Chris-
tian Endeavor movement, but also
'[:he spirit of unity which exists
: imong the churches of the is-
land." IS

Roman Catholic Bishop
Says, 'Preach the Cross'

Washington, d. c. (Rns)

People are not listening to us be-
cause we are often preaching socio-
logical drivel instead of Christ cru-
Icified," declared the nation's most
i renowned Roman Catholic preacher.
"We have a cross-less Christ and a
(Christ-less cross."

This indictment by Archbishop
Fulton J. Sheen, retired bishop of
Rochester, N. Y., and famed tele-
vision preacher, was leveled at
about 685 participants — - mostly
priests — during the National Con-
gress of the Word of God here.

A "cross-less Christ," he explained,
["is the emasculated, weak defense of
| an economic and social Gospel, a

Christ that never speaks of re-
pentance."

The prelate said that China and
Russia, where "order, discipline and
commitment to a common purpose"
can be found, is an example of the
"Christ-less cross."

The "one message" which "needs
to be brought to all — - faithful and
faithless — is the message of a Love
which went to death and then rose
to life to prove itself," he affirmed.

"The next question is, "How do
we become preachers of Christ-cruci-
fied?,' " he asked rhetorically. The
answer, he indicated, is that
"preaching requires rehearsal," that
is, "personal prayer and Bible
study."

"Just try spending one hour a day
meditating upon the Scriptures and
see how soon you'll become a preach-
er of God's Word," said Archbishop
Sheen. El

NAE Calls For Worship In
Bicentennial Proposals

WHEATON, 111. — The National
Association of Evangelicals has
called on authorities planning the
200th anniversary program of t h e
United States in 1976 to make Sun-
day, July 4 a day of worship and
thanksgiving to God, with national
celebrations to take place on July
5, the legal holiday.

According to the Rev. Billy A.
Melvin, executive director of the
three-and-a-half-million-member as-
sociation which includes 33 denomi-
nations, the complete proposal in-
cludes plans for worship services in
all churches.

If possible, NAE will sponsor an
outdoor service on that Sunday af-
ternoon in Washington, D. C, per-
haps at the Washington Monument.

NAE will sponsor or participate
in an effort to provide a bicenten-
nial prayer and hymn for use on ap-
propriate occasions throughout the
anniversary period.

In another development, the NAE
has announced a Bible-reading pro-
gram called "Scriptures to Live By,"
in keeping with the evangelistic and
spiritual renewal emphasis of 1973.

A prayer guide accompanies the
reading guide, listing weekly prayer
requests related to the NAE minis-

tries. Posters advertising the Bible
reading are available for churches
wishing to enlist the participation
of members. Those interested may
write NAE, P. O. Box 28, Wheaton,
111. 60187 for an order form. IS

Jesus People Open Booth
At Minnesota State Fair

ST. PAUL (RNS)— Amid the blar-
ing music and posters of the Young
America Center at the Minnesota
State Fair here, Jesus People offered
smiles, brochures and testimony of
Christ to fair goers.

"We're here to tell people about
Jesus Christ," said Julie Williams,
12, who worked in a booth em-
blazoned with the slogan, "One
Way."

The Jesus People handed out
copies of The Hollywood Free Pa-
per, a movement publication, and
other material.

Dave Palmquist, youth pastor at
Soul's Harbor in Minneapolis, spon-
sor of many Jesus People activities
in the area, said overall response to
the booth was good. He reported
some "hassles," and explained that
some persons are turned off by the
movement.

"We find that those who won't
talk to us look at us as 'do-gooders,' "
Mr. Palmquist said. "We really
aren't. It's just that once Christ has
come into your heart, all you want
to do is good things." 15

New Journal Announced
By Black Churchmen

BOSTON — A new publication de-
signed to "close the gap in our
knowledge of the black experience
and to examine substantive data
and interpretation on the contem-
porary Black Church," has been an-
nounced here, with a Presbyterian
US minister in charge.

The Black Church, described as
the "Journal of the Black Ecumeni-
cal Commission of Massachusetts,"
will publish on a quarterly basis and
the first issue is scheduled for April,
1973.

The Rev. Jefferson P. Rogers,
Washington, D. C. will be the edi-
tor and Mrs. Mary Grace Rogers,
managing editor. IS

PAGE 5 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 20, 1972

Baptist Board Commends
Editor of Commentaries

GLORIETA, N.M. — Members of
the Southern Baptist Sunday School
Board took an action here to support
the editor of one of their embattled
publications. The trustees of the
board commended Clifton J. Allen,
editor of the controversial Broad-
man Bible Commentary series, for
his "unswerving commitment to the
Bible as the authoritative guide in

SAVANNAH, Ga. — Seven ministers
and nine elders, representing 10 sepa-
rated or independent congregations,
acted here to form a new presbytery
covering some six states to be named
Vanguard Presbytery, A Provisional
Presbytery for Southern Presby-
terians and Reformed Churches
Uniting.

Convenor of the meeting, which
brought numerous visitors from
throughout the area of the Presby-
terian Church US, was the Rev.
Todd W. Allen, pastor of Eastern
Heights Church, one of two local
congregations that separated from
the PCUS six years ago.

Mr. Allen and the Rev. Dale
Umbreit, pastor of Hull Memorial
church, the other separated congrega-
tion, jointly hosted the meeting.

None of those signing the organiz-
ing document, which will be kept
"open ' for 18 months while others
wishing to be "charter" members
are solicited, considered themselves
at the time members of the PCUS.
One or two visitors still holding
membership indicated they might
join the new presbytery later.

The opening devotion of the meet-
ing was led by the Rev. John E.
Richards, coordinator for the Steer-
ing Committee for a Continuing
Presbyterian Church. Dr. Richards
declared, however, that the commit-
tee itself was not involved in the
action taken here.

During the debate preceding for-
mal action, a warning was sounded
by the Rev. G. Aiken Taylor, a steer-
ing committee member and editor
of the Journal. Dr. Taylor expressed
concern that finalizing a "Church

faith and practice."

The series of reference books has
a spotted history in the Southern
Baptist Convention. At the 1970 an-
nual meeting of the denomination
the board was ordered to withdraw
and rewrite the volume on Genesis.

An attempt failed, however, at the
1972 convention to have all 12
volumes withdrawn.

In the earlier debate it was
charged that the Genesis commen-
tary offered too liberal an inter-
pretation for Southern Baptists. EE

structure" at this time could make
relationships with any future Church
more difficult.

The body nevertheless voted to
proceed, adopting the Westminster
Confession of Faith and the PCUS
Book of Church Order, 1934 edition,
as its constitution. It will be char-
tered in the state of Georgia. Partici-
pants expressed the view that the
U.S. Supreme Court decision in the
Savannah churches' case indicates a
friendlier climate in Georgia than
in other states for churches taking
the step taken here.

Elected moderator of the new
court was the Reverend Mr. Allen.
Stated clerk and treasurer is Chester
B. Hall, a Louisville, Kentucky,
elder whose congregation, First
Church of Louisville, is currently
negotiating its separate status with
Louisville Presbytery.

An indication of the independent
spirit of the new presbytery appeared
when a motion was made to permit
the moderator to sit with the steer-
ing committee for a continuing
Church. Strong opposition to the
motion was voiced and several were
heard voting in the negative, but the
moderator declared the motion car-
ried.

Next meeting of the presbytery,
descibed as the "constituting con-
vention" for the new body, will be
in Petersburg, Virginia, Nov. 14.
The meeting will be held at the
Tabb Street church, a congregation
which recently declared itself inde-
pendent from Hanover Presbytery.

It is expected that congregations
will have voted approval of the ac-
tion taken by their representatives

here by the time of the Petersbur
meeting, and that commissioners wi
be formally elected to constitute th
new presbytery. It is also expectei
that details of organization, incluc
ing the election of an executive com
mittee, will take place in the Noverr
ber meeting.

Attorney for the presbytery i
Owen H. Page who defended th
two local congregations in thei
earlier legal battle. Mr. Page out
lined before the meeting here th
various complications expected ii
future church property disputes. Ql

Synod #E# Convention
To Be Held in Austin

AUSTIN, Tex. — Nearly 1,00<
Presbyterians are expected hen
Sept. 26-27 for the convention o
Synod E, one of seven synods calle(
for by the restructuring of the Pres
byterian Church US.

The new synod, covering fou:
states west of the Mississippi, will b<
organized in advance of the July 1
1973, effective date for restructuring
by special permission of the 1 971
General Assembly. It will includ<
769 churches in Arkansas, Louisiana
Oklahoma and Texas.

Most of the major decisions in
volved in the organization of synod
scheduled to be effective in January
1973, will be made here, explainec
the Rev. Richard Copeland of Lak(
Charles, Louisiana, who is chairmar
of a 23-person steering committee.

These include choice of a name!
of an executive secretary, a missiorl
and program, and an organizational
structure. The decisions are expectecl
to be made on the basis of report!
by task forces and committees, saic
Mr. Copeland.

In conjunction with the progran
of synod, a special service will bt
held to inaugurate the Rev. Prescoti
H. Williams as the fifth president
of Austin Theological Seminary or
Tuesday, Sept. 26.

Austin Seminary is jointly ownec
by the three synods which are uniti
ing to form Synod E. I

Largest Gift Received

DECATUR, Ga. — Columbia Semi
nary here has received the largest
single gift in its history recently, ar
anonymous grant of $521,000. Presi
dent C. Benton Kline Jr. said it wa;
for the institution's total education
al program. E

THE CHURCH AT HOME

Churches Form Vanguard Presbytery

PAGE 6 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 20, 1972

'he first step toward solving a problem is understanding what the problem is —

Where We Go From Here

rhe 112th General Assembly
continued the mad march of
he Presbyterian Church US toward
iquidation through ecumenism.
The radical ecumenists continue to
msh with ruthless abandon those
>olicies and programs which are
>oth certain and calculated to cause
. division in our Church. Relent-
essly abusing the power in their
lands, these radical ecumenists, in
otal disregard of the historic wit-
less of our beloved Church, cut it
ip piecemeal in preparation for the
inal demise.

The 112th General Assembly
imply added emphasis to the con-
■ensus we believe the Holy Spirit
ied us to declare last year, namely,
'to accept the apparent inevitability
)f division of the Presbyterian
Church in the United States, a divi-
sion caused by the program of the
radical ecumenists, and to move
Ifiow toward a continuing body of
:ongregations and presbyteries loy-
lil to Scripture and the Westminster
>tandards." Recently I read a state-
ment made at the time the Presby-
terian Church of Canada was about
■to be liquidated. It struck me as
apropos to our situation: "There
lis the ever deepening conviction
that a movement which claims, as
its foundation principle . . . the de-
Isire for larger union, and persists in
creating disunion in our own
Church; which claims as its ani-
mating spirit love to other denomi-
nations and disregards the convic-
tions of a large part of its own mem-
bership, and would compel them

I This Journal Day address was
given by Mr. Williamson, an attor-
ney of Greenville, Ala., secretary of
Concerned Presbyterians, and an
"unhappy" member of the Joint
Union Committee of 32.

out of their Church by ending it;
which claims to be a fuller expres-
sion and manifestation of Jesus
Christ to the world, and presses its
own aim without having regard to
covenants past or consequences to
come .... [It] is not a movement
which indicates the hand and voice
of God."

'Live With Pluralism'

At the 112th General Assembly,
we heard retiring Moderator Ben
Lacy Rose speak of "the urgency of
our learning to live with the plural-
ism which is now a fact in our de-
nomination." Dr. Rose then
preached fervently and forcibly that
"one of the most pressing questions
before the Presbyterian Church US
today is whether we can learn to live
with this diversity, and to make
room in our Church for those who
have had a different experience of
Christ than our own . . ." This was
a sincere plea for the umbrella prin-
ciple of "unity in diversity" in an
attempt to avoid a division in our
Church. As soon as the Assembly
got started, however, the radical ec-
umenists proceeded to ignore the
wisdom and plea of Dr. Rose.

For example, an excellent oppor-
tunity to practice this principle of
allowing diversity in the Church was
presented on the issue of combining
new Synods F and C. The facts
were these: Synod F was Alabama
and Mississippi; and Synod C was
Tennessee and Kentucky. These
were the new synods as recommend-
ed by Dr. Harvard Anderson and
his ad interim committee after years
of study and thousands of hours and
dollars of research, new synods as re-
structured by the 1971 General As-
sembly. Synod C (Kentucky-Ten-
nessee) invited Synod F (Alabama-

W. JACK WILLIAMSON

Mississippi) to request a merger in-
to one large synod. The old Synod
of Alabama voted against the merg-
er. The old Synod of Mississippi
voted against the merger. The pro-
posed new Synod F met in conven-
tion in Meridian, Mississippi, on
May 16, 1972, and voted by a mar-
gin of 293 to 139 not to request the
merger.

Yet in the face of all this over-
whelming expression of grass roots
opposition to the merger, the Gen-
eral Assembly voted to put the two
proposed synods together into the
largest synod in the Church. Why?
Well, when proposed Synod F met
in Meridian in May, the conserva-
tives won all the votes at the con-
vention. It thus appeared that we
would have one conservative synod
out of seven. The radical ecumenists
could not stand this and would not
tolerate such diversity for the sake
of any unity, and they used their
power to take what many have felt
to be vindictive, punitive action
against Alabama and Mississippi.
They obviously do not want to
"make room" for us as Dr. Rose
pleaded, so they continue to drive
the wedge of division.

Reconciliation

We heard a familiar voice at the
112th, that of the new moderator,
Dr. L. Nelson Bell. What a lift it
gave to our spirit to be a part of
the highest court of the Church
which so fittingly honored this great
servant of God. Dr. Bell spoke with
deep emotion of his prayer that God
would use him as a reconciling agent
in the Church. He set as his goal
that we would be closer together at
the end of his term. He declared
that this reconciliation could only
be accomplished by the work of the

PAGE 7 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 20, 1972

1

Holy Spirit, reminding us of the
words of the prophet, "Not by
might, nor by power, but by my
Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts." Yet
we saw no true spirit of reconcilia-
tion surfacing at this General As-
sembly.

True reconciliation is a two-way
street, not just one way. True rec-
onciliation requires a "give and
take" by both parties in order to
reach common ground. This has
never been the type of reconcilia-
tion suggested by the radical ecu-
menists. I recall in 1967 the mod-
erator called a Conference on Rec-
onciliation at Atlanta. He invited
about 40 leaders of various groups
and positions in the Church. It be-
came quite obvious at that confer-
ence that the reconciliation of the
radical ecumenists was not reconcili-
ation but capitulation — we were to
be reconciled by giving up our po-
sitions and joining them.

This moderator asked me one day,
"What can I do to reconcile the
various elements in our Church?" I
told him that he could begin by giv-
ing our position some voice in the
decision-making bodies of the
Church through the appointments he
would make. To my knowledge, he
did not make one single appoint-
ment of a person who holds our po-
sition. This attitude was verified
when later one of those conferees
was elected moderator and given the
responsibility of appointing a com-
mittee to study the divisions in the
Church and to study methods to
heal them.

The General Assembly said that
this committee was to be broadly
representative of all the positions in
the Church. This moderator ap-
pointed the committee without nam-
ing one single person of our per-
suasion. The 112th General Assem-
bly showed this same attitude to-
ward reconciliation. When persons
were elected to the provisional Gen-
eral Executive Board, only four out
of 62 were conservatives.

We join with Dr. Bell in praying
for reconciliation, renewal and re-
vival. We know that the Holy
Spirit alone can accomplish it. We
stand ready and willing to show our
good faith by our acts. The radical
ecumenists must do likewise. If
they truly want reconciliation, we
suggest they prove it by two actions:
support a vote on the plan of union
in 1973; and postpone the effective
date of synod and presbytery re-
structuring until after the vote on

the plan of union.

We pray for reconciliation. We
will cooperate in any movement for
true reconciliation, but we will not
surrender. We cannot be expected
to cease and desist from all actions
toward a continuing Church while
the radical ecumenists rush ahead
without pause or concession toward
the liquidation of our Church. I
have outlined above two acts of rec-
onciliation which would demon-
strate their good faith and desire for
true reconciliation. If they refuse
to so act, they must bear the onus
of the refusal of Dr. Bell's offer of
and effort at reconciliation.

We Will Not Surrender

As we wait and hope and pray
that God will so motivate these radi-
cal ecumenists to such acts of recon-
ciliation, Christian statemanship re-
quires us to continue to plan for
the alternative of a new structure.
We would be both foolish and dere-
lict in our duty of leadership if we
did otherwise.

What then are these plans for a
continuing Church loyal to Scrip-
ture and the Reformed Faith? The
steering committee has suggested a
plan which it believes is the best
plan to accomplish this end. This
plan is really very simple:

To support any plan of union
with the UPUSA Church which con-
tains an acceptable clause permit-
ting local congregations and minis-
ters to elect not to enter the union;
and to exercise this election not to
enter the union and continue our
Presbyterian Church.

In the August 2, 1972, issue of the
Presbyterian Journal I outlined this
plan, together with our reasons and
our timetable. Reprints of the
plan are available, and I will not
again review it here. I simply re-
state my firm conviction that this
plan is the most effective constitu-
tional method for peaceful realign-
ment. This is the position taken last
year by your steering committee,
which still holds that this is the
best of all alternatives for contin-
uing a Church loyal to Scripture
and the Reformed Faith. As a mem-
ber of the committee for Presbyte-
rian union charged with drafting
such a plan for proposed realign-
ment, I would like to report on its
present status:

1) The "escape" clause, or for us
the "survival" clause, remains as in
your study draft. It has not been

changed. There will be a strong el
fort in the committee to change ii
Some of the leaders who have cone
mitted themselves to an "escape
clause, have been heard to say in n 1
cent months such things as: "W
said we would support an escap
clause in the plan but we didn't sa
what kind of an escape clause."

They know that the only accept
able type clause is one like the on<
in the plan, which leaves the deci
sion at the congregational level
do not believe that these leader
will demean their word given in pri
vate and public and avoid the clea
intent of that word in an evasion
by supporting an unacceptable "es
cape" clause. I have great hope o
an acceptable "survival" clause re
maining in the plan so that individ
ual ministers and congregations cai
make their own decisions.

Hard Sell

2) There is a deliberate effort oi
the part of the radical ecumenist
in our PCUS to delay vote on th<
plan until 1975. They say frankh
and openly that this delay is die
tated by purely ecclesiastical, politi
cal expedience. Many, if not most
of the committee members from tht
UPUSA are ready for a vote in 1973
It is the radical ecumenists in ou:i
Church who are seeking the delay.

In an act which I believe exceed
ed its authority, the committer
adopted an advocacy role at its Jun<
meeting in Charlotte. This mean
that the committee will not onb
draft the plan of union but that i
will use the full resources of tht
Church to sell, advocate, and pro
mote this plan.

The first such promotional meet
ing has been called for about 10(
selected advocates to meet and plan i
strategy to get the plan passed. Thi:
first meeting is to be held in St
Louis in September.

The committee has not yet mad<
a decision as to when the draft o
the plan will be presented to tht
two General Assemblies for vote
The sub-committee on drafting wil
have the final draft of the plar
ready for approval by the ful
committee at a meeting to be helc
February 8-10, 1973. At this meet
ing in February, the committee wil
decide on when the draft of tht
plan will be presented for vote. Ii
can be ready and presented to tht
respective General Assemblies ir
May and June, 1973. In my judg

PAGE 8 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 20, 1972

•Inent to do otherwise would be
:i>reaking faith with the people.
j| I In 1971, the draft was sent down
A [or two years' study. Although no
lirm commitment was made to vote
I Ln it in 1973, certainly the clear
i mplication made by and the infer-
ence drawn from those presenting
his proposal was that we would
tudy it for two years and then vote.
I have repeatedly said that I would
iccept the good faith of those who
o promised, or through reasonable
inference led us to so believe, until
[hey prove otherwise. I still have
p-eat hope that the honor of these
brothers in Christ will prevail and
hat we will vote on the plan for
he first time at the 1973 General
\ssemblies of the two Churches.

Irreconcilables

But, frankly, many men and worn-
jen whose judgment 1 respect do not
believe that the radical ecumenists
will ever permit us to realign in
peace. I have always believed that
(men of good will would prevail in
recognizing that when Christians
pave irreconcilable differences, it is
imuch better to depart in peace in
la spirit of fairness than to attempt
ito force a position which violates
the conscience of others. This is
the position which Dr. Bell took
when he supported the "escape"
clause in his remarks to the commit-
ftee in Charlotte in June.

However, many of my other
friends who have been in this battle
longer than I, warn me that they
have seen little of this spirit among
our opposition over the years. They
say that the radical ecumenists will
never permit an acceptable "survi-
ival" clause to be in the plan of
union, and that they will delay the
vote on the plan until they have re-
structured the voting power in the
: Church to their advantage.

This wisdom and advice forces
us to look at alternatives to the plan
to continue a faithful Church
li through the "survival" clause in a
. plan of union. Let us put some of
I those alternatives on the table and
■ look at them.

I After registering at General As-
I sembly a protest opposing the liqui-
I dation of the PCUS through union
\ with the UPUSA, a group of com-
I missioners could continue the Gen-
eral Assembly at another place as
' the continuing General Assembly of
the PCUS. This would demonstrate
that the PCUS was still a living en-

tity; and local churches and pres-
byteries would declare their al-
legiance to this continuing Church.
This could precipitate one big, mas-
sive civil lawsuit over the control of
Church property, but there is his-
torical precedent for this procedure
in the continuation of the Presby-
terian Church in Canada.

Presbytery Realignment

Any presbytery could take an ac-
tion dissolving its relationship with
its existing General Assembly and
become an independent presbytery.
This independent presbytery could
then join with other presbyteries in
forming an ecclesiastical structure.
There is no specific provision in
our Book of Church Order which
authorizes this procedure; however,
there is historical precedent for this
method. This is exactly what hap-
pened in 1861 when the presbyteries
in the South, one by one, announced
their withdrawal from the northern
Church. Later these presbyteries
got together in Augusta and formed
the PCUS.

Some feel that since the PCUS was
originated by these presbyteries
agreeing to unite, presbyteries
would have the inherent right to dis-
associate themselves from the body.
Others point out that in 1861 the
northern group did not seek to stop
the southern presbyteries from with-
drawing; and no one knows what
an ecclesiastical or civil court would
do if such an action was contested.

Presbytery Dismissal

The Book of Church Order gives
the presbytery the power "to receive
and dismiss churches" (16-7 (8) . This
power is often exercised. A local
church can petition its presbytery to
dismiss it, and the presbytery can
dismiss the local church, which will
take its local property with it. This
authority in the Book of Church
Order is unqualified, but it must
be read in connection with BCO
Rules of Discipline entitled "Gen-
eral Review and Control." This
chapter deals with the right and
duty of higher courts to review the
records of lower courts. It provides
that "In reviewing records of a low-
er court the higher court is to ex-
amine: ... (3) whether they have
been wise, equitable and suited to
promote the welfare of the Church"
(114-2) .

It also provides that ". . . if any

serious irregularity is discovered the
higher court may require its recon-
sideration and correction by the low-
er court." This simply means that
if a presbytery dismisses a local
church, the action can be reviewed
by synod and General Assembly;
and if such higher court decides
that it was not wise, equitable or
suited to promote the welfare of the
church, the action may be reversed.

Another factor to consider in this
method is: What happens to the
minister? The church may be dis-
missed but that does not dismiss the
minister. It still leaves him a mem-
ber of presbytery.

Another factor to consider is that
many feel that a presbytery cannot
dismiss a church to independence,
but must dismiss it to another or-
ganized ecclesiastical body.

A Word of Caution

So you see there are serious ques-
tions which should be considered if
a local congregation elects to pur-
sue this alternative. One final
word of caution — all constitutional
lawyers with whom I have discussed
this agree that if there is any
doubt that your presbytery will dis-
miss you, you should not request it.
You are in a much poorer legal posi-
tion in a civil court if you have sub-
mitted to the jurisdiction of the ec-
clesiastical court and have been de-
nied relief, than if you had just with-
drawn from presbytery without re-
questing dismissal.

A fourth alternative is the meth-
od followed by the two Savannah
churches. They just took session
and congregational action withdraw-
ing from the presbytery and then
notified the presbytery. Many Pres-
byterians erroneously believe that
the decision in these cases infallibly
guarantees that a Presbyterian con-
gregation may withdraw from the
PCUS and take its property with it.
This is not true. This case gives no
such legal guarantee.

Churches in the state of Georgia
would have excellent chances so to
act and keep their property, but
churches in almost all other states
would have to count on the concur-
rence of their own state Supreme
Court in order to be permitted to
leave and take their property. The
Savannah case, in any state other
than Georgia, would merely give a
legal possibility to overrule existing

(Continued on p. 18, col. 3)

PAGE 9 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 20, 1972

The cross was a shameful death. Why glory in that?

A Strange Boast

\A/ hen a man boasts of his pos-
* * sessions we can usually see
some grounds for his boasting, even
if we think them inadequate. A man
boasts of his attainments and even
if they are greater in his eyes than
in ours we understand why he
boasts.

Paul could boast of several mat-
ters, for he was a man who had
many privileges and attainments.
His pure Jewish blood could give
him grounds for boasting (Phil. 3:
4-6) , yet he did not glory in his birth
or nationality. He could boast, too,
of his Roman citizenship, a privilege
which he often used to advantage
when he was being ill-treated, and
he valued this privilege. As he said
to the chief captain of the temple:
"I am a Roman born" (Acts 22:28
R.S.V.) . But Paul did not glory in
that.

Paul's reason for boasting startles
us. "God forbid that I should
glory, save in the cross of our Lord
Jesus Christ," he exclaimed (Gal.
6:14). The phrase is meaningful
only when we discover what Paul
meant by "cross." Other forms of
death included the sword, the axe,
fire or poison, but the cross was the
most degrading of all. The cross
was a shameful death. Crucifixion
brought extremely painful suffer-
ing which could drag on for days
unless someone mercifully hastened
the victim's death.

So ignominious was this method
of execution that at first slaves alone
suffered it. It was inflicted for the
worst crimes. As the Roman writer
Cicero put it: "Let the very name
of the cross be far away not only
from the body of a Roman citizen,
but even from his thoughts, his eyes,

The author is a free-lance Chris-
tian writer of Norwich, England.

his ears." When a man was cruci-
fied his reputation was at its lowest.

Paul's boast in the cross is the
more amazing because he was a Ro-
man citizen, and a Roman citizen
could never be crucified. According
to tradition, the manner in which
Peter and Paul met death exempli-
fies this: Peter was crucified; Paul,
the Roman citizen, was beheaded.

Paul's glorying in the cross was
similar to our glorying in the hang-
man's rope or the electric chair, yet
that does not fully bear out Paul's
boast because the form of execution
was disreputable. Further, to the
Jews it was the more despicable be-
cause, being a Roman method of ex-
ecution, it emphasized their bondage
to Rome.

Amazing.1

Again, Paul's boast in the cross is
most amazing because he was a Jew.
As all Jews knew, a person crucified
was under divine condemnation

(Deut. 21:23) . This is why the cross
was a stumbling block to the Jews

(I Cor. 1:23). Against this back-
ground of curse and shame we find
Paul's amazing and challenging
boast "in the cross of our Lord Jesus
Christ."

Yet the cross held something much
more serious than public shame —
the curse of God on this mode of ex-
ecution: "He that is hanged is ac-
cursed of God" (Deut. 21:23) . The
criminal who was hoisted up as a
public spectacle was therefore un-
der the curse relating to ceremonial
(as distinct from actual) pollution.
Crucifixion was not a Jewish form
of punishment, but the public ex-
hibition of the crucified was similar
for this purpose in that the law
pointed out the crucified and left
to another world the rectifying

:

I

GORDON CHILVERS

of any miscarriage of justice which
might have taken place.

While it is startling that Paul
should glory in the cross, it is even
more extraordinary that he should
glory in the cross alone. If God's
curse attached to the one who was
crucified, how could Paul boast in
the cross?

And Extraordinary

What do we understand by "the
cross"? Someone once said that the
atoning death of the Son of God es-
pecially is that "suffering, humilia-
tion, and here more specially self-
abnegation which is essentially in-
volved in the idea of it." The most
disgraceful had become the most
glorious. The cross lifted the curse
from us when it was exhausted in
Christ. As Paul said earlier in this
epistle, "Christ redeemed us from the
curse of the law, having become a
curse for us" (Gal. 3:13 ASV) .

The inseparable connection be-
tween the cross of shame and Paul's
boasting becomes clear. By dying
on the cross, Christ became "a curse
for us." Clearly the curse of the
broken law could not attach to
Christ for He did not break the law,
but the curse which attached to the
death of crucifixion He did bear for
us. When crucified, our Lord was ex-
posed to the full blast of the wrath
of God. Christ stood in our place,
for all who have sinned, and He took
the punishment of a world's sin up-
on Him. "The Lord hath laid on
him the iniquity of us all" (Isa.
53:6).

The thunderbolt of the curse of
God, all curses in one, crashed into
the bosom of Jesus, and God never
strikes twice for the same sin. The
curse has shot its bolt. As thorns
and thistles sprang with the curse,

PAGE 10 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 20, 1972

3 they were driven hard into the
tow of the man who accepted the
urse for the race. As through a
ree came the curse and the fall, so
iy a tree also came the blessing and
he life.

At the cross we see the awful holi-
less of the law, and behind that law
he holiness of the God who gave it.
]hrist never committed sin, but as
He bore it for us, so the wrath of
iiod must flash forth on Him.
Christ was God's beloved Son, and
|he holiness of God makes no dif-
erence of persons. Sin brings pun-
[Shment. The holiness of God and
in stand in strong contrast and holi-
less will never approve sin in any-
me or at any time.

Strong Contrast

So all Paul's glory centered in the
toss. He boasted not in the incar-
lation, not in the divine example,
rot in the second advent, but in the
toss. Paul boasted not in his own
labors, sufferings and tears, but in
:he cross of Christ.

The cross, which was the plan of
God, uniquely reveals Him. In the
silent cross shines the heart of the
Gospel: "God is love." Love is
stronger than hate, deeper than sin,
mightier than hell. The act of hell-
ish wickedness in crucifying Christ
is actually the means by which the
world which cursed Him is loosed
|from its own curse.

Crucifixion with Christ and re-
generation are intimately connected.
The apostle said that through the
cross he was crucified. That is, the
cross crucified Paul when it cruci-
fied Christ. He added, in effect, that

I He was on it in my stead, and when
■the nails rent His body they rent

mine. This becomes actual in the
i moment of faith: "I am crucified
| with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet
|not I, but Christ liveth in me: and

the life which I now live in the flesh

I I live by the faith of the Son of
I God, who loved me, and gave Him-
[i self for me" (Gal. 2:20). By the
! death of Christ alone we are regen-
I erated. The cross of death, in the
I divine paradox, is now the cross of
I life. I am born again on the out-
tl stretched arms of the cross.

Christianity robbed of the cross
U is a Church robbed of its glory. For
; what the sun is to the solar system,
i what the needle is to the compass,
i what the keystone is to the arch,
what the heart is to the body, that,
i the cross, was to Paul. Christ's aton-

ing death is the means of reconcilia-
tion with God. It is not our suffer-
ing for Christ, but His sufferings for
us that save us.

Glorying in the cross is where
Paul differed from many people. He
realized that "the foolishness of God
is wiser than men; and the weakness
of God is stronger than men" (I
Cor. 1:25).

The cross in which Paul boasted
vitally affected his whole life as it
instantly put undying enmity be-
tween the Christian and the world.
Through the cross, he wrote, "the
world is crucified unto me, and I
unto the world." That is to say,
this startling enmity is mutual. We
are dead to each other. One author
wrote, "This reciprocal crucifixion
is a forcible mode of expressing the
utter cessation of all communion be-
tween the apostle and the world."

Luther explained: "The world and
I are well agreed. The world cares
not a pin for me, and I, to cry quit-
tance with it, care as little for the
world." We cannot love both the
world and the cross. The world has
dealt its death blow to the man who
has discovered the cross.

This enmity was no isolated in-
cident or passing phase. The use
of the perfect tense of the word for
"crucified" indicates that Paul and
the world had been and remained
crucified to one another.

We have a crucified world. The
moment of my conversion is the mo-
ment that the world casts me out.
The child of God has not only been
regenerated, but also been made holy
by the cross. The world sees at once
that either the Christian will kill
worldliness, or else worldliness must
kill Christianity. It is a fight to the

Union for Power's Sake

Many leaders of the Churches are
striving for the union of Churches
because they believe that is the will
of God. But others, I fear, are try-
ing to create unions because such
unions will create power. And what
will be done with this power? It
will be used to secure the kind of
society the leaders of the united
Church think right. But is not the
whole essence of the Protestant re-
volt against Rome a revolt against
the notion that a united, powerful
Church should determine what is
right for mankind? — Paul De-
witt Urbano.

death. The child of God finds him-
self bullied, threatened and ridi-
culed. His actions and motives are
misrepresented. His life is called
puritanical and hypocritical. What
he holds and teaches is "exploded"
and "dying out" and he himself is
lost to society.

Worldliness Exposed

The world's attitude to the Chris-
tian was enacted in the Pharisees'
treatment of the blind man whom
our Lord healed. First they tried
to shake his testimony to Christ.
When that failed, "they reviled him,
and said, Thou art His disciple; but
we are Moses' disciples" (John 9:
28) . Having lost the argument,
"they cast him out."

When I am crucified to the world,
I have no attachment to it. It is
as good as dead to me, crucified. The
world's character has been exposed,
its tendency has been revealed, and
its sin has been understood. What
is my attitude, therefore, to the en-
ticement of the world? It has lost its
attraction. I see it as a gibbeted fel-
on, now. Like a crucified man, the
world is dying slowly, it is passing
away.

E. H. Perowne pointed out: "The
world with its passing interests, its
narrowly limited aims, its sordid
gains, its perishable treasure,
its hollow show, its mockery of
satisfaction, is to me like yon
felon slave nailed to the cross
dying by a certain and shame-
ful, if a lingering death ... It is an
object of contempt and relinquish-
ment to me."

Hence no Christian has any pride
in what he possesses in this world.
We do not boast of our wealth for it
can soon leave us or we can be taken
from it. It can do very little for us.
It cannot ward off disease or enable
us to bear pain; it will not ease death
or save the soul. We do not boast
in our strength, for it can soon fail;
we do not boast in our beauty, for
the corruption of death will soon
obliterate it. We do not boast in
our deeds, for they will not save us.
Nor do we boast in our learning, for
learning has never brought a man to
heaven.

Instead let us boast in our Saviour,
the eternal Son of God. For He is
the glorious being who is adored by
the hosts of heaven, who made the
worlds, who is pure and lovely and
most holy. He it is who died to
save us. IE

PAGE 11 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 20, 1972

EDITORIALS

Prayin' for a Reporter

Rob Kasper is a staff writer for
the Louisville Times. Not long ago
he was sent out to interview a "Je-
sus rock singer," as he described
him, making news at a local fair-
grounds.

Knowing little more about h i s
subject, Andrae Crouch, except that
he was a member of the Jesus move-
ment, and black, Mr. Kasper put the
usual questions a reporter puts on
such an occasion. Then, he says,
he made his big mistake. But let's
let him tell about it. Following is
the rest of his story as it appeared
in the Times. It's almost an object
lesson in "how to witness":

It was going well. Interview over,
notebook closed, ready for a hand-
shake. Then zap! The misstep: I
told Crouch in answer to his ques-
tion, that I wasn't interested in
joining the Jesus Movement.

"Why don't you believe in Him?
How can life have any meaning
without Him?"

Bible quote. Bible quote. Bible

In a recent poll taken among col-
lege students the following consensus
appeared: "The greatest problem
on college campuses today is apathy

— nobody believes very much, but
worse than that, nobody cares!"

If true, that diagnosis of the be-
setting ill of the coming generation
is alarming — but more than like-
ly the older generation is also beset
by apathy and will not be alarmed.

People are indeed apathetic today

— it's a sort of "what's the use?" at-
titude which has deadened the spirit
and dispirited the initiative of men
everywhere. Part of this apathy
stems from the feeling that the agen-
cies and institutions which could do
something about the state of civili-
zation are so infiltrated with alien
elements bent on destruction that
men of good will and of construc-
tive aims don't have a chance.

But part of the apathy is also due
to the fact that men — even Chris-
tians — have believed a mistaken
philosophy of history. They have
believed in inevitable progress, in

quote.

"You're fighting the Holy Spirit
. . . He's in you — you just aren't
listening."

Smile ... let him talk ... no re-
sponse is the best response. He'll
give up shortly.

He didn't.

"Thousands of people are accept-
ing Jesus just like the Bible said it
would happen."

Bible quote. Bible quote. Bible
quote.

"When I was in Indonesia we
prayed in Moslem temples. Thou-
sands of Moslems wept and accepted
Jesus."

An idea — turn this conversation
back to an interview. Out comes the
notebook. What is the position of
the Jesus Movement toward Jews?

"Thousands of Jews are joining
the Jesus Movement. My manager,
a Jew, accepted Jesus and became a
Christian."

Another idea — bring out the
heavy artillery, how Jesus people

the unlimited power of education,
in a world moving steadily onward
and upward, in the certain temporal
triumph of the good men over the
bad men. Because it has not turned
out that way they are discouraged.

We need to go back and read
again Augustine's City of God, writ-
ten in a time of political chaos dur-
ing the death throes of the Roman
Empire. We need to recapture the
meaning of Christ's words, "My
kingdom is not of this world." We
need to discover a truly Christian
philosophy of history which mea-
sures the redeemed as a remnant,
not as the ruling majority.

But even so, the Christian philos-
ophy of history does not induce
apathy — it induces courage, action,
testimony. This, in turn, comes from
conviction.

The answer to infidelity is always
a firm affirmation of faith. The
answer to apathy is conviction. The
way to renew the Church is to re-
turn to the eternal verities and pro-
claim them without equivocation. El

deal with the Vietnam war and so-
cial change.

"The Vietnam war . . . who is do-
ing the shooting? Men, not God."

What about men like the Berri-
gan brothers, who believe that Chris-
tian moral law requires people to
take action to stop the war?

"I don't believe in destroying
property. You should do what the
leaders of the country say. Pray to
stop the war."

What about other blacks?

Why weren't there many blacks
in the Jesus Movement? (Crouch is
black.)

"The average black man is still
looking for that good job. He thinks
it will give him the sense of security
and belonging he wants. The
average black doesn't look for that
in churches because most of the
churches they have gone to are jive
churches.

"The blacks turning to Jesus are
upper and middle class . . . those
who have found out money didn't
give them what they thought it
would."

What about dealing with pov-
erty?

"There will always be war and
poverty . . . You have to work at the
causes of war and poverty . . . sin."

While Crouch is talking, other Je-
sus workers gather around. They
had been by earlier, heard the inter-
view and left. But now they knew
. . . this wasn't an interview . . . this
was a conversion pitch.

Surrounded.

Stand up. Try to leave.

"You're fighting the Holy Spirit.
He's in there telling you to accept
Jesus, but you won't listen to Him."

Shake his hand. Nice talking to
you, Andrae, but we have fundamen-
tal differences.

"What's your name again? . . .
Kasper, we're gonna be praying for
you."

Another hand shaking mine. "I'm
Frank . . . would you like to pray
with us?"

No thank you. Gotta go. Thank
you. We'll be sending a photogra-
pher here or to the concert.

"We're gonna pray for you."

That's okay . . . pray for the pho-
tographer. Those photographers
need it.

Frank: "Would you like to stay
for supper?"

No thank you. Goodby.

"Kasper, we'll be praying fofa
you." II

A Mistaken Philosophy

PAGE 12 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 20, 1972

THE LAYMAN AND HIS CHURCH

The Blood Poisoning of Sin

The Living God Is the
Blessed Trinity

In His gracious intervention for
pur salvation, the living God re-
vealed himself as the Father who
hears, the Son who shares, and the
Spirit who cares for us. The apos-
tolic benediction pronounces a three-
fold blessing: "The grace of the
Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God,
and the communion of the Holy
Spirit be with you all" (II Cor. 13-
14) .

In one of the most solemn of His
recorded utterances, our Lord com-
missioned His disciples to baptize
"in the name of the Father, and
of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit"
(Matt. 28:19). In creed, catechism
and confession, His Church has con-
stantly professed the triune God. In
doxology and gloria patri, the
Church has worshiped "God in
three persons, blessed Trinity."

The mystery of the Trinity pre-
supposes an eternal life of love in
the being of God. To share this fel-
lowship of love, the Son became the
man for others in His life of loving
obedience, in His death for our sins,
in His resurrection for our justifi-
cation, in His ascension for our in-
tercession. The Holy Spirit was
given to shed abroad the love of
God in our hearts.

In The Doctrine of the Trinity,
Professor Leonard Hodgson phrased
the matter thus: "The Trinity of
God's self-revelation is no imper-
sonal system of relations between
hypostases in an essence; it is the
living, loving communion of Father,
Son and Spirit into which we are
adopted in Christ."

Calvin declared that three marks
distinguish the idea of the one only,
living and true God from the mere
figments of human imagination or
speculation. These are His spiri-
tuality, His immensity, and His tri-
unity. Thornwell proposed to re-
vise our definition of God so that
it would begin, "God is a triperson-
al spirit."

A Church committed to a non-
trinitarian confession is likely to be-
come a non-trinitarian Church. Our
prayer is that the Holy Spirit will
revive in our Church the faith into
which we have been baptized. —
William C. Robinson. 51

• • •

Evangelism has been our shibbo-
leth, whereas it should be our pas-
sion. — Leighton Ford.

Every human being since Adam
has had blood poisoning. Peter,
James and John, Paul and Luke,
John Wesley and Martin Luther
all inherited this poisoned blood,
but it killed none of them.

Our catechisms sum up the Bibli-
cal teachings about this poisoned
blood which is called original sin:

Question: What effect had the
sin of Adam on all mankind?

Answer: All mankind are born
in a state of sin and misery.

Question: What is that sinful na-
ture which we inherit from Adam
called?

Answer: Original sin.

Only one antitoxin is powerful
enough to overcome this poison, al-
though many patent medicines have
been offered by modern religionists
who claim to have found the cure.

The ointment of humanism was
first tried and for a while, this salve
covered the poison. Some modern-
ists declared that this was the long
sought cure. Everyone felt better
when he did whatever he wanted
to do.

Then, there was the capsule of
the anti-supernaturalists. This drug
actually caused blindness which oth-
ers, because they could not see the
truth, claimed cured the blood poi-
son. Finally, some cure-all injec-
tions were introduced by the radi-
cal ecumenists. Their claim is, as
I understand it, "Let everybody get
together in one hospital and then
nobody will realize anybody is sick."

Satan, the inventor of original sin,
was pleased to see all these efforts
because he knew that none of them
attacked his poison at its weak point.
When Adam sinned, he represented
all mankind and the only hope was
for a second Adam to come along
and find a cure. The Lord God
provided the second Adam in the
person of His Son, Jesus, who was
miraculously conceived and, there-
fore, did not inherit the poisoned
blood. His shed blood is so pure

The author of this week's Lay-
man column is John H. Hunter Jr.,
an elder of York, S. C.

that it can wash away all the poison
that original sin produces.

But Satan, assisted by the efforts
of humanists, anti-supernaturalists,
and radical ecumenists, was able to
hide this cure from most men.
Through the years, howev-
er, a few men have found their way
to the house of Dr. Evangelist, an
expert in diseases of the blood. This
doctor claims he has actually cured
blood poisoning. He explains his
treatment in this manner:

Instead of the salve called hu-
manism, Dr. Evangelist first applies
an old fashioned mustard plaster
known as justification. As this
"act of God's free grace" soaks in-
to the skin, a war begins inside the
patient. The poisoned blood is re-
pelled as "He pardoneth all our
sins" enters the, veins. "He accept-
eth us as righteous in His sight"
finds its way to the heart, which
sends out pure blood to the lungs.
The heart is cleansed by "only for
the righteousness of Christ, imputed
to us, and received by faith alone."

The process of healing has started.
The second prescription Dr. Evan-
gelist uses, instead of the capsules of
anti-supernaturalists, is the miracle
drug called adoption. The brain
and nervous system are cleared as
the war inside continues. "We are
received into the number ... of the
Sons of God" is circulated into the
capillaries and dissolves the poison
deposited there by original sin.

The battle is won but the war
goes on. Dr. Evangelist knows the
need for preventive medicine so he
prescribes a continuing medication
called sanctification. This "work
of God's free grace whereby we are
renewed . . . after the image of
God" is a powerful drug which pre-
vents the poisoning of our blood
again. It enables us to "die unto
sin and live unto righteousness."
Our minds and hearts are cleared
and cleansed and the most powerful
ally in or out of the world comes
to join our internal war.

God's Holy Spirit provides us
with power. He gives us the capa-

(Continued on p. 18, col. 3)

PAGE 13 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 20, 1972

SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON

For October 8, 1972

I

Social Change: Urban Culture

Rev. Jack B. Scott

INTRODUCTION: Apparently
the thesis of those designing the les-
son for today is related to a view
of the social gospel. The texts and
suggestions accompanying them
seem to point to an interpretation
of the texts leading to the concept
that we can and must involve the
Church in making urbanization a
means of instilling Christian culture
into the world.

In other words, the implication is
that we can build cities that are
Christian by applying Christian
principles to the growing cities of
today. If this is the thesis, then I
cannot agree that the Biblical texts
given are to be so interpreted. At
any rate, the approach to this les-
son which we shall follow is to see
the Biblical doctrine that there are
basically two cities: the city of the
world (Satan's city) and the city of
God (called the New Jerusalem in
Scripture) .

The city of human and Satanic
effort will be judged and destroyed
in the end. The other one from
God will endure; it is from heaven
and is prepared for believers to be
their eternal dwelling place. All
men are citizens of one or the other
of these two cities.

There is a relationship between this
lesson and the one taught on Feb-
ruary 6 of this year entitled "Christ's
Concern for the City." It would be
profitable to reread that lesson in
connection with this one. A general
title for this lesson might be similar
to Dickens' title for one of his books:
"A Tale of Two Cities: Babylon
and New Jerusalem."

I. THE CITY OF THE WORLD
(Babylon) . This city first appears
in Genesis 4:17. There we are told
that Cain went away from God's
presence and built a city called
Enoch about which we know noth-
ing except that Cain, Satan's child,
built it. Cain and his offspring rep-
resented the seed of the serpent (Sa-
tan) .

The city was the forerunner of
many cities throughout the world

Background Scripture: Genesis 11:
1-9; Zechariah 8:1-8; John 17:
15-18; Acts 19:23-41; I John 2:
15-17; Revelation 21:10, 22-27

Key Verses: Genesis 11:1-8; Zech-
ariah 8:3-5; John 17:15-18

Devotional Reading: Psalm 125

Memory Selection: Romans 12:2

built by men who do not profess
faith in God and who are under Sa-
tan's control. The favorite proto-
type for the city of the world, both
in the Old Testament and the New
Testament, is Babylon; therefore, I
have called the city of the world,
Babylon.

Again in Genesis we are told of
the city of the world. This time
probably it is the literal Babylon
(11:1-9). Not all would agree that
Babel is the same as Babylon of
later history, but the similarity of
the names suggests this. From this
city, Babel, we learn many of the
characteristics of the city of the
world.

A. It is godless. We can say this
because it is evident that the build-
ers have no relationship to God.
When they prepare to build, God's
name or His will is never even men-
tioned. "Let us" is the key phrase.

B. It is man-centered. "Let us
make a name for ourselves" is the
way they express it. What is good
for man is the whole end of their
building. Nowhere is the glory of
God involved in what they say.

C. It is disobedient to God. Their
intent is to thwart God's expressed
will. God had said to Noah after
the flood: "Be fruitful, and multi-
ply, and replenish the earth" (Gen.
9:1). God had intended for men
to spread over the earth, but these
men were determined to stay togeth-
er, to find their security in their
numbers and human strength, again
leaving God out.

D. Finally, it is a city under
judgment. God was not pleased
and would not allow it to serve

The International Sunday School Lesson Outlines
are copyrighted 1972 by the Committee on the
Uniform Series of the National Council of Churches
of Christ.

men's purposes. He scattered men
anyway. God did not at this time
destroy the city, but He hindered
men from accomplishing what they
intended by it, and all human cities
in the end will be overthrown.

Many centuries later, the world
was extended with many cities of
men springing up. Two such cities
in the valley of the Jordan River
were called Sodom and Gomorrah
(Gen. 13) . They were attractive,
even to Lot, a child of God and
nephew of Abraham. So attractive
were they that Lot chose to live
among those people. After this de-
cision a series of tragedies followed
in the life of Lot. First he was cap-
tured and carried away captive in a
struggle between rulers of the world
(Gen. 14) . Then later, still refus-
ing to leave Sodom, he was involved
in its judgment.

God had plainly said that Sodom
was wicked (Gen. 13:13) and He
told Abraham that the city must be
judged (Gen. 18) . How wicked the
citizens of Sodom were is illustrated
by an incident that occurred there
between Lot and the men of the city
(Gen. 19:1-11).

In the end, Lot and his two
daughters barely escaped being in
the judgment of the city only be-
cause of God's grace and mercy (19:
16) . Indeed, Lot's wife did not es-
cape. She shared in that judgment
and was turned to salt because by
then her heart was in Sodom and
not with God (Gen. 19:26) .

From all of this, some vivid les-
sons should be learned. First, God's
children have no business living in
the world, in the sense in which Lot
lived in Sodom. Clearly, Lot sought
his prosperity in that city among
sinful men, capitalizing on their
prosperity. This is the evident
meaning of his choice (Gen. 13:10-
11). Any child of God who seeks
his success among men must compro-
mise his faith in God and can only
expect to suffer for it. Lot wanted
to share in the riches and prosperity
of Sodom,

Second, the cities of the world are

%

is

If
:

PAGE 14 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 20, 1972

inder judgment and believers living
\n them are not going to change the
ities. Their task is to save out of
hese cities all who will believe. We
lo not know what Lot's efforts were,
)ut nevertheless he was called
'righteous" (II Pet. 2:7-8) . He was
ilistressed by the sin he saw there.
:Ie never ceased to be God's child,
jut he became too involved in its
ife. His own wife finally went over
n heart to that city. See Luke 17:

!2-

Third, God's children who do live
■eeking to share the prosperity of
injul men will never be happy. Lot
vas miserable all of his stay in
Sodom (II Pet. 2:8) . God's child
;annot put his hand into the fire of
iinful men without getting it
aurned.

Later in history we see other rep-
resentative cities of this world. How-
ever, none is more so than Babylon,
che capital of the great Babylonian
Empire that would ultimately cap-
ture Jerusalem. We get the first
hints of its rise in the time of King
Hezekiah of Judah. When he was
sick, King Berodach-Baladin of Bab-
ylon, sent messengers to Hezekiah to
■inquire of his health. Flattered by
■this show of interest in him, Heze-
ikiah showed them all of his treas-
ures (II Kings 20:12-15) .

When the prophet Isaiah learned
Iwhat had transpired, he solemnly
Ipronounced that the day would
Icome when all those treasures would
Ibe carried to Babylon (II Kings 20:
116-18) . Babylonian captivity was
I foretold from the time of Isaiah to
■Jeremiah.

Yet the prophets also clearly fore-
Itold the destruction of Babylon to
leome at God's hand (Isa. 13:19-22;
1 14: 12-23; 21:9; Jer. 50, 51, especially
1 51: 8) . Thus Babylon became sym-
Ibolic of all the great cities represen-
tative of the world, the domain of
I Satan, which in the end would cer-
Itainly fall. Peter referred to Rome
las Babylon (I Pet. 5:13). In the
■ book of Revelation, the fall of Satan
I and his followers is linked to the fall
[of Babylon (Rev. 14:8, 18:2).

The message from God regarding
the literal fall of the ancient Bab-
ylon and the subsequent fall of all
the Babylons of this world is clear.
This world and its cities have an
end. Inevitably they must be judged
and destroyed. All who have put
their hope in them will likewise per-
ish. Lot almost did — "Remember
Lot's wife" (Luke 17:32) .

God's children must never forget

that our task is to call men out from
trust in such cities, to trust in the
living God. We are to call men to
leave the city of this world and
dwell in the city of God, to forsake
the world and trust in the Lord. The
world is under judgment and its cit-
ies condemned. We witness under
this cloud of impending judgment
always.

II. THE CITY OF GOD ( Jeru-
salem) . Just as there is a represen-
tative city of the world in Scripture
called Babylon, so Scripture teaches
a city of God, usually referred to
as Jerusalem. As the world city
originates from sinful men, the heav-
enly city originates from God; un-
believers are citizens of the figura-
tive city of Babylon, and believers
are citizens of God's heavenly Jeru-
salem.

This city is first alluded to in con-
nection with Abraham, the father
of the faithful. "He looked for
a city which hath foundations,
whose builder and maker is God"
(Heb. 11:10). This city is further
described, "the heavenly Jerusalem
. . . the city of the living God"
(Heb. 12:22). The author of He-
brews further warned that we have
no abiding city, the heavenly city is
in the future, not on earth, but yet
to come (Heb. 13:14) .

When Abraham gave Lot the
choicest land (Gen. 13) , he evident-
ly was looking for something beyond
this world, as the writer to the He-
brews indicated. Since then, all of
God's children rightly look for that
same city where God dwells, not any
city on earth made by men's hands
but one prepared by God.

In the Old Testament there was
a literal Jerusalem which came to be
symbolic of the real and heavenly
Jerusalem. It was first called the
city of David and was reclaimed
from the world for God's people. We
are told of David's capture of Jeru-
salem, (II Sam. 5) , and perhaps
even earlier, Melchizedek was king
of Jerusalem. Many believe that Sa-
lem was old Jerusalem (Gen. 14:
18) but in history the city is most
closely associated with David.

When good kings reigned there,
the city was blessed, but there was
much evil in Jerusalem. Ezekiel, in
a series of visions recorded in his
prophecy (8-9) showed how evil the
city looked to God just before its
fall. Jerusalem fell to the Bab-
ylonians because its people were not
repentant. Throughout history,

whenever God's people disobeyed
Him and lived like citizens of this
world, they fell before the world.

After Jerusalem had fallen, Eze-
kiel had a vision of New Jerusalem,
prepared by God as He shall in the
end have the city to be. The latter
chapters of his book describe the
perfection and flawlessness in detail
(40-48) . The crown of beauty shall
be seen in the name, "The Lord is
there" (Ezek. 48:35) . Isaiah simi-
larly spoke of a New Jerusalem and
its glory from God (Isa. 62:1; 66:
10-21) . Zechariah, one of the last
of the Old Testament prophets,
looked to Jerusalem, the heavenly
city, as "the city of truth" (Zech.
8:1-5).

In the New Testament, Jesus com-
forted His disciples by promising a
dwellingplace in what He called
"my Father's house." Jesus prom-
ised to go there and prepare a place
for them and to come again to re-
ceive them (John 14:1-3).

This heavenly home is further de-
scribed in the beautiful closing pas-
sages of the last chapters of the Bi-
ble, Revelation 21 and 22. The
heaven of God's children, described
as "the holy city, new Jerusalem,
coming down out of heaven from
God" (Rev. 21:2), has the glory of
God (21:11). The Father and the
Son are its light and dwell in it for-
ever (21:22). All believers whose
names are in the Lamb's book of
life will be there (21:27).

Just as surely as Babylon fell, shall
be the eternal duration of Jerusa-
lem — not David's Jerusalem but
God's new Jerusalem prepared in
heaven for us.

III. CHRISTIANS IN THE
WORLD TODAY. The compara-
tively recent problem of urbaniza-
tion has old roots, some from the
time of Cain. Every human city
is just one more representation of
the Biblical Babylon. Every city of
this world is shot through with sin
because its inhabitants are sinners,
reflecting the ugliness of its citizens
as did Sodom, Nineveh, Babylon
and Rome.

But Jesus did not take His believ-
ers out of the world, out of the cit-
ies. He sent them there not as citi-
zens, tied to the fortunes of the city,
but as ambassadors of Jesus Christ
to tell men of a better, more endur-
ing city, New Jerusalem. Therefore,
our task is not a social one to im-
prove the living conditions of the
cities of the world. We are not

PAGE 15 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 20, 1972

to encourage men to have hope in
the world, but to look to God and
to His city.

John wrote, "Love not the world,
neither the things that are in the
world . . . the world passes away
and the lust thereof: but he that do-
eth the will of God abideth forever"
(I John 2:15-17) . As Christians we
are to be in the world but neither
hoping in it nor encouraging others
to have hope in it.

Like Paul, we are ambassadors of
Christ into whatever city we go.
When Paul went to Ephesus, he
preached Christ, calling men to

Scripture: Luke 12:13-21
Suggested Hymns:

"I Am Thine, O Lord, I Have
Heard Thy Voice"

"Take My Life and Let It Be
Consecrated"

"We Give Thee but Thine
Own"

PROGRAM LEADER S INTRO-
DUCTION: What should one do
with money? "That's an easy ques-
tion," you are inclined to answer
quickly, but then we begin to get
a number of conflicting ideas: "Get
it, keep it, spend it, save it, enjoy
it."

The passage we read from the
twelfth chapter of Luke is only one
of many in which Christ speaks very
pointedly of a person's relationship
to his material possessions and of
the effect that relationship has on
the person's relationship to God.
Money is important not only be-
cause of what it can do for us but
because of what our attitude toward
it does to us.

In this program we shall be think-
ing about our own attitudes toward
money and about the possible ef-
fects of these attitudes on our ideals
and our relationship to God. As
the speakers present their respective
points, let us try to think very hon-
estly and personally, applying what
they say to our own lives.

abandon hope in the glory of
Ephesus, the place of the temple to
Diana, and look to God (Acts 19:
8) . His coming saved some, but
others rebelled and fought him

(Acts 19) . This we must expect,
but we are to continue to call men
out as Peter and the apostles did

(Acts 2:40) . Like Abraham, we are
sojourners in the world. This is not
our home. Our hope is not here.

As cities of the world grow and
increase, the problem is chiefly that
the citizens of these cities are mostly
sinners, Satan's children, and there-
fore under judgment. The solution

Rev. B. Hoyt Evans

FIRST SPEAKER: What should
one do with money? First, we say,
respect it but don't worship it. We
respect it because money represents
worth. Sometimes it represents ma-
terial goods, and sometimes it rep-
resents services — work, energy,
skill. In either case God is the
originator. God has created the ma-
terial goods, and God has endowed
people with skill, energy and ability
to do useful work.

God has provided these things for
His glory and our good. We should
respect them accordingly, but we
should not worship them. We must
understand that these things God has
provided are means to an end, but
they are not the end itself. We
need to keep God Himself clearly
in view and worship and serve Him
alone.

SECOND SPEAKER : What
should one do with money? Some-
one is almost sure to say, "Spend it."
and that is right. Money is meant
to be spent. It is a convenient, ef-
ficient way to represent value.

If you are hungry, you might
wash dishes at the hamburger stand
long enough to earn a hamburger,
but it is much more convenient to
receive money in return for your
work wherever you do it. Then you
can pay that money, which repre-
sents your labor, for whatever you
want to eat wherever you want to

ultimately is not better housing, bet-
ter streets, cleaner air, but cleansed
hearts. This cannot be accom-
plished except through the Holy
Spirit, using God's Word as we wit-
ness to that word in the hearts of
unbelief to bring people to trust in1
Jesus.

This is always our unique task. It
is the only thing that can solve the
world's problems. Let us not allow
the Church of Christ to be side-
tracked into a social gospel that
looks to men and human effort. In
the end, that world will fall, the
world's cities will fall. IS

buy it.

There will be times when the
hamburger stand doesn't need any
dishes washed, and there will be
times when you don't want a ham-
burger. In like manner, it is much
more convenient to pay the doctor
for his services with money than1
with a chicken, for instance, or a
basket of apples.

Money is to be spent, but it ought
not to be wasted. If we spend mon-
ey needlessly or thoughtlessly, we
are not really respecting the gifts of
God which made it possible for us
to possess the money. A great many
worthwhile things can be done with
money, and we ought to be serious
about the way we spend it.

THIRD SPEAKER: What should-
one do with money? Someone may
say, "Save it." Once again this is a
good answer.

Any person who is thoughtful
about spending money is likely to
practice saving some of it. A
thoughtful person will have some
goals in mind, and by laying aside
a reasonable amount of money con-
sistently he can make some provision
for the future. He may be saving
for an education, for travel, for a
home, for a car, or even for clothes
or other useful items he needs and
wants.

The practice of systematic saving
makes possible the realization of

YOUTH PROGRAM

For October 8, 1972

Money— What to Do With It

PAGE 16 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 20, 1972

riany worthwhile goals and ambi-
ions, but a person should not save
rioney in order to rejoice in the pos-
ession of it. He should not gloat
>ver having money as though the
)Ossession of it were the very es-
ence of the good life itself. Jesus
aid, "A man's life consisteth not in
[ he abundance of the things he pos-
esses," and He called the man who
lad such notions a fool.

FOURTH SPEAKER : What
hould one do with money? We
lave already said that we should
lonor God in the way we use it. Ev-
j:ry Christian is responsible to God
lor the use he makes of all of life,
iod has created us and He has re-
deemed us. In I Corinthians 6:19-
10 we read: ". . . ye are not your
)wn . . . for ye are bought with a
jrice: therefore glorify God in your
Dody and in your spirit, which are
God's."

Our money represents a part of
bur life, and we should try to
glorify God in the use we make of
lit. When we receive a sum of mon-
ey how many of us ask ourselves,
'How can I best use this to honor
God?" This does not mean that
money must be given to the Church
before it can honor God. We should
give at least a tenth of what we earn
to the Lord's work, and when we do
give in the right spirit, God is hon-
ored and we are blessed.

God can also be honored, for in-
stance, when we spend money for
wholesome food or for a good book.
There are many ways of honoring
God with our money. (Ask the
young people to suggest specific
ways they can honor God with their
money. Make a list of these and
Idiscuss them.)

PRO GRAM LEADER: Some-
times it is stated that the Bible says,
"Money is the root of all evil." This
is not true. I Timothy 6:10 actual-
ly says, "The love of money is the
root of all evil." This is quite an-
other matter. Money is not good
or evil in itself. What it represents
is often good, and it can certainly
be used for good.

The ability to earn money and
the possession of money are really
gifts from God. Let us determine
that with His help we shall use His
gifts in a way pleasing to Him. If
we do, we can be sure that it will be
a way of blessing to us.

BOOKS

THE REALITY OF THE RESUR-
RECTION, by Merrill C. Tenney.
Moody Press, Chicago, 111. 221 pp.
$4.95. Reviewed by W. J. B. Living-
ston, Yorktown, Va.

This volume was originally pub-
lished by Harper and Row in 1963,
and the fact that it is being brought
out again commends it. The author
is the J. P. Williston professor of
Bible and Theology at Wheaton
(Illinois) College.

Immediately the reader knows
that the book is written from a con-
servative, Bible-centered, point of
view because of the author's con-
nection with Wheaton College, but
this fact ought not throw would-be
readers off, especially if Dr. Tenney
sticks to the facts and presents his
case fairly. This I believe he does.
Here again, the unbelievers would
say that this is expected from a re-
viewer who shares the conservative,
Bible-centered view, but this is just
where the "old" modernists ought
to come in, for it is here, probably
more than at any other point, where
they jumped the track and missed
the core of the Christian faith.

Let me quote: "Christianity was
not unique because it insured salva-
tion by a sacrifice for sins, nor be-
cause it stressed personal ethics, nor
even because it guaranteed immor-
tality to believers. Its distinctive
attitude was the supernatural power
of the living God, manifested his-
torically by the resurrection of
Christ from the dead.

"In similar fashion the resurrec-
tion of Christ remains the great un-
shakable reality of the ages. He can
never die and rise again; He has
died to sin once for all, and He lives
now unto God. There can be no

change in the imagery, for life and
death are basic to all existence and
cannot be defined in more compre-
hensive terms. Because they are ulti-
mate, they are comprehensible in ev-
ery generation and are always vital
to every sphere of human relation-
ship."

It is my hope that this book will
come into the hands of many who
put Christianity along side other re-
ligions, who are not sure of the fact
that only in Christ is there hope.
Once they know that the resurrec-
tion is the supporting evidence of
Christianity, above all others, I am
sure they will do some searching of
heart and if the Holy Spirit is given
the opportunity, they will become
solid in the faith. IS

THE STONES AND THE SCRIP-
TURES, by Edwin M. Yamauchi. A.
J. Holman Co., Philadelphia, Pa. Re-
viewed by the Rev. Fred D. Thomp-
son Jr., pastor, First Presbyterian
Church, Woodruff, S. C.

Readers interested in the exciting
conclusions of modern Biblical ar-
chaeology and its impact on "higher
criticism" will find a wealth of in-
teresting information in this happy
addition to the growing list of Lip-
pincott's "Evangelistic Perspective"
series.

Literary criticism of the Scriptures
has been one of many "thorns in the
flesh" to me since seminary days

PRESBYTERY EXECUTIVE for a new
union presbytery covering the greater
Washington area. Candidates for the
position invited to submit dossiers before
October 16, 1972, to Mrs. Avis Moussavi,
National Capital Union Presbytery, 4125
Nebraska Avenue NW, Washington, D. C.
20016.

Closing Prayer.

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PAGE 17 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 20, 1972

and it was refreshing to read from
the pen of one as well qualified as
Dr. Yamauchi that archaeology has,
for all practical purposes, put to rest
many of the radical theories and
claims forwarded by pseudo-scholars
who tend to ignore or reject scien-
tific evidence whenever it does not
support their own skeptical presup-
positions.

In revealing that whole schools
of radical thought continue to
flourish in critical circles with al-
most no regard for the amazing dis-
coveries of the archaeologist's spade,
the author brings into focus one of

the most serious problems faced by
modern Christianity — the under-
cutting of faith and confidence in
the historical accuracy of the Bible.
He lays before the reader with
clarity and force the wonderful
truth that archaeology, with few
exceptions, strongly reinforces the
Scriptural texts from one end to the
other.

Issues are faced squarely, howev-
er, and the style is analytical, not
emotional. This author knows
whereof he speaks. With degrees
from four colleges and universities,
with majors in nine ancient lan-

}dk Simpson

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guages, with studies conducted in In 0
rael, Dr. Yamauchi provides us wit
an important text book with whic
to counteract the wild and irrespor
sible claims of many of the m o s
noted Biblical critics.

Layman— from p. 13

DV

'i

bilities to win the war, to be cure*
permanently and eternally from th
poisoned blood caused by origina
sin.

Dr. Evangelist's services are avail
able to you. So are Satan's. Y01
have blood poisoning but Jesus i
able — His Word and His Spiri
are spiritual antitoxins. Trust Hin
and know His love and feel Hi
healing strength. E

Where— from p. 9

state precedents, which is a long wa]
from a legal guarantee.

Another grave danger in t h i
method was not raised or decided iri
the Savannah case. Our Book
Church Order, Par. 6-3, provide
that: "If a church . . . ceases to exis
and no disposition has been madt
of its property, those who hold th(
title to the property shall deliver
convey and transfer to the presby
tery ... all the property of t h
church ..." Some people take the
position, and there is some lega!
precedent for this position, that i
the total congregation withdraws
then according to Presbyterian law
there is no congregation and th<
property passes into the hands ol
the presbytery under the above
quoted section of the BCO. So i
local church choosing this methoc
should move with caution and onl)
after expert legal advice.

Best of Four Methods:

These, then, are the four alterna
tives most often mentioned. Nowi
incidentally, don't worry that I have
been suggesting vulnerable spots tc
those who have opposing views as tc
the mission of the Church — the)
already know them! Almost all ol
these were recently published in a
report by a Hanover Presbytery Ad-
ministrative Commission. This re-
port, I am informed, was principal-
ly prepared by Dr. E. T. Thompson.
I am not revealing any secrets to
them, I just want you to know as
much as they do.

After evaluating these four alter-'
natives, I hope you will see why the

PAGE 18 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 20, 1972

steering committee contends that
the best constitutional method to
ontinue our Church and have peace-
ful realignment is an acceptable
'survival" clause in the plan of
union. By this method we can
move as Christian statesmen as
God's Holy Spirit moves us with
honor, with unity, and with due
preparation, and deliberation. It is
the only method that absolutely
guarantees to a local congregation
that it may realign and keep its
property.

But let us declare here and now
that property is not the main issue.
If we are forced by our convictions
to risk the loss of all property for
the sake of the honor and integrity
of the Church of our Lord Jesus
Christ, such a risk we are fully pre-
pared to take. We prefer it not;
aut we shall not shrink from it, if
God requires it of us.

If the radical ecumenists are suc-
cessful in delaying the first vote on
union with UPUSA beyond the 1973
General Assemblies, then many feel
they must seriously consider some
alternative other than the "survival"
clause and move before July 1,
1973.

An Important Date

Why July 1, 1973? Because this
is the effective date of the geo-
graphical restructuring of synods
for most of us. What difference
does that make? All the conven-
tions for the new synods will have
committees studying the redrawing
of presbytery lines. Hence, it is pos-
sible and probable that as of July
1, 1973, both synods and presbyte-

ries will have new boundaries, and
the presbyteries as we now know
them will no longer exist.

In my address to you in 1970 I
made a statement which time has
proven to be true: "Restructuring
is ecclesiastical, political g e r r y -
mandering and its passage is a neces-
sity if the radical ecumenists are to
liquidate our Church. They must
have restructured presbyteries for
the political advantage they seek."

This goal they can reach as of
July 1, 1973. It means that in a
presbytery such as mine in East Ala-
bama, where we now have a voting
majority for conservatives, the bound-
aries of the presbytery may be re-
drawn and gerrymandered so as to
change this voting majority as of
July 1, 1973. A local church in such
a presbytery now has the alternative
of being dismissed by the presbytery
with its property, but this door may

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THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL
Weaverville, N. C. 28787

PAGE 19 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 20, 1972

A HOLY LAND
TOUR MAY...

CHANGE YOUR LIFE
RENEW YOUR FAITH
WIDEN YOUR WORLD.

be closed July 1, 1973, if the presby-
tery boundaries are redrawn and
gerrymandered so as to change the
voting pattern of the presbytery.

Since this is the obvious design of
many of the radical ecumenists,
many churches now in conservative
presbyteries are having to evaluate
their position to see if they are will-
ing to wait until after July 1, 1973,
and run the risk of having the door
of presbytery dismissal closed in
their faces. Thus you can see that
this is truly a crisis year for those of
us who are committed to a contin-
uing Church loyal to Scripture and
the Reformed Faith.

Your steering committee is not
and can not be a command post.
Our experience proves that conser-
vatives cannot be herded, driven or
commanded, but they can be in-
formed, led and pointed in a direc-
tion. The direction toward which
your steering committee is pointing
you is toward such a continuing
Church, loyal to Scripture and the
Reformed Faith.

Unity of Mind and Spirit

It could very well be that some
of you will use one of the above sug-
gested methods and some will use
another. It could very well be that
through a combination of these
methods we all will arrive at our ul-
timate goal. The main point is that
in the end we all are together in the
sweet fellowship of a true branch of
the Church of our Lord and Saviour
Jesus Christ, which is loyal to the
Word of God and the Westminster
standards.

We need to be much in prayer
that God will lead us to a unity of
mind and spirit for the living of
these days. Crucial and difficult de-
cisions must be made in this year.
I wanted to lay it out on the table
so that you would be informed and
also realize that your leadership is

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not naively failing to wrestle witl
these great and momentous deci
sions.

In conclusion, let me remind yoi
of the situation when Moses lec
God's chosen children out of Egypt
As they approached the Red Sea
they looked back and saw that th(
Egyptians were pursuing after their
with all the horses and chariots ol
Pharaoh and his horsemen and hi;
army, and the children of Israel
were afraid. "But Moses said untc
the people, Fear ye not, stand still
and see the salvation of the Lord
which He will show to us . . .
(Exo. 14:13).

Dearly beloved, in our hours ol
decision, Despair whispers, "Lie
down; give it all up; you are defeat-
ed." Cowardice says, "Retreat; go
back and join them; it is too diffi-
cult; relinquish your principles."
Precipitancy cries, "Do something
even if it is wrong; to stand still
and wait is sheer folly." Presump-
tion boasts, "If the turbulent sea is
before us, let us march headlong in-
to it and expect a miracle."

Faith listens neither to despair,
nor to cowardice, nor to precipitancy,
nor to presumption, but it hears
God say "Stand still," and im-
movable as a rock it stands. Stand
still, keep the posture of an upright
man, ready and prepared for action,
expecting further orders, cheerfully
and patiently awaiting the directing
voice. It will not be long — maybe
tomorrow, or next month, or next
year — before God shall say to us,
as distinctly as Moses said it to the
people of Israel, "Go forward." Dear
brothers in Christ, then we shall
march forward toward God's destiny
for us, clothed with His blessing
and armed with His power.

So let us again hear the Word of
God: "Fear ye not, stand still and
see the salvation of the Lord which
He will show to you . . . and the
Lord shall fight for you, and ye
shall hold your peace."

The victory will be entirely the
work of Jehovah. It is the part of
His people to trust Him and not to
murmur. "Say not my soul 'From
whence can God relieve my care?'/
Remember that Omnipotence has
servants everywhere./ His method
is sublime, His heart profoundly
kind,/ God never is before His
time, and never is behind."

Stand still to hear His voice; but
having heard, let us go forward.
Come marching orders, come quick-
ly, we pray! ^

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PAGE 20 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 20, 1972

cq VOL. XXXI, NO. 22

SEPTEMBER 27, 1972

! the

PRESBYTERIAN

Idvocating continuation of a Presbyterian Church loyal

$4.00 A YEAR

JOURNAL

to Scripture and the Reformed faith

A Touchstone

To be sure, creeds and confessions are the Church's re-
sponse to the Word of God and in no respect to be identified
with that Word itself. They are subordinate standards, second-
ary standards, and there can never be an infallible standard
other than the Word of God. But our creedal statements are
intended to voice the Church's painfully wrought out and grad-
ually acquired understanding of the Scriptures, and to reflect
that which the Church has received from Christ and the apostles
in the Scriptures as to its meaning and implication.

The confession is therefore a touchstone, a test, a pattern,
a measuring rod, a form of unity which also dominates and
designates error and heresy ; and our books of church order and
our ecclesiastical constitutions have historically viewed it as
such.

— John R. de Witt
(See p. 7)

S. S. LESSON AND YOUTH PROGRAM FOR OCTOBER 15

iWOO

^fl OK jo £q.ys.i9Axu£i
Ti0fq.0 8tT.0D o N

p

MAILBAG

GRACE AND LOVE

It is charged that the Westmin-
ster Standards underemphasize the
love of God and are strong on His
power and majesty. As a matter of
fact, God's love is mentioned more
than seven times in our present
standards. That it is not mentioned
more is not due to an emphasis on
His power and majesty, but rather
because the Westminster divines had

an overwhelming sense of that spe-
cial kind of love for undeserving sin-
ners for which only the word grace
seemed suitable.

The old confession is as thorough-
ly saturated with the word grace as
the new confession is with the word
love. Conversely, the word love oc-
curs in the Westminster Standards
more times than does the word grace
in the new confession.

the

PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL

Rev. G. Aiken Taylor, Ph.D., Editor
Rev. Henry B. Dendy, D.D., Managing Editor
William G. Bolus, Assistant Editor

Circulation leader among independent publications in the Presbyterian-Reformed world

THIS WEEK— Vol. XXXI, No. 22, September 27, 1972

The Amazing Gusto for Amazing Grace 7

We must relate the message of faith to our young people,
undiluted By John Oliver

Does Today s Church Need a Confession? 9

Is it important to belong to a confessional Church with
disciplinary binding? By John R. de Witt

Departments —

Editorials 1 2

The Layman and his Church 13

Sunday School Lesson, October 1 5 1 4

Youth Program, October 15 16

Book Reviews 17

THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL, a

Presbyterian weekly magazine, devoted
to the statement, defense, and propa-
gation of the Gospel, the faith which
was once for all delivered to the saints,

is published every Wednesday by the
Southern Presbyterian Journal Co.,
Inc., in Weaverville, N. C.

SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: $4 a year

for individuals, $3 for members of
Every Family Plan churches. All cor-
respondence regarding subscriptions,
advertising or other business matters,
should be addressed to the business
office in Weaverville, N. C. 28787.
Second class postage paid at Weaver-
ville, N. C. 28787.'

POSTMASTER: Send Form 3579 to
Presbyterian Journal, Box 635, Wea-
verville, N. C. 28787. Subscribers
should allow three weeks for change
of address in continental U. S. Change
of address notices should include both
old and new addresses (with zip
codes) .

NEWS AND EDITORIAL correspond-
ence should be addressed to P. 0. Box
3108, Asheville, N. C. 28802. Editorial
offices located at 247 Charlotte St. in
Asheville.

TELEPHONES: (All area 704) edi-
torial office, 254-4015, 254-4016;
business office, 645-3310, 645-3962.

Grace means God's love to the ur
lovely, to the undeserving, to the ill
deserving. Yes, as my old Colum
bia professor put it, grace is God'
love to the hell-deserving. Calvh
had such a sense of our ill-desert if
ourselves that he insisted, "No mat
is loved by God but in Christ."

Nor may the word grace be ob
jected to as not "plain English." The
English Bible has made it familial
to us all. It is a one syllable wore
that may be defined with one syl
lable words. Thus, grace is God foi
us in Christ. Grace is God's love
shed abroad in our hearts by the
Holy Spirit as He points us tc
Christ, dying in our stead. It will
take all of eternity to thank God
that "out of His free grace and love
alone" He saved us in Christ.

— (Rev.) William C. Robinson
Claremont, Calif.

MORE ABOUT CONFESSION

Today I read the six chapters oi
the proposed confession in the Au-
gust 9 Journal. I had expected
much more subtle heresies such that
a layman would have to study both
the old and the new to determine
the errors. Never have I seen such
a deliberate, willful expression of
contempt for Christ and His Church
as is contained in the proposed con-
fession.

To write such a document an<§!
then to call it the confession of a
Christian Church overwhelms me.
It would be more reasonable to see
such a thing offered by the Com-
munists for the open purpose of
eliminating the Church.

It is my desire to go on record as
a layman who will not belong to any
organization with such a confession.
It is in direct conflict with many,
many statements of the very Bible it
purports to interpret, but I will not
attempt to cite examples.

I am eternally grateful for the:
way the Journal is keeping us post-
ed on the "inhuman" (if I may bor-
row a word) activities in the Pres-
byterian Church.

— Jon E. Tinsley
Albertville, Ala.

NOT CONCERNED?

With all clue respect to you and I
your staff I don't care too much for
the Journal. It is well written, but
in my estimation it does not come to
grips with the problem. Most people
who furnish your articles seem to be
more concerned that they may lose
their identity as Presbyterians than

m about their testimony as Christians.
I There seems to be a lot of "drums
m along the Mohawk," but these are
if giving uncertain sounds.
ii I've only been a Presbyterian
; about four years and a Christian
u about a month longer, so maybe
being a Presbyterian isn't all that
important to me. I'm sixty years old
and I don't feel that I have time to
ja play games. The faith which was
m once for all delivered unto the saints
j has not ceased being delivered, while
d, the unbelief among Presbyterians I
i, am personally acquainted with really
In shocks me.

You must print what you feel is
the best material available to you,
but from what I've read there seem
to be two factions playing a game of
"wait and see who will stare down
| the other first."

I don't worry so much about the
World Council of Churches or the
Big Branch of the Presbyterian
Church as much as I am concerned
about the branch I'm in. If we're the
good guys, may God have mercy on
the bad guys!

• One news item across the desk
this week is simply too much to be
taken straight. From the offices of
the PCUS Board of Christian Edu-
cation, the item says that the six de-
nominations who have pooled their
Christian education efforts into a
grouping called Joint Educational
Development (JED — you did
know that we no longer have a
strictly Presbyterian educational pro-
gram, didn't you?) will take a new
look at their literature in the light
of a study just completed on behalf
of a JED committee called the Task
Force on Family and Human Sex-
uality. It seems that one Ms. (what-
ever that means) Diana Beach, oth-
erwise identified only as "M.Div.,"
I has discovered that there is a "stereo-
type" in the "image of womanhood"
projected by Church school ma-
terials. To her horror, she found
that in the use of the Old Testa-
ment, women "are not the promi-
nent heroines at all." And in
the New Testament (perish the
thought) , "women mentioned ap-
provingly are those who are 'passive,

God is talking to Presbyterians but
we are dragging our feet. We keep
saying we are going to "come out
from among them." "Them" to me
means all who deny the faith and
faith to me means Jesus Christ, the
same yesterday, today and forever.
This waiting game is a waste of time.
Either we pull out or shut up.
— A. S. Jones
Clifftop, W. Va.

IT AFFECTS MISSIONS

If I believed as the Rev. David
Wilkinson (Aug. 30 Journal) , I
would not support missions by my
money or prayers. Nor would I pro-
mote the Gospel at home. It would
be better for those who never hear
the Gospel than for those who hear
it and reject it.

In the Great White Throne judg-
ment, where the saints will judge
men and angels, there will be the
lost. As Paul cried out, "Woe is me
if I preach not the Gospel!"

The promise of our Lord is, "He

obedient, humble, waiting' and
'acted upon.' " Contemporary ma-
terials, according to the study, por-
tray girls as "passive and subordi-
nate" and boys as "active, power-
ful, brave, protective of women."
The study is especially critical of
Church curricula which portray fa-
ther as head of the house while
mother remains a "background fig-
ure." The news story says that the
six denominations now pooling
their efforts have already begun to
take official action to do something
about it.

• That reminds us of a news item
out of the home office of one of the
JED denominations, the United
Church of Christ. The UCC's Task
Force on Women, a group dedicated
to the maximum "liberation" of
women, has proposed to church
women of all denominations that
they "take over" the next celebra-

that believeth not shall be damned"
(Mark 16:16).

— John T. Houston
Mooreville, Miss.

MINISTERS

William B. Cartwright from
Helena, Ark., to Memphis, Tenn.,
as executive director of Parkview
Manor.

James T. Richardson from staff
of Columbia Seminary, Decatur,
Ga., to the Times Memorial
church, Lutz, Fla.
J. Richard Short, recent graduate
of Union Seminary, is serving as
associate pastor of Parkway
church, Metairie, La., while com-
pleting STM studies.
Charles A. Streshley from West
Point, Va., to Zaire (Africa) to
resume missionary service.

DEATH

Miss Lettie Beaty, 82, retired mis-
sionary to Mexico, died Sept 2 in
a nursing home in Black Moun-
tain, N. C.

tion of Reformation Day on Sun-
day, October 29. The Rev. Ms. Bar-
bara McCall (as she designates her-
self) , executive of the task force,
suggests that women of local con-
gregations post their own "95 Fem-
inist Theses" on the church door
and that they organize "an ecclesi-
astical procession of women" to dra-
matize their cause.

• Somehow that reminds us of a
cartoon in a recent edition of Pa-
rade. The cartoon depicted a fash-
ionable congregation issuing from a
fashionable church past a fashion-
able-looking cleric greeting his par-
ishioners at the door. Says a man to
his wife as they walk away: "I
found it very heartening to hear a
forthright voice lashing out against
the evils of processed white bread,
chemical fertilizers, enzyme washing
agents and nonreturnable bot-
tles." ffl

ACROSS THE EDITOR'S DESK

PAGE 3 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 27, 1972

NEWS OP RELIGION

Cornell Study Defends North Vietnam

ITHACA, N. Y. — A Cornell Uni-
versity study has characterized as
"myth" and "deliberate propaganda
campaign" the long-standing charge
that the Communist land reform pro-
gram in North Vietnam was a
"bloodbath" in which at least 500,-
000 innocent people, a large num-
ber Christians, were massacred.

Noting that the charge against
North Vietnam has been echoed by
the President, who quoted a Viet-
namese Roman Catholic prelate, the
study says it is rather the result of
efforts by the South Vietnamese and
U. S. governments to discredit the
Democratic Republic of Vietnam
in Hanoi.

Written by D. Gareth Porter, a
research associate of the Cornell Proj-
ect on International Relations in
East Asia, the study brands as
"myth" the President's statement
that, "In North Vietnam, in the
period from 1954 to 1956, in their
so-called land reform program, a
minimum of 500,000 were murdered,
assassinated; and, according to the
Roman Catholic bishop of Da
Nang, whom I talked to when I was
there in 1956, in addition to the

800,000 refugees, there were at least
a half million who died in slave la-
bor camps."

The Cornell study denies the
claim that the North Vietnamese
land reform was aimed at liquidat-
ing whole social classes, such as the
Christians, that "quotas" were as-
signed to be executed in each vil-
lage, and that hundreds of thou-
sands of innocent people were
killed.

"Close examination of charges re-
veals that they are based on gross mis-
quotation, fraudulent documenta-
tion," Mr. Porter writes.

"The evidence also indicates that
probably no more than 2,500 land-
lords were sentenced to death, not
a 'minimum of 500,000' as asserted
by President Nixon," the study states.

It adds that "solid evidence"
from the International Control (Ge-
neva) Commission reports, shows
there was no pattern of violence
against (Christians) during the
period of the land reform."

While beset with administrative
failures, the land reform program
was aimed at "liberating poor
peasants from the threat of famine"

THE CHURCH OVERSEAS

VIETNAM — There has been little
disruption of the ministry of com-
passion and healing in this country
as a result of the invasion from
North Vietnam. On the contrary,
a much greater load is being carried
by "voluntary service agencies" due,
largely, to the increased refugee pop-
ulation.

At the Hoa Khanh Children's
Hospital in Da Nang, operated by
World Relief Commission of the Na-
tional Association of Evangelicals,
the outpatient load has increased
from an average of 1,000 children
per month to nearly 5,000. Most of
these children are from nearby ref-
ugee camps where WRC is directly
responsible for keeping alive more
than 100,000 refugees from border
areas where the fighting has been
going on.

Rumors that the enemy might
smuggle a bomb into the hospital
have led to a reduction in visiting
privileges, except by families of the
children. The American women
with children (wives of the doctors)
are taken in to Da Nang each night
for additional safety, but the rest
of the staff remain on duty.

The opportunity to witness with
the Gospel has been greatly im-
proved by the very tragic circum-
stances that have produced the ref-
ugee population. Through its pro-
gram of "food for the body and
food for the soul" WRC has been
able to reach thousands who nor-
mally would be too scattered.

Persons interested in helping meet
the enormous need may write to
World Relief Commission at Box
44, Valley Forge, Pa. 19481. IB

IB

■

and from "total subordination t(
landlords," the Cornell analysil
adds. It also claims that evideno
shows that reform policies attempt
ed to "minimize injustice and un
necessary suffering and not to
murder innocent people."

Noting that the U. S. governmen l!
found the "bloodbath" myth in
creasingly useful and "finally almosi
necessary," the study claims that
by the late 1960s the myth had
gained nearly universal acceptance
giving the President "a major ra
tionale for maintaining U. S. mill
tary presence in Vietnam."

'Stifles Search'

it

In addition, the study observed, 11
the myth fit the anti-Communist
"prejudices" of most Americans and
"helped stifle the search for truth.'

In his introduction to the study,
Mr. Porter said, "if U. S. policy is
to be based on a realistic assessment
of the Vietnamese revolution instead
of a caricature of it, a necessary firstj
step must be to set aside the popular
notion of the land reform as
'bloodbath.' "

He added his hope that the study
will not only "unravel a central1
myth" about the North Vietnam
government, but also "reveal some
of the 'scratches on our minds'
which underlie American policy in
Vietnam."

Bishop As Pastor will
Say Much About God

PASADENA, Calif. (RNS) — Re
tired Methodist Bishop Gerald
Kennedy has fulfilled his dream of
returning to the pulpit as a full
time pastor. Recently he preached
to a near-capacity congregation of
2,000 members at the First United
Methodist church here.

The 65-year-old churchman, who!
headed the Southern California- Ari-
zona Methodist Conference for 20
years before retiring July 1, indi-
cated to churchgoers that he identi-
fied with a white-robed ecclesiastical
dignitary in a Punch cartoon, who
said: "I used to be a bishop, but
now I'm just a high-ranking Jesus
Freak!"

Bishop Kennedy, known for his
dislikes for the Consultation on

PAGE 4 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 27, 1972

THE CHURCH AT HOME

p

^^^^

Tabb Street Minister Defies Presbytery

church Union and time consumed
n meetings of any kind, devoted
audi of his time to preaching and
/riting. His most recent books in-
lude, The Preacher and the New
English Bible; For Laymen and
~)ther Martyrs; and The Seven
Vorlds of the Minister.

A theological conservative and a
ocio-political liberal, Bishop Ken-
ledy said he would emphaszie three
lements in his sermons: God, Jesus
Christ and the Christian Church.

"I will speak about God a great
ieal," Bishop Kennedy said. "This
lation was founded under God. Ev-
rything about America is rooted in
iod and I want to remind you of
his once in a while."

He said the basic difference be-
ween the Communist and the non-
communist world, is not economic
ir political. "The main difference
s that we believe in God and they
lon't," he said. EE

leaders Digest Plans
'•amily Type Movies

iOLLYWOOD — The Reader's
Digest, seeking to counter the flood
)f sex and violence films, will pro-
luce a series of family type movies
vhich reflect "wholesomeness" in
American life.

The Digest has already begun
jroduction of a $2.4 million musical
version of "Tom Sawyer" in coopera-
ion with United Artists. A Digest
pokesman said the magazine be-
ieves millions of Americans are
ired of the sex and violence por-
:rayed in the majority of films to-
iay.

He said, "There is a vast family
mdience that is being alienated.
They don't go to movies anymore.
We think we can provide a useful
iervice by producing movies suitable
:or a broad audience."
Hollywood film officials believe
|:he Digest's venture follows a sim-
ilar move by the American Baptist
Convention, which distributed
WThe Cross and the Switchblade,
|:he story of a minister's problems
limong New York youth gangs.

A Reader's Digest spokesman said
l:he magazine is looking at material
In some of its own publications for
■possible movie projects. EE

RICHMOND — Hanover Presby-
tery has ruled that if the Tabb
Street Presbyterian Church in near-
by Petersburg does not return to
the fold within 30 days, it may de-
frock the minister and turn the
church over to the four elders who
voted against withdrawal.

This decision was one of several
resolutions adopted here during a
special meeting of the presbytery,
called to decide what the presbytery
would do about its breakaway con-
gregation.

Following Hanover's threat, the
Rev. Linwood Wilkes, pastor of
Tabb Street church, commented: "I
have no intention of returning, or
bowing to Hanover Presbytery. As
far as I'm concerned the liberals
have to be dealt with now. If we
wait any longer, there may not be
any conservative strength left to deal
with them."

Mr. Wilkes said the strong threats
made by Hanover at its meeting
Sept. 11 only bear out what he has
previously stated, that "its members
are acting like landlords. They gave
us 30 days to do in a way that
pleases them — or get off their
property. They are using the (lib-
eral) minority of our church as a
device."

The pastor noted, however, "We
want the 26 members of our con-
gregation who voted against with-
drawal to remain in our church
with us.

"We (members of the conserva-
tive majority) see this as a religious
freedom issue. We think Mr. Thom-
as Jefferson of Virginia history
would uphold us. We know the
Lord does."

Hanover Presbytery ruled in its
Sept. 11 meeting that Tabb Street's
decision to sever its ties with the
Presbyterian Church US violated
the Church's constitution. Hanover
officials warned that at the end of
the 30-day "grace" period the six
elders and 1 1 deacons who voted for
withdrawal will be removed from
office.

The series of resolutions adopted
here were drawn by an administra-
tive commission appointed to deter-
mine presbytery policy towards dis-
affected churches and ministers.
These denied any "constitutional
authority to withdraw as a congre-
gation" and they claimed that "in-
dividual members who withdraw
retain no equity in the property of
the church."

Further, they declared that those
members "retaining their member-
ship within the congregation, or that
portion of it recognized as such by
the higher courts of the Church . . .
must be recognized as the true con-
gregation."

They said the four elders who
voted against withdrawal will be de-
clared the governing body of the
Tabb Street church.

Tabb Street broke away from the
Hanover Presbytery last month and
Mr. Wilkes signed a covenant with
six ministers and nine elders in Sa-
vannah, Ga., recently establishing a
new independent presbytery to be
known as Vanguard Presbytery.

Tabb Street's 87-26 vote to end
its association with the PCUS was
based on conservative-liberal issues
which have divided the PCUS for
many years.

The conservative group believes
in the infallibility of the Bible as
God's inspired Word, while the lib-
eral group relates the Bible to a
"social gospel" and wants to throw
out the Westminster Confession of
Faith and other traditional beliefs,
and substitute a new confession and
doctrines, according to Mr. Wilkes. EE

General Council Adopts
Benevolence Guidelines

ATLANTA — Struggling with the re-
curring problem of "designated" and
"undesignated" gifts, the General
Council of the Presbyterian Church
US took action on a "working agree-
ment" with Medical Benevolence

PAGE 5 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 27, 1972

r

Foundation (MBF) and forwarded
to the new General Executive Board
a proposed "new benevolence pro-
gram" for the denomination.

Entirely separate from the Board
of World Missions, the MBF is an
organization of medical and para-
medical members whose purpose is
to furnish medical personnel, equip-
ment, supplies and aid to hospitals,
medical outposts and clinics over-
seas.

The General Council voted that
contributions by individuals, groups
or foundations that do not have a
direct connection with PCUS may
be received by MBF for distribution
without affecting budget figures or
the operation of the central treasurer
and the equalization program.

Gifts from congregations, church
courts or church organizations, on
the other hand, will be forwarded to
the Board of World Missions by
MBF, with approval of the donor,
and will be counted against budget
figures.

Over and above gifts, according
to previously adopted General As-
sembly rules, for Board of World
Missions projects included in the
project book, will also be exempted
from equalization.

The agreement voted here is still
subject to approval by the official
boards of MBF and World Missions.

In other action the council for-
warded to the General Executive
Board without formal recommenda-
tion a plan prepared at the request
of its stewardship committee, which
would establish new rules for the
general distribution of benevolences.
Effect of the new rules, if adopted,
would be to loosen slightly the tight
equalization now practiced.

A proposal for synod editions of
Presbyterian Survey was approved,
which would include insert sections
for each of the new seven synods.
The separate editions would provide
a "complete package" of news and
information, the extra cost to be
divided between the General Assem-
bly and the participating synods. 51

The Unrest Is Spiritual,
Dr. Bell Tells Council

ATLANTA— The moderator of the
Presbyterian US General Assembly
has repeated his view that the "deep
unrest" in the Church is caused in
part by "an obsession with what
many people term secondary mat-

ters."

Speaking to the denomination's
General Council, Dr. L. Nelson Bell
said, "The basic warfare of the
Church is not against poverty, the
Vietnam war, race, housing, popula-
tion explosion, gun control, law and
order, drugs and what-have-you.
These are symptoms of the disease,
not the disease."

According to the former medical
missionary, "the disease is sin in
the human heart .... This is a
spiritual battle and the answer is in
an outpouring of God's Spirit."

Some of the unrest, Dr. Bell con-
ceded, is caused by personalities.
"Some folks just can't get along
with others. They adopt the atti-
tude of 'we're right and they're
wrong.' "

He felt there are "a few people
in both groups who just can't be
reconciled. But, I believe, the great
majority in our Church want to be
unified." EE

RTS Trustees Issue
Clarifying Statement

JACKSON, Miss. — Reformed
Theological Seminary trustees have
affirmed their support for conserva-
tive efforts in the Church, but with-
out identifying with any denomina-
tion, organization or movement.

In a statement released to the
press on Sept. 15, the board of trus-
tees noted that the seminary was
founded "with a vital and perpetual
commitment to the inerrancy of
Scripture and to the Westminster
Confession of Faith and the Larger
and Shorter Catechisms as original-
ly adopted by the Presbyterian
Church US."

The board's statement makes
clear that RTS "is in sympathy with
all denominations, organizations
and movements in the Presbyterian
and Reformed world which seek to
perpetuate and propagate Biblical,
Reformed and evangelical Christian
faith."

At the same time, the board also
noted that it does so "without any
official relationship with any de-
nomination, organization or move-
ment."

RTS is an independent institu-
tion, owned and operated by a self-
perpetuating board. All the trus-
tees are officers or ministers in the
Presbyterian Church US. Approxi-
mately one third of the faculty, stu-

dents and graduates are members
of other denominations.

RTS was established in 1964 as
an institute and became a seminary
in 1965. Its theological position
was and continues to be that of his-
toric Presbyterianism. It proclaims
the inerrancy of Scriptures and the
pure Calvinism of the Westminster
standards in all of its teaching and
witness. I

Church Merger Vote
Date Still Uncertain

ST. LOUIS— A 1973 vote on the
Plan of Union between the United
Presbyterian Church USA and the
Presbyterian Church US is "an
option," but "is not at this point a
commitment," according to the Rev.
J. Randolph Taylor, PCUS co-chair-
man of the Joint Committee of 32.

Dr. Taylor was answering ques-
tions during a "workshop on Pres-
byterian union" which brought to-
gether some 56 ministers and lay-
men to discuss "ways of involving
Presbyterians in the unifying pro-
cess."

Although timing was raised over
and over again at the workshop, Dr.
Taylor said his committee continues
to explain that "we are not com-
mitted to a vote in 1973.

"If we can make revisions to get
a second plan before the General
Assembly next year, that plan could
be studied, or it could be further
revised, or it could be voted on,"
he said.

The decision "depends in large
measure on what kind of feedback
we get from this study process," the
PCUS leader added. EE

Seminary Professor to
Make Radio Broadcasts

AUSTIN, Tex. (PN) — James A.
Wharton, professor of Old Testa-
ment at Austin Presbyterian Theo-
logical Seminary here will be fea-
tured on the 1972 Presbyterian US
series of the internationally aired
radio program, "The Protestant
Hour."

The program will be broadcast
Oct. 1 through Dec. 31.

Dr. Wharton has entitled his
series, "Hard Headed Hope." In
the messages he emphasizes the
threads of hope and realism which
run through the Bible. EE

PAGE 6 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 27, 1972

The message is fixed, but the methods for presenting it are flexible —

The Amazing Gusto for
Amazing Grace

Amazing Grace." Who would
have guessed a few years ago
ithat it would be number one in pop-
ularity with the under twenty-five
icrowd in England and the United
States? Whether sung by popular
singers in somewhat folk-rock style
or played by Scottish bagpipes, the
old Gospel hymn, "Amazing Grace,"
has elicited astounding acceptance
from the youth culture.

One cannot help seeing some en-
couragements and assurances in this
amazing gusto for amazing grace.
To the believing Church it is the
reminder of openness from young
people to the declaration of the
grace of God to those who are lost.
It is renewed assurance to relate
convincingly the message of the his-
toric faith to young people who com-
prise today's baffling youth cul-
ture. It is a warning that our mes-
sage is not to be diluted or altered
in a vague attempt to relate the
Church to today's youth.

We who meet here today for the
sake of preserving a strong testimony
to the faith once delivered, and re-
claimed in the Reformation, need
to take heart in our ministry of re-
lating the mighty Gospel of our
Lord Jesus Christ to young people
everywhere. As we are heartened
by all that the amazing gusto for
amazing grace may imply and por-
tend, let us turn to I Corinthians
9:16-27. In this passage of God's
Word, we may be instructed from
the pen of the Apostle Paul about
ministering faithfully in Jesus' name
the good news to young people.

Let us never sell short what we
of Reformed theological persuasion

This Journal Day address was
given by the author, who is pastor
of the First Presbyterian Church,
Augusta, Ga.

I Corinthians 9:16-27

have for such a time as this. We
have emphasis on a stable and en-
during authority, the written Word
of God. We have stress on God's
sovereign grace and His initiative
in seeking confused and estranged
lives. We have emphasis on the
meritorious death and resurrection
of Christ whereby men are brought
out of living death into real life,
abundant and eternal.

Facing circumstances not fully
dissimilar to ours today, St. Paul
first of all was concerned with the
mind-set of those to whom he min-
istered.

How Sweet the Sound

While St. Paul was primarily the
apostle to the Gentiles, he had oc-
casion in his widespread ministry to
deal with a composite of people.
There were legalistic Jews, lawless
pagans, educated aristocrats, hopeless
bondsmen. In relating to them the
good news of salvation in Christ, he
always remembered the framework
of their minds which might color
how they heard what he delivered.
He went to them where they were,
started with what he found, and re-
lated the same Gospel to them.

Is this not essential today in our
ministry of the Gospel with youth?
Dare we dismiss the significance of
their perspective, their frame of ref-
erence, when we approach them
with the greatest message one could
hear? What are we as Reformed
believers up against in our youth
work today?

According to a new book, The
Jesus People: Old-Time Religion in
the Age of Aquarius, "The 'stuff of
the sixties and seventies has been
delineated, categorized, and analyzed

JOHN OLIVER

by sociologists, journalists, philoso-
phers, psychologists, and assorted
other 'people-watchers.' " This high-
ly commendable volume is primarily
concerned with an honest evalua-
tion of the Jesus movement based
on accurate and personal research.
However, the authors themselves,
all three on the faculty of evangeli-
cal Westmont College, make some
pointed analyses about the mind-set
faced in today's youth culture, often
dubbed the counter culture.

Saved a Wretch Like Me

They suggest that we deal with a
"society in which young people espe-
cially have been subjected to a tre-
mendous overstimulation — by the
various media, by the myriad of
confusing alternatives of vocation,
religion and morals, and by the mech-
anisms of an economic system that
provides unparalleled affluence and
a seemingly endless stream of ma-
terial goods for consumption. At
the same time that modern techno-
logical man has felt that he has the
tools to control the universe and
the material possessions to make life
worthwhile, he has experienced a
spiritual emptiness and personal dis-
organization perhaps unequaled in
human history."

Another commentator on the youth
world is Theodore Roszak. In his
book, The Making of A Counter
Culture, he describes the youth cul-
ture as being obsessed with feeling
and passion as opposed to intellect
and reason.

To the young who are products
of an empty, contemporary age with
highly vaunted permissiveness, we
have a sure Word of authority and
fulfillment. To young people be-
leaguered by technocracy's imperson-
al pressures to compete and perform,

PAGE 7 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 27, 1972

we have a gracious Word about a
personal Saviour and Lord.

To a youth culture damaged by
a society of personal disorganiza-
tion, we have, especially in the Re-
formed understanding of holy Scrip-
ture, a workable and appealing sys-
tem for life and liberty in Jesus
Christ. To the young person ob-
sessed with experiences, we may is-
sue a challenge to come to Christ,
to learn of Him and, with St. Paul,
to know Him in all the power of
His resurrection and fellowship of
His sufferings.

I Once Was Lost

The amazing gusto for amazing
grace gives us confidence that we
shall be heard when we declare in
love the truth. First, then, mes-
sengers of the Reformed faith to
young people must minister in
light of the viewpoint of young peo-
ple. This passage from the apostle
suggests also a method.

Said St. Paul, "Unto the Jews, I
became as a Jew ... to them that
are under the law as under the
law ... to them that are without
law, as without law ... to the weak
became I as weak ... I am made all
things to all men that by all means
I might save some."

None would be so amiss in inter-
pretation as to suggest that Paul
compromised his convictions or mes-
sage in his method of reaching out
for Christ to the lost. How foolish
and unfruitful have been well-mean-
ing efforts of some to reach young
people by compromising the name
and salvation offer of Christ. We
need not blush at the straight Gos-
pel message or apologize for its ex-
clusive claims to appeal to young
people. The message is fixed for-
ever. The methods are flexible.

But Now Am Found

We are willing to acknowledge
that methodology may vary when
missionaries confront naked tribes-
men in Zaire or West Irian. Must
we not be as willing to accept dif-
ferent and effective methods of
youth evangelism? This acceptance
does not imply change for the sake
of change, or blanket acceptance of
bizarre and offbeat attempts to be
relevant and "with it." It does im-
ply that we distinguish between a
fixed message and an adjustable
method of relating that glorious
message.

To those with eyes to see, it ap-
pears that young people are increas-
ingly willing, even hungry, to hear
of our great Saviour though they
often show marked disinterest in
customs and traditions which have
become sacrosanct in our midst. Con-
sider the remarkable demonstration
of virile interest in the old-time
Gospel that was Explo 72.

Consider the virtual tidal wave
of Christian commitment sweeping
many secular university campuses in
our nation today. When the spring
term closed at Auburn University,
it had become common to have
1,000 attend the Christ-centered Col-
lege Life meetings on Sunday eve-
nings. No denominational campus
ministry with its diverting message
of socio-economic crusading and po-
litical diatribes approaches such stu-
dent response.

Without embarking into prob-
lems, theological or otherwise, which
any human organization is destined
to have, one cannot help being en-
couraged that with the fixed mes-
sage and flexible methodology to
meet today's situation, the whitened
harvest fields of young people may
be reaped. May the Lord of the
harvest give us spiritual flexibility
within the limits of God's Word to
win hundreds upon hundreds in our
Presbyterian churches.

. . . Was Blind

Although it has already been
strongly implied thus far, it is prof-
itable to note St. Paul's message.
With all of his adjustment to the
mind-set of his hearers, his message
never changed. With all of his
flexibility in his methodology, his
message was the same.

In this brief Scripture portion,
the word "Gospel" itself recurs em-
phatically. Need we belabor the
point here that we have one message
essentially? And will the young
people respond to this unvaried
Word?

Again to Explo 72 for what it
said. In those huge evening rallies
Billy Graham verbally underscored
that there is only one way of re-
demption, and the largely youth
throng cheered wildly. When join-
ing in the pulsating singing, the
young people raised their arms and
pointed the one way sign in time
to the music.

One may not always relish such
demonstrations. They do, however,
remind us that there is openness to

our message that there is none otl 11 0
er name under heaven whereby w
must be saved. They also remin
us of widespread response to th
exclusive terms of peace and recoi
ciliation only through the blood c
the cross.

But Now I See

The great apostle said one fina
thing needed in our present mir
istry to young people. Motivatior
Said he, "I therefore run . . . figh
. . . keep my body in subjection, les
that by any means, when I hav
preached to others, I myself shouL
be a castaway."

Of course, St. Paul was not feai
ful about his eternal salvation. H
was certain that Christ was able ti »
keep that commitment until "tha u
day." He was fearful, nevertheless v
that he should be shelved, rendere<
useless, disapproved in his labors
His motivation was to labor am Jt
minister in such a way as to be use
ful and approvable by the Lord
His motivation was not to have ex
pended himself, his abilities an(
his time in vain. His motivation
was to be fruitful with fruit tha
remains; fruit to Christ's honor.

Would it not be well to evaluati
our motivation, or lack of it, in re
lating the Gospel to young people
Perhaps the issue is not so mucl
that they won't be reached if w<
don't reach them. I am too mucl
of a Calvinist to believe that im
failure in service could thwart th<
sovereign purposes of God in eterna
election. The Church will b(
without spot and wrinkle and com
plete when He returns. This issuf
is, will we be fruitful and approvec
in our endeavor?

Amen!

It is essential that we be thorough
ly orthodox. It is fine that we be
clearly Calvinistic. It is noble thai
we contend earnestly for the faith
But with all this we need motiva-
tion to be fruitful in our endeavors
with the young. How frightening
the prospect that we could be or-
thodox, Calvinistic, loyal to the re-
vealed truth and have churches prac-
tically empty of young people. How
sobering that we might be all these
things, and with regard to reaching
and winning young people be bar-
ren. Take heed! Take heart! There
is in the youth culture an amazing
gusto for amazing grace. IB

PAGE 8 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 27, 1972

In other words, is it important to belong to a confessional Church?

Does Today's Church Need a Confession?

Does the Church today need a
confession of faith? Various
points of view exist regarding the
manner in which this question is to
be answered. Some say, "Yes" em-
phatically, others, "No" with equal
emphasis. Still others occupy a po-
sition in between.
Very few ecclesiastical leaders
\ Wish to do away entirely with all
3 confessions of faith and every rela-
51 tionship to any confession of faith.
1 But the point is surely whether or
1 hot the Church requires a confes-
sion of faith which is binding, which
has disciplinary effect, which is to
be adhered to, and in consequence
of which, if there are deviations
from it, certain ecclesiastical results
must follow.

No Creed But Christ

Some, many among them evangeli-
cals, make the bold assertion that
they hold to no creed but Christ.
They are quite proud of the fact
that in their freedom from ecclesi-
astical control and regulation, in
their independence of any connec-
tional relation with other churches,
they are not bound by what they
would describe as man-made articles
of religion.

It scarcely needs saying that such
an assertion — no creed but Christ
— is in itself a kind of confessional
affirmation. Even the great watch-
word of the Reformation, Sola

The author is pastor of the Wil-
liamsburg Presbyterian Church,
Kingstree, S. C. This material con-
stitutes the substance of an address
given before the Reformed Faith
Fellowship in Glasgow, Scotland,
and reproduced in The Banner of
Truth.

Scriptura, to which we hold as vigor-
ously and enthusiastically as they, is
a confession of faith. One looks
with amazement at those congrega-
tions which think so little of the
great creeds of the Christian Church
in its long history, and yet have such
a high opinion of their own doc-
trinal competence and understand-
ing of the Word of God that they
proceed without any apparent hesi-
tation or embarrassment whatever
to formulate certain articles of faith
which they make constitutive for
their own congregational life.

They may voice the proud boast
that they have no creed but Christ,
and yet they have in fact an im-
mensely inferior creed of their very
own manufacture, whereby they
show the poverty and indigence and
self-deprivation of their minds and
spirits, and also of their grasp of
the Christian faith.

Certain others, also evangelicals,
answer our question negatively, ap-
pearing to believe that creeds stand
in the way of the spiritual life and
true fellowship with God.

Just the other day I came upon
some remarks of G. Campbell Mor-
gan which speak very definitely to
this effect. In commenting upon
the words from Mark's Gospel, "Ye
leave the commandment of God, and
hold fast the tradition of men" (7:
8) , he asserts:

"No man who is living in true
fellowship with God will consent to
be mastered mentally by any creed
that ever yet has been prepared for
him. The proportion in which a
man knows the high life of fellow-
ship with God, is the proportion in
which he knows that no creed his
brother may write for him, no creed
he may write for himself, can be fi-
nal. No man or company of men,
no Church living in true fellowship

JOHN R. DEWITT

with God will consent that its polity
be stereotyped, or will confuse
form with power, or life with the
method of its expression."

It is plain that Morgan, whatever
virtues he may have possessed as a
Bible teacher, did not think Bibli-
cally in terms of the Church, and he
reveals himself to have been radi-
cally defective in his understanding
of the nature of creeds and confes-
sions of faith when he suggests that
there is any necessary clash between
ecclesiastical confession and com-
munion with God.

Other Aspects of Faith

Still others deny the necessity for
a confession of faith in the life of
the Church upon the ground of doc-
trinal indifference and the notion
that other aspects of the Christian
faith have priority over doctrine in
importance.

A great interest prevails at the
present time in social questions. In
fact, the Gospel is in danger of be-
ing identified with social reform and
transformation. Some in the world
today are preaching revolution, the
class struggle, Marxism, as the sub-
stance of the gospel of Christ. Doc-
trine does not interest them, certain-
ly not doctrinal orthodoxy.

They are not concerned about the
teaching of the Word of God, about
the system of truth that underlies
the whole of the Scripture, but
about the "practical" implications
of the Christian faith.

A glance at J. Gresham Machen's
The Christian Faith in the Modern
World will serve to show that this
criticism is not new, at least for the
essence of it. Describing those who
held a position very like the one I
have just now sketched out (and
this nearly 40 years ago) , he said:

PAGE 9 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 27, 1972

"Life comes first, we are told, and
doctrine comes afterward. Religion
is first an experience and although
the experience remains essentially
the same, its doctrinal expression
must change as the generations pass.
So, it is said, we value the great
creeds of the Church not at all be-
cause we regard as true, in the plain
man's sense of the word 'true,' the
things they contain, but because
they express in the language of a
bygone day an experience which we
can still share."

Priority of Truth

Machen's response is interesting:
"What shall we think of that atti-
tude? Well, in the first place, I
think we ought to face clearly the
fact that it is an attitude of the most
complete unbelief that could pos-
sibly be imagined. It denies not
this truth or that, but truth itself.
It denies that there is any possibility
of attaining to a truth which will al-
ways be true. There is truth, it
holds, for this generation and truth
for that generation, but no truth for
all generations; there is truth for
this race and truth for that race, but
no truth for all races."

Machen was dealing with an error
very real and very powerful in his
day — an error by no means dead
even now — which taught that the
religious experience was the main
thing. Today it is the religious
practice, the social implications of
the Gospel, revolution indeed, as
springing from the Gospel of Christ.
But the root error is the very same.
It is the denial of the timelessness
and the infinite priority of the
truth, revealed in the Scriptures and
expressed, for example, in our con-
fession of faith.

Others still, especially at the pres-
ent time, faced with the diversity,
the pluralism in the Church, are
coming to the position that it is no
longer possible for Christians to
unite on the basis of a common con-
fession of faith, or at any rate upon
the basis of such a confession of
faith as that which we have histori-
cally held.

'Live With Diversity'

Dr. Ben L. Rose, past moderator
of the General Assembly, has said:
"One of our greatest needs as min-
isters and members of the Presbyte-
rian Church US is to learn to live
with the diversity which now exists

within our denomination. We must
come to terms with the wide variety
of opinions, approaches, emphases,
and methods represented in our
membership."

After commenting that many peo-
ple are nostalgic for the day, in our
case not long since past, when the
Church was more homogeneous and
there was little variation in worship
or creedal stance, he continued:
"But that day has gone forever, and
it is not possible for us to return to
it. Our Church today is made up
of persons who interpret quite dif-
ferently the mission of the Church
in the world. They worship God
in a variety of forms, and they carry
forward what they conceive to be
the work of Christ through diverse
organizations, not all of which are
connected with the Presbyterian
Church."

This is, of course, the "umbrella
theory," a kind of ecclesiastical
pragmatism and lack of spiritual
principle, which has not been tradi-
tionally characteristic of Presbyte-
rians.

A False Slogan

It is a mystery to me how one can
be a minister in a confessional
Church, and furthermore in a bind-
ingly confessional Church, have put
one's own hand to the Westminster
Confession of Faith, and yet be ap-
parently unaware of the basic con-
tradiction between one's own act
and the pluralistic theory of an in-
clusive Church which one advocates
under the wretchedly false slogan of
"reconciliation." But we live in
strange times, and men are evidently
prepared to abandon almost any-
thing for the sake of achieving their
own purposes and short-range goals.

If we then take leave to differ
from what these witnesses have been
saying and in a sense to withdraw
ourselves from the mainstream of
contemporary ecclesiastical thought,
we must do so understanding full
well what this involves. All sorts of
charges are hurled at those who in-
sist upon creedal subscription and
the necessity — for there is no alter-
native — of the Church's holding
fast to the historic stance of the
Christian faith and Gospel.

In the face of these negative an-
swers I believe we must say: Yes
indeed! The Church today does
need a confession of faith. There
can be no doubt about it.

First of all, surely, a creedal state-

ment is of great usefulness as an
instrument in the work of instruc-i
tion. We must distinguish here
between two types of formulation.!
The one is in the form of articles of
faith; the other in that of a cate-
chism. But the latter no less than
the former pertains to the confes-
sional heritage of the Church.

The three forms of unity of the
Church of my birth contain a
catechism (the Heidelberg Cate-
chism) , in addition to a confession
(the Belgic Confession) , and the
Canons of the Synod of Dort. The;
same is the case with the Westmin-:
ster Standards, which include the
Confession proper, and the Larger
and Shorter Catechisms.

Historically considered, the means
whereby the young have been in-i
structed in the truths of the Word
of God have been the catechisms of
the Church.

Secondly, a confession of faith is j
necessary because it acts constitu-'
tionally as the basis for Church fel-
lowship among those who are united
in the body of Christ. It is a symbol.
This is clearly and no doubt most
universally the case with the Apos-
tles' Creed, but it is not less so —
though in narrower compass — with,
for example, the Westminster Con-
fession of Faith, which was com- :
posed, as you are aware, to unite the
churches of England, Scotland, and
Ireland upon the common founda-
tion of the teaching of the Word of
God.

Records the Growth

Third, a confession of faith is
necessary because it records the
growth and progress of the Church's
hold upon and grasp of the Word
of God. The history of Christian
doctrine is a history of development,
of deepening in the understanding
of the data of the Scriptures.

In the words of A. A. Hodge: "As
it would have been anticipated, it
is a matter of fact that the Church
has advanced very gradually in this
work of accurately interpreting
Scripture, and defining the great
doctrines which compose the system
of truth it reveals. The attention
of the Church has been directed es-
pecially to the study of one doctrine
in one age, and of another doctrine
in a subsequent age.

"And as she has gradually ad-
vanced in the clear discrimination
of Gospel truth, she has at different
periods set down an accurate state-

PAGE 10 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 27, 1972

an ne'nt of the results of her new at-
i| ainments in a creed, or confession
if )f faith, for the purpose of preserva-
:ion and of popular instruction, of
liscriminating and defending the
te ;ruth from the perversion of heretics
ii ind the attacks of infidels, and of
% iffording a common bond of faith,
ind rule of teaching and discipline."

if

) Safeguards the Teaching

Fourth, the Church needs a con-
lession of faith because such a con-
cession safeguards the apostolic
:eaching of the Scriptures. It can-
not be stressed too strongly that
:here is a givenness about the doc-
.rines of the Word of God; time
and again in the New Testament
stress is placed upon the apostolic
teaching and the keeping of it,
even as to its form, without any
deviation whatever (Gal. 1:11, 12;
[ Cor. 15:3-4; Rom. 6:17; II Thess.
3:6, etc.) .

This needs to be worked out
further, to be sure, but there is, it
seems to me, a very close relation-
ship indeed between the present re-
pudiation of the confession of
faith in our Churches and the
repudiation at the same time
of the apostolic teaching. There
is also a close relationship be-
tween maintaining the confession
and holding fast to the apostolic tra-
dition. We are dealing in the Chris-
tian faith with facts, with doctrines,
with truths, which have been re-
vealed and handed down and are to
be retained and upheld and vindi-
cated unimpaired and without quali-
fication.

To be sure, creeds and confessions
are the Church's response to the
Word of God and in no respect to
be identified with that Word itself.
They are subordinate standards, sec-
ondary standards, and there can
never be an infallible standard oth-
er than the Word of God. But our
creedal statements are intended to
voice the Church's painfully wrought
out and gradually acquired under-
standing of the Scriptures, and to
reflect that which the Church has
received from Christ and the apos-
tles in the Scriptures as to its mean-
ing and implication.

Fifth, a confession of faith is also
necessary because in the nature of
the case it distinguishes between
truth and error, and serves as the
standard by which erroneous teach-
ing in the Church is discovered and
identified. It must be the basis

upon which, as it is faithful to the
Scriptures, ecclesiastical discipline
is carried out.

The confession is therefore a
touchstone, a test, a pattern, a mea-
suring rod, a form of unity which
also denominates and designates er-
ror and heresy; and our books of
church order and our ecclesiastical
constitutions have historically
viewed it as such.

Sixth, a confession of faith is neces-
sary, finally, because of its forma-
tive operation. Our confessional
tradition also has a role in forming
our faith and our witness to the
world. I have already touched up-
on this in indicating the educative
usefulness of creeds. But let me
give you an illustration of what I
mean.

Zacharias Ursinus in his Commen-
tary on the Heidelberg Catechism,
in a striking passage in the "Gen-
eral Prolegomena," tells us that the
method of teaching and studying
theology is three-fold; and this he
goes on to elaborate as:

1) The system of catechetical in-
struction.

2) The consideration of subjects
of a more general and difficult char-
acter: the "common places," as
they are called. He means, of
course, the Church's systematization
and schematization of the doctrines
of the Word of God. This method,
which more properly belongs to the
theological schools, is necessary, he
tells us, first of all so that those
who are thus educated and who may
afterward be called upon to teach
in the Church may more completely
understand the whole system of
theology; second, so that those who
are to act as teachers in the Church
may be able to present clearly and
systematically "the substance of the
entire doctrine of God's Word";
third, "for the purpose of discover-
ing and determining the true and

They Don't Know

What keeps most people in
"Christian countries" such as the
U. S. from being heretics ... is that
they do not publicly avow their dis-
belief. Obstinacy is rare. Millions
do not even know they deny essen-
tial Christian doctrines: they
have never bothered to find out
what the essential doctrines are. —
Walter Kaufmann.

natural interpretation of the Scrip-
tures," which demand a clear and
full knowledge of every part of the
doctrine of the Church, to ensure
that this interpretation be in ac-
cordance with the analogy of faith;
fourth, so that we may be able to
form a proper decision regarding
the various ecclesiastical contro-
versies, lest we be drawn from truth
into error.

Diligent Bible Study

3) The third aspect of the study of
theology, he says, "is the careful and
diligent reading of the Scriptures or
sacred text." This he calls "the
highest method in the study of the
doctrine of the Church." To attain
this, the two former methods are to
be followed, that we may be well
prepared for the reading, under-
standing, and exposition of the
Scriptures. The creeds are not nor-
mative for Christian theology, but
they are directive. And they bear
a certain, not unsubstantial au-
thority. When we ask what does
Scripture teach, we must realize that
we are not working in a theological
vacuum. We are working within
the confessional tradition, which
does not have the status of defini-
tive revelation, but which does nev-
ertheless point us to the consensus of
Christian thought and to the con-
clusions which have been hammered
out in the fires of controversy.

What does the Church believe?
What are the doctrines of the Scrip-
tures? How are we to know what
a Christian professes, what a Chris-
tian is to profess? What is to guide
and govern and direct our preaching
and teaching in the Christian
Church? It is, of course, ultimately
the Scriptures, but it is the Scrip-
tures in all the unmistakableness
and clarity and brilliance and lustre
and splendor of them, as the great
truths about which there can be no
question, which are crystal clear, ir-
refutable and undeniable, caught up
as it were and given extra-Scrip-
tural, derivatively authoritative form
in the Church's confession of faith.

These confessions may not be
absolutized. They are, of course,
subject to emendation and correc-
tion, at whatever points at which
they may not be in accord with the
Word of God. But truth is truth,
and our preaching and teaching are
to be informed by that truth as the
Spirit has led the Church to under-
stand it in its great confessions. 11

PAGE 11 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 27, 1972

EDITORIALS

It's Important To Be Gonnectional

We were in Savannah when the
brethren of separated and indepen-
dent Presbyterian congregations de-
cided to form a presbytery to give
them a connectional "home" (See
Journal, Sept. 20.) While we wished
they had not gone as far as they did
towards finalizing a Church-type
structure, we can understand their
joy in the experience of once again
having a concrete relationship to
other brethren of like mind.

In fact, the most impressive thing
about the meeting, to us, was the
evident feeling of deep satisfaction
these brethren had in returning once
again, after an absence of years, to

a more New Testament form of the
Church than independence affords.

The experience has given us a
fresh insight into the problem of
independence within a connectional
relationship, for it is quite a prob-
lem indeed.

Multitudes of Presbyterians today
are to all practical purposes inde-
pendent, or congregational, though
they may belong after a fashion to
some Presbyterian denomination.

They are out of sympathy with
the parent body in many respects.
They enjoy no fellowship with oth-
ers in the same presbytery and have
no responsibility in the higher

When You Ordain Your Officers

About this time of the year
churches that practice the rotation
plan for elders or deacons are elect-
ing a new class of officers.

If your congregation is one of
these, some time between now and
the first of the year you will be or-
daining these in a public service of
worship.

For reasons best known to them-
selves, some ministers have written
their own questions to ask their of-
ficers at the time of their ordina-
tion. Other ministers have chosen
to use the ordination questions ap-
pearing in the Book of Common
Worship, or the Book of Order of
the United Presbyterian Church
USA.

This matter was brought to the
attention of the General Assembly
about ten years ago and the Assem-
bly said this:

"The General Assembly attaches
supreme importance to the neces-
sity of using the questions required
by the Constitution of the Presbyte-
rian Church in the United States
when officers of this Church assume
the vows of their office and consid-
ers them to be mandatory."

Here are the questions:

1. Do you believe the Scriptures of
the Old and New Testam. nts to be
the Word of God, the only infallible

rule of faith and practice?

2. Do you sincerely receive and
adopt the Confession of Faith and
the Catechisms of this Church, as
containing the system of doctrine
taught in the Holy Scriptures?

3. Do you promise that if at any
time you find yourself out of accord
with any of the fundamentals of this
system of doctrine, you will on your
own initiative make known to your
Session the change which has taken
place in your views since the as-
sumption of this ordination vow?

4. Do you approve the government
and discipline of the Presbyterian
Church in the United States?

5. Do you accept the office of Rul-
ing Elder (or Deacon) in this
church, and promise faithfully to
perform all the duties thereof, and
to endeavor by the grace of God, to
adorn the profession of the Gospel
in your life, and to set a worthy ex-
ample before the church of which
God has made you an officer?

6. Do you promise subjection to
your brethren in the Lord?

7. Do you promise to study the
peace, unity, edification and purity
of the Church?

It is worth noting that these are
the same vows required of ministers.

If your pastor does not use these
questions, give him a copy of this
editorial. SI

t

courts of the Church. They don't 1
support denominational causes, theyf1
don't use denominational literature,
they don't send their ministerial
candidates to denominational semi-
naries.

To all practical purposes, they
are like a husband, or wife, in a
marriage that has gone sour and that
has led to separate bedrooms.

The trouble is, too often they are
content with the relationship! Un-
like the brethren in Savannah, who
have had a taste of independence
and rejoice in the formation of a
connection to which they can glad-
ly give themselves, they are wi llingf
to continue a legal "marriage" un-
der conditions of de facto "divorce."

Sometimes they will even argue
that it is un-Scriptural and against
the will of God to abandon a pagan
connection and seek out a Church
relationship in the Lord that is ac-
cording to the historic Christian
faith. (At this point the "mar-
riage" illustration breaks down, for
believing congregations are not
"married" to unbelieving congrega-
tions in an indissoluble bond. The
spiritual "marriage" is between be-
lievers and the Lord Jesus Christ.)

When the time comes, we don't
know what it will take to persuade
Presbyterians to abandon their con-
gregational independence for a
more New Testament form of the
Church. This much we know: In
Savannah, we saw how important
a connectional relationship is in
practical Christian living. I

Our Counselor

Our counselor is the Spirit of
truth, the third person of the Trin-
ity, who bears witness to the truth.
He comes from our heavenly Father,
sent in Jesus' name, to teach us all
things, and we may receive Him
through repentance: "Repent and
be baptized every one of you in the
name of Jesus Christ for the for-
giveness of your sins; and you shall
receive the gift of the Holy Spirit"
(Acts 2:28) .

We must empty our hearts and
lives of all sin, then God will send
the Counselor into our hearts. "Je-
sus said to him, I am the way, the
truth, and the life; no one comes
to the Father, but by me" (John
14:6) .

Sinner, repent today. Receive
God's precious gift through His dear
Son. It is His wish that the Coun-

PAGE 12 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 27, 1972

THE LAYMAN AND HIS CHURCH

m

Two Trials

Lelbr dwell in every heart, and He
'jave His life that we might have
;his free gift. "It is to your ad-
vantage that I go away; for if I do
hot go away, the Counselor will not
home to you, but if I go, I will send
Him to you" (John 16:7). Repent,
believe, and receive Him as your
saviour today.

Christian, does He have all of
your heart? Or does He occupy on-
Fly a small part of it? Let H i m
liave full control today. Empty
wour heart of all bitterness, deceit,
resentment, prejudice, or whatever
may be there. Give Him all of your
heart. — Enise Kirby. El

'Brother' Is Not
A Universal Term

Someone has asked, "What do
you mean when you say the pro-
posed confession of faith is univer-
salist?"

The spirit of universalism appears
in many forms and not only in the
declaration that all men ultimately
shall be saved. For example, it ap-
pears in any universal application
of the word "brother" in any spiri-
tual sense.

The "brotherhood of man" is a
misnomer. The Bible never uses
the term "brother" in such a con-
text that all mankind may be in-
ferred.

To be sure the Scriptures recog-
nize and teach the universal obliga-
tion to love one's neighbor. And in
the doctrine of neighbor there is a
real universalism which includes ev-
ery person of whatever color, creed
or origin.

John Calvin wrote: "The precept
of the law, by which we are com-
manded to love our neighbor, is
general. In order to keep up the
exercise of brotherly love, God as-
sures us that all men are related by
a common nature. Whenever I see
a man I must, of necessity, behold
myself as in a mirror; for he is my
bone and my flesh" (Comm. on
Matt. 5:43) .

However, the natural relation,
which the Bible identifies as that of
neighbor, does not carry over into
the spiritual realm. There is no
use of the word brother in the New
Testament which can be taken as
universal. In Ephesians, the apos-
tle indicates that some are strangers
and foreigners, "aliens from the
commonwealth of Israel, having no
hope and without God in the world"

When Jesus Christ stood in the
dark before man there were two
trials going on, not one. On earth
He was condemned falsely and by
mockery. In His greater trial, how-
ever, He was convicted before the
bar of truth and justice. How so?
Because He stood before the judg-
ment of God in our place and was
judged as one who bore the sins of
the world.

Jesus, the man, had many to plead
for Him. Jesus, as man before God,
had no one to plead His cause. The
trials were held simultaneously. In
one an innocent man died. In the
other, justice was done, and evil was
condemned.

Jesus before His human judges
was defended by His accuser. Judas
repudiated his charges and told the
court he had charged an innocent
man. God — the righteous God —
saw Jesus representing mankind and
said, "Guilty."

As human judge, Pilate looked at
Jesus and told the people he could
find no guilt in this innocent man.

The layman's vieivpoint this week
is brought by James B. Copeland
Jr. an elder of Valdosta, Ga.

(Eph. 2:12). In Romans, brother-
hood is conferred in adoption, as be-
lievers become sons of God (Rom.
8:15) .

Our Lord Jesus frequently spoke
of those who were lost. Even the
Sermon on the Mount contains nu-
merous references to those "who
shall in no case enter the kingdom
of heaven," who shall be condemned
in judgment (Matt. 5:20, 22) . Je-
sus spoke of some who were to be
considered "sons of perdition"
(John 17:12).

The Christian truth is that there
are two primary relationships be-
tween men in the world, just as
there are two primary relationships
in regard to eternity. There is that
of neighbor, general and universal
in scope and application, but with-
out saving connotations. And there
is that of brother, particular and
special and in the Gospel only. El

God saw not His own Son but man,
lying, covetous, and backbiting. God
said, "Guilty."

The wife of the human judge
pleaded with her husband not
to have anything to do with this
just man, Jesus. God searched the
hearts and knew they were the most
deceitful of all, and He said, "Guil-
ty-"

The scribes and elders, conspira-
tors against Jesus, spoke mockingly
and with sarcasm, but they spoke
truth when they said, "He saved
others. He trusted God." God in
infinite wisdom knew and knows
that men will draw close to Him
with their lips, but in their hearts
they are far from Him. God said,
"Guilty."

A portion of the crowd followed
Jesus, crying for Him but failing to
move the hearts of those who would
crucify Him. Almighty God, im-
partial and all knowing, would not
hear the cry of the unrighteous. He
said, "Guilty."

Jesus, hanging on the cross was
defended by a thief. A man who
admitted his own guilt rebuked his
partner in crime and declared the
innocence of Jesus. God remem-
bered His own decree that sin would
bring death. He gave pure and ab-
solute justice when He said,
"Guilty."

Jesus had said He did not come
to destroy the law, but to fulfill the
law. On the cross He cried in
agony, "My God, my God, why hast
thou forsaken me?" God the creator
has given man the best of every-
thing, including a close relationship
with Himself. It was man who de-
serted God. As a righteous judge,
God pronounced judgment on sin-
ful man in the form of His own
Son, Jesus. "Guilty."

Jesus Christ, as man, suffered the
shame and the cruelty of the cross
to pay for the sins of man. Jesus
Christ, as the Lamb of God, bore
the penalty and accepted the judg-
ment of a righteous, holy God, the
judge.

In Jesus' precious name I beg
mercy, not justice, before God my
Father. El

PAGE 13 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 27, 1972

SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON

For October 15, 1972

ti

The Sexual Revolution

INTRODUCTION: Part of the
problem, perhaps most of the prob-
lem, having to do with the so-called
sexual revolution of today is reflect-
ed in a title of today's lesson: "Ex-
ploitation of Persons." The prob-
lem is often approached from the
view of sin against man, not God.
Therefore, all kinds of remedies to
"protect" people from exploitation
in sex are being devised, often by
the help or with the blessings of
some churches and denominations.
Thus we hear such terms as "con-
senting adults," "new morality,"
"pills for teenagers," "abortion
laws," etc.

This lesson approaches the whole
matter primarily from the point of
view of the sin against God. In the
beginning, God made man, male
and female, in His image and very
good. He made mankind with the
ability to reproduce and command-
ed them to do so (Gen. 1:27-28),
but all was in the context of the
home and marriage. This seems
quite evident from Genesis 2:23-24
which Jesus himself quoted later to
describe the sanctity of the home
and marriage (Matt. 19:4-6; see al-
so I Cor. 6:16; Eph. 5:31) .

Furthermore, throughout the his-
tory of God's dealing with His peo-
ple, He does so in the context of
the family. Thus, when God called
Abraham, He called his wife also
and promised His blessings on Abra-
ham in terms of a seed. Specifical-
ly, He promised to bless Abraham
and his family in the context of
faithful parental instruction.

We have the clearest expression of
God's purpose: God has known
(chosen) Abraham so that he may
command his children and house-
hold after him (thus all is in the
context of a family) , so that they
may keep the Lord's way (doing
righteousness and justice) , so that
the Lord may bring on Abraham
all that He has promised (Gen. 18:
19) . Here the chain of responsibil-
ity and consequent blessings are
quite evident as all is in the context
of the family.

Any act or thought which violates

Rev. Jack B. Scott

Background Scripture: Exodus 20:
14; Proverbs 7; Matthew 5:27-
30; I Corinthians 7; I Thessa-
lonians 4:1-8

Key Verses: I Corinthians 7:1-7; I
Thessalonians 4:1-8

Devotional Reading: Matthew 7:21-
29

Memory Selection: I Corinthians 6:
19-20

God's purpose is a sin against God,
primarily, and must be seen as such.
Those who tamper with God's pur-
pose in establishing the family and
marriage as a channel of God's bless-
ings are in violating God's will, not
simply exploiting humans.

I. THE ACT OF VIOLATION.
The seventh commandment specifi-
cally forbids adultery, which is any
sexual act which breaks the bonds
of a marriage (Exo. 20:14). It is
viewed as a very serious sin in the
Old Testament, because it is a vio-
lation of the home and improper, a
use of sex outside of God's purpose,
a perversion of what God has willed
(Lev. 20:10).

The seriousness of the sin is seen
in the solemn pronouncement of
death to all violators. Associated
with this sin are evidently also all
sexual perversions, such as incest
(Lev. 20:11-12), homosexuality or
lesbianism (Lev. 20:13) and other
sexual perversions (Lev. 20:15-16).
All such acts are primarily against
God and His purpose and are pun-
ishable by death.

One of the most memorable inci-
dents of adultery in Scripture is that
of David. In one act of adultery,
David destroyed his own home and
one of his good soldiers, Uriah.
Never did his own home know peace
again. Amnon, his son, raped one
of David's daughters, Tamar; Absa-
lom, a full brother to Tamar, mur-
dered Amnon, then later sought to
kill his own father and commit adul-
tery before all Israel. Solomon,
David's son by Bathsheba, the wife of

The International Sunday School Lesson Outlines
are copyrighted 1972 by the Committee on the
Uniform Series of the National Council of Churches
of Christ.

Uriah, in his latter days married
many foreign women and gave him
self over to sexual orgies. All of this
reflected the sinful act of David him
self. Here is a vivid lesson of the ter-
ror of consequences when lawlessly
seeking a few minutes of carnal
pleasure.

The clear relationship between
sexual perversions and rejection of
God is cited in Romans. Men re-
ject God (and therefore God's law) ;
this leads to lives lived carnally, not
controlled, not bound but g i v e ni
over to evil lust. This leads further
to perversions of sex use; to homo-
sexuality and lesbianism and the fi-
nal outcome is seen in all kinds of
sin and rebellion (1:18-32).

Other evidence of the relation-
ship between faithlessness to God
and adultery is seen in chapters 1-9
of Proverbs, in an admonition to a
young man by his father. The father-
son motif which is seen throughout
this section of Proverbs is no doubt
related to God's command in Deut.
6:4, where parents are told to in
struct their children in the Word
of God.

Here in Proverbs, the father
taught his son by the use of personi
fication of good and evil by two
women whom we may call Lady
Wisdom and Mistress Evil. Lady
Wisdom is commended because life
with her glorifies God and teaches
God's will. She is good and brings
happiness to all who know her (3:
13-18).

In contrast, Mistress Evil is paint
ed as a harlot. She is called a
strange woman and her paths lead
to death (2:16-19) . We have a word
picture of her seductive ways and a
vivid description of how her seduc-
tion entraps the young man (7:5-
23).

She is introduced as the strange
woman, foreign (i.e. not one with
whom he should associate) . The boy
in this account is called the simple
one because, ignoring God's will, he
follows her lead. He passes near
her corner, and this indicates that
he is where he ought not to be in
the first place. He comes in the

PAGE 14 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 27, 1972

:vening, trying to use the darkness
is a cover.

He is no match for her clever-
less. She invites him into her home,
iescribing all the glamour of an eve-
ning with her. She is apparently a
named woman, so that adultery is
dearly involved here. By her words
;he entices him (Prov. 7:7-11, 15-18,
19-20) .

The description of his submission
:o her is classic. He is like a dumb
dx going to slaughter. He thinks of
ill the carnal pleasure he shall have
until it is too late and the act is
lone and he has ruined his life
(Prov. 7:22-23).

Mistress Evil represents all the
svil of the world that seduces a
young man from God, but it is sig-
nificant that she is portrayed as a
trarlot. Violation of the home and
marriage is representative of all that
is rebellious against God.

II. THE SEED OF VIOLATION.
In the giving of the Ten Com-
mandments, God made very clear
that not only the overt act, but also
the very thought of the heart mat-
ters to Him and is judged by Him.
Thus the tenth commandment is ob-
viously concerned with the sin of
the heart. Not only must we not
commit adultery (the act forbidden
by the seventh commandment) , but
we must not covet our neighbor's
wife either (the tenth command-
ment) .

After all, David's sin did not be-
gin with the act of adultery with
Bathsheba. It began with the de-
sire in his heart to have sexual in-
tercourse with her. While we can-
not be sure that he sinned as his
eyes fell on her naked body (II
Sam. 11:2), we can be certain that
when he inquired about her he was
in his heart sinning already, for he
was a married man at the time (II
Sam. 11:3).

One is today constantly confronted
with seductive allurements. You do
not have to go to an X-rated mov-
ie or "adult bookstores" to find them.
They walk down the streets of every
town, dressed more scantily than
people used to dress when going
about in the privacy of their own
homes. Pictures confront our eyes
in numerous advertisements daily.
On billboards, in magazines, on TV,
we see scenes that should shame us
all. They are designed to sell pro-
ducts, but at the same time they can
provoke to lustful thoughts. This
is the world we live in today.

At this point it becomes primarily
a matter of the heart. Nothing can
be done to avoid constant exposure
to temptation to mental adultery.
Therefore the heart must be con-
stantly guarded.

This is actually the point of the
lesson in Proverbs. The fa-
ther, exhorting his son to be-
ware the wiles of the seductress,
charged him: "Keep thy heart with
all diligence; for out of it are the
issues of life" (4:23) . By the term "is-
sues of life" he meant exactly what
Jesus did when He explained that
the things that proceed (issue) out
of the mouth, come forth out of the
heart. They defile the man (Matt.
15:18-20). So all the thoughts of
the heart are the origin of all sins.
It is there that every conceivable sin
is rooted. We begin our sin in our
hearts.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Je-
sus applied this principle directly
to adultery. He taught: "Every one
that looketh on a woman to lust af-
ter her hath committed adultery
with her already in his heart" (Matt.
5:27) . The words Jesus used show
that there must be evil intent in the
heart for the sin of adultery to be
there. All of us are continually
faced with seductive scenes wherev-
er we go, but it is what we think in
our hearts when so confronted that
determines whether we are faithful
to God. It is not sin to be tempt-
ed. Jesus was tempted. It is sin to
give place to temptation and in-
dulge it in the heart (your inner-
most thoughts) .

Temptations do not come from
God (Jas. 1:13). Nevertheless, Pe-
ter said that we can rejoice when
tempted, for God uses such tempta-
tions to test our faith. When con-
fronted by temptation, the demand
on the Christian is to reject it in
faithfulness to God and His Word
(I Pet. 1:6-9). Jesus, tempted by
Satan, nevertheless threw off each
temptation as He appealed to the
authority of God's Word for his life
(Matt. 4:1-11).

Sin also comes when temptation
leads to lust and enticement (Jas.
1:14-15). One could reason that a
man's thoughts hurt no one. He
may lust for a married woman, but
so long as he does not commit the
act of adultery with her he has not
harmed her. Thus, this could not
be called an exploitation of her. He
could reason that reading "adult
magazines" hurts no one, since he
simply gets his sexual kicks vi-

cariouly.

The lesson of God's Word is pre-
cisely that such thoughts and seem-
ingly "harmless" acts do indeed vio-
late God's will and purpose, wheth-
er or not they are actually carried
into open action with another per-
son. The whole point is that such
thoughts do violate God's will. God
judges sin in the heart, not just
when the act is committed.

Furthermore, in adultery or forni-
cation (sexual acts between two un-
married people) it does not matter
whether both adults consent. It is
still a violation of God's intent and
expressed will for marriage in the
home. Wife-swapping, where hus-
band and wife consent to sexual re-
lations with other partners, is
against God's will. What men think
does not change God's will. Men
cannot annul God's will by their
own consent or agreement.

III. THE ALTERNATIVES
FOR THE CHRISTIAN. Scripture
offers just two choices for the be-
liever in respect to the matter we
have been discussing. God ordained
marriage and the home and blessed
this purpose. The believer who
marries a fellow believer (I Cor. 7:
39; II Cor. 6:14-15) is approved by
God.

In the bond of marriage, sexual
relationships are lawful and good
(I Cor. 7:2-5) . Nevertheless, even
in the bonds of marriage, all rela-
tionships must be in Christian love,
not in selfishness but in tenderness
and love (Eph. 5:24-25, 28-29) . The
very example of Christ's tender love
for His Church is held up as the
high ideal for every Christian mar-
riage. Compare I Thessalonians 4:
1-8.

The alternative to marriage for
the Christian is to remain a virgin
(I Cor. 7:8, 25-27). Such a choice
is apparently given to few. They
have some special gift to remain vir-
ginal throughout life. By doing so,
they are freer to serve Christ (I
Cor. 7:32-34) . None can deny, in the
light of this, that it is quite proper
for a Christian man or woman to
remain single and never have sex-
ual relations with another.

However, such who have, or think
they have, this gift must examine
themselves in the light of all the
Scripture. If one has this gift to
remain single, then it applies not
only to his overt acts but his very
thoughts (I Cor. 7:9) . The same
law applies to all. The unmarried

PAGE 15 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 27, 1972

Christian must also stay free of all
evil thoughts, desires for sexual re-
lationships with another, and all vi-
carious means of sex (going to X-
rated movies, reading "adult maga-
zines," etc) . If they cannot do this,
then they ought to marry. This is
plainly what Paul said.

CONCLUSION: Once again I
think it is important to stress that
the sin of adultery is primarily
against God's will. To ignore or
forget this makes us susceptible to
the current arguments for the "new

morality" and various associated
propaganda such as consenting
adults, abortion, pills for teenagers,
wife-swapping, etc.

In many cases Church courts have
already gone far down the path
with the world in trying to keep
"relevant." Adultery and all related
acts and thoughts are first and fore-
most an attack against God's will
for the home and marriage.

Of course, it is also a sin against
man. David sinned first against the
Lord and secondarily against Uriah
and Bathsheba. He also sinned

against his own wife and children,
but primarily he sinned against God.
This is exactly what he recognized
and confessed (Psa. 51:4).

It is easy to rationalize that in
certain circumstances it is not wrong
but "beautiful" to have a sexual re-
lationship with another outside the
bonds of marriage and the home if1
the only factor is whether the per-
sons involved are being exploited J
or have consented. If we see it as'
primarily a sin against the Lord,
then there is no rationalization
against God's express will. E

ft

St

in
h

01

YOUTH PROGRAM

Scripture: Mark 2:1-12
Suggested Hymns:

"All Hail the Power of Jesus'
Name"

"Just as I Am without One
Plea"

"My Faith Looks up to Thee"

PROGRAM LEADER'S INTRO-
DUCTION: The incidents from the
earthly ministry of Jesus which are
recorded in the Gospels of the New
Testament are very revealing. We
can know the kind of person Jesus
is by giving thought to these words
and descriptions. When we see and
know Jesus as He is, we also see
and know God. Jesus is God, and
He came to earth to reveal God's
nature to mankind.

This passage from the second
chapter of Mark follows the pattern.
These words describe our Lord's
dealings with three different kinds
of people, and in them we learn a
great deal about our God and Sav-
iour.

FIRST SPEAKER: While the
main character in this incident, oth-
er than Jesus himself, was the pal-
sied man, the Lord's first response
was to the four people who carried
the sick man to Him. These were
men of faith. The words of Scrip-
ture tell us that Jesus took notice
of their faith and responded to it.

This was not a cheap faith, not

For October 15, 1972

Jesus Saves and Heals

Rev. B. Hoyt Evans

a matter of their merely saying the
words "I believe." Their confidence
in Jesus was such that they went to
considerable trouble in order to get
their friend into Jesus' presence.
They had carried him, probably on
a litter, to the house where Jesus
was, but there were so many people
crowding the place that they could
not take their friend inside.

At this point their faith and their
ingenuity combined to do a rather
spectacular thing. They carried
their afflicted friend to the roof of
the house, removed some of the
roofing material in order to make
an opening over the place where Je-
sus was, and then lowered the man,
bed and all, into the presence of Je-
sus. Jesus acknowledged their faith
and helped their friend.

It is not correct to think that God
cannot work except when men be-
lieve in Him. There are many in-
stances in the Bible of God's per-
forming mighty works when there
was no faith in those who looked on.
When we do have faith, however,
God responds to it and He himself
is honored by it. In every way the
Lord is deserving of our belief in
Him. Let us exercise our faith in
order that His name may be praised
and that we may be blessed.

in
k

!

!

i

SECOND SPEAKER: In response
to the faith of the four friends, Je-
sus did something for the sick man.

In fact, He did more than they ex
pected or asked. He dealt with him
in a way that must have surprised
both the man and his friends. He
first looked on him and said, "Son,
thy sins be forgiven thee." The
crippled man and his companions
were undoubtedly more concerned
about his physical affliction, but Je
sus dealt first with his spiritual sick-
ness. It was more important.

Jesus knew that the salvation of
the man's immortal soul was more
important than the health of his
physical body, but the Lord did not
ignore his physical need. He mirac-
ulously restored the man's health
and strength, and ordered him to
show that he was healed by carry
ing his own bed and going his way
home. To the amazement of all he
did just that.

The point made by Jesus is still
very important. There is still a
tendency to think that our bodies
are more important than our souls
and that time is more important
than eternity. Jesus put matters in
their proper order, and so should
we. It is not that the need of the
people for food, clothing, and medi-
cine is unimportant. Those needs
are important, but their need to
have their sins forgiven is greater.
We need to remember this as we
establish our own personal goals for
life and as we engage in Christian
witness and service.

PAGE 16 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 27, 1972

THIRD SPEAKER: Jesus also
iad a word for His critics, the
cribes. These were the skeptics who
[uestioned His ability and His
;oodness. When Jesus spoke the
yords of forgiveness to the sick man,
he immediate reaction of the
cribes was to accuse Him of blas-
>hemy.

Their reasoning was partially cor-
ed. They were saying to them-
elves that only God could forgive
ins, and they were right in saying
They were wrong in that they
efused to admit that Jesus was God.
Then Jesus did something that
vould have helped them to believe,
f their doubt had been honest. He
aid, "Whether is it easier to say to
he sick of the palsy, Thy sins be
brgiven thee, or to say, Arise, take
lp thy bed and walk?"

The scribes reasoned correctly
igain that divine power would be
equired to do either one. Then
[esus healed the man and ordered
;he man to take up his bed and
/valk. The doubters could see this
with their eyes and there could be
10 debate about it.

The Lord is still patient with
those who have honest doubts. He
is still giving clear answers and
strong assurances to those who real-
ly want to know the truth. If there
ire things we are unsure about, then
Let us give Him opportunity to speak
to us with clarity and certainty. If
we know others who are beset by sin-
cere doubts, let us be as patient with
them as Jesus is, without conceding
any truth we hold.

PROGRAM LEADER: It is surely
comforting and reassuring to know
that the same Jesus who dealt power-
fully and lovingly with people long
ago still lives to show us His pa-
tience, to minister to our spiritual
and physical needs, and to respond
to our faith with His power and
love.

Closing Prayer.

m

WANTED: Dormitory leaders for church-
related high school located in northeast-
ern Georgia. WOMAN to be assistant
housemother in girls dormitory: Christian
experience either with own children or
as youth worker. MAN experienced in
work with teen-age youth: Christian, to
serve as relief houseparent at two boys'
dorms, recreation leader, assistant to
Dean of Students. Would consider cou-
ple who could work as a team to handle
both tasks. Call or write: Rabun Gap —
Nacoochee School, Rabun Gap, Georgia
30568.

PASSPORT TO LIFE CITY, by
Sherwood Wirt. Good News Publish-
ers, Westchester, III. Paper, 121 pp.
$.95. Reviewed by the Rev. A. Cul-
ver Gordon, pastor, United Presbyte-
rian Church of Paterson, Paterson,
N. J.

A Modern Pilgrim's Progress is
the subtitle of this book by the edi-
tor of the world's largest magazine,
Decision, now bigger than Life.
"God in your heart" is the keynote
of Chris Ander's search for the heav-
enly city and of the various men
who helped him on the way.

Maybe you don't like change very
much (I preferred it when we had
48 states instead of 50) , but it
is all around us, some good and
some bad. It was inevitable that
someone would put Pilgrim's Pro-
gress into modern dress, and Editor
Wirt has done a good job. I started
Bunyan's classic a number of times
as a boy — largely from a sense of
duty — and I can't remember if I
ever got all the way through, al-
though, of course, I read the ending.
But I read this book all the way
through, and I hope you will too.

Chris Anders (meaning "man")
starts out not with a burden on his
shoulders but with an increasingly
unbearable pain in his back, which
started with reading the New Testa-
ment. He leaves his sadly divided
home, his alienated children and his
disillusioned wife, and gets in his
Mustang. He meets "Evangelist"
now called Ernie van Gelst, Guy
Wise (Worldly Wisemen) , O. B.
Stennett (Obstinate) , etc., etc., on
his incident-packed journey.

However, Wirt subtly changes the
action. It is not apparent at the be-
ginning that we have a modern man

BOOKS

looking for a heavenly city. Rather,
it is the story of a modern man
fleeing an increasingly unsatisfactory
life in a typical suburban setting.
His life and his family are falling
apart, and the pain in his back is
getting to the point that it must be
dealt with. The motivation is like
Augustine, "Because Thou hast
made us for Thyself, O God, our
heart is restless until it rests in
Thee." The journey becomes a
progress through a polluted stream,
the healing of the pain, various ad-
ventures and finally the city of
life. IS

DAWN OVER AMAZONIA, by
James and Marti Hefley. Word Books,
Waco, Tex. 193 pp. $4.95. Reviewed
by Mrs. Marjorie P. Singer, Salisbury,
N. C.

Here is a story of a quarter of a
century's dedicated service in Peru
by many of the Wycliffe Bible
Translators and the Summer Insti-
tute of Linguistics. More especially
is it the diary, in free-flowing nar-
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The Hefleys spent a summer "liv-
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bers of the organization started by
Cameron Townsend, and they tell
the story of the God-inspired and
God-directed organization which has
over 2,500 members serving 513
groups in 23 countries. The locale
in which the authors worked and
gained their exciting and authentic
information is Peru.

Much research and information of
spiritual, social and scientific na-
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ed by others, are here bound up in
the very readable adventures of this

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PAGE 17 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 27, 1972

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PAGE 18 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 27, 1972

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PAGE 19 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 27, 1972

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PAGE 20 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 27, 1972

rOL. XXXI, NO. 23 OCTOBER 4, 1972 $4.00 A YEAR

the

PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL

dvocating continuation of a Presbyterian Church loyal to Scripture and the Reformed faith

Democrat, Republican or
Independent

We must guard against any glib or easy identification of
the will of the people with the will of God. Sometimes the
vox -populi is the vox Dei. Sometimes it is not ....

It is clearly the duty of a Christian to vote as a Christian.
No party platform, and certainly no selfish desires, should be
allowed to usurp the place of his religious principles. Allegiance
to the Gospel must come before allegiance to a political party.
Allegiance to Christ must come before allegiance to a candidate.

— Handel H. Brown
(See p. 7)

S. S. LESSON AND YOUTH PROGRAM FOR OCTOBER 22

moo

ra<63 DM IITH IQdBHQ
117 OR jo J^-fStzaA-pup
uofioeixoo 0 M

MAILBAG

A STUDENT'S VIEW

I have just read your June 21 edi-
torial, "The Louisville Story," here
in Guatemala City where I am
spending an intern year as a student
of Louisville Presbyterian Seminary.
(The Journal arrives by sea mail;
thus the tardy reply.) You state that

for Terrence Davis, " out of convic-
tions no doubt acquired in seminary,
(he) has decided that obedience to
God leads him to the Communist
Party." In all fairness to Louisville
Seminary, I believe you should pre-
sent to your readers "The Other
Louisville Story.'

the

PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL

Rev. G. Aiken Taylor, Ph.D., Editor
Rev. Henry B. Dendy, D.D., Managing Editor
William G. Bolus, Assistant Editor

Circulation leader among independent publications in the Presbyterian-Reformed world

THIS WEEK-

Vol. XXXI, No. 23, October 4, 1972

Voting as Christians 7

It is clearly the duty of a Christian to vote as a Christian
citizen By Handel H. Brown

Indian Summer 8

By D. E. Parkerson

Dealing With Stress 9

God is faithful to supply with His testing a means of
escape By H. Marcus Collins

Straight Talk 11

As Christians evangelize, they must also grow spiritually
within By Ben Wilkinson

De partments —

Editorials 1 2

The Layman and his Church 13

Sunday School Lesson, October 22 14

Youth Program, October 22 16

Book Reviews . 17

THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL, a POSTMASTER: Send Form 3579 to

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gation of the Gospel, the faith which should allow three weeks for change

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Louisville Presbyterian Seminar) i;
does not lead students to the Com y
munist Party. In my two years or
campus, I saw no Communist flit
tering between the campus building; »
or hiding behind library stacks.

As a student at Louisville I have t
learned that Jesus offers a revolu
tion which will bury Communism
hatred, violence and greed in its
wake. Out of convictions strength
ened and expanded by studying at
Louisville Presbyterian, I have de
cided that obedience to God leads
me to Guatemala City to conduct
Bible study lessons for youth, to min-
ister to retarded and deserted chil-
dren at a local orphanage, and to
witness Presbyterian mission work
firsthand. Not one of Louisville's
professors has weakened my faith in
Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour.
Rather, they have encouraged me in
the paths I am pursuing.

Sir, the Holy Spirit is at work in
Louisville Presbyterian, inspiring
students such as myself to pursue
the Christian ministry with vigor
and intelligent enthusiasm. Your
June 21 editorial eagerly seeks to es-
tablish the works of the devil. Won't
you at least offer the Spirit equal
space?

— David A. Layman
Guatemala, C. A.

TAKE IT SERIOUSLY?

There are certainly issues to be
debated in the process of writing a
new confession. These may include
whether the proposed confession
should be theologically restrictive or
inclusive, representative of all
opinions now in a Church or a de-
fense of a particular orthodoxy, a
concise summary of the whole of
faith or addressed specifically to a
few limited topics. These should
be debated and discussed by all
those, conservative or liberal, con-!
cerned for the Church's corporate
witness.

On the other hand, Clydie's re-
cent offering seems to be little
more than a playing with words.
Surely, for instance, the use of
"may" in the proposed draft indi-
cates permission ("You may not go
out and play") , rather than am-
biguity of purpose, as the article
seemed to argue. This kind of treat-
ment of a very important subject is
certainly less than helpful in the de-
bate on the issues raised by the new
confessional draft.

If this is really the best you can
do, perhaps it would be better if

M

/ou would stick to publishing the
Sunday school and youth programs
knd leave the discussion of the is-
sues to others. Certainly, the con-
servative side of the issues can be
presented better than that. Your
irandling of the matter in this way
>eems destructive of the high man-
ner in which theological discussion
should be carried out.

— (Rev.) Robert R. Hann
Philadelphia, Pa.

THIS AND THAT

I commend you for your article
on "Focus." I cannot see how any
Christian can condone such a publi-
cation. Actions such as this cause
me to feel that evil forces within
the Church have taken my Church
from me.

— Priscilla W. Utterback
Durant, Okla.

• When we started out for Atlanta
and the latest meeting of the new
General Executive Board (see p. 5,
this issue) , someone long associated
with us in the life of the Church
asked, "What's this General Execu-
tive Board you're going to?" It left
us a bit frustrated. If those closest
to the scene don't know what's go-
ing on, how can we expect to ex-
plain to casual Journal readers
what revolutionary changes have
taken place in the operations of the
the Presbyterian Church US? It's
been four months since the General
Assembly meeting in Montreat and
this was the second meeting of the
body which is taking over the jobs
of all the boards and agencies of the
Church. We expect to have some
editorial comments in the next is-
sue. This time we have tried to tell
in as objective a fashion as possible
what these people did. Their three-
day meetings are scheduled every
other month, with divisions au-
thorized to meet in the interim
when necessary. On alternate
dates the meeting is supposed to in-
clude a Sunday (presumably to
benefit the laymen) , and on alter-
nate dates no Sunday (presumably
to benefit the pastors) .

MINISTERS

D. P. McGeachy III, has resigned
the pastorate of Westminster
church, Nashville, to enter the
field of writing and the ministry
of contemporary worship, eff.
Jan. 1.

Joseph D. Beale from Anderson,
S. G, to the Reidville-Antioch
churches, Reidville, S. C.

C. Linwood Cheshire Jr., from
Greensboro, N. C, to the First
Church, Wadesboro, N. C.

Arthur S. Gatewood, recent grad-
uate of Union Seminary, Rich-
mond, Va., to the First Church,
Albemarle, N. C, as associate pas-
tor.

Charles L. Landrum Jr., from
Suffolk, Va., to the Davis Me-
morial church, Elkins, W. Va.

• The process of getting used to a
radical new setup and a radical new
"life style" is a difficult one, even for
those most intimately acquainted
with the Church's machinery (of
whom there are relatively few on
the new GEB) . In general, the body
has not proceeded far beyond the
point where they know they are in
charge and they are determined to
do everything differently from the
way it has been done before. The
result sometimes was contradictions
in decisions and conflicts in debate.
It reminded us of the third day of
the Salerno invasion during World
War II when we were hanging on
by our toenails and the outcome of
the beachhead was in doubt. If these
people can get going, the adopted
restructuring may work. Much more
like the Atlanta experience and the
whole operation will come apart.

• The Athens, La., church en-
joys a family participation on its
session which we believe to be

Jack C. Oates III, from Oxford,
Miss., to the First Church, Clin-
ton, S. C.

James H. Patterson, Atlanta, Ga.,
has been called by the Westmin-
ster church, Chattanooga, Tenn.

Robert B. Smith from Tupelo,
Miss., to the First Church, Mid-
land, Tex.

Stephen B. Woodward from Ross-
ville, Ga., to graduate study, Uni-
versity of Aberdeen, Scotland.

DEATH

Archie C. Smith, 67, executive
of Southwest Georgia Presbytery,
died Sept. 18. He was assistant
to the stated clerk of the General
Assembly from 1955 to 1958.

unique in all Presbyterian history.
Three generations of one family are
among the active elders: Joe A.
Marsalis, James E. Marsalis and
James E. Marsalis Jr. — father, son
and grandson. The family descends
from a founder of the congregation,
originally a Cumberland church
(1858) , then a United Presbyterian
church (1958) , and now PCUS. ffl

All Elders

ACROSS THE EDITOR'S DESK

PAGE 3 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 4, 1972

NEWS OF RELIGION

Bible Societies Hold World Assembly

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (RNS) —
Some 170 delegates from more than
70 countries were present when Em-
peror Haile Selassie of Ethiopia for-
mally opened the first World Assem-
bly of the 26-year-old United Bible
Societies (UBS) in Africa Hall here,
Sept. 25.

The UBS links together 50 Bible
Societies throughout the world. Half
the delegates here were from their
staffs and half drawn from a repre-
sentative cross section of Churches
and related organizations.

Theme of the Assembly was "Let
The Word Speak." This was sug-
gested by Dr. Olivier Beguin, UBS
General Secretary until his death in
Britain last Easter, who was respon-
sible for the basic planning of the
conference. The Assembly had three
official languages — English, French
and Spanish.

Preparatory work for the Assem-
bly was done in study groups, pre-
dominantly of young people, which
were called together by national Bi-
ble Societies during the past year.
They have considered ways in which
the societies can more effectively "set
free" the Word of God in the mod-
ern world and their findings were
summarized and sent to delegates.

The greater part of the Assembly
program was taken up with small

LAOS — A Christian relief agency
has expanded its work to include
development of indigenous and self-
supporting programs.

Before 1971, Laotian operations of
World Vision International were al-
most entirely in the area of relief,
but over the past few months, a sew-
ing school has been organized for
refugees, fishing equipment distri-
buted, a new water supply for a site
in northern Laos funded, and con-
tributions made to an opium reha-
bilitation center.

Relief activities continue, accord-
ing to Don Scott, WVI director for

working groups, in which delegates
dealt with questions posed by an
opening multi-media presentation.
This was a survey of the Bible in
the world, specially prepared in Hol-
land and related to the conference
theme.

It highlighted the various situa-
tions in which the Bible is being
translated, published and distrib-
uted, and pinpointed the questions
which arise for the Bible societies.

Chaplain to the Assembly was the
Rev. John Mpaayei, formerly execu-
tive secretary of the Bible Society
of East Africa. He is now working
on a new translation of the New
Testament into Masai, his native
language. He led worship sessions.

40 Members

A number of new member soci-
eties, recommended by the Gen-
eral Committee were approved
bringing the total to 40 full
members and 15 associate mem-
bers. Among them are the Bible
societies in Chile, Colombia, Ethio-
pia, Ghana, Madagascar, Peru,
Venezuela and Zaire (full members) ,
and Bolivia, Iran, Kenya, Thailand
and the West Indies (associates) .

Founded in 1946, the United Bi-
ble Societies share a common world

Laos, 1,094 metric tons of relief
goods having been distributed in the
past year. The Laotian Ministry of
Social Welfare received 50 per cent
of 54,093 food kits and the remain-
der was distributed by other relief
agencies.

Mr. Scott reported that there are
now 300,000 registered refugees in
Laos.

World Vision spent $19,000 in
building and equipping a new hos-
pital in Vientiane for students, and
it also helps to support 122 orphans.
Mr. Scott said child care operations
cost about SI, 000 per month. EE

service budget and have specialist
staff members to coordinate then ,
activities in Bible translation, pro
duction and distribution, working
through regional offices in Nairo-
bi, Mexico, Singapore and Bassers 1
dorf, Switzerland. EE

War Protesters Disrupt
Leighton Ford Crusade

c

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo, i
(RNS) — Four anti-war protesters
were arrested during the nine-day
Leighton Ford Crusade here at
Memorial Park.

Members of Clergy and Laity Con-
cerned (CLC) , they had been passing
out leaflets to the crowd. About 15
persons were in the group, but the
four arrested were attempting to!
push through the gates into the ball
park where the crusade was held, i

Three of the protesters posted
$25 bond and were released, but the
fourth refused, saying she would
stay in jail until Leighton Ford post-
ed bond. Mr. Ford was not aware of
the situation and she was held in
jail overnight.

The four protesters were to be ar- !
raigned in Municipal Court at a
later date on the charge of passing-
out pamphlets in a public park.

Mr. Ford, an evangelist and
brother-in-law of evangelist Billy
Graham, held a nine-day "Reachout
Crusade" at Memorial Park. While
the crusade staff was aware that anti-
war protesters were in the audience
and passing out literature, a spokes-
man said Mr. Ford "was unaware of
the arrests and had earlier given
strict instructions to the ushers not
to interfere with the peace group.

Those handing out the leaflets
urged people attending the crusade
to put them into the collection bas-
kets in place of money.

Mr. Ford, a vice-president of Billy
Graham Association, spoke on the
issue the following night. He said, in
part:

"I want you to know that we've
made it plain that everybody, regard-
less of what opinion they hold, are
welcome to come here to the Reach-
out. The decision to arrest the four
people was not made by any member
of the team or committee."

THE CHURCH OVERSEAS

PAGE 4 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 4, 1972

THE CHURCH AT HOME

4$

GEB Wrestles With Its New 'Life Style'

k Some 3,000 to 4,000 persons at-
3r( ended rallies during the nine-day
neeting.

"Military night" drew a crowd o£
nore than 3,000 to hear Mr. Ford
ind his special guest, astronaut
james Irwin.

Other guests that evening included
Maj. Gen. Thomas E. Fitzpatrick,
leputy chief of staff for plans in
:ombat development, Air Defense
Command; Maj. Gen. H. A. Hanes,
/ice-commander Aerospace Defense
Command, and Col. John Budner,
:ommander of 4600 Air Base Wing,
Ent Air Force Base, all Colorado
Springs military installations.

Wives of three prisoners of war
also attended the crusade.

Astronaut Irwin led a special
prayer for all men who are prisoners
of war or missing in action. He asked
the governments involved to make
the right decisions to insure the re-
lease of the men, and that God con-
tinue to give hope and courage to
the men and families affected. I±3

Congregation Honors
2 Olympic Wrestlers

COMSTOCK, Wis. (RNS) — Two
young men who brought back
Olympic medals they won in West
Germany were praised by their pas-
tor at a gathering in their honor.

Ben and John Peterson "used
their wrestling ability to tell about
their own relationship with Christ,"
said the Rev. Donald Toney, pastor
of the Evangelical Free church,
! where the brothers are active mem-
bers.

Some 4,000 persons gathered in a
farm field outsde the small town to
| welcome home the two young men.

Ben, 22, won a gold medal in the
198- >ound freestyle wrestling divi-
sion, and John, 24, won a silver med-
al in the 181-pound class.

Gov. Patrick Lucey of Wisconsin
called the brothers "gentle strong-
men" and proclaimed the day as
"John and Ben Peterson Day"
throughout the state.

A huge banner along Main Street
saluted the two wrestlers. It said:
"Home School of Ben and John
Peterson, U.S.A. Olympic Freestyle
Wrestling Medalists." El

ATLANTA — Wrestling with admit-
ted frustrations, acknowledging con-
fusion and aware of internal hostili-
ties, the new General Executive
Board of the Presbyterian Church
US adjourned its three-day Septem-
ber session on Sunday after ham-
mering out a number of introductory
policy decisions.

Amid interminable debate over de-
tails and occasionally flaring tem-
pers, the 62-member governing board
which is replacing all PCUS boards
and agencies approved a recommen-
dation to underscore the Church's
interest in ethnic groups, with spe-
cific mention of blacks, Mexican
Americans and American Indians.

There were no executives present
from the program boards the GEB
is replacing. This prompted a re-
solution to "encourage" the execu-
tives to attend the next meeting in
November.

For the first time, the GEB divid-
ed itself into five major working
divisions, and part of the meeting
was spent in getting the divisions
organized. Elected chairmen of the
divisions were:

National Mission, the Rev. John
H. McKinnon; International Mis-
sion, the Rev. D.P. McGeachy III;
Corporate and Social Ministries, the
Rev. Thomas L. Jones; Professional
Development, the Rev. A.M. Hart;
Central Support Services, the Rev.
F. Well ford Hobbie.

When it was realized that all five
division heads were ministers, and
men, a long discussion ensued which
resulted in two major decisions: 1)
The word "chairman" will be avoid-
ed, as out of keeping with the "open
life style" adopted by the GEB for
all its operations. Instead, "con-
venor" will be used (for the GEB
chairman, too) until someone comes
up with a better name.

2) All membership lists, commit-
tee and division lists, and personnel
references, will avoid designations
of "Rev.," "Mr.,"' "Mrs.," "Miss," or

even the "Ms." which the board had
already begun using. Instead, all
persons will be strictly first and last
name only, and alphabetically listed.

Top Staff Will Vote

In another major decision, the
GEB approved a provision uphold-
ing the right of its five top division
staff heads, when hired, to vote in
decisions of the board.

A sixth staffer, who will be known
as the general staff director, does
not yet have such voting right. His
voting status is still under study and
will be reported on at the November
meeting.

Serving as "process consultant" for
the September meeting was the Rev.
Irving Stubbs of Richmond. Mr.
Stubbs has been an administrator of
the Richmond-based TRUST (Task
Force for Renewal, Urban Strategy
and Training) , formed to assist
groups in organizing for community
action. More recently he has been a
full time consultant to various secu-
lar and religious organizations.

His assignment with the GEB in-
cluded advising how to plan and
conduct meetings, how business
should be considered, and informing
the board as to whether it is doing
what is expected of it.

At the recommendation of the
executive committee, Mr. Stubbs'
contract was extended until the next
General Assembly. His fee will be
$200 per working day plus expenses.

Other consultants were authorized
for the five major divisions, each of
which is now composed of 10 to 12
members — the executive committee
being a separate working group. At
least one of the five indicated a de-
sire for such a consultant as soon as
possible.

In other action, the GEB, which
is "provisional" for one year only,
suggested to the new synod conven-
tions that they elect to the perma-
nent board a proportionate number

PAGE 5 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 4, 1972

of members instead of the equal
number (6 each) proposed in the re-
structuring plan.

The suggestion, which will not be
binding as the synods will elect their
representatives before the next Gen-
eral Assembly, would take into con-
sideration synod membership. It calls
for seven representatives each from
Synods A, B, C and F, and G. Synod
E would be authorized eight repre-
sentatives, Florida would be given
four and Missouri two.

Staff Qualifications

Adoption of guidelines for the
"hiring" of top executives took up
more time than any other item on
the three-day agenda. Several qualifi-
cations listed by a task force appoint-
ed to devise hiring standards came
under fire and were amended.

Before the discussion was over,
the GEB voted to delete a require-
ment of "loyalty to the PCUS" from
the qualifications expected of its top
executives. It substituted instead the
words, "acceptance of the polity of
the PCUS."

The board also deleted from the
list a requirement of 10 years, mem-
bership in the PCUS and three years
of ministerial or administrative ex-
perience.

With strong prodding from some
members, the requirements were
changed to read: "membership in the
PCUS or a denomination of like
faith and order" and "administra-
tive or ministerial experience," with
no time requirement mentioned.

Educational qualifications were
changed from, "a degree in theology,
management and/or social sciences"
to, "a bachelor's degree or its
equivalent and theological compe-
tence."

Disagreements over the detailed
wording of staff qualifications ap-
peared to stem from a feeling that
there will be a number of applicants
for the top executive positions and
that these will have to be screened.
The changes made in the guidelines
will have the effect, in the opinion
of some observers, of encouraging
applications from a broader ecu-
menical and educational spectrum.

Typical of the careful attention to
operating policy thus far character-
izing GEB sessions was the time
spent on guidelines for selection of a
special committee which will study
the relationship of the present Board
of Annuities and Relief to the GEB.

By action of the 1972 General As-
sembly, a committee of independent
experts in the fields of actuarial
science and investments will recom-
mend whether the Board of Annu-
ities and Relief should be brought
out from under the unified operation
now in process.

There was little trouble in agree-
ing that this independent commit-
tee will be nominated by a separate
committee consisting of three per-
sons named by the Board of An-
nuities and Relief, and three persons
named by the GEB.

However, extended debate ensued
over who in the GEB would name
the three representatives to nominate
the independent committee, and who
would have the final say in their
appointment — the executive com-
mittee, or the entire GEB.

The discussion, which led to
shortened tempers, prompted the
process consultant to observe that
he detected "lots of hostility." He
continued: "I don't know why, but
this body does not seem willing to
delegate to its executive committee
some proper responsibilities. There's
a limit (to this sort of hostility) that
a body like this can take and still
function."

Some observers felt that the ten-
sion arose over privately felt frus-
trations at the inability of the GEB
to get past its own internal organiza-
tion to its job on behalf of the
Church.

In a rare program decision, the
board authorized (on a close voice
vote) the Historical Foundation to
proceed with a "records manage-
ment" program which will separate
current records of all the boards and
agencies into those files of current
value, those of historical value and
those to be destroyed.

The authorization included the
expenditure of "not more than"
$20,000 for a one year period. ffl

Hanover Presbytery May
Lose Another Church

HOPEWELL, Va. — A congrega-
tion of the Presbyterian Church US
here has begun steps toward with-
drawing from the denomination,
against the advice of its minister,
the Rev. Kennedy Smartt.

The West End church, a congre-
gation of about 900 members, has
begun its withdrawal process with a
recommendation from its officers
that the congregation consider pe-

titioning Hanover Presbytery for
withdrawal.

Mr. Smartt, who has said that his
congregation wants to be "very faif
and reasonable" with the presbytery,
opposed the action "at this time." He
added, however, that the unanimous
recommendation of the congrega-
tion's officers went "over my head."

Unlike Tabb

This is the second church within
a month to initiate action to leave .
Hanover Presbytery. On Aug. 20, the
274-member Tabb Street church
voted to form an "independent" con-
gregation, but it did not formally
petition Hanover Presbytery for ap- ia
proval. Presbytery officials have con- m
tended that the action was therefore
unconstitutional.

Unlike Tabb Street church, the
Hopewell congregation wants to
withdraw in a manner that will be
considered acceptable by the pres-
bytery.

Mr. Smartt, who feels that his con-
gregation s emphasis on evangelism
and missions makes it "different
from the typical Hanover Presbyter-
ian church," was named secretary of1
the Steering Committee for a Con- '
tinuing Presbyterian Church, a
coalition of conservative groups ad-
vocating withdrawal from the Pres-
byterian Church US.

'Out of Step'

The minister said he would leave
it to the congregation to decide
whether to affiliate with the coali-
tion or with Vanguard Presbytery, a
body being organized by nine dis-
sident congregations in a six-state 1
area.

He suggested, however, that the
recommendation to initiate a with-
drawal petition indicated that the
congregation has been "out of step"
with the Hanover Presbytery for
years.

"Our officers believe that Hanover
Presbytery is going to be reasonable
with us," Mr. Smartt said. He an-
nounced that the congregation would
vote Oct. 1 on whether to submit a
withdrawal petition to Hanover Pres-
bytery.

Earlier Dr. L. Nelson Bell, moder-
ator of the denomination, said he
planned to visit Petersburg on Oct.
4, at the request of Hanover Pres-
bytery's administrative commission,
to discuss the Tabb Street Church's
action. ™

PAGE 6 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 4, 1972

Principles are more important than issues in any election year —

Voting As Christians

An election is an appeal to the
will of the people. If politi-
:ians would remember this, it would
strengthen the body politic. They
are in office by the will of the peo-
ple, and it is to the people that they
must render an account.

We must guard against any glib
or easy identification of the will of
the people with the will of God.
Sometimes the vox populi is the vox
Dei. Sometimes it is not.

The possession of the vote is a
sacred trust. It can make the vox
populi the vox Dei, but it can do so
only when the voters are enlightened
both as to their individual responsi-
bility, and as to the true nature of
the issues involved in their choice.

It is clearly the duty of a Christian
to vote as a Christian. No party plat-
form, and certainly no selfish de-
sires, should be allowed to usurp the
place of his religious principles. Al-
legiance to the Gospel must come be-
fore allegiance to a political party.
Allegiance to Christ must come be-
fore allegiance to a candidate.

When Patrick Henry addressed the
First Continental Congress in Phila-
delphia, October 14, 1774, this out-
standing son of the Old Dominion
said, "I am not a Virginian, but an
American." In the same way, a
Christian must be a Christian first,
and a Republican or a Democrat, af-
terwards. If our loyalties are put
in this order, we shall not go far
wrong in our choice, whichever party
we support.

It is significant that we do not
have in America a political party
which boasts in its title the word
"Christian," as certain countries of
Europe have. This is due to the
fact that both our parties approxi-
mate to a general policy which is

The author is pastor of the United
Presbyterian Church, St. Cloud, Fla.

based on Christian sanctions. Each
party claims to have the welfare of
the nation at heart. Each party ad-
mits that this is true of the other.
The difference occurs in the meth-
od of carrying out the principles,
rather than in the principles them-
selves.

Each party has within it a consid-
erable number of men of true Chris-
tian character and sincere religious
convictions. Each recognizes the ex-
istence of social evils, and each
claims to have the remedy for them.
In each party there are dedicated
men of integrity whom the other
party would be delighted to adopt.

Watch Those Promises

As Christians we cannot merely
vote for the party which makes the
biggest promises. As Christians we
cannot support a candidate because
he looks cute, or because we once
had business dealings with his uncle,
or because we went to school with
his wife's second cousin. As Chris-
tians we cannot resolve the issue by
mere reference to dollars and cents,
in the matter of tax reductions and
the like.

As Christians it is our duty to
consider how the different plat-
forms will affect the general welfare
of all our fellow-countrymen and,
indeed, of all mankind. As Chris-
tians it is not even our right to be
concerned chiefly with how they
will affect us, our families, or our
friends. For us, as Christians, it is
not a matter of whether we are go-
ing to be better off under a Dem-
ocratic or Republican administra-
tion. Our decision has to be made
with reference to something a good
deal higher than this. If we deny
this, we deny the whole of Christ's
teaching.

It may be salutary for us to re-
member in this connection that the

HANDEL H. BROWN

wealth of a country consists of its
manhood, not of its property. The
coinage of humanity must not be
debased. The rights of property
have their place, but the rights of
man take precedence.

If it is your primary duty to think
and to vote as a Christian, then
you must realize that to do this, the
spirit of Christ's teaching, and not
your own personal preferences, will
be the standard by which you will
judge the promises and the plat-
forms of both parties.

Ethics and Politics

I am not naive enough to suggest
that it will be easy to put either of
the 1972 political platforms under
the revealing microscope of the Ser-
mon on the Mount. What I am in-
sisting upon is that it must somehow
be done. In other words, the Chris-
tian ethic is supremely relevant to
politics.

When I suggested this to a
seasoned politician, I got this amaz-
ing reply, "That shows just how lit-
tle you know about politics!" I
asked him to elaborate on that an-
swer, and I think I got the
essence of current political philos-
ophy when he said, "That won't
win any elections!"

Actually, and basically, what has
that to do with it? Since when
were right and wrong determined
by success and failure? Are we de-
generating to a trial-by-ordeal men-
tality? Either the Christian ethic
and the Sermon on the Mount ap-
ply to politics and elections, or
they do not apply anywhere.

Of course it is never easy to ap-
ply the Christian ethic. It may well
be that it is doubly hard to apply
it to political platforms, but apply
it we must. This means displaying
tolerance, fair-mindedness and re-
straint. You must be ready to trust

PAGE 7 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 4, 1972

the motives of those who differ
from you. Because you do not agree
with them, you must not assume
that they are, therefore, either
knaves, fools, liars, cheats, or en-
emies of the State.

Honest Thinking

To vote as a Christian, you must
do some honest thinking. Next to
religion, there is no subject on

which it is so important to think
clearly, calmly, and dispassionately,
as politics.

To be thoroughly honest in your
thinking often means to compete
with quacks, imposters, adventurers
and charlatans, and to be beaten by
them, not because they deserve to
win, but because so very many peo-
ple allow themselves to be imposed
upon by their artifices and pre-
tenses.

In Christ we are assured that the best is yet to come —

Indian Summer

Of all the seasons of the year
in the American climate, there
is none so tender, so breathtakingly
beautiful, so fascinating and perfect
as Indian summer.

After the buds, blossoms, heat,
and fruit of summer; after the au-
tumn of harvests and frosts, when
the forests are mantled in crimson,
fire, and gold; when chilling winds
and vagrant snows warn of the rap-
id approach of ice-mantled winter,
then some invisible hand seizes the
galloping steeds of the seasons and
leins them up suddenly for a few
days, while earth, air and sky weave
around the weather-beaten brow of
the year the golden crown of Indian
summer.

The sun pours down a soft and
dreamy golden light; the sky is re-
gally robed in a delicate lavender
gauze that seems to engulf the uni-
verse; the air is balmy and caressing.
The whole earth seems under the
bewitching charm of a master plan
older than the stars.

In precisely the same fashion, God
designs the golden years to be the
Indian summer of life — the gen-
tlest, the tenderest, the most reward-
ingly beautiful of all of life's sea-
sons. The gracious Creator and
sustainer of the universe, who gave
birth to your life in your own
springtime, and who gave you pow-

The author is pastor of the Tem-
ple Baptist Church, Wilmington,
N. C.

D. E. PARKERSON

er to grow toward maturity during
the fierce heat of summer, and who
enabled you to enjoy the fruits of
autumn's harvest, now causes the
sunshine of His love to bathe and
bless you with the warmth of His
divine purpose before the advent of
winter.

The Peace of God

As the Indian summer recalls the
magic vibrancy of spring and the
productive labors of summer, the
golden years before the end of life
enfold and sustain us with enough
precious memories to last forever.
As Indian summer foretells the re-
birth of life beyond the cold and
loneliness of winter, even so those
years beyond sixty-five God fills
with the promise of an eternal
springtime beyond the valley of
shadows.

Those into whose hearts God has
woven the very fabric of His match-
less love and eternal purpose will
not dread those years in between
life's perpetual activity and the
grave. They will not be fearful
years of waiting for the chilled
winds of winter's onslaught.

The peace that passeth all under-
standing will be theirs because our
gracious God has guaranteed it in
His holy Word: "When thou shalt
be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy
hands, and another shall gird thee,
and carry thee whither thou wouldst
not" (John 21:18) . Ill

Anyone who takes an active parti i
in political life, or in public affairs, iliii
of any description, will confess that A
he has far more experience of an- «k!
noyance and vexation than of satis-jjlk
faction and enjoyment.

The world of public service is
not the sphere of ease, smooth sail ,
ing, and automatic success. Plato' si >
philosopher cowered under the wall t»
for protection from the rude storms )!'
of political life.

Disappointments

:0

It is a noble thing to stand up for
truth, fair play, justice, kindness,
and fellow-feeling. But other people
do not see what you see. Probably
they do not want to see what you
see. Attempts to enlighten them
may be a waste of time.

I am not suggesting that our ef-
forts to improve and elevate the
community or, it may be, the whole
nation, fail completely. What I am
saying is that they never come up
to our hopes and aspirations. Sin-
cere convictions bring great hopes.
Those great hopes are so seldom
fulfilled that depression, frustration
and defeatism are the inevitable lot
of the crusader who does not take
them into account at the start.

To be honest in your thinking
also often means painful self-exami-
nation. Ask yourself, Why am I
going to vote Democrat? Why am I
going to vote Republican? Am I
going to vote for the party for which
I have always voted? Why?

A Bad Slogan

"My party right or wrong" is a
dreadful slogan. One of the trou-
bles of today is that there are too
many Republican Senators, and too
many Democratic Senators, and not
enough United States Senators.

"My party right or wrong" gives
undue power to the independent
voter. Perhaps he deserves some
praise, for at least it can be said
that he is prepared to think for
himself, and that, because he be-
lieves in the sanctity of his own
mind, he is unwilling to toe any
party line, and refuses to remain un-
questioningly loyal when its course
is determined by the unstable winds
of political expediency.

It is, of course, obvious why most
people are loyal to the party. It is
the easiest way out. It also works
after a fashion. But the beliefs

PAGE 8 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 4, 1972

ifhich we never question are those
/hich influence our lives the least.

An increasing number of men
nd women are refusing blindly to
ollow the dictates of any partic-
lar party. This is a healthy trend.
Ve should do all we can to encour-
age it, for even in a republic there
s always the danger of unwittingly
tbsorbing the totalitarian practice
)f allowing someone "higher up" to
lo your thinking for you.

It is probably correct to say that
t is the thoughtful people, who do
lot necessarily vote the same ticket
ivery time, who really choose the
rovernment of this great country.
Therein lies our confidence in de-
nocracy.

We are reminded from all quar-
ters today that this election takes
place at a time of grave crisis, not
only for America, but for the whole
world.

I suppose every election has been
described as "the most crucial in
the nation's history." The true
heart of apocalyptic is that we are
always "at the crossroads." But fa-
miliarity with such language should
not blind us to the fact that the
issues of election 1972 are of more
than ordinary importance.

Let us never forget that this na-
tion was founded to give full oppor-
tunity to all of God's children to
use the gifts with which their cre-
ator has endowed them, in the clear

knowledge and understanding that
to Him alone will they have to
render account not only for their
personal convictions, but also for
the way in which they express
them. This is what we mean by
"a free country." Let us keep it
that way.

Let us pray at this time that God
will so guide the minds and con-
sciences of all who profess and call
themselves Christians, that they may
help to elect to high office in this
land, men and women of a spirit
similar to their own, so that peace
and happiness, truth and justice,
religion and piety, may be strength-
ened among us, to the glory of God
and the welfare of all nations. IS

How to avoid the breaking point

Dealing With Stress

Much of my work as a munici-
pal engineer and civil engi-
neer has been in the design of struc-
tures. Very simply, the responsibility
of a structural designer is to ensure
that his design is such that no mem-
bers in a designed structure are sub-
jected to stresses and strains in excess
of that which they can put up with.

It is important to know how much
stress and strain the materials will
take, and at what point the condi-
tion will be reached when the stress
intensity becomes so much that the
structure is in danger of collapsing.
When one gets to that area of stress,
one is reaching what is known as the
yielding point.

When, for instance, a bar of steel,
let us say a round bar of steel, is sub-
ected to a tensile stress, the point
is reached when the cross section of
the round bar begins to contract un-
der the strain. As the tension load
remains constant and the cross sec-
tion of the steel has contracted, the

The author has recently retired as
borough engineer and town plan-
ning officer to the London borough
of Croydon, England. This article
first appeared in Contact of CBMC
and is reprinted with permission.

intensity of the stress has consider-
ably increased. It is here that the
yield point has been reached. Soon
after that, the metal will collapse.

Of course in designing a structure,
a big factor of safety is used to make
sure that no stresses ever bring any
of the structural members near the
yield point.

One of the letters in the New Tes-
tament touches on this matter of
yield point. Paul wrote to hard-
pressed Christians in Corinth who
were being subjected to stresses and
strains. He said to them, "God is
faithful, who will not allow you to
be tested above that you are able,
but will with the testing also make
a wa) of escape."

God can keep people from reach-
ing the yield point.

We are in days when doctors' con-
sulting rooms are often peopled with
folk who are suffering from the ef-
fects of stress and strain, from
nervous disorders and ill health due
to stress and strain. Today's society
is experiencing a profound power
failure. What we are all needing is
radical power. Christianity supplies
that power.

Christianity is not so much put-
ting a new suit on a man. It's real-
ly putting a new man into the old

H. MARCUS COLLINS

suit. Inner contentment is a spiri-
tual condition which brings a pow-
er that enables a person to transcend
his circumstances. When Paul said,
"I have learned in whatsoever state
I am therewith to be content," he
was saying that he had learned the
secret of a way of life which is the
quest of nearly every human heart.

Paul also wrote, "When somebody
becomes a Christian, he becomes a
brand new person inside. He's not
the same anymore; a new life has
begun." This new life thoroughly
affects the whole personality. It of-
fers, amongst a host of other things,
the remedy for the effects of stress
and strain.

What has the textbook of Chris-
tianity to say about the subject of
stress? It says a great deal and it
speaks with authority. Here is a
comment by a young prophet, Isaiah:
"Thou wilt keep him in perfect
peace whose mind is stayed on
Thee."

There's a clear connection be-
tween peace of mind and trust in
God. I am certain that the remedy
for overstrain lies in a simple faith
in God.

Unfortunately, too few people un-
derstand what faith in God means. I
heard of an answer given by a school-

PAGE 9 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 4, 1972

boy recently to the question, "What
is faith?" He said: "Faith is believ-
ing what you know is not true!"

Many people equate faith with su-
perstition. "I'm too intelligent to be
taken in by faith," is the attitude,
yet faith is a common exercise of ev-
eryone of us.

The question we face is not
whether we have faith. We all ex-
ercise faith in something. The ques-
tion really is: In whom do we put
our faith? What are we trusting?

Faith is only as valid as is the ob-
ject in which we trust. Our faith in
a person can only be as valid as the
person is trustworthy.

Somebody once said, "I think it
is wonderful that you can believe the
Bible. It may be true for you," he
said, "but it isn't true for me." Be-
lieving the Bible doesn't make it
true, anymore than disbelieving the
Bible makes it false.

Some people say that it doesn't
matter what you believe as long as
you believe it enough. What non-
sense! It's like the old lady who was
renting one of her rooms to a young
undergraduate. He robbed her. She
said: "You know, I can't believe he
was dishonest; he was such a nice fel-
low. Do you know? He'd even had
YMCA written on his towels!"

We Can Trust Christ

Her implicit faith in the chap's
honesty didn't make- him an honest
fellow. Belief doesn't create truth
any more than disbelief destroys
truth.

It is the trustworthiness of the ob-
ject of faith, not the intensity of be-
lief, which determines the validity of
faith.

Jesus Christ is the object of the
Christian faith. Everything that the
Christian way of life will bring you
stems from an initial act of faith. It
is the attitude of faith which alone
makes it possible for a man to have
a personal encounter with Christ.

This leads the man into a vital
relationship that transforms his life,
opens up a completely new quality
of living and brings meaning and
satisfaction and purpose into his ex-
istence.

There are some people who say
that they will not believe in anything
that can't be explained and that they
will discard faith in anything which
they don't understand and which, to
them, is shrouded in mystery. Peo-
ple who talk like this fail to remem-
ber that much that makes up our

lives is shrouded in mystery. Any
real explanation of some of the sim-
ple phenomena in nature lies hid-
den in obscurity and can be no more
explained than can the mystery of
God.

Can we really understand the fall
of a leaf as it drops from the branch
of a tree down into the gutter? Do
we really understand the hatching of
the robin's egg in the nest?

Life's Mysteries

We see lightning zigzagging in the
black thundercloud. Learned people
lecture about electricity. But what
is it? And where does it come from?
And where does it go? The mighty
energy of electricity we have learned
to harness, but we don't understand
it. We can't explain it. We touch
the switch; we see the work it does
for us in a thousand ways; we use it.

I say that intellectualism is put-
ting out the light in our souls and
will turn us into a lot of corpses if
we don't look out. We cover our
deep ignorance with jargon, and we
use words that some of us don't real-
ly understand. We seem to be
ashamed to wonder or to whisper,
"Yes, it is a mystery. I don't under-
stand it, but I believe it!"

We shall never be able to take the
first step leading into the transform-
ing experience which the Christian
faith offers a man until we abandon
this paralyzing attitude which rejects
everything to do with God until one
can see through it.

It may be a humiliating experi-
ence intellectually. Perhaps this was
why Christ said to a crowd of intel-
lectuals of His day, "Except you be-
come as little children you cannot
enter the kingdom of heaven." He
didn't say, "Except you become child-
ish." There is a difference between
childlike and childish.

I remember an experience, early
in my career, of being in a state of
great anxiety. I couldn't get relief
from it, so I packed up my books
one evening and went out for a walk.
It might be, I thought, that I could
get some relief in the glories of the
westering sun that evening.

My way led me to a large corpora-
tion housing estate. I was turning a
corner when a child, running hard
down the road, collided with me
head-on. As I caught her, I could
feel her heart beating. She was in
great distress. I looked down at her
and asked, "Whatever is the matter
with you?"

Little by little I heard an all too
familiar story of a mother and fa-
ther who had left the children while
they went out. This eight-year-old
had been left to put her brothers
and sisters to bed. When she camei
to put one of her brothers down, he
was missing. Here she was, blinding
her way down towards the sea to see
if he had wandered down that way.

"Don't worry anymore," I said,
"come with me and I'll find him."

I turned my steps around. She
gave me her hand, and soon the tears
were gone and the smiles were com-
ing through. A big burden had been
lifted from her heart. I remember
saying to myself, "Oh God, help me
to trust you like this child is trust-
ing me."

We soon found her little brother.
A Session With God

One morning one of my senior of-
ficers came into my office. He came
regularly to see me once a week. He
carried the responsibility of one of
the sections of my department. Is
saw that he was in some distress so
I said, "You'd better sit down, hadn't
you?" As soon as he sat down, he
was convulsed in great sobs.

I sat back in my chair and waited
for him to calm down. Then I asked,
"What is the matter?"

He told me of the anxieties, the
complications, the stresses and the
strains which had gotten him down,
not only in his official capacity in
my department but also in his home
situation. I took steps to bring him
the aid that he needed and to dis-
perse some of his load. Then I said,
"I think you ought to go and have a
fortnight's holiday."

He was just leaving my office
when I said, "Just a minute. I too
carry some wide responsibilities as
borough engineer to this authority."
He said, "I know you do." I said,
"Would you like to know a bit of
how I tackle them?" He said that he
would.

I told him that every morning be-
fore I came to the office I had a
short session with God. That must
have shaken him. I don't think he
expected a chief official to talk to i
him like that.

I said, "There's a book that I find
of tremendous help to me in the wis-
dom that it contains. I read a few
verses from the Bible each day when
I first get up. I then present my day's
problems to God and I ask for His
wisdom and His help."

PAGE 10 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 4, 1972

He listened to it and said, "Thank
/ou" and went out. He took his
fortnight's holiday, and he didn't
nave a nervous breakdown. Years af-
:erwards, when I was serving anoth-
er local authority, I received a let-
jter from him. He referred to that
incident and was thanking me for
letting him into that aspect of my
private life.

Give It a Chance

About two years ago I had to go
to a hospital. There I got to know
the doctors and nurses pretty well.
Among the books that I had on my

The English word "evangelism"
comes from the Latin root,
evangelium. Close supporting kin-
ship is found in the French word,
evangile. Both of these are trans-
literated derivatives of the Greek
word which means "to preach glad
tidings, or good news, or the Gos-
pel." Its true Biblical meaning in-
dicates the use of one's organs of
speech to announce a message of
gladness. Thus technically New
Testament evangelism is the process
of using one's instruments of speech
to convey the Good News of Jesus
Christ. The Christian's prime call
is to evangelism.

Of course, any thinking man who
is a student of Scripture at all re-
alizes that to be effective in evan-
gelism he cannot be a hypocrite.
God does not use just a human vo-
cal computer that spouts out facts.
He must, by the presence of the in-
dwelling Holy Spirit, endeavor to
live the godly life that will be a
usable instrument of evangelism.

As he evangelizes, he will promote
growth in spiritual maturity in

The author is an evangelist with
the Presbyterian Evangelistic Associ-
ation in Decatur, Ga. This article
first appeared in Come and it is re-
printed by permission.

table was a Bible. One day one of
the nurses looked obviously at the
Bible and said, "I'm an atheist." I
said, "You're not, you know."

She said, "Well, that's what my
husband says." I said, "Here's some-
one who isn't your husband telling
you that you are not an atheist. You
know, if you were to give this book
a chance, you'd find it isn't an ordi-
nary book. It's alive, and anyone
who diligently reads that book will
find he experiences a personal en-
counter with the God he doesn't be-
lieve in."

She finished her job and went out.
I've never seen her again. I wonder

h'mself and every Christian around
him, but that is development in
spiritual maturity, or Christian edu-
cation. That is not evangelism.

As he evangelizes, he will be con-
cerned to meet the basic physical,
emotional and material needs of all
he can help. But that is concern
for human needs in this world, or so-
cial action. It is not evangelism.

Not This

As he evangelizes, he will be con-
cerned that every area of his life be
surrendered to the Lordship of
Christ. The Lord will not use a
rebellious servant consistently. But
that is growth in discipleship —
commitment. That is not evan-
gelism.

As he evangelizes, he will be con-
cerned to keep the affairs of the
institution of the Church in order,
but keeping matters decently and in
order is polity. That is not evan-
gelism.

As he evangelizes, he will partici-
pate in the services of his Church,
have a regular time of personal Bi-
ble study and prayer, and a regular
family devotion. But those are times
of adoration and praise of God —
worship. That is not evangelism.

As he evangelizes, he will make
sure he gives his tithes and offerings

what she thought about that com-
ment?

The Bible can lead you to the One
who can carry your stresses and
strains and show you the way of es-
cape. He can keep you from get-
ting near the yield point.

Perhaps for somebody reading this
today, the moment of decision has
come. A choice has to be made. The
way of life about which I have been
speaking brings relief and peace to
heart and mind. It holds the answer
to the problem of life's stresses and
strains.

Turn your life over to Christ and
experience this for yourselfl IS

ht Talk

BEN WILKINSON

over and above his time and his
talents to the glory of Christ. But
these are expressions of grateful ser-
vice to our Lord, or stewardship.
That is not evangelism.

Nor That

As he evangelizes, he will be con-
cerned to keep the purity, peace and
unity of the Church, but that is dis-
cipline of the Church, and defense
of the faith and seldom done today.
That is not evangelism.

As he evangelizes, he will see oth-
ers use pressure tactics, ecclesiastical
politics, string-pulling, back-slap-
ping, flattery, lying, and a host of
other methods to get their way. But
he will recognize them for what they
are. What name is bad enough?
That is not evangelism!

Since evangelism is the prime call-
ing of the individual Christian and
the Church, to put our major em-
phasis anywhere else is to get out
of the will of God. To do this is
to sin. Well, then, a lot of good
things we are doing today are sin,
because they are taking the place of
our first responsibility.

I suggest we get some things in
proper order and return to our mis-
sion, regardless of what tunes others
may play and expect us to dance
to. IS

Getting things sorted out on the subject of evangelism

Strai

PAGE 11 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 4, 1972

EDITORIALS

'Christian' Character and the
Word of God

If you knew a church member
who was a poor giver, and you want-
ed to develop in him the grace of
liberality, would you: a) give him
a tract extolling the useful services
performed by the Church; or b)
give him a message outlining basic
Gospel truths ... or both?

For many churchmen, to put spiri-
tual things first is to evade the neces-
sity to make the Christian faith ef-
fective in the world. They believe
that the Church must turn from
doctrinal and theological subjects to
"practical" subjects if it is to make
a moral and social impact in our
time.

Complained a prominent educa-
tor last week: "Unfortunately we
still substitute Bible reading, creed
reciting and hymn singing for social
justice. This makes the Church ir-
relevant."

It was the contention of this
churchman that the Church may
preoccupy itself with "Bible read-
ing, creed reciting and hymn sing-
ing," or it may preoccupy itself with
"social justice." But he saw no
necessary correlation between the
two preoccupations. For him it
was either be spiritual or be prac-
tical.

But the very mystery and miracle
of the Gospel is that progress in
those things called "Christian" is
attained only through preoccupa-
tion with "spiritual" interests!
There is no other way to "make the
Church relevant" than to stress "Bi-
ble reading, creed reciting and
hymn singing." The inability to
recognize that suggests that one does
not understand the power that
comes through the Gospel.

Social justice — or any other ob-
jective — is attained as men and
women catch the heavenly vision,
as Jesus Christ becomes implanted
in humanity through the work of
the Holy Spirit. It is through faith
that the work of the Church is set
in motion in the world. And faith
cometh by hearing and hearing by
the Word of God.

To be sure there are always some
for whom "Bible reading, creed
reciting and hymn singing" are

merely religious exercises without
personal spiritual significance. There
is always the "form of godliness
without the power thereof," even
in the Church. But such spiritual
coldness is never galvanized into ac-
tion by dropping the message of the
Gospel and preaching social justice
instead.

Teach the Bible — if your com-
munity needs renewal. Teach Ro-
mans — if your congregation is cold.
Teach Galatians — if the people
are stingy. Teach the Gospel of
John — if they are not the flaming
evangelists they should be. And
speak of the precious blood of Christ

— if you want social justice. IB

Reformation vs. Revolt

There is an important difference
between the meaning of the word
"reform" and the word "revolt."
This, perhaps, is the chief reason
why the new proposed confession of
faith for the PCUS will be found
unacceptable to Christians. Its so-
cial objectives are lofty, but it of-
fers little or nothing to galvanize
people into action.

To reform something is to restore

— to return ■ — its original form
"Reformation" takes place when an
institution (Church or State) has
departed from its intended and per-
manent form, and is brought back
from the paths into which its de-
parture has taken it.

"Reformation" does not take
place when the institution embarks
on a novel venture, or deviates from
the path it is following into a new
path. This latter action is more
properly termed "revolt."

A "revolt" occurs when an estab-
lished, fixed, or accepted pattern is
broken up, discarded or departed
from. "Revolt" takes place when
an institution (Church or State)
breaks away from the traditional
concepts and standards in the adop-
tion of new concepts and standards.

Now what liberal religion wants
for the Church is not reformation
but revolution. When modern ec-

clesiastics proclaim the necessity of J
reformation by "breaking with the1 3
encrustations of the past," they atfe1
not seeking a new Reformation at
all — they are advocating a revolt. !

On the other hand, what the
Church needs is not to revolt against '
the past, but rather to reform the
uncertain present, re-creating (re- 1
newing, if you prefer) the Church
after the original first century image
which was recaptured for a while
in the 16th and 17th centuries, then1
gradually lost again. E

The Reformed Faith . . .
What Is It?

i

A thoughtful church member
asked her pastor: "What is the 'Re-
formed Faith' to which you so fre-
quently refer? I hear much of the
'clistinctives of the Reformed Faith' I
without a clear indication as to what
those distinctives are!"

Below is a paraphrase of the an-
swer the pastor gave:

The Reformed Christian believes
that he is justified by faith in Jesus
Christ through the immediate work
of the Holy Spirit in his heart, hence
he is not a Roman Catholic.

The Reformed Christian believes
in the Trinity, therefore in the full
deity of the Lord Jesus Christ, so:
he is not a Unitarian.

The Reformed Christian believes
in the sacraments and the Word of
God as means of grace, so he is not
a Quaker.

The Reformed Christian believes
in a prior work of God's grace in the
human heart leading to salvation,
and in the predestination of all
things according to God's sovereign-
ty, so he isn't a Methodist.

The Reformed Christian believes
that the priesthood of all believers
has replaced a special priesthood,
and that ordination is by the Holy
Spirit and not by any power grant-
ed in human succession, so he isn't
an Episcopalian.

The Reformed Christian believes
that baptism represents the coming i
of the Holy Spirit upon the believ-
er, and that the promise is to be-
lievers and to their children who are
also heirs of the covenant, so he
isn't a Baptist.

The Reformed Christian believes
in a representative government rath-
er than a purely democratic govern-
ment, so he isn't a Congrega-
tionalism

In addition to these denomina-

PAGE 12 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 4, 1972

THE LAYMAN AND HIS CHURCH

m

Are You a Worrying Child?

ional distinctives, the Reformed
christian bases his relation to God
md his hope of salvation on the
Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, in-
ornate Son of God, crucified for
>ur sins, raised for our justification,
eigning in the hearts of His people
)y the Holy Spirit and coming again
n time to judge the quick and the
'lead.

He also believes in the fellow-
,hip of believers on earth and in
ruitful Christian living. SI

Why He Game

Jesus came into the world to be
die Saviour of men. He said, "I
did not come to judge the world but
to save the world" (John 12:47) .
When we repent of all our sins and
accept Him as our Saviour, He will
oecome:

Our Lord. He is sole ruler of our
lives. Our thoughts, words, deeds,
land even our wills become His.

Our Master. "If anyone serves me,
he must follow me; and where I am,
there shall my servant be also: If
anyone serves me the Father will
honor him" (John 12:26) .

Our Intercessor. "There is one
God, and there is one mediator be-
tween God and men, the man Christ
Jesus" (I Tim. 2:5) .

Our Teacher. "Study to show
thyself approved unto God, a work-
man that needeth not to be ashamed,
rightly dividing the word of truth"
! (II Tim. 2:15) .

Our King. He is coming again to
Receive us into His heavenly king-
dom He has prepared for us (John
14:1-3) . Watch and be ready for that
day (Mark 13:32-37) .

"This saying is sure and worthy of
full acceptance, that Christ Jesus
came into the world to save sinners"
(I Tim. 1:15). Is Jesus your
: Saviour? If not, let Him come into
your heart and life today. — Enise
Kirby. IB

It Must Be of God

The Church that is man-managed
instead of God-governed is doomed
to failure. A ministry that is col-
lege-educated and seminary-trained
but not Spirit-filled works no mir-
acles. — Samuel Chadwick.

The quotation on the bulletin
board in front of the church read,
"Why pray when you can worry?"
and people smiled as they drove by,
perhaps thinking that the preacher
there had a sense of humor. But
how many went on their way worry-
ing instead of praying, and how
many of those were Christians?

God's Word tells us "men ought
always to pray and not to faint"
(Luke 18:1). What a message for
today!

I once heard a woman tell of the
advice she had given a friend who
had just discovered a tumor which
would have to be removed. Be-
tween the time of the discovery and
the time for the removal stretched
an endless week of anxiety, full of
wondering if a malignancy would
be found. When the friend asked
the woman what in the world she
could do until the operation, the
woman told her the best thing she
could think of was to get drunk
and stay that way until time to go
to the hospital. Today the woman
who gave that advice is an alcoholic.
Was her creed "Why pray when you
can worry?"

All across the land prayer groups
are springing up and those who at-
tend them can tell of changed lives
and tremendous answers to prayer.
One summer I attended a women's
prayer group in another city and
saw there women who knew for sure
that God hears and answers prayer.
As they praised Him for prayers an-
swered during the previous week, I
heard them pour out their hearts to
Him for personal needs and for the
needs of friends and loved ones, and
I yearned for our church women to
have such a relationship to God and
to one another.

That fall God drew eight women
together and our prayer group was
born. We decided we needed a Bi-
ble study to precede our time of
prayer, a study that would involve
all the women and one that would
send us to our Bibles during the

The layman's viewpoint this iveek
is brought by Mrs. James L. Cole-
man, Vicksburg, Miss.

week to find answers. The Ten Basic
Steps Toiuard Christian Maturity
series published by Campus Cru-
sade for Christ was chosen, and
soon we were learning how to ma-
ture as Christians.

It was in our time of prayer that
we saw the greatest growth, how-
ever. One older woman who had
not been able to pray in public was
encouraged by another and soon she
was lifting up her voice with the
others. As time went on we lost
our timidity and could come boldly
before the throne of grace.

We invited our friends and neigh-
bors to come and our number grew.
Women from other denominations
have met with us as well as a Ro-
man Catholic and a Jewish lady.
Just recently the Jewish lady has be-
gun to talk of being baptized and
expressed a desire to join our
church.

This September we will begin our
sixth year of praising God together,
for as we have grown spiritually
this has become increasingly our de-
sire. We look back over the years
and thank Him for the safe return
from Vietnam of numerous service-
men we have prayed for, some un-
known to us but whose names were
passed to us by friends or family.
(Praise God, not one of the ones we
prayed for was lost!)

We have seen difficult problems
solved, including a situation where
our church desperately needed a new
janitor, but no one was willing to
dismiss an ailing elderly one. For
some weeks we prayed about this
and then suddenly God intervened.
The older man departed and we
were sent a younger man, strong
and willing to take over the moun-
tain of work left to him.

We have prayed for many mis-
sionaries and have received word
from them of answered prayer, and
we have seen members of our fam-
ilies come to know the Lord in a
personal way. We have prayed that
God would lead our people to give
so that the church budget would be
met and have had that prayer an-

(Continued on p. 20, col. 2)

PAGE 13 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 4, 1972

p

SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON

For October 22, 1972

Exploitation of Persons: Race Relations

&

Rev. Jack B. Scott

INTRODUCTION: In our day
perhaps no issue has been more ex-
plosive than the issue of race. We
live in a time notable not for more
or less racial prejudice, but in a time
of its greater inflammation in
society. This topic is a timely one,
but it is difficult to deal with be-
cause of prejudice, preconceived
ideas about race, and the deep emo-
tional involvement we all feel.

As in the matter of adultery, the
first and basic sin is against God
when one is guilty of prejudice
against anyone because of his race
or color. That men have been ex-
ploited because they were of a cer-
tain race cannot be denied. At some
time and some place, every race of
men has been exploited by others.

Exploitation of persons is not lim-
ited to racial prejudice. It includes
also such dividing factors as social
standing and economic circum-
stances. Even one's language or edu-
cation may be a basis for prejudice
or for exploitation. We shall begin
with God's purpose in the creation
of man, for here is where the sin of
man enters in.

I. CREATION AND THE
IMAGE OF GOD (Gen. 1:26-27).
Scripture tells us that in the begin-
ning God made man in His own
image and likeness. This would in-
dicate that man was made to reflect
the glory of God. Man was made to
have fellowship with God. When
all had been created, God was very
pleased with what He had made
and pronounced it all very good
(Gen. 1:31) .

When man sinned, the image of
God in man was marred, not just
in some men, but all men thereafter
bore the image of fallen Adam. We
call this original sin (Gen. 5:3) .
Compare also I Corinthians 15:45-
49.

Whatever differences might have
been seen in men after the fall were
not based on their appearance. There
were not first, second, third and oth-
er classes of men in God's sight. All
were naturally sinners and spiritual-

Background Scripture: Genesis 1:
26-27; Luke 10:25-37; Ephe-
sians 2:11-18; Colossians 3:1-11;
James 2:1-9

Key Verses: Luke 10:25-28; Colos-
sians 3:11; James 2:1-9

Devotional Reading: Acts 10:34-
43

Memory Selection: James 2:8-9

ly dead — color, size, etc. made
no difference. All were dead in sin.

Some point to the mark of Cain
as a racial difference (Gen. 4:15).
There is no shred of evidence for this
in Scripture. It was a sign or mark
specifically given to Cain. Nowhere
is it said that it was given to his
children also. Besides, any such fam-
ily characteristic or distinguishing
mark on Cain and his offspring
would have been destroyed in the
flood. At the flood, only Noah and
his sons survived. Those who try
to justify the racial bias on this
Scripture are in serious error.

Others point to Noah's prophecy
after the flood (Gen. 9:25-27) . They
point out that this was after the
flood and therefore today's races are
traceable to it, but this too is an er-
ror of interpretation.

First, the prophecy is not about
races of men as we know races to-
day. It is rather concerned with
types or categories of men. Basical-
ly it says that there are those who
like Canaan and Ham, his father,
and their offspring, reject God (as
Ham, despising his father, in reality
rejected God) . They are godless
and therefore cursed.

Others, like Shem, will be blessed
by God. Shem was in the line of
God's grace. He was from righteous
Noah and led to righteous Abra-
ham. These are God's people. The
true descendants of Shem are not by
flesh but by faith, just as the chil-
dren of Abraham are really those
who have a faith like Abraham
(Rom. 9:6-8) .

The International Sunday School Lesson Outlines
are copyrighted 1972 by the Committee on the
Uniform Series of the National Council of Churches
of Christ.

Finally, the descendants o
Japheth are comparable to those ii
the world who will share ir
the blessing on Shem. Later
God told Abraham, a descen
dant by faith as well as by flesh ot
Shem, that in him all nations of th<
world will be blessed. Here is the
promise that the descendants oi
Japheth shall dwell in the tents oi
Shem (share in the same spiritual
blessings) . It is the promise thai
out of the mass of humanity therei
will come a people who will join
God's people through grace.

In Scripture, spiritual blessingsi
never come automatically by flesh-
ly descent, but rather by the same
faith.

The phrase in Noah's prophecy
which says that Canaan will be the
servant of God's people (Shem) is;
fulfilled not so much in literal servi-
tude on earth as in the ultimate way
in which the peoples of the world
who are not God's children never-
theless serve the purposes of God
and, in the end, of God's children.

Let us see how this actually works
out. In Genesis 10 the descendants
of Ham are traced (vv. 6-20) . A
look at their physical descendants
shows that they certainly were not
servants in any sense we know of
servitude today. They established
some of the greatest empires of the
ancient world: Babel (v. 10) ; As-
syria (v. 11); Egypt-Mizraim (v.
13) , etc. Yet these empires and
people in the end served God and
His people. All were subject to
God and in history they ruled to ac-
complish God's purposes, although
they were not conscious or willing
servants of the Lord and His peo-
ple. The prophets later brought out
this truth veiy clearly.

In Scripture racial divisions have
nothing to do with superior or in-
ferior humans. All are alike in
God's sight racially. The only di-
vision God is concerned with is a
spiritual division. God does divide
all men spiritually. He sets the di-
vision between His children and the
children of Satan (Gen. 3:15). We

PAGE 14 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 4, 1972

:e this division manifested immedi-
tely after the fall. In Genesis 4
Iain and Abel, children of the same
iarents, who had no racial differ-
nces, were nevertheless divided be-
I ween the children of God and the
hildren of Satan (see Heb. 11:4; I
ohn 3:12).
Two types of people are traced all
he way through God's Word. All
nen are either God's children or
■atan's. Here there is a clearcut
iivision among men, one that origi-
nates with God and is clearly main-
ained. It has nothing to do with
ine's race or color or any other
)hysical characteristic. It is a char-
.cteristic of the heart. We all are
inners, children of wrath by nature
(Eph. 2:3) . Only by grace do any
)f us come to be God's children
(John 1:12-13).

' Race as a divider of men came
Probably at Babel when, after the
lood, men still attempted to stay
ogether (Gen. 11:1-9). All of these
l4en were descended from Noah and
lad evidently stayed together until
fet time (probably about a hun-
lred years, since the time from the
)irth of Shem's son, (11:10), to Peleg
(11:11) is about one hundred
/ears) . In Peleg's time we are told
:hat the division took place (10:
25) .

In this division of men, first by
anguage and then by what would
lave resulted in their being in sepa-
rate parts of the world — we
probably have the beginnings of the
races of men. None of this can be
established beyond Scripture, but
by clear implication of Scripture it
if, I believe, a reasonable conclu-
sion.

In these divisions there is no more
or less blame on any people, nor
any more or less approved language.
It is clear all are guilty and all suf-
fer punishment.

In the rest of the history of God's
dealing with His people and the
world, there is never any judgment
because of color or racial back-
ground. The only division God
makes and knows among men is
whether or not they are His chil-
dren. Between His children and Sa-
tan's God does set a difference.
Among these, intermarriage and in-
terrelationships are forbidden. Here
we must be prejudiced, because
here God is prejudiced. He ap-
proves His children and disapproves
the children of Satan. Therefore, any
alliance which we may make with
them is a sinful alliance. The whole

Old Testament continually bears
this out; it does not change in the
New Testament. Friendship with
the world is enmity with God (Jas.
4:4).

II. NO PREJUDICE FOR THE
CHURCH (Eph. 2:11-18; Col. 3:1-
11; Jas. 2:1-9). The three Scrip-
tures given here all agree that among
Christians there is no reason for any
kind of bias or prejudice. We must
look at the words carefully.

Those formerly outside of salva-
tion were at that time rightly shut
off from communion with God's
people. They were rightly alienated
(Eph. 2:12), but once they had
been saved through faith in Jesus
Christ they were no more strangers
(Eph. 2:13). The pronoun "our"
is significantly used here. "He is
our peace" (Eph. 2:14) means that
we are united to Christ and there-
fore to one another. By His death
on the cross Christ reconciled us to
God and to one another (v. 16) . We
come to God in one spirit (v. 18) .
There is no front nor back door to
heaven, there is one door and we all
enter by that door, Christ.

Paul was talking of the division
between Jew and Gentile (believer
and unbeliever) . That is the only
real division, and in Christ it is abol-
ished. In Christ we become believ-
ers and God's children and the same
in God's sight.

Paul made no distinction between
the races of Gentiles, as though
some Gentiles were more privileged
than others. Neither did he speak
of Jews according to the flesh, but
real or spiritual Jews who are God's
children. This is clear in the con-
text here where Jews obviously
means believing Jews and Gentiles
means unbelievers. See again Ro-
mans 9:6-8 referred to earlier.

In Colossians, too, Paul wrote of
their former state in unbelief (3:
6) and their present state in belief
(3:10). In the latter state, he said,
there is no reason whatever for dif-
ference, no matter what differences
may have existed before. This in-
cludes racial and national differ-
ences, religious, cultural, or social
differences (3:11). Christ is in all
and therefore all are one, all are
alike before God, there is no basis
of distinction left.

Clearly then the differences men-
tioned in Colossians 3:11 are not
characteristic of the Church but of
the world. In the world men do
make a difference between the Greek

and the Jew, the barbarian and the
Scythian, bondman and the free or,
in modern times, between the black
and the white, the white-collar and
blue-collar worker, the rich and
poor, the educated and uneducated.
Such distinctions have no place in
God's Church.

How this is to work out precisely
in the Church is seen in James 2:1-
9. James specifically dealt with
prejudice in the Church, calling it
"respect of persons" with no place
among God's people (2:1). It is
incongruous with true faith.

He illustrated by means of two
men in an assembly, one richly
clothed and one poorly clothed. If
we show favor to the former one,
we are wrong; respect of persons is
sin (v. 9).

Obviously we will notice differ-
ences. We will see black and white,
well and poorly dressed, we will hear
good and poor grammar, educated
and uneducated conversation, but
while we see and hear we must not
think differences so as to favor one
over the other. We are to treat all
alike. This is the demand of Chris-
tian love. It is not easy (v. 8) , but
whoever said that being a Christian
is easy?

Prejudice which has been with us
from the beginning, joined with
a natural inclination to treat kind-
ly those from whom we expect some-
thing or who agree with or look like
us, is not easy to deal with in any
of us.

The tragedy is that many Chris-
tians, rather than admit what Scrip-
ture plainly teaches, are trying to
twist Scripture to justify their prej-
udices. This is not good and can
never please God.

III. RACIAL PREJUDICE: A
PRODUCT OF THE WORLD,
NOT OF THE CHURCH (Luke
10:25-37) . This appropriate passage
showing the evil of prejudice is fre-
quently used to illustrate God's will
for an end to racial prejudice in the
Church. The context is an inquiry
from a lawyer concerning his neigh-
bor.

Jesus had said that one should love
his neighbor, quoting from Leviticus
19:18. To illustrate how this com-
mand included all of God's children,
He told the story of a man, pre-
sumably a Jew, who fell among
thieves and was left for dead.

Had that victim been asked before

(Continued on p. 19, col. 1)

PAGE 15 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 4, 1972

YOUTH PROGRAM

For October 22, 1972

God, Great and Good

Scripture: Genesis 50:15-20
Suggested Hymns:

"Great God, How Infinite

Art Thou"
"God Moves in a Mysterious

Way"

"My Times Are in Thy
Hands"

PROGRAM LEADER'S INTRO-
DUCTION: It is not hard to
imagine how Joseph might have felt
regarding his brothers' cruel treat-
ment of him. Recognizing the fact
that he was not without fault him-
self, that he had been proud and
boastful, slavery and imprisonment
in a foreign land was still too heavy
a price to pay for indiscretion like
his.

He might easily have become bit-
ter toward his God and vindictive
with regard to his brothers. Many
a person has done so with far less
reason. But Joseph did not. He
said to the brothers: "But as for you,
ye thought evil against me; but God
meant it unto good, to bring to pass,

Rev. B. Hoyt Evans

as it is this day, to save much peo-
ple alive." In this statement we
find some of the bedrock, founda-
tional truths of our God-given faith.

The great theologian Karl Barth
was asked what was the profoundest
theological idea he knew, and he re-
plied: "Jesus loves me, this I know,
for the Bible tells me so." A sim-
ple grace that little children are
taught to say at mealtime begins
with these profound words: " God
is great, God is good." This is ex-
actly what Joseph was saying to his
brothers, God is great and good.

FIRST SPEAKER: God's pur-
poses cannot be turned aside and
canceled out by evil deeds. When
Joseph used the word "meant" he
was talking about purpose, inten-
tion. In effect he was saying to his
brothers. "Your purpose or inten-
tion was one thing, but God's was
another, and God's prevailed."

God still has purposes, and they
continue to prevail in spite of and
over and above the sinful purposes
of sinful men. Of all the things we

iii

i

are privileged to know, this is on>,
of the most comforting. Many pec
pie are troubled about many thing!
which we see around us. There ar<
things which we are convinced ar
wrong. But if what Joseph said i
true, and surely it is, God's pur
poses will prevail. Men may interim
one thing and God another, bu
God's intentions will stand.

The most dramatic illustration o
this truth is to be found in the lif<>
of the Lord Jesus. Peter said to th<(
Jews: "Him, being delivered by tin
determinate counsel and foreknowl
edge of God, ye have taken, and b]
wicked hands have crucified anc
slain." The purpose of those peo
pie was hate and hurt. The purpose
of God was salvation and blessing
and God's purpose prevailed.

SECOND SPEAKER: We are no'
to suppose that because God grw
ciously and mightily overrules evi'
that those who do the evil are
blameless. Joseph's brothers wer(
answerable to God for the wrong
they had done. Those who hateli
Christ and schemed to bring aboul
His death were responsible and an
swerable.

So are we all. "For we must all
appear before the judgment seat ot
Christ: that everyone may receive
the things done in his body, accord
ing to that he hath done, whethei
it be good or bad."

Thank God, our sins can be for
given and remembered against us
no more. Even so, there are scats
that remain. In order to dramatize
the seriousness of wrongdoing, a fa-
ther would drive a nail into a post;
in the back yard every time his son
was disobedient. When the boy'
would make amends a nail wou||
be drawn out. The lad's pleasure,
was not complete in this matter, be-
cause he discovered that even when'
the nails were removed, the holes,;
the scars, remained.

THIRD SPEAKER: God's pur-
poses are good. It was God's pur-!
pose to preserve a family and a nan.'
tion even by means of the cruelty

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PAGE 16 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 4, 1972

i Joseph's brothers. It was His
airpose to take away the sin of the
/orld by means of the malicious ex-
cution of His own Son.

When Paul wrote to the Romans:
And we know that all things work
ogether for good to them that love
k>d, to them who are the called ac-
lording to His purpose," he really
ineant all things — even the things
■hat are not intended by men for
■rood at all. God is able to do His
ttfill, He does do His will, and His
Ivill is good.

f One time when John Calvin was
In his way to Italy he found the
iegular road closed because of the
i/ar between Italy and France. As
I consequence, he had to detour
ihrough Geneva. There he met Wil-
i iam Farrell whom God used to per-
i uade him to remain for a career
•hat changed the course of human
J- hought and world events. At the
j ime Calvin most likely did not
I hink of the detour as being good,
l)ut God meant it for good, and so
it was.

| PROGRAM LEADER: We can
t hank God for a recorded history
that illustrates over and over again
■ he greatness and goodness of His
■purposes. May He deliver us from
i )eing cynical or complacent and
■nay He increase our confidence in
trlim.

BOOKS

Closing Prayer.

m

Y

If you are moving to an area where
there is no congregation of the
Presbyterian Church in the U. S.
you may find an Orthodox Presby-
terian Church nearby. A Directory
of Churches and Chapels of the
Orthodox Presbyterian Church
will be sent upon request. Please
address: Orthodox Presbyterian
Church Directory, 7401 Old York
Road, Philadelphia, Pa. 19126.

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!8364.

DESIGNED TO BE LIKE HIM, by
J. Dwight Pentecost. Moody Press,
Chicago, 111. Paper, 288 pp. $2.95. Re-
viewed by the Rev. Thomas T. Ellis
Jr., pastor, Eastside Presbyterian
Church, E. Gadsden, Ala.

"And we have gospelled it so
long that the Christian Law is clean
gone with us, we have lost it . . . ."
So wrote Lancelot Andrews in 1624
and so we write in 1972. The view-
point reflected in this book is clear
evidence that many who claim to
follow the Scriptures have only half
a truth and that is worse than a
bold lie.

The so-called new morality I do
not fear one particle so much as I
fear the man who says he advocates
the Gospel truth but denounces
God's law which is "holy and just,
and good" (Rom. 7:12). Only the
whole truth can save and the whole
truth is the law and the Gospel. To
talk only of the Gospel is to de-
ceive men and to weaken the Gospel
so that even the Gospel becomes un-
profitable and will not long last.

To find fault with the moral law
is to find fault with God, for the
original copy is in God himself. Yet
to find fault with the law of God is
exactly what Mr. Pentecost does
openly in chapter 16. The law of
God given to Moses is swept aside
when he writes, "We discover, as we
read the account of our Lord's life,
that He anticipated the passing of
the law. The law of Moses was for
the Jewish nation, and when that
nation rejected Jesus Christ as Mes-
siah and Saviour, they were no long-
er a peculiar people set apart unto
God. Hence the laws which were
designed to accomplish that in their
experience no longer served a use-
ful purpose .... And the law which
governed them and set them apart
was annulled."

In this same connection we read,
"The first principle that the apostle
(Paul) laid down is the principle
of freedom from the restriction in
the Mosaic law because the law had
been done away . . . ."

Concluding this chapter are these
remarks, "God has removed the Mo-
saic law as that which set a people
apart for himself .... The Chris-
tian life is a disciplined life, a life
controlled by the Spirit of God and
not regimented by law, either the

law of Moses or a self-imposed
law."

Now the work of the Holy Spirit
is in no way to be denied or min-
imized. However, the law of Moses
is God's law, not some man made
regulation and is not to be either
denied or minimized in its proper
and prominent place in redemption
and Christian living. If I really be-
lieved what Mr. Pentecost teaches
about God's law given through Mo-
ses, I would embrace the new mor-
ality and preach it to others.

Has Christ removed the moral
law? No, rather He has much es-
tablished it as have the apostles also
(Matt. 5:17-20; Rom. 7:6-14, 13:10;
Gal. 5:13-14; I John 5:2 3) . If any
man presumes to take away or weak-
en the moral law, he has violated
the truth of the Scriptures.

The results of the author's view
of God's moral law are many. First,
one gets a weak doctrine of sin.
What is sin but the breaking of the
law (I John 3:4) ?

Second, with the view of the law
expressed in this book there is in-
evitably a misunderstanding of the
Gospel. There could be no Gospel
without the law. It is not good
news that Christ died for our sins
unless the law kills a man for his
sins (remember that sin is the break-
ing of God's law) .

Third, this book's evaluation of
the law results in a false and con-
fusing view of the Christian life. In
the very opening division of the
book, "Design for Fellowship," this
confusion comes to light and grows
more obvious as the writer proceeds,
until in the key chapter on the
Christian life (chapter 11), we get
his very inadequate definition of the
Christian life.

It is an inadequate definition be-
cause it only gives half the picture.
The Christian life is Christ living
in the believer, as the writer says,
but it is also a battle against sin
(sin is breaking God's law) , and
much more. Mr. Pentecost does
bring out the warfare later, but he
does not appear to see it as essen-
tial to defining Christian life.

Here in this doctrine of the Chris-
tian life are the shades of the so-
called "deeper life movements." In
this doctrine of the deeper life,
first, all responsibility is taken

PAGE 17 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 4, 1972

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away from you and you are told
that it all depends entirely on Christ
in whom you must only rest or
with whom you must identify your-
self only.

As the writer expresses it, "God's
solution (to the Christian's life)
is ... a reckoning, a believing, and
acceptance of an accomplished fact.
God's solution to the problem of
sin in the believer's life is based on
his identification with Christ." This
means that there is nothing for the
believer to do in the Christian life
for Christ has done it all for him.

Then all responsibility is tossed
back into your lap to make some
absolute surrender of your life or
"the Holy Spirit cannot empower
you." This the author says is
"your responsibility to Him (God)
... to register this once-for-all de-
cision." "God the Holy Spirit" we
are told, "cannot continuously em-
power you to righteousness and true
holiness, . . . until you have first of
all yielded, presented, submitted
yourself unto God." He means that
you must make a once-for-all, com-
plete decision to give yourself to-
tally to Christ.

After this you are told that your
life will be one of "continuous" vic-
tory. We are now told "that when
one is under the control of the Spirit
of God, his life is so altered that
. . . the Spirit does produce a new
kind of life." This life is called
"the life of Christ" and conforms
to "the demands of divine righteous-
ness." This means that by that one
act of yielding we identify with
Christ and all that He is and by the
Holy Spirit's power we live a new
life. This doctrine has destroyed

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and will destroy many who fall ui
der its first alluring, but then di
tressing influences.

There are books which will serv
you far better. Holiness by J. C
Ryle, and The Work of the Hoi
Spirit by Abraham Kuyper are tw
excellent treatments of the Chri
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Ryle's book and B. B. Warfield
essays on perfectionism are like a
antidote to make the man who ha
swallowed the poison of the scj
called deeper or victorious Christia
Life to vomit it up. Then there |
presented in Ryle, Kuyper, and Wai
field the wholesome food which wi~
nourish the Christian's soul. E

DECIDE FOR YOURSELF: I
THEOLOGICAL WORKBOOK, bj
Gordon R. Lewis. Inter-Varsity Press
Downers Grove, 111. Paper, 174 pf
$2.25. Reviewed by tbe Rev. Ronal
J. Brady, professor, Jamaica Biblj
College, Mandeville, Jam.

Printed with the title are thes
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lieve"! This is a guide for thos>
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study of Biblical passages bearing oi
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Each chapter follows a commor
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on the particular doctrine focuse(
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theological positions on the matte
are sketched. Next is the major set
tion of guided, inductive study o
relevant passages of Scripture. Th
fourth part asks the reader to for
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PAGE 18 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 4, 1972

This little book by the professor
f systematic theology and Christian
>hilosophy at Conservative Baptist
eminary should prove helpful to
ny who are tired of being told
/hat to believe and want to search
he Scriptures themselves. IS

I S. Lesson— from p. 15

his tragedy who his neighbor was,
le would very likely have chosen the
>riest and the Levite as being neigh-
>ors since they were "good Jews"
laving places of leadership.
If his prejudice was like that of

his fellow Jews, he would never
have chosen as a neighbor the Sa-
maritan who was of a different back-
background. There was great prej-
udice between Samaritans and Jews
(John 4:9) .

As the account developed, how-
ever, the priest and the Levite
proved that they were not his
neighbors (brothers in the faith)
because they showed none of the evi-
dence of God's children. Merely
holding a title in the Church did
not qualify them to be God's chil-
dren who live as His children, by
their actions showing that they re-

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Easley, S. C.
R. J. Womack, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Beaufort, S. C.
Al Wilson, Res. Mgr.
Mgr. Belk-Simpson Co.
Fountain Inn, S. C.

E. J. Copeland, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Woodruff, S. C.

F. B. Hagins, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Honea Path, S. C.

T. R. Martin, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Whitmire, S. C.

Clyde Smith, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Manning, S. C.

W. M. Gettys, Res. Mgr.

OHIO

Belk-Simpson Co.

Athens, Ohio

Joe Kelly, Res. Mgr.

MISSOURI

Belk-Simpson Co.
Carthage, Mo.
Charles Wilson, Res.

Mgr.

OKLAHOMA

Belk Dept. Store
Miami, Oklahoma
J. T. Holmes, Res. Mgr.

NORTH CAROLINA

Belk-Simpson Co.

Hendersonville, N. C.

R. E. McCormack, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store

Brevard, N, C.

J. M. Felty, Res. Mgr.

KENTUCKY

Belk-Simpson Co.
Harlan, Ky.

Delmar Tolliver, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Corbin, Ky.

W. C. Ashley, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Winchester, Ky.

T. L. Beckham, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Mt. Sterling, Ky.

Willoughby Smith, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Frankfort, Ky.

J. D. Prow, Res. Mgr.

GEORGIA

Belk-Simpson Co.

Bainbridge, Ga.

M. D. Ashley, Res. Mgr.

ARKANSAS

Belk-Simpson Co.
Paragould, Ark.
W. H. Wade, Res

Belk-Simpson Co.
Osceola, Ark.
K. R. Cline, Res. Mgr.

Mgr.

These stores are a small part of the entire Belk or-
ganization and have been in existence approximately
50 years. The Belk stores were launched in 1886-88.

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PAGE 19 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 4, 1972

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fleet God's glory. They show the
fruit of the Spirit in their lives:
love, joy, peace, long-suffering, etc.,
including compassion (Gal. 5:22-
23) . This is the way God is and it
is the way God desires His children
to be (Exo. 34:6-7) .

On the other hand, the Samaritan
showed great compassion and love
by what he did. It cost him time
and money to help this wretched
man, but he was willing and ready
to give what was needed (Luke 10:
33-35) .

Now the point which Jesus was
making was that the Samaritan, not
the priest or the Levite, proved to
be the victim's neighbor (Luke 10:
36) . That is, the Samaritan proved
to have the characteristics of God's
children. He alone therefore was
a true brother in the Lord to the
victim.

Jesus showed plainly that such di-
visions as Samaritan-Jew, Jew-Gen-
tile, black-white, rich-poor, edu-
cated-uneducated, do not belong or
have place in God's Church or
among His people. The only real
division among men is whether or
not one is a child of God. If he is
not, then there is a real division be-
tween him and the believer that can-
not be ignored. To ignore it is
folly. If he is a child of God, then
a real bond exists between all be-
lievers. There is no room for prej-
udice or subdivisions among Chris-
tians.

Thus prejudice does not belong
among God's children. It is a carry-
over from the world wherever it ex-
ists. It should be dealt with as all
other sins in the Christian life (I
John 1:8-9). We should confess it
to the Lord and ask Him to remove
it far from us. EE

Layman— from p. 13

swered again and again.

Our nominating committees in the
Women of the Church have w i t -
nessed the marvelous working of
God in answer to prayer as they
went about the task of obtaining
women to hold office, and have re-
ported the task pleasant and easy
as the women readily responded.

There is not room enough here
to tell of the goodness of God to us
in answer to our prayers. But we
know that our God is a prayer-hear-
ing God and that He is just wait-
ing for His children to come unto
Him.

Why worry when you can pray? EE

what

We praise God for the fresh new life evident
among Christians today. We see Him calling
young and old alike to a new boldness in
following Him. When the signs and banners
are put away, though, it's time to get down
to growing, to taking seriously God's plan to
draw men to Himself and conform them to
the image of Jesus Christ.

Gospel Light Publications is dedicated to
helping Christians grow into spiritual maturity
and meaningful service. Ask your church sup-
plier to show you G/L's Living Word Curricu-
lum-Christ-centered, contemporary Bible
learning tor all ages; G/L's church leadership
training programs; and G/L's Regal Books,
a select line of challenging Christian reading
for you and your family.

Gospel Light Publications
Glendale, California PJ 102

PAGE 20 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 4, 1972

VOL. XXXI, NO. 24

OCTOBER 11, 1972

$4.00 A YEAR

the

j idvocating continuation of a Presbyterian Church loyal

to Scripture and the Reformed faith

It's Personal, Conditioned

Redemption is personal, individual. It is not corporate,
wholesale, mechanical, automatic, universal. It is individual ;
each believer is taught to say, with the apostle, "He loved me
and gave Himself for me." We are taught that "God so loved
the world" but it is the individual, "whosoever believeth," who
will "have everlasting life."

It is conditioned upon faith. This faith is demanded of
all as the inescapable condition of forgiveness. "There is no
other name than the name of Jesus of Nazareth by which we
must be saved." We thus join the agelong tradition of the
Church that the great message of Christian preaching is "re-
pentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ."
We proclaim that every man must accept Christ as his personal
Redeemer, upon peril of his soul. We refuse and deny the
opinion that no assent is necessary to our acceptance with God.
We refuse and deny the idea that we can say to all men, or to
any unbelieving man, "You are already accepted."

— R. T. L. Liston

3. S. LESSON AND YOUTH PROGRAM FOR OCTOBER 29
CIRCLE BIBLE STUDY FOR NOVEMBER

moo

ra^S OK TTIH IddhBHC

CUT OK JO £q. TS.I8A lull

uotq-oaitoo 0 K

MAI LB AG

REWRITE WESTMINSTER?

I have been reading the Journal
with interest for some years. In a
recent issue I was very much inter-
ested to see the new confession of
faith which is being worked on by
the Presbyterian Church. Thank
you for publishing it.

I was impressed with the fact that
it seems to be an attempt to put

things of our faith into the modern
language. Being of the older gen-
eration, this does not appeal to me
as much as to some and I did not
like it too much, yet I can sympa-
thize somewhat with those who de-
sire a more modern form of expres-
sion.

The Rev. David Woodward, who
works in Taiwan with the China

the

PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL

Rev. G. Aiken Taylor, Ph.D., Editor
Rev. Henry B. Dendy, D.D., Managing Editor
William G. Bolus, Assistant Editor

Circulation leader among independent publications in the Presbyterian-Reformed world

THIS WEEK— Vol. XXXI, No. 24, October 11, 1972

Changes and Additions 7

A minority view from the Ad Interim Committee to Draft
a New Confession By Robert T. L. Liston

A Three-Legged Stool 9

No Christian denies God's leading, but there are some
problems By A. Boyce Spooner

The Rightness of Recreation 11

By Clyde H. Narramore

De partments —

Editorials 1 2

The Layman and his Church 13

Sunday School Lesson, October 29 14

Youth Program, October 29 16

Circle Bible Study, November 17

Book Reviews 20

THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL, a

Presbyterian weekly magazine, devoted
to the statement, defense, and propa-
gation of the Gospel, the faith which
was once for all delivered to the saints,

is published every Wednesday by the
Southern Presbyterian Journal Co.,
Inc., in Weaverville, N. C.

SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: $4 a year

for individuals, $3 for members of
Every Family Plan churches. All cor-
respondence regarding subscriptions,
advertising or other business matters,
should be addressed to the business
office in Weaverville, N. C. 28787.
Second class postage paid at Weaver-
ville, N. C. 28787. '

POSTMASTER: Send Form 3579 to
Presbyterian Journal, Box 635, Wea-
verville, N. C. 28787. Subscribers
should allow three weeks for change
of address in continental U. S. Change
of address notices should include both
old and new addresses (with zip
codes) .

NEWS AND EDITORIAL correspond-
ence should be addressed to P. O. Box
3108, Asheville, N. C. 28802. Editorial
offices located at 247 Charlotte St. in
Asheville.

TELEPHONES: (All area 704) edi-
torial office, 254-4015, 254-4016;
business office, 645-3310, 645-3962.

Sunday School Association, and is i
member of our Southern Presbyte
rian Church, wrote me this weel
and said, "I do wish that somebody
would take the Westminster Con
fession and bring its language up tc
current usage so that conservative
would have something in the way o
alternative which is also not in King
James English."

This set me to thinking of thi;
seriously. Could you folks of th(
Journal do such a thing and set
what acceptance it might receive? Ii
might turn the tide.

— Miss Nettie Junkin
Hualien Hsien, Taiwan

Westminster could be put into modern
English with good effect if a capable
committee could be found willing tc
spend the necessary time. Today, mosl
conservatives are quite wary of tarn
pering with historic confessions, foi
too much is at stake. — Ed.

SAUCE FOR THE GANDER

Thanks for the little item in yqui
September 6 issue showing how m)
United Presbyterian Church USA i
filing law briefs in New York seek
ing to uphold a barber in that state
in producing and selling do-it-your
self divorce kits without benefit oi
lawyers. I would probably be the
last to know about such things from
my own church publications. I am
ashamed.

But let's be fair, and also show
and tell about the Board of Chris
tian Education of your Presbyteriar
Church US recommending publica
tions such as condone premarital
sex activity and the use of drugs b}
young people and adultery by mar
ried people, and your church leader
ship failing to openly condemn oi
repent for such — that is, if such b(
true.

— John W. Porter Jr.
Muskogee, Okla.

A VERY SOUR WINE

As a past elder and lay membei
of the Presbyterian Church US foi
33 years, I look in utter amazement a'
all that is going on within oui
Church .... It leads me to say
as a simpleminded, Christ-loving
tithing Christian: Don't try to makt
me over and don't try to develop
for me a Gospel except as the
Gospel itself reads ....

"For me to live is Christ." I have
discovered that a Church withou1
the burning desire to start at exacth
that point and grow from there, i:
a meeting place for nice people tc

is

Us ;ay nice things and to occasionally
cj drag our Lord in on the discussion
'A in order that they may give tax-free
* sanctity to the entire farce.
1 As a layman let me say to the pro-
v| fessionals this simple thing: If you
0 rewrite the faith (creed) , or make
'"I a new Church contrary to the Bibli-
cal faith, or to my experience and
my certain knowledge; or if you re-
l] design the Bible to suit humanistic
ei philosophy, I shall simply leave you
' to your own ends and find a Church
that meets my own needs.

A humanistic Church will simply
disappear in the void of its own dis-
belief. This has happened time and
time again over the past 2,000 years.
You are not a new religion, you are
simply a made-over vintage of a very
sour wine. You will pass away be-
cause Christians will find a Church
of the true faith in another place.
— Edward A. Cotton
Winston-Salem, N.C.

• One member of the committee
writing a new confession of faith for
the Presbyterian Church US dis-
agrees with the committee's text at
several major points. Dr. Albert C.
Winn, committee chairman, has
pointed out that Dr. R. T. L. Lis-
ton's text does not properly consti-
tute a "minority report," as the com-
mittee's text is not yet a finished
"majority report." However, Dr.
Liston's changes and additions, which
we are carrying in this issue (see p.
7) , do constitute a minority report
to the text that has been released
to the Church at large and which
we published in earlier issues (Aug.
9, 23) . It is not clear whether Dr.
Liston intends his text to replace
whole chapters at one or two places,
or simply to constitute additional
material. At one or two other places
he clearly specifies that his text
would be "added" if he had his way.
He didn't have his way in the com-
mittee, of course, as he was the only
conservative on it.

• Since this is the issue of the
Journal read most avidly by the
ladies (on account of the Circle Bi-

MINISTERS

Rudolph H. Chasteen, graduate
of Columbia Seminary, Decatur,
Ga., ordained and installed pastor
of Bethel church, Oconee County,
S. C.

David T. Evans Jr., from Cle-
burne, Tex., to First Church, St.
Petersburg, Fla., as associate pas-
tor.

Robert T. Haynes Jr., from At-
lanta, Ga., to the St. Johns church,
Jacksonville, Fla.

Roger E. Home from Chadburn,
N. C, to the Westminster church,
Wilmington, N. C.
Robert Grady Love from Ander-
son, S. C, to the Lebanon church,
Abbeville, S. C.

Arvin Lee Sexton Sr., from Cincin-
nati, Ohio, to Louisville (Ky.)
Presbyterian Theological Semi-
nary as director of recruitment
and admissions.

ble Study) , perhaps this would be
a good place to report that in North-
field, Conn., Davida Foy Crab-
tree was ordained to the ministry of
the United Church of Christ in a
service in which all the leaders were
also ordained women. The sermon,
Scripture, charges, ordination prayer
and laying on of hands were all per-
formed by reverend ladies of the
cloth. And that prompts us to won-
der if it isn't just as bad to conduct
the business of the Church exclusive-
ly by women as it is to do so ex-
clusively by men? (At 28, Miss Crab-
tree is a member of the National Ex-
ecutive Council of the UCC, a vice-
president of the National Council
of Churches and a member of the ex-
ecutive committee of the NCC's
General Board.)

• Some churches, frustrated over
the material issued by the Board of

Ralph N. Madison Jr., from Gar-
land, Tex., to the First Church,
Hope, Ark.

Wilbur G. Maxwell from Heath
Springs, S. C, to the St. Pauls
church, Chester, S. C.

Richard H. Miller, recent grad-
uate of Union Seminary (New
York) , to the First Church,
Lonoke, Ark.

Robert P. Piephoff from Clinton,
S. C, to the Fourth Church,
Greenville, S. C, as assistant pas-
tor.

David A. Staley from Laurens, S.
C, to the Bethel and Salem
churches, Chinquapin, N. C.

Dan C. West, formerly of Austin
College, Sherman, Tex., to Arkan-
sas College as president.

Vernon N. West from Whitmire,
S. C, to the Bethel and Scherer
Memorial churches, Clover, S. C.

Women's Work, have gone to the
trouble to prepare their own. One
of the best "independent" Bible
studies prepared for circle use by
the women of the church that we
have seen is a study of Philippians,
written by Jeanne (Mrs. Don) Pat-
terson and published by the First
Presbyterian Church, 1390 State St.,
Jackson, Miss. 39202. Even if you
are using Dr. Gutzke's lessons (and
we hope you are) , you will no doubt
find a place for a good Bible study
in your program, so why not write
for a sample copy?

• You may remember, from last
month's announcement, that Dr.
Gutzke's entire series is available in
book form for just $.95 plus postage.
Order Born To Serve from
the Weaverville book store, or
from Gospel Light Press, Glendale,
Calif. m

ACROSS THE EDITOR'S DESK

PAGE 3 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 11, 1972

NEWS OF RELIGION

\Jesus Movement' Is Growing in Europe

WASHINGTON, D. C. (RNS) —
The "Jesus Movement" has hit
Europe in a big way and is exerting
a noticeable effect in such areas as
Northern Ireland and the Commu-
nist countries, according to an Amer-
ican journalist who surveyed nine
European countries last summer.

Edward E. Plowman, news editor
of Christianity Today, reported on
his observations in a special article
prepared for the Oct. 13 issue of the
evangelical fortnightly published
here.

"Thousands of young people all
over the continent have turned to
Christ in the last year or two, and
in several lands (Northern Ireland,
Holland, and Finland) nationwide
youth revivals may already be un-
der way," according to Mr. Plow-
man, the man Time magazine called
the "historian of the Jesus Move-
ment."

Charismatic Revival

In Roman Catholicism, which is
the majority religion in several
European countries, the charismatic
revival has been a widespread phe-
nomenon and has been encouraged
by the hierarchy, Mr. Plowman re-
ported.

Birmingham, England has been
the scene of what amounts to a city-
wide evangelism project, he said. Be-

MEXICO — ■ A capacity crowd of
some 300 witnessed the public dedi-
cation of the Miahuatlan Zapotec
New Testament in the First Baptist
Church of Miahuatlan, Oaxaca.

Those who could not squeeze in-
side peered in at doors and windows.

During the ceremonies, Manis and
Jane Reugsegger, Wycliffe transla-
tors for this Zapotec dialect group
of 55,000 Indians, and Ciro, their
principal language helper for the
past 20 years, received the first cop-
ies of the New Testament to be dis-
tributed.

ginning with a "charismatic erup-
tion" in the Basingstoke Baptist
Church 40 miles west of London, a
growing movement has now pro-
duced 30 "Jesus centers" in the Lon-
don area.

A group called the Jesus Libera-
tion Front (JLF) , similar to Cali-
fornia's Christian World Liberation
Front, has been in the forefront of
England's movement, Mr. Plowman
reported. He said the movement "is
now in a number of mainline
churches — including many Angli-
can ones," but added: "Only a tiny
fraction of England's population at-
tends church these days."

In Northern Ireland, the Chris-
tianity Today editor related, "revi-
val tides are flowing among young
people . . . and there is plenty of
living proof around that hatred has
been expunged from many hearts."
The beginning of Ulster's "Jesus
Movement" has been attributed by
some of its adherents to the visit of
American evangelist Arthur Blessitt
last spring.

In Belgium and Austria, Roman
Catholic cardinals have aided the
spread of the "Jesus Movement," ac-
cording to Mr. Plowman.

He reported that Belgium's pri-
mate, Cardinal Leo Joseph Suenens,
gave young evangelists from Eng-
land the use of an unused seminary
in Mechelen for their activities.

The Conservative Baptist Home
Mission Society sponsors the works
of the Ruegseggers and Scriptures
Unlimited financed the publication
of the translation.

The pastor of the church where
the ceremonies were held normally
conducts all services in Spanish.
Manis Ruegsegger, however, trans-
lated the ceremonies into the Zapo-
tec dialect for those Indians whose
knowledge of Spanish was limited.
His wife and daughter joined the
Zapotec choir which opened the ser-
vice singing special numbers. IB

Cardinal Suenens also endorsed the
workers from an organization called
"OM," based in England, in letters
to Belgian priests, the journalist
said.

Responding to a call for help
from Campus Crusade for Christ,
Cardinal Franz Koenig of Vienna
ordered Catholics at the university
of Linz, Austria, to lend assistance
in a European summer training con-
ference, Mr. Plowman related. He
said that although there was initial
opposition, despite the request from
the head of the Vatican Secretariat
for Non-Bel ievers, priests who at-
tended the Crusade workshop ses-
sions soon warmed to the movement
and eventually encouraged it.

'Involve Catholics'

"It is increasingly clear-cut that
if predominantly Catholic nations
like Belgium, France, Spain, and
Austria are to be reached for Christ,
the effort must involve the Catholic
Church," Mr. Plowman wrote. He
said that "groups talk privately
about the need to develop a strategy
for working in and through the
Catholic Church, but fears of finan-
cial repercussions from American
backers who may not understand
prevent them from acting."

In Copenhagen, what the journal-
ist described as "the biggest event
in Denmark's contemporary church
history" took place a few months
ago when "more than 5,000 young
Danish Christians plus contingents
of Swedes staged a Saturday night
witness march through Copen-
hagen's famous 'walking street.' "

Team of Four

In Norway, the Christianity To-
day editor reported, "a team of four
youths working this summer in Lap-
land led 17 to Christ — the first
known decisions there in a century.
Follow-up teams are on the way."

And in Eastern Europe, Mr. Plow-
man said, hundreds of youths are
bringing the "Jesus Movement" to
Communist countries. Don Steph-
ens, European director of Youth
With a Mission, predicted a show-
down with Communist officials.

"The Communists fear the Jesus
revolution," he told Mr. Plowman.

THE CHURCH OVERSEAS

PAGE 4 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 11, 1972

THE CHURCH AT HOME

"For years they've been saying reli-
gion is only for old people who
don't know any better. They can't
use that line any more. And the
very existence of the movement is a
challenge to their official dogmas of
atheism." EE

Methodist Mother Named
Lutheran Intern Pastor

HARRIS BU RG, Pa. (RNS) —
Mary Anne Morefield, 34, an or-
dained Methodist minister and
mother of three, was installed here
as intern pastor at Messiah Lutheran
Church.

In private life, the slim, dark-
haired woman is Mrs. John A. More-
field, housewife and mother of chil-
dren ranging in age from 3 to 11.
I She said she entered the ministry
because of her strong social con-
cerns.

Mrs. Morefield said she chose to
intern at Messiah, a Lutheran
Church in America congregation, be-
cause of its activist stance. She has
; been engaged in a ministry there for
the last few months, before her for-
mal installation, because of emer-
gency needs created by the June
flood.

In 1971, Mrs. Morefield was or-
j dained a deacon by the Central Penn-
! sylvania Conference of the United
Methodist Church in Harrisburg.
She said she chose the Lutheran
seminary simply because it was the
only one within commuting distance
of her home.

Mrs. Morefield said she doesn't
know whether she will eventually
turn to the Methodist ministry, and
that her decision will "depend on
the social positions of the Methodist
churches in the area." ffl

Patriarch to Visit Greece

ATHENS (RNS) —Patriarch Pimen
of the Russian Orthodox Church will
visit Greece Oct. 18-25, it was an-
nounced here. The visit was con-
firmed in a letter from the Patriarch
| to Archbishop Ieronymos of Athens
and All Greece. Patriarch Pimen will
be accompanied by 14 bishops and
other Russian Orthodox Church
officials. El

Minister's Communist
Party Ties Are Upheld

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The Presby-
tery of Louisville-Union has adopted
a modified report upholding the
right of one of its minister members
to permit his name to be used as an
elector of the Communist Party.

After a three-hour debate, the pres-
bytery affirmed the right of the Rev.
Terrence H. Davis "to act according
to his individual conscience," and to
"hold a differing political perspec-
tive."

However, the presbytery said it "in
no way supported the Communist
Party" nor "endorsed the action" of
Mr. Davis.

This part of the action was in
a modified report of the presby-
tery's ministerial relations committee
which had been charged with con-
ferring with Mr. Davis after his re-
lation to the Communist Party of
Kentucky had appeared in a news-
paper account.

'findings'

The committee, following a con-
ference with Mr. Davis, had publish-
ed "findings" that supported him
and called on the presbytery to
"establish a task force" to meet "the
need for education in relation to
Communism."

In those original findings, the
ministerial relations committee sug-
gested that "the time may now be
ripe for deeper understanding" of
Communism, and noted that "the
day when Communism was consider-
ed The Enemy seems to be passing."

Before the committee's findings
could be presented to presbytery,
however, a storm developed in local
newspapers over what many took to
be a favorable attitude towards
Communism by an official Presby-
terian body.

In addition, at least two local ses-
sions adopted resolutions of con-
cern.

Before the presbytery met, the

committee issued a "supplemental
statement" in which it suggested that
the presbytery "express its regret to
its churches" that Mr. Davis had
allowed his name to be used as an
elector of the Communist Party and
that it "disapprove of such action."

This part of its report was rejected
by the presbytery on a 62 to 47
vote.

The new recommendations to pres-
bytery also included "the right" of
presbytery members "to hold differ-
ing political perspectives" and omit-
ted a formal suggestion that presby-
tery sponsor "an educational pro-
gram" on Communism for the bene-
fit of its churches.

These were approved. El

PCUS Studies Increase
In Ministerial Course

RICHMOND, Va. (PN) — A Pres-
byterian Church in the US ad in-
terim committee studying ways to
upgrade the denomination's or-
dained ministry is considering ask-
ing its General Assembly to require
its potential ministers to have five
years training, including at least
three years of seminary work and
two years as a licentiate, before or-
dination.

Members of the denomination's
Ad Interim Committee on the
Church's Use of Her Ordained Min-
istry met here at Union Theological
Seminary Sept. 14-15. The ad in-
terim committee was authorized by
the 1970 General Assembly and is
beginning its second year of work.

The two-day work of the ad in-
terim committee centered around a
study paper prepared by the Rev.
Kenneth B. Orr, Richmond, chair-
man of the group.

The proposed licensure matter
would involve a provisional two-
year ministry before ordination of
the minister.

The committee defined ordination
as the "granting by the presbytery
of the authority to perform the du-
ties of the call . . ."

PAGE 5 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 11, 1972

Consensus of the group was that
there is a need for a periodic assess-
ment of a minister's relationship to
his congregation or Church agency,
but stopped short of providing for
a standard three-year term of the
call. They deferred further consid-
eration of this matter to the next
meeting, Nov. 9-10, in Atlanta. 51

Kentucky Congregation
Withdraws from PCUS

CYNTHIANA, Ky. — The First
Presbyterian Church of Cynthiana, a
congregation that has been repre-
sented in the leadership of the Pres-
byterian Church US at every level,
has voted to renounce the jurisdic-
tion of the denomination.

By a vote of 98-82, the congrega-
tion adopted, by secret ballot, a re-
solution which declared that it "re-
cognize no other jurisdiction whatso-
ever than that of its own parochial
presbytery, the Kirk Session."

The resolution further declared
that the church would "remain un-
der the government of Jesus Christ
. . . given in the Word of God . . .
and the doctrinal symbols of the
Westminster standards as originally
adopted by the Presbyterian Church
US."

As primary reason for its action,
the congregation noted that it had
been brought into a new denomina-
tional relationship (the Presbytery
of Transylvania-Union) without its
consent, thus denying "their indivi-
dual protection under the Constitu-
tion of the United States . . ."

Creation of the united presbytery,
according to the resolution, in effect
meant that the PCUS presbytery to
which the congregation owed its
allegiance, "ceased to operate or
exist."

Pastor of the Cynthiana congrega-
tion is the Rev. Eurie H. Smith. EE

BPLC Favors Roberts
For Director's Post

ATLANTA— The Black Presbyteri-
an Leadership Caucus (BPLC) has
made a suggestion for the position of
staff director of the new Division of
Corporate and Social Mission of the
General Executive Board, PCUS, and
has endorsed a candidate for mod-
erator of the 1973 General Assembly.

In its meeting here, BPLC suggest-
ed the name of the Rev. Joseph
Roberts, director of the division of

corporate social ministries of the
Board of National Ministries for one
of the six top positions under the
restructured boards and agencies.

The Rev. Lawrence W. Bottoms,
long-time staff member of the Board
of National Ministries, the Board of
Church Extension and the Board
of Home Missions, was endorsed for
moderator.

In other action, BPLC reelected its
entire slate of officers: the Rev.
Snowden I. McKinnon of Dallas,
chairman; Mrs. Norman Fletcher of
Huntsville, Ala., vice-chairman; the
Rev. Irvin Elligan of Miami, secre-
tary; and Herman Pride of Atlanta,
treasurer. EE

Synod E Will Leave
Boundary Lines Intact

AUSTIN, Tex. — The first of sev-
en new synods in the Presbyterian
Church US to organize under a new
plan of synod and presbytery re-
structuring has voted to leave ex-
isting presbytery boundaries intact,
at least for another year.

By special permission of the 1972
General Assembly, Synod "E," con-
sisting of most of Texas, Arkansas,
Oklahoma and Louisiana, is work-
ing on a schedule in advance of the
July 1, 1973 effective date for re-
structuring.

The synod, which proposes to
make its new organization effective
on January 9 in Texarkana, voted
here to adopt the name, Red River
Synod.

The Rev. H. Richard Copeland
of Lake Charles, La., who had acted
as convenor of the new regional
body, was elected its first moderator.
The Rev. William J. Fogleman,
chairman of a General Assembly
committee which restructured all
the Church's boards and agencies,
was elected to a 4-year term as ex-
ecutive presbyter, the top staff po-
sition.

A task force on presbytery bound-
aries presented a report which
would have reduced the number of
presbyteries in the new synod, and
increased their size in some cases.
The vote to continue with existing
boundaries was 350 to 287.

The Rev. T. Hartley Hall of Ty-
ler told the Dallas News that "a
year from now it will be another
story."

In the interim, another task force
will study the matter further. EE

Biracial Church Will
Call Black Minister

DECATUR, Ga. (PN) — A biracial
church here has called the Rev. Lavi
rence W. Bottoms to become thi
"occasional supply" pastor.

Upon his retirement at the end
of 1973, Oakhurst Presbyterian
Church is planning to call Dr. Bot-
toms as full-time pastor.

He is present coordinator of sup-
port services of the Board of Na-
tional Ministries, with offices at the
Presbyterian Center in Atlanta.

The 231 -member church is esti-
mated to have 25 per cent black, 71
per cent white among its member-
ship.

The Rev. James Andrews, assistant
to the General Assembly's stated
clerk, is serving with Dr. Bottoms as
interim supply pastor.

Dr. Bottoms was born in Selma,
Ala., and he is a graduate of Geneva
College, Beaver Falls, Penn., and the
Reformed Presbyterian Seminary at
Pittsburgh. He holds an honorary
doctor of divinity degree from Davis
and Elkins College, Elkins, W. Va.

He has served as pastor of churches
in Selma, Louisville and Miami and
has held various positions with the
Board of National Ministries (and
the former Board of Church Exten
sion) since 1951.

He was the first Black moderator
of Louisville Presbytery and later
of the Synod of Kentucky. EE

Air Force Chaplain
Heads Veterans Unit

NEW YORK (RNS) — The Rev
Peter Salerno Jr., a former U. S. Air
Force chaplain, was named secre
tary for veterans services in the
United Presbyterian (UPUSA) De
partment of Church and Society.

The emergency ministry on vet
erans' services was initiated last Jan
uary to assist veterans of the Indo
China war who face problems in
such areas as employment, educa
tion, discrimination, disabilities or
drugs. It works in cooperation with
other denominations and the Na
tional Council of Churches.

In his new post, Mr. Salerno will
help individuals and organizations
become more fully aware of vet
erans' problems, give attention to
therapeutic counseling services for
veterans, and work on behalf of vet
erans from minority races. EE

PAGE 6 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 11, 1972

rhe proposed new confession was not unanimously approved by committee members —

Changes and Additions

Chapter I— God

We believe that God is personal,
in almighty Spirit. His love and
lis righteousness are basic qualities,
n harmony with which he acts.
'God is love." "God is light, and in
lim is no darkness at all" — "God
:annot coexist with evil." These
qualities of God are woven into the
lature of the universe and of men.

The nature of right is that it
iprings from the character of God.
[Jod's commands are always our law
jf right because they thus spring
"rom His (righteous) character, be-
ng based, guided and determined
riot by any arbitrary or whimsical
ict of unguided will, but by God's
:haracter. These commands are al-
ways our law of right, since our
character is (in its basic, original,
and perfect humanity) like His, be-
ing in His image.

And the nature of right for God
(as for us) is not a device for get-
ting certain things done (like the
so-called "bourgeois morality," not
based upon any basic principle but
merely a device forced upon poorer
men to make them submit) . Right
becomes so (or is eternally so) not

The author is a member of t h e
Ad Interim Committee to Draft a
New Confession of Faith together
with a Book of Confessions. Com-
mittee chairman Albert C. Winn dis-
tributed copies of this article to
ministers, clerks of session, and oth-
er interested Presbyterians, noting
that the proposed confession is not
the committee's "official report"
and that Dr. Liston's paper propos-
ing changes and additions is not "an
official minority report." Dr. Lis-
ten, president emeritus of King
College, lives in retirement at Milli-
gan College, Tenn., where he serves
as part-time director of the program
of humanities at Milligan College.

because of its results. It is not a
mere tool for the attainment of even
the sublime ends of God Himself.

Thus the wrath of God is not a
device for beneficence, though it
may sometimes work out for be-
neficent ends. But to say that
"God's wrath is always a loving
wrath" is to make it a mere tool of
His beneficent love. Right is to be
thought of properly as an indepen-
dent principle, based only upon
God's character, His decision of
right and wrong never being based
upon results to be sought.

Likeness of God

Man, made in God's image, is
guided by this same principle of
right, reflecting in his humanity the
likeness of God. Man's conscience
tells him that this righteousness is
the great commanding element in
his humanity, essential to his true
and real humanity. His conscience
thus constantly calls him, like a con-
stant afterglow of a sun that has
just set, out of sight but still the
basis of all seeing.

And so the law of God is not an
arbitrary external intrusion upon
man's freedom but a guide for the
realization of man's own true hu-
manity in the likeness of God.

Sin Is Not 'Revolt'

Sin and evil are whatever violates
this righteousness, this true and per-
fect humanity, this real character of
man in the likeness of God. Sin is
always revolt, and always leads to
alienation. But its basic character,
of which revolt and alienation are
external descriptions, is revolt not
against merely the will of God but
His righteous character, alienation
being not merely personal but mor-
al. And so we deplore and dis-
own the use of the words "aliena-

ROBERT T. L. LISTON

tion" and "revolt" as sufficient
equivalents for the word "sin."

People were not made to live
alone, and their relations to other
people are the plainest, the most
concrete and inescapable points at
which right and wrong show them-
selves: "He that loveth not his
brother whom he hath seen, how
shall he love God whom he hath not
seen?" And so, when we cause or
allow pain or damage to others, we
sin against our true humanity and
against God.

We confess our responsibility for
much of the world's pain; we cry
out against this in the name of our
humanity; we are ashamed that we
so little think of this as sin against
God.

We believe that God was revealed
in Jesus Christ, and that in Him
dwells all the fullness of God; He
is truly and fully God, though truly
a man, conceived by the Holy Ghost
and born of the virgin Mary. We be-
lieve that He existed from eternity
in fellowship with God, that He was
"sent" by God, and is spoken of in
the third person by God. We remem-
ber that He prayed to God, and that
He spoke of His will as different
from God's will, yet submitting to
it. We rejoice to know that He is
seated at the right hand of God, liv-
ing to make intercession for us. We
believe that Jesus is all this, and
yet He is God, and there is only one
God. We are puzzled, but we try
to believe in order that we may un-
derstand.

God Is Here Now

We believe that the plan of re-
demption was equally the purpose
of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But
the carrying out of this plan in its
objective (external to us) phases
was committed to the Son, our Lord
Jesus Christ. The carrying out of

PAGE 7 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 11, 1972

the subjective (in our hearts) phase

— regeneration and sanctification,
and persuading and enabling re-
pentance, faith, good works — was
committed to the Holy Spirit.

We believe that by His Holy
Spirit God is at work here and now
in our time and place. He is active
to establish justice, love, peace, and
truth; and to establish righteousness
and to restore us to our true hu-
manity in the likeness of Himself.

The true and living God is merci-
ful and gracious, slow to anger and
plenteous in mercy. Therefore, we
joyfully thank and honor Him. We
celebrate life as His gift to us. With
the Church in all ages we say, "Holy,
holy is the Lord God almighty, who
was and is to come."

Chapter IV — God in Christ

( Here we insert a general state-
ment about forgiveness) :

A. THE TASK OF PROVIDING
FORGIVENESS WAS COMMIT-
TED TO CHRIST.

1. His sacrifice.

2. This atoned for our sin.

3. Our redemption depends
wholly upon Him.

B. STUDYING THIS FORGIVE-
NESS WE FIND :

1. It is personal, individual.

2. It is conditioned upon faith.

3. Faith does not earn forgive-
ness.

4. But it defines who are the re-
deemed.

5. It is faith in Jesus Christ.

C. RELATED MATTERS.

1. Repentance is essential in
preaching and in experience.

2. Believers are adopted as chil-
dren of God.

3. This does not countenance
universalism.

Forgiveness Provided

A. THE TASK OF FORGIVE-
NESS WAS COMMITTED TO
CHRIST.

We believe that the redemptive
plan of the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Spirit was, as related to for-
giveness (objective soteriology) ,
committed to the Son, our Lord Je-
sus Christ, to be carried out by Him.
(And that the personal application

— the new birth and sanctification

— was committed to the Holy
Spirit) .

1. His sacrifice. Christ carried

out this commission by His life of

perfect obedience and by His sacri-
fice of Himself. When He bowed
His head and said, "It is finished,"
He had done all that was necessary
to bring into the presence of a holy
God all the guilty sons of men who
would come to Him in faith.

And so God has highly exalted
Him, so that at the name of Jesus
every knee shall bow (whether
willingly or not) .

2. Atoned for our sin. We are
helped toward understanding this
great mystery as we hear that He
died that God might be just and the
justifier of him that believes in Je-
sus. We are helped again as we hear
that "Him that knew no sin He has
made to be sin for us, that we might
be made the righteousness of God
in Him." This is the good news
committed to us, that "God so loved
the world that He gave His only be-
gotten Son, that whosoever believ-
eth in Him should not perish, but
have everlasting life."

3. Our redemption depends
wholly upon Him. We believe that
this redemption, this forgiveness,
this "justification," is based not up
on anything in us, or anything done
by us, in past, present, or future. It
depends wholly upon Christ. "We
are made righteous by imputation,
insofar as we possess the righteous-
ness of Christ by faith." We are
made righteous in the same sense
that Christ was made sin for us. By
this redemption the believer is de-
clared to be a child of God, as if he
had never sinned — "We are made
the righteousness of God in Him."

B. STUDYING THIS FOR-
GIVENESS WE FIND :

1. It is personal, individual. This
redemption is not corporate, whole-
sale, mechanical, automatic, univer-
sal. It is individual; each believer
is taught to say with the apostle,
"He loved me and gave himself for
me." We are taught that "God so
loved the world" but it is the indi-
vidual, "whosoever believeth" who
will "have everlasting life."

2. It is conditioned upon faith.
This faith is demanded of all as

the inescapable condition of forgive-
ness. "There is no other name than
the name of Jesus of Nazareth by
which we must be saved." We thus
join the age-long tradition of the
Church that the great message of
Christian preaching is "repentance
toward God and faith toward our
Lord Jesus Christ." We proclaim
that every man must accept Christ
as his personal Redeemer, upon

peril of his soul. We refuse anc a!
deny the opinion that no assent i> ,,e
necessary to our acceptance with 1 1
God. We refuse and deny the ides rl
that we can say to all men, or tc
any unbelieving man, "You are al 1
ready accepted."

3. This faith does not earn for J
giveness. \ B)

This faith is not a meritorious
"work," to be offered as part oi C
whole payment for our redemption '
It is no basis for boasting or self
gratulation. It merely says, "Noth
ing in my hand I bring, Simply to °
thy cross I cling" — it renounces by f(
its very nature all claim to any
merit of its own.

4. But faith defines who are thi
redeemed.

I

Faith is the means of defining, de-
termining, who are the redeemed.
God is "the justifier of him that be-
lieves in Jesus." The believers are
the redeemed.

But faith does not by any means
pay the debt; this is done by a check
whose maker is Jesus Christ. But
the debt is paid only when each per-
son endorses for himself the check
put into his hand.

5. Christian faith is faith in Je-
sus Christ.

God is not divided; nor is His
love a special quality, more charac-
teristic of one than another of the
blessed Three. But the atonement
for human sin was committed to
the Son of God, Jesus Christ. To
emphasize our unworthiness, our de-
pendence upon Him as our Redeem-:
er, Christian faith, "justifying faith,"
is spoken of in the New Testament
as faith in Jesus, or faith in Christ,
not as faith in God (with one or
two possible exceptions) . "There is
no other name (not even the name
of God?) than the name of Jesus of
Nazareth, whereby we must be
saved." And in the New Testament
we never read it even as a "faith in
God revealed in Jesus Christ."

We therefore refuse and deny the
usage which makes "faith in God"
to be the same as "faith in Jesus
Christ." This we do, not because
we believe Jesus is less than fully
divine, but because this usage ob-
scures the New Testament emphasis
on redemption. This same failure
to give proper emphasis to redemp-
tion is to be seen in "Jesus shows
who God has always been" — we
should always say not that God has
changed, but that the special work-
of Jesus is not only revealing God
but carrying out God's plan of re-

PAGE 8 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 11, 1972

lemption. We must therefore re-
use and deny the ("modalistic")
jhrase, "There is one God, who has
hree ways of being God."

It is in harmony with this that
fesus invites us to pray in His name.
IVe find it hard to dissent from the
Shorter Catechism when it defines
jrayer as being made "in the name
>f Christ."

C. RELATED MATTERS.

1. Repentance is essential to
Christian preaching and to Christian
•xperience.

Repentance forms no basis for for-
giveness, nor for any complacency
)r any boasting but it is neverthe-
ess so essential that none may ex-
Dect forgiveness without it.

2. Believers are adopted as chil-
iren of God.

Believers, being forgiven and ac-
:epted by God, are received into
;he number, and have a right to all
:he privileges of the children of
",od.

3. This does not countenance uni-
jersalism.

With gratitude we remember that

one purpose of redemption is to
break down all barriers of race, of
national allegiance, of culture. We
remember that "all Israel shall be
saved," and "every knee shall bow"
(whether willingly or not) . We
know that to some this may seem to
suggest (or to promise?) some fu-
ture purpose of God far wider than
our knowledge. We are very sure
that we are not authorized to alter
the terms on which His Gospel is
to be preached; we dare not weaken
it by ceasing to make in His name
the demand for faith and repen-
tance; we must press this upon ev-
ery man, upon peril of his soul. We
dare not say to all men, nor to any
but believers, "You are accepted."

Chapter V — The Spirit of God

He demands of us faith and its
accompanying repentance. He holds
us responsible for this, and we have
the fearful ability to say no to God,
to refuse to take Christ as our
Saviour. At the moment of choice,
we know that this is our own indi-

vidual choice, recognized as such by
us and by God. But in moments of
reflection we know the Holy Spirit
persuaded us and enabled us to em-
brace Jesus Christ. We are left with
no ground of self-congratulation; we
know that we were absolutely inca-
pable without the power of the
Spirit; we know also that we are re-
sponsible. We cannot reconcile
these seemingly opposed ideas, but
we must hold fast to them both. We
have nothing to boast of, and ev-
erything to be thankful for.

Prayer, communion with God, is
the vital breath of Christian life.

This communion with God may
take various forms. All Christian
worship is prayer, whether it be the
reverent reading of Scripture, the
preaching and hearing the word of
God, the singing of hymns, the cele-
bration of the sacraments; all these
are proper forms of approach to
God, authorized and honored by
Him, and blessed by Him in the ex-
perience of Christian people. These
are an essential part of our Chris-
(Continued on p. 21, col. 1)

The Bible, the Holy Spirit and the Church all lead the Christian —

A Three-Legged Stool

T-l ible believing Churches and
\*-* Bible-trusting Christians have
•been accused of overemphasizing
ithe Word of God as the point of
preference in life and as a direct
.(guiding influence. The situation
ihas crystalized, and now some
jChurches, (mainly the Roman
JCatholic) , overemphasize the Church
as the vehicle for God's leading in
the lives of the individual; some
jconsider the Holy Spirit as God's
jsole means for leading and reaching
iHis Church. The rest designate the
Scriptures (sola Scriptura) as the
touchpoint between God and those
|He loves and knows.
I Those who criticize say there must
(be a balance, and that all three of
(these play an important part in the
jleading of God. That God should

j The author is pastor of the
Emmanuel Orthodox Presbyterian
\Church, Titusville, Fla.

lead, no good Christian will deny.
Joshua failed at Ai and with the
Gibeonites simply because he did
not use God's counsel at an impor-
tant crisis. I am inclined more or
less to agree with this need for a
balance, and I would commend its
spirit very highly. But there are
some problems.

Take the modern parable of the
man Culbertson, a farmer out in
the dust bowl area. He and his
family all are born-again Christians,
and he trusts in God for all things.

Year after year he had fought the
"thing" that was swallowing his
farm. The nights and days of
gasping for breath in the dust
storms, the weeks of work of scrap-
ing and clearing and deep plowing
and planting of hedgerows and
heavy-root grasses get to a man af-
ter a while. The hours of listen-
ing to the agricultural experts, the
laborious reading of bulletins and

A. BOYCE SPOONER

brochures, the visits of teams of
workers, all seemed to bear no fruit
whatsoever. The results of all his
hard work were invisible, and his
farm seemed no better off than oth-
ers who had done not half as much.

Yet he prayed to God each day,
and each night, and always his
simply worded prayer included,
"Show me, O Lord, show me how
to run this farm!" For him this
talking with God ran like a bright
thread through all his darkness, a
thread of hope and trust.

How Did God Lead Him?

Finally one day he had an awful
thought. He stopped in the shade
of a tree and throttled back his trac-
tor motor. He asked himself, "What
if I am not supposed to win this
fight? What if God means me to
lose — the battle, the crops, the
livestock, the whole thing?" If God
really wanted that for him, was it

PAGE 9 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 11, 1972

!

good, or was it not good?

Right there he prayed a prayer
that he had never prayed before.
"Lord, you go ahead and do what
you want. If this farm is some-
thing between you and me, take it
away!" He went on to finish the
field, then he left the tractor, went
back to the house and had prayer
with his wife.

That very week he began a new
method of crop planting, using a
certain grass seed the government
was advising. A week or so later, a
bequest came through from the
estate of a distant relative that
helped insure their daughter's tui-
tion in college. The whole next
year was a year of upturn, not only
for him, but for the entire area,
and Culbertson's fortunes have nev-
er since descended to the depressing
lows he had so struggled against.

Wherein did God lead this Chris-
tian?

The agriculture expert would say
that Culbertson finally listened to
him, and this new seed, plus all the
other work, culminated in success.
The weatherman would say a new
set of conditions averaged out a
more equitable rainfall at the right
seasons of the year. The psychol-
ogist might say that out of the series
of failures, Culbertson evolved an
experience that guided him into
knowledge and success. Some might
say the Holy Spirit guided him to
choose the right method; some
might point out that in his daily
Bible reading, God strengthened
him and led him.

I think we often overlook the di-
rect contact that Culbertson, and
men and women like him, have with
God. We must look to the kind of
relationship with God that is com-
pletely submissive to His will. The
"moment of truth" came when Cul-
bertson realized, and when any of
us realizes, that what God wants for
us is not particularly success in any
given moment, but dependence up-
on Him, and a willingness to be led
by Him, alone, however He shall
choose to lead us!

Men of Faith

Now this is not a true story of a
man named Culbertson who lived
on a certain farm in the dust bowl.
Yet it is true that thousands of "Cul-
bertsons" have appeared in history,
and God tells of some of them in
His Word. Noah was among them,
as were Abraham, Jacob, Job, Da-

vid, and even Peter! All these were
men whose faith transcended the
events of the moment. Their faith
carried them through because they
stopped worrying about the success
of the moment, and began thinking
about their relationship to God and
what He might really want for
them, both in that particular mo-
ment and in the moments that is-
sued out of that moment!

We believe in the plenary inspira-
tion of the Word of God contained
in the Old and New Testaments.
We believe that God gave it in such
a way that its truth is clearly seen
by everyone whom the Holy Spirit
has quickened. We believe not on-
ly that it contains an accurate his-
tory of the redemption of man, but
a true portrayal of what man was
made to be; what sin had worked
in him, and what man must once
more be before a holy God in order
to have true knowledge of and fel-
lowship with that God.

But we also must not be "Bibli-
cists" in the bad connotation of that
word. We must look to the Scriptures
for the basis for our faith and our
life, without shutting God out of
His world in other ways that He
might choose to work — around us,
in us, and by His great grace,
through us.

God Works Through Us

God does change the course of
human events, God does answer
prayer, God does prove His imma-
nence every day of our lives. Be-
sides the Scriptures, God does push
us, pull us, beckon us, guide us,
provoke us, constrain us, fill us,
empty us — working in us a work
of sanctifying grace that we might
be better than we were, that we
might each step of our way grow
more into the image of what we
were made to be.

God speaks to us in the answers
to our prayers, in the course of hu-
man and physical events all around
us. Certainly, as Abraham Kuyper
says, "The threefold world about
and above and within us is reflected
in our thoughts." He goes on to
say that "the influence that is to af-
fect us deeply, clearly, with lasting
effect upon us, must be wrought
through our self-consciousness."

The Bible is first of all the prod-
uct of the Holy Spirit; second, it is
thus seen that the Holy Spirit is the
agency, the person of God best qual-
ified to explain what He has had

written. But such an explanatioi
is for the converted.

The light shines on the blinc
man, but until his blindness is lift
ed from him, he cannot use thi
light, except indirectly througl
another agency. So it is with prayer
The unconverted man may pray fo'
himself or for what is his, but unti
he receives the grace of God, th<
Spirit does not work within hint
real, effectual prayer. God change:
the course of human events, alway
for His glory and for the extensior
of His kingdom, never merely foi
the whims of sinful men.

Led By Our Failures

The believer in Christ must be
lieve in this immanency of God
this ever-present, all-powerful, all
knowing God who in many way;
leads us into truth. Even by wa}
of our failures! The failure oi
Charles Wesley in the colonies deep
ened his awareness of his need foi
God's grace; a severe snowstorm
drove Charles Haddon Spurgeon in
to a little primitive Methodist chap
el where the preacher looked at him
and said, "You will never get oul
of the trouble you are in until you
look to Christ. Look! Look! Look!'

In the depths of Augustine's strug-
gle, a child's voice from a nearby
house came clearly to his ear
"Tolle, Lege! Tolle, Lege!" and
when he "took up and read" the
Epistle to the Romans, there he
was told, "Put on the Lord
Jesus Christ!" It was his turning
place.

Again and again, through the out-
side world, and through the innet
world of ourselves, we are turned to
Him; we must be aware of our need
for this balanced view of Scripture
and its guidance. The Ethiopian
was reading Scripture, but from
outside the Scriptures came a man,
Philip, who led the eunuch into a
new relationship with those Scrip-
tures, and with the Lord of those
Scriptures!

We must never abandon the
Scriptures for other guidance, either
that of the Spirit alone, or that guid-
ance we may think we receive
through external events and external
pressures. But we must never say
that God speaks to us only through
Scripture. Or that God's work in,
or for, or about us must be confined
to that which we read in Scripture.

God will never work contrary to
what He has told us in His Word,

PAGE 10 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 11, 1972

but God is a God of creation, and
He controls creation, all of it! The
Holy Spirit who, in a sense, "cre-
ated" the Scriptures controls Scrip-
ture through enlightening us or
withholding the light from us in a
given moment, so God works for us
or "against" us in the external
world.

Depend on God

Therefore, the Culbertsons must
say, "What if God doesn't want me
to have this farm I'm trying so des-
perately to save?" At that moment
of grace a man must have complete
dependence on God to lead him in
the world, the world that is for him

God doesn't frown on golf players —

at that moment, his farm, and the
terror of the drought and the dust.

God tells us in His Word to trust
Him, and through His Holy Spirit
He impresses the truth of this urgent
message. In the world about us He
truly does also work conditions that
bear upon us, press upon us, that
pressure us into seeing the reality
of that message.

There is great danger in looking
away from the Word of God, to
"Spirit leading" or "Church lead-
ing." Satan, too, is a spirit, one
who comes in the guise of good to
do us evil, and we must search the
spirits to see if they are of God or
not.

The time came when Luther not

only had to question his Church, but
also to cast off that Church. Machen,
with great sorrow, was turned away
by his Church, the one he loved with
all his heart, and for which he
worked most of his life. He could
not be led by a Church which spoke
against what he knew to be the
truth of Scripture.

In this matter, there must be bal-
ance, but whenever there is doubt
about what the Church is saying, or
what we think the Spirit is speak-
ing, we must turn to the Word of
God. In that sense, as well as the
deeper sense, we must consider the
Word of God infallible, for if it
fails to guide us in these moments
of doubt, to whom can we turn? SI

The Rightness of Recreation

s

ometimes Christians act as
though they should not be hav-
ing a good time. They feel that
unless they are studying the Bible
or talking to someone about spiritual
things, they're not really living close
to the Lord. Such is not the case.
Not only is it important, but it is
imperative that Christians enjoy
times of having fun and playing
together.

I have met pastors who felt that
if they spent time this way the Lord
would be displeased with them. And
yet how wisely did an English min-
ister, Thomas Adams, write cen-
turies ago, "Let us be sure that our
delights exclude not the presence
of God: we may please ourselves so
long as we do not displease Him."

How does a person develop nega-
tive feelings about a wholesome ac-
tivity? Many factors can contribute:
perhaps attitudes from childhood in
the home; the local church or semi-
nary may even have a part in cre-
ating such erroneous thinking. This
is not because certain homes and
institutions of learning crusade
against recreation, but due to the fact
that they do not make time for it.

The author is a member of the
editorial committee of Psychology
for Living. Excerpts from his ar-
ticle are reprinted with permission.

To be sure, the Bible does not say
much about exercise, but it doesn't
say anything against it. The reason
the Bible does not make more com-
ment on the subject is that it is not
a book on physical education. More-
over, when the Bible was written
nearly all life was rural. People got
the exercise they needed in their
daily pursuits. Even in our own
day, many people still do.

Personally, I remember milking a
string of cows and doing half a day's
work before the sun was up. Then
we walked half a mile to where the
school bus picked us up. In the af-
ternoon after the walk home and a
bite to eat, we would go out and
work until dark. We didn't need ex-
ercise. We needed sleep and rest.

Nevertheless, it is a solid truth
that all work and no play makes
Jack (or Jill) dull. This can affect
our relationships with other people.
The man or woman who is contin-
ually studying and working and not
taking time out to play and get suf-
ficient exercise usually doesn't relate
well to other people.

Exercise helps us physically.
Heart specialists are encouraging
reasonable exercise. The R&R pro-
gram for our servicemen is a recog-
nition that these men return from
rest and recreation better equipped

CLYDE H. NARRAMORE

to carry on.

Emotionally a person is benefited
as he gets out and exercises and
plays with other people. He is far
less likely to suffer from depression
and a host of other problems. Many
people would be less disturbed if
they were getting more exercise.

A change of pace helps us spiri-
tually. The Bible is more meaning-
ful to us when we are actually feel-
ing fit. "Much study is a weariness
to the flesh," Solomon wrote (Eccl.
12:12) . So, even when we are study-
ing the Bible, it is good to stop at
times and enjoy some physical ac-
tivity.

It may be that as you read this
you are on vacation. What a won-
derful time that is for a family to
get out together and to have good
times with one another, easily, spon-
taneously. These are the times when
a boy will ask his dad questions he
might never raise at any other time,
when a girl and her mother will be
drawn close as they play and relax
and talk together. We should take
these wonderful summer experiences
and make the most of them every
season. This is how we can "keep
summer all year long."

There is nothing wrong, but
rather something very right about
recreation. SI

PAGE 11 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 11, 1972

p

EDITORIALS

Having Trouble Getting Started

Any beginning to an operation as
vast and as complicated as the one
to which the General Executive
Board o£ the Presbyterian Church
US has put its hand is likely to be
plagued by uncertainties and mis-
steps. The GEB has had its share of
these, and more. (See story, Journal,
Oct. 4.)

Policy has not yet been firmed up,
procedures have not yet been
smoothed out, lines of authority
have not yet been determined, chan-
nels of communication have not yet
been opened. No one, in fact, is
quite sure just what to do next, or
how to go about it.

There's no excuse, however, for
the nit-picking which has been the
most characteristic thing about
GEB meetings to date — a nit-pick-
ing openly admitted.

Take, for instance, the issue which
occupied the greater part of the
GEB's most recent meeting, namely,
qualifications expected of staff per-
sonnel to be hired.

Six top executives will be em-
ployed, to oversee the work of the
GEB itself and its five divisions. A
"task force" had prepared a three-
page paper entitled, "Qualifications
of Staff Personnel," which they pre-
sented for approval.

First, the group argued over a pro-
posal that the executives should
have been members of the Presbyte-
rian Church at least 10 years. That
was changed to read, "a member in
good standing in the PCUS."

Then, someone thought that a
good executive might be available
from some other denomination. So
the provision was changed, after a
discussion of the meaning of "faith
and order," to read, "a member of
the PCUS, or other Church of like
faith and order."

The original paper had specified
that executives must have "knowl-
edge of work of General Assembly,
synod and presbytery." Someone
didn't like that, so after another has-
sle, "knowledge" was changed to
"understanding" on a close vote.

The original paper had men-

tioned "loyalty to the PCUS." One
brother thought that top executives
should have a "higher loyalty to
the whole Church of Christ." An-
other felt the phrase smacked too
much of the House Committee on
Un-American Activities. So after an-
other long discussion the provision
was changed to read, ". . . must ac-
cept the polity of PCUS."

Someone noticed that "theologi-
cal competency" appeared under the
heading of "Personal Qualifica-
tions," so that was moved to the sec-
tion headed, "Academic Qualifica-
tions."

A provision calling for "a degree
in theology" was too much for some,
so another argument ensued which
led to a change which permitted "a
bachelor's degree" period.

Another argument developed over
whether division staff heads should
have a special interest in the partic-
ular work of the division (i.e. should
the executive for the division on In-
ternational Mission have a special
interest in world missions?) . The
consensus became that all staffers
should have a general interest in the
total mission and not a primary in-
terest in some aspect of it.

The largest proportion of time
was taken in deciding just how ap-
plications for these jobs will be so-
licited (they will be advertised) ,
who will screen the applicants,
how they will be screened, how sal-
ary benefits will be negotiated, how
it will be determined that they are
"acceptable to the whole Church."

We got the impression that the
whole board expected to act as a
nominating committee and that they
thought they would be deluged with
applications. (Privately, one knowl-
e d g e a b 1 e Church administrator
wondered if it wasn't rather that
some people had already decided on
their choice for certain offices and
they wanted the "job qualifications"
to fit their choice.)

One thing is sure: The GEB is
having a hard time getting off the
ground. II

It's A Crisis of Faith

The additional material prepared
by Dr. R. T. L. Liston, the conserva-
tive member of the committee work-
ing on a new confession of faith for
the Presbyterian Church US (see p.
7, this issue) , leaves us with mixed
emotions.

No intelligent Christian (not tcii
say Presbyterian) would doubt that
the proposed new confession needs
very badly the ideas embodied in
Dr. Liston's "minority report."
The confession, written apparently
to satisfy everybody by the inclu-
sion of all the pet phrases that al-
most anybody is likely to demand,
fails precisely because it does not
separate the distinctive Christian
faith into those exclusive categories
which distinguish Christians from
all other persons of good will and
humanitarian concern.

However, this additional material
raises the very question: If the pro-
posed confession were to be patched
up with the addition of these
changes and additions, would it then
be a banner that the Presbyterian
Church could wave before the un-
believing world in the name of Je-
sus Christ?

Somehow the words of the Lord
Jesus keep coming back to us, as
He said: "No man sews a piece of
new cloth on an old garment: else
the rent is made worse" (Mark
2:21) . Patched with this material,
the Church's banner would look like
some of those stylish jeans you see
worn these days, with patches delib-
erately plastered here and there.

More important (most impor-
tant perhaps) , is the basic issue of
confessionalism in the Church to-
day. We are in a crisis of faith in
which the issue is not really so much
one of precision in statement of
faith, but rather of the authority of
any confession.

In other words, what difference
does a confession of faith make any-
how? Does anyone feel bound by
the Church's confession and, if so,
to what extent?

Would anyone at all be willing to
be put to death at the stake for the
difference between Dr. Liston's lan-
guage and that of the rest of the
committee?

It's an open secret that most of;
the agitation in favor of a new con-
fession of faith is due to the fact
that some of the statements in the
old have become sources of embar-
rassment. In their more candid mo-

PAGE 12 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 11, 1972

THE LAYMAN AND HIS CHURCH

m

What Time Is It?

nents, many proponents of a new
statement of faith will frankly ad-
mi that they not only have trouble
with 17th century language, they
:annot go along with "17th century
'theology." It's that simple.

If the new confession, when it is
finished, is so worded that it does
not engender the same embarrass-
ment, it will pass. If it is so pre-
cise in its wording, and the ac-
companying new ordination vows,
(one part of the total process that
hasn't been tackled yet) , are so bind-
ing that the liberal brethren feel
they would be committed to a theol-
ogy they could not accept, it won't
pass.

Of one thing you can be sure:
Anything laid before the Church
(or supported in the General As-
sembly) with the approval of the
liberals in the Church will not be
Reformed in the historic sense, Bib-
lical in the plain sense, or Christian
in the necessary sense.

When a dedicated liberal looks at
a theological statement and says,
"I'll vote for that," you can be sure
that no matter what it seems to say,
it isn't what the Church of the Lord
Jesus Christ ought to say. 33

The Gospel Is
First of all Truth

Of all the ideas that men have ad-
vanced to avoid coming to terms
with the truth of God, the least con-
vincing is the theory that faith does
not rest upon truth in the form of
intellectual propositions, but rather
upon Jesus Christ as a person.

Apparently some seem to think
that you can come to know Christ
without knowing anything about
Him. Wrote one author recently:

"When Jesus stated that He was
the truth He did not mean that He
was stating a number of good and
true ideas; He meant that in Him
the total structure of the universe
was for the first time and forever
disclosed. But since this truth is
set forth not in propositions, to
which intellectual assent would be
the right response, but in personal
form, what it demands is not so
much understanding as surrender."

Now when intelligent persons
(they must be intelligent, for they
get books published) advocate non-
sense, it must be for some com-
pelling reason. One guess is that

{Continued on p. 21, col. 3)

What time is it? This common
question is probably asked a thou-
sand times a day. I wish that we
were as concerned about the clock
of God, as its hands trace our des-
tinies and its numerals tell our
years.

With the disciples we should ask,
"Master, tell us when shall these
things be? And what shall be the
sign of thy coming, and of the end
of the world?" We know from Mat-
thew that He told them of the fall-
ing away from the faith, of wars
and rumors of wars, famines, pesti-
lences, and earthquakes, and then
He gave them their answer in the
parable of the fig tree.

It is conceivable, if we see the day
approaching, that we can know
when it is near. So, watchman, what
of the night? "O ye hypocrites, ye
can discern the face of the sky; but
can yet not discern the signs of the
times" (Matt. 16:3) .

Evidently unbelief will be one of
the strongest evidences of the near-
ness of His coming. It seems clear
now that as ministers depart from
Biblical truths they become unable
to hold their congregations; they re-
sort to all kinds of organizational
gimmicks and worldly programs.
They handle the Word of God de-
ceitfully (II Cor. 4:2) as false
prophets, condemning the truth as
myths.

What kind of zeal has been ex-
pended by the religious leaders of
our land to see that the theory of
evolution, openly taught in our
schools now, be debunked? This
theory has weakened the hold of re-
ligious convictions upon the mind
of modern youth. Assurances which
make a god of material things have
led to a tragic decline of faith, but
the clergy's energy appears to have
been exhausted by collecting funds
to defend the wicked. Not a pretty
picture, is it? But we can't disre-
gard the signs.

The layman's column this week
was written by Alba M. Wahl (Mrs.
W. D.) , an elect housewijc of Co-
lumbia, S. C.

Again, our generation would do
away with war and want, the two
arch enemies of modern man,
blatantly overlooking what God has
to say about "wars and rumors of
wars" and "ye have the poor always
with you."

We act as if our great knowledge
would enable us to be gods. The
intellectual, the temporal, the ma-
terial are worshiped with no thought
to the spiritual. Isn't that a re-
enactment of the scene in the Gar-
den? When have college degrees
meant so much? Isn't it time to
recognize that we are satiated with
knowledge that "puffeth up"?

We can be certain that this great
world we so brashly boast about is
going to be destroyed. It has always
been the highly cultivated civiliza-
tions which are destroyed, never the
half-civilized or savage ones. Aren't
we now being ground between the
upper and nether millstone? Isn't
it probably later than we think?

"The wicked walk on every side
when the vilest men are exalted"
(Psa. 12:8) . We are experiencing
some of this now. "Because sentence
against an evil work is not executed
speedily, therefore the heart of the
sons of men is fully set in them to
do evil" (Eccl. 8:11) . We have only
to read our newspapers to verify
this. The Bible tells us that evil
men and seducers shall wax worse
and worse, promising liberty when
they themselves are the servants of
corruption. When "the wicked bear-
eth rule, the people mourn." Aren't
these the signs we are told to look
for?

God has likened the wicked to "a
troubled sea whose waters cast up
mire and dirt." At times we seem
submerged in silt today, forgetting
that woe is to them who call evil
good and good evil, walking togeth-
er with unbelievers, and tempting
God as hypocrites.

It appears that the religious and
political leaders of this day are bent
on uniting to crown the anti-Christ
as they united once to crucify our

(Continued on p. 21, col. 2)

PAGE 13 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 11, 1972

SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON

For October 29, 1972

Freedom Under Authority

Rev. Jack B. Scott

INTRODUCTION: The theme
of the final section of this quarter's
lessons is "The Changing World of
National and International Rela-
tions." Such subjects as the relation
between Church and state, na-
tionalism and internationalism, the
threat of world conflict, and the
hope of world peace will be treated,
beginning with the Christian and
world authority.

I. THE ORIGIN OF AU-
THORITY. Paul answered the
question of the origin of authority
quite clearly (Rom. 13:1). It is
from God; the power Paul men-
tioned is a governmental power. In
the case of Paul and his elders, it
was the Roman Empire. At other
times it was other governments. The
fact that the governments were sec-
ular and pagan, evil and corrupt,
did not change the fact. God ulti-
mately is over all earthly authority
and is in control. Governments ex-
ist only by God's will.

This is no new concept; from the
beginning, it has been so. The doc-
trine is most clearly expressed in the
Old Testament: "I have made the
earth, men and the beasts that are
upon the face of the earth, by my
great power and by my outstretched
arm; and I give it unto whom it
seemeth right unto me" (Jer. 27:5) .

The basis that it is God's giving
the world to whom it seems right to
Him is His own creation of it.
— the earth and all creatures on it.
It has pleased God to give the earth
to the children of men (Psa. 115:
16) . God has chosen to rule the
earth and the men on it by means
of human agencies. God in no way
relinquishes His authority and He
does hold men accountable for all
they do as governors under God.

Thus history records the rise and
fall of human powers according to
the will of God. The earliest gov-
ernments we know of in the Bible
are seen after the flood. Babel was
a type of government, an attempt
to unite men in a combined
effort. It failed because it did not
please the Lord. As the Lord did

Background Scripture: I Chron-
icles 10:1-16; Romans 13:1-7; I
Peter 2:11-17

Key Verses: Romans 13:1-7; I Pe-
ter 2:11-17

Devotional Reading: Psalm 2

Memory Selection: I Peter 2:16

thereafter, here also He defeated the
purpose which displeased Him (Gen.
11:1-9).

The rise of numerous govern-
ments after the flood is reflected in
the histories of the peoples who
sprang from Shem, Ham and Ja-
pheth. The kingdoms of Babel, Ac-
cad, Assyria, and Egypt are all men-
tioned in Genesis 10:10-11. Ca-
naanite kingdoms are also noted in
the following verses. Apparently
from the time of Babel, if not be-
fore, kingdoms and powers of men
began to appear on earth. Archae-
ology shows evidence of early king-
doms of men in the areas of Meso-
potamia and Egypt.

We can assume that all of these
kingdoms came to be by the will of
God who controlled and used them
for His purpose (Jer. 27:5) . Even
wicked Egypt which cruelly treated
Israel, God's people, had its author-
ity under God. In Egypt, God's peo-
ple were hammered into a nation in
spite of the slavery they endured.
When God chose to free Israel, He
did so and plundered Egypt for His
people's sake (Exo. 12:35-36) . Then,
at the Red Sea, God overthrew the
Egyptians to bring His people free-
dom (Exo. 14, 15) .

Later, because of their great sin,
God overthrew the powers occupy-
ing the land of Canaan. He took
from Canaan and gave to His people
that part of the earth (Deut. 9:1-5) .

As long as His own people served
Him, God blessed and increased
their land, but when they disobeyed,
He took from them. In the book
of Judges we have the record of Is-
rael's frequent rise and fall before
her enemies.

The International Sunday School Lesson Outlines
are copyrighted 1972 by the Committee on the
Uniform Series of the National Council of Churches
of Christ.

In David's day, Israel prospered
under a faithful ruler. David ex-
tended the empire from Egypt to
Mesopotamia, ruling most of the
ancient world. God, who is over all,
gave Israel its vast area of the earth
to rule in the days of David and his
son Solomon.

However, God took that same
land from Israel because of Israel's
disobedience. First, God raised up
adversaries, even in Solomon's day,
to harass Israel (I Kings 11:14).
Syria loomed large on the horizon
and pressed Israel in early history.
Later Assyria became the great pow-
er in the world and the first true
empire. The Assyrians ultimately
took Israel, the northern kingdom,
and carried away most of the Is-
raelites who would never return.

Then God raised up the Bab-
ylonians to destroy Assyria for its
cruelties to His people (see Na-
hum's prophecy) . God destroyed
nation after nation because each was
cruel and each displeased God
(Amos 1) . This simply illustrates
the meaning of Jeremiah 27:5.

Daniel 2 recounts a dream by
Nebuchadnezzar. Daniel interpret-
ed the dream which revealed that,
from the time of Nebuchadnezzar
and his kingdom (Babylon) , four
great empires would rule the world.
Each would rise and fall. Finally
God would set up His kingdom
which would overthrow the king-
doms of men.

Space will not allow us to inter-
pret this message in detail, but suf-
fice to say that basically it tells of
the rise and fall of the empires of
Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome.
Each kingdom will be under God's
control and accountable to God.
The lesson to be learned by each
ruler is: "the Most High ruleth in
the kingdoms of men, and gives it
to whomsoever He will" (Dan. 4:
32).

While dealing with the sin of His
people, God punished them by the
rise of powers of men to conquer
and war against them. However,
God also always punished evil, god-
less nations because they did their

PAGE 14 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 11, 1972

evil against His people with a cruel
heart (Isa. 13:6-14:2) . Babylon
was punished by the power of the
Medes (Persia) because of cruelty
against Israel.

As told by God through Dan-
iel, in the end only God's kingdom
will endure.

Persia, led by Cyrus, arose to set
Israel free to return to the Holy
Land. Then, led by Alexander the
Great, Greece overthrew Persia. Fi-
nally, in the time of Jesus, the Ro-
mans ruled the world. God's peo-
ple at that time were under the heel
of cruel masters, the Roman em-
peror and his subordinate, Herod
the Great. Yet the evidence of
God's control in this whole situa-
tion is quite visible.

Caesar Augustus signed a decree
for taxation, and its greatest
result was to get Mary and Joseph
to the city of Bethlehem, the place
where Jesus was to be born. Herod
tried to destroy the Lord while He
was a babe, but God overruled and
yet other prophecy was fulfilled
(Matt. 2:13-18) .

The book of Revelation shows
that the nations of the earth will,
under Satan, continue to try to de-
stroy God's people but will never
succeed because God ultimately gives
His people the victory; in the end,
the nations of the world will be
overthrown (Rev. 12:17; 18; 20:7-
15) . Only God's kingdom and His
people will endure (Rev. 21, 22),
as God foretold through Daniel
long ago (Dan. 2) .

We conclude then that all earthly
powers come from God, even the
most wicked. God appoints them
both for the good of men and the
punishment of men, but God is al-
ways in control.

II. THE PURPOSE OF AU-
THORITY (Rom. 13:1-7). Be-
cause men's hearts are naturally cor-
rupt and rebellious, God has or-
dained powers and rulers among
men to control by force the evil in-
clinations of men. To resist the
earthly powers is to resist God
(Rom. 13:2) .

Several times here Paul called the
ruler the minister (servant) of God.
This does not mean that he con-
sciously serves and seeks to please
God. It means that he is in God's
hands and in God's control. What
he does is ultimately part of the
plan and purpose of God for the
good of God's people primarily.

The laws he enforces may not al-

ways seem right or fair but they are
for the control of the people. They
are sometimes unjust because men
are unjust, but they are also neces-
sary to keep men from breaking
loose into all kinds of lawlessness
(Rom. 13:4).

Paul was not claiming that every-
thing which the rulers do is moral-
ly right or even defensible, but the
rulers are nevertheless appointed by
God for the ultimate good of those
ruled. Basically they maintain or-
der and enforce the laws of the land.
There can be no interference in this
duty which is theirs. If they do well,
God will bless the people. If they
do not do well, God will judge them.
The ruler is also accountable to
God.

Daniel urged pagan Nebuchad-
nezzar to "break off thy sin by right-
eousness, and thine iniquities by
showing mercy to the poor; if there
may be a lengthening of thy tran-
quility" (Dan. 4:27) . All rulers are
held responsible to God for this con-
duct, and cruel rulers will be pun-
ished. Rulers who rule well will
prolong their rule and peace.

III. THE CHRISTIAN DUTY
AND OPPORTUNITY UNDER
A UTHORITY. Our chief concern is
the Christian's relation to the king-
doms of this world. What is the
Christian's duty? First, let us re-
member what God spoke through
Daniel: the kingdoms of this world
and the powers that be will fall.
Only God's kingdom (Church) will
endure. Whatever we do, we must
make clear that our citizenship is in
heaven, not on earth (Phil. 3:20) .

This does not mean that we have
nothing to do with the authorities
on earth. Since they are appointed
by God, we are to be obedient to
them (Rom. 13:5) . Our motivation,
like that of the nonbeliever, is fear
of the wrath and punishment of the
ruler when we break the laws of the
land (Rom. 13:3-5) . No sympathy
is to be given to the professing Chris-
tian who flouts the laws; he deserves
whatever punishment he gets.

Being a believer does not make
one immune from the punishment
due all who break the law of the
land. Today when we see so-called
Christians flouting and disregarding
the law and being carried off to
prison, we must not be sympathetic.
The Bible says they are getting ex-
actly what they deserve. Do not in-
terfere with the government in carry-
ing out its duties.

But Paul went further. We as be-
lievers are to obey, not merely out
of fear, but even more, out of con-
science sake (v. 5) . That is, we pay
our taxes because they too are God's
servants. Rulers deserve our support
(v. 6) . By obeying them and sup-
porting them, we are showing our
subjection to God (v. 7) .

Peter particularly developed this
doctrine. We are to be law-abiding
in order to appear before the un-
believing world to the glory of God.
Even though the world speaks
against us, we are to give them no ba-
sis for opposition. By our good works
we shall glorify God (I Pet. 2:12).
We have been born again for this
very purpose (Eph. 2:10. Compare
Luke 6:27).

Thus we are to obey men, even
evil men, for the Lord's sake (I Pet.
2:13) . We do what we do as pleas-
ing God, not men. Compare Ephe-
sians 6:5-8. As citizens of God's king-
dom, we honor God by obedience to
the laws of the nation in which we
live.

Many today feel that we are free
to rebel and riot and overthrow gov-
ernments whenever we choose. God
is not in such actions as they claim.
They are those who use "freedom"
for a cloak of wickedness (I Pet. 2:
16).

Verse 17 of I Peter 2 beautifully
summarizes our duty. We are to
honor all men. We treat all as
God's creatures and under God's
authority. We are to love the
brotherhood. This, of course, means
the Christian fellowship; the bond
between the believer and his Church
is greater than any other bond on
earth and it should be. We are to
fear God (believe in Him) . This
is always God's desire for His chil-
dren. This is the very nature of
the child of God.

Where, then, in all of this rela-
tionship to various categories of men
does our duty to the king belong?
We treat him with honor, as we do
all men. Because he is in authority,
we honor him as a ruler. We do
not love him as we do the Church
unless, of course, he is a part of that
Church. We do not fear him (be-
lieve in him) as we do our Lord.
We know that the ruler is fallible
and that in the end his kingdom
will fall.

We should see our subjection to
earthly powers as an opportunity to
glorify God. While in the world,
we are not of the world. We can

(Continued on p. 23, col. 2)

PAGE 15 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 11, 1972

3$

YOUTH PROGRAM

For October 29, 1972

Decision of Indecision

Scripture: I Kings 18:17-39
Suggested Hymns:

"Stand up, Stand up for Jesus"
"Who Is on the Lord's Side?"
"I am Thine, O Lord, I Have
Heard Thy Voice"

PROGRAM LEADER'S INTRO-
DUCTION: The situation de-
scribed in our Scripture passage is
not hard to reconstruct in our
minds. Gathered before Elijah
were King Ahab, the prophets of
Baal, and the people of Israel.

It was the kind of confrontation
which Elijah, the man of God, de-
sired because he wanted to lay be-
fore the people a clear-cut choice.
He wanted to force them to make
a decision. In order to bring about
that decision he asked one of those
seemingly impossible-to-avoid ques-
tions.

He said, "How long halt ye (or
how long will you go limping) be-
tween two opinions? If the Lord
be God, follow him: but if Baal,
then follow him." The Scripture
record then indicates the response
of the people in these strange words:
"And the people answered him not
a word."

"The people answered him not a
word." It is likely that the people
of Israel thought in themselves that
by refusing to say anything they were
avoiding a difficult choice, but they
weren't. Their attempt to avoid a
decision was a decision in itself. Je-
sus himself commented on this kind
of situation when He said, "He that
is not for me is against me." Inde-
cision with regard to God is a deci-
sion against Him. God desires and
deserves a positive response, and any-
thing less than a positive response
is a negative one.

FIRST SPEAKER: The most im-
portant decision anyone can make is
to put his trust in Jesus Christ as his
Saviour and Lord. Ordinarily when
a person is confronted with this de-
cision he will either accept Christ or
will postpone the choice. Very rare-

Rev. B. Hoyt Evans

ly will a person flatly reject Christ's
claims and declare open opposition
to Him. Those who postpone the
decision seem to believe they are be-
ing neutral, but are they?

Is it possible to be neutral with
regard to Christ? The person who
tries to be neutral, who postpones
believing in Christ, who declines to
decide for Christ, comes out at the
same place as the one who flatly re-
jects Him. As long as we fail to de-
cide for Christ, we have already de-
cided against Him. Indecision be-
comes a decision against the Lord.

SECOND SPEAKER: In the area
of witnessing, indecision actually be-
comes a decision itself. After we
have believed in the Lord and re-
ceived His gift of eternal life, there
is immediately laid on us the obliga-
tion to be His witnesses. We are
responsible for telling other people
about the Lord and encouraging
them to let Him do for them what
He has for us.

Many of us are tempted to be in-
decisive about that obligation. We
do not think of ourselves as being
opposed to witnessing. We do not
feel we have refused to obey the
Lord. We do not feel that we have
declared our opposition to what
Christ has commanded.

The actual situation is that by
postponing the decision we have in
fact decided not to witness. The
person who is indecisive with re-
gard to witnessing has already de-
cided not to witness, and that deci-
sion stands until he changes his
mind, if he ever does.

THIRD SPEAKER: It would be
hard to find a professing Christian
who would be willing to state that
he is opposed to the practice of
prayer and Bible reading. However,
a great many who call themselves
Christians do very little praying and
very little Bible reading. While
they have not made up their minds
to pray and read the Bible, they
have not deliberately decided not to.

It is once more a matter of inde-

cision, and the indecision has be-
come a practical decision to neglect
two matters that are very important
to spiritual health and life. When
we are indecisive about praying and
reading the Bible, the practical re-
sult is the same as if we had an-
nounced our refusal to take part in
these essential spiritual exercises.

FOURTH SPEAKER: In the mat-
ter of giving to the Lord's work,
there are not many people who will
argue against the practice of tithing.
It is not that there is a great deal
of violent opposition to the idea, but
a great many just don't tithe. There
is no outspoken refusal. They just
neglect it and the practical resuit is
the same as if they were avowed en-
emies of tithing.

Indecision with regard to tithing
is in reality a decision not to tithe,
and the Lord's work is deprived of
support it ought to have. In like
manner, those who by indecision
choose not to tithe are robbed of
the joy and blessing that comes to
those who are obedient to the Lord.

PROGRAM LEADER: The peo-
ple whom Elijah confronted on
Mount Carmel were challenged to let
God be God. When they tried to
maintain a neutrality by being inde-
cisive, what they really did was to re-
ject God's claim on their lives and
for their loyalty.

We are still being confronted by
the same kinds of choices every day.
If we think we can dodge those de-
cisions, we are deceiving ourselves.
When we fail to decide for God, we
automatically decide against Him.
Indecision with regard to God is in
itself a decision, and it is a decision
against Him.

Closing Prayer. 51

WANTED: a congregation who desires
a Bible-preaching, Presbyterian Pastor:
Separatist background, experienced in
an 8-year successful Independent Pres-
byterian pastorate in the South: Refer-
ences can be supplied. Write R.C., Box
635, Weaverville, N.C.

PAGE 16 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 11, 1972

WOMEN'S WORK

Supplementary Circle Bible Study

November: The Work of the Servant

Can you see how a person would
need to humble himself if he want-
ed to be a servant of God?

Perhaps the most difficult truth
to grasp is the character of being a
servant of God. It is hard for peo-
ple to realize what is involved in
this. It would be natural to think
that if you were a servant of God,
you would do what God wanted you
to do.

In life a servant is dependent up-
on his master for direction and re-
ward. Thus it is natural to think
if a man were going to serve God,
he would do what God wants him
to do and receive from God what He
will give him. The natural master-
servant relationship may be marked
by unfair advantage taken by the
master and the response of the ser-
vant with an underlying feeling of
hostility. The master may often-
times be unfair. The servant may
oftentimes be untrue. Between the
two of them there may be a contin-
uous feeling of almost hostility.

What then should the servant of
God do? In this we should notice
what Jesus of Nazareth did when He
was here, because He was the ser-
vant of God. For our first Scrip-
ture we would turn to Isaiah 42:1-4.
This passage is used in the New
Testament to describe Jesus of Naza-
reth. It will teach us what it will
be like when you have Christ in you,
guiding you when you are a Chris-
tian:

"Behold my servant, whom I up-
hold; mine elect, in whom my soul
delighteth; I have put my spirit up-
on him: he shall bring forth judg-
ment to the Gentiles. He shall not
cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice
to be heard in the street. A bruised
reed shall he not break, and the
smoking flax shall he not quench:
he shall bring forth judgment unto
truth. He shall not fail nor be dis-
couraged, till he have set judgment
in the earth: and the isles shall wait
for his law."

In this we see what the servant of
God will look like, and what is go-
ing to take place in the heart of a
Christian. It is true that for the

Manford George Gutzke, D.D., Ph.D.

Isaiah 42:1-4; 52:13-53; 61:1-4

Christian, "Christ liveth in me." As
we see Christ in action in this pas-
sage in Isaiah, we can see the Chris-
tian as he lives.

Let us look at this with care. "Be-
hold my servant, whom I uphold;
in whom my soul delighteth." The
first thing that comes to your mind
about this servant of God is that he
belongs to God. Though he may
act and serve as a servant, he actual-
ly is a child of God. The servant of
God is dependent upon God for his
living, implied in the phrase "whom
I uphold;" and for his satisfaction,
implied in the phrase "in whom my
soul delighteth."

Servant Belongs to God

The great thing to have in mind
at the very beginning, when the per-
son begins to serve God, is that the
servant belongs to God. There is no
such thing as striving to qualify
to be good enough to become a ser-
vant of God. The believer starts
out as His servant. The believer
may be just a beginner as a servant,
but he belongs to God.

Christ Jesus through the Holy
Spirit will guide the believer. "I
have put my spirit upon him;" thus
this servant of God has the Holy
Spirit within him. The Holy Spirit
in the believer activates the servant
to do the will of God. The person
who is a servant of God is not doing

what he or she thinks is good,
hoping God will like it.

The believer is not doing
what he or she thinks is the
right thing, hoping God will ap-
prove it. No, the servant of God is
responding to the guidance within:
"This is the way, walk ye in it." He
is actually seeking only to be obedi-
ent to the inward guidance that he
has from the living God.

"He shall bring forth judgment
to the Gentiles." Whenever you see
the word "Gentile" in the Old Tes-
tament, insert "everyone, all peo-
ple." No single class of people was
called Gentiles. The only people
in the Old Testament especially
named are Hebrews, Israelites, Jews.
They are the "chosen." Everyone
else is a Gentile. Thus, the phrase,
"He shall bring forth judgment to
the Gentiles," means He will help
all men.

The Christian, living as the ser-
vant of God, will have an attitude
of helpfulness toward everyone. A
human being is a creature of God
and could become a child of God;
therefore, the Christian is interested
in helping that person.

Quietly, But With Power

"He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor
cause his voice to be heard in the
street." The phrase "lift up," really
means to say "he shall not cry nor
lift up his voice, nor make it to be
heard in the street." In other words,
the servant of God will be gentle,

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a place for
becoming
.... YOU

A lamp is (or lighting
A brick is for building
A flower is for blooming
A person is for . . . ALL OF THESE
Lighting dark corners
Building God's kingdom
Blooming in Christ's beauty
Learning to do all of these — to light,
to build, to bloom,—
Is called becoming.
The person who is becoming is YOU.

The place is Geneva.
Geneva College ... a place for becoming YOU.

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GENEVA COLLEGE

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mild, and quiet-mannered. This
brings to mind the Lord Jesus, gen-
tle, but with all power.

In this connection, think of how
the sunlight comes in, quietly but
with power. Think of how the law
of gravitation operates. It pulls you
to the ground without noise or fuss,
but with power. One could even
think of the flow of electricity. One
does not hear a rustling sound nor
see a bulge moving in the wires, but
there is power.

So it is with reference to the Lord
Jesus Christ. He did not have to
impress anyone with what He said.
He did not have to shout. "He shall
not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his
voice to be heard in the street." He
maintained a mild-mannered, gentle
approach.

"A bruised reed shall he not break
and the smoking flax shall he not
quench." This means that if you
would use a reed or stick as a rod
until it is cracked and bruised, He
will not break it and throw it away
as useless. The phrase, "the smok-
ing flax," refers to flax being used
for burning to create heat. If the

For Discussion

1. What guidance is in this study
for a mother?

2. How did Paul illustrate this
truth in his life? (Phil. 3:10).

3. How is suffering involved in
spiritual life? (I Pet. 4:1).

4. How can a Christian follow in
His "steps' ? (I Pet. 2:19-25) .

material being used to light a fire
is damp or wet, it will be difficult
to start a flame. Flax straw that is
wet will just barely catch fire.
Smoke rises as the fire smoulders;
when the fire burns strong, there
will be flames with little smoke.
When one speaks of "smoking flax,"
the straw is just barely lit with just
a little fire.

However, He shall not quench
that fire, He will not put it out. The
believer can take great comfort here.
This whole statement means to say
that when a believer is weak, inca-
pable, faulty, Christ will not throw
thac person away. If a Christian
should start out to serve His Lord
today and tomorrow fail: succeeding
one day, failing the next, the Lord
will not throw that person away. The
bruised reed He will not smash, and

the smoking flax, the smouldering It
fire with scarcely a flicker, He will isi
not put out. Hi

"He shall bring forth judgment s
unto truth." Christ will be honest
in dealing with men. "He shall not
fail nor be discouraged till he have
set judgment in the earth;" He will
be persistent. This is one of the
wonderful truths learned in the
heart when a person really belongs
to the Lord.

Christ Is Consistent

The believer might become dis-
couraged and fail, but the Lord will
not. Christ is consistent, persistent;1
He will not fail "till he have set !
judgment in the earth." He will be
successful.

i

"And the isles shall wait for his
law." The fact is that the servant!
of God is sent to help all men be-!
cause God wants to help all nations
by revealing truth to them. In or-,
der to do that He sends His beloved
Servant, empowering this Servant by
His Spirit to help all men. In His
unlimited strength, the servant is
mild, patient, honest, persistent and i
works for everyone. Because he is
led by the Spirit of God, the Chris-'
tian will manifest this character in
his own service.

The next portion of Scripture is'
one of the most famous, one of the
most wonderful passages in the Bi-
ble. It begins in Isaiah 52:13 and
continues through the whole 53rd
chapter.

This is the classic description of
the sufferings of Christ, which He
endured for the sinner that he might
be saved. This suffering belongs
in the work of a servant. Christ suf-
fered this because He came to serve.
He came to do this for us, and the
principal truth here is that the in-
nocent Substitute must die in the
sinner's place.

Wisdom, Prudence

In Isaiah 52:13 it is written: "Be-
hold, my servant shall deal prudent-
ly, he shall be exalted and extolled,
and be very high." This predicts
that the servant of God will be wise,
prudent. "As many were astonished I;
at thee; his visage was so marred!
more than any man, and his formi
more than the sons of men'' (Isa.
52:14). The word "visage" refers-
to His countenance, His face. This
is perhaps the only clue in the Bi-

PAGE 18 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 11, 1972

)le as to what the appearance of
'esus of Nazareth actually was:
His face was so marred more than
my man."

There is little record of what hap-
jened in the life of Jesus of Naza-
eth in the first 30 years He
ived. We know about Him as a
jaby, and in one instance when He
vas 12 years old, when He was
it the temple. We do not have any
dea how the other young people
reated Him, nor how other people
leak with Him during the time He
vas in His teens or twenties. Those
hings are not recorded.

We know He was always without
in. This would mean He would
dways be honest, straightforward.
He would never attempt to get any-
hing for Himself. Such a person
vould just naturally be misunder-
,tood, and people would take ad-
vantage of Him and undoubtedly
>uffet Him.

The prophet, looking ahead and
■eeing this Servant of God, re-
narked, "His face is so badly scarred
ind marred more than anyone's.
Sis body, His form, more than the
ons of men." This would seem to
imply say that He was abused.

Yet the prophet could say, "So
ihall he sprinkle many nations; the
cings shall shut their mouths at
lim: for that which had not been
old them shall they see; and that
tfhich they had not heard shall they
:onsider." Apparently He would be
iffective: He would get His mes-
iage across to them.

No Natural Appeal

"Who hath believed our report?
and to whom is the arm of the Lord
•evealed? For he shall grow up be-
fore him as a tender plant, and as
i root out of a dry ground: he hath
no form nor comeliness; and when
ive shall see him, there is no beauty
:hat we should desire him" (Isa.

53:1-2) .

It would appear from this that the
Servant had no natural appeal.
Whatever a person may think about
Jesus of Nazareth, he can be sure
the Bible says He was not attrac-
tive by human standards. No
doubt the artist will try to do jus-
tice to the wonderful things of
Christ by seeking to show them in
His human form, but this is in no
way revealed in Scripture. No one
knows what Jesus of Nazareth looked
like, unless it is noted there was
nothing exceptional about His ap-
pearance.

Remember the night He was be-
trayed? Judas went to betray Him,
but he could not, certainly he did
not point out any distinctive char-
acteristic. Jesus of Nazareth was
not so tall, so dark, so fair; there
was not anything about Him that
was noticeable. Remember how Ju-
das identified Him? He said,
"Watch me. The man I kiss, that's
the man."

This observation can help us to
keep in mind the servant of God
may not be anything exceptional.
Actually the servant of God may be
a very ordinary looking person and
with a very ordinary manner of life.

"He is despised and rejected of

(Continued on p. 22, col. 2,)

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1.25
1.25

REES HOWELLS: INTERCESSOR

by Norman Grubb 3.95

A SHORTER LIFE OF CHRIST

by Donald Guthrie 2.45

HOW TO WIN OVER WORRY

by John Haggai .95

PRAYER

by O. Hallesby 2.00

BETWEEN SUNDAYS

by Richard Halverson .95

LIFE IN ONE'S STRIDE
by Kenneth Hamilton 1.45

THE GOLDEN TREASURY OF THE
BIBLE,

by Emily V. Hammond .75

WHAT'S SO GREAT ABOUT THE BIBLE
by James C. Hefley .95

GET WITH IT MAN, A TEEN BOOK
by Don W. Hillis .50

THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MOTHERS
by Elsie D. Holsinger .50

MASTERS OF DECEIT
by J. Edgar Hoover

.95

TORCHBEARERS OF THE TRUTH

by A. S. Home 1.00

HOLY SPIRIT BAPTISM

by Anthony A. Hoekema 1.95

Order from
THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL
Weaverville, NC 28787

PAGE 19 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 11, 1972

BOOKS

PSYCHOLOGY FOR SUCCESSFUL
EVANGELISM, by James H. Jauncey.
Moody Press, Chicago, 111. 126 pp.
$3.95. Reviewed by the Rev. Lardner
W. Moore, H.R., Sherman, Tex.

Any book which can help in the
work of evangelism should be wel-
comed, and a book commended so
highly by Leighton Ford is criticized
with caution.

The author is a member of sev-
eral psychological societies, as well
as being a minister of a Christian
(Disciples) Church in El Paso, Tex-
as. He attempts to apply the find-
ings of psychology to the work of
persuading men to commit their
lives to Jesus Christ: People are per-
sons, individuals, and members of a
group (family, gang) . Courtesy and
kindness must be exercised in deal-
ing with all people, especially with
those who are strangers to Christ
and His Gospel. Person-to-person
contact is a classic method in evan-

gelism.

However, the book begins with a
discussion of man's will with state-
ments such as, "A man's will makes
him like a god, sovereign in his deci-
sions" and, "not even God violates
the human will." Plato's illustra-
tion of human will, "a team of
spirited horses with the direction . . .
determined by the man with the
reins," leads to the statement that,
"the human will has this sovereign
power."

Speaking of the spade work that
goes on before conversion which
"William James calls 'subconscious
incubation,' " the author concludes
with this sentence: "Even this fa-
natical, murderous, close-minded
man (Paul) had been nearer to
Christ than he realized."

The author follows modern psy-
chology which deals with man as
just man, neither good, bad nor in-
different. The Bible deals with man

Be a Supporter
of

the

PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL

People who count are people who can be counted on. At this critical
time in the life of the Church, the ministry of The Presbyterian Journal
largely depends on the support received from friends, groups and congre-
gations.

Be a Supporter of the Presbyterian Journal and do your part to main-
tain a distinctive Presbyterian and Reformed witness.

□ Count me a Supporter of the Presbyterian Journal. / enclose my
gift in the amount of $ / am especially interested in support-

ing

Name
Street
City ...

this way: "Knowing God they glori
fied him not as God neither gave p
thanks; but became vain in theii
reasoning" (Rom. 1:21). It
doubtful whether the changing spec
ulations of modern psychology (p
91 reference to Freud) can be o\
much help in presenting the eternal,
truths of God to sinful men.

10',;

;

(Hi

T'

THE BOOK OF WITNESSES, b,
David Kossoff. St. Martin's Press,.
New York, N. Y. 174 pp. $4.95. Re-'
viewed by the Rev. J. W. Hassell
H.R., Hickory, N. C.

Here is a series of forty fictional
stories out of the life of Jesus, by
imaginary, contemporary witnesses
It is the Gospel story retold, from
Bethlehem to Olivet. The material
was first presented to the public in
radio Bible talks, generating such
interest as to demand publication.
The style and material are entirely
unique and fresh, but the same Gos
pel story is tender, touching and
true. The real value of the work
is its freshness.

3'

A MAN OF THE WORD, by Jill
Morgan. Baker Book House, Grand
Rapids, Mich. Paper, 404 pp. $3.95
Reviewed by the Rev. Robert G. Val-
entine, pastor, Orthodox Presbyterian
Church, Greeneville, Tenn.

This reprint of the biography ol
G. Campbell Morgan first published
in 1951 is well worth the reading.
Dr. Morgan's extraordinary ministry
of the Word lives on in his many
writings and his name is known to
all serious Bible students. Here his1
daughter-in-law paints the well

(

State Zip

STATEMENT OF OWNERSHIP
MANAGEMENT AND CIRCULATION

Date of filing: October 1, 1972
Title of publication: The Presbyterian Journal
Frequency of issues: weekly
Location of known office of publication: Alabams.
Street, Weaverville, Buncombe County, Nortr
Carolina

Location of the headquarters of general business
offices of the publishers: Alabama Street, Weaver-
ville, Buncombe County, North Carolina.
Names and addresses of publisher, editor anc,
managing editor: Publisher: H. B. Dendy, Weaver
ville, N. C. Editor: G. Aiken Taylor, Ph.D., 24/
Charlotte Street, Asheville, N. C. Managing Edi
tor: H. B. Dendy, Weaverville, N. C.
Owner: The Southern Presbyterian Journal Co.
Inc , a non-profit religious corporation. Knowr
bondholders, mortgagees and other security hold
ers owning or holding 1 per cent or more o
total amount of bonds, mortgages or other se
curities, none.

Total No. copies printed (net press run), average"
42,588; last issue 40,500. Paid circulation: 1'
To term subscribers by mail, carrier delivery o
by other means, average 41,780; last issue 40,112
2) Sales through dealers and carriers, stree'
vendors and counter sales, none. Free distribu-
tion (including samples) by mail, carrier or oth-
er means, average 145; last issue 174. Total
number of copies distributed, average 41,635
last issue, 40,286. I certify that the statements
made above by me are correct and complete.

— H. B. Dendy, Publisher

Ji

Si

PAGE 20 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 11, 1972

lown Bible teacher's life and min-
try in vivid hues. He is seen not
nly as an honored Bible teacher on
3th sides of the Atlantic but as a
iving husband, father and pastor.
The reader will have his appetite
hetted for the writings of this
:rious student of the Word and will
e inspired to dig deep from the
easure house of the Bible. IB

hanges—from p. 9

an life.

Christian parents are expected to
ray with and for their children,
amily prayer is one of the chief
ulwarks of the Christian home.

Definite and regular times of
rayer are an important feature of
Ihristian devotional life; a daily
autine and special worship on the
x>rd's Day are important.

We must "be strong to apprehend
rith all the saints the length and
readth" of that Christian cora-
jiunion which finds its chief prac-
ical power in Christian fellowship.
I We must seek the answer for all
riadequacies by repeating the re-
quest of the apostles that Jesus
each us to pray. We must lean up-
in Him as He teaches us to pray in
lis name, and we must take fully
o heart His statement that the fi-
lal basic reality of prayer is to be
ought and found behind a closed
loor, alone with God.

We refuse and deny the Greek
iea that the body is inherently evil,
nd that a major element in re-
lemption is the delivery of our im-
Qortal souls from the corrupt and
aortal body. Jesus answered a ques-
ion about the resurrection of the
>ody by saying that Abraham is
|ive, though his body is still in the
ave of Machpelah. With him, we
>elieve that the blessed dead are
:onsciously alive with God, and that
it the resurrection their bodies will
)e restored. ffl

CANCER INSURANCE

'ersons of all ages are eligible, except
hose who have had and do now have
:ancer. No medical examination required.
>olicy pays up to $25,000 for each family
nember. Costs about dime per day for
fenfire family, less for lone individuals.
Ipancer will eventually strike 2 of 3
families. Cancer will strike 1 in 4 persons.
It is far better to have this protection
lind never need it than to need it, and
mot have it. Underwritten by Old Line
l/irginia Life Company. Write today to
itobert U. Woods, General Agent, (Elder,
Presbyterian Church), Maxtor*, N. C.
128364.

Layman— from p. 13

Christ. Isn't it the midnight call
when Bible truths are condemned?
We live in a day when abortion is
upheld, Satan worship is rampant,
drug addiction and adultery have
reached epidemic proportions.

The hands of the clock move
steadily on, they will make the cir-
cuit; but we who are carried by ev-
ery wind of doctrine are joining in
affinity with those reeking of those
abominations. How can the ticking
of the clock fall on such deaf ears
when "the night is far spent, the day

is at hand"?

As the shadows fall across the face
of the sundial, God's great clock of
eternity, we would ask that He pro-
tect us with "the pillar of fire and
of the cloud," and keep His morn-
ing watch on our ways. IS

Editorial— from p. 13

people who write like that are try-
ing to find an excuse not to repeat
the Apostle's Creed.

There is nothing in the Bible
which even remotely conveys the
thought: "You don't have to learn

*edi Simpson

31 stores in 8 states serving you
with this pledge ....

• To give prompt courteous service, treating our customers as you would a guest
In your home. • To give the best selection of merchandise Irom Top Quality
Fashions to basement bargains, meeting everyone's need. • To give satisfaction
guaranteed with every purchase. # To give credit terms arranged to meet your
budget needs in Stores doing credit business.

Since the opening of the first Belk-Simpson Store, it has been our
endeavor to be more in a community than just another merchant.
We have set forth a united consecrated effort, dedicated to the task
of securing superior quality merchandise, giving our customers a
better value than any other merchant.

SOUTH CAROLINA

Belk-Simpson Co.

Greenville, S. C.

J. A. Ellison, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson-Plaza Store

Greenville, S. C.

R. Grier Robinson Jr., Res. Mgr

The Dollar Store

Greenville, S. C.

R. P. Crumpler, Res. Mgr.

Belk's of Pleasantburg

Greenville, S. C.

A. M. Smith, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store
Lancaster, S. C.

B. L. Plyler, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store

Camden, S. C.

J. A. Hagins, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store

Clinton, S. C.

D. B. Smith, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.
Darlington, S. C.
Paul E. Broome, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store

Laurens, S. C.

David Middleton, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Abbeville, S. C.

J. S. Hagins, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Hagins Co.
Kershaw, S. C.

C. E. Hinson, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Easley, S. C.

R. J. Womack, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Beaufort, S. C.

Al Wilson, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Fountain Inn, S. C.

E. J. Copeland, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Woodruff, S. C.

F. B. Hagins, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Honea Path, S. C.

T. R. Martin, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Whitmire, S. C.

Clyde Smith, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Manning, S. C.

W. M. Gettys, Res. Mgr.

OHIO

Belk-Simpson Co.

Athens, Ohio

Joe Kelly, Res. Mgr.

MISSOURI

Belk-Simpson Co.

Carthage, Mo.

Charles Wilson, Res. Mgr.

OKLAHOMA

Belk Dept. Store
Miami, Oklahoma
J. T. Holmes, Res. Mgr.

NORTH CAROLINA

Belk-Simpson Co.

Hendersonville, N. C.

R. E. McCormack, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store

Brevard, N, C.

J. M. Felty, Res. Mgr.

KENTUCKY

Belk-Simpson Co.
Harlan, Ky.

Delmar Tolliver, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Corbin, Ky.

W. C. Ashley, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Winchester, Ky.

T. L. Beckham, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Mt. Sterling, Ky.

Willoughby Smith, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Frankfort, Ky.

J. D. Prow, Res. Mgr.

GEORGIA

Belk-Simpson Co.

Bainbridge, Ga.

M. D. Ashley, Res. Mgr.

ARKANSAS

Belk-Simpson Co.

Paragould, Ark.

W. H. Wade, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Osceola, Ark.

K. R. Cline, Res. Mgr.

These stores are a small part of the entire Belk or-
ganization and have been in existence approximately
50 years. The Belk stores were launched in 1886-88.

SEE THE MANAGER NEAREST YOU FOR CHURCH CARPET, ROBES, ETC.

PAGE 21 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 11, 1972

anything, you just have to meet
someone." Or, "You can meet Christ
without believing anything in par-
ticular about Him."

With the above quotation in
mind, we hear the psalmist say,
"Thy Word have I hid in my heart
that I might not sin against Thee"

(Psa. 119:11); and "The entrance
of Thy Word giveth light" (Psa.
119:130) ; and "He made known His
ways unto Moses, His acts unto the
children of Israel" (Psa. 103:5).

The author of the Hebrews wrote:
"God ... at sundry times and in
divers manners spake in time past
unto the fathers by the prophets"

(Heb. 1:1). The Apostle Paul
wrote: "All Scripture (the O 1 d
Testament) is given by inspiration
of God and is profitable for doc-
trine . . ." (II Tim. 3:16) . To Titus
Paul wrote: "But speak thou the
things which become sound doc-
trine" (Titus 2:1) .

In John 1, Jesus Christ is the
Word of God. He spoke of Himself
as the truth (John 14:6) . He prayed,
"Sanctify them (the disciples)
through thy truth: Thy Word is
truth." James wrote that Christians
are begotten of God by the Word of
truth (James 1:18). Paul wrote to
the Thessalonians that those are
damned who believe not the truth

(II Thess. 2:12). To Timothy he
wrote of "men of corrupt minds and
destitute of the truth" (I Tim. 6:
5) ; and of other men who "concern-
ing the truth have erred" (II Tim.
2:18) .

To say that there are no intellec-
tual propositions associated with the
Gospel is not only to speak non-
sense but also to make God a
"dumb" God who does not speak —
who just acts. This is an essence
of idolatry. For the principal char-
acteristic of idols is that they are
dumb — they never speak, they are
only imagined to act.

Those who say God reveals Him-
self not in intellectual propositions
but only in mighty acts seem to be
trying to avoid the harsh demands
of orthodoxy — the clarion call of
the creeds.

But God has revealed Himself first
and foremost in intellectual propo-
sitions — in the truth about Him-
self. Jesus Christ was not a dumb
image, standing still for men to look
at in order to see a revelation from
God. He was the Word, crying out
to the world, "Hearken unto Me
and you will hear a revelation from
God." As the lamb of God He re-

vealed the love of God, but His sacri-
fice on the cross must be interpreted
in terms of intellectual propositions
or it is just the death of another
man. EE

Circle— from p. 19

men; a man of sorrows, and ac-
quainted with grief: and we hid as
it were our faces from him; he was
despised, and we esteemed him not"
(Isa. 53:3) .

Apparently when the Servant of
God lived in this world, the very
people who were closest to Him did
not appreciate Him. There was
nothing inspiring about His action
in the eyes of the people who were
around Him. They actually thought
that God was neglecting Him. Per-
sonally they turned their faces away.
"Surely he hath borne our griefs,
and carried our sorrows: yet we did
esteem him stricken, smitten of God,
and afflicted" (Isa. 53:4).

Misunderstood

This records the fact that at the
time the servant was doing His ser-
vice among men, people failed to
understand Him. In fact, He was
misunderstood. This statement is
written as if it had been written af-
terward.

During the time He was here and
during the time He was actually
rendering His service, although it
was true that He suffered because
of the people, bearing their griefs
and carrying their sorrows, the peo-
ple thought He was stricken, smit-
ten of God and afflicted.

He was misunderstood, "but he
was wounded for our transgressions,
he was bruised for our iniquities:
the chastisement of our peace was
upon him; and with his stripes we
are healed." This Servant was a liv-
ing sacrifice. He came as a substi-
tute for the sinner and bore our
sins. This is the actual truth of the
matter.

"All we like sheep have gone
astray; we have turned every one to
his own way; and the Lord hath
laid on him the iniquity of us all"
(Isa. 53:6).

The Scapegoat

In the Old Testament there was
one very unusual sacrifice. A goat was
brought forward and the priest con-
fessed the sins of the people on the

i:i

a

goat. The goat was then turnec jui
loose into the wilderness. He wa
called "the scapegoat" because 9
escaped, as it were, with the sins o
the people upon him. The scape
goat was the one who carried th<
burden or responsibility for some
body else.

"He was oppressed, and he wa
afflicted, yet he opened not hi
mouth: he is brought as a lamb t(
the slaughter, and as a sheep befon
her shearers is dumb, so he opened
not his mouth" (Isa. 53:7) . Thi
is the classic passage to indicate th<
meekness of the Son of God, th<
meekness "as a lamb to the slaugh
ter." There was no self-defense.

This is probably one of the hard
est things for a person to learn a:
a Christian. When the believer ha:
Christ in him and is being led in
wardly by the Holy Spirit to do as
he does in his daily walk, whatevei
it may be, the Christian perform:
his service, large or small, as untc
the Lord. That person will not al
ways be understood by men. H(
may have people say things aboui
him and do things to him the)
should not say or do. Remember
there is to be no defense, no self
justification.

"He is brought as a lamb to the
slaughter, and as a sheep before hei
shearers is dumb, so he openeth not
his mouth. He was taken from
prison and from judgment; and whc
shall declare his generation? for he
was cut-off out of the land of the liv
ing" (Isa. 53:7-8).

•ir

When We Serve

In Isaiah 53:8-9 it is recorded thai
the Servant actually suffered untc
death. "He was cut off out of the
land of the living . . . and he made
his grave with the wicked . . . be
cause he had done no violence
neither was any deceit in hi
mouth." He drank the whole cup
down to the bitter dregs. This will
belong to the experience of the ser
vant of God.

This is the victory toward which
our Lord is working. The Christian
must remember the servant is not
greater than his Master. Paul wrote.
"For unto you it is given in the be-i
half of Christ, not only to believe
on him, but also to suffer for his
sake; having the same conflict which
ye saw in me, and now hear to be
in me" (Phil. 1:29-30) .

The gracious ministry of the Gos
pel in Isaiah 61:1-4 is described. Tc

PAGE 22 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 11, 1972

)

certain extent, here is the actual
asult of what happens when the
3rvant is serving God. The way in
hich it is brought about is quoted
i the New Testament also about
ie Lord Jesus Christ. "The spirit
f the Lord God is upon me; be-
ause the Lord hath anointed me
d preach good tidings unto the
ieek" (Isa. 61:1). The servant is
ommissioned to preach good ti-
ings, the triumphant victorious
aessage of the grace of God.

Message of Victory

". . . He hath sent me to bind up
he brokenhearted, to proclaim lib-
rty to the captives, and the opening
f the prison to them that are
jound; to proclaim the acceptable
/ear of the Lord, and the day of
engeance of our God; to comfort
til that mourn; to appoint unto
hem that mourn in Zion, to give
into them beauty for ashes, the oil
)f joy for mourning, the garment of
araise for the spirit of heaviness"
(Isa. 61:1-3) .

All of which is to say that we, as
he servants of God, are commis-
sioned to preach to the whole wide
world that God is able to save in
every way to the uttermost those
who come unto Him.

Also in this passage is shown the
[act that believers are saved into
service: ". . . that they might be
:alled trees of righteousness, the
slanting of the Lord, that he might
)e glorified. And they shall build
the old wastes, they shall raise up
the former desolations, and they
shall repair the waste cities, the deso-
lations of many generations" (Isa.
61:3-4).

The purpose of this saving work
of Christ Jesus is that they should
be set free and brought into service,
that they might in turn do the will
of God. The great commission, "Go
ye into all the world and preach the
Gospel to every creature," is the
task given to every Christian as he
serves God; and his great example
in service is none other than the
Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God,
who came into the world to seek
and to save the lost; and who was
among us as He who served us. IB

Dr. Guizke is professor emeritus
of Bible exposition, Columbia Semi-
nary, and broadcaster of "The Bi-
ble for You." This study is avail-

able on tape recording, $3 per reg-
ular tape containing 4 lessons ($9
the set, Nos. 72—1, 2, 3) and $3 per
cassette containing 2 lessons ($18
the set, Nos. 72— A, B, C, D, E, F) .
Order from The Bible for You, Box
15007, Atlanta, Ga. 30333.

S. S. Lesson— from p. 15

obey men knowing that in doing so,
we obey God.

In the time when rulers or au-
thorities command what is contrary
to God's will, then of course we obey
God rather than men (Acts 4:19, 5:
29) . Here note also Daniel's be-
havior and that of his friends in
Babylon (Dan. 3, 6) . This is be-

cause God is the higher authority.
But where we are not specifically
required by God to a certain action,
we must be subject to the earthly
authority, serving not men but God
primarily, doing what we do as un-
to the Lord and not to men. It is
difficult, but it is required of us
who would glorify God on earth. IS

• • •

Any move toward union between
denominations which is accom-
panied by pressure on those who do
not wish to unite constitutes a
threat to religious freedom. It in-
evitably will result in religious re-
strictions upon non-joiners. — Wm.
A. Fagal.

Committed to:

The Verbally Inspired, Infallible
Bible and the Westminster
Confession of Faith and
Catechisms as Originally
Adopted by the
Presbyterian
Church,U.S.

/Reformed
Theological Seminary

5422 CLINTON BOULEVARD / JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI 39209

PAGE 23 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 11, 1972

// you love our Lord,

have an understanding heart,
and compassion for children,

you will want to share with WRC
in the support of the

Hoa Khanh Children's Hospital.

A GREAT EMERGENCY EXISTS
AT HOA KHANH CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL

The escalated enemy activities in Vietnam,
the see-saw battles for key areas, have
placed an unexpected drain on WRC per-
sonnel and supplies. Over 750,000 people
have fled their homes in Dong Ha, Quang
Tri, Hue and other northern areas of South
Vietnam. More than 100,000 of these war
victims are now being housed and cared
for by WRC in the area immediately sur-
rounding WRC's Hoa Khanh Children's
Hospital in Danang. We are trying desper-
ately to keep up with the need, but some-
times we don't win.

The hospital has been taxed beyond its
capacity with very-sick children. Thirty-
seven died this month, far exceeding the
previous month. Many of the deaths among
refugee children are due to dysentery, de-
hydration, typhoid, and complications from
a measles epidemic. The hospital staff has
been working long

hours to attempt
to care for the
greatly increased
inpatient and out-
patient load.

A MIRACLE AT HOA KHANH CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL

Hours of surgery, weeks of care and prayerful concern helped
restore this victim who lost his legs to a Vietcong mine planted
in the pathway of school kids in Vietnam. Cu's recovery is a
dividend to all who had any share in helping in this strategic
ministry of WRC.

Yet, Cu's physical recovery is only half the story. One dark night,
during Cu's hospital stay, when all seemed lost, he accepted
Christ as his Savior. After that, his recovery was rapid, and today
he is making a marvelous adjustment — going to school and hear-
ing the Gospel in Vietnamese through the hospital's Christian
education program. And no one realizes better than fourteen-
year-old Cu that his life and his soul have been saved through
the efforts of the World Relief Commission.

If Cu had been cared for in a United States hospital, it is esti-
mated the cost would exceed $35,000,
which is the total budget for the Hoa
Khanh Children's Hospital for one
month.

WORLD RELIEF COMMISSION, INC.

Overseas Relief Arm of National Association of Evangelicals
P.O. Box 44 • Valley Forge, Pa. 19481

PAGE 24 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 11, 1972

/OL. XXXI, NO. 25 OCTOBER 18, 1972 $4.00 A YEAR

the

PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL

tdvocating continuation of a Presbyterian Church loyal to Scripture and the Reformed faith

The Written Word Endures

The Bible is the best and most comprehensive of all writ-
ings. As the virgin birth of Jesus is unique from all other
births, so the Scriptures, compared with all other books, are in
a class by themselves.

When we let the Bible speak, a brand new world opens up
to us, God's world. Between "In the beginning God created
the heavens and the earth" and "The grace of the Lord Jesus
Christ be with you all. Amen." is a stupendous account of what
God has accomplished, is accomplishing and will accomplish for
man and all creation.

— Jacob J. Vellenga
(See p. 9)

S. S. LESSON AND YOUTH PROGRAM FOR NOVEMBER 5

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A GREAT MEETING

I have always heard that "life be-
gins at 40." But for me it began
at 50. One of the most exciting
events of my life was the Celebra-
tion of Evangelism held in Cincin-
nati in September of 1971. I have
also had the privilege of attending
the recent Celebration of Evangelism
at the Inn of Six Flags in Arling-

ton, Tex. This was interesting,
stimulating, challenging, and it was
fun to have fellowship with brothers
and leaders in our own Church and
four other Presbyterian denomina-
tions.

Bob Munger, Lloyd Ogilvie, Earl
Palmer and David Yantis were ter-
rific. We don't have to be in the
same denomination to experience

the

PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL

Rev. G. Aiken Taylor, Ph.D., Editor
Rev. Henry B. Dendy, D.D., Managing Editor
William G. Bolus, Assistant Editor

Circulation leader among independent publications in the Presbyterian-Reformed world

THIS WEEK— Vol. XXXI, No. 25, October 18, 1972

Let the Bible Speak! 7

Written words have a way of bridging the ages, so God
spoke — in writing By Jacob J. Vellenga

The Ministry of the Holy Spirit 8

The third person of the wondrous Trinity is God with us
today - By William Bright

Signs of a Strong Church 11

By Reuel Lemmons

De partments —

Editorials 1 2

The Layman and his Church 13

Sunday School Lesson, November 5 14

Youth Program, November 5 16

Book Reviews 17

THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL, a

Presbyterian weekly magazine, devoted
to the statement, defense, and propa-
gation of the Gospel, the faith which
was once for all delivered to the saints,

is published every Wednesday by the
Southern Presbyterian Journal Co.,
Inc., in Weaverville, N. C.

SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: $4 a year

for individuals, $3 for members of
Every Family Plan churches. All cor-
respondence regarding subscriptions,
advertising or other business matters,
should be addressed to the business
office in Weaverville, N. C. 28787.
Second class postage paid at Weaver-
ville, N. C. 28787.

POSTMASTER: Send Form 3579 to
Presbyterian Journal, Box 635, Wea-
verville, N. C. 28787. Subscribers
should allow three weeks for change
of address in continental U. S. Change
of address notices should include both
old and new addresses (with zip
codes) .

NEWS AND EDITORIAL correspond-
ence should be addressed to P. 0. Box
3108, Asheville, N. C. 28802. Editorial
offices located at 247 Charlotte St. in
Asheville.

TELEPHONES: (All area 704) edi-
torial office, 254-4015, 254-4016;
business office, 645-3310, 645-3962.

and celebrate our unity in Christ
The worship services were certain-
ly different but they helped us to
loosen up and lose some of our Pres
byterian stiffness and stuffiness.

For me, one of the highlights of
the 72 Celebration was a "Model
of the Ministry" on the charismatic
movement, led by Dr. Rodman Wil
liams, professor of theology at
Austin Theological Seminary. Rod
has recently toured Europe and has
been to the Vatican with David du
Plessis. God is using these men in
a very special and beautiful way to
bridge barriers that have existed be-
tween Roman Catholic saints and
those in all other denominations.

An exciting and genuine ecume
nicity is being brought about today,
not by any ecclesiastical structure,
organization or program, but by the
Holy Spirit himself.

I believe you could profitably
take note of the charismatic move-
ment. Many Journal readers want
to know about everything that is go
ing on in the world today and how
God is moving among His people
I feel that it's poor journalism to
ignore one of the most exciting hap
penings in the Christian world to-
day. It does my heart good to see
and hear Roman Catholics reading
the Bible, witnessing to Christ, talk-
ing about being born again and re-
ceiving Christ as Lord and Saviour.
I have even heard priests give an in-
vitation to follow Jesus as Lord and
Saviour!

About 20 years ago Dr. John
A. Mackay made a statement to the
effect that the future of Christianity
may one day belong to a reformed
Catholicism and a refined Pente
costalism. Who would have thought
then that someday there might be
a combination of the two!

Let's stop perpetuating the sophis-
ticated sanctimonious solemnity of
Dr. Gamaliel. It's not a matter of
wisdom to maintain a policy of
non-involvement and hands off. If
this movement indeed be of God,
then let's get with it.

— (Rev.) Jack Powell
Gretna, La.

WHY SO FEW?.

Why are there so few Presbyte-
rians in our Presbyterian churches?
I think the answer is found in the
Bible classes and Sunday school
classes where the question of partic-:
ular doctrine, sometimes referred to
as "Pauline" or "Calvinistic" is sum-

Mi!

are

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h

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fan

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liib

■A:

m

0

u

wo

1

-

tl

narily dismissed by glib teachers
•vho say, "Well, what difference
ioes it make? All Christians are try-
ng to be good and we are all going
o the same place." The poor in-
[juirer is immediately "shut up" be-
ause he feels there is no answer to
this all-inclusive, charitable ap-
proach to the question of election,
□redestination, perseverance, etc.

Yes, it does make a difference.
Paul said, "I have not shunned to
declare unto you all the counsel of
God" (Acts 20:27) . And the question
}f election, predestination, and per-
severance is certainly part of God's
counsel; part of the counsel of God
written in the New Testament, not
Dnly for our instruction, but for the
joy and happiness of a complete
faith.

A knowledge of these doctrines
leads the believer to enjoy a sense of
assurance and confidence in the sov-
reignty of God and the undying love
of a mighty Saviour, who really is
able to save to the uttermost all
that come unto God by Him (He-
, -brews 7:25) .
J Is it presumption and pride to
ll

z

This past week we were in
Lansing, 111., a suburb of Chi-
cago, with the Rev. Russell Horton
and the good people of the First Re-
formed Church. We don't know
when we have been as thrilled with
a regular Sunday evening service. A
large sanctuary well filled (Sunday
evening, mind you) , a magnificent
organ beautifully played and con-
gregational singing like you never
heard before. We'd love to have a
o chance to round up a bunch of once-
a-week Presbyterians we could name
and take them on a tour of a dozen
or so churches in the North that we
have visited. Yes, we mean Bible-
belt Southerners who have been
conditioned to believe that it is im-
aossible to fill up a church on Sun-
day night with Presbyterians with-
out some entertainment gimmick.

That reminds us of a poll of
Philadelphia ministers recently taken
by Andrew Wallace, religion writer
for the Philadelphia Inquirer. Mr.
Wallace started out to determine if
it is true that ministers have quit
visiting in the homes of their peo-
ple. His conclusion: Yes, ministers

sing, "Blessed assurance, Jesus is
mine?" Presbyterians should not
be shy of singing these affirmations,
unless they have been "shut up" in
Bible class and Sunday school class.
— Adolf Windaus
Portsmouth, Va.

AGITATED

I have read "The Gospel Accord-
ing to St. Irving" in the Sept.
13 Journal. To let a thing like that
be ignored is just like another nail
driven through the palms of our
Lord and Saviour as well as a cow-
ardly way to dodge an issue. I firm-
ly believe that every sincere Chris-
tian should be acquainted with this
shocking irreverence toward the One
who gave His life for us, and given
an opportunity to express his or her
indignation.

I plan to acquaint all my Chris-
tian friends, hoping that they too
will write the editor of this paper
and tell him what he should be told.

The boy had to be taught such
blasphemy and I do not feel toward
him as I do the adults who encour-
age him.

Many of our youth will think of
this as a logical and factual thing
to be believed.

I am so concerned I can hardly
be any other than agitated.

Thank you for letting us know
about it.

—Nettie D. McClamroch
Beaumont, Tex.

MINISTERS

Charles W. Coats from Charlotte,
N. C, to the Englewood church,
Rocky Mount, N. C.
William H. Jarrett from Raleigh,
N. C, to the Tuscarora church,
Martinsburg, W. Va., and the
Tabler church, Inwood, W. Va.
William S. Metzel, former mission-
ary to Zaire, to the Highland
Memorial church, Winchester, Va.

ELDER

The Session of the Munson Hill
church, Falls Church, Va., has
memorialized one of its members,
George B. Coate, who died July
1, at age 79.

ACROSS THE EDITOR'S DESK

no longer try to visit their people,
except when they are "ill or in
mourning." Pastors of large con-
gregations used the excuse of num-
bers. "If I and my associates were
to make the attempt," said one, "we
would have to ring 1,700 doorbells!"
Others attributed their failure to
make pastoral calls to "the admin-
istrative load of church business."
Not a few admitted they felt guilty
for neglecting their people. As we
do on some other subjects, we have
a feeling about this one. It is this:
A church may be a success in the
Lord's work with a pastor who is not
a very good preacher; it will never
be a success in the Lord's work with
a preacher, no matter how good, who
is not a pastor.

• From Union Seminary in New
York, acknowledged by most as the
fountainhead of liberal theology in
America and most influential in es-

tablishing the modern view that re-
ligion must be secular if it is to be
relevant in our day, now comes the
profound discovery that the nation's
seminaries should begin concen-
trating more on the spiritual prepa-
ration of a potential minister than
on secular subjects. Professor Paul
Hoon addressed this year's con-
vocation on recommendations of a
task force on spiritual development
of the American Association of
Theological Schools. Dr. Hoon sug-
gested that the spiritual preparation
of a minister has been severely lack-
ing when "a student feels the worth
of his being is computed more on
what his Rorschach test tells about
him than on how well he has in-
teriorized the Beatitudes." Dr. Hoon
even went so far as to say that "spiri-
tual development of students begins
with and depends upon the spiri-
tual formation of the faculty." EI

PAGE 3 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 18, 1972

NEWS OF RELIGION

UN Hears Debate on Africa 'Liberation'

UNITED NATIONS, N.Y. — Por-
tugal and South Africa have spoken
to the issue of so-called liberation
groups which receive aid and com-
fort from other nations and from
Christian Church bodies such as the
World Council of Churches.

The foreign minister of Portugal,
Rui Patricio, and Hilgard Muller,
foreign minister of South Africa, put
a series of tough questions to the 132-
member General Assembly during
debate on the condemnation, preven-
tion and repression of violence and
terrorism.

The majority in the United Na-
tions is alarmed over recent out-
breaks of international terrorism, but
it also clings to the concept that na-
tional "liberation" movements in
Africa operate in the name of "de-
colonization."

Church bodies in the United States
have supported the African revolu-
tionary groups in various ways, in-
cluding the withholding of invest-
ment funds from banks doing busi-
ness with those countries in which
the revolutionary groups operate.

Addressing himself to what he
called a "double standard," Por-

RUSSIA — Pocket Testament League
is extending its missionary staff in
Eastern Europe in an effort to ex-
tend Gospel evangelism to the peo-
ple of this and other Slavic nations.

Daniel Poysti, a native of Siberia,
has devoted the past nine years to
leading successful PTL campaigns
of evangelism in the Iron Curtain
regions of Europe. He will head the
expanded program.

PTL Director J. Edward Smith
stated that through Mr. Poysti's
courageous ministry more than
14,000 Russian Bibles have infil-
trated into the Soviet Union and
more than 200,000 Gospels of John
have reached Russian families with
"love letters" from Christians in oth-
er European countries.

Earl Poysti, Daniel's brother, will

tugal's foreign minister said that the
international community "cannot re-
main enmeshed in the doctrinal and
ideological disputes that divide
states." He claimed that under the
pretense of "wars of liberation, of
struggle against oppression, of fights
against imperialism and against
capitalism," once again nations and
groups in effect have been seeking
to "give legitimacy to violence and
to aggression."

Dr. Patricio said "there are no
liberated areas" held by revolution-
ary groups in Portuguese African
territories, as is often claimed by
church groups and others. He re-
newed a standing invitation to the
United Nations to send its repre-
sentatives to those areas to verify,
on the spot, the claim of "libera-
tion" groups.

The Portuguese foreign minister
said that half the Portuguese forces
in Mozambique, Angola, and Por-
tuguese Guinea consist of Africans
themselves. He hinted that at some
time in the future all those defend-
ing the Portuguese cause might turn
out to be Africans. Should this hap-
pen, he wondered, and the attacking

head the PTL Russian radio minis-
try. A long-time specialist in Rus-
sian Gospel broadcasting on the staff
of the nondenominational Trans
World Radio, Earl Poysti will put
his experience to work beaming fre-
quent PTL evangelistic programs in-
to all parts of Russia.

"Direct reports from inside the So-
viet Union," said Mr. Smith, "dem-
onstrate that numerous Russians, es-
pecially young people, have been
converted through this radio min-
istry. Even members of the Com-
munist party have turned to Christ."

This announcement of PTL ex-
pansion comes at a time when some
Church organizations are withdraw-
ing missionaries from foreign ser-
vice. SI

force should be made up entirely o
Cubans and other "internationa
highwaymen," what the UN woulc

say.

South Africa's spokesman told th<
Assembly that his government woulc
not compromise on the issue of tet
rorism and would take "drastic ac
tion" against terrorism with al
means at its disposal.

Dr. Muller said the UN coulc
not, for selfish or regional reasons
move to stamp out terrorism in one
region while encouraging it in an
other.

It was inexplicable and unforgiv.
able, he said, that the UN shoull
"actively or obliquely support pr0i
grams of force, violence and terror
while disavowing dialogue."

While the debate did not mentior
the part of the Churches in the in
ternational issue, religious observer:
noted that these have been active ir.
supporting financial aid for revolu
tionary groups, and opposing exist
ing governments.

At 'one point in the debate here
the foreign minister of the Republic
of Guinea, Fily Cissoko, called or
the people of South Africa to "liqui
date the Vorster (government)
clique by force of arms." II

Two British Churches
Merge 250,000 Members

LONDON (RNS) — Britain's firs*
Church union came into being hen
when Congregationalists and Eng
lish Presbyterians officially mergec
into one United Reformed Churcf
with nearly 250,000 members.

The event occurred when the twe
Assemblies — of the Congregationa.
Church in England and Wales anc
the Presbyterian Church of Englanc
— met at Central Hall, Britisf
Methodism's headquarters and con
ference center at Westminster. Hi
brought to a climax unity conversa
tions which began in 1945.

Placed before the Assemblies wen
identical resolutions declaring that
delegates were satisfied that all
necessary action had been taken tc
give legal effect to their "Scheme
of Union" and that the United Re
formed Church was hereby formed

Each Assembly passed its owr
resolution and then, as one Unitec

THE CHURCH OVERSEAS

PAGE 4 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 18, 1972

THE CHURCH AT HOME

PCUS Women Say Their Work Is Essential

Assembly, the delegates passed this
resolution:

"This United Assembly consist-
ing of the Assembly of the Congre-
^ gational Church in England and
"I Wales and the General Assembly of
,a the Presbyterian Church of England,
31 being satisfied that all necessary ac-
J tion has been taken to give legal
effect to such provisions of the
J Scheme of Union promulgated by
a the Joint Committee for Conversa-
tions between our Churches as re-
quire legal sanction, declares that
one United Church under the
name of the United Reformed
Church (Congregational/Presby-
terian) in England and Wales and
upon the basis, terms, conditions
and provisions, and with the mem-
bership and ministry, structures and
councils defined and declared in
the scheme is hereby formed, and
i that this United Assembly is the
first General Assembly of the Unit-
ed Reformed Church."

The union brings together about
175,000 Congregationalists and
about 60,000 Presbyterians,
i The Rev. John Huxtable, outgo-
ing minister-secretary of the Con-
gregational Church, was appointed
first moderator of the new General
Assembly. He will hold the post un-
til next May, when the moderator
for 1973-74 will be the Rev. Ken-
i neth Slack, at present Presbyterian
minister of the City Temple, his-
; toric Nonconformist shrine in cen-
tral London.

The Presbyterian Church of Eng-
land was founded in 1876. The Con-
gregational Church was founded as
the Congregational Union in 1831. 33

U. S. Rep. Myers Heads
Congress Prayer Group

WASHINGTON, D. C— U. S. Rep.
John Myers (R.-Ind.) , an Episco-
palian who has served in Congress
since 1967, has been elected presi-
dent of the Congressional Prayer
Group.

Mr. Myers recently represented
the group at the Canadian National

| Prayer Breakfast in Ottawa. He will
be host at the annual National Pres-

i idential Prayer Breakfast here early
next year. 5)

MONTREAT, N.C.— The Board of
Women's Work, Presbyterian Church
US, says all of its functions, with
two possible exceptions, should get
prime consideration for continuance
by the General Executive Board,
which is assuming control of all de-
nominational agency activities.

Meeting here Oct. 1-4 for their fall
work session, the board also ap-
proved several staff recommenda-
tions, a business and finance com-
mittee report, and three recommen-
dations of a committee which met re-
cently with a similar women's com-
mittee of the United Presbyterian
Church USA.

All the measures appeared to be
designed to insure that women will
gain further "liberation" in official
Church circles.

The two functions of the BWW
which drew a No. 2 rating instead of
a No. 1 rating were special ministries
through women's groups and indi-
vidual women; and research proj-
ects to learn what women in differ-
ent positions feel and need. The
other eight functions of the BWW
drew No. 1 ratings. Both No. 1 and
No. 2 ratings, however, are consid-
ered "essential" for a successful
church program.

The GEB has asked all boards
and agencies of the PCUS to rate
their activities as to relative impor-
tance. The BWW ratings are in re-
sponse to the GEB request.

The functions on which the wom-
en placed a No. 1 rating were: assist-
ing all boards and agencies in in-
terpreting the mission of the Church
to women and encouraging women
to become involved in church work;
training for discipleship through
women's groups and planned events;
opening new avenues of witness and
service to women; representing
women's needs and interests in de-
nominational planning and program
coordination;

Also, representing PCUS women
in ecumenical work on national and
international levels and encouraging

women to participate in local
ecumenical work; cooperation with
secular agencies; maintenance of a
service office for women; and help-
ing the PCUS to a better under-
standing of the role of men and
women in the church, family and
society.

The board also approved support
for "the creative efforts of union
presbyterials as each works out its
own plan of operation." This was
in response to a recommendation of
the joint committee which met with
United Presbyterian Women.

Workshop Coming Up

Another recommendation, also ap-
proved, was that the National Exec-
utive Council of the UPW and the
PCUS and their staffs jointly spon-
sor and finance a weekend workshop
in the Southeast — probably Char-
lotte, N. C. — next spring, with equal
representation of the black and
white races.

Its was first proposed that the
meeting be called a conference on
child care, but this was later changed
to make it an occasion for open-
ing up channels of communication
between the women of the so-called
"northern" and "southern" Church-
es.

One board member noted that
black women in the UPUSA have
said the idea of Church reunion does
not appeal to them. They see us as
white racists," she commented. "I
think this could be a step toward
better understanding between our
two Churches."

A third recommendation, also ap-
proved, instructed the BWW staff
to write the co-chairmen of the
Joint Union Committee of 32 noting
"that only three of the 32 of that
group are women." The committee
was asked to take steps to co-opt
women to the committee for consul-
tation.

At another point in their meeting,
the BWW instructed staff to point
out that the moderator has not ap-

PAGE 5 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 18, 1972

pointed a ratio of one-third women
to ad interim committees as set out
in a recommendation of the 1972
General Assembly.

The board also approved a staff
report on the Task Force for World
Peace and voted $500 for the work.
The task force is composed of mem-
bers of the various agencies and
boards of the PCUS. Its avowed
purpose: to seek an end to the Viet-
nam war and ways of maintaining
peace.

Considerable discussion was de-
voted to obstacles to peace. This
included statements by three of the
members that "the South is more
militaristic than other areas of our
nation."

One member said she was sure
this is so because the South has al-
ways raised more volunteers for the
armed services than other parts of
the country. She also said she read
in a college textbook recently that
the South is the only area of the
nation where generals' pictures ap-
pear on public school walls and
where public schools are named after
famous generals.

Another member said she had
observed that a majority of U. S.
Army and Navy officers "have
Southern accents."

Likes McGovern

Still another said she thought
George McGovern was among the
assets for peace the task force has
going for it. McGovern's name was
then placed on a list with other as-
sets to be referred to the task force.
These included modern communica-
tions (bringing the war into the liv-
ing room via television and radio) ;
and talking with our potential en-
emies (Communists) . No mention
was made of President Nixon, either
as an asset or obstacle.

The list of obstacles to peace com-
piled by the BWW included: an
unwillingness to listen to the other
side; national pride; glamorization
of the military; credibility gap in
government; inability to understand
the Asian mind; power of the Execu-
tive branch of the government to
wage war; and making decisions
without enough information.

A number of suggestions were
adopted for the Task Force on Peace.
These included: sponsor TV and
radio spots condemning the war; par-
ticipate in peace pamphlets; withhold

the federal excise tax listed on tele-
phone bills as a protest against the
war; boycott corporations which aid
the U. S. military; encourage sup-
port of conscientious objectors; and
"stop thinking we know what's best
for the other person — we can't con-
vert everyone to Christianity and
therefore we can't seek peace strictly
on Christian terms."

The BWW also changed the name
of the annual Montreat women's
summer conference to be held July
7-14 to Montreat Personhood Con-
ference. The change emphasizes that
the conference isn't for women only,
and members felt it will de-empha-
size the difference between the sexes
in Church work. Part of the program
next summer will be a dialogue,
"male and female," on "person-
hood."

The 1974 budget request, also ap-
proved, includes $230,000 for sal-
aries of BWW staff and $10,000 for
travel expense, with $3,500 of the
latter going to the executive secre-
tary. The budget request will be sub-
mitted to the General Council for
approval.

In an executive session, the board
unanimously decided to urge its ex-
ecutive secretary, Dr. Evelyn L.
Green, to apply for the position of
director of the Division of National
Mission under the new restructuring
of PCUS boards and agencies. (See
advertisement, p. 19 this issue. —

Ed.) m

Moderator Visits Scene
Of Church's Separation

PETERSBURG, Va. — A "first" of
a sort was registered here as the
moderator of the Presbyterian
Church US came in person to make
a reconciliation effort in the case of
the Tabb Street church, which ear-
lier had voted to sever its ties with
the parent denomination.

Dr. L. Nelson Bell spoke to some
250 persons from a dozen churches
of Hanover Presbytery at Second
Church here. The gathering in-
cluded some of the 26 Tabb Street
members who voted against the con-
gregation's action on Aug. 20.

Acknowledging tensions and un-
rest in the PCUS and other church-
es, Dr. Bell quoted the Apostle
Paul's warning to Galatian Chris-
tians to "take heed that you are not
consumed by one another."

He declared that "there is a con-

stitutional way by which congrega-
tions can be dismissed," also remind-
ing the group that the Joint Com-
mittee on Union is proposing an
"escape clause" by which "a consti-
tutional and orderly division is as-
sured."

The Tabb Street church has been
identified, since its separation, with
eight other separated congregations
in the newly formed Vanguard Pres-
bytery, II

Studies on Ministers'
Work to Be Released

ATLANTA (PN) — Five papers
from the General Assembly's Com-
mittee on the Minister and His Work
are in the mill for presentation to
presbyteries for their comments and
criticism.

Work on the documents originated
in a subcommittee on New Provis-
ional Forms and Systems Process,
one of six small groups which con-
sidered specific topics during a called
meeting of the Assembly's committee
here, Sept 11-12.

Thte special session centered on
setting guidelines for the committee's
work for the coming year.

Papers being dealt with are: per-
sonal resume forms (formerly the
minister's data form) ; position defi-
nitions forms (formerly the church
data form) ; the staff manual as it
will relate to commissions and nomi-
nating committees; revised manuals
for nominating committees; and re-
vised manuals for presbytery com-
missions.

The documents will be edited and
revised, as needed, by the Assembly's
committee after it receives presby-
teries' suggestions. The provisional
systems will be "field tested" early
in 1973.

During their called meeting, com-
mittee members heard progress re-
ports from six subcommittees con-
sidering: 1) personnel and finance;
2) response to the Montreat consulta-
tion on the Ad Interim Committee
on the Church's Use of Her Or-
dained Ministry; 3) ministerial sup-
port and career development; 4)
manpower projections study; 5) the
Task Force on Minorities; and 6)
new provisional forms and systems
process.

Reports from the six subcommit-
tees will be presented at the next
meeting of Assembly's Committee on
the Minister and His Work, Jan.
8-9, in Atlanta. IB

PAGE 6 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 18, 1972

The Scriptures do not require the crutches of humanistic science or philosophy —

Let the Bible Speak!

Can anyone think of a better
way God could have com-
municated to all peoples of all ages
[than through the Bible? The writ-
ten message is the one that lives.
Sights and sounds fade away, voices
are still and forgotten. The parade
iappears and is gone. The written
pr printed word endures.

The recorded message can and
does last. It can be referred to
.again and again. It can be used as
ja basis for comparison. It can be
icopied out and consulted. It can
be absorbed freely and continually
just as long as the reader wishes.

Written words are the armory of
the human mind. Words are the
^instruments God uses to make vis-
ible the invisible, tangible the in-
jtangible, and understandable the
[unfathomable. Without the print-
Jed records Jesus Christ would be
tbut a legendary figure, dim and ob-
scure after the passing of the cen-
Ituries.

When we open the Bible we re-
ceive pictures of past millenniums,
back to the dawn of creation. We
|can see people of their own time in
jtheir environment, sense their think-
ing and feel their very presence. In
iact, we arrive at the same state of
mind as the author at the time he
wrote what we read. We may call
this a resurrection when dead words
scome to life.

Through the miracle of written
communication God is present
wherever the Holy Bible is avail-
able. Through the words of the Bible
we receive God-given thoughts and
experiences. By means of the Bible
we have a private audience with God

The author is pastor of Cayuga
United Presbyterian Church, Cayu-
ga, Ind.

Himself.

The Bible is the best and most
comprehensive of all writings. As
the virgin birth of Jesus is unique
from all other births, so the Scrip-
tures, compared with all other books,
are in a class by themselves.

When we let the Bible speak, a
brand new world opens up to us,
God's world. Between "In the be-
ginning God created the heavens and
the earth" and "The grace of the
Lord Jesus be with you all. Amen."
is a stupendous account of what God
has accomplished, is accomplishing
and will accomplish for man and all
creation.

God handpicked hundreds of peo-
ple of many areas, nationalities, cul-
tures, and customs to write for the
Bible. Under divine direction and
influence they wrote what God in
His love and mercy has done in cre-
ating man and redeeming him after
he had fallen. The undercurrent of
all their witnessing is: God is great,
God is good, God is holy, God is
just, and God is love.

Bible Infallible

When we let the Bible speak we
are not concerned about right hu-
man thoughts of God. Instead we
want to know God's thoughts about
man. The Bible tells us not so
much how we should talk to God
but what He says to us; not so much
how we find our way to Him, but
how He has sought and found the
way to us; not the right relations
in which we must place ourselves
to Him, but the covenant relation
He has made with us.

The Bible speaks primarily of
God, and secondarily of man. God
is the subject of the Bible, man the
loving object. The Bible speaks of

JACOB J. VELLENGA

what God has done and what man
has received. It speaks of God's
sovereignty, God's glory, God's cre-
ation, God's power, God's love,
God's grace, God's mercy, God's
judgment, God's goodness, God's
rights, God's patience, and God's
life. The Bible does not dwell on
the virtues of man, but the virtue of
Him "who has called us out of dark-
ness into His marvelous light" (I
Pet. 2:9).

Message of Love

The Bible repeats this message
over and over: "When he (man)
was yet a great way off, his father
(God) saw him, and had compas-
sion and ran and fell on his neck
and kissed him" (Luke 15:20) .
Without the Bible no one could
know that God is love.

The Bible, which reveals the grad-
ual and historical bringing in of the
kingdom of God, is the only vehicle
of communication to make clear to
us His loving-kindness and mercy.
A. B. Davidson in his The Theology
of the Old Testament says:

"God could not make His moral
nature known by mere statements
concerning Himself delivered at
once. His power He could reveal in
one terrible act, but the principles
lying behind His power and govern-
ing the exercise of it — His justice,
His goodness, His grace — could
not be shown except by a prolonged
exhibition of Himself in relation to
the life of men."

This the Bible has done in the
narration of choosing Israel, an ab-
ject people, delivering them from
slavery, guiding, directing, nurtur-
ing them with endless patience and
forbearance until Immanuel came to
redeem a sin-cursed world.

PAGE 7 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 18, 1972

"The heavens declare the glory
of God and the firmament shows his
handiwork. Day unto day utters
speech, and night to night shows
knowledge," wrote the psalmist (19:
1-2) , and the Word of the Lord in
the statutes, commandments, judg-
ments, and testimony, we are told,
"are more to be desired than gold,
yea much more than fine gold;
sweeter also than honey and the
honeycomb" (Psa. 19:10).

Power and Pardon

By the word of God, not by the
material creation, are we warned. In
heeding God's Word there is great
reward. The Word of God keeps
us from presumptuous sins, and they
no longer have dominion over us.
Through the Word of God we be-
come upright and are innocent from
great transgression (Psa. 19:11-14).

While God's grandeur is seen in
the natural world, it does not reveal
His heart. Nature has no message
of pardon, but an inexorable and
undeviating: "What a man sows,
that shall he reap." Robert Boyd
says, "Not a whisper of forgiveness
comes to us from the blue heavens
above us, nor from any works of the
Almighty around us."

Nature speaks of power but not
pardon. In nature we see God's
fingerprints, but in the Bible we see
the nailprints of Jesus Christ, the
Son of God, who loved us and gave

Himself for us.

Thank God for the Bible. With-
out it we would be people still sit-
ting in darkness. But "The Word
was made flesh and dwelt among us
and we beheld His glory, the glory
as of the only begotten of the Fa-
ther, full of grace and truth"
(John 1:14). Throughout the Bi-
ble we have seen a great light (Matt.
4:16; Isa. 42:7) and we no longer
sit in the region of the shadow of
death. The light of God shines in
the darkness and the darkness can-
not put it out (John 1:4-5) .

The Bible and only the Bible
speaks of the light of the world. All
else that has been written is
commentary. To contemplate Je-
sus apart from the Bible is folly.
To accept the subjective and am-
biguous tenets of "higher criticism"
as authoritative instead of the Bi-
ble itself is utterly stupid.

Let Bible Speak

The Bible is the only record, the
infallible record of God's complete
message to man. Man's commen-
taries and doctrinal formulations
are a witness and not a substitution
of the Word of God. Man's inter-
pretations must be judged by Scrip-
ture, not Scripture by theological
opinion.

If we do not entrust our destiny
to the Scriptures, the Scriptures
will pass us by. We are not to carry

I

the Bible. The Bible is to carry us
The Bible does not contribute to
our own philosophy, it demands a
new beginning in our thinking and
must become the touchstone to all
our thinking.

Uranium Mine

The message of the Bible is not
ready made. It is not a systematic
set of rules. It is like a uranium
mine that gives up the precious
metal only after careful and pains-
taking search. The humble seeker
knows the truth is there, and he is
willing to seek and strive all life
long to receive all that there is to
receive.

The Bible can take care of itself
without any restraining orders from
the worldly wise. The Bible is very
much alive, but the vitality is not in
the paper and ink, not in the letters,
not in single words, necessarily, but
in the arrangement of words. The
Scriptures are a vehicle of God's
voice just as live wires are the car-
riers of mysterious and invisible
electricity.

We are convinced that the Word
of God is living and powerful, it is
like a sword that pierces (Heb. 4
12) , like a fire that burns, like a
hammer that breaks rocks in pieces
(Jer. 23:29), and like a lamp that
swallows the darkness and guides
along the path to abundant living
and life eternal (Psa. 119:105).

Do you want the fullness of God? Here are simple steps —

The Ministry of the Holy Spirit

Key 73 has the potential of God
of being one of the most sig-
nificant demonstrations of the Holy
Spirit since the first century. So-
bered by this realization, I am re-
minded of the words of our Lord
when He admonished the disciples,
only moments before His ascension,

"But tarry ye in the city of Jerusa-
lem, until ye be endued with the
power from on high" (Luke 24:49) ;
and "Ye shall receive power, after
that the Holy Ghost is come upon
you; and ye shall be witnesses unto
me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea,
and in Samaria, and unto the utter-

WILLIAM BRIGHT

most part of the earth" (Acts 1:8).

Who could possibly take the place
of the Lord Jesus in the lives of the
disciples? Who is the Holy Spirit
that He would be so important that
the Lord Jesus would tell the dis-
ciples: "It is expedient for you that
I go away: for if I go not away, the

PAGE 8 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 18, 1972

Comforter will not come unto you;
but if I depart, I will send Him un-
to you. And when He is come, He
will reprove the world of sin, and
of righteousness, and of judgment
. . . He shall glorify me . . ." (John
16:7-8, 14).

Since the words that Jesus spoke
are as important to the disciples of
the 20th century as they were to the
disciples of the first century, I
should like to have us consider to-
gether the following questions con-
cerning the Holy Spirit:

First, who is the Holy Spirit? Sec-
ond, why did He come? Third, what
does it mean to be filled with the
Spirit? Fourth, why is the average
Christian not filled with the Holy
Spirit? And fifth, how can one be
filled with the Holy Spirit?

Who is the Holy Spirit?

The Holy Spirit is God. He is
iiiot an "it," not a divine influence,
not a ghost nor an idea. He is God,
with all the attributes of deity. He
is the third person of the Trinity,
coexistent and coequal with God the
Father and God the Son.

I cannot define the Trinity. No
one can. We try to illustrate the
concept, but the attempt is inade-
quate. For example, a man has a
body, a mind and a spirit. Which
is the man? A man may be a hus-
band, a father and a son — yet he is
only one man. Which is the "real"
man? Or H20 can be correctly de-
scribed as a liquid, as a solid or as
a vapor. Which is H20?

While no illustration is wholly
adequate, and while we who are fi-
nite cannot wholly comprehend
God, who is infinite, we do accept
the Trinity because it is clearly
taught in the Scriptures. And we
know that the Holy Spirit is the
third member of the triune God.
There is one God manifest in three
persons — God the Father, God the
Son and God the Holy Spirit.

There are several aspects to the
ministry of the Holy Spirit. First,
' the Holy Spirit enables us to know
Christ through the new birth.

The author is president and foun-
der of Campus Crusade for Christ
International. This article is one of
numerous resources included in a
244-page manual prepared for the
Key 73 emphasis on evangelism. Or-
der "Congregational Resource Book"
from Key 73 ,418 Olive St., St. Louis,
Mo. 63102. Price: $3.

The Holy Spirit, who inspired
men to write the Holy Scriptures,
reveals the truth to us. Sometimes
certain passages of Scripture that I
have read many, many times sud-
denly come alive to me in a moment
of particular need. Why? Because
the Holy Spirit makes the Word of
God relevant and meaningful when
I need it.

Why Did the Spirit Come?

The Holy Spirit prays for us, as
Paul reminded us. "And in the
same way the Spirit also helps our
weakness; for we do not know how
to pray as we should, but the Spirit
Himself intercedes for us with groan-
ings too deep for words" (Rom. 8:
26-27) .

The Holy Spirit also produces His
fruit within us, enabling us to live
holy, Christ-like lives. "But when
the Holy Spirit controls our lives He
will produce this kind of fruit in us:
love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,
goodness, faithfulness, gentleness
and self-control" (Gal. 5:22-23) .

As Christians, we are totally de-
pendent upon the Holy Spirit.
There is nothing that we can do for
the Lord Jesus or that He can do
for us apart from the ministry of
the Holy Spirit of God.

Third, what does it mean to be
filled with the Holy Spirit?

The phrase "filled with" really
means "to be controlled and empow-
ered by." Therefore, to be filled
with the Spirit is to be controlled
and empowered by the Spirit. But
since the Holy Spirit came to
glorify Christ and is, like Christ,
God, to be filled with the Holy
Spirit is really to be filled with
Christ.

Supernatural Strength

This amazing fact is one of the
most important truths of the Word
of God, for if Christ lives in me and
controls me, He will give me a su-
pernatural strength to live the su-
pernatural Christian life. Accord-
ing to the Word of God, the stan-
dards of the Christian life are so
high and so impossible to achieve
that only one person has ever suc-
cessfully measured up to them. That
person is Jesus Christ. Now He
actually enables all of those whom
He fills, controls and empowers,
through His indwelling Holy Spirit,
to measure up to those same high
standards and live the same kind of

supernatural life.

Truly this is "the abundant life,"
yet most Christians are experiencing
little or nothing of this promised
fullness. Why? Why is the average
Christian not filled with the Holy
Spirit?

The average Christian continues
to live in disobedience to God and
is not filled with the Spirit for two
reasons: lack of knowledge, or spiri-
tual ignorance; and lack of faith, or
spiritual unbelief.

I am persuaded that if most non-
Christians knew how to become
Christians, and if they fully under-
stood how much God loves them
and how loving and glorious is His
plan for them, they would become
Christians.

Some years ago while in West
Texas I visited a famous oil field
known as the Yates Pool. During
the depression this field was a sheep
ranch owned by a man named Yates.
Unable to make enough money from
ranching to pay the principal and
interest on the mortgage, he was in
danger of losing his ranch; and his
family, like many others, was living
on government subsidy.

To Strike a Gusher

Day after day, as he grazed his
sheep over those rolling West Tex-
as hills, he worried about how he
would pay his bills. Then one day
a seismographic crew from an oil
company working in the area told
Mr. Yates that there might be oil
on his land. They asked permission
to drill, and he signed a lease con-
tract. At 1,115 feet they struck a
gusher! The first well came in at
80,000 barrels a day, and many sub-
sequent wells had more than twice
that capacity. In fact, 30 years af-
ter the discovery, a government test
on one of the wells showed that it
still had the potential flow of
125,000 barrels a day.

And Mr. Yates owned it all 1
When he purchased the land, he pur-
chased the oil and mineral rights.
Yet, he was living on relief, a multi-
millionaire living in poverty! The
problem? He did not know the oil
was there. He owned it, but he did
not possess it.

I do not know of a better illustra-
tion of the Christian life. The mo-
ment we become children of God
through faith in Christ, we become
heirs of God, and all of God's vast
resources are available to us. Every-
thing we need to be men and wora-

PAGE 9 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 18, 1972

L

en of God, and to be fruitful wit-
nesses for Christ, is available to us.
But most Christians, like Mr. Yates
before the oil discovery, continue to
live in self-imposed spiritual pov-
erty, because they do not know how
to appropriate from God those
spiritual resources which are already
theirs.

Spiritual Unbelief

But lack of knowledge is not the
only reason that Christians are not
filled with the Holy Spirit. For
many the problem is lack of faith,
or spiritual unbelief. Basically, they
simply do not trust God; they are
afraid of Him!

How would you feel if your child
were to come to you and say, "I
don't love you; I don't trust you
any more?" I can't think of any-
thing that would hurt more deeply!
Yet by our attitudes and action, if
not by our words, most of us say
that to God.

Is God any less loving and con-
cerned for His children? No. He
has proven over and over again that
He is a loving heavenly Father, com-
pletely worthy of our absolute trust.

When you give your life to Christ,
you need never worry about what is
going to happen to you. You may be
afraid that He will take away your
pleasures, lead you to leave your
business or profession, give away
your wealth, or terminate a friend-
ship or love affair. You may even
fear that He will send you, as a mis-
sionary, to some remote part of the
world. He may indeed ask you to
do one or more of these things, and,
again, He may not. If He does, you
will rejoice in the privilege, for God
always gives more than He takes
away and blesses those who trust
and obey Him.

Live by Faith

How can one be filled with the
Holy Spirit? We are filled with the
Spirit in exactly the same way in
which we became Christians. How
did you become a Christian? By
faith. "For by grace you have been
saved through faith; and not by
yourselves, it is the gift of God; not
as a result of works, that no one
should boast" (Eph. 2:8-9) .

How do you live the Christian
life? By faith. "As you therefore
have received Christ Jesus the Lord,
so walk in Him" (Col. 2:6). How
are you filled with the Spirit? By

faith. We are filled with the Holy
Spirit when we receive Christ by
faith. ". . . We receive the promise
of the Spirit through faith" (Gal.
3:14).

We received Christ by faith. We
walk by faith. And we are filled
with the Spirit by faith. Everything
we receive from God is by faith.
Though you are filled with the Holy
Spirit by faith, and faith alone,
there are three important ways in
which you may prepare for the fill-
ing of the Spirit.

First, you must really decide to be
filled with the Holy Spirit. Our
Lord promised, "Blessed are those
who hunger and thirst for righteous-
ness for they shall be filled."

Second, you must surrender your
life to Christ in accordance with the
command of God's Word, as found
in Romans, "And so, dear brothers
I plead with you to give your bod-
ies to God. Let them be a living
sacrifice, holy — the kind He can
accept" (12:1-2).

Third, you must confess any sin

Clinging Christians

"I am the vine, ye are the branch-
es" (John 15:5) .

This morning I removed a cling-
ing vine from one of my hibiscus
bushes. The bush, trying valiantly
to bear blossoms, was almost life-
less beneath its strange burden. The
vine had twined its strong tendrils
round its neighbor and was slowly
squeezing the life from the bush.

All of us have met "clinging vine
Christians," good souls who never
seem to come to the place where
they can draw their strength direct-
ly from the Lord, or to obtain their
faith unaided from the Word of
God and prayer. They must con-
stantly cling to stronger Christians,
fearful and uncertain without their
moral and spiritual support. And
sometimes to the extent that they
hinder that stronger one, the ten-
drils of the clinging brother or sister
bind and hinder their own Christian
growth and faithfulness.

We all need help occasionally
from other Christians, but we should
be careful to cling only to Christ.
Jesus said, "ye are the branches." A
true branch draws its strength to
live and produce straight from the
mother plant. God give us grace to
be true branches of our living Lord.
— Ruby Sailor. EE

which the Holy Spirit calls to your
remembrance. God's Word promises,
"But if we confess our sins to Him,
He can be depended on to forgive
us and to cleanse us from every
wrong. And it is perfectly proper
for God to do this for us because
Christ died to wash away our sins"
(I John 1:9). If you have sinned
against others, the Holy Spirit may
lead you to make restitution, to
right the wrong. If so, obey Him
or you will miss His blessing.

Command and Promise

The indwelling of the Holy
Spirit, the spiritual rebirth by
the Holy Spirit, and the baptism of
the Holy Spirit all occur only once
at the time you receive Christ. Be-
ing filled with the Holy Spirit, how-
ever, is not a once-for-all experience.
There are many fillings. The origi-
nal Greek of Ephesians 5:18 makes
the meaning clearer than most Eng-
lish translations. This command
means, "Be ye being filled," or
"Keep on being filled," or "Be con-
stantly and continuously filled."
And, of course, being continuously
filled means being continuously con-
trolled and empowered by the Holy
Spirit.

In relation to the filling of the
Holy Spirit, there are two very im-
portant words to remember: com-
mand and promise. God commands
us to be filled with the Holy Spirit:
"Be not drunk with wine, wherein
is excess, but be filled with the
Spirit" (Eph. 5:18). If we are not
filled, controlled and empowered by
the Holy Spirit, we are, therefore,
disobedient.

The other word is promise, the
promise that makes the command
possible: "This is the confidence
which we have before Him, that if
we ask anything according to His
will, He hears us. And if we know
that He hears us in whatever we ask,
we know that we have the requests
which we have asked from Him" (I
John 5:14-15) .

Since God commands us to be
filled with the Spirit, we know that
it is His will for us to be filled,
therefore by faith we can trust Him
to fill us according to His promise.

The success of Key 73 will de-
pend upon the role which the Holy
Spirit will play in the lives of indi-
vidual believers, and in the various
organizations and denominations
represented in this great undertak-
ing for our Lord. ffl

PAGE 10 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 18, 1972

Evidences of religious vitality are plain to see —

Signs of a Strong Church

\ n investment broker recently
t*- advised his hearers to look for
: igns of weakness in the companies
In which they would invest. He
Dointed out that many companies
lire weak, and for that reason most
|>f them ultimately fail.
! Some weak companies assess their
weakness, correct it, and become
itrong. Some strong companies by
:areless inattention to internal
iffairs develop weaknesses that de-
li troy them.

Church bodies have the same ca-
pabilities. Protestant bodies, and
i?ven the powerful Roman Church,
fjfiave suffered in recent years from
uinternal weaknesses which are vital-
Sly affecting their present posture.

Surveying the weakness of de-
nominational religion, multitudes
'have rejected the establishment.
(Churches, like businesses, can be in
rtrouble. Some of them are.

It would not be amiss, we believe,
to point out a few things that we
feel may indicate a weakening of the
Lord's Church. Of course we un-
derstand that the Lord gave a per-
fect pattern for His Church, and
that the ideal is perfect in every
way. But we human beings, and
jgroups of human beings called con-
gregations, are not perfect.

We can show the same signs of
weakness or of strength that any
other group of people may show.

Rather See Than Hear One

In order to have a strong Church
;we must have Christians who live
like Jesus Christ. It is always a
tragedy when the world sees Chris-
tians living and acting as if they
had no connection with Jesus. When

The author is editor of Firm
; Foundation of the Churches of
\Christ, from which this editorial was
"taken with permission.

we become Christians we are to put
on Christ. We are to act like Christ.
We are to live among our fellow
beings like Christ.

The world sees enough of the
"old nature" in its own; it needs to
see an example of the "new man"
we are supposed to become when
we become Christians.

The proof of Christianity is Chris-
tianity. The world would rather
see a sermon than hear one any day.
How can we be lights in the world
when our example is no better than
that of all the others in the world?
How can we be the salt of the earth
if there is no more savor in us than
in others?

Unless Christianity can make us
better than anything else can make
us, it is a failure — ■ and the world
knows that. We will never have a
strong Church until we demand of
each other a better brand of living.

If we would have a strong
Church, one rule we must respect:
Don't compromise or water down
your faith. The world expects you
to stand for something. The world
has no respect for those who do not
stand for something. The only rea-
son we have for existence is that we
stand for something that no one else
stands for.

If the Church occupies common
ground with any other group it has
no real reason to exist. The Church
must offer the community something
that would not be offered if the
Church did not exist there.

We have experienced in recent
years a great increase in willingness
to compromise and water down the
things for which we stand. A Gos-
pel preacher seldom holds a meet-
ing any more without being chal-
lenged by someone in the congrega-
tion because of a supposed offense
to "outsiders." More and more
preachers are moving because the
members won't stand for sound
preaching, and neither will elders
stand against local pressure.

REUEL LEMMONS

This is a weakness that can de-
stroy the Church. It is already af-
fecting its stand and strength to an
alarming degree. Preachers who
compromise or water down the
preaching of the Gospel are un-
worthy of being called soldiers of
the cross.

A third sign of weakness we see
is the willingness of Church mem-
bers and even Church leaders to live
in abysmal ignorance of what is go-
ing on around them.

'I Didn't Know/'

Anyone conversant with our times,
religiously, can simply take the
breath of an audience with a re-
count of events that are swiftly
transpiring about us, and especially
in religious circles. Many will
gasp "I didn't know!"

May we kindly suggest that you
subscribe to a religious paper. And
we kindly suggest that the elders
and preachers who read this could
do themselves and their congrega-
tions a great favor by seeing that
every member of the congregation
subscribes to the religious paper.

This is one of our greatest weak-
nesses. We can never have a strong
Church built on ignorance, and
many seem to think the more ig-
norant of what is going on we can
be, the better off we are. Some day
we hope to see the Church so strong
that its elders will see that a Gospel
paper goes into every home, just as
every family receives Bible school
literature.

The key to all Church strength is
that everything we do is done in
love. It is a sign of weakness when
love does not show through all that
we do. Christians cannot grow un-
less they grow in love. When love
is strong it is hard for a Church
to be weak. The rules for Church
strength are really very few and very
simple. This one, God help us if
we ignore. ffl

PAGE 11 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 18, 1972

p

EDITORIALS

Off Again On Again In Again Out Again

There is one editorial advantage
to sticking to the Bible — in addi-
tion to the obvious spiritual bene-
fits. One can always count on the
fact that sooner or later he will see
the grand champions of liberalism,
who rode out to conquer with bands
and music and flags flying, return-
ing dejected after having accom-
plished nothing.

We thought of that recently as
we read the obituary of "secular"
theology in the columns of the
Christian Century. Wrote Dr. Win-
throp S. Hudson:

"By 1970 the bankruptcy of secu-
lar Christianity was obvious. De-
spite the frantic 'secular kicks' of
Protestant clerics, there was little
evidence of any effective religious
impact."

That sentence could almost have
been taken from any issue of the
Journal in the past ten years. Just
five years ago it would have been
unthinkable in the columns of the

Century.

Whenever something like that has
been said in the Journal it has
brought snickers and sneers. Now
that it has been said in the Century,
it will be quoted with great em-
phasis in liberal pulpits from coast
to coast.

We remember asking the chair-
man of the PCUS Youth Conven-
tion held at Richmond about eight
years ago why he had invited Har-
vey Cox to be the featured speaker.
"Because he is one of the most ef-
fective leaders of youth today," was
the reply. In Dr. Hudson's article,
Cox barely gets passing mention and
in few Presbyterian pulpits is he
quoted any longer.

We remember when any criticism
of "sensitivity training" brought a
flood of correspondence from con-
servatives and liberals alike. Dr.
Hudson's obituary for "therapeutic
Christianity" with its "sometimes
contrived chaos, to free individuals

Why Sheep Are Treated Like Sheep

A wise man once said, "Eternal
vigilance is the price of liberty."
The principle applies, not only in
the political sphere, but in every
other one as well. When harmful
changes occur, it is nearly always be-
cause good people created the cir-
cumstances and either willingly or
by default provided the occasions
for them to occur.

Many times we have heard of "the
will of the people" or "the voice of
the Church" or "the mind of the As-
sembly" or "36 million Protestants
speak" — when all the time it was
the "will" or the "voice" or the
"mind" of only an aggressive few
with the initiative and the courage
to speak out.

But they did speak out and who
is to say that they haven't the right
to their claims when there was no
voice to the contrary?

In a recent meeting of a Church
court, after a speaker had made an
impassioned oration favoring a cer-
tain action, we were approached pri-

vately by no less than four of his as-
sociates, each saying, "I want you to
know that so and-so did not speak
for me."

Perhaps not. But all it takes to
get a mule train going is one white
mare at the head. And all it takes
to get a flock of sheep willingly to
enter the slaughter house is a judas
goat in front.

When those who want to get
things done in a different way pro-
ceed on the assumption that there
are none who care to the contrary,
they certainly may be pardoned for
having jumped to the wrong conclu-
sion if they first put their ears to the
ground but heard nothing.

When the time comes for a
"speak now or hereafter forever
hold your peace," none should com-
plain that things did not go to suit
them if they didn't take the trouble
to let themselves be heard.

During the next few months, in
particular, we hope that those who
care will make themselves heard. IB

from the ordered structures of church
life and thus facilitate creativity, iiv J
novativeness and self-discovery" is
simply devastating.

We remember when social action
was the living dynamic of liberal
theology. Dr. Hudson says: "Thej
'secular city' thrust was more pre-
occupied with action than reflec-
tion, more interested in power than
in piety, more concerned with ef-
fecting political coalitions than with
communicating Christian insight "

The result? "Urban programs
multiplied, but the problems of the
cities became increasingly in-
tractable and desperate," and Prot-
estant leadership was left discredit-
ed.

Today, in the wake of the "bank-
ruptcy" of "secular Christianity,"
Dr. Hudson sees emerging a "new
quest for personal religious experi
ence, a yearning for meaning be
yond the mundane and demonstra
ble and a desire for a disciplined
practice of piety."

We can expect liberal pulpits to
begin echoing the new insights from
Richmond to Louisville. It will
sound as though a great return to
the Bible is taking place as sermons,
Sunday school literature and Church
conferences begin to wave the flag
of personal religion and "salvation."

Prominent Presbyterians will stand
to say, with convincing authority,
that the Church "must recapture its
role as spiritual leader, remember-
ing that Jesus said, 'My kingdom
is not of this world!' "

Evangelical Christians, who have
held the Bible in their hands all
along, must steel themselves not to
be fooled into accepting the super
ficial evidence of change. Leopards
don't change their spots.

The liberals are not undergoing
conversion. They are simply recog-
nizing the obvious, namely that
their social prescriptions didn't
work. Give them enough time and
they'll be off again on another wild
goose chase in another direction. "~

Neither Gold Nor Hot

We were reading another article
pointing out the failings of church
people. Our eye casually (perhaps
too casually) ran down the familiar
list:

— This nation is on the verge ol
moral bankruptcy.

— Christians have become enam-

PAGE 12 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 18, 1972

■

red with worldly gain and spiritual
alues have been minimized.
— There is in America a universal
ove of sin.
— Christians, for the most part,
re devoid of concern for the lost.
Ye do not care.

— We are so busy adding property
;nd doing "church" work that we
lave lost sight of the lost sinner.

Then it swept over us like a great
motion — how futile. How utterly
utile! Picking at people for not be-
ng what they ought to be is like
jicking at a baby for wetting the
jed.

Our train of thought went back
o a poster we remember seeing by
he side of the highway. It said, in
jiant letters: "Practice Brother-
iood!" In smaller letters it said:
Think of what a world this would
ae if we all loved each other!"

Sure. Think of what a world this
would be if sin had never intruded;
if man were not alienated from God
and wholly prone to evil.

Maybe what we need is a healthy
revival of that vital Reformed doc-
trine: total depravity. For if there
s anything really tragic about the
religious picture it is the poverty of
spirituality in the churches — the
almost comic spectacle of people
who have never been regenerated
trying to overcome their sins; the
tragic spectacle of people who have
[•never met the Lord Jesus Christ try-
ing to cultivate brotherhood; the
monstrous spectacle of spiritual
worship turned into formalism and
ritualism in the pagan temples of
America, for lack of the power of
the Holy Spirit in both pew and
pulpit.

Just last week we read in a Pres-
byterian magazine about young peo-
ple, desperate for some sense of
meaning in their church activities,
who were throwing themselves into
service projects benefiting migrant
workers in their neighborhood. The
article implied that they had be-
come jaded with recreation and par-
ties at the church and wanted some-
thing to do to give them some pur-
pose for existing as a fellowship.

If they were like many youth
groups we know of, they were in-
deed jaded, and frantically trying to
fill the vacuum left by an utterly
inane program of "brotherhood"
and "good will" and "love" with
enough good works to give them a
sense of accomplishment.

Nothing wrong with good works.
But how often they are pagan be-

THE LAYMAN AND HIS CHURCH

How You Can Tell You're Alive

m

How can you tell that you have
been born at all?

Let us apply some of the experi-
ences of the first birth to the sec-
ond and see if we pass the test.

When a baby is propelled from
his mother's womb into the physi-
cal world, it is a shock to him. He
reacts with a lusty cry, breathing
the air of his new surroundings in-
to his lungs. At that moment he
begins to adjust to the world in
which he is to live and make it a
part of himself.

If he fails to react immediately
and vigorously, he is subjected to
extra stimulation by those who are
concerned for his welfare. He must
give evidence that he is alive. He
must begin to make certain adjust-
ments.

Similarly, the new Christian re-
acts to the stimulus of the spiritual
environment into which he has just
been born. He finds himself in a
world flooded with light, when be-
fore he has known the false security
of darkness. Not only does this
light reveal realities to him, but he
becomes aware of feelings and re-
sponses in himself which before had
lain dormant.

He may have trouble sorting out
his emotions, and he needs the pa-
tient understanding of older and
more stable Christians until he has
acquired some maturity. If he
weeps, or shouts, or verbalizes his
experience at every opportunity, is
this so strange?

Many Presbyterians feel that any
loud outcry from a newly born
Christian is undignified. They
take pride in their self-restraint. But
how can we pass from the darkness

This week's Layman's column was
written by Mrs. Sylvia S. Hope, an
elect lady of Atlanta, Ga., whose
son is a Presbyterian minister and
whose daughter is married to a Pres-
byterian minister.

cause the Lord Jesus Christ isn't in
them.

What a time for the redeemed of
the Lord to say so! ffl

of sin and destruction into the light
of Jesus Christ and His salvation
without feeling the shock of con-
trast, without giving some unmis-
takable sign?

There are Christians who have
been born into Christian families,
brought up by God-fearing parents
and taught from the cradle to love
and worship the Lord. They have
received the Saviour at an early age,
and never have been out of fellow-
ship with Him for long periods of
time. The atmosphere of the spiri-
tual life was never strange to them,
and they entered into it before they
were old enough to have savored
the darkness of the world. They
were spared the sense of contrast
and the shock.

For all who truly belong to Christ,
however, there are necessary adjust-
ments similar to those of a baby in
his new world.

Have we learned to feed? One of
the first things a baby does is to
learn to feed, first on the milk his
tender body will tolerate, then on
stronger meat. He has to learn to
chew and swallow, and sometimes
small children rebel at this process.
They prefer to be fed in a way that
requires no effort on their part. But
if their bodies are to grow and de-
velop in health, they must learn to
put forth the effort.

Feeding on God's Word requires
some effort on our part. How many
times have you heard someone say
that he does not read the Bible
much because he cannot under-
stand it? How often have you read
through a chapter or two, from a
sense of duty, and closed the book
and your mind on passages which
were not clear to you?

Have we exercised our spiritual
natures? A healthy baby, the mo-
ment he is born, begins to stretch
out his arms and legs and to exer-
cise the muscles of his body. This
is strengthening. It prepares his
body to cope with obstacles to its
progress and to survive the unavoid-
able confrontations with its adver-

saries.

(Continued on p. 19, col. 1)

PAGE 13 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 18, 1972

m

SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON

For November 5, 1972

ok
ti
w

INTRODUCTION: What is the
believer's duty as a citizen of t h e
world and a member of Christ's
Church? Last week we spoke of our
obligations to the state, and now we
face our obligations to the state and
Christ's Church. How do we deter-
mine where our first duty lies in a
circumstance when the two are in
conflict?

I. WHOSE IMAGE? (Matt. 22:
15-22) . In this New Testament
passage Jesus very clearly set the
grounds for making the distinction.

The occasion for the incident was
the growing hostility of the Jews to-
ward Jesus. They desired to en-
snare Him, to get something against
Him so that He would either be re-
jected by the majority of the Jews
or imprisoned by the Romans.

They thought that they had the
perfect plan. The Pharisees and
their disciples were basically against
Rome and Roman rule, unsympa-
thetic to Rome and Caesar. Never-
theless, on this occasion they sent
their own disciples with the Hero-
dians, who were Roman sympa-
thizers among the Jews, in order to
have witnesses on either side of the
question of Church and state. They
desired to find fault with Jesus, not
to search out the truth.

The burning issue of the day was
whether the Jews should pay trib-
ute to Caesar. Probably most Jews
were opposed to any taxation by the
Roman government. Jews who
served as tax collectors, such as Mat-
thew, were despised by most oth-
er Jews. Jews, and particularly
the Pharisees, loved to link to-
gether publicans (tax collectors)
and sinners as though both
were the same class. Later on, the
Jews in 70 A.D. rebelled against
Rome and saw their city of Jerusa-
lem destroyed because of their con-
tinued opposition. So the question
which Jesus was asked that day was
an inflammatory question, and the
spirit behind it ultimately erupted
in rebellion and defeat for the Jews.

However, some Jews did favor
Rome. These were Herodians, ap-

Church and State

Rev. Jack B. Scott

Background Scripture: Daniel 6,
Matthew 22:15-22; Acts 5:17-29

Key Verses: Matthew 22:15-2; Acts
5:17-29

Devotional Reading: I Corinthians
3:5-14

Memory Selection: Matthew 22:21

parently few in number. They were
naturally opposed to the Pharisees.
On this occasion, however, Pharisees
and Herodians allied together in op-
position to their common enemy, Je-
sus.

The question they asked was de-
signed to get Jesus in trouble with
either the Pharisees (the anti-Ro-
man sympathizers) or the Herodians

(the Roman sympathizers) . "Is it
lawful (according to God's law) to
give tribute unto Caesar, or not?"

(v. 17).

Jesus fully understood what the
Pharisees were doing. He called
them exactly what they were, hypo-
crites. They came with the Hero-
dians whom they detested, pretend-
ing that they wanted truth, even
praising Jesus (v. 16) .

Jesus' answer again reflected the
wisdom with which He always an-
swered His enemies. He forced them
back to the authority of God's
Word. This time He went all the
way to Genesis 1. He used the occa-
sion of this evil deed on their part
to teach a great lesson. "Whose is
the image?" He asked, as He held
up the Roman coin. The obvious
answer was, "It is Caesar's." Since
it bore Caesar's image, who could
dispute that it must be given to
him.

The logic was indisputable, but
Jesus went further. Without saying
it in so many words, Jesus was also
asking, "Whose image do you bear?"
The answer here was clearly, "God's
image." The implication of Jesus'
further answer, "Render to God the
things that are God's" is that we who
bear the image of our Creator be-
long to Him!

The International Sunday School Lesson Outlines
are copyrighted 1972 by the Committee on the
Uniform Series of the National Council of Churches
of Christ.

By His answer, our Lord at once
put to silence His enemies and at
the same time taught a great lesson
in the respective obligations we have
to the head of the state and to our
Creator.

God created man in His own
image (Gen. 1:26-27), and man is
always accountable to God. He
made us and we all belong to Him.
(Compare Acts 17:24-31.) All men
are accountable to God and liable
for any sin committed against Him.

Taking the lesson from there, the
New Testament further shows us
that as believers we are to commit
our redeemed lives to God to be con
formed to Him (Rom. 6, 12:1-2)
This we owe to Him who not only
made us, but remade us in Christ
We are His by virtue of creation
and redemption. We bear God's
image restored by Christ, whose im-
age we now bear.

Our bodies are the very temple of
the Holy Spirit. We are bought
with a price, and our bodies
(lives) are to be lived to the glory
of God (I Cor. 6:19-20). God has
a clear and prior claim on our lives
and bodies over all earthly powers
and governments. As Caesar con-
trols and has claim to that which
bears his image, so God in Christ
has clear title to our lives, which
we received from God and which
belong to Him.

The state has the right to control
all matters pertaining to the well-
being of the state: economics, social
reforms, making and enforcing laws,
taking up arms to defend itself or
its allies. This may affect my life
greatly. It may mean I have to pay
taxes; help and even live with those
to whom I am not naturally inclined
to be helpful; obey irksome laws;
conform where I would like to be
different; even go to war whether
or not I think the war is just. As
God's servants the rulers have the
right to require of me those things.

However, I must remember that
I belong to the Lord and that I can-
not do anything contrary to His
will. What I do, I do as to Him, as
pleasing Christ and not men. We

]

PAGE 14 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 18, 1972

looked at Ephesians 6:5-9 earlier.
Let us look also at Colossians, be-
ginning at 3:22: "Whatsoever ye
do, work heartily (from the heart) ,
as unto the Lord, and not unto men
... ye serve the Lord Christ."

Whether we submit to the state's
rule or to employers over us, or even
is slaves to our masters, we must
never lose sight of the fact that as
God's children we belong to Him
and all we do we do because we
would please the Lord, even when
we pay taxes or go to war or obey
the traffic signs in our town.

II. WHEN CONFLICTS ARISE.
Of course, there will be times when
conflicts will arise between our duty
to God and our duty to the state.
Examples of this problem occur in
Scripture, but Acts 5:17-29 is not
such an example. Basically that
was an interchurch conflict, but
Scripture does have examples of
God's people facing the state.

This particular situation is seen
several times in the book of Daniel.
Daniel and his friends often faced
the problem of obedience when the
state demanded what was contrary
to God's will. Three friends of Dan-
iel were commanded to worship the
image of Nebuchadnezzar or be cast
into the fiery furnace. They did
not lead a rebellion against the king,
but the issue was never in doubt.
The king commanded what God for-
bade. They chose to obey God and
were ready to pay the consequences
(Dan. 3:16-18). That day God
showed His power to deliver His
own from death when they were
faithful to Him.

Daniel later faced a similar crisis.
He was ordered not to petition any
but the king. However, all of his
life he had prayed to his Lord and
this command by the king would
not alter his conduct. He prayed
knowing full well the consequences
(Dan. 6:13-15) .

In each case, Daniel and his three
friends did not rebel against the
king; they simply did what God had
clearly commanded them to do. God
always comes first.

Paul would have been spared im-
prisonment by Rome had he adjust-
ed his conduct to please the Roman
government, but God had appoint-
ed him as a missionary to the Gen-
tiles and he would not alter that
calling. Even in prison he contin-
ued to bear his witness and, as tra-
dition has it, finally he was killed
by Rome because of his persistent

Christian testimony. Yet that same
Paul wrote Romans 13, which calls
for our obedience to the state in all
matters where the state has authority
from God.

Subsequent history has revealed
many of God's children dying by or-
der of the state for their testimony
for Christ. As a missionary in Ko-
rea, I met many Christians who had
been imprisoned for their faith dur-
ing the Japanese and later Commu-
nist control of the land. I heard of
those who had died for their faith,
refusing to deny their belief in the
Lord Christ.

Fox's Book of Martyrs records the
names of numerous people who laid
down their lives for Christ. Not all
escaped, as did Daniel and his
friends. Sometimes God calls on us
to die for His sake and glory. In
the case of all of these, one thing
is clear. They put their allegiance
to God before their allegiance to
the state.

At this point we must be cautious.
Today we have a phenomenon de-
veloping among some in the Church
which is not at all the same as dy-
ing for one's faith. In the name of
the Church and Christianity, some
people rebel against the state, seek-
ing its overthrow, defying its laws,
burning its buildings, and causing
all kinds of riots. God never in His
Word authorized this.

Those who do this are rebellious
against God, not serving Him. Ro-
mans 13 teaches that God has given
certain rights and responsibilities to
the state and its rulers. To defy
them, to try by force to change the
laws of the state, is to defy God. Let
not these be reckoned in the line of
Christian martyrs. They serve not
God but Satan.

The principles we have dealt with
here are not, therefore, a license for
tyranny or anarchy, as some in the
Church suppose. We are to serve
Christ first but we do have obliga-
tions to obey the laws of the land.
We can change those laws only by
lawful means, not by force and re-
bellion and disobedience. Such ac-
tions bring dishonor to Christ's
name whenever the Church is so in-
volved.

III. WHEN CHURCH AND
STATE UNITE AGAINST THE
TRUTH. A situation often seen in
Scripture apparently shall often
arise in the history of God's people.
In the Old Testament, the problem
was frequent. In Israel, Church and

state were combined. The head of
the state of Israel was also head of
the people of God.

When Saul persecuted David, he
acted both as sovereign of the state
and head of the Church. Thus state
and Church in the person of Saul
united against David, a servant of
the Lord. David did all he could
to escape Saul's wrath. He remained
faithful to God by not rebelling
against either Saul as king or Saul
as head of God's people. Yet he
would not join Saul, either. He
would not condone Saul's evil.

Later, Elijah had to withstand
Ahab and Jezebel. Like David, he
did not rebel, but he did faithfully
stand for the truth and suffered
greatly for his steadfastness toward
God. Amos was opposed by the
state and the Church, allied togeth-
er to stop his testimony. Jeremiah,
too, saw the head of the Church
and state tear to shreds God's Word
which he had written. He obeyed
God and rewrote it, but all of his
life he suffered greatly.

Christ often was faced with an al-
liance between Jews and the Ro-
man state. In the end, this alliance
succeeded in crucifying our Lord.
Jews later united with the Roman
power and this led to Paul's arrest
in Jerusalem.

All of these incidents are by way
of example for us. In all cases,
God's child is persecuted for his
faith, while state and Church unite
to destroy him. In each case, the
servant of Christ suffers, sometimes
dies for his faith. This is simply
part of the reality of living for
Christ.

We have in symbolic language a
picture of just this circumstance
(Rev. 13) . There we see a beast,
symbolic of the world's secular pow-
er, and the second beast which looks
like a lamb (v. 11), but in reality
serves the dragon (Satan, v. 12) .
The beast, who looks like a lamb
but in reality speaks like Satan,
leads the world to be subject to Sa-
tan (vv. 13ff.) . Only those who re-
ceive the mark of the beast can
prosper in the world. All others
are persecuted (vv. 15-18) .

All of this is in symbolic lan-
guage, but I think that we can see
the picture: As Christians we must
expect times when the false church
and the state, both under the influ-
ence of Satan, will unite against the
truth and against God's true chil-

(Continued on p. 19, col. 1)

PAGE 15 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 18, 1972

YOUTH PROGRAM

Scripture: Philippians 4:4-8
Suggested Hymns:

"Take Thou Our Minds"
"More Holiness Give Me"
"Take My Life and Let It Be
Consecrated"

PROGRAM LEADER'S INTRO-
DUCTION: The words "Stop!
Look! Listen!" are found on the
signs that mark a railroad crossing.
In this program we are not think-
ing about safety at rail crossings,
but about the use we make of two
of our five senses. When we say,
"Stop" we mean to halt the onrush-
ing of our daily lives long enough
to give serious consideration to what
we see and hear, to our looking and
to our listening.

We have only to think about peo-
ple who are blind and deaf in order
to appreciate what a wonderful
privilege it is to be able to see and
hear. To what kinds of sights and
sounds do we ordinarily give our
attention? How discerning are we
with regard to the things we allow
ourselves to see and hear? Is our
Christian faith brought to bear on
our looking and listening?

Let us stop long enough to find
some answers to these questions. Let
us stop in order that we may ex-
amine our looking and listening in
the light of Christian truth.

FIRST SPEAKER: If man's chief
end is to glorify and enjoy God, it
follows that we should use our gift
of sight in ways that will glorify
God and properly enrich our own
lives. How shall we do it?

Here are some positive, whole-
some ways of using our eyes: We
can learn to see and appreciate the
beauties of nature, remembering
that nature is God's handiwork.
When we fail to feast our eyes on
the wonders of God's creation, we
rob Him of glory He deserves, and
we rob ourselves of much satisfac-
tion.

We honor God and bring blessing
into our own lives when we use our

For November 5, 1972

Stop! Look! Listen!

Rev. B. Hoyt Evans

eyes for good reading, especially
when we read the Bible and Chris-
tian literature. Another positive,
good use to make of vision is to
learn appreciation of human works
of art — especially painting and
sculpture which have been done to
the glory of God.

Those are positive ways of using
our gift of vision. We must also
recognize that many things calling
for our attention are not worth see-
ing. We should deliberately avoid
looking at the things which are un-
worthy. A great deal of printed ma-
terial is not fit to be read or thought
about.

The amount of vile literature on
the market in the form of books and
magazines is truly appalling. Even
some of the so-called better litera-
ture unnecessarily glamorizes im-
morality and violence. The read-
ing of such trash neither glorifies
God nor improves the life of the one
who uses his eyes to read it.

We would likely be amazed if we
knew how much time Americans
(including young people) spend
viewing movies and television. We
must recognize that both television
and motion pictures can be used for
valuable teaching and wholesome
entertainment.

A considerable amount of what
appears on TV and movie screens,
however, does not deserve to be
seen. Much of it, like trashy publi-
cations, is either worthless or down-
right harmful. Christians are bound
to use discernment in watching
movies and television, and should
look only at what honors and en-
riches their own lives.

SECOND SPEAKER: If we are
to use our eyes to glorify God and
to enrich our own hearts and minds,
the same rules should apply to the
use we make of our ears.

Here are some positive ways a
Christian can use the gift of hear-
ing: We can listen to the teaching
and preaching of the Bible. (Read
Romans 10:17.) We can and should
give attention to any teaching that

is wholesome and instructive, b»
cause a great deal of our most vahl
able knowledge comes to us by wa
of our hearing.

We can also use our hearing pro
itably by taking part in wholesom
conversation. Too, one of God
blessings to mankind is that of grea
music, and it is appreciated and er
joyed by means of hearing.

Some sounds which come to ou
ears are not worth hearing. Amon
them are these: There is much falsi
teaching in the world today, espe
cially by those who propagate rad:
cal ideas and un-Christian belief;
who speak against God, or who ig
nore Him altogether. To listei
sympathetically to such talk is I
dishonor God and to damage ou
own lives.

A Christian will do well not til
lend his ear to any of the grea
amount of idle talk and gossip tak
ing place. Just as there is chea
and immoral reading matter, ther
is cheap and immoral talk whicl
often takes the form of dirty joke
and stories. The Christian who lis
tens willingly to such talk soils hi
own mind and dishonors God.

Good music is a gift of God ti
mankind, but not all of that whicl
goes by the name of music is good
Some of it has no purpose of hon
oring God or elevating people. Hov
can a Christian justify listeninj
to it?

For Discussion:

1. Suggest other wholesomi
sights and sounds which are worth'
of a Christian's attention.

2. Can you name other uses o>i
eyes and ears which Christian
should avoid?

3. What can Christian young peo
pie do to promote Bible and gooc
reading?

4. What can Christian younj
people do to improve the quality
of conversation, radio and televisioi
programs, movies, and literature?

Closing Prayer.

PAGE 16 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 18, 1972

NEW TESTAMENT WORD STUD-
IES, Vol. I & II, by John Albert Ben-
gel. Vol. I, Matthew - Acts, 925 pp.
i Vol. II, Romans - Revelation, 980 pp.
$29.95 set. Kregel Publications,
Grand Rapids, Mich. Reviewed by the
Rev. J. Julius Scott Jr., associate pro-
fessor of religious studies, Western
Kentucky University, Bowling Green,
Ky.

The appearance of these volumes
provides a suitable occasion to in-
troduce modern readers to their au-
thor, John Albert Bengel. Bengel
lived and taught in Germany from
1687 to 1752. His learning in the
fields of classics and philosophy
was widely recognized.

However, it was for his work up-
on the New Testament that he is
best remembered. While still a stu-
dent he became interested in the
presence of variant readings (dif-
ferent wordings) in both printed
editions and ancient manuscripts of
the Greek New Testament. His ef-
forts to solve this problem was the
beginning of the science of textual
criticism which is still being ener-
getically practiced.

Bengel was a man of both high
scholarly attainments and of a hum-
ble and devotional Christian spirit
and character. He had close ties
with the German pietistic move-
ment, a reaction against both the
sterile orthodoxy and the ratio-
nalism of the Enlightenment which
characterized much of the academic
and ecclesiastical scene of his day.
Bengel attempted to absorb the best
in pietism and at the same time to
purge it from the narrow, anti-intel-
lectual, sectarian, subjective ex-
tremes to which it had gone.

Consequently, although his works
display the happy wedding of care-
ful scholarship and practical Chris-
tian devotion, his biographer, A. R.
Faussett, could complain that Ben-
gel had to endure both the attacks
of skeptics and the suspicions of
some of his pious, devoted, spiritual
Christian associates.

In addition to his work on the
text of the Greek New Testament,
one of Bengel's greatest accomplish-
ments was the production of a run-
ning commentary on the Greek New
Testament called Gnomon of the
New Testament. Here the succes-
sive verses of the New Testament
were quoted both in Greek and in
translation. The author added
running comments, both explana-
tory and devotional in character.

In these notes Bengel sought to

BOOKS

be true to his own understanding
of the commentator's task — to set
forth the simplicity, depth, and in-
ner harmony of the Word of God
and its adaptation to practical pur-
poses. He expressed the hope that
rather than being considered a
definitive or final statement on the
meaning of Scripture, his Gnomon
would serve as model, example, and
source of inspiration to others who
might engage in a deeper and con-
tinuing study of the New Testa-
ment.

Gnomon was written in Latin in
1742 and later translated into Ger-
man and English. It was used ex-
tensively by John Wesley and, al-
though much shorter, in the scope
of its usefulness and influence it
has been compared favorably to
Calvin's commentaries. Although
technical New Testament scholar-
ship has progressed well beyond the
level attained by Bengel, his
Gnomon is still of practical and de-
votional use.

New Testament Word Studies is
a reprint of the improved, second
edition of the English translation of
Gnomon which was first published
in 1860. Its historical and practi-
cal value has been suggested in com-
ments made above and serious stu-
dents will welcome the renewed
availability of this classic commen-
tary.

However, in using the work of
Bengel and others, the modern stu-
dent would do well to heed the ad-
monition of Stephen Neill (The In-
terpretation of the New Testament,
1861-1961) who, much in the spirit
of Bengel, says, "Every generation
must take up the quest [the study of

the New Testament] afresh, and can
rely only to a very limited extent
on the achievements of the past
There are certain writers of the past
— Augustine, Calvin, Bengel, West-
cott, Schlatter — to whom we shall
always turn with gratitude for the
timeless insights that are to be found
in their writings. But at point after
point we find them antiquated.
What they had to give they have
given, and we are grateful; but grati-
tude does not deliver us from the
hard and exacting task of being hon-
est with ourselves and with the men
[and questions] of our times." BB

THROUGH THE BIBLE WITH A
PHYSICIAN, by Claude A. Frazier.
Charles C. Thomas, Publisher, Spring-
field, 111. 282 pp. $9.50. Reviewed by
the Rev. Thomas G. Kay, pastor, First
Presbyterian Church, Brewton, Ala.

Thoughtfully, carefully and inter-
estingly put together, this book re-
flects thorough research, and it is
useful particularly to laymen who
want a volume of inspirational and
educational devotional. The book is
true to the view of Scripture as that
which is infallible and inspired by
the Holy Spirit. It would be excel-
lent not only for personal use but
for groups in midweek or Sunday
evening Bible studies.

Each devotional includes excel-
lent historical and geographical in-
formation.

The author, a deacon and Sunday
school teacher, First Baptist Church,
Asheville, N. C. is chief of allergy,
Memorial Mission Hospital, Ashe-
ville. The book rates forewords by
Mrs. Billy Graham, Dr. Woodrow
Clark and Dr. Cecil E. Sherman, ffl

OFFERED BY PROSPECTUS ONLY

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PAGE 17 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 18, 1972

ISAIAH, Volume III

The New International
Commentary on the
Old Testament

by Edward ). Young

With the publication of Volume III, this
solid, exhaustive commentary on the
prophecy of Isaiah is now complete.
The author's refreshing, revealing ap-
proach treats the meaning of the text
primarily — ■ not the textual problems
involved.

Written with the minister, the student
and the Sunday School teacher in mind,
technical material is restricted to foot-
notes, special notes and appendices.
The English text of Isaiah is Dr. Young's
own and brings out clearly the force of
the original.

". . . its strengths are
such that Young on
Isaiah may well prove
to be the outstanding
conservative Old Testa-
ment commentary of
this century."

— Christianity Today

Three-volume set $29.85
Individual volumes $9.95

MARTYRED!, by Joseph T. Bayly,
Zondervan Publ. House, Grand Rap-
ids, Mich. Paper, 224 pp. $1.25. Re-
viewed by the Rev. Thomas G. Kay,
pastor, First Presbyterian Church,
Brewton, Ala.

This soul-stirring account of the
Congo uprising of late 1964 in
which Dr. Paul Carlson was killed,
is a composite of bits and pieces of
facts which have come out of Stan-
leyville in the years following the
nightmare of killings during that
uprising.

The author's idea that "this story
is so significant that every person

i
i.

related to the Church should hea
it" is borne out in the shocking d<t
tails of the story as it unfolds

We speak of the times of the mar
tyrs as being almost exclusively ii
the distant past. Few Christians td
day basking in the sunlight of a!
fluence and business-as-usual hav)
any idea of what is happening ti
Christians in other parts of thi
world.

It is not that we do not have goo(
communications, but that we havt1
become dull and insensitive or total!
ly indifferent to these monstrou:
persecutions. Thirty white mission

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Since the opening of the first Belk-Simpson Store, it has been our
endeavor to be more in a community than just another merchant.
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MISSOURI

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Beik Dept. Store
Miami, Oklahoma
J. T. Holmes, Res. Mgr.

NORTH CAROLINA

Belk-Simpson Co.

Hendersonville, N. C.

R. E. McCormack, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store

Brevard, N, C.

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Winchester, Ky.
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ganization and have been in existence approximately
SO years. The Belk stores were launched in 1886-88.

SEE THE MANAGER NEAREST YOU FOR CHURCH CARPET, ROBES, ETC.

PAGE 18 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 18, 1972

ries died at the hands of the Congo
ebels, while 10,000 Congolese
christians were martyred.

"A few years ago, I wrote another
took, a book that made me laugh,"
ays the author. "This book made
ae cry. But it's made me shout,
§0. Here are people with a mis-
ion in life instead of a gimmick,"
e observes.

I dare you to read this little book,
'ou won't be quite the same when
ou get the facts about the torture,
nental anguish, and bloody killings
xperienced by Christian brothers
nd sisters in our day. Their reso-
ute faith in Jesus Christ and deep
(evotion in spreading the Gospel is
n evidence on every page. SI

ay man— from p. 73

The Christian's adversaries — the
vorld, the flesh and Satan — are
liligent in finding ways to confront
lim daily. They can weaken his
vitness if he does not keep his spiri-
ual muscles toned up with the reg-
ilar exercises of prayer, praise, wor-
hip and fellowship with the saints.

"Marvel not," says Jesus, "that I
aid unto thee, Ye must be born
igain" (John 3:7) . If we do not
narvel at the manifestations of the
lew birth within ourselves, we must
ry out to Him, on our knees, for
aroof! ffl

. S. Lesson— from p. 15

Iren. When such times occur, they
ire particularly hard times for
od's people.

Reading the news of today and
eeing how the visible Church more
ind more is involved in the state's
ausiness, one wonders if we are not

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headed for a similar time when true
believers will find the majority of
the visible Church united together
with the state, seeking to force Sa-
tan's will on all men. It has hap-
pened before and it may happen
again. In this day we must be cer-
tain that our loyalty is toward
Christ and not toward human lead-
ers in the Church. 11

GOSPEL LIGHT PUBLICATIONS

cordially invites you to attend
THE INTERNATIONAL CENTER
FOR

LEARNING SEMINAR

The In-depth Seminar will be Nov.
9-11. This will be held at the Holi-
day Inn Central, I-85 at Piedmont
Rd. in Atlanta, Ga. For a free
brochure or further information
please contact Rev. Don Highland-
er, Southeastern Regional Director,
504 Fond du Lac Drive, Stone
Mountain, Ga. 30083. Phone (404)
469-6060. Mr. Lowell E. Brown,
Director of ICL in California will
be the luncheon speaker.

EXECUTIVE POSITIONS OPEN
PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH U. S.

The Provisional General Executive Board
of the Presbyterian Church in the United
States is seeking six persons to fill the
top management positions In the Church's
new denominational program system.
This Management Team — five division
staff directors and a general staff direct-
or — will be employed in January 1973.

Requirements: bachelor's degree or equiv-
alent, management experience, lay or
clergy membership in the Presbyterian
Church U. S. or other Church of like
faith and order.

All recommendations and applications,
including present staff, will receive equal
consideration regardless of race, sex,
national origin or marital status.

Location, Atlanta, Ga. Deadline for ap-
plications, Nov. 10, 1972. To apply or
to recommend names of persons who
might be considered for these positions,
contact: Mrs. Margaret Taylor, Provision-
al General Executive Board, Presbyter-
ian Church in the U.S., 341 Ponce de
Leon Ave., N.E., Atlanta, Ga., 30308,
telephone 404/875-8921.

FOR YOUR LIBRARY

Studies in the Sermon on the Mount
by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones $ 8.95

The Living Bible, A paraphrase 9.95

While Men Slept

by L. Nelson Bell 4.95

Convictions To Live By

by L. Nelson Bell 3.50

Preaching and Preachers

by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones 5.95

New American Standard Bible 10.95

The One Volume Bible Commentary,
Edited by The Rev. J. R. Dummelow,
M.A. 7.95

Ellicott's Bible Commentary in One
Volume

A verse by verse explanation 8.95

Davis Dictionary of the Bible

by J. D. Davis 8.95

The Wycliffe Historical Geography
of Bible Lands
by Charles F. Pfeiffer and
Howard F. Vos 8.95

Commentary on the Whole Bible

by Jamieson, Fausset, Brown 11.95

The Encyclopedia of Religious Quotations
Edited and compiled
by Frank S. Mead 11.95

Saint Paul's Epistles to the Colossians
and to Philemon

by J. B. Lightfoot 4.50

Saint Paul's Epistle to the Philippians
by J. B. Lightfoot 4.95

The Epistle of St. Paul to the Galatians
by J. B. Lightfoot 4.50

Commentary On The Epistle to the
Romans

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Commentary on the Gospel of John
Volume One by Frederick Louis Godet
(John 1-5) (2 Volume Set $11.95) 6.95

Commentary on the Gospel of Mark
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Order from
THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL
Weaverville, NC 28787

PAGE 19 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 18, 1972

Famed French anti-Communist searches out the

three plagues that could destroy our civilization
(even before the Communists get a chance to)

AND

PROMISCUITY

by Suzanne Labin
Translated by Stephanie Winston. Complete with Index.
A Selection of the Conservative Book Club.

HERE IS CONSCIOUSNESS THREE-not as fantasy, but as ugly reality.

In a fastmoving, novelistic style famed French writer Suzanne Labin
takes you on a tour of the hippie underworld — the hell that is
gobbling up the children of Liberals . . . yes, and conservatives too.
We see their drugs, clothes, hygienic habits (or lack of them),
sexual proclivities and amusements; we hear their speech, their
debilitating philosophy, their corrosive hatred of all that is decent,

their radical politics.

We witness case history after case history: now poignant, now
horrifying. We learn just what motivates seemingly intelligent people
to become hippies. And we are there for the tragic climax:
the wreckage of broken lives.
One chapter, "A Kaleidoscope of Drugs," is a primer for worried
parents on what's probably for sale in the local schoolyard.
It meticulously describes all the drugs now in use, spells out their
long- and short-term effects. You learn which of these poisons
will kill, which destroy the character and the mind.
At the end, Mme. Labin fashions an eloquent plea calling the young
to step back from the abyss . . . before it's too late. This firm yet
sympathetic message would profit
every young person in America. And it
is a must for parents, clergymen,
teachers, physicians, counselors —
anyone who works with young people.
If there is a young person in your
life, please — give this book a

careful reading.

Suzanne Labin penetrates the underworld
of hippies, drugs and promiscuity

American hippies — drug-crazed Mansons or gentle flower children?
Why marijuana is much more destructive than alcohol
Depraved hippie haunts on Sunset Strip

Drug escalation — why it really happens (in spite of what the Liberals
tell us)

The sinister meaning of psychedelic clothes and decorations
The hippie church where couples copulate on a giant cross
Why drug-soaked hippies love intense colors
Porno merchants and hippies — why they go together
Vestments of protest — the meaning of the weird clothes your child may
be wearing

Hippie capitalists — more rapacious than robber barons

Public fornication — how widespread is it?

Why there are so few black hippies

Drugs and grimy Leftism — a connection?

Stoned schooldays

Teeny-bopper drug-pushers

Drugs as "sacraments"

Homosexual prostitution in

Greenwich Village

Begging: did you raise

your child for this?

The four kinds of hippies

The degenerate League for

Sexual Freedom

Sinister Japanese hippies

who call themselves Zeros

Be-ins, smoke-ins, love-ins

Free love and free syphilis

New hippie goals: incest

and child molesting

"Omnisexuality" — the hippie

answer to marriage

Obscenity — the new virtue

Virginity — the new sin

Communism and the hippies
i The bitter anti-Americanism of the underground press
i Frightening alliance of Leftist hippies and brutal motorcycle gangs
i Perversion for sale: classified ads in underground newspapers
i Why most hippies are bored most of the time — and what this can lead to
i Literary gurus: your child may be in trouble if he admires one of them
i Devil worship among the hippies
i Sexual fascism in hippie communes

i The media — why they romanticize the raunchiest of the young
i Young girls in hippieland — why they fall apart so much faster than the boys
i The high priest of LSD — facts about his background you won't read in the
New York Times

■ Why drug use must be stamped out if our civilization is to survive

■ Softheaded American parents who support their children in drug-infested
Asian cities

i Tantric Love — an old Asian obsession turned into a new hippie indecency
i The Methodist parish whose special mission is to homosexuals — not to save
but to encourage them

■ Intimate link between sexual degeneracy and Leftism

■ Surprising similarities between Charlie Manson and an infamous
12th-century assassin

■ Dr. HIPpocrates — a Leftist Ann Landers who stresses the vice in "advice"
i British Skinheads — what they do about hippies

i Pacifists who want to kill the "pigs"

■ Why hippies turn to long-exploded superstitions

■ Jerry Rubin — why this monster has appeal for so many
i Sexual brutalization in the kennels of hippiedom

i Why hippies, like all subversives, work to undermine the family

A WORD

OF CAUTION...

When discussing the
plagues of promiscuity,
perversion and pornog-
raphy, Suzanne Labin is
necessarily graphic in her
descriptions and examples.
So, while most of Hippies,
Drugs and Promiscuity is
suitable and indeed im-
perative reading for any-
one, certain sections
should be restricted to
mature readers.

I

2 Ways to Obtain HIPPIES, DRUGS AND PROMISCUITY

RISK-FREE EXAMINATION

To your bookseller or:

RLINGTON HOUSE

PUBLISHERS FOR THE SILENT MAJORITY
81 Centre Avenue
New Rochelle, New York 10801
Please send, delivered free, Hippies,
Drugs and Promiscuity by Suzanne Labin.
My payment of $7.95 is enclosed. If not
pleased I may return the book within 30
days of delivery for full refund plus extra
cash to cover my return postage. PJ-200

Name

I

I I
I I
I I

m

Address
City /State

I I

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CONSERVATIVE BOOKCLUB

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Please send FREE a copy of the $7.95 book, Hippies, Drugs and Promiscuity, and accept my
membership in the Conservative Book Club— the only book club expressly for political con-
servatives. Club Selections are always offered at discounts of 20% to 75% off store prices
plus shipping. My only obligation as a member is to buy 3 books from among the 100 or more
to be offered during the next 15 months, after which I may resign any time. Membership also
entitles me to a free subscription to the Club's monthly Bulletin, which describes the Club's
monthly Selection and brims with news and trends of interest to conservatives. If I want the
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PAGE 20 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 18, 1972

VOL. XXXI, NO. 26

OCTOBER 25, 1972

$4.00 A YEAR

the

PRESBYTERIAN

JOURNAL

idvocating continuation of a Presbyterian Church loyal

to Scripture and the Reformed faith

Speaking Frankly

I will give my frank opinion at the beginning. The pro-
posed new confession is inadequate, contains glaring errors of
teaching, takes certain arbitrary positions in its chapter dealing
with contemporary social issues, lacks solid definitions, and
quite fails to convince that it belongs under the same set of cov-
ers with the Westminster standards. In my judgment its adop-
tion would argue a most serious decline in the spiritual life of
our denomination, for we would then in effect be saying that
we do not longer care about our theology.

— Robert Strong
(See p. 7)

3. S. LESSON AND YOUTH PROGRAM FOR NOVEMBER 12

moo

flSLZ DM ITIH lectaqo

<Vf1 OK JO £.q. T S«1 9 A X. U.[[

Hi

MAI LB AG

WHY NOT A CONFESSION?

With the help of your articles
during the past several months, I
have been struggling with the issue
of the proposed new confession for
the PCUS. I am beginning to won-
der whether the Church does have
an obligation to continually confess
its faith to the world, addressing it-
self to problems faced by Christians
in a particular time and circum-
stance, and in language that holds

meaning for them.

I wonder now just what the true
"conservative" position is. Have we
been remiss? Is there Biblical and
historical precedence for new con-
fessions of faith? I fear that we may
have exalted a medium of our faith
above the Object (Subject?) of our
faith, thereby running a high risk
of idolatry.

The Journal has been faithful in
reporting the progress of and reac-

the

PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL

Rev. G. Aiken Taylor, Ph.D., Editor
Rev. Henry B. Dendy, D.D., Managing Editor
William G. Bolus, Assistant Editor

Circulation leader among independent publications in the Presbyterian-Reformed world

THIS WEEK— Vol. XXXI, No. 26, October 25, 1972

Chapter I: God 7

The writers of the new confession of faith omitted
much By Robert Strong

Luther and Marx 9

What happens when Christianity tries to coexist with
Communism? By Eleutherios

De partments —

Editorials 12

The Layman and his Church 1 3

Sunday School Lesson, November 12 14

Youth Program, November 12 16

Book Reviews 17

SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: $4 a year
for individuals, $3 for members of
Every Family Plan churches. All cor-
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office in Weaverville, N. C. 28787.
Second class postage paid at Weaver-
ville, N. C. 28787.

THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL, a

Presbyterian weekly magazine, devoted
to the statement, defense, and propa-
gation of the Gospel, the faith which
was once for all delivered to the saints,

is published every Wednesday by the
Southern Presbyterian Journal Co.,
Inc., in Weaverville, N. C.

POSTMASTER: Send Form 3579 to
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old and new addresses (with zip
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NEWS AND EDITORIAL correspond-
ence should be addressed to P. 0. Box
3108, Asheville, N. C. 28802. Editorial
offices located at 247 Charlotte St. in
Asheville.

TELEPHONES: (All area 704) edi-
torial office 254-4015, 254-4016;
business office, 645-3310, 645-3962.

tion to the recently proposed new
confession. I believe many good
questions have been raised in the
process. But I am ill at ease at this
point: Do we allow that almighty
God speaks to us today through the
work of the men and women of the
body of Christ, the Church, "mak-
ing all things new" (Rev. 21:5)? If
not, have we made certain that we
are neither throwing stones nor ex-
changing the touchstone of our faith '
for a bag of sand pebbles?
— (Rev.) Cecil Albright
Rock Hill, S. C.

It is always proper to restate faith in
modern terminology. It is doubtful,
though, whether an evangelical should
support an effort to restate faith 1
made by non-evangelicals seeking to
change it. — Ed.

REWRITE SCRIPTURE?

As presbyteries seize by legal ac-
tion or threaten to seize church prop-
erties, as in the case of the Seattle
Presbytery and the Hillcrest church
and the Hanover Presbytery and the
Tabb Street church, perhaps it
would be appropriate to add quali-
fying clauses and phrases to some
familiar Bible verses. For instance:

"Let brotherly love continue — but
only to certain people and never to
withdrawing or seceding churches."

"As ye would that men should do
to you, do ye even so to them — ex-
cept in the case of withdrawing
churches, when the reverse should :
apply."

"Love your enemies — and pro-
vide financial aid to them if they
be revolutionaries or nations with
which we are at war. But never
love members of seceding church-
es."

"Avoid all appearance of evil —
except where member churches are
concerned. Strong-arm methods to
impose conformity are not to be
considered 'evil.' "

— (Rev.) Roy A. Wolfe
Washington, Pa.

•

THIS AND THAT

Today there are many who say we
should follow our church leaders in
all things. Perhaps we should keep \
in mind the fifteenth verse of Mat-
thew 23 where Jesus speaks to the :
church leaders of His day saying
that they "make one proselyte, and
when he is made, ye make him two-
fold more the child of hell t h a n J liaj
yourselves." One cannot follow
blindly ever: The only one we can Jo

trust and follow is Jesus.

We have the Bible and we should
know what is in it. I do not believe
we would have any women elders
or deacons if the women knew what
was in their Bibles and were follow-
ing Jesus as their leader instead of
men; and I do not believe so many
men elders and deacons would be
happily going in the wrong direction
if they knew God's Word.

One last reminder: each one of us
is going to have to answer personal-
ly on judgment day; the Bible says
"You shall know the truth and the
truth shall make you free" (John
8:32) . The only place to get that
truth is the Bible; men cannot give
it to you of their own knowledge.
— Estelle C. McBrayer
Houma, La.

PRAYER AMENDMENT

I am writing to ask your support,
endorsement of a prayer amend-
ment to our U. S. Constitution. I
am sure that you are aware that a
most important plank in President
Nixon's reelection platform is one
which indeed supports, magnifies

• When the proposed new confes-
sion of faith for the Presbyterian
Church US first came out (see
Journal, Aug 9, 23, for the text) we
didn't believe that evangelical Pres-
byterians would take it seriously.
Consequently, we decided to treat it
"low key." But we were mistaken.
You good people out there not only
took it seriously, you began to ask
for material to help you take it up
in study classes. So we've changed
our mind. Beginning with this is-
sue we will carry nine studies (one
on each chapter) by Robert Strong,
pastor of the Trinity church, Mont-
gomery, Ala. Our prayer is that in
j this case the rule we have frequently
observed will not be sustained,
namely, that familiarity with a mat-
Iter, a proposal, a position, has the
effect of dulling one's reaction to it
and thus breeding toleration if not
acceptance.

• There's a rule of thumb which
infallibly indicates how many Jour-
nal readers are both concerned and
involved in the ongoing struggle for
a Church that will bear faithful tes-

voluntary prayer in the public
schools, and I am convinced that
this points out to all concerned
Americans and indeed all Christians
the fact that much more must be ac-
complished in this area.

This could be by way of a prayer
amendment to the Constitution.
— (Rev.) Claud Logan Asbury
Wilmington, N. C.

SAUCE FOR THE GOOSE . . .

Thanks for the information in
your Sept. 6 issue concerning my
United Presbyterian Church USA
filing law briefs in New York seek-
ing to uphold a barber in that state
in producing and selling do-it-your-
self divorce kits without benefit of
lawyers. I would probably be the
last to know such things from my
own Church publications, I am
ashamed to say.

But let's be fair and also show how
the Board of Christian Education of
your PCUS has been recommending
publications which have condoned
premarital sex activity and the use
of drugs by young people and adul-
tery by married people. Your Church

timony to Jesus Christ and His Gos-
pel — you send us clippings and
such. We conclude that anyone in-
terested enough to let us hear from
them when something happens in
presbytery, synod, or in other
Churches, is a person who cares.
About such people we have warm
feelings.

• One reader about whom we have
very warm feelings teaches in the
Chicago area and sends us envelopes
stuffed full of clippings at regular
intervals. From one such envelope
we extracted a news item first pub-
lished in Chicago Today. It seems
that women's liberation has begun
to infiltrate the courts and some of
the ladies are hopping mad. One
who was not identified by name had
been ordered by the court to pay
support to her estranged husband as
part of a divorce settlement. The

leadership, so far as I know, has
failed openly to condemn and repent
for such — that is, if it be true.

— John W. Porter Jr.
Muskogee, Okla.

MINISTERS

George C. Carpenter from Louis-
ville, Ky., to the First Church,
Greensboro, N. C, as associate
pastor.

Charles H. Cobb Jr., on a one year
leave from missionary service in
Brazil, is serving the John Knox
church, Dallas, Tex.
Winston R. Hull from Hillsboro,
Ore., to the Highland church, Ty-
ler, Tex.

William B. Johnson, Doraville,
Ga., is now director of Clayton
County (Ga.) Center for Alco-
holism.

Kay M. Misenheimer from Win-
ston-Salem, N. C, to the First
Church, High Point, N. C, as as-
sistant pastor.

Glenn W. Dickson from Rich-
mond, Va., to the Westminster
church, Gainesville, Fla.

judge's ruling: §20 a week until he
finds a job.

• From another batch of clippings
we learned that in the United States
divorces are threatening to catch up
with weddings. In Cook County,
which covers Chicago, more people
are currently filing for divorce than
are applying for marriage licenses,
for a total of nearly 26,000 per year!
That's one county — although it
covers a pretty big population. The
story said that on an average day
lawyers line up 25 deep before the
bench, awaiting their turns, while
their clients, almost exclusively fe-
male, fill the seats in the courtroom
and most of the benches in the cor-
ridor outside. Divorce attorney
Bernard Kaufman predicts that the
only change likely is an increase in
the proportion of men filing for di-
vorce. Ill

ACROSS THE EDITOR'S DESK

PAGE 3 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 25, 1972

NEWS OF RELIGION

About Half N.Y. City Students on Drugs

NEW YORK — Painting a dismal
picture of public school education
in New York state, the Fleischmann
Commission, in its latest report,
mentions that about 45 per cent of
high school students, and 20 per cent
of junior high students in New York
City are regular drug users.

The figures include the use of
marijuana and other "soft" drugs
as well as the "hard" drugs such as
heroin. A commission spokesman
said the term "users" referred to reg-
ular users. He said that if occasion-
al users or so-called "weekenders"
were included, the figure for New
York students could be as high as
70 per cent.

In New York state's next five
largest cities and in the suburban
areas, about 25 per cent of high
school students and 10 per cent of
junior high students were estimated
to be drug users.

The 18-member commission, under
the chairmanship of Manley Fleisch-
mann, a lawyer, was appointed in
1969 by Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller
to do "the most penetrating study
of education in the state."

The commission suggested that
every local district should "have a

KOREA — Plans for an All-Asia
Mission Consultation '73 to be held
in Seoul, Korea, in August and Sep-
tember, 1973, have grown out of a
missionary study conference held at
Green Lake, Wis., last year.

The study conference, which was
sponsored by the International For-
eign Missions Association and the
Evangelical Foreign Missions Asso-
ciation, produced the nucleus which
has now resulted in definite plans
for the All-Asia meeting.

David J. Cho, Billy Kim and Sam-
uel Kim were Korean representatives
at the Green Lake meeting who were
later instrumental in formulating
plans for the All-Asia meeting.

Cho announced last month that
All-Asia leaders hope to attract na-

drug education program as part of
its regular curriculum, preferably
beginning in the earliest primary
grades."

It also cited what it called an
"epidemic" of venereal disease
among students, urging that all
school districts "consider requiring
all junior and senior high school
students to have proof of a recent
physical exam before registration
each Fall."

In other findings, the commission
charged that under the present sys-
tem, tens of thousands of students
were being channeled into vocation-
al, academic or general programs too
early, and the results were "damag-
ing" to all concerned.

It recommended a massive effort
to help the handicapped, the intel-
lectually gifted and other students
with special problems.

In its discussion of special educa-
tion in the state, the commission
painted a dark picture of inadequate
care for the state's estimated total
of 459,000 handicapped children.

The report said at least 200,000
mentally and physically or emotion-
ally handicapped chidren are wait-
ing out their childhood years at

tional mission leaders from Japan,
Taiwan, Hong Kong, Thailand,
Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, the
Philippines, India, Pakistan, Korea
and other Asian countries to the
meeting.

The Republic of Korea will be the
host nation for the meeting, which
has tentatively been set for Aug. 27
through Sept. 1, 1973.

It is the hope of conference leaders
that the meeting will result in more
effective and spontaneous coopera-
tion of mission activities among
Asian countries and peoples.

Another objective is cooperation
between the East and West. Toward
this end a number of noted Western
missionologists and leaders have been
invited to speak and participate. IB

home untreated, or are lingering in
classrooms, listening to lessons be-
yond their comprehension.

The commission hinted at approv-
al of a "voucher system" to support
private and parochial schools in
New York state, suggesting that
the traditional definitions of "pub-
lic" and "private" may need to be
reconsidered.

Schools would be called "public" !
if they are open to everyone on a
nondiscriminatory basis, if they
charge no tuition and if they pro-
vide full information about them-
selves to anyone interested, the anal-
ysis said.

Conversely, schools which did not
follow these guidelines would be
called "private."

The commission proposed that the
state spend $1.2 billion this year for
a program to correct deficiencies.
Mr. Fleischmann suggested that
"highest priority" should be given
to conditions benefitting the handi-
capped. EE

Billy Graham To Open
Hawaii Radio Station

WASHINGTON, D.C. (RNS) —
The Billy Graham Evangelistic As-
sociation has filed with the Federal
Communications Commission for a
license to build a radio station in
Hawaii having the capability of
sending programs as far as Indo-
nesia.

A spokesman for the Graham as-
sociation in Minneapolis said the
purpose of the non-commercial sta- j
tion would be to transmit the Gospel
of Christ to the 20,000 islands of the
South Pacific.

"No one is reaching the South
Pacific with this type of program,"
George M. Wilson, the spokesman,
said.

He said the station would operate
on long, medium and short-wave and
provide 24-hour programming in uj>
to 10 languages. Part of its range,
Mr. Wilson said, would be the popu-
lous islands in the Indonesian Re-
public.

There are up to 75 similar stations
already licensed around the world, I
Mr. Wilson said.

The Graham association's interests
include Stations KAIM in Honolulu

THE CHURCH OVERSEAS

PAGE 4 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 25, 1972

THE CHURCH AT HOME

Experiments Funded as ^Evangelism'

and WFGW in Black Mountain,
N.C. The evangelist serves on the
board of both stations.

Mr. Wilson said the application
to build the new station does not
indicate this type venture will be a
new thrust by the evangelistic as-
sociation. IB

181,821 Abortions
( Performed in New York

I NEW YORK (RNS) — More than
[ half the 181,821 certified abortions
I performed in the first year of New
York state's liberal law were sought
|i by women from other states, Canada
and foreign countries, according to
I a report released here.
I Planned Parenthood- World Popu-
lation studied the abortion record
t for the period July 1, 1970, to June
|! 30, 1971, the first year of the law al-
> lowing abortion on request.
1 The agency said that 181,821 abor-
1 tions were certified in that period,
with perhaps 35,000 more which
f have not been reported.

Of the 181,821 women involved,
95,000 were from outside New York,
according to the Planned Parenthood
data. A total of 4,519 came from
Canada and other nations, the re-
port said.

States having large numbers of
women coming to New York for
abortions included New Jersey, 12,-
758; Massachusetts, 7,422; Ohio, 8,-
460; Pennsylvania, 7,680; Michigan,
8,133 and Florida, 5,868. EE

Baptists Plan Key '73
Retreats, Participation

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (RNS) — In
preparation for Key '73, the nation-
al ecumenical evangelistic effort
scheduled for next year, pastors of
the Rhode Island Baptist State Con-
vention held two planning re-
treats at Baptist Plantations in Ex-
eter during September.

During the retreats, the clergy-
men discussed ways in which their
congregations can most effectively
bring about change in themselves
and their communities.

The Rev. W. Gordon Carter of
the First Baptist Church in Wake-
field is serving as chairman of Key
'73 for Rhode Island Baptists. EH

ATLANTA — As expressions of its
current three-year emphasis on evan-
gelism, the Board of National Min-
istries of the Presbyterian Church
US has funded 12 projects to the
amount of $109,150.

Each project is considered a "cre-
ative ministry in evangelism" in
which a congregation is seeking to
develop or continue a "style of evan-
gelism" that "best embodies their
Biblical understanding of the life
and mission of the Church." These
are:

1) $15,000 for a joint ministry to
a large low-income apartment com-
plex adjacent to the St. Columba
church building in Norfolk, Va.

2) $6,000 for an "ecumenical" ef-
fort in which Protestant and Roman
Catholic churches are working
among beach tourists at Carolina
Beach, N. C, via person to person
evangelism and a coffee house.

3) $5,000 for an outreach project
in the neighborhood of the North
Miami (Fla.) Senior High School.

4) $2,500 for a program of recrea-
tion sponsored by the Trinity
church, Laurel, Miss.

5) $25,000 to extend the life of
the Linwood church, a multiracial
congregation located in a "transi-
tional" urban area.

6) $21,000 for a multiple service
ministry in "an open, ecumenical
format" of the First Church, Mem-
phis.

7) $15,000 for a staff person to
develop and coordinate a youth min-
istry on behalf of three churches in
Irving, Tex.

8) $3,000 for leadership and re-
sources in a "ministry to the aging"
of the Church of the Covenant, New
Orleans.

9) $8,400 for work among young
people who have been referred to
the Juvenile Department of Dallas,
Tex.

10) $2,500 for a drug counseling
program conducted by two church-
es in St. Louis.

11) $8,750 for Westhills church,

a predominantly black congrega-
tion's program of "outreach" in a
new location in Atlanta.

12) $6,000 to help the Church of
the Cross remain in a "transitional"
area in Greensboro, N. C, as a
"bridge" between groups and
races. EE

Committee Says Parting
May Occur Gradually

JACKSON, Miss. — The Steering
Committee for a Continuing Pres-
byterian Church has voted support
for congregations and ministers find-
ing it necessary to separate from the
Presbyterian Church US at this time,
although its own plans continue tied
to actions expected of a joint com-
mittee working on a plan of union
between the Presbyterian Church
US and the United Presbyterian
Church USA.

In a meeting here, the represen-
tative organizations within the
PCUS adopted a statement which
said that "the Holy Spirit will move
. . . people to speak and act at dif-
ferent times." Consequently, the
committee said it is possible that
"the emerging continuing Church
may come to fruition over a con-
siderable period of time."

Summarizing its position, the com-
mittee said: "So it is that from
various motivations and at sundry
times and places over the next many
months those who are dedicated to
a continuing Presbyterian Church
will come forth and at God's ap-
pointed time will be united in a
truly Reformed and evangelical fel-
lowship."

Taking "favorable note" of the re-
cent formation of Vanguard Presby-
tery in Savannah, the committee said
it wished to "commend this body as
representative of the interest and
dedication which we believe in
God's providence will soon bring in-
to existence a Church committed to
Scripture and the Reformed
faith." EE

PAGE 5 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 25, 1972

PCUS Names Missionary
To Ecumenical Office

ATLANTA (RNS) — The Rev.
Lewis H. Lancaster Jr., 45, a Pres-
byterian Church US missionary to
Japan, has returned here for a year
to develop a temporary ecumenical
office for the denomination.

Commenting on Mr. Lancaster's
duties, Dr. Robert B. Smith of
Midland, Tex., chairman of the
General Assembly's permanent com-
mittee on inter-church relations,
said:

"Lew Lancaster will be responsible
to the inter-church relations com-
mittee, working directly under the
stated clerk of the General Assem-
bly .... It is anticipated that the
temporary ecumenical office will
serve the General Assembly, the per-
manent committee on inter-church
relations, and the new provisional
General Executive Board."

The ecumenical office will work
to carry out a plan for developing a
strong ecumenical strategy in the
denomination, as proposed by the
Inter-Church Relations Committee
in July. Mr. Lancaster will "coordi-
nate the total ecumenical activities
of our denomination," Dr. Smith
said. EE

PCUS Gives $14,000
In 'Halt Hunger' Drive

ATLANTA — A Presbyterian
Church US task force has appro-
priated $14,000 to be used to com-
bat root causes of hunger in three
southern states. The action is an out-
growth of a decision by the 1969
General Assembly to make hunger a
"top priority" for five years.

The denomination's Task Force
on World Hunger, meeting here
Sept. 19-20, allocated a $5,000 grant
each to the South Carolina Island
Farm Cooperative, Johns Island,
S.C., and the Feeder Pig Project of
the West Georgia Farm Cooperative,
Hamilton, Ga.; and two $2,000
grants to the Mississippi State As-
sociation of Cooperatives' Rural
Educational Outreach Program.

The funds were authorized by the
task force from the denomination's
Halt Hunger Fund, and will be
used to combat the root causes of
hunger in the areas.

Hunger in the South generally is
found in the rural areas among non-

whites, according to Dr. James A.
Cogswell, Atlanta, director of the
task force.

Plans also are underway for the
use of an anticipated $150,000 from
a special denominational 1973 Easter
Offering to fund "model programs"
to help alleviate hunger in Florida,
South Carolina, Kentucky, Okla-
homa, Brazil, Haiti, Greece, Kenya,
and the Philippines.

About $50,000 each will be spent
in "model programs" overseas, in
General Assembly areas selected by
the task force and other areas select-
ed by presbyteries of the denomina-
tion. EE

New Seminary Course:
How To Lead a Boycott

CINCINNATI (RNS) — Three
young men from the Louisville Pres-
byterian Theological Seminary are
working in the Cincinnati area to
promote a boycott against "non-
union" lettuce.

They are "outreach workers" as-
signed to the United Farm Workers
Union (AFL-CIO) for the school
year.

The Rev. John Bank, a Roman
Catholic priest who is director of
the union in Cincinnati, said the
seminary approached his office to
ask if it would take some seminar-
ians to give them "clinical educa-
tion on the prophetic ministry."

Mr. Bank interviewed 40 appli-
cants from the Presbyterian semi-
nary and chose three: Clifford Hayes,
John Bryan and David Butler.

They commute from Louisville to
spend 21 hours weekly here, pro-
moting UFWU's campaign against
all lettuce not picked by fieldwork-
ers under its contracts.

The seminarians get no pay from
UFWU, but are compensated by the
school, a seminary of the Presbyter-
ian Church US and UPUSA.

Their fieldwork in "prophetic
ministry" is supervised by Dr. Hal
Warehime at the seminary, the priest
said. EE

Atlanta Center Result
Of Birthday Offerings

ATLANTA (PN) — Dedication for
Villa International Atlanta (VIA) ,
a unique residence for overseas visi-
tors working at the National Center
for Disease Control and the Protes-
tant Radio and Television Center in
Atlanta, took place on Sunday,

Oct. 8, at 3 p.m.

The low-rent, short-term housing,
with recreation and kitchen facilities,
came from the women of the Pres-
byterian Church US, whose "Birth-
day Offering" in 1970 made the re-
sidence possible. Their funds totaled
$312,430.

VIA'S program and members of its
board of directors however, represent
five denominations — the Lutheran
Church in America, United Church
of Christ, United Methodist Church,
Roman Catholic Church and PCUS.

The Rev. Thomas T. Biggs, execu-
tive director of VIA, said, "We plan
to have three other open houses
sometime in October when specific
groups will be invited. Dates and for-
mats for these will be announced."

The $300,000 building has furnish-
ings worth about $40,000 "but we
still need $5,000 for enough furni-
ture to complete VIA, and we are
seeking additional funds for land-
scaping, for a sign and for some steps
leading to the top parking lot,"
Biggs added.

VIA received its first international
visitors in late July. So far, more
than 50 guests have stayed there. At
peak capacity, VIA can accommo-
date 25-30 people. EE

Californian Is Speaker
At Montreat-Anderson

MONTREAT, N. C. — Religious
Emphasis Week at Montreat-Ander-
son College featured a talk by Dr. J.
Edwin Orr, Baptist minister, author
and professor of history from Cali-
fornia.

During the week Oct. 9-13, the
college video-taped religious discus-
sions between Dr. Orr and the fac-
ulty with equipment in the new L.
Nelson Bell Library. Dr. Orr has
doctorates from Oxford, Harvard
and the University of California at
Berkeley. EE

Avery Students to Get
Lees-McRae Scholarships

BANNER ELK, N. C. — Each grad-
uating high school senior in Avery
County, where Lees-McRae College
is located, will be eligible for a $400
scholarship, the institution's board
has announced. There are now 27
Avery students enrolled. President
H. C. Evans Jr. explained, "The
college administration and the trus-
tees felt we would like to do more
for our local students in the way of
financial aid." EE

PAGE 6 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 25, 1972

What the proposed new confession does not say may be the real issue —

Chapter I: God

The major Presbyterian event of
the summer of 1972 was the
issuing of the proposed new confes-
sion of faith for the Presbyterian
Church US. This was the fourth
development in a series of radical
changes initiated by the 109th Gen-
eral Assembly held at Mobile in
1969. Revolution was proposed in
that meeting of our highest court,
and revolution is what we are see-
ing in progress in our denomina-
tion:

The synod structure has been
overhauled. The work of the Gen-
eral Assembly is in the process of
being radically altered. A proposal
for union with the Northern Pres-
byterian body is before us. And
now the first draft of the proposed
new confession of faith has been
submitted to the Church for study
and appraisal.

One can see a grand design in
these developments. The ecumeni-
cal march is approaching climax in
an effort to match our structure to
that of the UPUSA. Union presby-
teries and ever closer inter-board co-
operation were earlier steps in the
drive toward church merger. The
ecumenical strategists are moving
with boldness and skill.

What should be said about this
latest maneuver? A chapter-by-chap-
ter study of the proposed new con-
fession by all our pastors with their
congregations would be of great
benefit; everyone would profit from
a period of sustained attention to
theology.

Dr. Albert C. Winn, president of

This is the first in a series of nine
articles zvhich examine the proposed
new confession of faith, chapter by
chapter. Dr. Strong is pastor of the
Trinity Presbyterian Church, Mont-
gomery, Ala.

"God is a spirit ..." (John 4:24)

Louisville Theological Seminary, is
chairman of the new confession
committee. In the Presbyterian Sur-
vey he gave an account of what his
committee was trying to do:

They aimed at brevity, and the
new confession is short, nine chap-
ters, a little over 20 pages. They
desired to be warmly confessional
and to offer a document that could
find its way into the liturgy of the
churches. They thought this would
be helped by the use of the first-
person plural pronoun. They sought
to be comprehensive and to cover all
the main points of Presbyterian
theology.

One of my criticisms is that they
have not accomplished their purpose
at all. Very much material that is
vital or essential to a good statement
of faith has been omitted or simply
brushed by.

Frequent Ambiguities

The committee did not plan the
confession to supersede the West-
minster standards, but to join them
in a book of confessions. However, it
should be apparent to everyone that
the effect, if the Church approves,
will be to make the new confession
normative. Here we shall have an-
other instance of the least-common-
denominator approach to theology.
We may well expect, as it did occur
in the United Presbyterian Church,
a rephrasing of the ordination vows
that will lower our present high doc-
trinal commitment.

The committee sought to be plain
and clear in its formulations. How-
ever, it is already apparent that one
of the lively objections to the new
confession will be its faulty style
and frequent ambiguities. The com-

ROBERT STRONG

mittee incorporated much material
in story form, contending that logi-
cal propositions of belief are not
enough, and that Biblical history
needs to find a place in a confes-
sion of faith.

Contemporary Issues

Contemporary issues received much
attention from the committee; a sur-
prising number of lines are devoted
to the social issues of our day. Dr.
Winn disavows any intention to of-
fer a confession in the form of po-
etry, and yet one receives the im-
pression that he is reading a prose
poem.

The committee now asks the
Church for its reaction. It is sug-
gested that extensive revision is con-
templated. We are being urged to
go along with the idea that a mod-
ern version of our theology is a req-
uisite. We even read appeals to the
effect that as new versions of the
Bible are appearing and are deemed
helpful, so a new version of our
theology should be regarded as ac-
ceptable and even necessary. Of
course, we are dealing with the very
substance of revelation in the revi-
sions and paraphrases of Scripture.
In the proposed new confession,
however, we are offered a complete-
ly new text. This is a quite dif-
ferent thing.

What degree of success has Dr.
Winn's committee achieved with the
formidable task? There comes to my
mind an observation made by the
great Presbyterian scholar J. Gres-
ham Machen in 1936: "This is not
a creed-making age." He had refer-
ence to the anti-intellectualism of
the times, to a pervasive unwilling-
ness to accept fixed standards of
truth, and particularly to the low
view of Biblical accuracy and au-

PAGE 7 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 25, 1972

thority to be found in so many ec-
clesiastical circles.

There has been no improvement
since then. How could it be ex-
pected that a committee mainly
composed of people who take a
higher critical view of the Scrip-
tures could produce a theological
statement worthy to be included with
the Westminster Confession of Faith
and Catechisms in a book of confes-
sions?

Westminster Compared

Compare the way in which the
Westminster Assembly approached
its task. Parliament ordered the re-
form of religion in England. In
1643 an assembly of "learned, godly,
and judicious divines" was called to
meet at Westminster in London.
Richard Baxter paid them deserved
tribute when he said, "The Chris-
tian world, since the days of the
apostles, had never a synod of more
excellent divines."

It was required of each member
that he swear the following oath:
"I do seriously promise and vow in
the presence of almighty God, that
in the assembly whereof I am a
member, I will maintain nothing in
point of doctrine but what I be-
lieve to be most agreeable to the
Word of God."

They did not impose their minds
upon the Bible, but submitted them
to the Scripture in complete confi-
dence that God was speaking there
His very own truths and that the
book was totally reliable and au-
thoritative.

Ours is a very different day. In
one of our denominational semi-
naries, for example, we have a pro-
fessor of New Testament who in-
sists that the sayings of Jesus record-
ed in the Gospel of John are a read-
ing back into His mouth opinions
developed in the Church of the lat-
ter part of the first century.

Frank Opinion

The General Assembly itself is
not sure what to say on the issue of
Biblical infallibility and endorses
materials which embody the 1 o w
view of Scripture. How could this
be a creed-making age when the
source of the knowledge of God,
Holy Scripture, is under dispute as
to the meaning and extent of its di-
vine inspiration?

I will give my frank opinion at
the beginning. The proposed new

confession is inadequate, contains
glaring errors of teaching, takes cer-
tain arbitrary positions in its chap-
ter dealing with contemporary social
issues, lacks solid definitions, and
quite fails to convince that it be-
longs under the same set of covers
with the Westminster standards. In
my judgment its adoption would ar-
gue a most serious decline in the
spiritual life of our denomination,
for we would then in effect be say-
ing that we do not longer really care
about our theology.

Let us give attention to the first
chapter of the proposed new confes-
sion of faith entitled "God." Its
six short paragraphs bear these head-
ings: We believe in God; He alone
is God; He is not at our disposal;
Jesus of Nazareth shows us who God
is and what God does; God is at
work in our time and place; We joy-
fully thank and honor him.

There is no definition of God. If
it should be said that the Westmin-

The Real Reason

Liberal clergymen aren't killing
the Church because they preach an-
ti-war, ecology, civil rights. Most
parishioners couldn't care less.
Churches die because of what isn't
preached: Jesus, salvation, remis-
sion of sins, hope. — D. K. Mano
in National Review.

ster Confession of Faith gives inad-
equate definition of Him, and that
brevity must be served, we would
nonetheless urge that a basic state-
ment of definition is essential. Who
is this God whom we confess?

An implicit skepticism appears in
the third paragraph: "Our words
cannot adequately say who he is or
how he works." Have we then no
true knowledge of God? But Scrip-
ture is truth about God given us by
God Himself. That is our basic po-
sition as Presbyterians, indeed as
Christians. If we distrust our mod-
ern formulations, we can quote the
Word of God.

I now call attention to the para-
graph about Jesus: "His involve-
ment in the human condition is
God's involvement. His compassion
for the unloving, unloved, and lost
is God's compassion. His demand
for justice, truth, and faithfulness is
God's demand. His vulnerability to
human rejection is God's vulnerabil-
ity. His love for the very people who
reject him is God's love."

The line about God's vulnerabil-
ity seems most strange in a confes-
sion which is supposed to be based
upon the primary Presbyterian theo-
logical principle, the sovereignty of
God. And what a strange way of
introducing the Lord Jesus Christ
in this new confession! There is
not a hint of the reason why Jesus
is competent to reveal God. Where
is the confession of His deity?
Where is the confession of His incar-
nation?

Appalling Lack

There is not the slightest reflec-
tion of that teaching He gave about
Himself — that as the Father knows
Him, He knows the Father, and that
no one can know the Father except
the Son reveal Him (Matt. 11:27).
At this point the new confession is
guilty of what we call condemning
by faint praise. We are deeply
wounded to see our Lord thus
slighted.

The paragraph dealing with God
at work in our time and place says,
"His presence, power, and love are
not self-evident." But they are. Scrip-
ture says that "the invisible things
of God from the creation of the
world are clearly seen, being under-
stood by the things that are made,
even His eternal power and God-
head; so that men are without ex-
cuse" (Rom. 1:20) .

If creation reveals His presence
and power, the Gospel cause dis-
closes His love. Christ, incarnate
God and Saviour, reveals the love of
God, and His mighty work through
the Church in all the centuries
further manifests the love of God.
There should be no note of uncer-
tainty about this.

All the more lacking do we now
find the conclusion of the chapter:
"We joyfully thank and honor Him.
We celebrate life as his gift. With
the church in all ages we say: 'Great
is the Lord, and greatly to be
praised!' " Not a syllable about re-
demption! God is praised for the
gift of human life. But where is
salvation? Where is the atonement
of Christ? Where is thankfulness
for the forgiveness of sins and eter-
nal life? How appallingly lacking
is the conclusion of Chapter I. Grief
rises in our hearts at this most grave
omission.

The order of treatment in the
Westminster Confession is different.
First attention is given to the basis
of our theology, the Bible. How ut-

PAGE 8 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 25, 1972

terly logical. What great statements
these are that develop our relation
as Calvinists to Scripture. Granting
that brevity is a self-imposed prin-
ciple of the committee and that they
have their reasons for dealing first
I with the subject of God, we are
| struck with the superiority of the
Westminster Confession on this ma-
jjor topic.

The Trinity

Chapter II of the Westminster
Confession is headed: "Of God, and
of the Holy Trinity." Some might
argue that the idea of the Trinity
is implicit in the new confession's
\ first chapter, but the confession
; should open with an explicit ac-
knowledgment of the God of the Bi-
ble. One revels in the Biblical
faithfulness, clarity, fullness, and
beauty of the Westminster defini-
tions:

"There is but one only living and
true God, who is infinite in being
and perfection, a most pure spirit,
invisible, without body, parts, or
passions, immutable immense, eter-
nal, incomprehensible, almighty ....
forgiving iniquity, transgression,

I he greatest spiritual revolution
in European history occurred
at the time of the Protestant Refor-
mation, the era of transition from
feudalism to capitalism. But accord-

This article by an American pro-
fessor of history is based on research
and conversations with Christian
leaders in East Germany. His use
of the pen name, a Greek word
meaning "a free man," is a precau-
tion essential to guarantee his fu-
ture admittance to East Germany
and also to avoid embarrassing his
friends in that country.

and sin; the rewarder of them that
diligently seek Him; and withal most
just and terrible in His judgments;
hating all sin, and who will by no
means clear the guilty."

Magnificent, inspiring, clear as
daylight, balanced, fully faithful to
Scripture. Moreover, the Westmin-
ster chapter, only a very few words
longer than the new confession's
chapter, concludes with the glorious
trinitarian confession: "In the unity
of the Godhead there are three per-
sons of one substance, power, and
eternity: God the Father, God the
Son, and God the Holy Ghost . . . ."

Just right.

A Tin Nickel

At the time the United Presbyte-
rian Church adopted its Confession
of 1967 and placed it alongside the
Westminster Confession of Faith
and the Shorter Catechism (the
Larger Catechism was summarily
dropped) in a book of confessions,
I felt greatly dismayed. The lar-
gest Presbyterian body in the world
had put into its theological treasury
of pure coin of the realm a light
coin of debased metal. To such a

ing to the Marxists, the most dra-
matic political change in history oc-
curred with the Bolshevik Revolu-
tion in 1917 — the beginning of the
transition from capitalism to so-
cialism.

As a result of World War II, the
Soviet Communist power extended
into central Germany, over the very
territory in which Protestantism
first took root. In the new state,
Deutsche Demokralische Rcpublik
(DDR) , which was founded in Oc-
tober 1949, two apparently irrecon-
cilable ideologies confronted each
other.

low pass have the times come! Sure-
ly many must be earnestly praying
that our presbyteries will not repeat
this kind of mistake.

We have been talking about God.
No higher subject could engage us.
Let those who will decry "God-
talk." We believe this is the highest
intellectual activity of man. We be-
lieve that this is essential to our
spiritual well-being.

We also believe that we must do
more than talk about God. We
must know God. Christianity is a
religion that insists upon knowing
God in a personal relationship. God
defines Himself in the Bible. He
does not mean us to stop with that.
He wants us to know Him, to trust
Him, to love Him, to enjoy Him,
so He sent the Son into the world.

Through Jesus Christ we come in-
to a personal relationship with God
triune. We are to contend for the
once delivered faith. It is vain to
try to do this unless we personally
know the Lord. Then our motive
will be right; our animating pur-
pose will be to seek to maintain the
honor of Him who chose us, and
loved us, and by His work upon the
cross redeemed us. EE

Marx

ELEUTHERIOS

One ideology, originating with
Martin Luther (1483-1546), whom
someone called "the eternal Ger-
man," is based on the rediscovery of
Biblical Christianity, the recognition
of human depravity, the need for di-
vine grace and a teleological view
of history which is consummated in
the kingdom of God.

The other ideology, originating
with Karl Marx (1818-1883), whom
party historians throughout the
Communist nations call "Germany's
greatest son," espouses an Enlighten-
ment view of man and envisions a
perfect man-made society based on

Church and state in the land of Reformation (a Reformation Day message) —

Luther and

PAGE 9 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 25, 1972

the philosophy of atheistic ma-
terialism.

Effects of Revolution

With the cities associated with
Luther now in East Germany, the
land of Reformation has become the
land of socialistic revolution. The
theologically directed Protestant
Reformation has now, in the tech-
nological age, been superseded by
a materialistically oriented social
revolution.

The Lutheran Church has been
tied to the state for over 400 years,
and it is one of the ironies of his-
tory that the Bolshevik revolution
has provided the first opportunity
in German history for the Reforma-
tion to stand on its own. The Ref-
ormation Church in East Germany
not only finds itself separated from
the state, but in a position where its
survival depends completely on its
own resources.

In contrast, West Germany levies
and collects a tax to maintain the
Church. Still, Marxist critics of such
a "political" Church like to point
out that the number of people leav-
ing the Church is increasing.

In bitter competition with West
Germany (BRD) , the DDR realized
that the total energy of the state
must be employed in erecting the
new socialistic society. To be suc-
cessful in achieving its technologi-
cal, economic and social goals, it
had to enlist the aid of all its citi-
zens.

About 80 per cent of the 17 mil-
lion population confesses allegiance
to Christianity, and the overwhelm-
ing majority is Lutheran. A flex-
ible policy of coexistence and co-
operation with the Church has paid
large dividends to the state.

Modus Vivendi

The Christian Church in East
Germany has had to recognize the
new political reality: a Communist
state based upon the philosophy of
atheistic materialism and supported
by one of the world's military
giants, the USSR. There is no way,
short of war, to change this politi-
cal reality. Just as the DDR, be-
cause of its Lutheran population
must come to terms with the
Church, so the Church, because of
new political realities, must come to
terms with the DDR.

A modus vivendi has been devel-
oped. Party Secretary Walter Ul-

bricht expressed his view of Church-
state association: "We have a great
common humanistic responsibility
before the German nation. We, for
our part, fulfill this responsibility
by erecting a truly humane society.
In this effort citizens of various be-
liefs work together."

Lutheran Bishop Moritz Mitzen-
heim concurred, and called upon all
Christians in the DDR to cooperate
with the state in achieving its so-
cialistic and humanistic goals.

Every DDR citizen was guaran-
teed freedom of worship and the
state promised not to interfere in
ecclesiastical matters.

The Lutheran Church promised
to respect the state's program, and
Bishop Mitzenheim wrote, "The
Christian who is assured that his
freedom to worship is protected by
the state will render to his state a
certain loyalty."

Five years before the Berlin Wall

A Spiritual Court

A presbytery is fundamentally a
spiritual and pastoral court and not
primarily a clearing house for busi-
ness and publicity. — T. F. Tor-

RENCE.

was built, he called on Christians
to remain at their jobs and not to
flee to the West. As he saw it, the
Church must not become a Winkel
Kirche, an obscure or uninfluential
Church.

Later the bishop pointed out that
the Church has managed to exist un-
der all economic, social and politi-
cal forms: the Roman empire, medie-
val feudalism, industrial capitalism
and Marxist socialism. There is no
"Christian" political order, he said.

Luther Revised

Although within the context of
the new political reality the Church
is free to proclaim the Gospel, cer-
tain restrictions are placed upon it.
The Church is not free to criticize
state policies, and along with other
institutions in the DDR it must sub-
mit its literature to state censorship.

Permission must be obtained from
state authorities before materials
may be mimeographed or dissemi-
nated. Editors of Church publica-
tions must be very cautious in their
work if they wish to avoid a curt

summons to the ministerium in Ber-
lin.

Even the revision of hymn books
is not without political implications.
Attempts are made to substitute oth-
er words for the word "sin." Omis-
sion or revision of Luther's well-
known hymn based on Psalm 130,
"Aus Tiefer Not" (Out of Great
Need) , was suggested since no great
need was supposed to exist in the
socialist society.

Ties Are Severed

As a result of the political enmity
between the East and West, the Lu-
theran Church in the DDR estab-
lished its own independent synod in
June 1969, thereby severing the last
ties which still existed between the
two states. Many churchmen in the
DDR hold that the pressure from
East Berlin to dissolve the union
with the Lutheran Church in the
West was the major factor in termi-
nating the All German Synod of the
Lutheran Church (EKD) .

Nevertheless an independent syn-
od for the Lutheran churches in the
DDR also has its positive features.
The DDR Church can now no long-
er be accused of being in league
with the Lutheran Church in the
West, which DDR propaganda calls
a "NATO" Church.

Travel restrictions placed upon
EKD Church representatives by both
the BRD and DDR and the deep so-
cial, economic and political divi-
sions which exist between the two
states made a common ministry al-
most impossible.

Political Realities

Another new political reality
with which the DDR Church must
come to terms is the existence of the
Christliche Demokratische Union
which claims to speak for the Chris-
tians in the DDR. The chairman
of the CDU and also a ranking
member of the government is Ger-
ald Gotting.

Official organ of the CDU is
Neue Zeit (New Time) , a newspa-
per which in 25 years of publication
has expressed the same opinion on
all domestic and foreign policies as
Neucs Deutschland, the official or-
gan of the SED, East Germany's So-
zialistsche Einheitstaitei D e u t s c h -
lands (Socialist Union Party) .

For example, the events in Czech-
oslovakia in August 1968, which
were condemned as aggression even

PAGE 10 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 25, 1972

r

by some Communist parties and
were certainly regarded as such by

I the Christian population in the
DDR, were upheld as necessary and

I beneficial by Gerald Gotting and
the CDU.

The same view and the same
words appeared in Neues Deutsch-
land. The credibility gap which ex-
ists between the official views of
the CDU and the Christian popula-
tion in the DDR is striking.

Herr Gotting Says

The CDU celebrated its 25th an-
niversary in June 1970. Among oth-
ers in attendance were Bishop Mit-

i zenheim, an honorary member of
the CDU; the Metropolitan Nicodim
of Novograd and Leningrad; and
Dr. Jerzy Hagmayer from Poland,

I representing the Pax Christi Move-

Iment.

In his greetings to Walter Ul-
l bricht marking the occasion, Secre-
1 tary Gotting thanked the DDR head
■ of state for his work in creating the
1 social and political conditions with-
in which, for the first time in Ger-
I man history, Christians could "work
I together in the service of peace" and
I practically "demonstrate, within the
I context of the whole society, con-
Icern for their neighbors."

Gotting rejoiced that the hand ex-
| tended 25 years ago by SED to CDU
Iwas accepted in friendship and com-
\ mon effort. "We shall never relax
I our grip," he said.

A 'Christian Marxism'?

The CDU points out that Chris-
tians and Marxists suffered together
and cooperated with one another in
Nazi concentration camps. Buchen-
wald, where Ernse Thalmaan was
executed, was also the place where
the Christian ministers Paid Schnei-
der and Dietrich Bonhoeffer were
held before their execution.

There seem to be sincere Chris-
tians who are members of the CDU.
One with whom I have had many
conversations, the mayor of an im-
portant city, believes that an essen-
tial rapprochement between the
basic tenets of Christianity and
Marxism concerning human life in
this world may indeed be achieved.

Theological thought in the last
century, both within Protestantism
and Roman Catholicism, has sug-
gested that all is in flux. Marxism,
like Christianity, in the opinion of
! some, has not yet found its final

expression. A representative of the
SED praised the CDU for its co-
operation and added, "We do not
permit ourselves to be led astray by
the false alternatives of either Chris-
tianity or Marxism."

As one CDU official asked me,
"If you in the West can have a God-
less theology, why can't we have a
Christian Marxism?"

However, the efforts of the CDU
to win the support of the Christian
population in the DDR has not met
with great success. The pastors and
their congregations regard the CDU
as a rubber stamp of the SED. The
literature of the CDU, which trans-
lates the cross of Christ and redemp-
tion into social salvation where-
by society is redeemed by achieving
the humanistic, social, economic and
political goals set forth by a Marx-
ist state, is rejected by the majority
of Christians in the DDR.

One Question Not Asked

It has been reported that Ul-
bricht's definition of politics is not
"the art of the possible," but rather
the ability to recognize what is neces-
sary. A rapprochement with the
Church in the DDR was necessary
if the state's social, economic and
political goals were to be achieved
and the SED was not to waste its
energy in a modern Kulturkampf.

On the other hand, the policy pur-
sued by Bishop Mitzenheim of rec-
ognizing the new political reality
and by agreeing to cooperate with
the state — even a state whose basic
philosophy is hostile to the Chris-
tian Church — has gained for the
Church a certain independence. It
has made possible the annual visits
which thousands of elderly DDR
citizens are permitted to make to
relatives in West Germany.

In the light of Chancellor Brandt's

Power

The power of the Church is not
in its multiplied millions of men
or of dollars, it is rather in the Holy
Spirit who activates the body of
Christ. And Christianity's impact
on the world will never be through
the concription of every able-bodied
man and woman, it will be, as al-
ways, through Gideon's faithful few.
— Unknown.

announced goals in his policy to-
ward the DDR, i.e. to relieve the
burden of family separation and iso-
lation; and in the light of the Bonn-
Moscow agreement on Aug. 12,
1970, the talks between West
Germany and Poland carried on this
year in Warsaw, and the Erfurt-Kas-
sel meetings between Brandt and
Stoph, one is tempted to conclude
that the Mitzenheim policy — recog-
nition of the new political realities
and seeking a modus vivendi with
the powers that exist — has been
adopted in Bonn.

There is, of course, a silent Kul-
turkampf being waged in the DDR.
As one CDU official said, "We
Christians are able to work togeth-
er with Marxists for the immediate
improvement of society. However,
we do not permit ourselves to ask
the metaphysical question (that is,
what about God — Ed.) which could
destroy our present effort." The SED
is convinced that the Church will
die a natural death, as it seems to
be doing everywhere.

Spiritual Heritage

The DDR Church is convinced,
with Luther, that its life is sustained
by divine grace and that that grace is
inexhaustible. The Christian youth
in the DDR are very fond of sing-
ing the German translation of the
song, "We Shall Overcome." Since
DDR propaganda directed against
the USA is largely based upon the
racial problem in America, the state
can hardly forbid the singing of this
song by the Christian youth, even
though the state is well aware that
a different interpretation has been
placed on the words.

It is a magnificent tribute to the
work of the great reformer, despite
the erosion of four and one-half cen-
turies and the apparent political
triumph of Marxism in central
Europe, that the first Marxist state
in German history candidly admits
that the cooperation and assistance
of those who owe their spiritual al-
legiance to the Reformation is in-
dispensable for the social revolution
now being attempted.

It is a magnificent tribute to the
work of the great reformer that the
strongest bond of unity which still
exists between West and East Ger-
many, despite 25 years of political
partition and aggressive propaganda,
is the spiritual and cultural heritage
bequeathed to his people by Mar-
tin Luther. IB

PAGE 11 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 25, 1972

EDITORIALS

Some Reformation Day Thoughts

Reformation Day isn't celebrated
as it once was. The spiritual (and
political and economic) transforma-
tion of Europe and the New World
traceable to Luther and Calvin for
some reason has become an embar-
rassment to the reformers' descen-
dants.

Spiritually, the Reformation rep-
resented a transformation from dark-
ness to light. Politically, it repre-
sented a transformation from feu-
dalism and monarchy to representa-
tive government — a monumental
revolution which reached its ulti-
mate expression in the Constitution
of the United States. Economically,
the Reformation was the genesis of
free enterprise and the best of cap-
italism.

Why the period of greatest hu-
man advancement should now be
an embarrassment is a puzzle. Per-
haps it is because we today measure
human "advancement" by a differ-
ent yardstick — human beings in
orbit are considered a greater
achievement than human beings rec-
onciled to their Maker and His will.

Significantly, as the spiritual
heritage of the Reformation becomes
misplaced in a welter of new theo-
logical "discoveries," both the po-

We've just received another un-
signed letter. It was (we think)
from a minister and we are pretty
sure which minister. It was react-
ing to our "self-righteousness" for
"thinking you know more than an
official committee of the General
Assembly" — in this case, what a
Christian confession of faith should
say.

Like most publications, we get un-
signed letters rather regularly. Some-
one wants to get something off his
chest, or someone wants to lash back
after being stung by an article or
editorial that struck close to home.

This time, as we dropped the let-
ter into "File 13," a thought oc-
curred to us: Error is always secretly

litical and economic heritage of the
Reformation suffer a similar fate.
In fact, to watch the political, eco-
nomic and spiritual scene today is
sometimes to wonder again, "Which
came first, the chicken or the egg?"
Deterioration of the one is paced au-
tomatically by deterioration of the
others.

Today, the Biblical emphasis on
individual salvation and the need
to be justified before God by faith
has been replaced by various schemes
of social salvation and a flat denial
that man needs to be justified at all
- — he needs only the chance to give
his full potential free development.

The Biblical emphasis on person-
al responsibility (and freedom) un-
der God and the rule of His law
has been replaced by various schemes
of social politics, philosophies of
mass redemption and class rule. Pol-
itics now revolves around the
"rights" and needs of "special in-
terest groups" instead of the im-
partial rule of law.

The Biblical parable of the
pounds (each given an economic re-
sponsibility according to his ability)
has been rewritten to suggest that
the ideal economic system will take

embarrassed before truth. However
sincerely held (and most liberals
hold their opinions quite sincerely
— as the apostle said, they are
simply unable to understand the
truth) there is always down deep a
twinge of discomfort.

That is because error is always at
the heart a coward. It cannot stand
the light of publicity, the challenge
of truth. When the truth flashes in-
to view it always cringes.

Error becomes bold and comes out
into the open only when it is per-
suaded that truth has abdicated, or
that it will not interfere, or that it
is helpless.

No Christian, in possession of the
truth of God, ever has any excuse
for being helpless. II

from the individual members of so-
ciety their possessions in order to
turn them over to the central author-
ity for common management on
behalf of the common whole.

In such times it is embarrassing
to remember what the Reformation
stood for. So the very word "Re-
formed" has been translated: now
it means "ever changing." This
means, as thousands of sermons on
Oct. 29 will remind thousands
of congregations, that "we cannot
recover values from the past, we
must press on towards new discov-
eries for the benefit of mankind in
a new age."

For faithful Christians of Re-
formed persuasion, Reformation
Day should become ever more
precious as it becomes ever more
rare. Compassed about with a great
cloud of witnesses, we continue to
march in the procession of those re-
deemed by the blood of Christ, jus-
tified by faith, obedient to the sove-
reignty of God, informed by the
Scriptures, led by the Spirit, await-
ing the coming of our Lord. ffl

For Want of a Word

Dr. Strong's series on the proposed
new confession of faith (which be-
gins in this issue, see p. 7) will serve
to remind us once again that words
matter.

We're living in a time when gen-
eralities are treasured and it isn't
considered too desirable to be overly
precise. But a single word still can
make all the difference in the world
between a statement that expresses
truth and one which leads up a blind
alley.

Not long ago we were listening to
a preacher talk about faith. He said:
"Faith is not the accepting of prop-
ositions, it is the committing of all
that we have to God in Christ. It
is not coming down the aisle and
giving our hand to the preacher in
agreement with what he has said; it
is not assent to dogma or acceptance
of doctrines. It is a full and com-
plete commitment of all that we are
to what we know of God in Jesus
Christ."

If those remarks had included the
word "only" in several strategic
places, such as, "Faith is not only
propositions, it is commitment,"
they would have been well stated.
Instead, the message left the mis-
taken impression that religion con-

Don't Be Helpless

PAGE 12 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 25, 1972

THE LAYMAN AND HIS CHURCH

Witness? Who, Me?

i ists of something you do rather
than something you believe. The
;nd effect was a message powerless
>f application.

To try and avoid the implications
i)f truth and seek to disguise unbe-
ief by claiming that it really doesn't
natter what you believe is simply
o build a concern for a better life
ipon platitudes, mottoes and slo-
gans. And mottoes are notoriously
Door motivators.

More to the point: The speaker
rontradicted himself and thus be-
rayed how little he knew of the ex-
aerience he was talking about.

When he said, "Faith is not the
accepting of propositions, it is the
rommitting of all we have to God
In Christ," he was speaking non-
sense. Christian propositions are
.vhat Christians know about God in
3hrist. How can you commit your-
lielf to something you don't know?

Christian dogma is precisely the
statement of what we know about
God. There can be no relation to
Him unless the truths stated about
Him correspond to the facts about
Him.

That is why a confession of faith
is so important — a confession in
which the propositions must be pre-
cise. ' IS

Ambassadors In Chains

Some of the letters of the Apostle
Paul were written while he was
shackled to a Roman guard. Those
chains were symbolic of the power
of a state to imprison a Christian,
put the Gospel was not bound.

We too are ambassadors in chains,
bound by the shackles to Christ
t^which set men free.

We are shackled by His love,
ifor the love of Christ constrains us
to live for Him.

We are shackled by the restraints
of the Holy Spirit, restraints which
free us from conformity to the world
while uniting us in the joys to be
'had only through union with Him.

We are shackled by the Gospel we
believe, so that we may witness to
fits saving and keeping power, not
only by word of mouth but also by
consistency of life.

Ambassadors in chains? Yes, for
those who are Christ's are His bond
: slaves forever. Herein is a strange
paradox, something the world can
never understand for it is through
bondage to Him that we become
ffree. IB

I suppose I'm no different from
most other laymen when I confess
that I've had problems in finding
a key that would open the door of
opportunity to share my faith in
Christ. I know that belief in the
person of Christ is the one and only
means of salvation; I know that no
one can pluck a person out of God's
hand because no one can undo any-
thing that God does, and that only
God can save.

But my attempts to get this mes-
sage across always seemed to fall flat
when I actively went out seeking
self-made opportunities. There must
be a happy balance between inac-
tion and overaction, I told myself,
but where is it?

The answer, I finally discerned,
seems to be found more in an at-
titude than in a plan of action. As
I searched the Scriptures and read
about the sovereignty of God, I rea-
soned that if God truly has chosen
some for salvation before the foun-
dation of the world, then He is fully
capable of saving those whom He
will save without my feeble help,
and that if I want the joy of being
used by God in His plan of salva-
tion, then I must make myself
wholly subservient and pliable to
His will.

The question, as I saw it, was:
"Will I rely on my unstable efforts,
or will I rest in Christ? Will I spend
my efforts in looking for opportuni-
ties to witness, or will I do better to
prepare myself, through Bible study,
to be ready to tell those whom the
Holy Spirit brings to me about the
saving blood of Christ?"

Once I had determined on the lat-
ter course, I made a new discovery
— it was fun to create potential sit-
uations which those in whom the
Holy Spirit was already working
could pick up and use for further
inquiry. Numerous opportunities
crop up in class, in private discus-
sions, in counseling, and in chance

Author Tom Rose is chairman of
the economics department and direc-
tor of continuing education at the
University of Piano, Piano, Texas.

meetings. And I discovered that the
creation of opportunities is not of-
fensive to the spiritually unquick-
ened because they are blind to them.

One tool I have found especially
effective is a little booklet entitled
The Bible for You, published by the
Bible Memory Association, Inter-
national, P. O. Box 12,000, St. Louis,
Mo. 63112. It is only 1% inches by
2V2 inches in size. I keep a quanti-
ty in my office, and freely hand
them out to those who appear to be
receptive to the Gospel message
which it contains. I like it because
the booklet contains nothing more
than carefully selected Bible verses.
Thus, the job of saving souls is put
where it belongs, in the quickening
power of the Word.

Some time earlier, two students
had come into my office and I had
given one of these booklets to each
person — each time in response to
a sensed need. Relying on the pure
Word of God has served to remind
me of man's minor role in evan-
gelizing the world, that of being a
simple vehicle to dispense the Word,
which itself bears the power of salva-
tion.

In both of these instances, I used
the booklet to lead the students
through the plan of salvation only
to have them both say in so many
words, "Yes, I already believe in
Christ as my Saviour because I have
believed the verses in the booklet."

Upon hearing such responses from
people whom I wanted to have the
joy of leading to a decision for
Christ, I must confess I felt some-
what "cheated." But after reflecting
on the matter, how much more won-
derful it is to rest completely in
Christ and observe the powerful and
sure way in which He calls His own
to himself.

Realizing the saving power of the
Word will keep those of us who
share Christ ever mindful of our
humble role as members of His
body, yet such a realization should
also stimulate us to saturate our-
selves with His Word so that we may

(Continued on p. 19, col. 1)

PAGE 13 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 25, 1972

SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON

For November 12, 1972

in

Nationalism and Internationalism

INTRODUCTION: The study
guide book for the Uniform Series
of the International Sunday School
Lessons published by the National
Council of Churches presents this
suggestion for approaching this les-
son: "Narrow, selfish nationalism is
both wrong and destructive, but
good international relations make
for conditions favorable to the ad-
vancement of the kingdom of God."

I have quoted this statement to
point up the approach of those who
have designed this lesson. It con-
fuses the kingdom of God with
kingdoms of this world and reasons
that what is "good" for the world
is "good" for God and His kingdom.
This is by no means the Biblical
presentation. The Bible instead de-
clares: "There is a way which seem-
eth right unto a man; but the end
thereof are the ways of death"
(Prov. 14:12).

I. A GODLESS VENTURE.
From the earliest sections to the very
last, Scripture declares that man-
made efforts toward nationalism
and internationalism are both god-
less and against God's kingdom. We
have already seen this in some ear-
lier lessons, but it is worthwhile to
repeat this truth.

Babel is one of the earliest mani-
festations of man-made internation-
alism. Here men banded together
to establish a one-world concept.
God had no place in their plan and
the glorification of men was the on-
ly goal they had (Gen. 11:1-9).

Rev. Jack B. Scott

Background Scripture: Isaiah 45:1-
6; Amos 9:7-8; Jonah; I Timothy
2:1-5

Key Verses: Isaiah 45:1-6; Amos

9:7-8; I Timothy 2:1-5
Devotional Reading: Ephesians 2:

11-22

Memory Selection: Acts 17:26

After the failure of that early
"United Nations" venture because
God was displeased with the effort,
nations sprang up over the ancient
world. From time to time, these
nations made effort to unite adjoin-
ing territories to their own, usually
by force. These empires began to
develop in the ancient world, which
extended over large areas of the
then known world.

From Mesopotamia and Egypt
conquering forces went forth for dec-
ades, and sometimes for centuries,
expanding their empires, embracing
more and more peoples. These an-
cient empires were impressive in
size and strength, and even in cul-
ture and inventions. They were all
nevertheless godless or at least pa-
ganly religious.

When God revealed through Dan-
iel that four such great empires,
Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome,
would rise and fall, He showed that
such empires were not allied with
His kingdom, but were opposed.
(See Daniel 2 which we explained
in an earlier lesson.) God showed
that great uniting of peoples with
a common cause and common gov-
ernment would not work to help

r

His cause, but in contrast would be
opposed by Him and, in the end,
destroyed (Dan. 2:44) .

Two things which Scripture keeps
before us must be ever kept in mind
First, Satan is the god and prince of
this world. Second, God is in con
trol even of the godless nations of
the world to use them for His ulti-
mate purposes. Let us look at each
of these statements in more detail

In Scripture Satan is seen as the
enemy of men and of God's children
in particular. In Genesis 3 he is so
introduced. From that time on,
tan is shown to be a liar and a
deceiver. His opposition to God's
children and to the truth is brought
out vividly in Job 1 and 2. Jesus in
particular spoke of him as the
prince of this world (John 12:31;
14:30; 16:11) . Paul moreover called
Satan the god of this world (II Cor,
4:4) .

The book of Revelation gives us
just this picture of Satan. He is the
great enemy of the Church and seeks
to destroy God's kingdom on earth
(Rev. 12:1-17). This passage il-
lustrates how Satan sought to de-
stroy Christ. When he failed at
that, he continued to make war on
Christ's Church in the world. In the
last days Satan will muster the na-
tions of the world to oppose the be-
lievers in Christ's true Church (Rev.
20:17-9). This certainly tells us
that the nations united in interna-
tionalism are not going to serve the
Lord but their prince, their god, Sa-
tan.

The issue, however, is never in
doubt. From Genesis 3:15 to Dan-
iel 2:44 to Matthew 4:11 to Romans
16:20 to Revelation 20:9, it is cer-
tain that God will triumph in the
end. Satan and the nations which
serve him will all be destroyed.

In the second place, God is in con-
trol of these nations which serve Sa-
tan and He overrules them and their
actions for His ultimate purposes.
This statement does not contradict

The International Sunday School Lesson Outlines
are copyrighted 1972 by the Committee on the
Uniform Series of the National Council of Churches
of Christ.

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PAGE 14 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 25, 1972

:he one made before. It simply as-
serts that, in the final analysis, God
is over all.

We have seen in other lessons that
God raises up and puts down na-
tions according to His good pleasure
and to accomplish His purposes
(Jer. 27:5) . He took Canaan from
the pagans and gave it to His peo-
ple, but later He punished His own
people when they disobeyed Him:
Assyria captured Israel, the northern
kingdom, and Babylon took Judah
captive.

God could speak of Babylon as
His sword against Judah (Ezek. 21:
3-5, 19) and He could speak of As-
syria as the rod of His anger (Isa.
10:5) . Thus God used sinful na-
tions to punish His people when
they deserved it. These nations did
their deeds out of an evil heart and
God punished them, too. In reality,
they served Satan in their hearts,
but ultimately they served the sove-
reign Lord who was in charge.
God called King Cyrus of Persia
J His anointed one because He ap-
i pointed him to save His people out
lof the hand of wicked Babylon. He
(• foretold this event long before it oc-
Icurred (Isa. 45:1-6). In this proph-
iecy God declared His sovereignty
lover all (v. 5) .

I God showed that not only the af-
j fairs of His people, but the affairs
I and movements and history of all
t peoples are in His hands (Amos 9:

* 7-8) . While the nations are all un-
Ider His control, His saving work is
I done particularly through Israel, His
I people. God raised Cyrus, as pre-
I dieted by Isaiah, to be the liberator
l of His people (Ezra 1:1-4).

In the New Testament, too, the
[sovereign God used a pagan nation
■to accomplish His purposes. The
[[great Roman Empire, though pagan
^throughout with godless emperors
[ruling a vast world under Satan,
I nevertheless served God ultimately.
! Caesar Augustus' determination to
Itax the world (Luke 2: Iff.) served
to have Jesus born in Bethlehem, as
[God foretold through the prophet
fMicah (Mic. 5:2) .

When the unbelieving Jews and

• the Romans united to crucify Jesus,
even here God's purposes for re-

I demption were accomplished. The
men and nations involved were all
guilty before God because they did
[ what they did out of evil hearts and
[ with evil motivations, but His pur-
ipose was accomplished (Acts 2:23-
124) .

This shall always be the case. Just

as the false church of the unbeliev-
ing Jews sought to unite with the
pagan Roman Empire of the day to
destroy God's people and God's
Christ, so throughout the history of
the Church in the world a false
church will continue to look to the
unbelieving world to seek to destroy
God's true people.

This is most certainly what we
see in Revelation 13, in the analogy
of the two beasts, one representing
the power of the world (Rev. 13:1-
10) and one representing a false
church which looks like a lamb but
speaks like Satan (Rev. 13:11-18).

We must always be very cautious
when Church leaders seek to iden-
tify the mission of the Church with
that of national and international
endeavors. Scripture has warned
against such alliances. From Genesis
11 to Revelation 13, 20, we have
clear understanding that men united
are united against God.

Why? Because Satan is their
prince, as the Bible clearly tells us.
To forget this truth is to bring the
Church under Satan. He is a liar
and a deceiver. Internationalism
does not advance the kingdom of
God.

II. THE DIVINE VIEW. Does
all of this mean that God and His
people are unconcerned for the na-
tions of the world and for world
peace? By no means. However,
our mission and God's commission
are not political but evangelical.

In the beginning, when God first
called Abraham to be a blessing to
all nations (Gen. 12:1-3), He intend-
ed from the very first to reach all peo-
ples with His good news.

While it is true that God did not
deal savingly with all of the world,
but primarily with only Israel in
the Old Testament period, still even
at that time there is clear evidence
of His concern for all people. God
embraced a multitude of nations
and peoples as included in His king-

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dom (Isa. 2:2-4).

Certainly the book of Jonah has
as one of its primary messages the
lesson that God is concerned for the
well-being of all nations, even those
which are most pagan.

In the New Testament particular-
ly God began to execute the work
of redemption among the nations of
the world. First, Jesus commis-
sioned His believers to go to all na-
tions with the Gospel (Matt. 28:19-
20; Acts 1:8). However, lest we as-
sume that this commission is po-
litical, we see that in the book of
Acts the commission is always and
only carried out by calling men out
of the world to Christ, out of the
kingdom of men unto God's king-
dom. This world is under j u d g -
ment and will fall. Satan and his
own are condemned (Acts 2:40; Rev.
20:9-15) .

As believers, we are to pray for
the nations, not to the end that they
succeed politically but to the end
that they be saved through the Gos-
pel (I Tim. 2:1-5) . The end which
God has in mind is the salvation of
men through Christ. Peace and
tranquility in the nations are not
the end, but the means to a greater
and wider proclamation of the Gos-
pel.

The Pax Romana (Roman peace)
that prevailed in the first century
was indeed suitable for the spread-
ing of the Gospel, but in God's sight
it was never the goal of the Church.
Rome was under judgment. It
would fall. Men are saved only by
trusting in the Lord for personal
salvation.

(Continued on next page)

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The In-depth Seminar will be Nov.
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PAGE 15 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 25, 1972

Here a word of caution is given in
the light of all we have said above.
The Church's mission is not interna-
tional or national success, but the
success of God's kingdom.

That success is measured in terms
of the saving of men from the king-
dom of Satan. In God's sight are
only two kinds of people, His chil-
dren and Satan's children. The
Church's goals are not those of the
world and the nations.

The world seeks a fellowship
where men prosper without God.

Satan is the chief engineer of this
world structure, whether on a na-
tional or international scale.

The Church's goal is to save men
out of the world into God's king-
dom, believing that only through
Christ can any man be saved. In
the end, Satan and this world will
be judged and sent to hell. Only
God's people will live forever with
God.

For the Church to confuse the
mission and to seek as a goal a bet-
ter world to live in, a better United

Nations or a world peace to be es- :lf
tablished by men, is to fail the1
Lord. Such a Church does not reck-'
on with the evil hearts of men which
can only be changed by the power1
of God working through the Gospel.1
We are deceived when we thinkl
the goals of socialism or Commu-
nism, or even democracy, are the1
goals of God's kingdom. To ally
with men under Satan's control is
to ally with Satan. In the end all
of his allies will share his judgment
(Rev. 20:7-15) .

YOUTH PROGRAM

Scripture: II Corinthians 3:1-6
Suggested Hymns:

"Lord, Speak to Me that I

May Speak"
"Living for Jesus"
"A Charge to Keep I Have"

PROGRAM LEADER'S INTRO-
DUCTION: A college dean used to
remind his students of a banner he
saw while attending a Christian con-
ference during his own youth. The
message on that banner made a per-
manent impression on him, and it
made a similar impression on many
of the students whom he told about
it. The message was this: "You are
the best Christian somebody knows."

This is something of what we
mean when we speak of Christians
as "living letters." When we pro-
fessed faith in Christ, we became
representatives of Christianity and
of Christ himself. A great many
people, when they want to know
what Christianity is, look not into
books but at the lives of those who
claim to be Christians. In this im-
portant sense, then, every Christian
is a representative of his faith, a
"living letter."

In this program we shall consid-
er some of the areas in which we
function as living letters, as mes-
sengers for Christ.

FIRST SPEAKER: What are
you saying to those who observe
your life in the matter of your loy-

For November 12, 1972

We Are Living Letters

Rev. B. Hoyt Evans

alty to the church? A Sunday
school teacher was evidently bored
with the worship services in his
church, because every Sunday morn-
ing immediately after he had taught
his class he would march home.

His conduct distressed one of the
loyal members of that church who
said, "When he goes home after
Sunday school he gives the impres-
sion that the worship of God in our
church is not very important." Will
the people who look at your life
gain the impression that Sunday
school, the worship services, the
youth meetings, and the mid-week
prayer service are important to you?

If you are faithful to attend these
services in your church, you will be
bearing effective witness to the im-
portance of your church and to the
God who is worshiped and served
there.

SECOND SPEAKER: What mes-
sage do you convey about Christ
through your speech? This is not to
suggest that every Christian young
person is expected to preach a kind
of sermonette now and then, but it
means that our vital relation to
Christ should be evident in all our
speech.

We talk about many persons and
things during an ordinary week. We
claim that Christ means a great deal
to us. How often do we mention
His name in our ordinary conversa-
tion? Is all our speech wholesome,
pure and kind? Is it in keeping

...

is

with the character of Jesus Christ?

A Christian is one whose life is
supposed to have been transformed
by the power of Christ. Do the
words we speak indicate that our
lives have been so transformed? If
we are living letters, then the words
we use ought to glorify our Saviour
and Lord.

THIRD SPEAKER: It does not
require much sober thought for us
to come to the conclusion that rec-
reation is big business. Most of us
spend many hours in recreation, e&
pecially during the years of our
youth. What message are we con-
veying to those who observe our
recreational activity?

Even people who are not Chris
tians themselves expect a certain
standard of conduct in Christians
Some forms of recreation are con
sidered to be undesirable and un-
wholesome by almost everyone, and
many others are highly question
able. Surely a Christian will be
concerned enough about his influ
ence on others so that he will avoid
every appearance of evil.

So many recreational activities are
not questionable that it seems inex-
cusable for a sincere Christian to
risk letting his life become a stum
bling block to a weaker Christian
or to an unbeliever.

FOURTH SPEAKER: Some
Christian young people who thought
of themselves as being very spiritual

hi
I

PAGE 16 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 25, 1972

vere asked for their ideas as to what
onstituted proper Sabbath ob-
ervance. The prevailing opinion
vas that once a person had attended
fee services sponsored by his own
hurch on Sunday he could do as he
)leased with the remainder of the
lay. If he wanted to take part in
my kind of commercial amusement,
t would be perfectly all right.

How different this idea is from
hat expressed in the Shorter Cate-
hism: "The Sabbath is to be sanc-
ified by a holy resting all that day,
ven from such worldly employ-
nents and recreations as are lawful
hi other days; and spending the
uhole time in the public and pri-
vate exercise of God's worship, ex-
:ept so much as is taken up in the
vorks of necessity and mercy."

Surely the desecration of God's
lay is one of the most glaring weak-
lesses in the life of God's people to-
lay.

FIFTH SPEAKER: It is generally
:onceded among Christians that the
Scriptures are the believer's spiritual
lourishment and that prayer is his
liipiritual breath. Adequate supplies
pf breath and nourishment are very
pbviously necessary for normal life
and growth.

We speak of prayer time and Bi-
ple reading as the devotional life of
[the Christian. This devotional life
(is not only essential to our own spiri-
tual health, but it is a very impor-
tant means of bearing witness to
(the vitality and value of our faith.
[■As Christians we are encouraged to
look on ourselves as living letters for
l;Christ, but these letters do not carry
their most convincing message un-
less there is a consistent devotional
life.

Of course, we are not to make a
jpious show of our prayers and Bi-
fble reading. We must, however,
be faithful in prayer and in reading
God's Word. Then we must bear
faithful witness to the value of our
devotional life.

PROGRAM LEADER: It may
make us feel conspicuous to think
of ourselves as living letters, but it
is a simple fact that people do ob-
serve our lives and do judge our
faith and our Christ by what they
see. What kind of letters are we?

Closing Prayer. EE

• • •

God knows His servants by their
souls, not their salaries. — Unknown.

BOOKS

P

WHY CONSERVATIVE CHURCH-
ES ARE GROWING, by Dean M. Kel-
ley. Harper & Row, New York, N. Y.
179 pp. $6.95. Reviewed by the Rev.
Kennedy Smartt, pastor, West End
Presbyterian Church, Hopewell, Va.

"For reasons suggested presently,
it is probably too late to prevent or
greatly delay the decline in the ecu-
menical 'mainline' denominations,
but it may not be too late to achieve
a certain wry appreciation of the
qualities liberal churchmen have
found objectionable in the non-ecu-
menical, non-mainline church bod-
ies and to encourage them to main-
tain those qualities.

"For precisely the sectarian and
theologically conservative religious
groups have made amazing gains in
recent years. Amid the current ne-
glect and hostility toward organized
religion in general, the conservative
churches, holding to seemingly out-
moded theology and making de-
mands on their members, have
equaled or surpassed in growth the
yearly percentage increases in the
nation's population."

These remarks in the preface of
Dean M. Kelly's new book get us
off to an intriguing study. Kelly is
not himself a conservative. A min-
ister of the United Methodist
Church, he is director for Civil and
Religious Liberty of the National
Council of Churches. However, his
study of the mainline, ecumenical
denominations led him to the con-
viction that they are all dying.

"Some will consider 'dying' a
needlessly harsh word to use in de-
scribing the condition of some
churches. It refers to a loss of vi-
tality more significant and perhaps
more fatal than a temporary lull,"
he says.

Then he concludes, "A final rea-
son for using the word dying is that
the process we see at work in the
churches is probably not reversible.
Having once succumbed to debility
a church is unlikely to recover . . .
because the persons who now occupy
the positions of leadership and fel-
lowship in the church will not find
them [measures leading to recovery]
congenial and will not want to insti-
tute them."

Kelly apologizes for a book that

conservatives will use against lib-
erals saying, "I told you so," but feels
that the findings must be printed.
He shows the statistical evidence of
the mainline churches' decline, in
accessions, Sunday school attendance,
and their overseas missionary task
force; then he shows the success of
the Bible-believing groups such as
the Southern Baptists and others.

He illustrates his point further
by showing that the more strict a
church is about who may join and
the more demanding a church is of
those who belong, the more success-
ful that church is likely to be in en-
listing others, citing as examples the
Mormon Church and the Jehovah's
Witnesses.

Leniency, diversity and dialogue,
all respectable virtues of the ecu-
menical movement, are enemies of
church growth, while those that are
increasing demonstrate such surpris-
ing characteristics as: absolutism,
conformity, commitment, discipline,
missionary zeal, and fanaticism.

A most significant chart shows
an interesting correspondence of
exclusivism, anti-ecumenism, and
growth on the one hand and inclu-
sivism, ecumenism, and decline on
the other. The PCUS rates about
two-thirds the way down the scale,
the UPUSA three-fourths the way
down, and the Unitarians last. Eight
of the bottom ten are COCU partici-
pants and the other two of the bot-
tom ten are the Ethical Culture So-
ciety and the Unitarian-Universal-
ists. (Great company!)

Kelly doesn't have any hope of
turning the mainline, ecumenical
denominations around, but he does
see a ray of hope in the fact that
new movements spring out of de-
clining groups that lend vitality and
rebirth. The dream of an amalga-
mation of denominations (COCU)
he is forced to view with pessimism,
and he implies that it would carry
its own seeds of failure (leniency,
relativism and dialogue) .

Don't read this book if you are
committed to the ecumenical move-
ment or to the hope of a recovery
of life in PCUS. You will lose many
a night's sleep over it. But if you
are searching for a key, a handle, a
clue to success and church growth,

PAGE 17 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 25, 1972

CHRISTIANS
AND

CREATION

1HE CHURCH
>1ND 1HE
ECOLOGIOIL
CRISIS

by HENLEE H. BARNETTE

The ecological crisis is not exclu-
sively social and scientific contends
Dr. Barnette; it is also religious — a
moral responsibility of the church.

And in this timely volume he focuses
the light of bibl«cal understanding re-
garding man and nature on this impor-
tant issue. Stressing a sacramental view
of nature, the author insists that the
redemption of the Christian and of the
Creation are inseparable.

Specific suggestions for becoming in-
volved are included both for the indi-
vidual and for the church. Appendices
include a model sermon on ecology,
and a listing of helpful books and films.

"An excellent job ot combining the best of
contemporary theoretical understanding with his
own very practical suggestions concerning
what Individual citizens, churches, and Chris-
tian groups could do to take a more responsible
approach toward the problems of the environ-
ment."

— Thomas A. Bland, Professor
of Christian Ethics and Sociology,
Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary

104 pages. Paper, $2.25

WM. B. EERDMANS
PUBLISHING CO.

Grand Rapids, Michigan

then sell your bed if necessary and
buy this book! BB

HOPE FOR YOUR CHURCH, by
Harold L. Fickett Jr. Gospel Light
Publications, Glendale, Calif. 159 pp.
$3.95. Reviewed by the Rev. Joseph
A. Warner, pastor, First Presbyterian
Church, Delray Beach, Fla.

Here's a "How we do it here!,"
ten-chapter, delightful history of the
First Baptist Church in Van Nuys,
California. Each chapter is espe-
cially adapted so that other congre-
gations might catch some of the en-
thusiasm of this 12,000 member con-

gregation.

The author sounds like a Presby-
terian in disguise because he states,
that the Church operates "not as a
democracy but as a republic." (The
progress of the church is not hin-
dered by dependence on actions of
the congregation but moves swiftly
ahead through elected boards.)

The ten principles of growth out-
lined in the book are not new, but
are freshly presented through the
testimony of a church where theyi

are at work. The substance is a
stimulating shot in the arm
for every pastor, especially dis-

'eCH Simpson

31 stores in 8 states serving you
with this pledge ....

• To give prompt courteous service, treating our customers as you would a guest
in your home. • To give the best selection of merchandise from Top Quality
Fashions to basement bargains, meeting everyone's need. • To give satisfaction
guaranteed with every purchase. • To give credit terms arranged to meet your
budget needs in Stores doing credit business.

Since the opening of the first Belk-Simpson Store, it has been our
endeavor to be more in a community than just another merchant.
We have set forth a united consecrated effort, dedicated to the task
of securing superior quality merchandise, giving our customers a
better value than any other merchant.

SOUTH CAROLINA

Belk-Slmpson Co.

Greenville, S. C.

J. A Ellison, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson-Plaza Store

Greenville, S. C.

R. Grier Robinson Jr., Res.

The Dollar Store

Greenville, S. C.

R. P. Crumpler, Res. Mgr.

Belk's of Pleasantburg
Greenville, S. C.

A. M. Smith, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store
Lancaster, S. C.

B. L. Plyler, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store

Camden, S. C.

J. A. Hagins, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store

Clinton, S. C.

D. B. Smith, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.
Darlington, S. C.
Paul E. Broome, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store

Laurens, S. C.

David Middleton, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Abbeville, S. C.

J. S. Hagins, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Hagins Co.
Kershaw, S. C.

C. E. Hinson, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Slmpson Co.
Easley, S. C.
R. J. Womack, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Beaufort, S. C.
Al Wilson, Res. Mgr.
M9r- Belk-Simpson Co.
Fountain Inn, S. C.

E. J. Copeland, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Woodruff, S. C.

F. B. Hagins, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Honea Path, S. C.

T. R. Martin, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Whitmire, S. C.

Clyde Smith, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Manning, S. C.

W. M. Gettys, Res. Mgr.

OHIO

Belk-Simpson Co.

Athens, Ohio

Joe Kelly, Res. Mgr.

MISSOURI

Belk-Simpson Co.

Carthage, Mo.

Charles Wilson, Res. Mgr.

OKLAHOMA

Belk Dept. Store
Miami, Oklahoma
J. T. Holmes, Res. Mgr.

NORTH CAROLINA

Belk-Simpson Co.

Hendersonville, N. C.

R. E. McCormack, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store

Brevard, N, C.

J. M. Felty, Res. Mgr.

KENTUCKY

Belk-Slmpson Co.
Harlan, Ky.

Delmar Tolliver, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Corbin, Ky.

W. C. Ashley, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Winchester, Ky.

T. L. Beckham, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Mt. Sterling, Ky.

Willoughby Smith, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Frankfort, Ky.

J. D. Prow, Res. Mgr.

GEORGIA

Belk-Simpson Co.

Bainbridge, Ga.

M. D. Ashley, Res. Mgr.

ARKANSAS

Belk-Simpson Co.
Paragould, Ark.
W. H. Wade, Res

Belk-Simpson Co.
Osceola, Ark.
K. R. Cline, Res. Mgr.

Mgr.

These stores are a small part of the entire Belk or-
ganization and have been in existence approximately
50 years. The Belk stores were launched in 1886-88.

SEE THE MANAGER NEAREST YOU FOR CHURCH CARPET, ROBES, ETC.

PAGE 18 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 25, 1972

A HOLY LAND
TOUR MAY...

CHANGE YOUR LIFE
RENEW YOUR FAITH
WIDEN YOUR WORLD.

jouraged pastors.

While a Reformed and Calvinistic
lan might have to wade through
ome of the ideas that are typically
vangelical, but not consistently Bib-
ical (in our Reformed sense) , none-
heless here's a great book for easy
eading. It is not recommended at
>ed time, unless you want your
nind to take inventory and make
planning schedules" all night long,
jfhis book is exciting. EE

.ayman—from p. 13

>e used more effectively. My own
xperience this year has helped to

show me how much room there is for
future growth, so most of my ef-
forts are devoted to preparing my-
self to be an able vehicle for Christ
to work through.

I simply ask the Lord to bring to
me those whom He has prepared to
receive the Word. When seekers of
truth come, I joy and Christ gets the
glory. When seekers don't come, I
search my own heart and state of
preparedness to discover why the
Lord isn't using me as I would like.
Invariably, if I find a problem, I
find it in my attitude rather than
in my plan of action. EE

ECOE IS ON THE MOVE «

Not "Slowing Down"

More people than ever before are responding in vol-
unteers for service.

More individuals and churches are responding with
funds.

Activities are more widespread.

Two missionary couples are already at work in foreign
lands.

Emergency aid is being given to mission work in many
countries throughout the world.

There is no limit to the opportunity for your missionary
funds to go directly to the work without any deduc-
tions, designated or undesignated.

For particulars write us. Gifts and contributions should be sent to:

E.C.O.E.

P. O. Box 808, Hopewell, Virginia 23860
*A list of projects is available for the asking.

frori.719

VIA SCHEDULED AIRLINES

We specialize in quality-
tours planned for less time
en route and more time at
each Biblical site.

Time to mold your
pilgrimage into living
memories.

The 10-Day $719 tour is
the Holy Land plus a European
capital! 2 to 3 week tours can
include Europe, the Middle
East or Moscow.

All prices all-inclusive:
Airfare, transfers, first
class hotels with private
facilities, all meals, tips,
airport taxes.

Plus sightseeing by Deluxe
Motorcoach with English-
speaking licensed guides. 5

MINISTERS. PLEASE NOTE!

Write today for details
on our courtesy
Tour Host Program.

WORLD-WIDE GROUP TOURS. INC.

1140 Avenue of the Americas
N.Y. 10036 (212) 490-0080

PAGE 19 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 25, 1972

If you love our Lord,

have an understanding heart,
and compassion for children,

you will want to share with WRC
in the support of the

Hoa Khanh Children's Hospital.

A GREAT EMERGENCY EXISTS
AT HOA KHANH CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL

The escalated enemy activities in Vietnam,
the see-saw battles for key areas, have
placed an unexpected drain on WRC per-
sonnel and supplies. Over 750,000 people
have fled their homes in Dong Ha, Quang
Tri, Hue and other northern areas of South
Vietnam. More than 100,000 of these war
victims are now being housed and cared
for by WRC in the area immediately sur-
rounding WRC's Hoa Khanh Children's
Hospital in Danang. We are trying desper-
ately to keep up with the need, but some-
times we don't win.

The hospital has been taxed beyond its
capacity with very-sick children. Thirty-
seven died this month, far exceeding the
previous month. Many of the deaths among
refugee children are due to dysentery, de-
hydration, typhoid, and complications from
a measles epidemic. The hospital staff has
been working long
hours to attempt
to care for the
greatly increased
inpatient and out-
patient load.

A MIRACLE AT HOA KHANH CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL

Hours of surgery, weeks of care and prayerful concern helped
restore this victim who lost his legs to a Vietcong mine planted
in the pathway of school kids in Vietnam. Cu's recovery is a
dividend to all who had any share in helping in this strategic
ministry of WRC.

Yet, Cu's physical recovery is only half the story. One dark night,
during Cu's hospital stay, when all seemed lost, he accepted
Christ as his Savior. After that, his recovery was rapid, and today
he is making a marvelous adjustment — going to school and hear-
ing the Gospel in Vietnamese through the hospital's Christian
education program. And no one realizes better than fourteen-
year-old Cu that his life and his soul have been saved through
the efforts of the World Relief Commission.

If Cu had been cared for in a United States hospital, it is esti-
mated the cost would exceed $35,000,
which is the total budget for the Hoa
Khanh Children's Hospital for one
month.

WORLD RELIEF COMMISSION, INC.

Overseas Relief Arm of National Association of Evangelicals
P.O. Box 44 • Valley Forge, Pa. 19481

PAGE 20 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / OCTOBER 25, 1972

VOL. XXXI, NO. 27

NOVEMBER 1, 1972

$4.00 A YEAR

the

idvocating continuation of a Presbyterian Church loyal

to Scripture and the Reformed faith

Wars and Rumors of War

The point of Jeremiah 2 1 is not that it is wise to surrender
when faced with superior military power .... The message
pertained to a particular people in a particular time: God's
people when they continued to disobey Him. It does not teach
surrender as a general expression of God's will for His peo-
ple. By no means .... It teaches that when God's people dis-
obey Him, they will be punished, and they cannot escape the

punishment.

— Jack B. Scott
(See p. 14)

S. S. LESSON AND YOUTH PROGRAM FOR NOVEMBER 19

dWOO

>19L5 Otl ITIH Tedsq;

UOT^OSIIOQ o a

MAI LB AG-

how TO DEAL WITH IT

As you seem to be a little unsure
of how to attack the proposed new
confession, I offer some suggestions.

This appears to be a case where
the classic laws of persuasion can
be used to your advantage. Anyone
presenting a proposal for new ac-
tion is rightly required to show 1)
what the problem is, and 2) that his

solution is the best.

Under number 1, you should be
able to do plenty of damage by
pointing out what the real problem
is. Although the liberals would like
everyone to think the problem is
that incomprehensible 17th century
language, the real problem is not
linguistic but religious. Some of the
leaders of the Presbyterian Church

the

PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL

Rev. G. Aiken Taylor, Ph.D., Editor
Rev. Henry B. Dendy, D.D., Managing Editor
William G. Bolus, Assistant Editor

Circulation leader among independent publications in the Presbyterian-Reformed world

THIS WEEK

Vol. XXXI, No. 27, November 1, 1972

A Conflict of Moralities 7

Hard work, clean living and total abstinence seem to have
gone out of style By Samuel A. Jeanes

Chapter II: God and His People 9

The language of the proposed new confession is marked by
ambiguity By Robert Strong

Departments —

Editorials 12

The Layman and his Church 13

Sunday School Lesson, November 19 14

Youth Program, November 19 16

Book Reviews - 17

SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: $4 a year
for individuals, $3 for members of
Every Family Plan churches. All cor-
respondence regarding subscriptions,
advertising or other business matters
should be addressed to the business
office in Weaverville, N. C. 28787.
Second class postage paid at Weaver-
ville, N. C. 28787.

THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL, a

Presbyterian weekly magazine, devoted
to the statement, defense, and propa-
gation of the Gospel, the faith which
was once for all delivered to the saints,

is published every Wednesday by the
Southern Presbyterian Journal Co.,
Inc., in Weaverville, N. C.

POSTMASTER: Send Form 3579 to
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ence should be addressed to P. 0. Box
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TELEPHONES: (All area 704) edi-
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business office, 645-3310, 645-3962.

are simply not comfortable with the
first century religion which is sum
marized in the 17th century docu
ment. That in itself should be a
conclusive point against their pro
posal.

However, anyone not convinced
of the above should move on and
examine point two, the relative
merits of the proposed document
vis a vis the present arrangement. It
is appropriate to note here that the
new document was apparently writ
ten by men who are unaware of
what a confession is. This docu
ment is a pretty good statement of
the beliefs and concerns of one wing
of the Presbyterian Church, but it
is not a confession.

A confession must be a statement
of the Christian religion declaring
what its source of information, the
Bible, has to say on the various top
ics covered. The Westminster Con
fession is precisely that, whereas the
new proposal is not. It is therefore
inadequate.

One thing especially which you
should avoid is the trap of putting
the best possible construction on the
proposal. The document is a collec
tion of misleading, vague half-truths.
As the statements can mean several
things, why not concentrate on the
meaning which is false? No one can
fault you for this, as such "legal"
documents are supposed to be high
quality writing which means that
the intention of the writers is pre
sumably on the paper.

To give you an example of what
I mean, I have worked over "Chap
ter I: God" for your amusement.
One should not ask, "Can I sign
this statement?," but rather, "Is this
an adequate statement of the teach
ings of holy Scripture on God?"

Without doing violence to what
is said, one can come up with a per-
fectly awful understanding of what
the Presbyterians believe God is
from this chapter. Of course, the
question is, "What is God?," and
the key to what the Presbyterians
know about Him seems to be
summed up in their words: "Our
words cannot adequately say who he
is or how he works."

They might as well have gone on
to say: Therefore, we won't try; in
stead, we'll settle for a few desul-
tory remarks, to wit:

"1-3. We do believe in our un-
known God and that means we trust,
serve and worship him in that we
do not love any other more, nor set
ultimate reliance, nor render uncon-

ill ditional obedience to any other even
in. though we don't always want his
A care or like his requirements."

-1 To believe in something although
w you cannot state what it is or how
it works is a near absurdity. The
last part of the statement is an im-
piety. Those who know the true
God, following the psalmist, cherish
His care and love His requirements.
To adapt Luther's famous phrase,
if God said to eat dung, we would
eat dung, knowing that it would be
the best possible thing we could do.
— Robert E. Ralston
A.P.O. New York

MINISTERS

H. Rodman Williams from Aus-
tin Seminary to Anaheim, Calif.,
as president of Melodyland Schools
and to develop an evangelical re-
search center.

Marion A. Boggs (H.R.) , Ashe-
ville, N. C, to the Fairview
church, North Augusta, S. C, as
interim supply.

• Election day will be past when
many of our readers receive this

! copy of the Journal. We are writing
i the column this week with politics
very much in the air. Some of it
can only be described as comical —
witness the complaint of the Na-
tional Council of Churches that its
spokesmen have been handled by
this Administration with somewhat
1 less respect than those liberal church-
men have become accustomed to. It
was "commonplace in past admini-
strations," complained the NCC,
: that when "more liberal Church
; leaders sought a give-and-take meet-
■; ing with the President" it was grant-
ed. But not now. Except for one
or two occasions when "ecumenical
leaders" have been asked to preach
at White House worship services,
liberal churchmen have been "ex-
eluded from high echelons" in the
Administration, the NCC said in a
' paper mailed to its constituency. We
extend our sympathies to the
brethren. We haven't had an ap-
pointment with the President either.

• Mrs. J. O. Meadows of Berry-
ton, Ga., sent us a copy of the Pres-
byterian of the South for March 27,
1912. Some of the articles were as

John B. Boyd from Columbia, S.
S., to First Church, Raleigh, N.
C, as assistant pastor.
Thomas M. Byrd from Tarboro,
N. C, to the Roberts church, An-
derson, S. C.

J. Lawrence Cuthill, recent grad-
uate of Columbia Seminary, has
been ordained and installed as-
sistant pastor of the Georgia
Avenue church, Atlanta, Ga.
Joseph W. Piatt, recent graduate
of Columbia Seminary, to the East
Point, Ga., church as assistant pas-
tor.

Watson G. Guy from Mobile,
Ala., to the Mcintosh, Ala.,
church.

Allen G. Hamann, received by Al-
bemarle Presbytery from UPUSA,
to Barium Springs (N.C.) Home
for Children, as associate in con-
sultative services.

William E. Hammond, former
pastor of the Lakewood church,
Atlanta, Ga., is now the associate
pastor of the Westhills church, At-
lanta.

modern as yesterday. In one by the
Rev. E. C. Gordon appeared the fol-
lowing observations about "current
revolutionaries" who would substi-
tute "saving society" for saving men:
"A current formula among those
prompting the revolution is this:
'Sin is misery, misery is poverty, the
antidote of poverty is income.' If
this be true, then 'income' certainly
should be sufficient income, enough
to remove poverty so misery will
disappear; with the disappearance
of misery, sin will disappear. Yet,
according to these same revolution-
aries, the holders of income, of
large and ample income, are the
chief of sinners. If income is to re-
move depravity and sin, the rich
ought to be the best of men. Ac-
cording to the revolutionaries they
are the worst."

• Project Equality is back in the
news with an item across the desk
from Cincinnati that the United
Presbyterian Church has asked the
Cincinnati chapter of Project Equal-

E. L. Gage, Memphis, Tenn., is
serving as interim supply of First
Street church, New Orleans, La.
Charles R. Kennon, Covington,
Tenn., is serving as director of the
Southwest Area of the Jackson
(Tenn.) Area Council on Alco-
holism and Drug Dependency.
William H. Marquis from Mon-
treal N. C, to the First Church,
Soddy, Tenn.

Frank A. Neil from Hodges, S. C,
to the Saluda, N. C, church.
Stephen C. Riser, 1971 graduate
of Trinity Divinity School (III.)
to Central church, Chattanooga,
Tenn., as assistant pastor.
John D. Sharp, Atlanta, Ga., for-
mer evangelist, has become pastor
of the Westhills church, Atlanta.
Glenn W. Small Jr., from South
Jacksonville, Fla., to graduate
study, Tift College, Barnesville,
Ga.

C. William Solomon II has be-
come pastor of the new McGregor
church, Columbia, S. C, which he
helped to organize.

ity to check out the local hotels be-
fore contracts are signed for a pro-
posed meeting of the General As-
sembly three years hence, in 1975.
Project Equality is an organization
of religious groups (the PCUS
Board of World Missions, and sev-
eral PCUS presbyteries belong)
which applies pressure (despite its
protestations to the contrary) on
business firms, stores, hotels and the
like, to place minority group people
in high salaried and management
positions. If the Church group
(board or agency) doesn't like the
hiring policies of a firm, it lets the
company know, and sometimes takes
its business elsewhere. (But, in the
words of a PCUS executive to the
General Assembly, that is not to be
construed as anything so crass as a
boycott.)

• Oh yes. If you don't read the
entire story of the Board of Chris-
tian Education meeting (p. 5) , be
sure you read the last three para-
graphs (p. 6) . EE

ACROSS THE EDITOR'S DESK

PAGE 3 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 1, 1972

NEWS OF RELIOION

Missionary Acquitted For Second Time

PYRGOS, Greece (RNS) — For the
second time in three years, an evan-
gelical missionary leader from New
Jersey was acquitted here on charges
of having violated Greece's anti-
proselytism law.

In a second trial, however, the
American evangelical and the direc-
tor of his ministry in Greece were
each sentenced to five months in
jail for having made a public ap-
peal for funds without obtaining
permission from the Greek Ministry
of Welfare.

Two Greek Orthodox priests testi-
fied for the American Protestant in
the first trial, which resulted in the
acquittal of the Rev. Spiros Zod-
hiates, president of the New Jersey-
based American Mission to Greeks.

Both priests were subsequently dis-
missed from service with the Pa-
triarchate of Alexandria.

The official basis for the charges
brought against Mr. Zodhiates in
that trial, which were brought by
Greek Orthodox Archimandrite Ger-
manos Paraskevopulos of Pyros,
was that two articles the evangeli-
cal had published in the local news-
paper, Patris, were proselytistic.

According to Archimandrite Paras-
kevopulos, the articles sought to
make Greek Orthodox readers turn
to Protestantism because they held
that salvation was by faith alone,
whereas the Greek Orthodox Church,
he said, maintains that in addition
to faith, it is necessary to confess
one's sins before a Greek Orthodox

PANAMA — Bethesda Clinic, a dis-
pensary operated by the Gospel Mis-
sionary Union in a remote area of
this country, has treated 7,000 pa-
tients during the past year.

Most of the people coming from
out-of-the-way places have never
heard a Gospel witness, so in addi-
tion to medical care, they are en-
couraged to accept a Gospel tract.

A particular effort is being made
now to follow up those who make a
profession of faith in Christ as a re-

priest and be baptized by him.

Arguments presented at the pros-
elytism trial centered on the ques-
tions of whether the Greek Ortho-
dox doctrines were as the Archi-
mandrite had described them, and
whether Mr. Zodhiates' articles did
in fact constitute proselytism.

The two priests who testified on
behalf of Mr. Zodhiates were Atha-
nasios Tsalikis, archdeacon of the
Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of
Alexandria, and Nicolaos Psarum-
bas, an assistant deacon at the Pa-
triarchate.

They apparently shocked the
court by testifying that Mr. Zod-
hiates' articles have been published
in two Greek Orthodox newspapers
published in Egypt — Phos (Light)
in Cairo, and Tachidromos (Trib-
une) in Alexandria. The priests
said that both papers are financial-
ly supported by the Greek Orthodox
Patriarch of Alexandria, who would
have intervened to forbid publica-
tion of the articles if he had dis-
agreed with their content.

In addition, the priests comment-
ed that "it is inconceivable that a
servant of God, who is Love, should
sue a fellow Christian minister even
if there are minor differences of
doctrine."

In Archmandrite Paraskevopulos'
testimony, he charged that Mr. Zod-
hiates "is deceptive in his methods
because he takes advantage of the
ignorance of the public in matters
of religion."

suit of visits to the clinic.

Modern medicine and loving care
are breaking through mental bar-
riers. Many Panamanians are like
one 70-year old lady who walked
two days to reach the clinic, but re-
fused to ride home, saying, "I have
always walked in my lifetime. I
would not be so foolish as to get in-
to a vehicle!"

However, they are eagerly receiv-
ing the message of salvation which
they find to be good news indeed. EE

Mr. Zodhiates countered by ask- :.,
ing: "How can you explain the
fact that for 15 years I am the only
one writing religious messages in 5
the newspapers and no Orthodox
priest or bishop has tried to imitate
me?" He received no answer.

After that trial ended with the
acquittal of Mr. Zodhiates on the
proselytism charge, the Orthodox
Metropolitan of Elias (Pyros) con-
tacted Patriarch Nicolaos of Alex- ,
andria and told him that the two "j
deacons had made unauthorized use y
of his name in the trial, in the ref-
erence to the Egyptian newspapers.

Upon returning to Athens the two
deacons received a registered letter ?
from Patriarch Nicolaos, dismissing j
them from their service with the
Patriarchate of Alexandria but not
defrocking them. SI

Dallas Seminary Begins [
Huge Expansion Program

DALLAS. Tex.— Dallas Theological | |,
Seminary, among the 10 largest in
the nation with 540 students, is be-
ginning a $3 million dollar expan-
sion which will dramatically alter its
secluded, tree-shaded campus.

Now in its 49th year, the Dallas,
Tex., seminary is a four year non-
denominational institution which
draws students from throughout the
U. S. and Canada. Because it has to
turn away students each year, the
school has embarked on a building
program which will require demol-
ishing a number of present build- ;
ings to make room for updated edu-
cational structures. The main fo-
cus of the new building program
will be a three-story Academic Cen-
ter. EE

Wycliffe Translators
To Enter Soviet Union

WAXHAW, N.C. (RNS) — The
Wycliffe Bible Translators, an evan-
gelical, nondenominational mission
organization, has gained permission
to send a small group of linguists !
to work in the Soviet Union.

Dr. W. Cameron Townsend,
founder of Wycliffe, disclosed the'
development during an interview at i
his home here.

He said that after five years of

THE CHURCH OVERSEAS

PAGE 4 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 1, 1972

effort, the Soviet government is
allowing "several" Wycliffe trans-
lators to work with its own linguists.

A major part of Wycliffe's pro-
gram is the translation of the Bible
into the world's many languages and
dialects. Its aim is evangelism.
Wycliffe is noted for work in isolated
areas. Jungle Aviation and Radio
Services are headquartered in Wax-
haw, 25 miles southeast of Charlotte,
N. C.

Dr. Townsend said that Dr. Esther
Matteson, a Wycliffe linguist who
did research in Russia two years ago,
will be the first staff member of his
organization to enter the Soviet
Union under the new arrangement.

Dr. Matteson was to have left
in October, after completing a study
of conversational Russian in Con-
necticut. She will be followed, prob-
ably in the Spring, by Dr. Doris
Bartholomew. EE

8,415 Elmirans Hear
Ralph Bell In Crusade

ELMIRA, N. Y. — Ralph Bell, as-
sociate evangelist with Billy Gra-
ham, spoke to a total of 8,415 in the
Greater Elmira Crusade for Christ
Sept. 11-17.

The crusade, originally scheduled
for June 21 -July 2, was rescheduled
because of the floods which ravished
much of the eastern U. S. Elmira
churches rescheduled the Crusade
by the black evangelist for Septem-
ber, with prayer that it would in-
still hope and faith in the many who
suffered from the floods.

During the seven-day Crusade,
397 persons committed their lives to
Christ. An additional 140 commit-
ments were recorded during the
Christian Life and Witness classes
conducted by crusade team member
Lowell Jackson.

More than 40 churches partici-
pated in the Crusade, which was held
at the Chemung County Fairgrounds
in Elmira. An "Empty Tomb" on
the fairgrounds provided a special
outreach to high school and college
students. There were crusade team
members and special guests at the
'tomb" to talk to youths about their
problems, nearly 200 of whom at-
tended youth gatherings following
the crusade. EE

THE CHURCH AT HOME

Education Board Makes Major Changes

RICHMOND. Va.— In its fall meet-
ing here, the Board of Christian Edu-
cation, Presbyterian Church US, de-
cided to phase out a part of the
Covenant Life Curriculum, drew up
a list of suggestions for the denomi-
nation's Task Force on Peace aimed
at ending the Vietnam conflict,
adopted a revised statement of policy
on resources the board believes it
is charged to offer the churches, and
took steps to facilitate its own demise
as the new General Executive Board
takes over its functions.

The action on the Covenant Life
Curriculum covered materials here-
tofore offered for use in Grades 7-10.
The board voted to recommend
study books prepared jointly by The
Christian Church (Disciples) and
the American Baptist Convention as
part of their "Perspective Series."

CLC materials for this age bracket
will continue to be made available
as long as there is a demand for
them.

In another major change, Grades
11-12 will be encouraged to "partici-
pate in their congregation's adult
study program."

Materials for the remainder (Nur-
sery through Grade 6) will be re-
vised and updated.

An additional new body of curri-
culum materials, the "Children's
Bible Series," will be prepared in re-
sponse to large demand for a "uni-
form" type series for use with pre-
schoolers. The series will not follow
the uniform outlines developed for
older groups but will embody the
same principle of a common lesson
topic adapted to the age level of the
child.

Adoption of curriculum materials
prepared by other denominations,
and increased emphasis on Joint
Educational Development (JED) ,
a program to increase the spread of
materials cooperatively produced
with five other denominations, led
the board to propose a change in
its basic policy statement.

The change, to be submitted to

the 1973 General Assembly, will rec-
ognize that "it is appropriate for
the Board of Christian Education to
offer the Church curriculum re-
sources that we develop in coopera-
tion with other denominations . . . "

It is the feeling of the board that
with the wide variety of materials
now available, churches across a
"broad theological spectrum" will
have adequate educational literature
regardless of preference.

For Peace

Eleven suggestions for the Task
Force on Peace were put forward
following a viewing of a 17-minute
slide presentation on the war which
alleged that the U.S. has substituted
computerized warfare for personal
combat in Vietnam.

The slide show charged that "U.S.
military aims no longer are to de-
stroy the enemy's war projects, but
rather to maim as many human
beings as possible — with no regard
for whether they are military or
civilian personnel."

Suggestions offered the task force
by board members included: the pos-
sible use of staff personnel in a
traveling show to present the slides
to public groups inside and outside
the churches.

Also, promoting "peace" columns
in Survey and other Church publica-
tions; developing a theological base
for peace; compiling a historical re-
port on the war; proposing guide-
lines to define U.S. responsibility
for Vietnam after all military sup-
port has been withdrawn; promoting
letters to Congressmen; considering
withholding taxes and investments;
sending the President "peace" cards
at Christmas; and working through
presbytery and synod offices to pro-
mote the showing of the slides.

The board approved an allocation
of $4,000 from its 1973 operating
budget for the task force, to "develop
and implement in the PCUS a co-
ordinated program of education and

PAGE 5 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 1, 1972

action for world peace."

In other action the board ap-
proved "in principle" a proposal for
joint operations, as far as feasible,
with the Board of Women's Work
and the Board of National Minis-
tries, during the "phasing out" of
operations as the new General Execu-
tive Board takes over.

Two principal areas were defined
as appropriate for joint operations
among the boards: 1) Assisting in a
smooth transition to the new struc-
ture of synods and presbyteries; and,
2) Developing and implementing the
social action program of the denomi-
nation.

Experimental Models

Upon recommendation of its
Committee on Strategies for Church
Education, the board a year ago ap-
proved the idea of making grants to
local congregations engaged in ex-
perimenting with "innovative mod-
els and structures for communicating
the Christian faith."

At this meeting the board was
told that 15 projects have been
funded, six are on a tentative list
and about a dozen were not ap-
proved.

Among the projects approved and
funded are: SI, 500 to the Faith
church, Dunedin, Fla., where a team
is working to put the new confession
of faith to music; $6,010 to professor
Don Wardlaw of Columbia Semi-
nary, for a program of experimenta-
tion in worship in five PCUS con-
gregations.

Also, SI, 000 to the United
Campus Ministry at Emory Uni-
versity at Atlanta, for consul-
tations on moral and ethical is-
sues in modern medicine; $8,-
000 to the First Church, Durham,
N. C, for "ecumenical Christian
education outside the parish struc-
ture, using non-religious symbols,
yet done by Christian people" among
"children of all races, classes and re-
ligions"; and §7,500 for "a discovery
learning approach functioning for
all ages levels and encompassing all
task orientations within our koino-
nia ... to implement the worship
education-missian goals of" St. An-
drew church, San Antonio, Tex., the
Rev. L. B. (Roy) Horn Jr., pastor.

Among numerous "projects" ap-
proved as the major part of its rou-
tine operations, one developed by
the Department of Family Life drew
special attention: an operation to
develop "networks of people who

support one another in the pursuit
of his/her particular family pat-
tern," and to "support persons as
they seek and grow in family pat-
terns they find appropriate."

To this end, two dialogues will be
held, the first "in the fall of 1972."
These will bring together, under
the auspices of this division of the
board, "a broad spectrum of family
patterns" including homosexual pat-
terns, commune patterns, cohabitants
(living together but unmarried) and
traditional monogamous couples
"who are searching for alternatives."

The board, which must turn over
its functions to the new General Ex-
ecutive Board by the end of 1973,
conducted its business here almost
without controversy. Nine mem-
bers, including two considered to be
"moderates" in church affairs, were
conspicuously absent and this may
have accounted for the lack of dis-
sent. There were 15 members pres-
ent, in addition to staff. 51

Central Miss. Challenges
UPUSA Officer Seating

JACKSON, Miss. — Central Missis-
sippi Presbytery has served notice
that it challenges the seating of any
commissioner to the proposed Synod
C-F (Alabama, Mississippi, Tennes-
see and Kentucky) who has not sub-
scribed to the ordination vows of the
Presbyterian Church US.

The presbytery also has overtured
the General Assembly to take steps
that would lead to "a plan for the
peaceful and orderly separation of
the PCUS into two denominations."

Noting that minister and elder
members of the PCUS are supposed
to subscribe to ordination vows that
are substantially different from
those required by the United Pres-
byterian Church USA; and that
Kentucky and most Missouri presby-
teries are "union" presbyteries with
large numbers of ministers and el-
ders who vote in meetings of PCUS
courts without having taken PCUS
vows, Central Mississippi says it does
not believe UPUSA ministers and
elders should exercise this right.

In addition to its challenge, the
presbytery has asked the General As-
sembly to "make it explicit" that
PCUS ordination vows are manda-
tory for membership in every Church
court of the PCUS.

The resolution calling for a divi-
sion of the Church asks that the
Permanent Judicial Commission of

the General Assembly be instructed
to draw up the necessary plan. SI

Presbyterian Churches
Form Chaplains Council

WASHINGTON, D. C. (RNS) —
A "Presbyterian Council for Chap-
lains and Military Personnel" to rep*
resent four Presbyterian denomina-
tions in all matters regarding their
chaplains and church members serv-
ing in the military forces, has been
formed here.

After 18 months of consultation
and planning, the United Presbyte-
rian Church USA, Presbyterian
Church US, Associate Reformed
Presbyterian Church, and Cumber-
land Presbyterian Church, through
a 21-member planning group, for-
mally established the council at a
meeting here.

"It marks the first time these four
denominations have decided to for-
malize a working arrangement in
any area," according to the Rev.
Robert B. Harriman, executive secre-
tary of the United Presbyterian De-
partment of Chaplains and a coun-
cil member.

The 21 representatives of the four
bodies at the planning meeting also
comprise the council, which will be-
gin its work Jan. 1. Nine of the
members are from the United Pres-
byterians; six are Southern Presby-
terians, and there are three each
from the Associate Reformed and 1
Cumberland Presbyterian Churches.

Officers Elected

The Council elected the following
officers: chairman, the Rev. Alistair
Sinclair, pastor, First Cumberland
Presbyterian Church, Whittier, Calif; ,
vice-chairman, the Rev. Dan C.
Thomas, pastor, Webster Groves
United Presbyterian Church, Web-;
ster Groves, Mo.; secretary, the Rev.
John M. Corwell, pastor, Central
(PCUS) Presbyterian Church, Mo-
bile, Ala., and treasurer, the Rev.
W. C. Lauderdale (Associate Re-
formed) , of Erskine College, Due
West, S. C.

Committees were established to
cover the following areas: executive,
chaplains, service personnel, church
and judicatory relations, and inter-
view work. 15

• • •

Communism's disastrous mistake
is in believing that sin is the result1
of social disorganization. — William
Hordern.

PAGE 6 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 1, 1972

In the practice of "accommodation," morality dwindles away, then disappears —

A Conflict of Moralities

A man who had not been feeling
very well decided to go to his
doctor for a checkup. The doctor
examined him. Then, opening the
window, he said to the patient,
"Now pucker up your lips and stick
your head outside the window."

Looking startled, the patient said,
"Why should I do a thing like that?"
The doctor replied, "To kiss the
. world good-bye."

Sometimes we look at this old
world and conclude that we are not
sick but the world sure is, and may-
be we ought to kiss it good-bye.

Then on the other hand, we Chris-
! tians must never forget the words of
the Lord Jesus in the Sermon on the
Mount: "Ye are the salt of the earth
. . . Ye are the light of the world."
So don't kiss the world good-bye as
sick as it may be! The Lord needs
1 you here. Roll up your sleeves and
do what you can to witness and serve
in His blessed name.

If you have not realized it yet, it
is high time that we all begin to ad-
mit that America does not have one
conscience, it has many. It does not
feiave one morality, it has several
moralities, and our nation is being
reconstructed before our eyes in a
; conflict, a conflict of moralities.

Attrition By Neglect

Our statistical findings tell us in
I overwhelming numbers that we are
a people who believe in God, yet lit-
tle by little, bit by bit, piece by
piece, many of the things that God-
believing people hold precious are
being taken from us. Accommoda-
tion is fast becoming the slogan of

The author is pastor of the First
Baptist Church, Merchantville, N.
J., and general secretary of the
Lord's Day Alliance of New Jersey.

our land.

The politician says, "You do not
have to do this if it is against your
conscience, but you should not pre-
vent others from doing it. Let's all
accommodate ourselves to the cur-
rent temper." So we are not sur-
prised to see that our time-honored
appreciation for life is set aside by
legislatures and upheld by courts to
accommodate a segment of the pop-
ulation that does not want to suffer
any inconvenience.

Hence, the continued outcry for
the repeal of abortion laws, always
based on the slogan that it is up to
every woman to decide what she
shall do with her own body. Such
reasoning, of course, can lead us
down the road that will not only
challenge, but ultimately repeal all
laws of morality.

The Hidden Picture

Ivan Turgenev, the Russian au-
thor of the last century said that
"Learning is not only light, it is
liberty." Alfred North Whitehead,
a distinguished philosopher, adds,
"Freedom is the dominant note of
education at its beginning and at its
end . . . but there is an intermediate
stage of discipline." And it is dis-
cipline that is so lacking today.

Not long ago a book by Gary Al-
len began by calling attention to
what is called a hidden picture with-
in another picture. Particularly in
magazines designed for children, a
picture of a landscape with trees
and flowers and bushes has a cap-
tion which says that concealed in
this very picture is another picture
of a boy who is riding in a cart be-
ing drawn by a donkey.

You try to find the hidden pic-
ture, but usually you have to turn
to another page in the magazine to
discover how the artist has cleverly

SAMUEL A. JEANES

concealed the hidden picture from
you. The whole landscape conceals
the hidden picture.

Good people are having a hard
time today finding the real picture,
the hidden picture of what seems to
be happening in our nation. We
are not only alarmed. We are on
the verge of frustration. With all
of the statistics and frightening
warnings about crime, moral pro-
miscuity and its horrible results, ob-
scenity in print and film, drugs, al-
cohol, narcotics and violence, still
we seem to continue to be dragged
deeper and deeper into a moral
sewer.

Ragged Spirit

In his first inaugural address
President Richard Nixon diagnosed
the problems of America. He said,
"We find ourselves rich in goods but
ragged in spirit . . . reaching for the
moon but falling into raucous dis-
cord on earth. To the crisis of the
spirit, we need the answer of the
spirit. Our great need is to meet
the crisis of the ragged spirit of our
day."

The President has used the power
of his office. He has categorically
rejected the morally bankrupt con-
clusions as well as the major recom-
mendations of the Obscenity Study
Commission. It cost the American
taxpayers two million dollars to be
told that all laws restricting obscene
materials should be repealed and
that even children should be per-
mitted all but pictorial pornogra-
phy. The President has also used
his high office to speak out in de-
fense of the sacredness of life, but
still the pressure mounts.

President Franklin Delano Roose-
velt once said, "In politics, nothing
happens by accident. If it happens
you can bet it was planned that

PAGE 7 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 1, 1972

way." He certainly was in a good
position to know about politics and
many things that have been happen-
ing on the moral scene in America
have been planned that way.

Take for instance the burning is-
sue of teen-age drinking. About a
dozen years ago a brewery put up
billboards in different parts of New
Jersey that pictured a foaming glass
of its product accompanied by just
a few words which said in substance,
"Sorry, but you must be 21 to try
it."

No Drinks for Teens

In the summer of 1962 the gov-
ernors of Connecticut, Pennsylvania
and New Jersey vigorously advocated
that New York State raise its drink-
ing age from 18 to 21. Twenty-six
legislators representing New Jersey,
New York, Connecticut, Vermont,
Massachusetts and Pennsylvania
joined in petitioning the law-
makers of the State of New York to
raise the drinking age to 21. The
New York Congress of Parents and
Teachers with over 600,000 members
urged that the drinking age in their
state be raised to 21.

But there is another picture in the
picture that you may not see too
clearly. All the time the pressure
was on in New York State to raise
the drinking age, the licensed bev-
erage industry was at work. Their
spokesman on this question said,
"We want to put this question into
the proper perspective. We have
no problem here in New York re-
garding the age 18 drinking law."

May I say that the perspective for
the liquor industry is always "prop-
er" when the profits are good, and
the profits on liquor sales to teen-
agers were too good in New York to
relinquish that teen-age market in
1962; the potential profits were too
inviting not to try to reduce the age
in state after state rather than to
raise it.

Million Dollar Study

You, the taxpayer, must not for-
get the 1967 federally funded study
called "Alcohol — a Report to the
Nation," which said, "We must ac-
centuate the positive aspects of
drinking." It recommended that
persons of all ages should be per-
mitted to purchase alcoholic bev-
erages, and it suggested reducing the
drinking age immediately to 18
years.

This report, which cost one mil-
lion dollars of your tax money, said
that the 21 -year age limit for drink-
ing was largely unenforceable. It
recommended that advertisements for
alcoholic beverages have all restric-
tions removed to permit advertising
liquor in a family setting.

The real shocker in the report
was the recommendation that alco-
holic beverages be served to youth
at church sponsored affairs! That
million dollar study commission was
funded by the United States Depart-
ment of Health, Education and Wel-
fare in 1961. Congressmen and Sen-
ators investigated this report, but
nothing really happened.

About this time Robert G. Kaiser,
the Washington Post foreign cor-
respondent in Moscow wrote that
the Russians were passing stiff legis-
lation which would fine even par-
ents who encouraged their young
people to drink. The Soviets have
discovered that 84.4% of the Rus-
sian children under 18 convicted of
crimes started drinking vodka be-
fore they were 16, and most of these
started drinking in their own homes.

Do you see what I mean about

Not Truth but Poetry

Basic Christian doctrines are
an intellectual stumbling block to
some because they do not believe
they should be regarded as literally
true, but rather interpreted as reli-
gious poetry or music. — Carl F.
H. Henry.

the real picture? The picture with-
in the picture, which keeps work-
ing to accomplish its selfish and
deadly ends without any considera-
tion for facts, truth, public opinion?
For right and for the good of the
people?

You have seen what our liquor
"studies" have been accomplishing.
Now state after state relaxes its
drinking laws, thus increasing the
market with more potential custom-
ers who will soon be subject to the
advertising barrage of Madison Ave-
nue techniques telling us that li-
quor has positive aspects and that it
belongs in the family setting.

But if you think we have trouble
now, watch out when the politicians
begin to study narcotics and the
selfish interests in America discover

a way to legalize them and profit by
them. When that happens we had
better all take to the hills for judg-
ment will soon be on the way.

Politicians are already at work on
this, too. Senator Javits of New
York and Senator Hughes of Iowa
have introduced S-3517 which would
decriminalize at the national level
the private use and possession of
marijuana. This bill grew out of
another study — the National Com-
mission on Marijuana and Drug
Abuse, of which both Senators are
members.

On June 28th Senator Javits
placed in the Congressional Record
the testimony of the former Deputy
Director of the Federal Bureau of
Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs,
John Finlator, who supports S-3517.

He says that there is "such a thing
as the recreational use of drugs" and
people use them because they are
"enjoyable." He lists these drugs
that are being used as cigarettes, al-
cohol and marijuana, claiming that
their potential for harm is limited.

Mr. Finlator also says, "Yet both
of these drugs (cigarettes and alco-
hol) have far more proven harm-
ful effects than marijuana," adding,
"The rhetoric and emotion sur-
rounding the marijuana debate make
significant progress in other areas an
impossibility for both law enforce-
ment and educational efforts."

Can't you see the hidden picture?
Can't you envision national, state,
regional and local agencies set up to
sell marijuana for "recreational"
purposes because it is relaxing and
enjoyable? Imagine the tax poten-
tial, the political gravy trains and
the immense profits that could be
realized in convincing Americans
that marijuana belongs.

'Stop Gagging!'

I began by saying that America
does not have one conscience, it has
many. It does not have one mo-
rality it has several moralities, and
our nation is being reconstructed on
a conflict of moralities and "ac-
commodation" has become our slo-
gan, and all the time the hidden
picture is taking over the body pol-
itic.

The distinguished Bishop John
Wesley Lord of the Washington
District of Columbia Area of the
United Methodist Church in stir-:
ring words called for the creation of
a reawakened conscience in our na-

PAGE 8 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 1, 1972

tion. To do this, he said, "we must
reenter a heroic period in relation
to the use of alcoholic beverages.

"We must stop gagging at the
words 'total abstinence' and insist
that on our highways as in our
homes this is the only safe and sure
course of conduct." He added that
"by our moderate use of alcohol we
have caused the innocent to suffer,
we have sabotaged human values

and exploited and corrupted our
youth. The social acceptance of al-
cohol in the United States society is
mute witness to a deterioration in
the moral fiber of our nation.

"Let us not be afraid to give of-
fense," the bishop said, "but once
again let us serve as a conscience to
our people by our exemplary living
and plain speaking. The use of bev-
erage alcohol in our homes as on

our highways is an evil that must
be fought without compromise."

Well, the state will not be the
conscience of the nation. You can't
trust the politicians to do it. You
can't depend on the educators either.

We Christians are the keepers of
the nation's conscience. We must
keep the fountain of morality. If
we fail, the body politic becomes
poisoned and many will die. EE

Covenant theology is an integral and essential part of our system of doctrine-

Chapter II: God and His People

iVJ ow to Abraham and his seed
I J. ^1 were the promises made. He
| saith not, And to seeds, as of many;
I but as of one, And to thy seed,

■ which is Christ" (Gal. 3:16) .

This text comes in a setting in
1 which the divine philosophy of his-
I tory is given us. We are made to

■ understand how God dealt with
It mankind in the Old Testament age
I and how in this new and Christian
I era God is dealing with mankind in
I order to gain a people who will be-
long to Him. The second chapter

I in the proposed new confession of
l> faith pursues that general line of
approach.
The method used in Chapter II is
r to set forth in each of the six short
v sections a brief paragraph dealing
I' with some phase of sacred history.
I There follows a paragraph offering
i the contemporary parallel or appli-
v cation.

The heading of Section 1 is: "The
I human race rejected God from the

This is the second in a series of
articles examining the proposed
new confession of faith. Dr. Strong
is the pastor of the Trinity Presby-
terian Church, Montgomery, Ala.

start." This idea is enlarged by the
sentences, "Man and woman refused
to trust and obey Him. They sought
to be their own god." Obviously,
this is the confession's way of deal-
ing with the fall of man. It is a
faulty way.

The Bible shows us that man at
the start knew God and walked and
talked with God. It is common to
call this man's state of innocence.
He was innocent of sin. He was in-
nocent of the spirit of rebellion. He
was good. We do not know how
long this period lasted. But cer-
tainly it endured into the second
week of earth's history. Then came
the tempter, the seduction of Eve,
the compliance of Adam. The fall
was now a part of human history.

Language Raises Doubts

The language of the proposed
new confession raises a suspicion. Do
we see here the influence of evolu-
tionistic thinking? Is man essential-
ly viewed as an emergent brute who
gradually struggled upward to the
knowledge of God? Was it his brute-
ness that made him rebellious? Or
perhaps his finiteness?

If this suspicion is contradicted

ROBERT STRONG

by the immediately following sen-
tence: "They became estranged
from their true humanity, alienated
from each other and from the nat-
ural world," we find the language
a peculiar way of speaking of the
penalty of God imposed after
Adam's fall. The verb "estranged"
is inept. By the fall man lost his
glorious original condition of bear-
ing in its fullness the image of God.
That image is now a marred like-
ness.

Neither is it what Scripture
means, in speaking of the curse
which God inflicted on creation af-
ter the fall of man, to say that man
had been "alienated . . . from the
natural world." The creation ordi-
nance still holds that man is to
subdue and use the natural world
as steward of it under God.

Are we hearing an echo of the
feminine liberation movement when
we find the new confession speaking
of the "hostile" barriers that sepa-
rate men from women?

Our heaviest criticism must be di-
rected at the third section whose
heading is, "God chose one people
for the sake of all peoples." The
first expanding sentence under this
heading reveals the difficulty: "He

PAGE 9 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 1, 1972

called Abraham and his descendants
that He might bless all nations
through them." How was it possible
for the ad interim committee to
leave out of its development of this
idea the clear teaching of Galatians
3?

Yes, God promised to Abraham to
multiply his seed and make it like
the stars of heaven. There is no
question that Genesis uses the word
"seed" in the sense of physical de-
scendants. But Paul shows that
there was also another meaning. It
is the meaning brought out in our
text. Paul's argument is that God's
covenant with Abraham was an un-
folding of the covenant of grace.
The real seed of Abraham is Christ.

Seed of Abraham

Paul makes much of the singular
number of the word in the promise
given in Genesis: "And in thy seed
shall all the nations of the earth be
blessed" (22:18). Not Abraham's
descendants, but Abraham's great
descendant was the source of bless-
ing to the nations. Christ the Sav-
iour not just of Jews but of Gentiles
also, the Gospel not just for Jews
but for the world, men out of every
nation who become believers in Je-
sus — these are the ideas which give
us the meaning of the promise to
Abraham.

Christians are in Christ, Christ is
the seed of Abraham. Therefore,
Christians are the seed of Abraham,
his spiritual seed. Theirs is the
blessing of Abraham. They are saved
under the covenant God made with
Abraham. This is Paul's thinking
in Galatians. This is New Testa-
ment teaching. This is the meaning
of the choosing of Abraham. Not to
see this and not to include this in
their confession leaves the commit-
tee under the dreadful indictment
of lacking spiritual and theological
grasp.

The application in Section 3 lacks
pointedness: "We are such a peo-
ple, chosen, not for our own sake,
but as servants of God for the sake
of the world." The allusion seems
to be to II Corinthians 4:5, which it
would have been more effective for
the committee to quote: "For we
preach not ourselves, but Christ Je-
sus the Lord; and ourselves your ser-
vants for Jesus' sake."

The fourth section of Chapter II
has to do with the apostasy of Israel.
It is charged that the Jews "chose
gods they could manage rather than

the living God." Israel's religious
decline did not come because they
saw in the agricultural deities of
Canaan the possibility of manipu-
lating higher powers. Ingratitude
to Jehovah and the innate tendency
of the fallen human heart to wor-
ship the thing which is seen rather
than the invisible God explained
their idolatry.

Unfairly Charged?

The paragraph of application ac-
cuses us Southern Presbyterians of
idolatry and injustice. There is a
great deal wrong with our Southern
Presbyterians indeed. It is giving us
too much credit to say that we are
able to read in "the upheavals of
our time . . . God's judgment" up-
on us.

Is the indictment fair, moreover,
that we Southern Presbyterians have
sought to "achieve security no mat-
ter what it costs others"? Our benev-
olence program is far from what it
ought to be, but stewardship has not
been a neglected emphasis among us
nor the practice of it altogether a
failure.

A peculiar inclusion appears in
Section 5: "We, too, can be honest
about our doubts." The New Tes-
tament does not speak with approval
of doubting. It rather speaks in
terms of "many infallible proofs,"
"great assurance of faith," "things
that are most surely believed among
us," "a more sure word of proph-
ecy," "we know that the Son of God
is come." A confession of faith is
an expression of conviction; it
should not hint that we may not be
so sure after all about what we say
we believe.

Just ten years ago the General As-
sembly adopted "A Brief Statement
of Belief," prepared by a commit-
tee headed by Dr. Charles L. King.
See how this document compares
with that of the present ad interim
committee:

Speak Out!

The Church has not been brought
to its present state by liberal leader-
ship, but by conservative leadership
which abdicated, by good men who
deplored the trends but who never
managed the courage to do what
needed to be done. — Unknown.

"Man can distinguish between
right and wrong, and is morally re-
sponsible for his own actions. He
reflects the image of God insofar as
he lives in obedience to the will of
God. A unique creature standing
both within nature and above it, he
is placed by God in authority over
the world.

"It is, therefore, his responsibility
to use all things for the glory of God.
Although made in the image of God,
man has fallen; and we, like all man-
kind before us, sin in our refusal to
accept God as sovereign. We rebel
against the will of God by arrogance
and by despair. We thrust God from
the center of life, rejecting divine .
control both of human life and the
universe. From this perversity arises
every specific sin, whether of negli-
gence, perfunctory, or outright vio- 1
lation of the will of God.

"Sin permeates and corrupts ouri
entire being and burdens us more
and more with fear, hostility, guilt,
and misery. Sin operates not only
within individuals but also within
society as a deceptive and oppressive
power, so that even men of good
will are unconsciously and unwill-
ingly involved in the sins of society.
Man cannot destroy the tyranny of
sin in himself or in his world; his
only hope is to be delivered from it
by God."

What a fine statement, a true re-
flection of the Westminster Confes-
sion. By the way, the 1969 General
Assembly might have done well
simply to reiterate the Brief State-
ment Of Belief.

Our Constitution

The Brief Statement, is of course,
not a part of the constitution of our
Church in that it is only an Assem-
bly deliverance, never submitted to
the presbyteries for ratification. Let
us now look at the constitution it-
self to remind ourselves how the
Westminster Confession handles the
subject with which we are dealing.

And, again by the way, the Pres-
byterian household that does not
have its own copy of the Westmin-:
ster Standards is impoverished. This|
remarkable and priceless work of
Bible study should be in everyone's
personal library. Why not order a M
copy from the Presbyterian Journalm
bookstore, Weaverville, N. C?

Look now to the Westminster!
Confession: "After God had made
all other creatures, He created man,
male and female, with reasonable
and immortal souls, endued with

PAGE 10 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 1, 1972

knowledge, righteousness, and true
'holiness after His own image, hav-
ing the law of God written in their
hearts, and yet under a possibility
of transgression . . ." (IV. 2) . Any-
one can understand this. And it is
surely important to start the human
story correctly and Biblically.

Westminster's Chapter IV is de-
voted to the fall of man. Six clear
sentences set before us the tempta-
tion, the fall, men's resultant cor-
jruption, the penalty of death for
sin, the depravity of the race. Do
!we not all see that there is no Chris-
tian theology without a clear state-
ment of the reason why man is the
way he is and of the miserable estate
in which he is found due to sin?
The Westminster Confession does
■not make the mistake of the pro-
t posed new confession of beginning
■the story of God's work of reconcilia-
I tion with Abraham. God did not
' enter into covenant first with Abra-
iham. Ours is a covenant theology.
i We are not instructed, intelligent
i Presbyterians unless we know this.
I Chapter VII of the Westminster
I Confession is an incomparable pre-
. sentation of God's first covenant with
I: man, the covenant of works.

I Covenant Concept
No one can understand the Bible
. apart from the covenant concept.
I Covenant is God's voluntary con-
i descension in which He bends low

■ to enter into the arrangement by
( which He will have dealings with

man. In the covenant of works He
( promised Adam life on condition
1 of perfect obedience and warned
i him that disobedience would bring
1 death. The prophet Hosea uses the

■ very word "covenant" concerning
j this divine announcement.

Paul makes the covenant with
i : Adam an integral part of his theolog-
ical system: "By one man sin
\, entered into the world, and death

■ by sin; and so death passed upon all
, men, for that all have sinned"
I (Rom. 5:12). He again sets forth

■ the representative character of
{.Adam: "For since by man came
i i death by man came also the resur-
Irection of the dead. For as in Adam
|j all die, even so all that are in Christ
» shall be made alive" (I Cor. 15:21-

■ 22).

I; Paul's argument is, or should be,
l| entirely familiar. Adam was the
I representative man. He was the
; agent of his whole natural pos-
terity. He stood trial for us

all. His failure was our failure,
as the act of an agent is the act
of those for whom he speaks or
serves. The couplet in McGuffey's
Reader said it simply and correctly:
"In Adam's fall we sinned all."

The Westminster Confession states
it like this: "The first covenant
made with man was a covenant of
works, wherein life was promised to
Adam, and in him to his posterity,
upon condition of perfect and per-
sonal obedience. Man, by his fall,
having made himself incapable of
life by that covenant, the Lord was
pleased to make a second, commonly
called the covenant of grace, where-
in He freely offered unto sinners life
and salvation by Jesus Christ, re-
quiring of them faith in Him that
they may be saved."

Veiled Promise

One of the proof texts cited is
Genesis 3:15: "And I will put en-
mity between thee and the woman,
and between thy seed and her seed;
it shall bruise thy head, and thou
shalt bruise his heel." God's judg-
ment upon the serpent was a veiled
promise of Christ.

Paul makes this the necessary in-
terpretation by his allusive word in
Romans 16:20: "The God of peace
shall bruise Satan under your feet
shortly." Satan used the serpent.
Victory over the serpent by Christ
and His people is predicted in the
Genesis promise. The fall had no
sooner occurred than God came in
grace to promise recovery. The
covenant of works had given place
to the covenant of grace.

Adam brought us into ruin.
Christ the seed of the woman would
gain victory. Paul said, "For if
through the offense of one many be
dead, much more the grace of God,
and the gift by grace, which is by
one man, Jesus Christ, hath abound-
ed unto many" (Rom. 5:15).

The first covenant was with
Adam. He broke it. The second
covenant, the covenant of grace, was
made through Christ. He fulfilled
the conditions. His life was with-
out flaw, and His death paid the
penalty of the sins of all His people.
Christ is the new agent, the great
final representative. He is the seed
of the woman. He is the seed of
Abraham. He gains salvation for
His people.

This is the good news that is be-
ing spread abroad. Jew and Gentile
have heard it. A company that no

man can number have received it.
After this manner should the story
of the people of God be told.

A Great Danger

Church courts may be uncertain
about these Biblical teachings. Un-
der the influence of certain depart-
ments of modern thought, church-
men may temporize on covenant
theology, but that theology is an in-
tegral and essential part of our sys-
tem of doctrine. A great danger in-
volved in the proposed new confes-
sion of faith is that it will, if adopt-
ed, give aid and comfort to those
who are not willing or are not con-
scientiously able to embrace the con-
struction of history and doctrine
found in Genesis 3, Romans 5, I
Corinthians 15.

With all our hearts we wish that
they would free themselves from the
evolutionary incubus, which is, in
our judgment, their basic intellec-
tual difficulty. Let them become fa-
miliar with the increasing volume
of materials that disclose the fallacy
of evolutionism. Let them come to
confidence in God's Word written.
May they reach the place where they
will no longer cavil about the West-
minster Confession's covenant theol-
ogy-

May they come to embrace whole-
heartedly and without apology the
system of doctrine expounded in
the Westminster Confession of Faith.
Let them brush aside such smear
terms as "confessional fundamen-
talism" and rejoice unabashedly in
the -full Biblical faithfulness of the
Westminster Confession.

It is a great thing to have life. It
is the greatest thing of all to have
been brought into spiritual life.
Life's highest connection is mem-
bership in the people of God. How
wonderful to have God's name upon
us, inscribed in our hearts by the
regenerating Holy Spirit, testified
openly in our baptism. We who are
Christ's belong to God. We have God
at work in our lives. God is for us —
who then can be against us? We are
to dwell in God's house forever.

So we love our connection with
the Church. We delight to take part
in the work of the Church. We wor-
ship. We tithe. We witness. We
help those in trouble and need. We
study the Bible. We pray without
ceasing. We seek to bring glory to
God. How thankful and glad we
are to be among the people of
God! IB

PAGE 11 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 1, 1972

EDITORIALS

Taking Theology Seriously

As we explained last week, in con-
nection with Dr. Strong's series of
articles on the proposed new con-
fession of faith (see p. 9, this issue) ,
our decision to take this document
seriously represents a change of
mind.

When the so-called confession
first appeared, our first reaction was
one of incredulity: Surely they can't
be serious!

At the time, with admitted haste,
we jumped to the conclusion that
the less said about this travesty the
better. Since then we have discov-
ered we were mistaken. People not
only took the document seriously,
they began asking for help in com-
paring it with Christian affirma-
tions. Study classes were organized
to examine it in detail. Preachers
started devoting sermons to it. Cor-
respondents chided us for failing to
give it major attention.

So we've changed our mind, as Dr.
Strong's series will attest.

At the same time, we continue to
be plagued with the nagging ques-
tion: Must Christians consider them-

Not long ago we read a beautiful
rendition of the story of the Samari-
tan woman at the well, to whom the
Lord Jesus openly disclosed that He
was the Messiah. There was one
flaw. The writer evidently felt that
he must justify our Lord's interest
in this particular woman in some
way. So he said:

"She was an unknown woman.
She had lived a sinful life. She was
of a different race from the Jews.
She was not seeking Jesus. Yet He
revealed Himself to her as perhaps
unto no other in all of His earthly
ministry. Why? Because in her Je-
sus recognized the capacity for teach-
ableness, for repentance, for simple
faith, and for witness bearing. What
does He see in you?"

It is easy for us to slip into the
habit of thinking in terms of some
reason — some merit — some virtue
in us or in others to explain why
God should take notice of us. The

selves obligated to take seriously ev-
erything spoken or written under
the guise of the name, "Christian"?
If so, the mind boggles at the
amount of trash that would have to
be elevated to the level of respecta-
bility.

What about that parody of the
Gospel published by Focus and par-
tially reproduced in the Sept. 13
Journal. Because this appeared in
a paper sponsored by the Church,
must we organize classes to study it?

Where do you draw the line?

We thought of that this very week
as the latest Austin Seminary Bul-
letin arrived in the mail. In it was
an article on the Gospel in which
a professor of preaching (preach-
ing, mind you) said things like this:

"What is the Gospel? My initial
response to the question is, of course,
that the Gospel cannot be defined.
As the old French phrase about God
insisted, A God defined is a God
lost,' so it is helpful to say about
the Gospel that a Gospel de-
fined is a Gospel lost. For it is not
a set of propositions, or even truths,

thought of election by pure grace,
without any merit on our part, is
well-nigh beyond belief.

Here, for instance, the commen-
tator has tried to avoid the appear-
ance of absurdity by giving the Lord
Jesus a reason for admitting the
woman to such a privilege as to
learn that He was the Messiah. It
seems hardly reasonable that there
should have been no reason for her
to have been chosen above others.

But grace does not need a reason.
In fact if there is a reason then it
is no longer of pure grace. We can-
not look for any special virtue in a
Rahab of Jericho, a Mary of Mag-
dala, a woman of Samaria, a Jane
of Anytown — in fact we dare not
look for merit lest the grace of God
be made of none effect.

The mystery of the Gospel is pre-
cisely the Good News that God has
had mercy on us when there was no
reason in us. 33

about God, life, the Church, etc.
The Gospel can never be contained
adequately in confessional state-
ments or ecclesiastical affirmations.
The Gospel is not to be identified
exclusively with what we say about
God or think about God or His ac-
tions." (There was much more, of
course, and one day, if we have(
time, we may say more.)

Does the fact that a piece of fool-
ishness like that came from a PCUS
seminary mean that it has to be
studied seriously?

What would the uneducated sav-
age who has just heard the Gospel
and received Christ say to the pro-
fessor's contention that you cannot
define the Gospel? What would the
Apostle Paul, who specifically
spelled out a definition of the Gos-
pel again and again, say to the claim
that the Gospel is indefinable?

What do you suppose the Lord Je-
sus thinks of one who claims to be
His spokesman, in obedience to His
command to preach His Gospel, who
says his assignment is not what we.
can say about God or His actions? (Or
who goes on to say that the Gospel
is not from the past, it is contempo-
rary and consequently the Bible may ;
not necessarily be a primary source
of it?)

Theology, we believe, must be
taken seriously. But some things the
Christian is better off not getting <
too close to. Even the first Psalm
reminds that the blessed person is
the one who "walks not in the coun-
sel of the ungodly, nor stands in the
way of sinners, nor sits in the seati
of the scornful."

Familiarity sometimes breeds ap-
proval, ffl

Must We Be Seamy?

One of the chief characteristics of
our day is the obsession with "r»:j
alism." It is considered absolutely
essential to "tell it like it is" which,
in translation means, eliminate from
one's vocabulary and from practice
whatever was once associated with;
modesty, privacy, constraint, reserve
— above all, with innocence.

In some circles, the unforgivable;
sin is to withhold from a young per-
son contact with any experience he
(or she) may have later in life. ThuS)
a social science teacher in Cranston,
R. I., brought a prostitute to class?
one day. The chaplain of Florida:
Presbyterian College sent his reli-
gion classes to review "Dear John,"

Not For Any Merit Of Ours

PAGE 12 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 1, 1972

ji Swedish pornographic film. And
i professor at the University of
Morth Carolina assigned to his class
lin essay on "How To Seduce a
Girl."

1 Church youth programs include
iitark glimpses of "life as it is" via
['adult" books and films. Four let-
ter words are introduced into social
(conversation as "belonging to real
life." Church classes on sex include
[rank portrayal (with photographs)
hi all the imaginable sexual perver-
sions, as well as the basic "facts of
file."

Anyone who struggles to preserve
jan ounce or two of modesty is con-
sidered "hopelessly old-fashioned."
[To insist that some things belong
ito the privacy of the bathroom or
■the bedroom is to be labeled a
[("prude." Traditional standards of
[public or community decency are
^condemned as "hypocritical."

We believe that many of those
[taking the modern approach to
|"frank" subjects do so out of a sin-
j'cere conviction that it is helpful. Af-
Iter all, if the private morals of a
^community do not match the public
standards of decency, shouldn't that
,'be told? And if everyone does it,
won't that establish a new standard
of decency?

No it won't. And there is the fal-
lacy in the "frank" approach to life.
^People sin, but that doesn't make
ijsin the norm for mankind. Evil
stalks the land, but that does not
make evil the standard of human be-
havior. Lust leads to perversion,
(but that does not excuse perversion.

What is does not determine what
ought to be, nor does a thorough
course in what is help a community,
a nation, or an individual person
establish what ought to be for him-
I self or for others.

The basic assumption that one
cannot avoid evil without knowing
everything about it; that one cannot
avoid alcoholism without intimate
acquaintance with the life of an al-
coholic, or escape drug addiction
without a total awareness of the hell-
ish life of an addict, won't hold wa-
iter. One does not have to view
"Dear John" in order to live a moral
life, any more than one has to live
among thieves to learn honesty.

The Bible enunciates a principle
which we who call ourselves Chris-
tians ignore or deny at our peril. It
says, "Whatsoever things are pure,
whatsoever things are lovely, what-
< soever things are of good report . . .
think on these things." IS

THE LAYMAN AND HIS CHURCH

Gutting the Gordian Knot

The complexities of our day help
to tighten the Gordian knot of re-
tirement problems which harass a
considerable number of church
members. Sometimes the older peo-
ple are neglected, sometimes they are
accorded the ultimate insult of be-
ing ignored altogether.

For instance, they are perhaps
misunderstood by idealistic young
people. This flamboyant genera-
tion, so shrewd, so sophisticated, so
in love with life (halfway through
college) , that they are totally and
apathetically incapable of compre-
hending half a century. Half a cen-
tury? That's when old people re-
tire, isn't it?

Well, the young people say, when
we finish college and find super-
duper jobs (they are becoming
scarcer) with lavish retirement
benefits in a space-computerized age
(now challenging the nation's best
minds) , the Gordian knot will be
cut (Alexander the Great's solu-
tion) , not untied.

The hard working middle group
in the church is too busy paying
for homes, automobiles, appliances
and insurance, too preoccupied with
their children, to help untie the
knots.

The realistically tough old fellows
who made it through the depression
and finally came up out of its wreck-
age and disaster realize now that un-
less they are able, soon after retire-
ment, to establish a new life pattern
of personal relationships, they will
find themselves living in a per-
ceptibly shrinking world.

What are the retirees going to do?
Yesterday they were Somebodies
with prestige. Today they are mere-
ly old, with problems which both
amuse and trouble.

What can the church do to ex-
ploit the built-in devotion, maturity,
experience, work habits and spirit-
ual discernment of retired people?
The Lord needs people too much to
let these wither on the vine.

Presbyterian elder Wilbert Ed-
wards, Tyler, Tex., brings this
week's thoughts of a layman.

My own Fifth Street Church has
an answer. Led by an enterprising
and zealous pastor with a shepherd
heart, it furnishes each new member
a packet of helpful educational and
inspirational orientation material,
together with a church directory
and a questionnaire. The ques-
tionnaire offers opportunities for ex-
pressing a desire to participate in
any of the listed activities and min-
istries, including visitation and evan-
gelism.

Also, the church has found en-
thusiastic response to scheduled
"work days" which provide oppor-
tunities for every type of skill need-
ed for mowing lawns, cleaning
premises, exterior and interior
painting, including cleaning and re-
furbishing. This keeps members
proud and visitors saying, "I like
this church."

The church has added interest
and value to its program with the
challenge to "Read the Bible
Through in 72," guided and in-
spired by daily reading leaflets. The
response has been encouraging. The
church has just been through a
greatly successful, evangelical, pro-
fessionally led "lay renewal" effort.
On their own initiative, many re-
tirees found ingenious ways to use
at least a part of their newly found
freedom to participate.

Bridging a 45-year educational
gap after high school, I attended
college part-time for 2 Ma years, a
mind enriching and vision-stretching
experience.

Much reading and study (a lux-
ury in retirement) , and mulled-over
observations, have taught me that
big fish are going to flounder in
shallow water! Therefore, a salvage
operation is "right on" for retirees.

The Lord is intensely interested
in lonely, floundering retired peo-
ple. He can do amazing things for
them and with them, especially in
the fields of visitation evangelism.
Some of us have tried it. He can
also use them as wise counselors (II
Chron. 10:7).

"A new broom sweeps well, but
an old broom is best for the
corners." Ruling elders — which? ffl

PAGE 13 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 1, 1972

SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON

For November 19, 1972

The Threat of World Calamity

Rev. Jack B. Scott

INTRODUCTION: The threat
of world calamity is very real in our
day. Probably at no time in history
has so much of the world believed
that world destruction was possible.
Books, movies and TV shows have
been produced with this as the basic
theme. The word "brinkmanship"
has been coined to convey the con-
cept of going as close to war as pos-
sible but stopping short of all-out
war.

War is the great fear. It is as-
sumed that the world cannot sur-
vive a third world war and we are
unwilling to call military conflicts
war any longer. The Korean con-
flict was not a "war" and Vietnam
is not now called a "war." We do
not wish to say the word. War is
too horrible a concept even to think
of for most people.

As a boy, I recall getting cards in
penny candy which had as their
theme "Horrors of War." They dis-
played in bloody detail pictures of
war horrors taken from the then
current wars in China and in Spain.
We think of Hiroshima and Naga-
saki and we find the horror of these
scenes too great to contemplate.
Daily on our TV screens we see war
being acted out by real people kill-
ing and dying in Vietnam.

One cannot deny the horror of
war but it is no new thing. If it is
horrible for a hundred thousand
people to be killed by a single atom-
ic bomb, it is also horrible for one
man to be speared through the stom-
ach by his enemy in war. If you
think the horrors of war are new,
read Homer's Iliad written several
hundred years before the time of
Christ. It gives vivid details of bat-
tles when the only weapons were
swords and spears. War is horrible.
The question is this: Is it now neces-
sary?

I. THE PACIFIST'S ANSWER.
The Scriptures selected by the com-
mittee which plans this series are in-
teresting. With each Scripture, we
have also the interpretation given
for use with each one.

II Kings 14:8-14 tells of a con-

t

Background Scripture: II Kings
14:8-14; Psalm 33:13-17; Isaiah
31; Jeremiah 21, 27; II Peter
3:8-13

Key Verses: Psalm 33:13-17; Isaiah
31:1-3; Jeremiah 21:8-10

Devotional Reading: Jeremiah 32:
16-25

Memory Selection: II Corinthians
4:18

frontation in war between Amaziah
king of Judah, and Jehoash king of
Israel. Amaziah had conquered
Edom and felt ready to take on Is-
rael. He challenged Jehoash, who
was the stronger, to war. Jehoash
tried to talk Amaziah out of war,
but Amaziah was determined to go
to battle. In the end Jehoash won,
and Amaziah lost much possessions.
The lesson as suggested is: "Extreme
militarism is self-defeating."

Psalm 33:13-17, which is but a
segment of the whole psalm, tells us
that kings are not saved from defeat
by the number of armaments they
have. The conclusion from this pas-
sage as interpreted in the lesson
book is: "Ultimately national se-
curity does not rest in the might of
armaments."

Isaiah 31:1-3 says that it is vain
for Israel to seek alliances with
Egypt, for Egypt cannot help Israel
in the time of destruction.

Jeremiah 21:8-10, which is in the
context of an inquiry from Zedekiah
to Jeremiah, tells Israel that if she
surrenders to Babylon she will sur-
vive, but if she fights against the
Babylonians then she will die. Bab-
ylon will surely win. The conclu-
sion drawn from this by the lesson
designers is that "there are times
when resistance to superior military
power is futile."

I have given these passages and
the interpretation suggested by those
who selected them, because this well
illustrates the erroneous conclusion
one can come to in picking a passage
here and there from Scripture with-
out dealing with the proper context

The International Sunday School Lesson Outlines
are copyrighted 1972 by the Committee on the
Uniform Series of the National Council of Churches
of Christ.

'&

and the overall message.

Apparently the passages and their'
suggested interpretation are designed
to answer several burning questions
of today: Is war justified? Isn't it
better to surrender than to go to*
war? Isn't it better to be Red than
dead?

The point of the II Kings 141
passage is not that extreme milita
rism is self-defeating, though that
may be true. The point is that
Amaziah became overconfident in
one victory and, without God's lead
or without trust in God, supposed
that he could defeat his greater en-
emy.

The point of Psalm 33 and Isaiah
31 is not that nations should never
arm themselves. It is that no vic-
tory comes except by the will of
God. Ultimately God disposes and
gives the victory to whom He will
Therefore, Israel must trust not in
weapons or in men but ultimately
in God.

The point of Jeremiah 21 is not
that it is wise to surrender when
faced with superior military power,
Judah had disobeyed God time after
time until God determined to give
the people into the hands of Bab-
ylon as a punishment.

Jeremiah was the prophet whom
God called to make this message
known to Israel. It was no easy
message, and Jeremiah was accused
in his day of being a traitor. The
message pertained to a particular
people in a particular time: God's
people when they had continued to
disobey Him. It does not teach sur-
render as a general expression of
God's will for His people. By no
means.

It certainly does not teach that a
nation should surrender when faced
with superior forces. It teaches that
when God's people disobey Him,
they will be punished, and they can-
not escape the punishment.

The pacifist answer to the horror
of war is that surrender is better
than war, that defeat and subjuga-
tion are better than death. They
can and do draw arguments from
Scripture, as we have seen, but only

PAGE 14 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 1, 1972

>y twisting the meaning and taking
he passage out of context.

II. THE MILITARIST AN-
SWER. By the same token, some
jvho seem to thrive on war go to
jicripture to support their justifica-
tion for wars. Militarists have of-
len drawn from the example of Old
[restament wars. Annihilation of
peoples has been justified because
[iod ordered Joshua to annihilate
She Canaanites.

I David, who fought almost contin-
lally in his reign, is cited by some
lis an example of what every leader
|)f a nation ought to do.
f God did indeed tell His people
never to negotiate with the enemy,
[rle did tell them to utterly destroy
lihose given into their hands, but
lihey were God's people in the an-
cient world, a world which was full
!)f corruption and was hostile to the
people of God.

[ The people were few in numbers
Hind had to trust in God. As long
lis they did, God gave them numer-
ous victories. But to argue from
[his that America should never ne-
gotiate or make pacts is to twist
Scripture. America is never the
phurch. It is a nation. God's will
Cor Old Testament Israel cannot be
Laid to be His will for America.

From God's word to Israel, the
Church today can learn much of
God's will for our conduct, for when
<God spoke to Israel He spoke pri-
marily not to a nation, but to the
'people of God. Failure to make
phis distinction between Israel as the
people of God and the nation of
America leads to some very er-
oneous interpretations of the Old
Testament.

' In conclusion we can say that
(neither the pacifist with his in-
sistence that Scripture teaches sur-
render, nor the militarist with his
'insistence that Scripture teaches
that we are to war, is correct. Still
we must answer our question: What
Ks the Scriptural view of war?

III. THE BIBLICAL VIEW OF
WAR AND WORLD CALAMITY.
1 Its cause- Certainly the Bible
views war as horrible. The first
!/var mentioned in Scripture tells of
la group of nations which warred
against Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen.
|!4) . It describes in detail how the
battle was fought, and how those re-
treating in battle were caught in the
tslimepits and slain. Even this brief
description is both gory and hor-

rible.

Later we are told of Israel's wars
under Moses, Joshua and the judges,
and of David's wars. In the Bibli-
cal account, some bloody scenes are
portrayed: Exodus 14, Numbers 31,
Joshua 6, Judges 3:15, 4:17, 16:
28.

A. Cause. Scripture views the
origin and cause of wars as the sin
in the hearts of men. God did not
create men as warriors against one
another. God made man at peace
with Him, and Adam and Eve at
peace with one another.

When man sinned however, all of
this changed. Immediately enmity
divided men. God's children would
be at enmity with Satan and his
children. Satan would be at enmity
with God and His children. Among
all men, sin would cause alienation.
Thus all history is primarily a rec-
ord of men's hostilities to one an-
other. The ancient and modern his-
tories of men have one thing in com-
mon — they are a record of wars of
men and of nations.

Jesus said that in man's history
there shall be wars and rumors of
wars (Matt. 24:6) . This, He said,
must come to pass. It is character-
istic of man's history. All of my life
I have heard of wars or rumors of
wars. My earliest recollections are
of the Chinese-Japanese wars and
the Spanish civil wars, the Mussoli-
ni-Ethiopian wars and then the be-
ginnings of Hitler's wars. World War
II, the Korean conflict and the pres-
ent battle in Vietnam round out my
44 years of history. I am sure each
of you could duplicate my experi-
ence.

This enmity caused by sin in men's
hearts, due to man's rebellion
against God, is the basic cause of
man's continuing conflicts with
God and with one another.

We have been talking here pri-
marily of war, but Scripture speaks
of a calamity greater than war. The
title of today's lesson "The Threat
of World Calamity" has suggested
to some a focus on war as man's
greatest threat. Thus the arguments
for an end to war and even the hint
of other solutions to men's differ-
ences, such as arbitration or even
surrender, is given.

The point of this lesson shall be
that wars and rumors of wars are
part of all man's history. Because
of sin, they are inevitable. But wars
are not man's greatest threat. The
Bible shows that because of sin
man's greatest threat is really judg-

ment under God.

In the day man sins, he is under
the judgment of death (Gen. 2:17).
From the time of the sin recorded
in Genesis 3 to the end of man's his-
tory, total judgment is ever the great
threat of world calamity. Events
such as the flood, Sodom and Go-
morrah, the destruction of Canaan,
the fall of Nineveh and Babylon,
and the fall of Rome are but Bibli-
cal reminders of the great and final
judgment of God on all nations and
on all sinners. This final judgment
is the real calamity which all men
must face and realize.

Jesus Himself vividly portrayed
this judgment to come in the Mat-
thew 24 passage referred to above.
The book of Revelation goes on to
speak of it frequently in chapters
18 and 20.

The New Testament picture in
harmony with the Old Testament
shows that all men are ever under
the threat of world conflict. This
world will pass away. In II Peter
3:7 we read that "the heavens that
now are and the earth by the same
word have been stored up for fire,
being reserved against the day of
judgment and destruction of ungod-
ly men.'' Compare Matthew 10:15
and Jude 7.

B. Solution. The only solution
to, or escape from, this Biblical
world calamity is in the preaching
of the Gospel. As men repent of
sins and turn to trust in God, then
they escape from the judgment, as
did Noah from the flood or Lot
from Sodom. Noah's world and
Lot's Sodom were destroyed. There
was no solution within those places.

So too, the present world shall
perish and the only escape from the
threat of world calamity lies not in
man, but in God's offer of salvation
from this judgment. Every war of
man is but a reminder of the final
judgment.

Wars go on. Judgment will come.
As John 3:16 suggests, we are to be-
lieve and be delivered; if we do not
believe in Christ, we shall perish.

John was given a vision of this
terrible world calamity about to
come (Rev. 9:10). Just before the
final wrath of God is to be poured
out on the world (Rev. 10:5-7) ,
John is commanded to go and
preach to every nation (Rev. 10:
11). By this we understand that
the Gospel is always preached under
the cloud of impending judgment
from God. God's wrath hovers over

PAGE 15 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 1, 1972

the world in which we live and
work. We have a limited time be-
fore God will execute His wrath.
These are the days in which we all
live.

CONCLUSION: In dealing with
world calamity, we must see that not
men's wars, but God's judgment is
the real threat. Wars are but symp-
tomatic of what is wrong with man.

Scripture: John 12:44-50
Suggested Hymns:

"Lord, Speak to Me, That I

May Speak"
"More about Jesus Would I

Know"

"Saviour, Like a Shepherd
Lead Us"

PROGRAM LEADER'S INTRO-
DUCTION: Our knowledge of who
Christ is and what He does comes
from the Scriptures. It has been
apparent to Christian people for
many years that the Bible speaks of
Christ as a prophet. What is meant
by the term "prophet"?

One of the clearest explanations
of what a prophet is and does can
be found in the words of Deuteron-
omy 18:18: "I will raise them up a
prophet from among their brethren,
like unto thee, and will put my words
in his mouth; and he shall speak
unto them all that I shall command
him."

There are, then, two aspects of
the prophet's work: he must receive
a message from God, and he must
convey that message to others. One
of the most common utterances of
the prophets in the Bible is ex-
pressed in these or similar words:
"The word of the Lord came unto
me, saying . . ."

A person could not be a prophet
until he had received a message from
God. On the other hand, one who
had received a word from God was
not really a prophet until he de-
livered that message to those for

Sin in men's hearts is the real prob-
lem. Therefore, man-made peace
can never last or be real.

For the Church to work toward
human solutions and to ignore God's
solution, the changed heart and be-
lief in Christ, is indeed tragic. The
world of men sees man's only prob-
lem in terms of learning to live to-
gether peacefully (without wars) , so
whatever accomplishes that is called

For November 19, 1972

Christ, Our Prophet

Rev. B. Hoyt Evans

whom it was intended.

A modern understanding of the
word prophet suggests that he is a
person who predicts future events.
It is true that some of the prophets
of the Bible were given knowledge
of things which were to take place
in the future, but the basic meaning
of the word is "one who speaks forth
from God" rather than one who
predicts the future.

The basic duty of any prophet is
to know and declare the will of
God. Sometimes God's will has to
do with promised blessings, some-
times it has to do with what He
wants us to know about Himself
and about His will for our lives.
The Bible makes it clear that Christ
fulfills all these duties and quali-
fications in Himself.

FIRST SPEAKER: We know that
it is proper to speak of Christ as a
prophet because the Bible speaks of
Him in such terms. The Old Testa-
ment speaks of the coming of a
prophet in these words: "The Lord
thy God will raise up unto thee a
prophet from the midst of thee, of
thy brethren, like unto me; unto
him ye shall hearken." Acts 3:22 ap-
plies these words to Christ, clearly
indicating that He was the prophet
to come.

Christ made the specific claim
that He was a prophet. He said,
"Nevertheless I must walk today,
and tomorrow, and the day follow-
ing: for it cannot be that a prophet
perish out of Jerusalem" (Luke 13:
33) . Again He was referring to

desirable.

But men continually ignore the
reality of the sinful heart of man.
They deny its basic evil. The Church
cannot afford to think like the*
world. We should know from God's
Word that there is no solution but
salvation through faith in Christ,
who Himself destroyed the hostility
in men by His death and resurrec-
tion (Eph. 2:11-21) . ff

i

Himself when He said, "A prophei
is not without honor, save in hi;
own country and in his own house'
(Matt. 13:57) .

Furthermore, Jesus claimed con
sistently to bring messages from God
These are His words: "For I hav<
not spoken of myself; but the Fathei
which sent me, He gave me a com
mandment, what I should say, anc
what I should speak" (John 12:49)1

SECOND SPEAKER: It is ob
vious that Christ did the work of ;
prophet and fulfilled that offio
during His earthly ministry. Whilf
this is surely true, there is sometime
an undue emphasis on this aspec
of His work as though being ;
prophet means nothing more thai 1
being a popular teacher.

Some people say that Christ's b©j
ing a prophet is another way of say
ing that He was a wise teacher o
an advocate of change. To say thi
and nothing more is to rob Hi
prophetic character of much signifi
cance.

As a matter of fact, the Bibl
plainly states that Christ exercise<
the prophetic office before He cam
to earth in human form. He did
this when He spoke through th!
prophets of the Old Testament:

"Of which salvation the prophet
have inquired and searched diligenf!
ly, who prophesied of the grace tha
should come unto you: searching
what, or what manner of time th
Spirit of Christ which was in then
did signify, when it testified before
hand of the sufferings of Christ, am

YOUTH PROGRAM

PAGE 16 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 1, 1972

he glory that should follow" (I Pet.
:10-11) .

Christ has also continued to ful-
ill the office of prophet since He
iscended to heaven. He does this
hrough the work of His Holy Spirit.
This is what He said shortly before
^is death:

"I have yet many things to say
into you, but ye cannot bear them
»ow. Howbeit when He, the Spirit
if truth, is come, He will guide you
nto all truth: for He shall not speak
if himself; but whatsoever He shall
tear, that shall He speak; and He
/vill show you things to come. He
.hall glorify me: for He shall re-
vive of mine, and shall show it unto
/ou" (John 16:12-14).

THIRD SPEAKER: In what ways
loes Christ do the work of a proph-
it now? How does He go about
naking known to us the will of God?
^uite obviously He does it through
His teachings. The wise and clear
^vords of Jesus recorded in the New
Testament are revelations of God's
,vill for our lives. He also makes
as to know His truth in the miracles
He performed. John refers to them
is signs, and they were deeds which
f/ere designed to teach important
ruths.

Not only Christ's words and mir-
acles, but the actions of His life re-
peal the nature of God. In His life
ind His death on the cross we can
ee the wisdom, power, holiness, jus-
dee, and love of God. Jesus told us,
'He that hath seen me hath seen
die Father" (John 14:9) .

As we have noticed already, He
did His prophetic work when He
poke through the prophets in ear-
ier times and as He worked through
His Spirit to inspire the apostles of
he New Testament. Christ is still
Dur prophet, because it is His Spirit
who enlightens our minds as we
read and hear the Bible. He is tru-
ly the one who makes us to know
God's will for our salvation and for
our lives.

P R O G R A M LEADER: How
hould we respond to the prophetic
work of Christ? We should accept
with gladness what He reveals to us.
We should believe the truth which
He makes known. We should be-
lieve in Him as our Saviour and our
| 'Lord. We prove that our belief is
| sincere when we are obedient to His
i will for our lives.

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C. Newman Faulconer, pastor, First
Presbyterian Church, Greenville, S. C.

Here is a readable, understand
able, valuable book for clergymen
and laymen which is a rich source
of knowledge and inspiration. The
writer's style is scholarly and lucid.
His faith is Biblical and contagious,
His insights are penetrating and
practical.

This excellent devotional com
mentary is fresh in approach and in
terpretation and faithful in its ad-
herence to sound doctrine. Regard
less of the number of commentaries
on John one possesses, this book will
be a valuable addition to one's col
lection of devotional and exegetical
tools.

The old, old story is beautifully
and faithfully retold, but the re-

If you are moving to an area where
there is no congregation of the
Presbyterian Church in the U. S.
you may find an Orthodox Presby-
terian Church nearby. A Directory
of Churches and Chapels of the
Orthodox Presbyterian Church
will be sent upon request. Please
address: Orthodox Presbyterian
Church Directory, 7401 Old York
Road, Philadelphia, Pa. 19126.

CANCER INSURANCE

Persons of all ages are eligible, excep
those who have had and do now havt
cancer. No medical examination required
Policy pays up to $25,000 for each famil)
member. Costs about dime per day foi
entire family, less for lone individuals
Cancer will eventually strike 2 of !
families. Cancer will strike 1 in 4 persons
It is far better to have this protectiot
and never need it than to need it, anc
not have it. Underwritten by Old Line
Virginia Life Company. Write today t<
Robert U. Woods, General Agent, (Elder
Presbyterian Church), Maxton, N. C
28364.

PAGE 18 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 1, 1972

elling is not a rehashing of old
liches and threadbare hackneyisms.
i The author helps one to discover
jliew facts of light in the old, but
t ternally relevant and basic truths
I indergirding the Christian life,
j wringing new understanding and
I adiance to many familiar incidents
In the life of Christ,
f The book correctly indicates that
j'sin is character" and that "sins are
londuct."

"Sin is the cause; sins are the ef-
fect. Sin is the root; sins are the
f ruit." And, contrary to many mis-
conceptions, "the forgiveness of sins
In the New Testament is not a form
i)f religious barter."
I "In the incarnation God is artic-
ulating Himself in a language of
life," and in this commentary one
Is introduced to Him Who is the
fource of abundant and eternal
ife. IS

GALATIANS: A Letter For Today,
9y L. Harold DeWolf. Wm. B. Eerd-
tnans Publ. Co., Grand Rapids, Mich.
Paper, 86 pp. $1.95. Reviewed by the
Rev. Peter Pascoe, pastor, First Pres-
byterian Church, Winona Lake, Ind.

Speaking of the New Testament
hook of Galatians, the author, dean
and professor of systematic theology,
Wesley Theological Seminary, Wash-
ington, D. C, says: "I am convinced
that no book in the Bible contains
more concentrated truth of the Gos-
pel, no more helpful relevance to
the people of the 20th century."

With this basic approach, the au-
thor finds in the authority which
Paul claims for his ministry the au-
thority which we Americans must
have to find our basic foundations
for decisions on all the new prob-

lems that face us today: our prob-
lems of overpopulation, pollution,
urban decay, inter-urban transpor-
tation, racial tension, and such.

The text of Galatians 5:1, "For
freedom Christ has set us free; stand
fast therefore and do not submit
again to a yoke of slavery" becomes
germane to some of the marches we
have witnessed in our day and per-
haps even to the chant of "Freedom
Nowl Freedom Now!" from thou-
sands in our own land as well as the
cry for freedom in Prague, in Africa
and Indochina.

Author DeWolf's understanding
of inspiration and justification will
not satisfy the evangelical's under-
standing of Scripture. This little
volume lacks an index and a bibliog-
raphy. There are no footnotes. IE

THE BOOK OF NUMBERS: A
Study Manual, by Kenneth E. Jones.
Baker Book House, Grand Rapids,
Mich. Paper, 90 pp. $1.95. Reviewed
by the Rev. Peter Pascoe, pastor,
First Presbyterian Church, Winona
Lake, Ind.

A commentary on Numbers must
be considered something of a rarity.
This one was prepared for the
Shield Bible Study Series by the
professor of Bible at Warner Pacific
College, Portland, Oregon. The
author reminds us that Numbers
covers 40 years of law and history,
but that 38 of those years are "si-
lent years." The two remaining
years are the subject matter of Num-
bers. The author finds spiritual
lessons for us, particularly in the
words of Jesus (John 3:14) as they
refer to Numbers 2:3-9, and in He-
brews 3:7 as appeal is made to Num-
bers 13-14. A factual and valuable
study. IE

DR. BRUCE DUNN

pastor

Grace Presbyterian Church

THE GRACE WORSHIP HOUR

• FAST-MOVING
• DYNAMIC

• ARTICULATE

For a free copy of Dr. Dunn's outspoken new book-
let, What About Capital Punishment? and a station
list of this nationwide radio broadcast write:

THE GRACE WORSHIP HOUR

Box 3452 Peoria, III. 61614

Walk where
Jesus walked. Visit
the scenes of His great-
est miracles, see His para-
bles come to lite, stand where
He stood in Pilate's court,
visit His empty tomb, and
witness the persecution
and triumph of the
early church.

THE NEW TESTAMENT
IN LIVING PICTURES

Over 100 full-color photographs
bring to life the places and events
of the New Testament. Arranged
chronologically with Scripture
texts, maps, notes and an index.
Beautiful gift and study aid.

AVAILABLE FROM YOUR
REGULAR CHURCH SUPPLIER

Regal Books pj-112
Glendale, California

PAGE 19 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 1, 1972

PLAIN TALK ON ACTS, by Man-
ford George Gutzke. Zondervan Publ.
House, Grand Rapids, Mich. 221 pp.
$1.95. Reviewed by the Rev. J. W.
Hassell, H.R., Hickory, N. C.

This is the latest in a series of
books by the well known professor
at Columbia Theological Seminary.
The collection could be called the
Plain Talks Series — Plain Talks on
Matthew, Luke, John and James.
The books are popular enough thus
far to have called for four printings.

In this latest work the author's
treatment is rigidly true to the spirit
and intent of the Gospel. It is re-
freshing at this time when the lib-
eral element is seeking to wreck the
Church in overemphasis on the so-
cial gospel. Moreover if anyone
wants a good commentary on Acts,
here it is, and if you want a good
textbook on Christian theology, per-
fectly and simply and thrillingly
told, you have it here. EE

THE KIRSTY AFFAIR, by Douglas
Hall. Zondervan Publ. House, Grand
Rapids, Mich. 192 pp. $3.95. Reviewed
by the Rev. Robert E. Weinman, pas-
tor, First Presbyterian Church, Co-
lumbiana, Ohio.

An unusual reading adventure for
the mystery buff, the story centers
around amateur criminologist (and
well-known evangelist) Paul Brai-
nerd, who in the midst of an evan-
gelistic campaign, suddenly finds
himself up to his shoulders in a kid-
napping of a seven year old,
freckled- faced little girl.

Author Douglas Hall has a wide
background in the field of communi-
cations, both as a writer and edi-
torialist. Also currently, he is host
of his own color television show
"Fiction or Fact," which is telecast
weekly on a number of Canadian
stations from coast to coast. His
position as staff information repre-

I

Trinity Presbyterian
Church

Montgomery, Ala.
is seeking a

Minister of
Christian Education

Responses or inquiries should
be addressed to
1728 South Hull St.
Montgomery, Ala. 36104

sentative for IBM Canada, Ltd. and
a successful career as a free lance
writer enable him to weave together
authentic police procedures, grip-
ping, fast moving action, and strik-
ing characterization into a thrilling,
believable story.

The reader is captivated as he
follows Brainerd in the process of
unraveling the mystery of Kirsty
Lansing's disappearance. Slowly the
pieces begin to fit together: the un-
usual ransom note ... a wealthy
grandfather . . . the activities of a
well-known hoodlum . . . the deep
compassion of a mother whose

daughter is facing the loss of he:
own daughter . . . and the insigh
of a unique criminologist. The*
bits and pieces are woven skillfull1
together intertwined with some sub
tie, but pointed Christian truths b'
Hall as he counts the fast movinj
events surrounding the Kirsty af
fair.

Even professional "arm-chair de
tectives" will be kept guessing righ
up until the last scenes unfold! S(
find your favorite chair, turn ol
the television and settle down to <
stimulating adventure with a sur
prise ending. c

VOL.

m

*ef/c Simpson

31 stores in 8 states serving you
with this pledge ....

• To give prompt courteous service, treating our customers a* you would a guest
In your home. • To give the best selection of merchandise from Top Quality
Fashions to basement bargains, meeting everyone's need. # To give satisfaction
guaranteed with every purchase. # To give credit terms arranged to meet your
budget needs in Stores doing credit business.

Since the opening of the first Belk-Simpson Store, it has been our
endeavor to be more in a community than just another merchant.
We have set forth a united consecrated effort, dedicated to the task
of securing superior quality merchandise, giving our customers a
better value than any other merchant.

SOUTH CAROLINA

Belk-Slmpson Co.

Greenville, S. C.

J. A. Ellison, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson-Plaza Store

Greenville, S. C.

R. Grier Robinson Jr., Res.

The Dollar Store

Greenville, S. C.

R. P. Crumpler, Res. Mgr.

Belk's of Pleasantburg

Greenville, S. C.

A. M. Smith, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store
Lancaster, S. C.

B. L. Plyler, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store

Camden, S. C.

J. A. Hagins, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store

Clinton, S. C.

D. B. Smith, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Slmpson Co.
Darlington, S. C.
Paul E. Broome, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store

Laurens, S. C.

David Middleton, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Abbeville, S. C.

J. S. Hagins, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Hagins Co.
Kershaw, S. C.

C. E. Hinson, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.
Easley, S. C.
R. J. Womack, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Beaufort, S. C.
Al Wilson, Res. Mgr.
Mar- Belk-Simpson Co.
Fountain Inn, S. C.

E. J. Copeland, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Woodruff, S. C.

F. B. Hagins, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Honea Path, S. C.

T. R. Martin, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Whitmire, S. C.

Clyde Smith, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Manning, S. C.

W. M. Gettys, Res. Mgr.

OHIO

Belk-Simpson Co.

Athens, Ohio

Joe Kelly, Res. Mgr.

MISSOURI

Belk-Simpson Co.

Carthage, Mo.

Charles Wilson, Res. Mgr.

OKLAHOMA

Belk Dept. Store
Miami, Oklahoma
J. T. Holmes, Res. Mgr.

NORTH CAROLINA

Belk-Simpson Co.

Hendersonville, N. C.

R. E. McCormack, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store

Brevard, N, C.

J. M. Felty, Res. Mgr.

KENTUCKY

Belk-Simpson Co.
Harlan, Ky.

Delmar Tolliver, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Corbin, Ky.

W. C. Ashley, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Winchester, Ky.

T. L. Beckham, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Mt. Sterling, Ky.

Willoughby Smith, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Frankfort, Ky.

J. D. Prow, Res. Mgr.

GEORGIA

Belk-Simpson Co.

Bainbridge, Ga.

M. D. Ashley, Res. Mgr.

ARKANSAS

Belk-Simpson Co.
Paragould, Ark.
W. H. Wade, Res

Belk-Simpson Co.
Osceola, Ark.
K. R. Cline, Res. Mgr

Mgr.

These stores are a small part of the entire Belk or-
ganization and have been in existence approximately
50 years. The Belk stores were launched in 1886-88.

SEE THE MANAGER NEAREST YOU FOR CHURCH CARPET, ROBES, ETC.

PAGE 20 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 1, 1972

VOL. XXXI, NO. 28

NOVEMBER 8, 1972

$4.00 A YEAR

the

dvocating continuation of a Presbyterian Church loyal

to Scripture and the Reformed faith

Any Time, Any Place

Let us show forth the love of Christ in our hearts wher-
ever and whenever the opportunity arises, regardless of whether
we are feeling especially spiritual, or whether it is church
visitation night, and without expecting the person to whom we
are witnessing to fall on his knees and repeat the Doxology or
the Apostles' Creed ....

God does not hold you responsible for the abilities He
gives someone else, but only for your willingness to do what
He gives you the ability to do.

— Velma McLachlan

(See p. 7)

S. S. LESSON AND YOUTH PROGRAM FOR NOVEMBER 26

CIRCLE BIBLE STUDY FOR DECEMBER

dHOO

DM II TH Tedtatb

U0T10 9TI0Q 0 M

MAI LB AG

CIRCLE LESSON COMMENT

I have hoped and expected that
someone would speak out concern-
ing the first lesson for the Women
of the Church under the "servant"
theme. Since I have seen nothing,
I raise my voice to express the feel-
ings of the members of my own cir-
cle.

Some of the other teachers ap-

proached me in advance of the les-
son to ask, "How do you plan to
teach this lesson on 'The Servant
God'?"

I answered to all, "I am not teach-
ing a weak God. My God is a strong
God, an almighty God, omnipotent,
omniscient, omnipresent. He is our
'refuge and strength, a very present
help in trouble' — Psa. 46:1."

the

PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL

Rev. G. Aiken Taylor, Ph.D., Editor
Rev. Henry B. Dendy, D.D., Managing Editor

Circulation leader among independent publications in the Presbyterian-Reformed world

THIS WEEK— Vol. XXXI, No. 28, November 8, 1972

Wherever and Whenever 7

People say they are willing to die for Christ, are they as
willing to live for Him? By Velma McLachlan

Chapter IV: God in Christ 8

The important chapter on redemption in the proposed
confession of faith lacks much By Robert Strong

A Woman's Ignition 9

According to the best authorities, women possess a faculty
withheld from men By Chub Seawell

De partments —

Editorials 1 2

The Layman and his Church 1 3

Sunday School Lesson, November 26 14

Youth Program, November 26 16

Circle Bible Study, December 17

Book Reviews 19

SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: $4 a year
for individuals, $3 for members of
Every Family Plan churches. All cor-
respondence regarding subscriptions,
advertising or other business matters
should be addressed to the business
office in Weaverville, N. C. 28787.
Second class postage paid at Weaver-
ville, N. C. 28787.

THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL, a

Presbyterian weekly magazine, devoted
to the statement, defense, and propa-
gation of the Gospel, the faith which
was once for all delivered to the saints,

is published every Wednesday by the
Southern Presbyterian Journal Co.,
Inc., in Weaverville, N. C.

POSTMASTER: Send Form 3579 to
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NEWS AND EDITORIAL correspond-
ence should be addressed to P. 0. Box
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offices located at 247 Charlotte St. in
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TELEPHONES: (All area 704) edi-
torial office 254-4015, 254-4016;
business office, 645-3310, 645-3962.

"Then how do you explain the
references to the 'weakness of God
and the 'foolishness of God' as we
find them in I Cor. 1:25?"

My answer, "In reading the
Phillip's paraphrase, I noticed these
two expressions, 'weakness' and
'foolishness' in quotation marks,
showing that they were used to make
a point in the language of men, not
that they were supposed to describe
some actual characteristic of our
God."

I remember that the Jews could
not understand the cross because of
their belief that the expected Mes
siah would come as a conquering
king to release them from Roman
bondage. When He came in ob-
scurity they could not believe He
was the perfect revelation of the Fa-
ther God.

In Gethsemane, as wholly God
and also as wholly man, the strug-
gle was so intense that great drops
of blood fell from His forehead as
He prayed, "Not my will but Thine
be done."

Rising from His knees, He went
forth to meet Judas, the soldiers and
the cross as a strong Messiah, to car-
ry out His part in our great salva-
tion.

We remember that as truly man
He was tempted in all points like
as we, yet without sin (Heb. 4:15)
That is not weakness! From His early
ministry and throughout His life
Satan continued to tempt Him, but
unsuccessfully, for He was strong
enough to resist. He went to the
lowest depths (descended into hell)
in order by His strength to raise us
up to heavenly heights.

Throughout Scripture, the em
phasis on God, Father, Son and
Holy Spirit is an emphasis on
strength, not on weakness. So trust
ing in the Spirit's power, we will
continue teaching and helping out
women to understand and know bet
ter our great and mighty God. Ever
as Servant, He was not weak!

— Mrs. A. C. McKinnon
Greenwood, Miss.

CORRECTION

The Cynthiana Presbyteriar.
Church in a properly constitutec
congregational meeting on Septem
ber 24, 1972, resolved "to accept nc
other jurisdiction than its own pa
rochial presbytery, the Kirk Ses
sion."

In the Oct. 11 Journal our vot<
was erroneously reported. The resOi
lution passed 98-62.

It may be of interest to your read-
ers to know that the petition re-
questing the session to call the con-
gregational meeting to receive and
act upon the resolution was signed
by approximately half the active
membership.

We are grateful for our faithful
elders in their efforts over the past
two years to inform the congrega-
tion of developments in the Presby-
terian-Reformed situation. The sev-
eral organizations looking towards
a continuing Presbyterian Church
have provided invaluable informa-
tion and support.

We offer thanksgiving to God for
the leaders He has raised up in our
midst who have brought to pass the
adoption of the resolution and inde-
pendency.

— George }. Withers
Cynthiana, Ky.

(ministers

George R. Blue from Blue Springs,
Tenn., to the Elizaville, Ky.,
church and First Church, Flem-
ingsburg, Ky.

• Traditionally, we have thought
of the second issue in each month
as "ladies issue." No special rea-
son, except that the circle Bible
lesson appears in that issue and we
have noted that an astounding pro-
portion of circles (even in liberal
congregations) use Dr. Gutzke's fine
lessons. In addition to the Bible
lessons, we try to have one or two
t contributions by women in this sec-
ond issue of the month (although
we didn't have a "Layman and his
Church" by a feminine author ready
for this one) . Clydie is out in Tex-
as on vacation as we put this issue
j to press and so we are taking our
• life in our hands and including a

couple of items on "women's lib"
(pp. 11, 12).

• If there is any symptom in the
organized Church that suggests ma-
il jor hospitalization for the body may
I be in order, it is the current obses-
Ision with eliminating all sex differ-
ences in the Church's makeup and

i mission. We thought of that when
'a notice came across the desk from

David M. Bonner, received from
Associate Reformed Presbyterian
Church, to Central church, Jack-
son, Miss., as associate pastor.
John Bradshaw from Homer, La.,
to the First Church, Lockhart,
Tex.

James W. Cory from St. Louis,
Mo., to First Church, Shreveport,
La., as assistant pastor.
R. Craig Countiss from Etowah,
Tenn., to the Jefferson church,
Louisville, Ky.

Joseph S. Duckwall, H.R., from
Turbeville, Va., to retirement
home in Farmville, Va.
Thomas C. Flanagan from Frank-
ford, W. Va., to the Wildwood
and Cape Carteret churches, Wild-
wood, N. C.

Robert A. Geizentanner from
Oklahoma City, Okla., to the
Stanford, Ky., church.
Kendall B. Tarleton, recent grad-
uate of Louisville Seminary, or-
dained and installed pastor of the
Presbyterian Church, Millersburg,
Ky.

an organization calling itself "Semi-
narians for Peace and Justice,"
which seems to specialize in dem-
onstrations, sit-ins, study classes on
the political thought of the world's
great leaders such as Marx, Lenin
and Mao. The head of the organi-
zation makes a point of calling her-
self the "Chairperson." Which is
almost, but not quite as funny as
what the PCUS Board of Women's
Work has decided to call next sum-
mer's Montreat Women's Confer-
ence. It will be the Montreat Per-
sonhood Conference. (To get the
full effect, recite that out loud.)
Next thing, we're going to translate
Women of the Church and Men of
the Church into Persons of the
Church (I) and Persons of the
Church (II) . After that, no doubt,
someone will suggest that "I" and
"II" are forms of discrimination.

Edwin L. Hankla Jr., from Lex-
ington, Ky., to the Presbyterian
Church, Midway, Ky.
John Hottel from Belfast, Tenn.,
to the Community church, Hazard,
Ky., and the Lothair church, Vic-
co, Ky.

James L. Jackson Jr., former mis-
sionary to Zaire (Congo) , is direc-
tor of the Parish of the Lakes,
Cadiz, Ky.

Harry H. Phillips, former mission-
ary to Taiwan, on leave of ab-
sence, is engaged in a program of
training at South Carolina State
Hospital, Columbia.
David Swindall, recent graduate
of Columbia Seminary, to the
First Church, Milledgeville, Ga.
Robert H. Walkup from Jackson-
ville, Fla., to the Hope church,
Clearwater, Fla.

Keith R. Crim will join the fac-
ulty of Virginia Commonwealth
University, Richmond, while re-
taining his post on the staff of
translators of the American Bible
Society.

• In the waning hours of the presi-
dential campaign, a Nixon aide,
John Ehrlichman, reacted to a
speech by the Democratic candidate
with an off-the-cuff, "When I was a
kid the minister's son was the big-
gest liar in class," in evident refer-
ence to the candidate. Seven Presby-
terian ministers from the Atlanta
area promptly took exception to the
"slur" on the families of ministers.
Identifying themselves as "sons of
ordained ministers," they got three
ministers from other denominations
to join them in a telegram of pro-
test to the White House, topping
their list of signatures with that of
the father of the minister whom J.
Edgar Hoover called "the biggest
liar in America." Oh yes. As far
as we have been able to determine,
the eleven are not all sons of min-
isters, either. 51

ACROSS THE EDITOR'S DESK

PAGE 3 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 8, 1972

NEWS OF RELIOION

"National Synod' To Be Subject of Parley

LANSING, 111. — A meeting of ap-
propriate denominational commit-
tees together with the Southern "co-
alition," to "explore together" the
possible convocation of "a national
synod of genuinely Presbyterian and
Reformed churches" has been set by
the National Presbyterian and Re-
formed Fellowship.

In a resolution adopted unani-
mously during its second anniver-
sary meeting, the fellowship of min-
isters and elders from some eight
Presbyterian and Reformed denomi-
nations carefully specified that the
"synod" it had in mind would "not
constitute organic union of its par-
ticipating churches," but would nev-
ertheless "provide a true spiritual
bond" among them.

The resolution declared the
NPRF had "come to recognize the
necessity of a common bond of coun-
sel among those churches, both es-
tablished and emerging," that share
its convictions and aims.

Invited to the proposed parley,
which was set for January 4 and 5
in Atlanta, was the Steering Com-
mittee for a Continuing Presbyte-
rian Church, together with the ex-

ecutive committees of the four Pres-
byterian Church US organizations
to which it is responsible.

These are, the board of the Jour-
nal, Presbyterian Churchmen Unit-
ed, Concerned Presbyterians and the
Presbyterian Evangelistic Fellow-
ship.

These were asked to meet with the
fraternal relations committee of the
Reformed Presbyterian Church
Evangelical Synod; the committee
on ecumenicity of the Orthodox
Presbyterian Church; the committee
on inter-church relations of the Re-
formed Presbyterian Church (Cove-
nanter) ; and the inter-church rela-
tions committee of the Christian Re-
formed Church.

Hosting the gathering, at a place
not yet determined, will be the
NPRF board of directors. The reso-
lution also specified that other
NPRF members might attend as ob-
servers.

Organized two years ago, the fel-
lowship has drawn members and ob-
servers from some 9 Presbyterian and
Reformed denominations. It was an-
nounced during the meeting at First
Reformed Church here, that appli-

THE CHURCH OVERSEAS

ECUADOR — "The Happy Way"
(El Camino Feliz) , a children's ra-
dio program in Spanish sponsored
by the Child Evangelism Fellow-
ship has been on the air weekly for
nearly three years. This interna-
tionally distributed, quarter-hour
release is broadcast regularly here,
and eight more stations reach Latin
America. Plans are in progress to
add at least three more stations to
this list.

The program answers a vital need
for speaking to children about the
Lord. Over 500 letters were re-
ceived during the first year in re-
sponse to the program transmitted
by TWR. The outreach is consid-
erably increased by its use on local
stations.

For example, more than 250 chil-

dren are presently studying the
course in Costa Rica as a result of
hearing the program over Gospel
station TIFC. Children from all
types of homes have responded, with
many letters of appreciation and
questions coming from Cuba.

The correspondence course for
children (ages 7 to 11, more or less) ,
titled "Camino de la Vida" is of-
fered on the radio and has brought
steady response. More than 150 stu-
dents enrolled in the course in Puer-
to Rico in 1971, with 43 finishing
before the end of the year. Six
made their personal decisions to ac-
cept Jesus Christ. A second course
had 44 graduates with ten decisions.
A New Testament is given to each
child who finishes the study
course. 51

cations for membership had been re-
ceived from within the membership
of a tenth denomination, the Re- i\
formed Church in the United States
(Eureka Classis) .

Officers named here included, the 1
Rev. G. Aiken Taylor, Journal edi- ■
tor, re-elected president; the Rev.
Edmund P. Clowney, president of
Westminster Theological Seminary,
Philadelphia, vice-president; the
Rev. John W. White, a professor at ; n
Geneva College, Beaver Falls, Pa., )
secretary; and the Rev. Russell E.
Horton, pastor of the host congre- :
gation here, treasurer.

The fellowship has a full time ex-
ecutive secretary, the Rev. Donald *
C. Graham, formerly pastor of First
Presbyterian Church, Montgomery,
Ala.

An added feature of the annual
meeting here was an evening public .
rally with more than 700 people in
attendance. The message of the oc-
casion, on a Reformation theme, was
brought by the Rev. D. James Ken-
nedy, pastor of the Coral Ridge Pres- , ■
bvterian Church, Fort Lauderdale, 1
Fla. ! ill

Stated aim of the fellowship is
"to join for encouragement and mu-
tual assistance those who seek in our
time the unity of a pure witness to
the Word of God and the testimony
of Jesus Christ in the communion
appointed by Christ through His
apostles and prophets in the New
Testament."

Inquiries concerning the fellow-
ship should be directed to the execu-
tive offices, 3038 Bryn Mawr RcL,
Montgomery, Ala. 36111. ffl

The Selective Service
To Be Subject of Confab

WASHINGTON — A consultation
on National Service — a system un-'
der which young men would have a
choice between military or civilian
service considered in the national in-
terest — will make up the 27th an-
nual program of the Commission on
Voluntary Service and Actions
(CVS A) to be held here Nov. 15-17
at the National 4-H Foundation
Center.

CVSA is an interfaith agency to
which the Presbyterian Church US

PAGE 4 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 8, 1972

relates through its Task Force on
Voluntary Service. Director of the
task force is the Rev. Cas M. Robin-
son, who serves on CVSA's board of
directors.

The consultation will involve out-
side experts and will feature work-
shops to develop "corrective" and
alternative approaches to National
service, with particular attention
2;iven to the difference between vol-
untary and conscripted service.

Mr. Robinson favors a National
Service that would be entirely volun-
tary and not linked to Selective Ser-
vice. He believes that if there is to
be a National Service, then volun-
teer service agencies in the private
sector should be given some voice
in determining its direction.

Registration details are available
from the Task Force on Voluntary
Service, Board of National Minis-
tries, 341 Ponce de Leon NE, Atlan-
ta, Ga. 30308. ffl

Baptist Sunday School
Biggest In Nation

WHEATON, 111. (RNS) — The
largest Sunday school in the United
jStates

— Has an average weekly at-
tendance of 5,917.

I — Increased its enrollment by 843
;in a year.

— Recorded 8,023 professions of
faith in a year.

— Transports 2,200 people to
classes on 76 buses each week.

These facts about First Baptist
;church in Hammond, Ind., are given
with data on the other 99 largest
Sunday schools in the nation in
Christian Life magazine's fifth an-
nual survey of U. S. Sunday schools.

First Baptist, an independent con-
gregation in Indiana, was ranked
No. 1 in the survey on the basis of
reported statistics for 1972.

Akron Baptist Temple in Ohio,
a congregation of the Baptist Bible
Fellowship, may have kept its No. 1
position which it had held every
year since the survey begun, but did
not report any figures for 1972. Dr.
Charles Billington, its co-pastor, sug-
gested that such reports caused "un-
healthy competition among the
churches." IB

Switzerland Will Host Next Congress

ATLANTA (RNS) — Evangelist
Billy Graham announced here that
the next International Congress on
World Evangelism, of which he is
honorary chairman, will be held in
Lausanne, Switzerland, July 16-25,
1974.

The Palais de Beaulieu, the city's
Congress Exhibition and Arts Cen-
ter, will be the site of the meeting.

Congress organizers commented
that it was considered "almost ideal"
for the evangelism thrust, which is
expected to draw 3,500 participants,
observers and newsmen.

A "Third World" location had
been sought for the congress, but
the Lausanne facilities were found
"best able to meet the exciting re-
quirements of the congress at rea-
sonable cost," according to Mr. Gra-
ham.

Among the advantages of the
Lausanne site mentioned by the
congress planners were ease of ac-
cess and freedom of entry from ev-
ery part of the world, and suitable
facilities for hospitality and the dai-
ly work of the congress.

Recalling the first World Con-
gress on Evangelism, which some 1,-
200 representatives of evangelical
churches around the world attended
in Berlin six years ago, Mr. Graham
commented that since that event, "I
have been constantly urged to help
in convening another world congress
on evangelization."

He added, "I think now after
much prayer and consultation with
churchmen, both lay and clergy,
from all over the world, that the
time is ripe to mobilize again all
our resources under the dynamic of
the Holy Spirit to hold another in-
ternational congress in 1974. We
must press forward towards the
evangelization of the world in our
generation using every modern in-
sight and harnessing the faith and
dedication of Christian men every-
where."

Anglican Suffragan Bishop jack
Dain of Sydney, Australia, who is
executive chairman of the 25-mem-
ber planning committee, announced
that the committee members will
meet in Lausanne Dec. 4-6, 1972, to
consider the program.

Early next year, he added, an of-
fice for the congress will be estab-
lished in Lausanne under the leader-
ship of Dr. Donald E. Hoke, a Pres-
byterian missionary to Japan, who
has been appointed coordinating di-
rector.

Since 1955, Dr. Hoke has been
president of Tokyo Christian Col-
lege, an interdenominational agency
that he founded in that year.

He went to Japan in 1950 as a
correspondent for Christian Life
magazine, with which he has been
associated for 30 years. Before join-
ing the staff of that magazine, he
was a writer for the Chicago Trib-
bune.

Dr. Hoke's mission activities have
included a term as president of the
Japan Evangelical Missionary As-
sociation, the largest association of
Protestant missionaries in the Far
East. During his visit in 1950 he
conducted a religious survey of Ja-
pan's missionary opportunities.

Among Dr. Hoke's publications
are a book on the refugee situation
in Hong Kong, and the editing of a
volume on the history of the Church
and mission in Asia, to be published
next year. IB

Reformed, Lutheran Ties
Strengthened In Djakarta

DJAKARTA, Indonesia — Lutheran-
Reformed relations entered a new
phase when for the first time execu-
tives of the Lutheran World Federa-
tion and the Executive Committee
of the World Alliance of Re-
formed Churches held a joint meet-
ing here.

The LWF officials traveled to
Djakarta especially for the meeting,
following their own Executive Com-
mittee meeting in North Sumatra
earlier.

WARC President Dr. William P.
Thompson and LWF President
Prof. Mikko Juva each welcomed
the advance in relationships between
the two bodies. The LWF has five,
the WARC 20 member churches in
Indonesia. During the meeting, an
application was acted on which in-
creased the membership of churches
in the WARC to 138. BEI

PAGE 5 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 8, 1972

THE CHURCH AT HOME

Withdrawals Follow No Single Pattern

RICHMOND, Va. — Hanover Pres-
bytery has dismissed the West End
congregation of Hopewell into inde-
pendency, and West End's pastor,
the Rev. Kennedy Smartt, to the Re-
formed Presbyterian Church Evan-
gelical Synod.

There was only one dissenting
vote when the tally was called on
the congregation which last year re-
ported more adult baptisms than
any other church of any size in the
Synod of Virginia.

Hanover's executive, the Rev. A.
M. "Mac" Hart supported the ac-
tion, pointing out that the congre-
gation had followed constitutional
processes in asking to be dismissed.
"They feel they can serve the Lord
better outside this presbytery," he
said.

In regard to another church pre-
viously affiliated with Hanover, the
Tabb Street church of Petersburg,
Mr. Hart told the presbytery that
efforts are still being made to effect
a reconciliation.

Tabb Street and its pastor, the
Rev. Linwood Wilkes, withdrew
from the presbytery without asking
to be dismissed. Although an ad-
ministrative commission has been
seeking contact with the church,
now affiliated with the newly
formed Vanguard Presbytery, it is
reported that mail has been re-
turned to the commission unopened.

Another PCUS congregation that
withdrew without sanction of its
presbytery, the Cynthiana, Ky.,
church, has moved to safeguard its
position by securing a legal injunc-
tion which prohibits the Presbytery
of Transylvania-Union from "inter-
fering in its internal affairs." El

College Is Independent
A New Board Is Elected

MONTREAT, N. C. — The Board
of Directors of the Mountain Re-
treat Association has effected the
most significant change in the man-
agement of Montreat-Anderson Col-
lege since it was founded. For the
first time since the College was es-
tablished, a separate self-perpetuat-
ing board of trustees has been cre-

ated.

The new 30-member board, six of
whom come from the Presbyterian
US court of Asheville Presbytery,
will now manage the affairs of the
college separately from the Moun-
tain Retreat Association.

The college board will no longer
be nominated by the General Assem-
bly of the Presbyterian Church US.
In the future all appointments will
be approved by the directors of the
Mountain Retreat Association or its
successor and by Asheville Presby-
tery. President Silas M. Vaughn
will continue to head both the col-
lege and the association.

Among new members elected for
the first time to the Montreat-An-
derson College board are Earl Mc-
Guire, Vice President of the Bank
of Asheville, N. C; Mrs. Billy Gra-
ham, a resident of Montreat; A. F.
Tyson, a leading businessman citi-
zen of Black Mountain, N. C; the
Rev. Dan McCall, pastor of the Star-
mount Presbyterian Chu rch in
Greensboro, N. C; and Allen Mor-
ris, an industrialist from Miami,
Fla. El

'Ecumenical' Churches
Meet in Consultation

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — What are the
problems of churches related to more
than one denomination, how can
these problems be solved and what
are the possibilities for "ecumeni-
cal" ministries of various types?
These and related questions occu-
pied the time of churchmen
gathered at Louisville Presbyterian
Seminary here for a three-day Work-
shop on Ecumenical Congregations.

Sponsored by the Joint Strategy
and Action Committee (JSAC) , a
consortium of the home mission
agencies of 10 denominations, the
workshop was produced by the Rev.
Donald E. Neel of the Board of Na-
tional Ministries, Presbyterian
Church US.

Mr. Neel saw the meeting as a
breakthrough in the process of help-
ing local, regional and national
agencies engage in "ecumenical"
ministries as one valid form of
church development.

Participants came from a wide va-
riety of congregational arrangements
There was, for instance, the United
Parish of Natick, Mass., in which
three churches, Congregational
Episcopal and Lutheran Church in
America, have preserved their indi
vidual identity while being merged
for mission purposes.

There were union congregations
such as those from union presbyte
ries of the United Presbyterian
Church USA and the Presbyterian
Church US.

Florida Church Raises
Tallest Tower In U. S.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — It
took a special crane with a 340
boom to hoist the spire and cross tc
the top of the concrete tower which
is the focal point in the architec
ture of the new Coral Ridge Presby
terian Church here.

The tower, 303 feet high, is be
lieved to be the tallest church tow
er in the United States. Faceted glass
windows will appear on all f oui
sides.

Rising to a height of over 20C
feet, the windows will be the tallest
in the world and will contain ovei
18,000 pieces of glass.

The new church complex is being
built at a total cost of $6 million
Pastor of the congregation, whitf
has regularly exceeded any other ir
the Presbyterian Church US in num
ber of professions of faith, is thf
Rev. D. James Kennedy.

Coral Ridge

a

PAGE 6 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 8, 1972

Armed with the Bible and a loaf of banana bread, she went forth to witness —

Wherever and Whenever

Have you ever said, or heard
anyone say, "Well, I go to
i Church on Sunday — what I do

■ with the rest of my time is my own

■ business"? I've said that and how
■wrong I was! If you have accepted
Ijesus as your Lord and Saviour,
| then what you do with your time is

■ not your own business. You've been

■ bought and paid for by His shed
I blood, therefore you do not belong
I to yourself, but to Him who bought
f you.

I Paul wrote, "What, know ye not

■ that your body is the temple of the
t1 Holy Ghost which is in you, which
{■ you have of God, and ye are not
j your own? For ye are bought with
I a price, therefore glorify God in
l.your body and in your spirit which
\ are God's" (I Cor. 6:19-20) .

I To me this is a very wonderful
i • thing and not to be taken lightly —
It that wherever you are, wherever you
i go, you have the temple of the Holy
i 1 Spirit with you and wherever the
i temple is, that is where the Holy
Spirit is, because He dwells in His
1 temple. You can't leave Him at
i home, you can't park Him for the
I weekend. You can ignore Him but
I if you go out, He goes out with you.
I am so glad about this, so happy
to know that this all comforting
i Holy Spirit literally lives within us,
protecting us and guiding us much
1 as we will allow Him to. He will
guide us but will not push us.
We are bought with a price and
| we will never know what a high
price that was — the horrible cursed
death and agony of the cross, and
all the sufferings He paid for with
the stripes on His back (Isa. 53:5) .
j! Is it any wonder God wants us to

The author, an elect housewife of
, Carthage, N. C, is a member of the
Eureka Presbyterian Church of that
' city.

glorify Him in our bodies and in
our spirits? Don't let us cheapen
ourselves by the way we live. Re-
member we were expensive even to
our "rich" God who is owner and
maker of everything.

Presenting our bodies as a living
sacrifice is just our reasonable ser-
vice (Rom. 12:17). This is not
something especially for the giants
of faith, the preachers, those with
special talents or those more spiri-
tually inclined than we feel that we
are. This is for every born-again
believer. We could not do this in
our own strength, but because of
Him who lives within us we can.

Two Kinds of Witness

I've heard people say they would
be willing to die for the cause of
Christ, but would they also be will-
ing to be a "living sacrifice"? Are
we willing? A living sacrifice is a
person who is willing to sacrifice the
way he would like to live for the
way God wants him to live.

Every born-again believer is a
witness for Christ. There are the
"living sacrifice" witnesses and the
"living for self" witnesses. A wit-
ness has to testify to personally
known facts, and if the fact of our
salvation comes forth with assurance,
joy and love, then we can say,
"Praise God." But if the fact of
salvation has to be picked and
coaxed from a witness, as if he him-
self is not quite sure what it means
to him, then what? Will his testi-
mony not be disregarded and thrown
out as worthless by the people
around him?

The "living for self" witness
doesn't really believe Jesus is the
same yesterday, today and forever.
I know, because I was one of those
witnesses. Oh, I said I believed it
— after all it was in the Bible,

VELMA McLACHLAN

wasn't it? But my life said I was a
liar. I was sure He died on the
cross and rose again "yesterday" and
I was sure He would perform what
He said He would about the "for-
ever" (eternity in heaven for me) .
However, I didn't think He was do-
ing much "today" except big stuff
like keeping the galaxies in place
and the earth from spinning into
the sun. I am sure I didn't feel or
see anything in my life that I
thought might be Jesus. I didn't
even know the Holy Spirit lived in
my body, longing to guide me but
unable to do so until I became will-
ing.

Jesus looked and saw how messed
up and unhappy my life was and by
His wonderful grace caused my fam-
ily and me to move to a new loca-
tion. There, away from everyone I
knew I discovered these honest-to-
goodness, living-sacrifice witnesses
walking around in my life. How
their faith, joy and love did stir my
heart and cause me to see what great
privileges and blessings I was miss-
ing by going my own way, instead
of the better way God had planned
for me.

Only Five Per Cent

Jesus wants every Christian to tes-
tify to someone about what He will
do for others. It's been estimated
that only five per cent of the so-
called Christians have ever tried to
witness for Christ. There is no need
for Christians to pray, "Lord, if it's
your will I'll speak to someone
about you." He has already said
that it is His will that we speak. "It
is not His will that any should per-
ish." Christians are the body of
Christ, His feet, His hands, His
voice. This is the way He has
chosen for the good news to be
spread. This is the most important
mission we can have. Let us not

PAGE 7 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 8, 1972

treat it lightly!

We know many people in our dai-
ly lives who would not set foot in
a church or listen to a preacher, but
they might listen to you if they saw
something different in your life, if
they saw that you lived what you
said you believed. There is the story
of the Christian who called down his
neighbor for taking God's name in
vain. The neighbor laughed and
said, "Well, I guess neither one of us
really means what he says."

We actually hinder other people
from coming to know Christ when
we are only surface Christians or
Sunday Christians.

It is not too difficult to talk about
Jesus at church, but when we get
away from church we seem ashamed
to mention His name. We sing, "I
love to tell the story of Jesus and
His love," but do we really? Do
our neighbors even know that we
claim to be Christians? Would we
walk across the street to tell some-
one about Jesus? Oh, you say, but
she is a Catholic or a Methodist or
whatever. She could belong to any
denomination and not know Jesus
as her personal Saviour and Lord.

Being a church member does not
put your name in the Lamb's book
of life, but belonging to Jesus Christ
does. It is of utmost importance to
have Jesus himself as your founda-
tion, not your church denomination.

Belief Matters

A church member and a Sunday
school teacher said to me she
thought it didn't matter what vou
believed, or of what faith you were,
as long as you were sincere in your
belief. But the Bible tells us,
"There is a way that seemeth right
unto a man but the end thereof are
the ways of death" (Prov. 16:25) .
Some people worship and sincerely
believe in Satan! It most definitely
does matter what, and in whom,
you believe if you expect to enter
heaven. There is only one door
into heaven and that is through Je-
sus Christ. Another lady from a
different denomination said to me,
"I'm sick of church, I'm tired of be-
ing put-upon to teach my Sunday-
school class. I believe in God and
doiner the best I can but that's as far
as it goes." I'm so thankful the
Lord did not send this type of "liv-
ing for self" witness to testify to me
in my time of desperate need.

Even when we are not aware of it,
as Christians we are testifying con-

stantly either for Christ or against
Him. I do not believe either of
these ladies was aware that in our
casual conversation they were testi-
fying to me.

Woven info Life's Fabric

Witnessing for Christ is not some-
thing you put on and take off like
a hat and coat, when you go out or
when you come in. Our testimonies
are woven into our daily life style,
depending on how willing we are
to yield ourselves to the Holy Spirit.

Our tongues especially, should be
yielded daily. The tongue is such a
small member of the body but has
such powerful potential. We can
use it for malicious gossip, idle chat-
ter, dirty jokes, to plant doubt and
tear down faith or we can use it to
plant and build up faith, to speak
encouragement, and to sing songs
of praise.

Until recently I had a bad mis-
conception of witnessing. I knew,
as a Christian it was my duty to do
it but I could not bring myself to a
point of being willing to witness
according to the standards I thought
one had to go by.

I thought witnessing was when
you got all dressed up, took your
Bible, some cards to fill out and
went from door to door with a for-
mal little speech of how Jesus died
for you. If those witnessed to be-
lieved in the name of the Father,
Son and Holy Spirit and wanted to
accept Jesus as Saviour, then they
would fill out a card and come to
"our" church. But if they refused,
then you were to sternly warn them
that unless God were to give them
another opportunity they would go
to hell.

No Threats

When Jesus was choosing His dis-
ciples He did not threaten them
with, "Peter, James and John, if you
don't follow me you'll go to hell."
The love which flowed out from
Jesus was so strong that they were
drawn to follow Him. He did tell
the disciples about hell, but He did
not threaten them into His service.

Let us be careful not to
witness with this demanding atti-
tude, forcing a person to make a de-
cision right at the very moment. Let
us show forth the love of Christ in
our hearts wherever and whenever
the opportunity arises, regardless of
whether we are feeling especially

spiritual, or whether it is Church
visitation night, and without expect-
ing the person to whom we are wit-
nessing to fall on his knees and re-
peat the Doxology or the Apostles'
Creed (although he might!) .

I know it is never easy to witness,
but it has become so much easier
and more natural for me since I
have gotten rid of the burden of
thinking I had to do it in a certain
way. I used to feel that if I did not
speak to a certain number of people
a week, I had to feel guilty and
browbeat myself for being such a
failure and such an ingrate.

Better Prepared

As a homemaker, sometimes four
or five days go by before I come in
contact with a single person outside 1
my family and close friends. Now
I find that if while I am at home 1
keep my mind on Christ by pray-
ing and reading my Bible, that'
when I do go out and meet other
people I can think of many more
relevant things to say.

Personally, I feel that God has
better methods for testifying than
just going from door to door at ran-
dom. He wants and expects us to
use wisdom in talking to people
about salvation. We must rely on
the prompting of the Holy Spirit to
show us which individuals He would
have us speak to or pray for, but
when we are so impressed, let us
speak by all means.

When I became willing for the
Holy Spirit to point out someone I
should speak to, it was only a few
days before I knew who the person
was. It was a lady church member
whom I did not know personally. I
said, "Lord, couldn't you have given
me someone I know to start with?"
Then He impressed me with some-
one I did not know and to that I
said, "O.K., Lord, I'll take the first
one."

Devil and the Dish pan

So for three days I prayed that
the Holy Spirit would show me what
to say and would make her heart re-
ceptive to whatever the Lord led me
to say. Then I went to her home
fortified with my Bible and a loaf
of banana bread. She was very
friendly and attentive. We talked
about the Bible and I mentioned
some definite answers to prayer that

(Continued on p. 23, col. 2)

PAGE 8 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 8, 1972

The veracity of Scripture is at stake in the proposed new confession —

Chapter IV: God In Christ

! ssues raised in "Chapter III: God
and the World" come to more
pointed expression and fuller state-
ment further on in the proposed new
confession. Therefore, I have de-
Icided not to discuss Chapter III in
■detail. It is a rather ordinary treat-
iment of the subjects of creation and
■ providence.

Briefly, however, let me say that
■Chapter III begins with an intima-
Ition that the confession will be uni-
Iversalist. This appears in the short
■statement, "God's love includes
■them all [all people]."

Also in this chapter is a para-
I^raph on ecology. Then, birth con-
l< trol is advocated. The problem of
■evil is touched upon but is declared
I to be a riddle that cannot be solved.

The incarnation is said to be that
i Christ might "share [the world's]
■evils with and for us."

Now let us move on to "Chapter
■IV: God in Christ." The heading
■of the first section is, "God sent the

< promised deliverer to his people."

< Next comes a most equivocal sen-
) tence: "He came as a child, born
iof woman as is every child, yet born
Ipf God's initiative as was no other
■child."

Is this a denial of the virgin birth
I of Christ? Not at all, for the lan-
I ^uage clearly allows an interpreta-
f lion that the uniqueness of Christ's
I birth lay in the fact that His mother
• was a virgin.

Does the language teach the vir-
I %in birth of Christ? Not at all, for
I an interpretation other than that
Christ was born of a virgin and did
:rot have a human father is a possi-
bility. Strange but true, some peo-

t This is another in a series of ar-
micles examining the proposed new
iponfession of faith. Dr. Strong is
bastor of the Trinity Presbyterian
i Church, Montgomery, Ala.

PAGE 9 /

pie today hold that Christ was God
incarnate, but not virgin born.

The idea is this: God used Joseph
and Mary to produce the human life
of Jesus; He caused the divine na-
ture of the second person of the
Trinity to join the human nature
that was the child Jesus. God's hand
was upon Joseph as well as Mary.
It would be quite possible for a per-
son holding to such a view to ac-
cept the statement of the proposed
new confession.

Fundamental Issue

To us, therefore, the proposed
new confession is completely inade-
quate at this point. We are unable
to go with those who say that the
virgin birth is not an important sub-
ject and that we ought not to be
troubled if the new confession to a
degree straddles the issue. The vir-
gin birth is indeed of fundamental
importance.

It is important because the honor
of the family most dear to Christen-
dom is at stake. Were Joseph and
Mary guilty of premarital sex? The
Scriptural narratives of the birth
make it plain that none was more
pure in Israel than Joseph and
Mary.

It is important because the ques-
tion of the parentage of Jesus is
made clear in the Bible. Mary was
His mother. God was His Father.
By the divine initiative, solely the
divine initiative, came into history
the unique person Jesus Christ.

Nature of Jesus

It is important for the light it
throws upon the sinless nature of
Jesus. The angel told Mary that
she would bring forth a "holy
thing." He told her that she would
have a child who would be the Son

HE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEM

ROBERT STRONG

of God. These are indications of
the way in which the human life of
Jesus was preserved from the infec-
tion of original sin. Our substitute
and sacrifice would have to be a
spotless lamb.

By means of the virgin birth one
was born into our race who did not
have the tendencies to disobedience
and selfishness which are ours by in-
heritance. That was why for 33
years Jesus could render absolute
obedience to His Father and to His
Father's law.

It is important because the vera-
city of Scripture is at stake. Is Mat-
thew's witness true? Is Luke's wit-
ness true? There can be no mistake
about it: They both unequivocally
testify to the fact of the virgin birth
of Jesus Christ. Matthew tells it
from the point of view of Joseph,
Luke from the point of view of
Mary.

They say the same thing: Jesus
was born of Mary, but He did not
have a human father. His was a
miraculous begetting. God so loved
the world that He gave, by His own
decision, by His own power, by His
own astounding wisdom, His only
Son — Son by eternal begetting, Son
by the begetting which was a virgin
birth; Son as to His deity, Son as
to His humanity.

Even the appearance of slighting
or obscuring or ignoring the testi-
mony of Scripture should be an in-
supportable offense to the Christian
heart.

The Perfect Man

The second section of Chapter IV
of the new confession treats the life
of Jesus. I touch upon its fourth
paragraph:

"We recognize in Jesus what gen-
uine humanity is. The one unique-
ly sent from God was completely hu-

■R 8, 1972

man. We have no cause to be
ashamed of our humanity. We can
affirm the humanity of our brothers
and sisters. It is when we are in-
human that we sin. God's purpose
is to heal our inhumanity and make
us truly human."

Yes, our Lord was the perfect man.
Yes, we may be unashamed to be-
long to the human race. But it is
confusion to speak of our becoming
inhuman when we sin. The mean-
ing of sin is not grasped at this
point. Sin is not only acts, but it is
also condition. Mankind is in a
state of sinfulness, and this is why
we sin.

Moreover, it is a poor definition
of salvation just to speak of God's
purpose as being a healing of our
inhumanity that we might be truly
human. Salvation is forgiveness,
Salvation is adoption into the fam-
ily of God. Salvation is union with
and becoming like Christ. Salvation
includes our entrance into heaven.

The third section's theme is: "Je-
sus was God with us." When the
new confession says Jesus "confront-
ed and overthrew the evil powers
that enslaved and dehumanized peo-
ple," it seems to be making an ob-
lique reference to Satan, but the
reality of the devil is not acknowl-
edged.

The paragraph which comes clos-
est to saying that our Lord was the
literal Son of God is still an unsatis-
factory confession of the deity of
Christ: "God was uniquely his Fa-
ther and he was uniquely God's Son"
is language that lends itself to the
evasiveness and mental reservations
which characterize the popular ex-
istentialist theory.

Why Christ Died

Section 4 is titled, "Jesus died for
sinners." Now we are at the heart
of things indeed. It is true that the
"execution of Jesus" exposes "the
depth and reality of mankind's sin-
fulness." However, it is a peculiar
way of recounting the motivations
that were at work in the condemna-
tion of Christ to say:

"We kill the only true man be-
cause he exposes our inhumanity.
We reject the only true God because
he unmasks our worship of false
gods."

This is an existential approach to
Calvary. It is not historically true
that the death of Christ came be-
cause He showed that man is a sin-
ner. It is not historically true that

the death of Christ came because He
exposed man as an idolater.

The death of Christ resulted from
the high priests' cupidity, the rejec-
tion of Jesus' claim to be literally
the Son of God, the Jewish leaders'
envy of Jesus' popular following,
and their fear that He would "take
away their place and nation."

It is a true statement that Jesus
"accepts the punishment due us . . .
In His immeasurable sacrifice the
Son does the Father's will. God does
not love us because Christ died for
us; Christ died for us because God
loves us."

More needs to be said, however;
explicit statement of the doctrine of
substitutionary atonement as it is
understood in the Westminster Con-
fession, the Protestant Reformation,
and the New Testament is called for
here.

I have just received from the ad
interim committee a paper prepared
by one of its members, Dr. Robert
T. L. Liston, formerly president of
King College, which supports this
judgment. Better than half of his
presentation is correction of the pro-
posed confession's Chapter IV and
exposition of the great theme of for-
giveness of sins through faith in
Christ and His substitutionary sacri-
fice.

Christ of the Bible

One can hope that the direction
pointed out by Dr. Liston will be
followed by the committee, although
I do not abandon my conviction
that the method of the ad interim
committee is basically faulty and
that no amount of amending or re-
vising can render this product
worthy of being included in a book
of confessions of the Presbyterian
Church US.

Let us again turn to the Westmin-
ster Confession to see how it han-
dles the great themes of Christ in
His person and work. What a thrill-
ing statement is this:

"The Son of God, the second per-
son in the Trinity, being very and
eternal God, of one substance; and
equal with the Father, did, when
the fullness of time was come, take
upon him man's nature, with all the
essential properties and common in-
firmities thereof; yet without sin:
being conceived by the power of the
Holy Ghost, in the womb of the Vir-
gin Mary, of her substance . . . .
Which person is very God and very
man, yet one Christ, the only media-

tor between God and man" (VIII,
2)-

How clear and understandable;
how succinct and how faithful to
Scripture. We are left in no uncer-
tainty. This is the Christ of the
Bible.

Also hear how the Westminster
Confession (VIII, 4) develops the
work of Christ: "This office (of
mediator) the Lord Jesus did most
willingly undertake, which, that he
might discharge, he was made un-
der the law, and did perfectly ful-
fill it; endured most grevious tor-
ments immediately in his soul, and
most painful sufferings in his body;
was crucified and died; was buried,
and remained under the power of '
death, yet saw no corruption.

"On the third day he arose from 5;
the dead, with the same body in ;(
which he suffered; with which also %
he ascended into heaven, and there a
sitteth at the right hand of his Fa- )|o
ther, making intercession; and shall
return to judge men and angels, at aj
the end of the world."

How clear and how Scriptural and 11a
how adequate. One says within him- 5
self, this is the confessional way to &
present the Christ of the Bible.

Note also the treatment of the jm
meaning of the mediatorial work of
Christ: "The Lord Jesus, by his per- ft
feet obedience and sacrifice of him- K
self, which he through the eternal
Spirit once offered up unto God, &
hath fully satisfied the justice of his b
Father; and purchased not only rec- C
onciliation, but an everlasting in- it
heritance in the kingdom of heaven,
for all those whom the Father hath i
given unto him" (VIII, 5) .

Reformation Doctrine

This is Reformation doctrine. The
key word is "satisfied." Jesus Christ
did enough to uphold and honor 1
and vindicate and fulfill the claims
of the heavenly Father's justice.

This is language that conforms to
and expounds the teaching of Scrip j
ture: "Who his own self bear our
sins in his own body on the tree" (I
Pet. 2:24); "God has set forth
(Christ) to be a propitiation
through faith in His blood . . . that -
he might be just, and the justifier
of him which believeth in Jesus"
(Rom. 3:25-26) ; " (Christ) was de- <
livered for our offenses, and was '
raised again for our justification"
(Rom. 4:25).

(Continued on p. 23, col. 1)

PAGE 10 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 8, 1972

People are most free when they are free to be themselves —

A Woman's Ignition

Will Rogers used to say that all
he knew was just what he read
|in the papers. The papers here late-
|ly have been plumb full of all kinds
[of carryins on about a subject called
["Women's Lib." They say that it
[stands for Women's Liberation
ifMovement.

[ I had an old friend who told me
ifthat every woman has a thing about
ijher that is known as a woman's ig-
Inition and when she gets to operat-
ing with it she can find out more
about a man accidentally than a
iman can find out about a man on
purpose. He said that when his wife
got her ignition to working real
good she could smell beer over the
J telephone.

It was Judge W. J. Adams who
i asked Handy Kidd which was the
jbest, a good looking woman or
["Grace" and he replied that he
didn't know what others would
• choose but as for himself he would
take a good looking woman for his
living days and "Grace" for his dy-
ing hour. This sounded right rea-
isonable and seemed to state the case,
j In this modern day some of the fun-
damentals don't change
j I spent the night a few weeks ago
at my friend Vernon Patterson's
over in Charlotte, and we had a
wonderful time going over past his-
tory. His wife "Miss Vidie" was the
daughter of a well-known lawyer in
Washington, D. C, and she brought
out an article written by her brother
John D. Welfly about 50 years ago.
They had some heavy carryins on

The author is a resident of Carth-
. age, N. C, and a frequent contrib-
utor to publications of various kinds.
This piece first appeared in an in-
dependent North Carolina magazine,
The State, and is reprinted with
permission.

going at that time about women's
lib.

I once asked Judge Walter Siler
what we had accomplished by wom-
en's suffrage and he said the only
thing he was positive about was that
it had doubled the vote counting.

I believe this article by John D.
Welfly, and it applies even to this
present time. Trying to bring wom-
en down and make them equal with
men is sort of like putting mud in
ice cream, it doesn't help the mud
and it ruins the ice cream. So here
is what John D. Welfly said fifty
years ago:

"Why is woman dissatisfied? Why
does she grow restless under the
crown of womanhood? Is it not suf-
ficient political achievement for
woman that future rulers nurse at
her breast? Laugh in her arms, and
kneel at her feet? Can ambition
rise to more glorious heights than
to sing lullabies to the world's great-
est geniuses, charge melodies to mas-
ter minds and rock the cradle of hu-
man destiny?

Why?

"God pity our country when the
handshake of the politicians is
more gratifying to woman's heart
than the patter of children's feet.
Why does woman chafe under re-
straint of sex?

"Why discard the skirts that civi-
lization has clung to since the be-
ginning of time? Why lay aside
this hallowed garment that has
wiped the tears of sorrow from the
face of childhood? In its sacred
embrace every generation has hid-
den its face in shame. Clinging to
its motherly folds, tottering children
have learned to play hide and seek;
and from it youth learned to rever-
ence and respect womanhood. Can
man think of his mother without

CHUB SEA WELL

this consecrated garment?

"Why this inordinate thirst for
power? Is not woman all powerful?
Man cannot enter this world with-
out her consent; he cannot remain
in peace without her blessing; and
unless she sheds tears of regret over
his departure, he has lived in vain.

"Why this longing for civic power
when God has made her ruler over
all? Why crave authority when man
bows down and worships her? Man
has given woman his heart, his name
and his money; what more does she
want?

A Political Boss?

"Can man find it in his heart to
look with pride upon the statement
that his honorable mother-in-law was
one of the most powerful political
bosses in the country? And that his
old distinguished grandmother was
one of the ablest filibusterers in the
Senate? Or that his mother was a
noted warrior and her name a ter-
ror to the enemy? Whither are we
drifting and where will we land?

"My hair is white under the frost
of many winters and perhaps I am a
little old fashioned, but I believe
there is more moral influence in the
dress of woman than in all the stat-
ute books in the land. As an agen-
cy for morality I wouldn't give my
good old mother's home-made gowns
for all the suffragettes' constitutions
and bylaws in the world.

"As a power for purifying society
I wouldn't give one prayer of my
saintly mother for all the woman's
votes in Christendom. As an agency
for good government I wouldn't give
the plea of a mother's heart for
righteousness for all the oaths of of-
fice in the land.

(Continued on p. 24, col. 1)

PAGE 11 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 8, 1972

EDITORIALS

Some Thoughts On Women's Lib

"Women's Liberation" is begin-
ning to emerge as possibly the next
great social objective for a large seg-
ment of the institutional Church.

A recent issue of Church and So-
ciety was devoted to Women's Lib,
with thoughtful (if sometimes heat-
ed) contributions by women in full
time Christian service, mostly min-
isters.

One, who appeared anonymously,
deplored the attitude of church
committees which will not consider
feminine candidates for a pulpit on
a parity with masculine candidates.
Too many congregations take the
position that "our manse is for a
man with a family," she said.

Another deplored m a s c u 1 in e
hymns in the Church ("Faith of our
Fathers") and the masculine refer-
ences to God: Father, Son and Holy
Spirit (Spirit also being "He") .

A feminine pastor wrote: "It is
not only legitimate for women,
along with blacks and young people,
to want to share power with men
over the systems of society, it is our
right."

The president of the National Or-
ganization for Women said: "We
whose hands have rocked the cradle
(and often enjoy it and intend to
share it with men) are NOW using
our heads to rock the boat. We in-
tend to share equally (not merely
help) in guiding the ship of state
and all our social and religious in-
stitutions at every level."

A list of tactics to be employed
by church women in achieving their
objectives included such things as
workshops, study groups (to see what
can be done about "masculine"
hymns and the like) and "integra-
tion of men into activities of tradi-
tional Women of the Church organi-
zations."

The use of "Ms" to desig-
nate women promises to become gen-
eral in Presbyterian circles.

No doubt anything which might
be construed as critical of Women's
Lib will be taken as defensive and
reactionary. And this is an area in
which few people are persuaded
against their will.

But it seems to us that a distinc-
tion must be made between areas in
which women have been unfairly
discriminated against, and areas that
belong naturally to men or to wom-
en. Unfair discrimination is never
defensible. But that does not mean
some preoccupations are not more
"masculine" while other preoccupa-
tions are more "feminine" in the
very nature of things.

One of the contributors to this
issue of Church and Society (Sept.-
Oct. 1972) suggested that something
would have to be done from infancy,
to disturb the pattern whereby girls
play with dolls while boys play with
tools. If that author thinks that
the play patterns of small children
are imposed by socially conscious
parents, she is even less informed
than her article indicated.

As for the Church, no Christian
need be embarrassed to say it loud
and say it plain: The very nature
of things — meaning the Bible, mean-
ing divine revelation, meaning the
will of God, meaning the way things
are supposed to be — prescribes that
the leadership roles in the Church
of Jesus Christ have been assigned
to men.

Men may surrender their as-
signment by default, or abrogate
their designated role, but that does
not mean the Church will prosper
in other hands.

A wise theologian once said: "The
affairs of a local congregation may
pass into the hands of its women
because the men are unwilling or
unable to assume their assigned
place. But no matter how active
or how energetic those women may
become, that congregation will nev-
er be more spiritually alive than the
level of the participation of its men."

And that, dear friends, is a
fact. ffl

The Lord provides, but not neces-
sarily in the style to which you
would like to be accustomed. — Un-
known.

Needed: Discipline

In the wake of an unfortunate ;,i
racial "incident" in our fair city, the ^
mayor went on record as opposed
to a solution based on increasing the
"strong-arm" presence of the law.

"You can put a policeman in every
school and on every street corner,"
he said, "but until blacks and whites
learn to live together, the problem's
never going to be solved."

There stands starkly revealed the
attitude which has made a shambles
of public tranquility in America to-
day: the belief that government's
role in maintaining law and order
is limited by whatever success may
be achieved in changing human na-
ture.

Our largely liberal society sincere-
ly believes that problems rooted in
human nature can only be solved af-
ter human nature changes — if a per-
son's attitude is wrong and he shows
criminal tendencies, the thing to do
is to change his attitude. As a con-
sequence, our courts have started
equating "justice" with "rehabilita-
tion."

There is an institution dedicated
to changing human nature. That
is the Church. It is the preoccupa-
tion of religion to do something
about the way human beings think
and behave.

Even if one does not agree
with Christian dogma, however, it
shouldn't be hard to reach agree-
ment, in the light of human history,
that it isn't easy to change human
nature. And even if you achieve
moderate success with one genera-
tion, you have the job to do all over
again with the next.

Public tranquility, however, sel-
dom in human history has been
based on private morals. To sug-
gest that we cannot succeed in the
area of law and order until human
nature has been changed is to avoi<|l
the basic responsibility of govern-
ment: public tranquility among hu-
man beings whose nature may not
be agreeable to law and order.

This means the function of gov-
ernment is precisely that function i
which is popularly denied today (and I
by some religious leaders) : disci-
pline and control rather than "re-
habilitation." (Although one may
hope that rehabilitation will result.)

It is not the function of the courts ■
to determine whether a person has ;
the capacity to learn a moral lesson
and then to be his teacher. It is rath-
er to determine whether he has t

PAGE 12 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 8, 1972

T

THE LAYMAN AND HIS CHURCH

Reverend Bob's Social Gospel

broken the law and to apply the just
and proper penalty, fairly and impar-
tially.

This approach to the problem
should be perfectly obvious to the
mayor (and to anyone else) if the
anatomy of a riot is carefully ex-
iamined.

To say that unruly students break
into downtown stores and loot val-
uable merchandise because "they
haven't learned to live together" is
to speak nonsense.

Few of us ever go through life
without feeling that we have been
on occasion deprived, mistreated,
or discriminated against. This is
part of the problem of human na-
ture. But the immediate solution to
looting is not a course of instruction
to teach people how to live with each
other. It is the prompt application of
the one element too often missing to-
day: discipline, or control. IB

Unnecessary
Bureaucracy

A small item in the Journal for
November 1 (p. 6) told of the for-
i mation of a Presbyterian Council for
I Chaplains and Military Personnel.

Back of that brief item lies a story.
I It is a shining example of Parkin-
l son's law that bureaucracies spawn
larger bureaucracies. Bureaucrats
and the executive offices over which

• they preside are seldom abolished,
i They may be shifted, reorganized,
■ combined, or what have you. But
I they do not disappear. Instead, like
I rabbits, they tend to multiply.

Four Presbyterian denominations
lhave decided to merge their offices
lion military chaplains. Presumably
I these denominations — Presbyterian
i Church US, United Presbyterian
i Church USA, Associate Reformed

* Presbyterian Church and Cumber-
land Presbyterian Church — have

1 begun to realize that there is
precious little for an office on the

i chaplaincy to do, other than certify
applications by ministers who apply

Ijto the military for appointment as
chaplains.

I In the PCUS there is not only
precious little to do, it seems to have
been rather consistently done in the
past to the detriment of an evan-
gelical witness in the military. The
Atlanta office on chaplains has been
rather notorious in its treatment of

(Continued on p. 22, col. 3)

In these revolutionary times the
expression, "social gospel" adds to
the general confusion. Folks are
mystified by the term which mani-
fests itself in so many different ways.

Sometimes it takes on political
overtones, such as participating in
protest demonstrations, or in lead-
ing voters to the polls. Again, it may
manifest itself in a church group
addressing a resolution to their rep-
resentative endorsing some bill be-
ing considered by Congress.

At other times, the social gospel
appears as a purely academic exer-
cise. Affluent groups gather in a
comfortable room in the church and
hold a symposium on poverty. They
ask forgiveness for their sins against
their fellowman, and go home feel-
ing somewhat justified.

Many years before the social gos-
pel became vocal, we had a preach-
er practicing it right here in the old
home town, but he did it in his own
peculiar way. Sometimes it nearly
broke him down physically and fi-
nancially, but he stayed with it. He
was a determined man.

Some old-timers will remember
the Reverend Bob King. He was the
kind of man one can't forget.

Reverend Bob always put the Gos-
pel of salvation ahead of the social
gospel, although he found time for
both. He never preached a sermon
without extending an invitation to
the unsaved to accept Christ. It must
have been discouraging to him to do
this time after time, and so seldom
have a response. It was a rare oc-
casion when someone came forward
and made a profession of faith.

However, he continued the prac-
tice, and over his long ministry the
number of people led to Christ must
have been great. Only the Lord
knows how much of his preaching
fell on stony ground and how much
on good ground, and that is all re-
corded in the Book of Life some-
where out yonder.

The layman's column is written
this week by Conway Smith of Pu-
laski, Va.

Reverend Bob faithfully pro-
claimed the Gospel of salvation, but
he practiced his social gospel on ev-
ery opportunity. He didn't preach
it. Just practiced it. There was
no "Alcoholics Anonymous, Inc." in
those days, but there were alcoholics,
and Reverend Bob always took time
to extend a helping hand. He made
friends with those who seemed hope-
less, worked with them and prayed
for them. And some were rehabili-
tated, accepted Christ, and served
Him faithfully for the rest of their
lives.

He shared what he had with those
in need, depriving himself and fam-
ily when he considered it necessary,
like the time I saw him coming out
of the hospital carrying a little child
in his arms. Stopping at the cash-
ier's desk, he wrote his personal
check for the child's hospital bill
before taking the little one back to
its humble home.

I don't recall ever hearing Rev-
erend Bob preach on poverty or so-
cial justice. I did hear of his be-
ing called to a large church in a
Southern city at a salary which was,
no doubt, more than he had ever
dreamed of. He went down to look
over the field. In talking with some
of the church's officers he inquired
about the poor in the congregation.
He was told with an air of com-
placency, "We have no poor peo-
ple in our congregation."

"Then," said Reverend Bob,
"there is no place for me." He ac-
cepted a call to another small town
church at a salary even less that the
modest emolument he had received
from our congregation.

One winter, sometime after he
left us, one of our citizens happened
to be in the town where Reverend
Bob's new charge was located. This
gentleman was walking down a
street at night. The weather was
was bitter cold, with a blizzard driv-
ing sleet and snow along the street.

Just ahead he noticed a man muf-
fled in a heavy coat carrying a large
bucket of coal in each hand. The

(Continued on p. 22, col. 3)

PAGE 13 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 8, 1972

p

SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON

For November 26, 1972

INTRODUCTION: This final
lesson in the present quarter appro-
priately discusses peace. Most men
desire peace but not the same kinds
of peace. No doubt, peace among
men is related to peace with God.
This is clearly the Biblical doctrine
of peace. No man-made peace can
last as long as men do not have peace
with God.

From the entrance of sin into the
life of man (Gen. 3) , enmity has
been established between men and
God, between God's children and
Satan's children, and among all men
on earth. The cause of all war,
strife and enmity ultimately is sin.

Therefore, the source of peace
must be in dealing rightly with sin
to its abolishment. Such a solution
the world does not have, and there-
fore, the world is helpless to bring
any meaningful peace. Our task
in this lesson will be to show God's
peace as the only solution to man's
wars and enmity.

I. PEACE, THE BIBLICAL
HOPE (Mic. 4:1-4) . Isaiah 2:24 is
identical with the Micah passage,
and we should note that the "peace"
message comes immediately after
the solemn pronouncement of judg-
ment on Israel because of sin (Isa.
1; Mic. 3) .

From this we should understand
an important Biblical truth. Peace
can never be realized until we dis-
cover and acknowledge our true
state in sin and under the wrath of
God. What really threatens men is
the ultimate judgment of God
against sin, the final judgment of
which Scripture continually speaks.

Present wars and killings among
men are symptomatic of man's true
condition in sin. Wars between
men are but samples of the final aw-
ful judgment in store for all who
have not reckoned with sin and
found the solution which only God
offers.

This Micah passage is typical of
many in the Old Testament which
gives a picture of ultimate peace in
terms of the cessation of wars be-
tween men. The picture should

What Kind of Peace?

Rev. Jack B. Scott

Background Scripture: Micah 4:1-
4; Matthew 24:3-14; James 4:1-
10

Key Verses: Micah 4:1-4; Matthew

24:6-8; James 4:1-3
Devotional Reading: Psalm 67
Memory Selection: Matthew 5:9

never be confused with human ef-
forts toward peace, such as the ef-
forts through the United Nations or
man-made treaties of today.

That kind of peace is a false peace
which cannot last because men do
not reckon with man's sinful heart,
nor with the fact that without peace
with God there can never be peace
among men. As the angel said in an-
nouncing the birth of Jesus to the
shepherds: "And on earth peace
among men in whom he is well
pleased" (Luke 2:14).

Micah described peace in terms of
the triumph of God's kingdom. This
is the sense of the establishment of
the mountain of the Lord's house
above all (4:1). This is similar to
the promise in Daniel 2, the final
triumph of God's kingdom (Dan. 2:
44) .

Here peace is described as occur-
ring when nations and people look
to God and His word and His ways

(Mic. 4:2) . Only when men are
committed to walk in God's paths
can there ever be real peace. Here
God's judgment and His reckoning
with our sins are shown to be neces-
sary for this peace, this time when
men turn weapons of war into in-
struments of peace and prosperity

(Mic. 4:3).

The final picture of tranquility
is quite typical (Mic. 4:4) . A simi-
lar description is found in I Kings
4:25. In the time of Solomon peace
reigned among God's people. Simi-
larly, Zechariah 3:6-10 describes the
time when God's people will live in
this way of peace, walking in God's
ways and led by the branch (Sav-
iour) .

The statement, "None shall make

The International Sunday School Lesson Outlines
are copyrighted 1972 by the Committee on the
Uniform Series of the National Council of
Churches of Christ.

them afraid" (Mic. 4:4) , recalls the
words in Revelation 21:3-4, describ-
ing the state of God's people with
the Lord in heaven for eternity. The
Revelation description, like the Mi-
cah words, points to a time when
sin has been dealt with and those
remaining have peace with God and
thus with one another.

This triumph of peace over en*
mity and war is ever the Biblical
hope. Since sin entered the history
of man, it is the constant threat to
man's peace. Present-day wars and
evil of men toward men are but an
indication of the awful reality of
sin. Any attempted peace among
men which ignores this reality, or
seeks a peace without turning to
the Lord, is a delusion and is
doomed to failure.

II. PEACE, THE MEANS TO IT
(Matt. 24:3-14) . This passage is in
the context of questions the disciples
asked about the end of the world
and Christ's coming (v. 3) . In an-
answer to their questions, Jesus
spoke of the wars and rumors of war
which pervade man's history (v. 6) .
These wars are not unique to the
end of time, but they typify man's
history.

Not only men's wars but God's
judgment on men by famine, earth-
quakes and the like, are typical of
all of man's history. God is not will-
ing that any perish. This means
that God is constantly warning men
of the impending judgment to come.
Jesus said that trials constantly fall
on men as part of history (v. 8) .

Jesus then told of the intensifying
of the trials and tribulations unto
the very time of judgment itself.
Scripture warns again and again
that as the time draws near, we can
expect even harder times to fall on
man. This is God's final warning
to men of the judgment. The last
days will be exceedingly terrible
(Matt. 24:22) . Compare II Thessa-
lonians 2:3; II Timothy 3:1; and
Revelation 20:7, all of which point
to the same intensifying of tribula-
tion before the final end.

Finally, Jesus declared what God

3D

hi
ifu
Got

PAGE 14 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 8, 1972

II s doing in all of this time of man's
liistory. The Gospel is being sent
1.0 the nations, to the ends of the
|:arth (Matt. 24: 14) . Those nations
Ivhich Micah described as coming to

■ he Lord are the nations to whom
■pod has sent His Gospel. Out of

■ hem many have believed and come
|i.o the Saviour. These are the na-

ions to whom Jesus, the Lord of
• he harvest, sends His Church (Matt.
|>8: 18-20) . The Lord spoke to Abra-
Iiam about these nations some 4,000
/ears ago, promising that in Abra-
iam all families of the earth would
;ioe blessed (Gen. 12:3) .

God's plan for peace is directly
[related to the proclamation of the
Gospel. Therefore, Isaiah, who
called the Saviour God the Prince
of Peace (Isa. 9:6) , began the sec-
Ition relating particularly to the
Gospel by the words: "Comfort ye,
comfort ye my people" (Isa. 40:1) .

In Isaiah 53 Christ's work as our
peacemaker comes out most clearly.
There, He is shown to be the one
who deals with our sin by His own
death on our behalf: "the chastise-
ment of our peace was upon him"
(v. 5) . His soul was offered for our
sins (v. 10) . He bore our sins (v.
12).

God, who in Christ has dealt with
our sins, is the true peacemaker, hav-
ing made peace between us and God
by His own sacrificial death on the
cross. Only a peace that reckons
with sin, which is the cause of strife,

jean be a true and lasting peace. As
Paul affirmed, "Being therefore jus-
tified by faith, we have peace with
God through our Lord Jesus Christ"

I (Rom. 5:1) .

When the Lord said, "Blessed are
the peacemakers; for they shall be
called sons of God" (Matt. 5:9) , He
was not speaking of those who seek
peace among men by treaties or hu-
man efforts, but of those who, rep-
resenting God among men (i.e.,
God's children) , share the Gospel

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with those in the world to bring
them to peace with God.

This effect of the Gospel in bring-
ing peace not only between sinners
and God but also among men who
are reconciled to God, is made quite
clear (Eph. 2:11, 21) . Paul addressed
the Gentiles who were formerly at
enmity both with God and with
God's people (Eph. 2:12) .

He showed that in Christ peace
came to the Gentiles through Jesus'
shed blood (v. 13) . This is in ac-
cord with what Isaiah had said long
before (Isa. 53) . Christ is called
"our peace" not only because He
brought reconciliation between the
Gentiles and God, but also between
Jewish believers and Gentile believ-
ers (Isa. 53:14-18).

It is a marvelous truth that among
God's people there is a peace that
crosses all human lines of division.
While nations continue to war and
fail to make peace, believers in
America, Russia, China, Cuba, Leb-
anon, Israel and other points of the
world do have peace. Even when
forced to go to war against one an-
other because they live in opposing
nations, nevertheless personally they
are at peace with one another.

One day, only God's children will
be left, and no longer will nation
strive against nation nor God's chil-
dren be compelled to take up arms.
Until that day, we can nevertheless
realize the truest peace: that peace
between us and God which results
in love for and fellowship with all
true believers everywhere.

III. PEACE, HOW TO MAIN-
TAIN IT (Jas. 4:1-10) . As I under-
stand this passage, James was writ-
ing to those who claim to be believ-
ers (Jas. 1:1). Here he was dealing
with the problems of continuing en-
mity among those who call them-
selves Christians. He chastised them
for continuing to strive with one
another as though Christ had not

brought peace to their lives (4:2) .
He pointed out that because they
still loved the world, they could not
love one another (v. 4) . They lived
more like Satan's children than the
children of God.

This problem which we see evi-
denced in the church, where there
is bickering and division and plot-
ting, is plainly described by James.
The solution, too, is clear. Pride
causes divisions, but in faith in
Christ there is no reason for pride
(v. 6) . As we draw nearer to God
we will surely draw nearer to one
another (v. 8) .

Peace comes among Christian
brothers when each is, in Christian
love, as concerned for his neighbor
as for himself. Pride exalts one's
self and causes enmity, while hu-
mility exalts Christ and draws us
together. In the world, this is the
only peace we can know, the peace
that comes because God has brought
us together. It points to that eter-
nal day when we shall dwell to-
gether with God in peace.

As Jesus said, "These things have
I spoke unto you, that in me ye may
have peace. In the world ye have
tribulation: but be of good cheer;
I have overcome the world" (John
16:33).

CONCLUSION: In the world, so
long as men's hearts are full of sin
and unreconciled to God, there will
be wars and shattered peace. God
is moving His Church toward a
reign of peace which the Prince of
Peace shall establish. Then from
all nations a multitude of people
will live in peace with God and with
one another forever.

• • •

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PAGE 15 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 8, 1972

YOUTH PROGRAM

Scripture: Hebrews 7
Suggested Hymns:

"Jesus Paid It All"
"My Faith Looks up to Thee"
"What a Friend We Have in
Jesus"

PROGRAM LEADER'S INTRO-
DUCTION: There are many times
when a man feels the need of a
priest. He may want to call upon
God, but he feels unworthy to speak
to the Lord in person, so he wishes
for a mediator, a go-between. That
is what a priest is, one who inter-
cedes with God on behalf of an-
other.

A minister called on a man who
had lived without God all his life.
He told him of the saving work of
Jesus, and the man expressed a
keen interest, saying that he be-
lieved in the Lord. Then the min-
ister asked him to confess his sins
and to ask the Lord to save him.

The poor man was at a great loss.
He tried to pray and in deep earn-
estness said over and over, "Lord,
I don't know what to say." That
man needed a priest, and surely all
of us have had a similar feeling of
helplessness and need at some time.

We do not really need a priest
from among men, because all men
have the same feelings of unworthi-
ness and helplessness that we do. We
human beings are all sinners and all
have the same needs.

What we must come to under-
stand is that we already have a per-
fect priest and that through Him
each one of us can become his own
priest.

It has been said that the theme of
the epistle to the Hebrews is "every
man his own priest." In one sense
that is very true, but it is only be-
cause there is One who perfectly
and eternally fulfills the priestly of-
fice for us. The real aim of the
book of Hebrews is to introduce us
to our great high priest, Jesus Christ.

FIRST SPEAKER: When we
speak of Christ as our priest we are

For November 26, 1972

Christ, Our Priest

Rev. B. Hoyt Evans

dealing with a subject which was
very precious to the Reformers. As
long as the priests of the old Roman
Church were devout, spiritual men
showing a deep concern for their
people, the people themselves raised
no question as to the Tightness of
their office. Many of them were
loved by their people and all of
them were accepted.

But when the office began to be
openly abused, doubts began to arise
as to the propriety of having priests.
It is no wonder that there was lack
of confidence among the people
when a high ranking emissary from
Rome appeared in their midst, sell-
ing indulgences with all the fanfare
of a patent medicine peddler.

Deep unrest in the minds of many
began to be expressed openly. Men
of spirituality began to question the
whole system and to search the Scrip-
tures for more light on the subject.
The book of Hebrews became a
lighthouse for them because it
pointed them to a priest they could
trust with all their hearts.

In the wonderful seventh chapter of
Hebrews we find Jesus Christ de-
scribed as our high priest. We find
Him contrasted with the earthly, hu-
man priesthood. In this particular
place the priesthood referred to is
the Levitical priesthood of the Old
Testament, but what is said of it can
be equally well said of any earthly
order of priests.

This passage was certainly appli-
cable to the situation in which the
Reformers found themselves. It also
applies to us whenever we find our-
selves confronted with those who
claim to be our priests.

SECOND SPEAKER: The first
thing that should concern us as to
the qualification of a priest is his
character. We do not care to be
represented before God by any priest
whose character is at all question-
able.

Where can a priest be found
whose character is above reproach?
Jesus Christ is our high priest, and
this is what the Bible says about His

character: "For such an high priest
became us, who is holy, harmless,
undefiled, separate from sinners,
and made higher than the heavens."

For what more could we ask or
hope? If a man is to serve as our
priest, our go-between, it is certainly
necessary that he be able to stand
in the presence of God in his own
right. We know that Christ can
qualify in this respect because He
came from God. In fact, He is God.

The whole record of His life on
earth impresses us with His perfect
sinlessness. Time and again His
Father testified from heaven in mi-
raculous ways to His perfections and
to His acceptability.

THIRD SPEAKER: Another
question we need to raise about one
who would be our priest concerns
his sacrificial work. Under the old
covenant the priest had to make
satisfaction for his own sins and
then offer sacrifice on behalf of the
people. This process had to be re-
peated again and again. There was
no end to the sin and no end to the
sacrifice.

What kind of sacrifice is offered
by Christ as our priest? The Bible
says that Christ "needeth not daily
as those high priests, to offer up sac-
rifice, first for his own sins, and
then for the people's: for this he
did once, when he offered up him-
self." Christ's sacrifice is eternal
and all-sufficient.

In the olden days one lamb was
offered for one family on one occa-
sion. In the sacrifice of Christ, the
righteous Son of God offered Him-
self for all time for all people. God
testified that this sacrifice was satis-
factory when He raised Christ from
the dead. He appears in the pres-
ence of the Father eternally as a liv-
ing sacrifice.

FOURTH SPEAKER: Another
part of Christ's priestly work de-
serves our attention. It moves us
deeply to know that Christ died for

(Continued on p. 24, col. 3)

PAGE 16 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 8, 1972

WOMEN'S WORK

Supplementary Circle Bible Study

December: The Temptation of the Servant

Manford George Gutzke, D.D., Ph.D.

Did you know that a good man
can be tempted to disobey God?

The Christian is a disciple of
Christ Jesus, a believer in the Gos-
pel. This means that he has re-
iceived Jesus Christ as Saviour and as
Lord. This means that he is for-
given, cleansed in the sight of God.
[He is delivered from his evil ways
|!and born again in Christ Jesus. He
(has been given the Holy Spirit into
[his heart to comfort him, to guide
[him and to show him the things of
[IChrist. One can say "Christ in you,
Ithe hope of glory."

The Christian has denied him-
(self, has yielded in surrender; he
i;now lives in Christ, and Christ lives
in him. We must say at once that
he does not do this in his own
.strength, or his own wisdom or his
ijown virtue. Christ Jesus said when
He was here: "I am among you as
he that serveth."

Standard Approach

When Christ is in the heart, there
will be from within the person a
disposition to serve the Father.

The Christian, as a serving per-
son, can be tempted. No one is
above being tempted. The Lord
Jesus Christ Himself was tempted.
The temptation of Jesus Christ in
the desert is classic and it can be
well understood when it is compared
with the temptation of Adam and
Eve in the Garden of Eden.

In Luke 3:22 it is written: "And
!a voice came from heaven, which
said, Thou art my beloved Son; in
thee I am well pleased." Now fol-
lowing that record in chapter 4 we
read about the temptation of Jesus
I of Nazareth in the desert. This
temptation originated with the devil,
the same as the temptation in Eden.
"And the devil said unto him, If
thou be the Son of God, command
this stone that it be made bread"
(Luke 4:3) .

This is the standard approach of
the devil. Notice that the devil
does not openly contradict God, but
i he suggests to the mind of the per-
i son being tempted that God's com-

Luke 4:1-21

mandment should not be taken seri-
ously. Remember when Satan ap-
proached Eve in the garden, he
asked her, "Yea, hath God said, Ye
shall not eat of every tree in the
garden?"

The devil avoided saying, "God
didn't say it," as that would have
been a contradiction. Eve would
have known better. And he did not
say that it was wrong. He just
simply raised the question: "Hath
God said, ye shall not eat of every
tree in the garden?"

Satan Still Tempts

Eve answered him, beginning the
conversation in which Satan cast
doubt upon Eve's understanding
about what God had said. Satan
cast doubt upon the Word of God
by raising the question as he does
here: "If thou be the Son of
God

We have just noted the voice from
heaven had said, "Thou art my be-
loved Son; in thee I am well pleased."
Then Satan said, "If that is true, if
thou be the Son of God, command
this stone that it be made bread."

The Christian is saved by faith,
he lives by faith, and he serves by
faith. Faith is vital. Faith is not
make believe. Faith is not a matter
of thinking something might be
nice, and then believing it true and
making it come to pass; that is make-
believe. No, no! Faith is a matter
of hearing what God has said and
believing it. It is a matter of re-
ceiving the Word of God as true and
living on it.

A Big Question

Satan will seek in every way pos-
sible to weaken and shake a Chris-
tian's faith. If he can get the be-
liever to doubt the Word of God,
he is separating the believer from
the Word of God and therefore from
his Lord. That leaves the believer
on his own, alone.

When the believer is alone, he is
no match for the devil. Satan can
easily take him in then. The fact
of Satan poses a puzzle. It is a big
question in the normal mind. Why
would God permit Satan? And I
can tell you right now, I do not
know the answer. That is one of
those things God has not revealed
to the world.

How can Satan tempt a true be-
liever? He tempted Jesus of Naza-
reth and he tempted that righteous
man in the Old Testament, Job. In
each case he was under restraint. Sa-
tan can only do what God permits
him to do.

When one says about Christ Jesus
that "He was tempted in all points
like as we are, yet without sin," the
person should be very careful that
he does not think that He was
tempted by everything that tempts
us. It says He was tempted in all
points. That is, in all respects.

It does not say that He was
tempted by everything. This de-
pends upon the person. A person
who is a refined, gentle person can-
not be tempted by vulgar, crass,
dirty things. He would be offend-
ed by them.

Personal Illustration

If I might use a personal illustra-
tion, I could say in all honesty that
in all my days from the time I was
a young lad and long before I was
a Christian, I could never have been
tempted by a bottle of whiskey. All
my life I have had a rigid, fixed
aversion to any alcoholic beverage.

I could never have been tempted
by gambling. That always seemed
to me an absurd thing, to risk some-
thing you could not afford to lose
on chance. These are areas in which
I was never in any danger of being
tempted. Now this does not mean
that I was above temptation, nor
does it mean that I was in every-
thing righteous. It is a long way
from that.

It illustrates that a person who is a
refined, cultured individual could

PAGE 17 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 8, 1972

not be tempted by something that
was outwardly crass, crude, vulgar
or obscene. Here is a danger as
far as the Christian is concerned.

A good man can be tempted by
a good thing. Jesus of Nazareth
could not be tempted by anything
unclean in itself because there was
in Him no sin. How then could
He be tempted? He could be tempt-
ed to act in His own will. The
story of this temptation is seen in
Luke 4:1-11. The reader will see
He was tempted when He was hun-
gry to turn the stone into bread.
There is nothing wrong about bread.

When He was shown all the king-
doms in the world in a moment of
time, and told that He could be-
come the Lord over all those things,
there was nothing wrong about that.
In fact, He was going to become
Lord. What was wrong was the way
it was to be done.

I often say with reference to this,
eating an apple is not wrong, but
when I take your apple and eat it,
then I am stealing. That is wrong!

Not By Bread Alone

Some actions on the part of man
are hurtful in themselves and direct-
ly contrary to the Ten Command-
ments. The form of temptation will
depend on the personal character
and training of the individual. This
is important for a person may have
the feeling, "I do not see anything
wrong in that." But is it what God
wants you to do? Now let us look
more clearly.

Look again to the book of Luke:
"And Jesus being full of the Holy
Ghost returned from Jordan, and
was led by the Spirit into the wil-
derness" (4:1). This is a very sober-
ing idea. This temptation was in
the will of God so far as His Son,
Jesus of Nazareth, was concerned
and the Spirit of God led the Lord
Jesus Himself into the desert where
this temptation was to come.

". . . being forty days tempted of
the devil. And in those days he did
eat nothing: and when they were
ended, he afterward hungered. And
the devil said unto him, If thou be
the Son of God, command this stone
that it be made bread." Again, there
is nothing wrong in eating bread.
His hunger was an honest feeling.
"And Jesus answered him, saying,
It is written, That man shall not
live by bread alone, but by every
word of God."

This brings to mind that man has

two aspects in his personality. He
has a bodily aspect that we com-
monly call the flesh, and it needs
food; and he has a soul, a spiritual
aspect, and it needs the Word of
God to be fed. Christ Jesus' answer
assures the believer that there is more
than food. He was hungry, yes, but
the soul was more important.

The Lord Jesus said: "For what
shall it profit a man, if he shall gain
the whole world, and lose his own
soul? Or what shall a man give in
exchange for his soul?" (Mark 8:
36-37) . If the needs of the body
come to mind and the needs of the
soul come to mind, the needs of the
soul must come first. They have
priority. The priority is obedience
to God.

"And the devil, taking him up in-
to a high mountain, showed unto
him all the kingdoms of the world
in a moment of time. And the devil
said unto him, All this power will I
give thee, and the glory of them: for

For Discussion

1. Why is criticism of the Scrip-
tures so dangerous?

2. Name some situations in
which a Christian could be tempted
into disobedience by a good thing.

3. How could praying help the
Christian to avoid falling into temp-
tation?

4. Compare and contrast the
temptation in the Garden of Eden
and the temptation in the desert.

that is delivered unto me; and to
whomsoever I will give it. If thou
therefore wilt worship me, all shall
be thine" (Luke 4:5-7) .

God's Priority

Jesus of Nazareth came into this
world to be incarnate, the Son of
God. His destiny is to be the King
of kings and Lord of lords, and He
is to rule over all God's creation.
This is in the will of God for Him.
This promise was before Him. When
Satan tempted Him, he asked the
Lord to accept a short cut.

Christ Jesus answered him: "Get
thee behind me, Satan: for it is writ-
ten, Thou shalt worship the Lord
thy God, and him only shalt thou
serve" (Luke 4:8) . Christ Jesus
sought the priority of the will of
His Father.

"And he brought him to Jerusa- g

lem, and set him on a pinnacle of
the temple, and said unto him, If
thou be the Son of God, cast thyself; E
down from hence: For it is written, I
He shall give his angels charge over
thee, to keep thee: and in their
hands they shall bear thee up, lest p
at any time thou dash thy foot |
against a stone" (Luke 4:9-11).

This Old Testament quotation
was in many respects the most sub-i ^
tie. Satan now goes to Scripture j
and asks, "Show us now that you are
the Son of God. Here is a promise r
of Scripture. God said He would
give His angels charge over thee." s"

"And Jesus answering said unto !
him, It is said, Thou shalt not tempt ,
the Lord thy God. And when thf \
devil had ended all the temptation, ,.
he departed from him for a season." ; ^
Not for always, while He was here
in this world He would be tempted
again. Notice each temptation was
not evil. Had it been evil He could
not have been tempted. He was r|
without sin.

(I

Word Is Challenged

Notice again the course of tempta- .
tion. First, the Word of God is
challenged. That is the way it was
with Eve. "Hath God said ye shall
not eat of every tree?" Of cours|'
God had said it, but Satan put the
question to Eve, causing her to
doubt. Jesus of Nazareth had
been told by a voice from heaven,
"Thou art my beloved Son; in thee
I am well pleased." Then Satan
comes and says "If you are the Son
of God, then do like this."

The second thing is the lust of the
flesh. This is clearly outlined in I
John 2:16 where you will see these
three things: the lust of the flesh,
the lust of the eyes and the pride
of life.

The lust of the flesh is shown
when Jesus is told to make that
stone into bread because it would
feed Him. The lust of the flesh
would mean the desires of the hu-
man nature, the desires of the physi-
cal nature for which one could say,
"It would feel good." In this case
this bread would be good to eat
when one was hungry.

The next temptation came when
He was taken and shown all the
kingdoms of the earth. This is the |
lust of the eye in which one sees all
things available. It would look good.

(Continued on p. 24, col 2)

PAGE 18 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 8, 1972

f

BOOKS

PURSUED, by Vera Schlamm as told
to Bob Friedman. Gospel Light Pub-
lications, Glendale, Calif. Paper, 212
pp. $1.25. Reviewed by William G.
' Bolus, Knoxville, Tenn.

A Los Angeles pediatrician tells a
I poignant story of her conversion
! from Judaism to Christianity. Her
story is typical of the "completion"
■in the lives of a growing number of
i Christians who began life chained
; by the bonds of Jewish legalism.
She begins with the persecution
she and her family suffered in Nazi
Germany and progresses to the
i various stages of her theological
i thinking which led her to an
[ experience with Jesus Christ. Dr.
I Schlamm notes that satisfaction with
i her life came only after many years
jiof searching the Scriptures of both
lithe Old and New Testaments for
lithe truth.

Of much significance in her con-
* version story is the note toward the
end of the book that only after she
found the peace of Christ did she
i; completely rid herself of her in-
: grained hatred of Germans. EE

TODAY IS ALL YOU HAVE, by
I Overton Stephens. Zondervan Publ.
' House, Grand Rapids, Mich. 160 pp.
$3.95. Reviewed by the Rev. Robert
E. Weinman, pastor, First Presbyte-
rian Church, Columbiana, Ohio.

The chronicle of a Canadian
physician who has survived a per-
sonal bout with cancer and arterio-
sclerosis is proclaimed in the intro-
duction by Bruce Larson to be "a
prescription to help each one come
to grips not only with the universal
fact of death, but with the partic-
ular fact of his own death." It falls

I far short of the goal.

While one can admire the spiri-
tual progress and growth evidenced

i in the author's life, his understand-
ing of theology and Christian coun-
seling leaves much to be desired. In-
forming a pregnant 18-year-old high
school girl that she and her class-
mate are "already married in God's

, sight" simply because they have had
sexual relations is not only Scrip-
turally unsound, but it is an over
simplification in a very difficult and
delicate counseling situation.

Nor does he show much insight
into the real needs of an obviously
emotionally unbalanced lad of 21
who, suffering from a sense of guilt
and spiritual need, comes to him
for help. The young man after
spending an hour with the doctor
returns home with his guilt still
undealt with and commits suicide.
To which the doctor has this to say,
"Is this a story of success or failure?
If Jesus Christ was present, it was
a success. If Jesus Christ was left
out, it was a failure." The case as
reported gives no real evidence of
the doctor's ability to come to grips
with the fact of guilt and forgive-
ness, let alone the subject of death.

Stephens is to be encouraged in his
spiritual journey from nominal
Christianity to a vital personal faith,
but his book could hardly be rec-
ommended as a guide in facing the
issue of death, or a prescription to
find life and hope and meaning.
Those who like to read about other
people's adventures in faith might
find it interesting, but by no means
outstanding. El

NOVALIS SPIRITUAL SATURN-
ALIA: Fragments of Existence, by
John N. Ritter. Exposition Press,
Jericho, N. Y. 182 pp. $5.95. Reviewed
by the Rev. Brister H. Ware, pastor,
North Park Presbyterian Church,
Jackson, Miss.

A widely traveled Lutheran schol-
ar has made a translation of a high-
ly esoteric, little-known series of es-
says by Friedrich von Hardenberg,
better known as Novalis. Novalis was
regarded as the "greatest and purest"
member of the movement called
Romanticism. He was a disillusioned
member of the younger generation
and revolted against the capital en-
lightenment that ended the domi-
nance of religion.

Novalis argues that Europe will
essentially decay unless the principles
of religion are brought back to
ameliorate men's political systems.
From reading Novalis' essay entitled,
"Christianity or Europe," compari-
son can be made between the crises
Europe was facing in 1799 and those
America is facing today. This book
contains the translation of that essay
into English.

Be prepared to reread certain para-
graphs repeatedly trying to decipher
their meaning. Such statements as
the following are typical: "The
Christian religion is really a religion
of sensual bliss. Sin is the great
goad for the love of the Godhead.
The more sinful a man thinks he is,
the more Christian he is. Uncondi-
tioned union with the Godhead is
the purpose of sin and love. Porno-
graphic poetry (the dithyrambs) is
a true Christian product."

This book is definitely not for the
philosophically and theologically un-
initiated. 51

THE CHURCH IN GOD'S PRO-
GRAM, by Robert L. Saucy. Moody
rress, Chicago, 111. 254 pp. $5.95. Re-
viewed by the Rev. Horace L. Villee,
H.R., Columbus, Miss.

In this, his first literary venture,
the author deals extensively with
the meaning and uses of the word
"Church" — its nature and origin,
its relation to Israel and to the
kingdom, and its function.

He presents fairly the generally
held and varying views of Church
organization and ministry, of the
nature and forms of worship, and
of baptism and the Lord's Supper.
However, the conclusions reached or
recommended lean toward the Bap-
tist position regarding the Church
and baptism, and toward the dispen-
sational views concerning the king-
dom and the Church in God's pro-
gram.

Dr. Saucy, a native of Salem,
Ore., was awarded a BA. in history
at Westmont College in 1953, was
granted his Th.M. by Dallas Theo-
logical Seminary in 1958, and earned
his Ph.D. from Dallas in 1961. He
is professor of systematic theology
at Talbot Theological Seminary, La
Mirada, Calif. EE

FROM MANGER TO MANSION,
by Reuben F. Hoffman Sr. Exposition
Press, New York, N. Y. Ill pp. $4.50.
Reviewed by the Rev. Nat S. Heeth,
pastor, Tallulah Presbyterian Church,
Tallulah, La.

The author, after many years of
varied business experience, sets down
his understanding of the teachings
of Jesus. In his introduction he
says, "It is high time for all of us
sinners to get our houses in order
for it may be later than we think."

His theology is something of the old
liberalism as he makes faith and

PAGE 19 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 8, 1872

love an achievement of man, rele-
gates hell to this life only and con-
cludes with this final statement:
"When we finally overcome this
world, we will be accounted worthy
to be born of the Spirit and enter
into 'the world to come,' that is in-
to heaven." IB

HOW TO BE A CHRISTIAN IN
AN UNCHRISTIAN WORLD, by
Fritz Ridenour. Gospel Light Publica-
tions, Glendale, Calif. Paper, 188 pp.
$.95. Reviewed by the Rev. Nat S.
Heeth, pastor, Tallulah Presbyterian
Church, Tallulah, La.

This is a very helpful Bible study
of Colossians, written for the col-
lege age Christian or otherwise. The
first half is a modern apologetic for
the Christian faith. The second
half gives practical helps in how to
live the Christian life, such as "cre-
ating your Christian life-style,"
Christian "psychocybernetics," and
group conversational prayer. Each
chapter closes with some very prac-
tical helps, including bibliography,
that the reader may really come to
grips with life, through Jesus Christ.

The author is youth editor of
Gospel Light Publications and gives
every evidence of having consider-
able rapport with young people. It
is written in the same style, with
the same attractive illustrations as
two of his other paperbacks, Tell It
Like It Is which is a Bible study on
John, and How To Be A Christian
Without Being Religious, a Bible
study on Romans. 51

EARTH'S MOST CHALLENGING
MYSTERIES, by Reginald Daly. Ba-
ker Book House, Grand Rapids, Mich.
Paper, 403 pp. $3.95. Reviewed by the
Rev. R. L. Summers, pastor, First
Presbyterian Church, Gulfport, Miss.

The author has taught physics
and mathematics in a number of
universities, including Missouri
School of Mines, Bradley University,
and Colorado State University. He
is a nephew of the late Dr. Reginald
A. Daly, who was head of the de-
partment of geology at Harvard
University. His scientific scholar-
ship is above question.

Many scientific facts seem to deny
the theory of evolution and other

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ing

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theories currently being taught
about the origin and the develop-
ment of the earth. One by one he
considers the different answers
which have been given to overcome
these facts, and in turn he shows
that these answers do not serve the
purpose.

He examines the gap between
mineral and living matter, the "im-
passable gap from one-celled to
many-celled forms," the gaps in the
progression of fossil specimens, and
many other inconsistencies that are
often overlooked. The simple Bib-
lical record of early history is much
more plausible and acceptable to the
author.

Because of the numerous subjects
discussed, the organization of this
book is rather complex, yet it is very
readable and it holds the attention.
It would be a good book to give a
high school or college student who
feels that science has undermined
his faith in the Bible.

It is a well documented work and
offers many quotations from well
known men of science such as Ir-
win Schroedinger, Nobel laureate in
physics, who is quoted as saying,
"Where are we when presented with
the mystery of life? We find our-
selves facing a granite wall which we
have not even chipped."

Dr. Austin H. Clarke, biologist of
the Smithsonian Institute in Wash-
ington, is quoted as saying, "There
are no such things as missing links.
Missing links are misinterpretations.
There is not the slightest evidence
that any of the major groups arose
from any other. If we are willing
to accept the facts, we must believe
that there never were such inter-
mediates." 11

THE PSALMS FOR MODERN MAN
(Today's English Version). American
Bible Society, New York, N. Y.
Paper, 211 pp. $.10. Reviewed by the
Rev. Burney H. Enzor, pastor, First
Baptist Church, Bonifay, Fla.

No one could call the TEV a para-
phrase, but it isn't free of edi-
torializing. It certainly is not a
strict translation. The limitation
of English words used in the version
communicates simply and well, but
not thoroughly and scientifically.
For example, one misses the distinc-
tion between Adonai and Jehovah
which is made abundantly clear in
the ASV and is at least recognizable
in the KJV and RSV. Psalm 8:1
"O LORD our Lord . . ." becomes

Lor
T«
IT
tie
it

it
arc
I ion

Ft

it::

T

I

k

1!
It

Ent

!i
tli

Bt
111
ti

t

r&
ic

ti

lii
p
ti

JC

i
-

PAGE 20 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 8, 1972

Lord, our Lord ..."
To the evangelical, the footnotes
if TEV Psalms may be more palat-
.ble than those of TEV Job. There
he translators, with a wide choice
tf prospects for footnoting, seemed

0 choose to do so most often when
he explanation leaned heavily to-
ward the nonevangelical interpreta-
ion.

For the Bible reader who finds
omething elevating about our an-
ient hymnbook, the Psalms, this
!Good News" version may leave him
old. Something may be lost by the
ommon expression of the TEV. Its
■grgest attractiveness in the New
Irestament has been its readibility.

1 For poetry, the Psalms may be
Sloo readable. El

I THE CHURCH AT THE END OF
IrHE 20th CENTURY, by Francis A.
ISchaeffer. Inter-Varsity Press, Down-
|;rs Grove, 111. 153 pp. $3.95. Reviewed
ly the Rev. Robert A. Cook, president,
King's College, Briarcliff Manor, N. Y.

No evangelical will quarrel with
jiichaeffer's statement that the Chris-
tian faith provides the answer to
nan's need of an absolute, and of
individual significance. Man needs
iomething by which to judge, and
md he needs to feel that "somebody
knows my name."

God is really holy: absolutes do
jxist. All men do not need to be
llost. Man is significant — he is not
Ki stick or a stone, not merely a pro-
grammed computer. "Here," says
jchaeffer, "you have suddenly
^brought together the three explosive
inswers which modern man really
needs."

Not a few will wince, however,
when they hear this author saying
that the Church should be getting
ready and talking about the issues
of tomorrow and not about issues of
20 and 30 years ago, because the
Church is going to be squeezed in a
(wringer. The status quo is dead,
he says.

"To be conservative today is to
miss the whole point, for conserva-
tism means standing in the flow of
the status quo, and the status quo
no longer belongs to us. Today we
?are an absolute minority. If we want
to be fair, we must teach the young
to be revolutionaries, revolutionaries
against the status quo."

And sadly, many will not be able
to take Schaeffer's logical conclu-
sion. We must specialize, he says,
in "hot Christianity" is a day of cool

communication. Hot Christianity,
that is, based upon content, factual
content. We can no longer pat peo-
ple on the head and say "Don't ask
questions, dear, just believe." That,
says Shaeffer, is evangelical Kierke-
gaardianism.

Second, he says, Christianity must
become truly universal, relevant to
all segments of society and all so-
cieties of the world. We must have
the courage, he urges, to change all
kinds of things in our services. Stay
within the limits of the form of the
New Testament, but count every-
thing else free under the leadership

of the Holy Spirit.

This will be strong medicine to
people who know of pastors who
have been fired for so small an of-
fense as changing the position of the
Doxology in the order of service.

"A revolution is coming and is
here," Schaeffer declares. "If we
don't have the courage in Jesus
Christ to take a chance of getting
kicked out of our churches and be-
ing ostracized today, what are we
going to do when the revolution
comes in force?"

Sadly, the majority of evangelicals
will give, at the most, lip service to

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PAGE 21 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 8, 1972

some of these concepts, and will go
on specializing, as the author says, in
being behind. Sad, because Schaef-
fer has laid it on the line, told it ex-
actly as it is. IB

MORALITY, LAW, AND GRACE,
by J. N. D. Anderson. Inter-Varsity
Press, Downers Grove, III. Paper, 128
pp. $1.95. Reviewed by the Rev. Har-
ry T. Schutte, pastor, Covenant Pres-
byterian Church, Columbia, S. C.

War, the theology of revolution,
situation ethics and other living is-
sues facing the Christian today are
dealt with thoughtfully in this thin
paperback written by a distinguished
British law scholar who is also a
convinced believer in Christ. While
the book does not offer all the an-
swers to these questions, it does pro-
vide helpful direction for those seek-
ing such answers.

After a rather deep discussion of
morality and determinism, the au-
thor turns to a more practical con-
sideration of morality in the permis-
sive society, its relation to law, and
finally, its relation to grace. One is-
sue for which he seems to have no
definite answer is that of how far
the civil law should be used to pro-
mote morality, but he struggles with
it, and his struggle is valuable to
others who may be struggling with it
also.

The illustrations used are up-to-
date: the trouble in Northern Ire-
land, the unrest in South Africa, and
such. The author constantly refers
to the Bible as "the Maker's Instruc-
tions," and indicates that he believes
the fullest life is to be found in fol-
lowing those instructions. IB

HELP! I'M A PARENT, by Bruce
Narramore. Zondervan Publ. House,
Grand Rapids, Mich. 174 pp. $3.95.
Reviewed by the Rev. Richard G.
Watson, pastor, Seminole Presbyterian
Church, Tampa, Fla.

Seeking to combine Biblical and
psychological principles of parent-
hood, the author offers an interest-
ing and helpful book for parents of
children of all ages. Refuting the
idea that child rearing comes nat-
urally, and acknowledging the im-
possibility of producing "instant
parents" with one brief book, Dr.
Narramore presents some basic prin-
ciples and practical methods of ap-
plication.

He considers the search for love
and attention to be the basic drive
of children with which parents must
reckon. He states, "This search for
a feeling of love and attention is
probably the most important expla-
nation of your child's behavior."

God's method in dealing with His
children is taken as the pattern to

be followed by Christian parents
This is especially well explained ir.; j(
relation to punishment and disci ;,;
pline.

Some suggested methods of dis-,
cipline may not be as universally ef
fective as assumed by the author
However, his insights should be
helpful to ill. EE

Layman— from p. 13

square shoulders and springy step
of the man ahead seemed familiar,
and he overtook him just as he was
turning down a dark alley. Sure
enough, it was our old preacher. A
poor family living in the alleyway
was without fuel.

Reverend Bob was still practicing;
the "social gospel" in his own pe-
culiar way. IS

Editorial— from p. 13

i

evangelical ministers applying fori
service as chaplains.

Anyhow, the aforementioned de-
nominations have decided to merge
their separate offices into one coun-
cil.

In order to achieve economics in
operation? Not on your life. The
new budget was drawn by adding
together the existing budgeted
amounts from each denomination,
for a grand total (for 1973) of $243,-
500.00. (That's from the Lord's
tithes and offerings.)

In order to reduce staff? Not onj
your life. The present executives
will be retained, for a total of three
— the three who occupied execu-
tive posts under the previous ar-
rangement — and a total of $60,- '
000.00 in executive salaries. (Who
wouldn't like to have a job as sec-,
ond assistant liaison between the
Church and ministers serving as
chaplains, at a salary of about $20,-
000.00 per year?)

When the office is set up, there
will be an additional expense for
secretaries' salaries to the tune of
$22,000.00. (Considering the nature;
of the job, couldn't those executives
take care of their own correspon-
dence?)

If this kind of arrangement is
necessary to certificate chaplains,
provide some contact with them and
then later assist them re-enter ci-
vilian life, how about those minis-
ters who enter other specialized
fields of service?

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*For 20 years Executive Secretary of Synod of N.C., Dr. Dudley has conducted eight tours
abroad, and has been to the Holy Land 5 times.

PAGE 22 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 8, 1972

Why not an office to help minis-
ers entering such fields as homes
or children or for the aging, radio
ninistries or editorial positions?

Better yet, how about upping the
udget of the General Assembly's
Committee on the Minister and his
Work which really has something
:o do, and whose executive doesn't
*et anywhere near §20,000.00 per
/ear? EE

Strong— from p. 10

"God commendeth his love to-
ward us, in that, while we were yet
pinners, Christ died for us. Much
hiiore then, being now justified by
[lis blood, we shall be saved from
wrath through him" (Rom. 5:8-9) ;
'Christ also hath once suffered for
sins, the just for the unjust, that he
Lmight bring us to God" (I Pet. 3:
18).

The Westminster Confession lays
emphasis upon the satisfaction view
of the atonement. True, there is
:more to say about the cross of Christ
'than that there He made satisfac-
tion for all the sins of all His peo-
ple. But if you do not say that, and
•clearly say it, you are not adequate-
ly confessing historic Christianity.

Biblical Position

Presbyterians have always come
down solidly on the side of the Ref-
ormation view, judging that this is
the truly Biblical position. Christ
our sacrifice, our substitute, our me-
diator, met all the obligations which
divine holiness and justice must of
necessity impose upon sinners. By
His life of perfect obedience, by His
obedience unto death, He satisfied
all the requirements.

Believers in Jesus are credited
with the righteousness of Christ.
They are pardoned and adopted.
They will be sanctified and at last
perfected and glorified. They can-
not do other than glory in the cross
of their Lord Jesus Christ. They
find themselves driven to confess
Him clearly, definitely, faithfully.

Jesus is a great Saviour. He does
not deserve a weak confessing. For

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bama 36111.

His name's honor we have proffered
and we must maintain that glorious
confession of the person and work
of Christ which the Westminster As-
sembly taught us how to proclaim. EE

McLachlan— from p. 8

I had seen.

For the next few days the devil
followed me around telling me how
inadequate I had been. He pointed
out how dumb different things I had
said must have sounded. He said,
"You had better just forget about
witnessing and get back to washing

dishes."

I felt rather discouraged until I
found this verse in II Corinthians
8:12, "For if there first be a will-
ing mind it is accepted according to
that which a man hath, and not ac-
cording to that which he hath not."

The Holy Spirit spoke to me
through this verse and let me know
that God was not concerned with
how poised or persuasive I was, but
that He could use me because I did
have a willing mind.

When we witness to others it may
not turn out just as we thought it
would. But that is not for us to

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Revivals in the Midst of the Years

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THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL, Weaverville, NC 28787

PAGE 23 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 8, 1972

be concerned with. We will not al-
ways, we may seldom, see instant re-
sults.

Paul told us that he planted the
seed (the Word of God) , and Apol-
los watered, but it was God who
gave the increase (I Cor. 3:6). God
does not hold you responsible for
the abilities He gives someone else,
but only for your willingness to do
what He gives you the ability
to do. ffl

Seawell—from p. 1 1

"There is more power in the smile
of woman than in an act of Con-
gress; there are greater possibilities
for good government in her family
of laughing children than in the cab-
inet of the president of the United
States.

More Power

"The destiny of this nation lies in
the home and not in the legislative
halls. The hearthstone and the fam-
ily Bible will ever remain the source
of our inspiration, and the Acts of
the Apostles will ever shine brighter
than the acts of Congress.

"This country is law mad. Why
add to a statute book already groan-
ing under its own weight, the hys-
terical cry of woman?

"If we never had a chance to vote
again in a lifetime and did not
pass another law in 25 years
we could survive the ordeal but
without home, civilization would
wither and die.

"God save these United States
from becoming a hen-pecked nation.
He'.p us keep sissies out of Congress
and forbid that women become step-
fathers to government is the prayer
of a poor real estate agent in Gor-
donsville, Va.

"God Almighty gave Eve to Adam
with the pledge that she should be
his help meet and with this order
of companionship civilization has
towered to its greatest heights. In
this relationship God has blessed
woman and man has honored her;
after six thousand years of progress
she now proposes to provoke God to
decoy man by asking for suffrage,
thereby an agreement which she was
not a party to."

If Cousin John D. Welfly were
living today and got a glance at
what they call women's lib, he would
most likely blow a fuse, and rigor
mortis would soon set in.

Call your next case. IB

Gutzke—from p. 18

Finally, you have the pride of life.
When Satan said, "Now if you are
the Son of God, show it," he took
Him up to the top of a high pin-
nacle and said, "Throw yourself
down. Demonstrate that God is
really yours." It starts as a normal
ambition to try and do things, to
accomplish something. This can de-
velop into vanity. Appetite, imagi-
nation and vanity.

These three things, John says, are
of the world. This is the essence of
worldliness. Any believer can be
challenged by something that would
feel good, something that would
look good, something that would
set him up.

In writing to the Ephesians, Paul
urged believers to put on the whole
armor of God that they may be able
to withstand the wiles of the devil,
because when Satan comes to attack
you and make a suggestion, he is
not going to come openly, saying
you are wrong. He is going to be
subtle, asking wouldn't it be a good
thing to do this or that. In each
case he will be appealing to some
inward inclination to do something
on your own.

If Satan can get the person to act
on his own instead of seeking God's
will, then Satan will have accom-
plished his purpose. In facing
temptation, the safety device is, "It
is written." Look to the Lord and
His will and Word. It will be so
very important for the believer to
know the mind of the Lord, to know
the Scriptures. He will need to know
the Scriptures so that he can know
what the will of God for him is.

It is for this reason we have Bible
study. In avoiding temptation,
think on the things of the Scripture,
get the Bible into your mind. Now
the Holy Spirit can show the believ-
er the will of God.

Another thing important for the
Christian to learn as God's servant
is to deny the flesh. In our human
nature we will be misled. Let us
not be fooled into thinking that the
only evil things are things that look
wrong, that the only way in which
a person could be tempted to do evil
would be something crude, vulgar
or obscene. The danger is that some-
thing which appeals may not be in
the will of God.

The Christian will keep in mind
to reckon himself dead and say, "I
am crucified with Christ: neverthe-
less I live; yet not I, but Christ liv-
eth in me: and the life which I now

live in the flesh I live by the fait!
of the Son of God, who loved me
and gave himself for me" (Gal. 2
20) .

In this way the Christian can b(
helped to serve God, avoiding temp
tation. "It is written" remains al
ways the safety device for the Chris
tian soul. H
* « .# *

Dr. Gutzke is professor emeritu.
of Biblical exposition, Columbic
Seminary, and broadcaster of "Tht
Bible for You." This study is avail
able on tape recording, $3 per regu
lar tape containing 4 lessons ($9 tht
set, Nos. 72—1, 2, 3) and $3 per cas-
sette containing 2 lessons ($18 the
set, Nos. 72— A, B, C, D, E, F) . Or
der from The Bible for You, Box
15007, Atlanta, Ga. 30333.

Youth Program— from p. 16

us, but we also feel that we need
someone to plead our cause before
God now. This is why men still
want a priest. Christ has not failed
us in this respect either.

The Scripture says: "Wherefore
he is able also to save them to the
uttermost that come unto God by
him, seeing he ever liveth to make
intercession for them." So it is that
we do have one who pleads for us
now. He knows our hearts and He
knows our needs. He loves us and
He pleads with God on our behalf,

PROGRAM LEADER: Perharjs
we can understand now why it is
said that the theme of Hebrews is
"every man his own priest." Because
of what Christ is, because of what
He has done once and for all on the
cross, and because of what He con-
tinues to do for us throughout eter-
nity, we can in a sense be our own
priests.

No man can approach God except
through Christ. There is no need
of our appointing priests from
among men when we have the privi-
lege ourselves of going directly to
God in the name of Christ. We
Protestants have always been strong
in maintaining belief in the priest-
hood of believers.

However, we must always remem-
ber that we have this access to the
throne of God only through Him
who sits at God's right hand, Jesus
Christ Himself who is our great
high priest.

Closing Prayer.

Bfl

PAGE 24 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 8, 1972

VOL. XXXI, NO. 29 NOVEMBER 15, 1972 $4.00 A YEAR

the

PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL

Idvocating continuation of a Presbyterian Church loyal to Scripture and the Reformed faith

Two Views of Scripture

The issue is authority. Why believe certain things? Why
behave a certain way? On what do we base our convictions? The
fundamentalist roots authority in the manner of inspiration:
"Since every word is God-authored, every word must be be-
lieved. If it appears between the covers of this book, it has to
be true." This is weak and circular reasoning. — Name With-
held.

The choice by men did not establish the authority of cer-
tain books any more than the choice of men establishes the sover-
eignty of God. God reigns supreme no matter what men may
choose. If your God is smaller than that, your God is too small.
— Palmer Robertson.

(See pp. 7, 9)

\

^ISAS ON ITIH TQdBiqo

!. S. LESSON AND YOUTH PROGRAM FOR DECEMBER 3

dWOO

MAI LB AG

LATEST FROM VIETNAM

Greetings from Vietnam. Life con-
tinues busy as ever here. We con-
tinue to assist the people of Vietnam
as much as possible with what the
Lord gives us.

The emergency assistance to the
thousands of war refugees is not as
great as it was. The people are be-
ginning to move back home again.
The Southern Army is gradually re-

taking areas that were lost.

From here the cease fire looks to
be a real possibility. It is difficult
for many Vietnamese to believe
there could actually be a time of no
fighting or death and loss from war.
Many are suspicious, looking for hid-
den agreements between the U. S.
and Hanoi that would bode ill for
the South.

The South Vietnamese are gen-

the

PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL

Rev. G. Aiken Taylor, Ph.D., Editor
Rev. Henry B. Dendy, D.D., Managing Editor

Circulation leader among independent publications in the Presbyterian-Reformed world

THIS WEEK— Vol. XXXI, No. 29, November 15, 1972

The Misplaced Issue : 7

A minister argues that the stress on an infallible Bible
overlooks the centrality of Christ Name Withheld

Straw Men Vs. Scripture 9

Most of the arguments against infallible Scripture are
"straw men" By Palmer Robertson

Twin Witness 11

Two witnesses testify to God's wisdom, omnipotence and
love By George S. Lauderdale

De partments —

Editorials 12

The Layman and his Church 1 3

Sunday School Lesson, December 3 14

Youth Program, December 3 16

Book Reviews 17

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Second class postage paid at Weaver-
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THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL, a

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to the statement, defense, and propa-
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was once for all delivered to the saints,

is published every Wednesday by the
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erally very much against any forrr
of coalition. Yesterday, two house
of Congress marched to the Presi
dent's palace to protest any form o
coalition. I do hope the U. S. doe
not make an agreement which wil
ease the American conscience at th<
expense of the safety and desires o
the South Vietnamese. After all
this whole long fight has been foi
the South.

The World Relief Commission o
the National Association of Evan
gelicals is planning to assist the peo
pie of Vietnam in reconstructioi
and development. The minister o
social welfare has expressly request
ed our aid. In the event of a realis
tic cease fire and peace, WRC wil
truly be able to show Christian love
by helping these people even more
The opportunities will be mucl
greater as security is established ir
the outer fringe areas of the coun
try.

—Stuart C. Willcuts
Saigon, S. Vietnam

Mr. Willcuts is director of WRC op
erations throughout Vietnam, and
Quaker opposed to war but realist!
in his appraisals. WRC mailing addres
is Box 44, Valley Forge, Pa. 19481
—Ed.

OLDEST FAN?

I am the oldest member of Shen
andoah Presbyterian Church at tl
age of 97 %. I have good eyesigh
and go to church every Sunday.

I just want you to know that
still read and enjoy the Journal!
— Frances Losier
Miami, Fla.

May the Lord permit you to repea
your encouragement at age 100. — Eo

HE SIGNED HIS

I had not intended to bother yoT
with further correspondence sine
you had announced your plans t
join with the other three groups t
organize a "continuing Presbyteria:
body" at the "appropriate time.'
am, however, still reading the Joui
nal as it is necessary for the
alists" always to know what th
"separatists" are thinking and doinj
Excuse me, I know you feel "even
body else" forms the "separatists/
Just a matter of viewpoint yo
know!

I cannot, however, remain siler
in the face of your editorial in Oi
tober 25th issue entitled, "Don't b
Helpless." How can you write sue
a piece in the face of your own joui;

nalistic trickery and chicanery of
several years ago? What is truth to
you?

I do concur that unsigned letters
are reprehensible, therefore, I'm a
little surprised you paid as much
attention to one as to give it edi-
torial page space. This one is signed
and available for publication if you
want to make publication of it
though I am not requesting it. Just
please don't change the text or let-
terhead and pass it along. That does
make the one who does it rather
helpless. "Don't be Helpless!"
— (Rev.) Pitser M. Lyons III
Morristown, Tenn.

THAT CHAPLAINS' COUNCIL

I was interested in the restructur-
ing of the committee on chaplains
as reported in the Nov. 8 Journal,
and the cost of operating this com-
bined office.

I have felt for years that the Com-
mission on the Minister and his

• One subject which will never cease
to claim top priority in discussions
within the Church is the authority
of the Scriptures. It also is one sub-
ject about which the same things
will be said over and over and over,
without visible signs that anyone is
ever persuaded to change his mind
as a result of the discussions. This
is one area in which the issue is de-
cided in the heart rather than the
head — if one's heart is right with
the Lord, he has no trouble accept-
ing His Word as utterly reliable; if
one's heart is not yet right with the
Lord, he will find all sorts of rea-
sons to claim exemption from this
or that provision in Scripture. You
can just bet on it: the minister who
tries to make out a case for a fallible
Book is on record as rejecting some
of its teachings. All of which is to
introduce two significant articles in
this issue of the Journal (see pp. 7
and 9) . We'd like to announce a
sort of contest. After you have read
the first one, by "Name Withheld,"
write out your own answers to his
quibbles. We'll print the best ones

Work of the presbytery could deal
more fairly and efficiently with the
endorsement of chaplains.

If the presbytery is the agency that
ordains a man to preach and deter-
mines his suitability for the minis-
try, why on earth wouldn't presby-
tery be the logical body to endorse
chaplains?

This would save the Churches
$250,000 and free the executives for
more useful labor in the Church.
— (Rev.) Calvin Thielman
Montreat, N. C.

MINISTERS

Gene Ethridge from graduate
study to chaplain, Georgia Re-
gional Hospital, Augusta, Ga.
J. Stimson Hawkins from Man-
chester, Tenn., to the First
Church, Winston-Salem, N. C, as
assistant pastor.

Glenn M. Willard from Bossier
City, La., to the Vivian-Plain
Dealing and Cottage Grove
churches, Vivian, La.

in some future issue. (Dr. Strong's
series on the new confession will re-
sume after Thanksgiving.)

• The Rev. Kim Kwan Suk, gen-
eral secretary of the Council of
Churches of Korea, is a bit apolo-
getic about cutting short a drive for
funds throughout Korea on behalf
of victims of the June floods in the
Middle Atlantic States of the Unit-
ed States. Realizing how many mil-
lions of people are dependent upon
public charity for survival in the
U. S., the Korean Churches had been
raising money for needy Americans
and had already sent a token $2,500
through Church World Service of
the NCC. But a series of natural
disasters in Korea, with the worst
floods in 65 years ravaging parts of
the country, forced the churches to
turn their attention to their own
problems at home. "We have not
forgotten our commitment to aid in

L. Frederick Griffie from Salis-
bury, N. C, to Craigrownie
Manse, Dunbartonshire, Scotland.
E. C. Reckard from Claremont,
Cal., to Centre College, Danville,
Ky., as dean and vice president.
John D. Reese III from Ozark,
Ala., to Union church, Ariton,
Ala.

Weldon W. Shows from Homer,
Ga., to the Friendship church,
Eufaula, Ala.

Billy P. Smith from Merkel, Tex.,
to the Westminster church, Fort
Worth, Tex.

Cecil R. Tate from DeQueen,
Ark., to the Westminster church,
Waco, Tex.

William H. Thomas from Stam-
ford, Conn., to the First Church
and Drift church, Prestonburg,
Ky.

Donald R. Weiglein from St. Al-
bans, W. Va., to the Kuhn Me-
morial church, Barboursville, W.
Va.

the U. S.," said Mr. Kim apologeti-
cally. "We have had to postpone the
balance of it until a later date."
Meanwhile, it is hoped that the pov-
erty-stricken Americans will be able
to make out until the Koreans can
again come to their aid.

• Orange Presbytery seems quite
clearly in violation of federal law.
In the September, 1972, issue of
Orange Juice, the N. C. presbytery's
newsletter, there is an advertisement
by one of the congregations for a
"white female, 21 years of age or
over ..." In at least three respects
that brief line violates federal law.
We know people who have been
hailed into court for less than that.
The violation is compounded by a
further note in Orange Juice asking
other pastors to copy the notice in
their congregational newsletters.
Shame on the brethren for discrimi-
nating by race, by sex and by age! 51

ACROSS THE EDITOR'S DESK

PAGE 3 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 15, 1972

NEWS OF RELIGION

The Thundering Scot Died 400 Years Ago

WASHINGTON, D. C. — Novem-
ber 24 will mark the 400th anniver-
sary of the death of John Knox,
famed Scottish reformer who is cred-
ited with being the father of Presby-
terianism.

In an editorial published in late
October here, Christianity Today
noted that "the land for which the
prophet did so much accords him
that scant honor which is the tradi-
tional prophetic portion."

The evangelical fortnightly la-
ments that the house of Knox is
now a public thoroughfare "and over
the tiny tablet that marks his grave
the lawyers of Edinburgh park their
cars."

The anniversary year has not
evoked any international celebra-
tion, although it has not gone total-
ly ignored in Church circles. Ironi-
cally, there seems to have been as
much mention in public entertain-
ment, through film and stage por-
trayals of the life of Mary Queen of
Scots, with whom the fiery preach-
er had stormy clashes.

Dr. Norman V. Hope, a Prince-
ton professor of church history,
doubts that Knox may have been a
Presbyterian at all. Writing in
A.D., the new magazine of the Unit-
ed Presbyterian Church, Dr. Hope
notes that there were no function-

KOREA — More than 31,000 deci-
sions for Christ were made during
a three-week crusade conducted in
Seoul by evangelist the Rev. John
Haggai.

"I've never seen anything like this
in my life," said the Atlanta-based
preacher who is founder and presi-
dent of Evangelism International.

Dr. Haggai's final service brought
an unprecedented response of 18,000
from the youthful audience. Shar-
ing the platform were the Korean
Orphans Choir, the Seoul Symphony
Orchestra and a 400-voice choir.

In Soonchun, a city of southwest
Korea, Dr. Haggai became the first

ing presbyteries in the modern sense
during Knox's lifetime and conse-
quently, "he never served under a
Presbyterian system of church gov-
ernment."

He does concede, however, that
"each congregation had its kirk ses-
sion," the elders of which were elect-
ed to govern the affairs of the con-
gregation.

That system, in the view of oth-
er American historians, was the orig-
inal genius of Presbyterianism, and
not the higher judicatories which
came along later to control the
churches "from the top down."

Dr. Lefferts Loetscher noted in a
book published several years ago
that each congregation in Puritan
New England had its own "presby-
tery" — the body more familiarly
known as "session" today. Accord-
ing to Dr. Loetscher, the difference
between Congregationalism and pres-
byterianism is not that in the one,
authority is vested at the local level
while at the other it is vested at a
regional level, but rather that in the
one, authority is vested in all the
members, while in the other, au-
thority is exercised through elected
representatives.

Some presentations of Knox in
secular histories and even in church
history courses portray him as an

American minister to address the en-
tire police force. In all of South Ko-
rea, at least 30 per cent of the sol-
diers are reportedly Christian. In
some branches of the military, the
figure is said to run as high as 40
per cent.

A spiritual revival has reportedly
been going on in Korea. Dr. Haggai
attributes it to the great emphasis
placed on prayer. He said that as
early as 4 or 5 o'clock each morning,
bells begin ringing throughout Ko-
rea, calling people to pray. Most of
the churches are said to have early
morning prayer meetings and a sig-
nificant portion of every service is
devoted to prayer. ffl

embarrassment. He ardently op-
posed the Roman Catholic Church ^
and all it stood for. He vigorously ','
opposed Queen Mary, her mother ,
Mary and all others he felt a threat
to the new Church he was helping^ jff(
to shape in Scotland. His tongue
could be acid and sometimes he is
made to appear an evil bigot.

Serious scholars, of course, are .■
able to see Knox in his historical
setting and to recognize his contri-
butions to both religious and politi- ,
cal history.

The new Westminster Dictionary ,,
of Church History, published under ^
UPUSA auspices, notes that the
"tireless, sincere, simple, practical, ^
the real 'dour Scot,' was not with- ^
out humor and tenderness."

Reared at Haddington, John ^
Knox attended the University of St.
Andrews. In his young manhood,
Scotland, an independent nation at
the time, was affected by the Refor-
mation in England, but James V re-
fused to permit a formal break with
Rome. In a civil uprising in 1547,
the king called in French aid. Knox;
was captured and served 19 months
as a French galley slave.

Not long after his release, he fled
to the European continent whe«
Mary Tudor, a Roman Catholic, as-
cended the English throne. In Ge-
neva, he worked with John Calvin
and became pastor to an English con-
gregation composed mainly of ref-
ugees.

A brief return to Scotland was fol-
lowed by another stay in Geneva
when he again aroused the ire of the
royal family. In 1559 he came home,
to stay and to complete the Refor-
mation in Scotland which was by
then well under way. EE

'Sister Celebration'
Held at New York Church

NEW YORK (RNS) — An ecu-
menical "sister celebration" was held
here to "liberate the apple from the
curse of the fall" and to confess
guilt in "falling for" a traditional
male interpretation of the Adam
and Eve story.

While eating apples passed dur-ii
ing the celebration, the women de-:
clared in unison:

"We affirm that the story does not

THE CHURCH OVERSEAS

PAGE 4 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 15, 1972

:onvey truth to us about apples and
certainly not about ourselves. We
hold that Eve performed the first
free act. We pledge ourselves to
communicate and to collaborate in
developing the human tradition, the
whole truth, for the liberation of
the whole family and all creation."

The "sister celebration," which
coincided with Reformation Sunday
in many Protestant churches, was
sponsored by the United Church of
Christ Task Force on Women and
held at the Washington Square
United Methodist church here.

The Rev. Barbara W. McCall, ex-
ecutive of the United Church task
force, said, "We as women feel it is
time that the church repent of sex-
ism and be reformed. We see the
Holy Spirit at work in creating a
new future for women. It is hap-
pening and we want to cele-
brate it." IB

NCC Tax Exemption
[Upheld After IRS Probe

INEW YORK (RNS) — An in-
l vestigation of "financial records
land activities" of the National
■Council of Churches by the U. S. In-
Iternal Revenue System has come to
ian end, with the ecumenical agency
r given a clean bill of health for two
years under study.

"After examining your financial
■(records and reviewing your activi-
Ities for the years (1968 and 1969) ,
I we find your federal tax-exempt
! status continues," said a letter from
■ the IRS district director. "You are,
\\ therefore, not required to file an an-
I nual information return for the
years shown."
The letter was received by the
|:NCC in late September but was re-
R ported only at the end of October
I in the organization's newsletter,
i Tempo.

Apparently at stake in the investi-
gation was the federal provision
that tax-exempt groups, including
churches and religious agencies, may
not direct a "substantial" part of
their income and activities into ef-
forts to affect legislation.

The letter would suggest that for
the two calendar years studied, the
NCC did not violate the IRS inter-

pretation of the tax law.

Throughout the months of IRS in-
vestigation, the National Council
said little about the probe. In Feb-
ruary 1972, the policy-making Gen-
eral Board of the council, which has
33 Protestant and Orthodox member
denominations, spoke out against
what it considered government at-
tempts to chill Christian social ac-
tion through tax pressure.

Missions Unit in Mexico
Celebrates Centennial

MEXICO CITY — In its first meet-
ing ever outside the bounds of the
United States, the Board of World
Missions, Presbyterian Church US,
participated in centennial celebra-
tions of the National Presbyterian
Church of Mexico, recognized a new
status of "disengagement" between
the board and the Mexican Church,
and conducted a full docket of busi-
ness.

The mutually agreed upon "disen-
gagement" means that the National
Presbyterian Church of Mexico "as-
sumes full control and direction and
authority in its whole Church" and
the U.S. Churches will cease sending
missionaries and funds by the end of
1972, according to the Rev. T. Wat-
son Street, executive secretary of the
PCUS board.

However, it is anticipated that aid
will continue to medical work and
work among Indians.

In a dramatic gesture celebrating
the centennial and the newly
autonomous Church, the Rev.
David Stitt of Houston, chairman of
the board, announced the board's
intention to contribute $100,000 to
the National Church toward estab-
lishing a retirement fund for min-
isters.

During its business sessions, the
board:

• Agreed to a bilateral consulta-
tion with the Presbyterian Church
of Brazil in regard to the future of
PCUS work in Brazil. The consulta-
tion will consist of 24 representa-

The General Board said involve-
ment in public issues is part of the
"free exercise of religion."
(Editor's note: Conservative reli-
gious organizations that have re-
frained from "politicking" on ac-
count of the law which forbids tax-
exempt groups from endorsing can-
didates for office or seeking to influ-
ence legislation, may now take heart
as a result of this precedent.) ffl

tives — 12 from each Church — and
will be held in Brasilia in February.

• Took steps to continue the "war
against world hunger," with possible
projects in agriculture, animal hus-
bandry, nutrition and the like.

• Made plans for two new evan-
gelism emphases tied to "Key 73" in
the United States and "All Nations
'74," a following emphasis overseas.
These will take personnel from the
United States into overseas areas on
travel and study trips, and will bring
Third World spokesmen to the U.S.
for preaching and similar missions.

• Approved a budget of $5,665,000
for 1973.

• Voted not to sustain protests
from a Brazil missionary, the Rev.
Frederic R. Dinkins, against develop-
ing plans for a "joint Christian wit-
ness with the Roman Catholic
Church" in Latin America. The
board maintained that its closer re-
lations with the Roman Church are
in harmony with the position taken
by the General Assembly. The board
also defended its stand on the Execu-
tive Commission on Overseas Evan-
gelism (ECOE) .

• Appointed a committee headed
by the Rev. Vernon Broyles of At-
lanta to give "reassurance" to mis-
sionaries during the period of the
denomination's restructuring.

• Approved the reappointment of
three persons as teachers of mis-
sionaries' children: Miss Roberta
Jeanne Hunter of Birmingham and
Mrs. Charles (Sara C.) Shafe of
Metter, Ga., to Brazil; and Mrs. H.
E. (Emily Dewald) Lewis Sr., of
New Waverly, Tex., to Korea.

• Approved a list of 78 missionary

THE CHURCH AT HOME

PAGE 5 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 15, 1972

openings for 1973, to include the re-
appointment of up to 50 missionaries
now overseas. Ten openings are re-
served for work in new countries,
especially in Latin America where
personnel are being redeployed from
Mexico. Other openings are reserved
for a new policy, not otherwise
identified than as "Internationaliza-
tion of Personnel Program." EI

Board of Annuities
Continues To Upgrade

ATLANTA (PN) — Upgraded in-
surance and pension programs for
ministers and lay employees of the
Presbyterian Church US were stud-
ied at the Oct. 27 meeting of the
Board of Annuities and Relief.

The proposed changes will be for-
warded to the 1973 General Assem-
bly after further refinement and
adoption at the board's meeting in
February.

In other action, the board ap-
proved an Insurance Committee rec-
ommendation that the premiums of
the ministers and lay employees of
the Church currently enrolled in the
Additional Term Life Insurance
program be discounted by 40 per
cent on the next premium billing,
due March 1, 1973.

On recommendation of the Min-
isterial Relief Committee, the board
voted to send each recipient of reg-
ular monthly income assistance from
the funds of Ministerial Relief spe-
cial Christmas gift this year in the
sum of $150 for individuals and
$300 for couples.

The following officers were elect-
ed for one-year terms: John A. Ful-
ton of Louisville, chairman; H. Roe
Bartle of Kansas City, vice chair-
man; H. H. Guerrant of Atlanta,
treasurer. IB

Synod Asks Assembly To
Reconsider 1972 Vote

JACKSON, Miss. — The Synod of
Mississippi has voted to ask the 1973
General Assembly of the Presbyte-
rian Church US to separate the ex-
isting Synod of Kentucky from the
proposed new Synod C-F, which com-
bines Kentucky with the synods of
Alabama, Mississippi and Tennes-
see.

The overture notes that Kentucky
is involved in union presbyteries
with the United Presbyterian Church
USA "and also has functioned to a

considerable degree as a union syn-
od with the Synod of Kentucky"
UPUSA, while there are no union
presbyteries in the other three ex-
isting synods.

It points out that Missouri is
largely a union synod and has been
allowed to continue as a separate
synod under the restructuring plan.

The overture also maintains that
Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee
"do not share the orientation" of the
Synod of Kentucky (PCUS) toward
the UPUSA.

Meeting in adjourned session here,
the synod also voted unanimously
to endorse Judge Michael L. Carr
of Brookhaven for moderator of the
1973 General Assembly, to be held
June 10-15 in Fort Worth, Tex.

A member of the Study Commit-
tee of the State Bar Association and
of the Governor's Law Enforcement
Assistance Commission, Judge Carr
also is a member of the denomina-
tion's new General Executive
Board.

The synod further took steps to
give French Camp Academy and
Belhaven College, two of its insti-
tutions, "independent" status by
amending their charters to provide
for self-perpetuating boards of di-
rectors. El

Atlanta School Opens
With Some 100 Pupils

ATLANTA — Over one hundred
students are enrolled in Bible and
doctrinal classes in the newly or-
ganized Atlanta School of Biblical
Studies, it was announced here.

Established by a group of Presby-
terian ministers of Reformed persua-
sion in the greater Atlanta area, the
new school uses the facilities of out-
lying churches for its operations,
with classes mainly held on Monday
nights at Chapel Woods Presbyte-
rian Church, Decatur.

During the week, day classes are
also held at the College Park, West-
minster, Smyrna and LaGrange
churches.

Purpose of the school is to train
laymen for Christian service. A
small fee is charged. The full course
of study, consisting of 28 hours,
leads to the awarding of a "Lay Min-
istry Certificate."

Operating under the endorsement
of Atlanta Presbytery, the school of-
fers courses in Bible, Christian Edu-
cation, Evangelism, Missions and
Theology. While the emphasis is
on Presbyterian and Reformed be-

liefs, students have enrolled from |j,
numerous denominational back-
grounds.

The winter quarter will begin De-
cember 4. Interested persons have
been invited to contact the presi-
dent, the Rev. Carl D. Smith, Col-
lege Park Presbyterian Church, 3557
Main St., College Park Ga., 30022. II

Another Presbyterian
Church Lands in Court

NORFOLK, Va.— A second formerly
Presbyterian US congregation has
landed in civil court as a result ofi
its intention to remain independent.

The Grace Covenant church of
Hampton, Va., was the target of an
injunction by Norfolk Presbytery,
seeking to halt a transfer of the local'
church property to a private school
corporation.

The Hampton Circuit Court in
which the injunction was sought re-'
fused to intervene against the
church, however, and the admini-
strative commission of the presby-
tery has served notice that it will ap-
peal to the State Supreme Court. !

Virginia law does not permit a
church to incorporate, but a school
can be incorporated. The congre-
gation on September 22 secured
an order from Judge Nelson T.j
Overton, approving the transfer of
title to trustees of the Mary Atkins
Christian Day School, operated by
the church. |

At stake are more than five acres
of land and buildings owned by the
Grace Covenant congregation, which
the presbytery seeks to claim.

Previously, the Cynthiana, Ky.f
congregation had gone to court
(Journal, Nov. 8) to enjoin the Pres-
bytery of Transylvania-Union from
interfering in their internal af-i
fairs. 9

Montreat-Anderson
Enrollment Higher

MONTREAT, N. C. — Montreat-
Anderson College opened its doors for
the new year with 371 students, up
15 per cent over last year's 323.

The college's student body in-
cludes 154 Presbyterians and mem-
bers of 20 other faiths. About half
the students are from North Caro-
lina, including 13 Indians. The re-
mainder are from New York, Newi
Jersey, Florida and several foreign
countries. IS

PAGE 6 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 15, 1972

Who are the Bible believers? Conservatives? Liberals? Both? Neither? —

The Misplaced Issue

While we cannot love too much,
we can surely love unwisely.
I[n our religion we can do dishonor
■to that which we seek to honor —
I:he Bible, for instance.

The great Old Testament proph-
et, Isaiah of Jerusalem, includes
among the sins of Judah the fact
:hat "their land is filled with idols"
(2:8) ; II Kings 18 provides an ex-
planation: Among the idols that
King Hezekiah broke down was the
aronze serpent made by Moses at
God's command, and to which the
people were now burning incense.

A sacred object became an instru-
ment of disobedience. A good thing
was badly used, all in the context of
intense devotion and religiosity. The
lesson for us is obvious.

Yesterday an overture before our
presbytery endeavored to get the
General Assembly and all leaders of
Dur denomination to affirm the
'plenary, verbal inspiration of Holy
Scripture." (God directed the writ-
ing of each word in the Bible: his-
torical, scientific statements, gram-
matical forms, articles and preposi-
tions.)

Some would make this the issue po-
larizing our Church today. By impli-
:ation the conservatives believe the
whole Bible and so they are devout;
the faith-defenders, tradition-up-
holders. Liberals have a lower view
)f Scripture, therefore they are less

Two approaches to the Word of
God are seen in this message and the
one which follows. This one, after
'being delivered to his congregation,
'Mas mimeographed and distributed
\hy the author, a Presbyterian US
'minister whose name is withheld to
woid any possible embarrassment to
him. Dr. Palmer Roberston's answer
to this point of view appears on p.

John 5:39

devout, less trustworthy, and tend
to be irresponsible and dangerous.

If we could somehow all agree on
a theory of full, unqualified inspira-
tion of the Bible from cover to cover,
and unchurch those who refuse such
a profession, we would have a loyal
homogeneous Church. I think that
is ridiculous. I am convinced that
the argument over "plenary, verbal
inspiration" is a false issue.

The Real Irony

There is real irony here. If the
Church had taken the story of the
New Testament seriously we'd have
been sobered and warned. The very
people who possessed and scrutinized
the Scriptures rejected Jesus.

"You search the Scriptures be-
cause you think that in them you
have eternal life; and it is they that
bear witness to me," Jesus rebuked
the devout Jews. They read their
Bibles. They treasured every word
and believed every statement in holy
writ. But they missed the supreme
and saving point of it all: "Yet you
refuse to come to me that you may
have life." What a verdict! What
a misplaced zeal!

Their Scriptures were the Old
Testament, of course, but the prin-
ciple is even more obvious in the
New Testament. He is the message.
He is the point and purpose of these
treasured writings. He is (in the
true, primary, Biblical sense) the
"Word of God." If we forget that,
it matters not how much righteous
rhetoric we use in praising the book,
we will have turned a means into an
end in itself.

The issue is the saving sovereignty
of Jesus Christ. If the Bible con-
fronts us with Him so that He takes
command of our lives, the Scrip-

NAME WITHHELD

tures accomplish their purpose. If
it does not, then our reading, hon-
oring, defending of it are all in vain.

Circular Reasoning

The issue is authority. Why be-
lieve certain things? Why behave a
certain way? On what do we base
our convictions? The fundamen-
talist roots authority in the manner
of inspiration. "Since every word
is God-authored, every word must
be believed. If it appears between
the covers of this book, it has to be
true." This is weak and circular
reasoning.

To begin with, we know there was
a Church before there was a New
Testament. There was event, testi-
mony to that event, and faith — be-
fore men wrote the record. There
was authority and response. To put
it plainly, how did the early Chris-
tians decide which writings to in-
clude in the New Testament? Why
these twenty-seven books and not
others? To say that what is in the
Bible is inspired begs the question.
Way back there somebody had to
answer the question: What is in-
spired enough and authoritative
enough to be called sacred Scrip-
ture? There was evidently a prior
authority, that of the Gospel itself,
or the Christ-event. Writings that
had some kind of apostolic charac-
ter, that is, first-hand or eye-witness
relation to Christ, were included.
The Bible has a derived authority,
that of Christ Himself.

To be sure, we could never love
and follow Him without that writ-
ten record and witness to Him which
is the Bible. But as P. T. Forsythe
said in his marvelous book, The
Principle of Authority, "Why I now
believe is a different question from
how I came to believe."

Let's imagine a little child grow-

PAGE 7 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 15, 1972

ing up during wartime. His father
has been overseas for several years
and is now coming home. The boy
doesn't really know his father except
through a picture of a soldier on the
mantle and through letters his
mother reads aloud to him from
time to time. These are mere pieces
of paper, but they are witnesses to
the reality of a person.

Today the boy will go to the air-
port and meet the man. He will
look him in the eye and be grasped
in his strong hands. The picture and
the letters have introduced him to
this man and they will help him
recognize his father.

They are important because of the
person behind them. They lead to
and serve a living relationship. They
are treasured, not for what they are
in themselves, but for the love, loy-
alty, and dreams they communicate.
It is the meeting at the airport that
is important.

"These are written that you may
believe that Jesus is the Christ, the
Son of God, and that believing you
may have life in His name." And
belief is never mere intellectual as-
sent to statements. It is personal
obedience, trust and love.

Martin Luther spoke of the Bible
as the cradle in which Christ is laid.
These writings have authority as
witnesses to Him. To say we be-
lieve in Christ because we find Him
in Scripture is to make a book the
primary source and basis of our
faith, not the Person. We believe
the Bible because Christ confronts
us through its words.

Spirit of Confession

Dr. Kenneth Foreman reflected
the spirit of the Westminster Con-
fession when he wrote lucidly of
how neither logic nor church decrees
can make the Bible authoritative for
us. Only the Holy Spirit speaking
to man's inner ear can do that.

"Suppose, for instance, you did
not believe that Johann Sebastian
Bach wrote great music. How could
I prove to you that he did? I could
hire a hall and employ an orator to
make a speech every seven days tell-
ing you what a great musician Bach
was. I could form a music club, and
keep you out or put you out if you
would not admit that Bach wrote
great music. But that would not
satisfy you. It ought not to satisfy
you. Study Bach for yourself. Lis-
ten to his music. Play some of it if
you have the skill. Let those soul-

shaking harmonies possess you. Then
you will know."

So, if in listening to the words of
Scripture we hear God addressing
us, feel Christ calling us, we shall
respond to that book as to no other.

Interpretation

The issue is interpretation. How
are we to understand the words we
read? We could all agree on a fully
inspired, infallible, authoritative Bi-
ble and still disagree widely in our
interpretations of it.

Ironically, a preoccupation with
the written text as their authority
has led men into the most fanciful
interpretations. The early Church
fathers allegorized parts of the Old
Testament because they didn't know
what else to do with such statements.
Then, with allegories, they read
their own meanings into the text.

H. H. Farmer, speaking of more
recent times, wrote, "It was during
the era when Protestantism assumed
the literal innerancy of Scripture
and used it in an externally authori-
tative way that it broke up into a
multitude of sects." (A look at our
denominational divisions reminds us
that conservative Protestants have
long disagreed about the sacraments
and Church government while agree-
ing on Scripture as the written Word
of God.)

A moment's thought reminds us too
that the Bible has been used both to
support and condemn slavery, segre-
gation, capital punishment, laissez-
faire economics, war and revolution.
The southern United States in mid-
19th century and South Africa to-
day resemble each other in racial
oppression and adherence to a lit-
erally infallible Bible.

Ralph Waldo Emerson was sent
to Florida by his physician. While
in St. Augustine, he attended a Bi-
ble society meeting held in a yard
adjacent to a slave auction. Emerson
wrote, "One ear therefore heard the
glad tidings of great joy, whilst the
other was regaled with 'Going, gen-
tlemen, going.' And almost with-
out changing our position we might
aid in sending the Scriptures into
Africa, or bid for 'four children
without mother' who had been kid-
napped therefrom."

The Bible can be used against it-
self. As Shakespeare has it, "The
devil can quote Scripture for his
own purposes." Our Westminster
Confession of Faith teaches that
Scripture must be interpreted by

Scripture, that is, the clear parts
used to clarify the unclear parts
That may be little help, however.
What is clear to one reader may be
obscure to another.

Some have found "clear" passage;
which to them are proof-texts foi,
polygamy, slavery, genocide anc
snake-handling. Dr. George Hendry
points correctly to an inadequacy
in the confession. It fails to say
that God's revelation "reaches it;
climax and completion in Jesuj
Christ." He is our key to interpre
tation.

The Bible can be used against it
self, unless it is interpreted rightly
That means read in the light o:
Christ. If He is the center, every
thing must be read in relation tc
Him. Some things found in the Bi
ble are then less important than oth
ers and a few are positively in$,
moral. He lived and taught twc
core commandments: "Love Goc
with your whole being. Love youp
neighbor as yourself." Any interpre
tation that contradicts that needs t(
be reexamined!

The real issue is response. No
body truly reads and believes tht
Bible until he responds to Christ':
offer and challenge. "You will no
come to me that you may have life,'
Jesus told the Bible experts of Hi
day. To believe is not to be credUj
lous about statements in a book
Faith is loving and following th<
Person who confronts us througl
the book.

This Is the Scandal

The fundamentalist wants to chal
lenge our intellectual credulity: "Be
lieve the whole thing." God chal
lenges man at the moral center o
his life. Emil Brunner said, "Whei
a man refuses to believe in Chris
it is because, in the last analysis
he does not admit his need of
Saviour." He went on to say, "Th
real stumblingblock to Christiai
truth is not the theoretical paradox)
but the moral humiliation."

Let us put the scandal at the righ
place. Our problem is not in be
lieving that a fish swallowed Jonah
but in trusting and following Christ
Liberals have as much trouble doin;
this as conservatives, to be sure, bu
our faithfulness is a much more ir
sidious thing than a question of ir
spiration.

The Bible is not read until it i
lived. At the height of Nazi powe
in Germany the Bible outsold Hii

PAGE 8 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 15, 1972

ler's Mein Kampf. Year after year
the Bible is a best-seller in America,
and the quality and direction of our
society are not altered noticeably.
Every week thousands of church peo-
ple listen to, read, quote portions
of Scripture but hear little and
change hardly at all. The truth
must be done — lived!

A musician looks at the notes be-
fore him on a piece of paper. He
sees quarter notes and half notes,

full measure rests, accents, pitch and
tempo indicated. He interprets the
little black marks on the page. He
reads the music. No — he hasn't
read the musical score until he trans-
lates symbols into sound. That is
why it was written, why the marks
were put on the paper.

Only when he strikes the piano
keys with his fingers, or puts' the
horn to his lips and converts the lit-
tle black marks into harmonies, mel-

odies, heard sounds — only then has
he truly read the music.

The Scriptures were never meant
to be read with the eye, believed
with the mind only, but translated
into life. For this alone the words
were written.

To the Bible-believers of His day
Jesus said, "But I know that you
have not the love of God in you."
Have we? II

Honoring the God who made His will known in Scripture is not bibliolatry —

Straw Men Vs. Scripture

Sovereign Scripture is a phrase
with starch, you'll have to ad-
mit. Lots of people like to revere
the Bible. But few wish to place
Scripture as a sovereign over their
lives.

In order to protect themselves
from such "tyranny," people have
been in the habit of setting up straw
men, easily knocked down, which
may do their dirty work of rejecting
the sovereignty of Scripture. Let's
look at some of the current scare-
crows of modern theology which at-
tempt to frighten people away from
believing in the sovereignty of Scrip-
ture.

Straw Man U. It is said that to
speak of Scripture as sovereign is to
substitute a book for God. "Bibliol-
atry" is the outcry.

Such a position is absolutely ab-
surd. When a child respects the
word which his parent speaks to him,
is he substituting the word of the
parent for the parent? Indeed not.
The child knows the will of the par-
ent by the word which the parent
'speaks.

We know God by the Word which
He speaks. Of course it is impor-
vant to understand the circumstances

The author is processor of Old
Testament at Westminster Theologi-
cal Seminary, Philadelphia, Pa.

out of which words are uttered.
When a parent tells a child, "Don't
cross the street," he doesn't mean
never cross the street. In the same
way, when God told Israel not to
approach Him without blood-sacri-
fice, He didn't mean that this law
would go on forever.

But just as the parent's command
contains a caution about the dan-
gers of automated traffic which is
forever applicable, so God's Old Tes-
tament command about blood-sacri-
fice finds its deepest meaning in the
once-for-all blood-shedding of the
Saviour for sinners.

Inerrant Word

The accusation of "bibliolatry"
must be proven. Worshiping the
physical pages of a Bible may be
bibliolatry. Worshiping the King
James Version of the Bible may be
bibliolatry. But revering the truth
of God, properly understood in con-
text, is honoring the God who has
made His will known in Scripture.

Straw Man #2. It is said that to
speak of the sovereignty of Scripture
in all that it says is to ignore the
errors proven to exist in the Bible.

During the recent General Assem-
bly of the Presbyterian Church in
the United States, a young Christian
from Africa told me of the "errors"

PALMER ROBERTSON

in the Bible about which he had
learned since he had come to study
in an American seminary. He point-
ed to Mark 1:2-3. In these verses,
Mark introduces a quotation from
the Old Testament by saying, "As
it is written in Isaiah the prophet."
Then Mark quotes Malachi the
prophet.

Obvious error, eh? No doubt
about that one!

Whoa-aa. Please read just one
more verse, would you? There it is,
just as Mark promised. A quote
from Isaiah.

What has Mark done? He simply
has put together two Old Testament
quotations (which is a standard New
Testament procedure) , and referred
the reader to the more prominent
of the two authors.

It is not absurd to acknowledge
the full authority of Scripture. But
it is absurd for 20th century man to
attempt to dictate the terms of quo-
tation-methodology to first-century
man. No copyright laws existed
then. Not even quotation marks.

The supposed errors in the Bible
are as widespread as sin, but the
proven errors in the Bible are non-
existent. Time would fail me to tell
of the other numerous "champions"
of non-faith in the Bible. Suffice it
to say that the Bible still stands as
God's infallible and inerrant Word.

PAGE 9 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 15, 1972

Stratv Man §3. It is objected that
the Biblical writers were men of
their times, conditioned by the cus-
toms of their day, and that their
writings therefore could not be au-
thoritative for us today.

Authoritative

The authors of the New Testa-
ment did not stumble at this prob-
lem. They realized the life-style of
both Abraham and David to be quite
different from their own. But they
embraced as authoritative both nar-
ratives of nomadic wanderers as well
as poems of professional temple-
singers. Why? Because, "Scripture
came not of old time by the will of
man; but holy men of God spoke
as they were moved by the Holy
Ghost" (II Pet. 1:21) .

Of course times change. Yes, an
earnest effort must be made to seek
modern equivalents to ancient cus-
toms. Wash your baby's skinned
knee with phisohex instead of ful-
ler's soap; but don't stop washing
your baby's skinned knee.

Veils for women in church? Per-
haps not. But what was the signifi-
cance of veils in Paul's day? The
veil of Paul's day served as a social
custom to express submission of the
woman to the man. Arising from the
order established at creation, this
principle still abides today. The
woman was made for the man, and
not vice versa (I Cor. 11:9) .

So today, let the intention of sove-
reign Scripture prevail. Let not any
precious word from God fall to the
ground until its abiding truth has
been discovered.

No Holograph Copy

Straw Man §4. It is objected that
we don't have the "autographa" (i.e.,
the original manuscripts of the Bi-
ble) . If we don't have the original
manuscripts, what good is it to as-
sert that the Bible is infallible in
the original text of the Hebrew and
the Greek?

What wisdom God has displayed
in not preserving a single scrap of
the original manuscripts of Scripture!
We now have sufficient splinter-rel-
ics from the cross of Christ to re-
build Noah's ark. What idolatry
would have occurred had the origi-
nal manuscripts of Scripture been
preserved?

We do not have the autographed
manuscripts of the Bible. But we
do have, in every essential, the words
of the autographs.

It might be asked, which is more
important: possessing the paper on
which Paul wrote I Corinthians 13,
or possessing a copy of the words of
that famous discourse on love? Per-
haps the ones guilty of "bibliolatry"
are those who chuckle up their
sleeves while insisting that the origi-
nal manuscripts must be produced.

B. B. Warfield, a great Princeton
professor of years ago, made an ob-
servation concerning the text of
Scripture as we now have it which
is well worth remembering. He
noted the thousands of copies of the
original manuscripts which have
been made. He noted the thousands
of disagreements among those copies.

Then he observed that if the worst
possible of readings among all these
copies was chosen deliberately over
a better-preserved copy — still, not a
single doctrine essential to the faith
of Christianity would be disturbed.

If you are crossing the Mississippi
river on foot at flood tide, it makes
a great difference whether or not

The Place To Anchor

The Christian must anchor firmly
in God's great absolutes (both His
absolute positives and His absolute
negatives) . Destroy the absolutes
and the framework of reality comes
tumbling down. — John W. Alex-
ander.

you have a bridge beneath you. The
water may be lapping over the
bridge here and there. But as long
as you can find solid footing, you
will make it across the river safely.

The original materials on which
the Bible was first written may not
be available to us. But it makes a
great difference whether God has
ever established His will in written
form or not.

Take a concrete example where a
difficult problem is found in deter-
mining the precise text of Scrip-
ture. Romans 5:1 could read,
"Therefore being justified by faith
we have peace with God through
our Lord Jesus Christ." Or it could
read, "Therefore being justified by
faith let us have peace with God
through our Lord Jesus Christ."
Which phrase represents the words
of the original: ". . . we have
peace . . ." or ". . . let us have
peace . . ."?

It is difficult to resolve this ques-
tion. If you do believe, with Jesus,
that God inspired not only the words

but even the pieces of letters of the
Bible, you will do your best to de-
termine which "o" in the Greek al-
phabet was used at this point.

But in the process, you won't over-
look the startling revelation from
God that is indisputably found in
this verse. Righteousness and peace
with God are possible by faith
through our Lord Jesus Christ!
Search all other non-Christian reli-
gious writings and you will never
find the equivalent to that state-j
ment. Eternal life is yours, if you
believe and trust this word as being
God's Word.

No, we don't have the papyrus on
which Paul first penned these glori-
ous words of the liberation of sin-
ners. But we have a trustworthy
copy of these God-inspired words,
and in these words we find eternal
life.

Two Weak Knees

Straw Man #5. It is objected that
the establishment of a group of au-
thoritative books in the early Chris-
tian Church was a very arbitrary
process. Why should we be so sure
that we have the right books in the
Bible?

This last straw man has two weak
knees. He's standing up, but only
because a theology of skepticism
hides behind him to bolster his ego.
Notice how the knees give with a'
little probing:

Right weak knee: This objection
assumes that men established cer-
tain books as authoritative by choos-
ing them.

The choice by men did not estab-
lish the authority of certain books
any more than the choice of men
establishes the sovereignty of God.
God reigns supreme no matter what
men may choose. If your God is
smaller than that, your God is too
small.

What makes a book have the au-
thority of God behind it? Not the
acclaim of men, but the inspiration
of God. If God inspires a man to
write a book, that book has behind
it all the authority of God, no mat-
ter how men may react. If God in-
spires a book, that book has a charac-
ter which is wholly different from
any other human document. Mer
cannot make books have God's au-
thority; only God's inspiration can
accomplish that feat.

Left weak knee: This objectior
supposes that God, having gone tc
the trouble of inspiring some book

PAGE 10 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 15, 1972

with His full authority, would then
fail to see to it that the right books
were collected together for the use
of His people.

This position is woefully weak be-
cause it ignores the potential for
self-assertion of God-inspired books
when mingled with mere human
writings, and because it distrusts
God's power to guide events so that
they realize His desired purposes.

If you mingle a rooster among a
yardful of hens, you won't be in
danger of missing the rooster's dis-
tinctive strut. If you mingle the
sovereign words of the Creator-God

among man's creaturely prosody, you
can be assured that God's words will
always ring true.

Having once inspired certain
books, God's "singular care and
providence" supervised the subse-
quent history and collection of these
books. God's name is never men-
tioned in the book of Esther. Yet
His providential protection of His
people has never been so clearly
manifested. A "bolt from the blue"
may never have struck the covers of
certain books marking them as
God's, but His hand ever so care-
fully collected them together.

The cornfield is full of these scare-
crows. The people who build them
keep moving on. If one begins to
weaken, they take the old straw and
start building ten more.

But remember, you are the loser
if you reject the sovereignty of Scrip-
ture at the prompting of straw-man
sophists. You are sure to live a high-
ly farcical, unrealistic life apart from
the discriminations of God's Word
in God's world.

Hear the living voice of the living
God, and don't worry so much about
those muted mutterings that come
from the cornpatch! El

Creation and redemption attest to God's wisdom-

Twin Witness

Adolph Eichmann, one of Hit-
ler's chief accomplices in
slaughtering six million Jews,
claimed to pray to God. He saw
no need of the Bible, he said; to him
nature revealed enough about God.
Eichmann was wrong in regarding
the Bible as nothing more than "a
collection of Jewish fables."

The Bible is necessary to show
man his sin, its terrible conse-
quences, God's hatred of sin, His
love for the guilty, and the person,
Jesus the Messiah, who is the one Re-
deemer for Jew and Gentile.

Various exciting things are known
about God from His creation, but
these facts are insufficient to save
men from sin. In His goodness,
God has given men His Word. The
Scriptures are able to make one
"wise unto salvation through faith"
in Jesus Christ.

In the poem familiar to every Bi-
ble reader, the psalmist exclaims,
"The heavens are telling the glory
of God." Day by day and night by
night God's knowledge is brilliantly

The author, an Associate Re-
formed Presbyterian minister, is en-
gaged in a mission to Jews in At-
lanta, Ga.

set forth. All creation combines
with the written Word of God to de-
clare the Creator's wisdom.

The witness of the physical uni-
verse is that God is wise. That this
is so is also the testimony of the Gos-
pel, since He devised a way to re-
main just while justifying the sin-
ner.

Youthful Solomon responded to
the Lord's offer of a blessing with a
request for wisdom. He got it and
was then in a unique position to
appreciate wisdom and shun folly.
He said that wisdom was daily at
God's side when He created all
things (Prov. 8:30) .

Truth Versus Error

Paul hated folly with a zeal remi-
niscent of Solomon's sermons on the
subject, declaring that much of what
passes for wisdom in this life is folly
of the worst sort. "We preach Christ
crucified . . . because the foolishness
of God is wiser than men" (I Cor.
1:23-25) .

With all his learning man never
found God, so Paul preached Christ,
the wisdom and power of God. Paul
also turned from pride in his attain-
ments as a scholar of Jewish religious

GEORGE S. LAUDERDALE

tradition. It proved as unable to
save as pagan philosophy.

Isaiah also spoke of God's wisdom
as revealed in nature, contrasting it
with the nonsense of idolatry, the
know-nothing character of pagan
deities. As in the book of Job,
Isaiah's readers are asked the origin
of God's understanding. Who taught
Him how to make and govern the
vast universe?

Link these Old Testament pas-
sages with Paul's prayers in Ephe-
sians, for example, that the newly
converted pagans would have their
eyes enlightened, that they would
know the hope of their calling, that
they could begin to grasp the im-
measurable dimensions of the love
of Christ. What wisdom there is in
the Gospel! It has the power to hurl
back darkness and superstition which
filled the minds of the heathen for
centuries.

Who taught God how to save man
from sin? None. As He gets all
the glory from creation by virtue of
His own understanding, He likewise
receives all honor and praise and
blessing for formulating, revealing
and carrying out His marvelous plan
of saving lost men. Thanks be to
Him through Jesus Christ our Lord
and Saviour. El

PAGE 11 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 15, 1972

EDITORIALS

Why Insist On One View of Revelation?

The perennial controversy over
the Bible sometimes produces more
heat than light, especially when it
seems to be merely an argument
over theories of inspiration and the
language of formulas by which the
Bible's infallibility or fallibility is
stated.

On the one hand there seems to
be an inflexible demand that the
Bible must be accepted as a book
without errors, or it cannot be ac-
cepted at all; on the other, it is ar-
gued that one may take the Bible
with utmost seriousness without be-
lieving that it is without error in ev-
ery particular.

One party says you must believe
the Bible is a written revelation
from God; another says the Bible is
a witness and instrument of revela-
tion.

So what's all the fuss about? As
the preacher says in his sermon
(p. 7, this issue) , it isn't the for-
mula you are willing to prattle
about that counts, it is wheth-
er or not you take the instructions
of Scripture seriously.

True. But it also happens to be
an established fact that those who
cannot bring themselves to believe
in the plenary-verbal inspiration of
the Bible are also those who have
trouble taking the teachings of the
Bible with utmost seriousness. It's

"A merry heart doeth good like a
medicine" (Prov. 17:22) .

If one could go to the medicine
cabinet and take joy by the spoon-
ful, perhaps there would be more
joyful, happy Christians. Nothing
invites participation quite as much
as real enjoyment. The long- faced
preachers of doom repel rather than
compel. It is the happy confident
child of God who inspires others to
faith in their Lord. And strange
though it may seem, joy is inde-
pendent of circumstances — or
should be for the Christian.

Read Paul's prison epistles: "Re-
joice in the Lord always: and again

the effect of one's views that mat-
ters.

Show us a man who insists the au-
thority of the Word of God is more
important than any theories of in-
spiration and we'll show you a man
who in numerous ways rejects the
authority of the Word. We'll also
show you a man whose ministry
lacks spiritual power. From such the
Holy Spirit seems to withhold His
blessing, and that's a fact!

It's a bit as if a bridegroom get-
ting married should refuse to repeat
the exact language of the preacher.
When the preacher asks, "Forsaking
all others, will you have this woman
to be your wife," he replies, "Yes,
I am willing to take her as my wife
in every sense of the word."

"But," says the preacher, "I asked
you if you would forsake all others."
To which the bridegroom replies,
"I don't think I have to use your
precise formula in order to be prop-
erly married."

The prospective bride would have
every reason to doubt that man's
intentions!

We vividly recall the language
used by a man who now is execu-
tive secretary of one of the four pro-
gram boards of the PCUS, in de-
scribing the revelation of God given
to Moses.

It was in a sermon on "The Chris-

I say rejoice" (Phil. 4:4) . "I am
exceedingly joyful in all our tribu-
lation" (II Cor. 7:4) . There is also
joy in salvation for David prayed,
"Restore unto me the joy of my sal-
vation" (Psa. 51:12) .

As it was sin that robbed David
of his joy, perhaps sin is the reason
we have so few joyful Christians to-
day. While we cannot take joy by
the spoonful, we can and should go
often to the source of our joy, the
promises of God's Word, and refill
our hearts.

Real joy is contagious — why not
be a carrier? — Ruby Sailor. ffl

tian Family," preached nearly 17 Pf
years ago, but we remember what f
was said as if it were yesterday. Said !»
the preacher:

"I can just see Moses, sitting on T
the top of Mt. Sinai with that vast >
encampment of people spread out se
before him, wondering what could 'toi
best weld them into a unified na- b
tion, and tapping into the stones the sn
insights that he felt God was giving I
him for the welfare of His people." f

We said to a friend then: "That
man is not to be trusted, because he ^
isn't comfortable with the Bible's >?f
own view of direct revelation."

He went on to be pastor of a F
prominent congregation, then execu-
tive secretary of a vital board — '
carrying the reputation of a faith- f
ful preacher of the Gospel and a «
theological conservative. But ths
activities of his -board in areas of un-
Biblical concerns under his direct
leadership have done more to divide
the Church than almost any other
single source of irritation.

How one accepts the inspiration
of Scripture and the authority of the
Word of God is of critical impor-
tance. It behooves those who stand
for the historic Presbyterian and
Reformed position, not only to in-
sist that one must, but also why. II

What Some Do
To Plain Language

"Often we are most conservative,"
said the "Pastor's Corner" of a con-
gregational newsletter, "when we are
most progressive."

The pastor suggested that "some-
times we best lay hold on the past
by moving creatively into the fu-
ture." And, "If we do for our day
what our forefathers did for theirs,
then writing a new confession of
faith can be very Reformed and con-
servative activity!"

The pastor was explaining why
he considers himself a "conserva-
tive." Another illustration he used ,
was that of "new forms in worship
that are in reality a recovery of gen-
uinely old principles." If such "ex-
perimental worship forms" (his con-
gregation tolerates some of the wild-
est) "adds to worship's meaning and
fosters continuing involvement by
the younger generation," he asked,
"are we not 'conserving' something
of value?"

If we permitted ourselves to suc-
cumb to the feelings we have every

Joy By the Spoonful

PAGE 12 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 15, 1972

THE LAYMAN AND HIS CHURCH

Who Will Resurrect You?

time we see some such violence per-
petrated on the English (and reli-
gious) language, we'd have ulcers
jfor sure.

There's the new meaning of the
word, "Reformed" which now is of-
fered without a blush to mean,
"constantly changing." This one
bears the stamp of the General As-
sembly.

There's that overused word,
"prophetic," employed to mean,
"avante garde leadership into new
and experimental directions exclu-
sively to the left." To lead a let-
tuce boycott is to engage in a
"prophetic ministry" (Journal, Nov.

In this connection, the office of
prophet is taken to mean that per-
son who has such an insight into
God's will (in some situation not
specifically covered by the Bible,
|§uch as whether or not to boycott)
that his views should be accepted on
a par with Holy Writ.

Then there is the modern defini-
tion of "truth" as "not a specific
body of content or a recital of facts,
but rather a living relationship in
which man confronts his existence
in God."

And, "Christian witness," which is
understood to mean, "nice things we
do for others."

That meaning of "witness" con-
stituted the heart of a presentation

! of "ministry" we saw recently. A
Presbyterian church and a Roman
Catholic church were uniting to
"reach people" in a "beach minis-
try" which would "surrender de-

i nominational pride to the high pur-
pose of Christian mission."

Most ravished of all common

| words, perhaps, is justice. Instead of

i meaning "due and proper reward for
behavior or misbehavior," it now
means, "special favors for those who
can't make it on their own."

Sometimes it isn't just the per-
version of the meaning of a single
word, but of an idea. Thus, the an-
nouncement we saw of a class pre-
paring to study a book on Christian
ethics: "We will study the elements
that go into moral judgments so as
to see how one's faith in God rather
than rules of conduct may influence
one's moral decisions."

When human discourse descends
to this level, it is impossible to carry

; on sensible theological discussion or
debate. The only thing to do is to
get as far away as possible, and don't
look back as you go, lest you be

j turned into a pillar of salt. IS

Thirteen days before he died at
the age of 73, James Bedford of
Glendale, California, changed his
will. The effect of his decision was
to bequeath $100,000 to the Inter-
national Foundation for Cyronic
Research, Inc., thereby disinheriting
his twelve grandchildren.

This foundation, for those who
aren't familiar with it, was estab-
lished by people who contract to
have their bodies quick-frozen im-
mediately after death. Their hope
is to be restored to life if scientists
should in the future find a cure for
the disease which killed them.

Mr. Bedford reportedly was the
first person to have his body quick-
frozen by the Cyronic Foundation.

Humanists, who regard man as
the crowning glory of the chance
process of organic evolution, will
laud Mr. Bedford's decision as a for-
ward-looking step in man's long
search to escape the yawning jaws
of death. On the other hand, Chris-
tians, who look in faith to Christ as
the author of eternal salvation, don't
share the humanists' fear of death.
They regard any human attempt to
restore life as blasphemy and as a
foolish attempt to usurp the pre-
rogative of the sovereign God as life-
giver and life-taker: "Verily, verily,
I say unto you, The hour is coming,
and now is, when the dead shall
hear the voice of the Son of God:
and they that hear shall live" (John
5:25) .

My purpose at this point in con-
trasting the conflicting views held
by humanists and Christians towards
resurrected life is not to condemn
one and extol the other. Believers
in organic evolution value continued
life on earth above almost anything
else because physical death to them
is an unknown. But to Christians,
death of the physical body frees the
soul to fly to the Maker. In heaven
they await the return of Christ in
power, at which time the soul and
the resurrected body will be re-

The author of this week's column
is Tom Rose, chairman of the eco-
nomics department and director of
continuing education, University of
Piano, Tex.

joined.

Rather, my purpose in contrasting
these two views is to show that the
decline of Christian influence in
America since the founding of our
nation, and the accompanying rise
of humanistic thinking, is the men-
tal conditioning that has prepared
Americans to accept the tyranny of
a centrally planned national state.

In short, Mr. Bedford's reliance
on a human agency to bestow eter-
nal life is emblematic of what is
wrong with America today. Lovers
of freedom, and of the self-respon-
sibility which accompanies freedom,
must understand the true nature of
America's illness before they can
seek an intelligent cure.

A high percentage of the men
who wrote our constitution believed
that a sovereign God is purposively
active in men's affairs. They ac-
cepted the Biblical view that God
consciously directs men's affairs to-
wards an end which He predestined
before the world was formed.

The natural political outgrowth
of such a theological view was the
setting up of a drastically limited
civil government It was the job of
civil government to maintain law
and order in an evil world, while it
was up to the Church and other pri-
vate associations to minister to the
eternal and temporal needs of man.
The active sphere of civil govern-
ment was drastically limited, while
the sphere of voluntary associations
was left open-ended.

But Americans in general have
lost their faith in a sovereign and
controlling God who predestines the
course of history. As a result, they
seek a worldly saviour rather than
an eternal one. And the job of
worldly saviour then falls to our na-
tional government and the states
who must necessarily dictate and
control to function in their roles as
saviour.

Don't let the deeper significance
of quick-frozen bodies escape us.
They are symbolic of America's mass
rejection of the sovereign God. A
return to the American concept of
limited government awaits the re-
enthronement of God as the author
of life, death and history. EE

PAGE 13 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 15, 1972

SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON

For December 3, 1972

Jeremiah and His Time

INTRODUCTION: Today marks
the beginning of a new quarter of
lessons whose theme is "Prophets of
Judgment and Hope: Jeremiah,
Ezekiel, Zechariah, Haggai."

As you can see, we will be study-
ing the messages of four of the later
prophets of Israel's history. Jere-
miah was the last of the prophets to
Judah before the Babylonian cap-
tivity. He actually witnessed that
fall and the carrying away of many
to Babylon.

Ezekiel was carried to Babylon as
a young man and spent most of his
life there. Zechariah and Haggai
were among those who returned af-
ter the decree of Cyrus allowed Jews
to return to Jerusalem. They were
called postexilic prophets and were
instrumental in urging God's people
to rebuild the temple.

Today's lesson deals with Jere-
miah and the historical background
of his times. Since we will be study-
ing several passages from Jeremiah
during this next month, it is impor-
tant to see the setting for his mes-
sage.

I. HISTORICAL BACK-
GROUND (II Kings 23-25; II
Chron. 36) . These passages are the
sources for the historical background
of Jeremiah's time, but to see better
the immediate backgraund of Jere-
miah, we need to begin at an even
earlier day.

In the late 8th century B.C., while
Ahaz ruled in Judah, Damascus fell
to the Assyrians in 732 B.C. Ten
years later, Samaria, the capital
of the northern kingdom, Israel, was
captured and its citizens carried
away.

To the south in Judah, Ahaz and
his son Hezekiah witnessed all of
this, as did the people. It was a
clear warning that if they did not
repent, Judah too would fall in
God's judgment.

Ahaz, however, was a wicked king
and refused to repent. He did not
listen to God, although he was
warned by Isaiah, the prophet, of
judgment to come. Instead Ahaz

Rev. Jack B. Scott

Background Scripture: II Chron-
icles 36; Jeremiah 1, 26

Key Verses: Jeremiah 1:4-10, 26:
12-15

Devotional Reading: Jeremiah 4:14-
22

Memory Selection: Jeremiah 1:8

worked all kinds of evil (II Kings
16).

Ahaz s son Hezekiah, however, was
different. He believed in God. He
listened to the prophet Isaiah and
when the Assyrians threatened Jeru-
salem, God delivered the city be-
cause Hezekiah trusted in God and
God's word rather than in man (II
Kings 18-19) .

After the death of Hezekiah, Ma-
nasseh, one of the worst of Judah's
kings, ruled. He was evil, like Ahaz,
and Amon was no better. Therefore,
God's determination to punish Ju-
dah was made known to the people
by the prophets of that day (II
Kings 21:10-15) .

After God's pronouncement of
sure judgment to fall on Jerusalem,
God nevertheless raised up one fi-
nal good king before a series of evil
kings led to the downfall of Jerusa-
lem. That good king was named
Josiah and was the son of Amon.

He began to rule at the very ten-
der age of eight (II Kings 22:1) . He
proved to be one of the greatest of
all of Judah's kings and most like
David. In II Kings 22 and 23, we
read of his great reform by which
he sought to bring Judah back to
full obedience to the Lord. Out-
wardly, at any rate, he seemed to
succeed, but apparently the people
did not truly change in spite of Jo-
siah's sincere effort. All of Josiah's
efforts for good could not change
the situation, so that judgment be-
came certain (II Kings 23:26) . Dur-
ing the 13th year of Josiah's reign,
just five years before the great re-
form began, Jeremiah, still a very
young man, received his call to serve

The International Sunday School Lesson Outlines
are copyrighted 1972 by the Committee on the
Uniform Series of the National Council of
Churches of Christ.

the Lord (Jer. 1:2). See also II
Kings 22:3.

Clearly the people had not really
changed in their hearts during Jo-
siah's reform, and the final four
kings of Judah were all evil in heart.

Jehoahaz, the son of Josiah, was
first made king after Josiah's death.
He was evil and God gave him over
into the hands of Pharaoh Necho
of Egypt. After Jehoahaz had ruled
only three months, the Pharaoh de-
posed him. He was carried away
captive to Egypt where he died a
prisoner.

Pharaoh then took another of the
sons of Josiah, changed his name
from Eliakim to Jehoiakim, and
made him king in Jerusalem. Jehoi-
akim also was evil in God's sight.
Obviously a puppet of the king of
Egypt, he gave the king much money
from the people of Judah.

During Jehoiakim's 11 years on
the throne, Nebuchadnezzar of Bab-
ylon threatened Jerusalem. For a
time Jehoiakim went over to serve
Nebuchadnezzar instead of Egypt,
being at the mercy of whoever was
dominant in the world. Then he
rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar,
perhaps thinking that Pharaoh Ne-
cho would rise again, but Nebuchad-
nezzar proved the stronger.

When Jehoiakim died, his 18-year-
old son Jehoiachin began to rule.
He, too, was evil. He reigned only
three months until Nebuchadnezzar
took him and his family captive to
Babylon (II Kings 24:12-15), along
with many of Jerusalem's best citi-
zens.

Finally Nebuchadnezzar took Mat-
taniah, probably Jehoiachin's uncle
(see II Kings 24:17 but also II
Chronicles 36:10) and set him up as
king of Jerusalem. He changed his
name to Zedekiah. Zedekiah proved
to be the last king of Judah and he
ruled 11 years. He, too, did evil in
God's sight, and in 586 God deliv-
ered the city into the hands of Neb-
uchadnezzar for the last time (II
Kings 24:8).

The wickedness was not limited
to the kings in those days. The Lord

PAGE 14 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 15, 1972

continued to send His prophets
right up to the fall of Jerusalem,
but the people mocked them and de-
spised God's words (II Chron. 36:
15-16) .

These latter days, from the time
of Josiah to Zedekiah, are the im-
mediate background for Jeremiah,
one of the prophets whom God sent
to a mocking and despising people.
!We can see how very difficult Jere-
miah's task was.

II. THE CALL OF JEREMIAH
(Jer. 1:4-10) . We assume from Jere-
miah 1:1 that Jeremiah was of a
priestly family. Anathoth was the
home of Abiathar, the priest (I
Kings 2:26) . We can date the min-
istry of Jeremiah as given in verse
3 to be from about 626 to 586 B.C.
or approximately forty years. Ac-
tually he continued his ministry
even beyond 586, the date of the
fall of Jerusalem, as the latter part
of the book tells us. Let us now
look at the call in some detail.

A. A personal call (vv. 6-8) . Note
that Jeremiah said that the word of
the Lord came "unto me." It was
clearly God's initiative.

Next, God revealed that His pur-
jose to call Jeremiah was not insti-
gated by any good thing which He
saw in Jeremiah. Far from it. "Be-
•fore I formed thee" shows that be-
ifore Jeremiah was born or even con-
jceived, the Lord had purposed his
jlife.

j Something very similar to this is
istated in Psalm 139:15-16. The
; psalmist acknowledged God's au-
thority in his life long before he
came to a realization of himself. He
spoke of the very "days that were
| ordained" for him, before any of
those days had begun. Similarly,
compare Paul's words in Galatians
1:15.

When the Lord said, "I knew
thee," He showed that He took the
initiative in the whole life and des-
tiny of Jeremiah to include Jere-
miah in His plans and eternal pur-
pose of salvation and service.

Here we must understand the
word "knew" in the sense it quite
often has in Scripture in reference
to God, i. e. God knowing individuals
savingly, God choosing, ordain-
ing them for salvation. It is in this
sense that God declares that He
"knows" Abraham (Gen. 18:19).
Similarly, the Lord "knows" the way
of the righteous (Psa. 1:6) . Again
He "knows" them that take refuge
in Him (Nahum 1:7) .

In the New Testament, compare
Jesus' words to the reprobate: "I
never knew you" (Matt. 7:23) . It
is clear that in such context the
meaning of "to know" is not merely
to have knowledge of — surely God
has knowledge of all people — but
to elect, to choose and save. The
thrust of this text is that the Lord
took the initiative and made Jere-
miah to be one of His own children
forever.

Further, the Lord sanctified or set
aside Jeremiah. The force of this
word is to show that Jeremiah's life
and spiritual growth were also a part
of God's plan and purpose. "To
sanctify" means to set aside and to
render different from the common
or ordinary. All of God's children
are sanctified.

God purposes His own for the
works which He will have them to
do, so that all of their lives, their
very parents and place of birth, their
wives, the work and experiences
which they have, all are under God's
control and according to His plan
to mold them into the kind of ser-
vants He would have them to be.
Thus all that has happened to Jere-
miah was in God's purpose for him.

Finally, God appointed Jeremiah
to be a prophet unto the nations (v.
5) . The Lord elaborated upon this
appointment in later verses, saying
that Jeremiah was to go where the
Lord sent him and say what the
Lord told him to say (v. 7) . This
is the work of the true prophet of
the Old Testament.

Jeremiah showed hesitancy in the
face of such a great task, "Ah, Lord,
behold I know not how to speak;
for I am a child" (v. 6) . God's an-

swer, not only to Jeremiah but in
reality to all of His servants who
realize their own insufficiency was:
"I am with thee." (Compare Exodus
3:12; Joshua 1:5; Matthew 28:20).

B. A twofold mission (vv. 9:10).
It has often been pointed out that
the mission of Jeremiah was two-
fold: "to pluck up and to break
down and to destroy and to over-
throw," on the one hand, but also
"to build and to plant."

We must be mindful that as the
servant of God was sent into the
Church to serve God, he first spoke
against the sin in the Church that
all might come to repentance. Only
after the wood, hay and stubble had
been destroyed could we see the
emergence of the gold, silver and
precious stones. God's work will
never be on any foundation other
than His truth in Christ. Everything
else must be removed.

In the New Testament, Paul like-
wise described the effect of the
Word of God as being twofold: tear-
ing down and building up (see II
Tim. 3:16-17). Whenever we are
God's witnesses, therefore, we can
expect that the Word of God like a
two-edged sword will both hurt and
heal as we wield it in faithfulness.
(Compare Hebrews 4:12-13).

CONCLUSION: As we conclude
this message, we should refer to Jere-
miah 26 which tells of one occasion
out of many when Jeremiah's min-
istry met with hostility and attempts
to destroy him. When God's ser-
vant is faithful to Him and His
Word, oppositions will come.

(Cont. on p. 18, col. 3)

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PAGE 15 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 15, 1972

YOUTH PROGRAM

Scripture: Acts 2:30-36
Suggested Hymns:

"Jesus Shall Reign"
"Crown Him with Many

Crowns"
"Lead On, O King Eternal"

PROGRAM LEADER'S INTRO-
DUCTION: It does not surprise
us that the Bible refers to Christ as
a king. One of the most obvious
teachings of Scripture is that God
is a sovereign ruler.

Since Christ is truly God, it is
natural to think of Him as a king,
or a sovereign ruler. It is Christ's
nature to rule, to occupy the kingly
office. This has been His right for-
ever because He is who He is, the
second person of the Godhead.

We speak of the kingly office of
Christ in connection with the pro-
phetic and priestly offices. We see the
kingly office in a slightly different
light when we speak of His eternal
right to rule. We are thinking of
Him not only as eternal God but
also as true man. He is truly God
and truly man, and His human na-
ture now shares in the kingly of-
fice.

In this program we shall be seek-
ing to find out what the Bible says
about Jesus Christ as king. We want
to know what is the nature of His
kingly office, and we want to know
what it means to us.

FIRST SPEAKER: At the very be-
ginning of the Presbyterian Book of
Church Order Jesus Christ is spoken
of as the "King and Head of the
Church." If we do not recognize
Christ's right to rule His Church, we
should not say that it is His.

We need to remember also that
He rules spiritually. His right to
rule in the hearts and minds of be-
lievers is brought about not by ex-
ternal force but by spiritual means,
the Word and the Spirit. Christ is
king or head of the Church in that
it is He who gathers, governs, pro-
tects and perfects His people.

The spiritual kingdom of Christ
is the same as the kingdom of God

For December 3, 1972

Christ, Our King

Rev. B. Hoyt Evans

or the kingdom of heaven mentioned
in the New Testament. It is the
rule of Christ over those who have
been born again and in whom the
Spirit lives; it is the condition which
results from Christ's living in and
ruling over people.

The kingdom is both present and
future. It is present because the
rule of Christ is already established
and acknowledged in the hearts of
men, but it is future because only
at the second coming of Christ will
His reign be perfected and made
visible.

Christ has been king from eter-
nity, but He formally and publicly
assumed His throne at the time of
His ascension and will occupy it
throughout eternity.

SECOND SPEAKER: After His
resurrection and before the ascension
Jesus said to His disciples: "All
power (authority) is given unto me
in heaven and in earth" (Matt. 28:
18) . This is to say that His reign
is not merely over the Church but
extends to the whole universe.

Although it covers the same realm,
it is not to be confused with His
right to rule which He had before
creation. This is the kingship of
Christ over the universe in behalf
of His Church. This is His sov-
ereign rule over all things for the
benefit of the people He has re-
deemed by His blood. By this reign
He protects and defends them and
brings about their perfection.

God granted this right and honor
to Christ "when He raised Him from
the dead, and set Him at His own
right hand in the heavenly places,
far above all principality, and pow-
er, and might, and dominion, and
every name that is named, not only
in this world, but also in that which
is to come: and hath put all things
under His feet, and gave Him to be
the head over all things to the
Church" (Eph. 1:20-22).

Christ was given this kingship
formally when He was exalted at the
right hand of God. He did not re-
ceive any power or any extension of
His realm which He did not have

113
in
lip
1

R
111

E
in

before, but now He rules in both
His divine and His human nature
and His government of the universe
is in the interest of His Church.

THIRD SPEAKER: What does it
mean to us that Christ is the ruler
of the Church and the universe? It
means that the same Christ who
loved us and gave His life for our
salvation is now the ruler of all
things. The lamb of God who wd|
willingly sacrificed for our sins now
sits on the throne of the universe
The one who saved us by His blood!
has power and authority to do for
us every good thing.

Sometimes we feel very frustrated
because we cannot provide for the
people we love the things we think
they need. We have not the ability
to spare them the sorrows and hard-
ships that we would like to see them{
spared

Christ is our king, and He is not
limited in this way. We know that
He loves us because He took our na-
ture on Himself and He gave Him
self for us on the cross. We know
He can do all things because God
has made Him the ruler of the uni-
verse.

We cannot always understand His
ways, but we can have the assurance
that "All things work together for
good to them that love God, to them
who are the called according to His
purpose" (Rom. 8:28) .

PROGRAM LEADER: What re-
sponse are we to make to this glori-
ous and sobering fact that Jesus
Christ is our king? How would we
respond to a human being who
proved himself to be a wise, able
and considerate ruler? We would
honor him and we would obey him.

King Jesus desires and deserves
the same response. We should hon-
or Him because He is great and
greatly to be praised. We should
be obedient to His will because it
is right and good. We should love
Him because He first loved us.

Closing Prayer.

2)
tt

or

HI

=i

as

51

PAGE 16 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 15, 1972

SOLOMON TO THE EXILE, by
John C. Whitcomb Jr. Baker Book
House, Grand Rapids, Mich. Paper,
183 pp. $2.95. Reviewed by the Rev.
Burney H. Enzor, pastor, First
Baptist Church, Bonifay, Fla.

This work is the third in a series
by the publisher called Old Testa-
ment Studies. The first two vol-
umes are by John J. Davis. The au-
thor reverently approaches the ac-
counts in Kings and Chronicles and
seeks "to come to grips with the es-
sential teachings of each consecutive
passage . . . ."

Though the writer sketches in-
stead of elaborates, he does not
avoid the problem passages. Whit-
comb is helpful in countering criti-
cal attacks, even if brief. He does
offer footnoting helps for those in-
terested in pursuing more in-depth
answers to the higher critics.

His statement in the preface indi-
cating that the "words" of the Old
Testament text "were inspired of
God and therefore absolutely iner-
rant" is not denied by the text of
Ihis commentary. In fact, he says,
; "Churches that emphasize social and
^political reform more than the
Word of God are contributing to
the ruin of the very nation they pro-
fess to love."

He goes on to say, "The Church
of Jesus Christ today would be enor-
mously strengthened if all those who
profess to be its friends, but who
secretly deny the authority of the
;Lord, would depart from it."

His score of years as seminary pro-
cessor and author of books and ar-
ticles provides him experience in

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BOOKS

preparing this work evidently aimed
at becoming a textbook for colleges
and Bible schools. EE

THE SUBVERTERS, by Bernard
Hutton. Arlington House, New Ro-
chelle, N. Y. 266 pp. $7.95. Reviewed
by John L. Martin, professor, Mar-
shall University, Huntington, W. Va.

This book, a selection of the Con-
servative Book Club, was written by
a former member of the Central
Committee of the Czech Commu-
nist Party who served later as a
Comintern officer and news editor
in Moscow.

Mr. Hutton broke with the Com-
munist Party in 1938. Then he served
the Czech government until it went
Communist in 1948. Since that time
has been living in England, work-
ing as a broadcaster and writer.

Mr. Hutton gives a world view of
the Communist methods of endeav-
oring to destroy the Western democ-
racies from within, using master sub-
verters with many years of training
in the language and the customs of
the target country. For example, he
describes the use of a simulated
American town as a training school
in Russia for subverters destined to
go undercover in the United States.

He discusses the influence of Pe-
king and Moscow in wildcat strikes,
riots and violence in the United
States, Great Britain, France, West
Germany, Northern Ireland, and
parts of Africa, Asia and Latin
America.

Somehow this book does not jell
as the shocker that it is obviously
intended to be. The reader who has
little or no knowledge of the Com-
munist conspiracy will be startled,
although the very multiplicity of
the incidents of violence and ter-
rorism is at times boring. There are
ten pages of lists of deeds of violence
in Northern Ireland. For the reader
who has attempted to keep up to
date on world Communism, some of
the book is bound to be old stuff.

Some readers will disagree with
Mr. Hutton's laudatory portrayal of
Dr. Martin Luther King, who is pre-
sented as a martyr of nonviolence.

At times the language of the book
detracts from it. The spelling is
British, such as "tyre" for "tire."
Other instances of unusual syntax

expressions make the reader aware
that Mr. Hutton is writing in a lan-
guage that is not his own. Before
the American edition was published,
it would have been a good idea to
get someone whose native language
is American English to proofread
the book and straighten these mat-
ters out. EE

THE PHILISTINES AND THE
OLD TESTAMENT, by Edward E.
Hindson. Baker Book House, Grand
Rapids, Mich. Paper, 184 pp. $3.95.
Reviewed by the Rev. R. L. Summers,
pastor, First Presbyterian Church,
Gulfport, Miss.

This book is divided into four
main sections: historical background,
Philistine religion and practices, the
Philistines and archaeology, and the
Philistines in the Bible. The latter
two sections are much longer than
the others and actually provide most
of the information for the first two
sections.

In preparing this volume, the au-
thor has brought together all of the
best scholarship in this field and
has used his extensive fund of in-
formation to support the Biblical
picture of the Philistines.

He provides archaeological evi-
dence to show that the Philistines
were originally an Aegean people
who wandered from Achaea, Crete
and Cyprus into Asia and the Pales-
tinian coast. He very successfully
refutes the argument that the book
of Genesis is not accurate when it
says in the 26th chapter that Abra-
ham had contact with the Phili-
stines.

Using archaeological evidence, he
shows that early colonies of Phili-
stines were among the Canaanites
long before the migration of Abra-
ham.

The whole style of this volume is
somewhat plodding and filled with
technical details, and is apparently
speaking to the scholar rather than
to a general reading public. As is
common in a research work, it often
repeats its thoughts and ideas in
many different places in the text
and seems to be primarily interested
in defending its several main theses.

However, any serious student of
the Bible will find that the effort

(Continued on next page)

PAGE 17 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 15, 1972

required in reading this book is well
repaid by the enrichment of his
knowledge of this important Bibli-
cal people. SI

GALATIANS: A Call To Christian
Liberty, by Howard F. Vos. Moody
Press, Chicago, 111. Paper, 124 pp. $.95.
Reviewed by the Rev. Burney H. En-
zor, pastor, First Baptist Church,
Bonifay, Fla.

The author recognizes three kinds
of bondage — that to the law; that
to the flesh; and, finally, that easy
bondage to love. He is cautious
not to disengage the Christian from

obligation to the moral law. His
"freedom" in Christ does not make
a morally bad person out of him.
The love of Christ frees from the
law while fulfilling it.

He makes clear the centrality of
the cross and justification by grace
through faith, adding, "Paul's mes-
sage always sought to give God all
the glory for the solution to man's
sin problem." While making a
straightforward attack on the new
morality, he sees the freedom of the
Holy Spirit empowered life.

Vos makes helpful returns to the
original language without creating

difficulties for the lay reader. Hi
scholarship is not unapproachable
that is, he can be understood.

A writer of considerable experi
ence, Dr. Vos is professor of fusion
at Trinity College, holding th<
Th.D. from Dallas Theologica
Seminary. 5

COLOSSIANS: Christ All-Suffi
cient, by Everett F. Harrison. Mood]
Press, Chicago, 111. Paper, 125 pp
$.95. Reviewed by the Rev. Petei
Pascoe, pastor, First PresbyterSai
Church, Winona Lake, Ind.

From the pen of the professor o
New Testament at Fuller Seminary
the co-editor of the Wycliffe Bibh
Commentary, the revisor of Alford'f
Greek Testament, and the editor o:
Baker's Dictionary of Theology
comes this readable, scholarly worl
on Colossians.

Many consider Colossians, dealing
as it does with the dualism and in
cipient gnosticism of that day, to b(
the most difficult of New Testameni
books to interpret to modern man
That Professor Harrison succeed;
admirably in the interpretation oi
Colossians is self-evident to all whc
will read his presentation of Chrisi
as the all-sufficient Redeemer.

Adequate note and bibliographi<
material complete this fine work, ff

S. 5. Lesson— from p. 15

Men, out of pride, resent having
their sinful works exposed. The}
resist the truth and him who bear:
it. They crucified our Lord anc
every one of His servants can expea
opposition in some form or other
The point in Jeremiah's life is thai
he held steadfastly to God's pur
pose and will as God had revealec
it to him, no matter what the cost
This is truly an example for every
one who would call himself a ser
vant of the Lord.

Next week we will begin to stud}
the message which God deliverec
to His Church through this faith
ful servant Jeremiah. E

• • •

Anyone in a cap and gown car
blast the presuppositions of life, car.
rob our sons and daughters of al
the principles on which civilizatior
depends — but let him as much a.'
whisper, "academic freedom," anc
no professional educator dares to sa\
a word of criticism. — Robert I
Gannon.

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SEE THE MANAGER NEAREST YOU FOR CHURCH CARPET, ROBES, ETC.

PAGE 18 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 15, 1972

BOOKS

for BELIEVERS

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$8.95)

1 3. The Christian
Family by Larry Christ-
ensen — Not for those
seeking simple, tem-
porary relief of the
symptoms of a sick
home, this book cuts
deeply into the prob-
lems of family life and
their solution through
divine order. (Publish-
er's price $4.95)

15. Religious History
of America by Edwin
Scott Gaustad — A
broad study of re-
ligious trends and
events in American
history. I nformative
and illuminating. (Pub-
lisher's price $8.95)

1 <»5iff
NfWreSTAMENT

s m »>». .

16. A Survey of the
New Testament by

Robert H. Gundry —
This is a big. lavishly
illustrated book that
approaches its subject
in a unique and excit-
ing way. Designed with
students in mind, it
combines the best fea-
tures of an introduc-
tion and a commen-
tary without the short-
comings of either.
Fresh illustrations,
maps, and charts add
graphic force to the
book. (Publisher'sprice
$6.95)

I understand that I am not required to buy any minimum of books
during my membership in Evangelical Books. My membership will
entitle me to receive the monthly book bulletin describing many new
titles available at substantial savings. If I do not desire the club's
current selection, I will return the order card, properly marked. If
I do NOT return this card, I will receive the club's selection auto-
matically. However, I may return any book for full refund within 10
days of receipt.

14. The New English
Bible — F. F. Bruce,
eminent evangelical
commentator, writes:
"To the sponsors of
The New English Bible
the English - speaking
world owes an immense
debt. They have given
us a version which is
contemporary in idiom,
up-to-date in scholar-
ship, attractive and,
at times exciting in
content." (Publisher's
price $8.95)

17. Why Conservative
Churches Are Growing

by Dean M. Kelley —
A sociological study
which discovers that
a clear emphasis up-
on the meaning of
life is the essence of
church vitality and
growth. Poignant and
controversial. (Pub-
lisher's price $6.95)

TO: EVANGELICAL BOOKS

Box 4522, 1716 Locust Street, Des Moines, Iowa 50336

Please enroll me in the new EVANGELICAL
Today . . . and send me the three books I
for only $1.00:

□ A Companion to the New
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BOOKS service from Christianity
have checked on the list below,

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PAGE 19 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 15, 1972

ucBut seek ye first U

the kingdom of God,
and His righteousnessM
and all these things) y
Shall be added unto you.

ft

The following Financial Policy of the Reformed Theological Seminary was adopted by
the Trustees on September 10, 1964.

1. Complete confidence in the adequacy of Matthew 6:33 to cover the needs of God's
work and workers, recognizing that we are here given

a. ) A Condition, stated in the first part of this verse, and

b. ) A promise in the second part.

2. In the securing of funds for RTS we observe, and confine ourselves to the following
as both the Scriptural way of promotion, and as the only truly God honoring way:

1. ) Faith and prayer will be our primary and constant approach to the supplying

of our needs;

2. ) Witness to a. The Nature of our work

3.) Ask no man to give anything: but on the basis of the above, ask all to

consider investing on the basis of the merit and the ministry of this work as
God may lead them.

3. All individual and personal contacts for the school, and all official or corporate
effort for funds are to be kept in line with the above principles.

"Working for the return of the day when evangelistic fervor, rooted
in the Biblical centrality of the traditional Reformed theology
will put the strength of the Rock, the fire of the Spirit, and the passion of
the Gospel into the ministry of the church."

Reformed Theological Seminary

5422 Clinton Boulevard • Jackson, Mississippi 39209 • 601-922-4988

b. The Nature of our needs

c. Ways support may be given for the work and the needs.

The Seminary has a racially non-discriminatory admissions policy.

PAGE 20 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 15, 1972

VOL. XXXI, NO. 30 NOVEMBER 22, 1972

S72^ j

$4.00 A YEAR

the

PRESBYTERIAN

JOURNAL

idvocating continuation of a Presbyterian Church loyal

to Scripture and the Reformed faith

Give Thanks for Faith

The Puritans had a vision of the kingdom of God and they
were trying to establish it in the hearts of men and women
throughout the whole land. What we need today are modern
pilgrims who not only have such a faith and are willing to work,
suffer, even die for it if need be, but who also have a vision of
the kingdom of God established again in this land and through-
out the world. We need people willing to proclaim the Gospel
of Jesus Christ.

— D. James Kennedy
(See p. 7)

3. S. LESSON AND YOUTH PROGRAM FOR DECEMBER 10

moo

VVsLZ OK II TH IQdteno

qn ok jo i4^s.i9Ama

uofiosi-coo o K

p

MAI LB AG-

disillusioned

Am I disillusioned! Since when
have Christians felt that the end
justifies the means? For years, con-
servatives have strongly opposed
union with the UPUSA Church, and
for very good reasons. Now, how-
ever, the steering committee for a
Continuing Church urges us "to sup-
port any plan of union with the
UPUSA Church which contains an
acceptable clause permitting local

congregations and ministers to elect
not to enter the union; and to ex-
ercise this election not to enter the
union and continue our Presbyte-
rian Church."

Really! Now how can we think
that we are following God's plan for
us if we deliberately give our ap-
proval to a thing that we strongly
disapprove — just in order to take
advantage of the escape clause?

Certainly, if an acceptable plan

the

PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL

Rev. G. Aiken Taylor, Ph.D., Editor
Rev. Henry B. Dendy, D.D., Managing Editor

Circulation leader among independent publications in the Presbyterian-Re formed world

THIS WEEK

Vol. XXXI, No. 30, November 22, 1972

Wanted: Modern Pilgrims 7

The Pilgrims gave us a system of government based on God's
commands By D. James Kennedy

Chapter V: The Holy Spirit 9

The proposed new confession of faith, although not all good,
is not all bad By Robert Strong

De partments —

Editorials 12

The Layman and his Church 1 3

Sunday School Lesson, December 10 14

Youth Program, December 10 16

SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: $4 a year
for individuals, $3 for members of
Every Family Plan churches. All cor-
respondence regarding subscriptions,
advertising or other business matters
should be addressed to the business
office in Weaverville, N. C. 28787.
Second class postage paid at Weaver-
ville, N. C. 28787.

THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL, a

Presbyterian weekly magazine, devoted
to the statement, defense, and propa-
gation of the Gospel, the faith which
was once for all delivered to the saints,

is published every Wednesday by the
Southern Presbyterian Journal Co.,
Inc., in Weaverville, N. C.

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of union were to be approved with
out our double-faced support, the
escape clause would be a heaven
sent opportunity for peaceful re
alignment. But let us allow it to be
heaven-sent, not achieved by such
legal but selfish manipulations.

—Mrs. Joseph B. Tuttle
Savannah, Ga.

It is our feeling that we are support-
ing a specific proposal containing a
specific provision to bring about a
specific result, and not supporting
union as such. Ed.

ENDORSE COMMUNISTS?

I want to respond to your news
story (Journal, Oct. 11) entitled
"Minister's Communist Party Ties
Are Upheld," concerning the Rev,
Terrance H. Davis' affiliation with
the Communist Party.

According to the story, the Pres-
bytery of Louisville-Union upheld
the right of Mr. Davis to "act ac
cording to his individual con-
science." Then the presbytery said
it "in no way supported the Com
munist Party," nor "endorsed the
action" of Mr. Davis.

Has the presbytery discovered a
Communist in their midst? Haven't
they the "guts" to remove him from
the pulpit under the rules of dis-
cipline provided them? What does
the presbytery mean in its recom-
mendation that "a member of pres
bytery has a right to hold differing
political perspectives"? Do they
mean that a member may support
atheistic Communism (even if not
a member) , a system bent on de-
stroying Christianity, and still be a
minister in a pulpit professing to
preach the Word of God?

It is alleged that he "permitted
his name to be used as an elector of
the Communist Party." An elector
is a qualified voter in the party,
isn't he?

— Carl Godsey
Augusta, Ga.

HOW MUCH WILL IT COST?

With respect to the news storyi
about the organization of the new
"Red River" Synod (formerly Syn-
od "E") , which will cover most of
Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana and
Oklahoma: Much has been said
about efficiency and savings. But
what will the new synod cost to
function?

The air fare from my home t»
Austin (where the organizational
meeting was held) and return for
two is $255. Some commissioners

J

would live twice as far away.

Can we afford the increase in cost
just to hold synod meetings?
— Michael S. Baer
Bogalusa, La.

Some people (cynics, no doubt) won-
der if the larger synods have not been
supported in part for the oppor-
tunity they afford for increased
bureaucracy. — Ed.

IT WAS VIOLENT

Our session was exposed to the
proposed new confession of faith at
a recent stated meeting. At each
meeting we have a period of worship
and instruction and at the latest
meeting I used excerpts from
that controversial document with-
out identifying it except to say, "I
am going to read to you from a docu-
ment which I will ask you either to
endorse or to repudiate."

After the reading, I asked for re-
action. It was violent! Not an el-

der said he would support any state-
ment such as that as a statement of
faith.

I then turned the face of the book-
let so they could see what it was.
They were amazed and heartsick
that such material could appear in
the Presbyterian Church.

My ordination vows asked me to
let my presbytery know of any
change in my views away from the
historic Reformed faith. Wouldn't
that vow apply to those who had a
part in drawing up the new "con-
fession"?

— (Rev.) Drennon B. Cottingham
Dothan, Ala.

MINISTERS

Robert L. Griffin from Aiken, S.
C, to the Cliffwood church, Au-
gusta, Ga.

Stephen J. Sloop Jr., from Powder
Springs, Ga., to the Memorial
Park church, Gainesville, Ga.

Samuel R. G. Lee from Dallas,
Tex., to First Church, Atlanta,
Ga., in a "tent-making" arrange-
ment.

George A. Holland from San An-
tonio, Tex., to the Central
church, Waco, Tex.

Adrian Kolean from McAlester,
Okla., to the First Church, Brown-
field, Tex.

Robert S. Owens Jr., from Char-
lotte, N. C, to the Casa Linda
church, Dallas, Tex.

Edwin Hodges Rayfield from
Statesville, N. C, to the Whit-
field Estates church, Sarasota,
Fla.

Robert Tull from Vinton, Iowa,
to the First Church, Okmulgee,
Okla.

Eddie Lee Wells from San Angelo,
Tex., to the First Church, Gaines-
ville, Tex.

ACROSS THE EDITOR'S DESK

• While everyone else was watch-
ing the presidential returns on elec-
tion night, we were glued to reports
of the North Carolina senatorial
race, where seesaw returns finally
gave Jesse Helms a commanding
lead over his opponent and the state
its first Republican senator in near-
ly 100 years. Mr. Helms' editorial
columns appear regularly, if not fre-
quently, in the Journal. As we told
him during a visit to Asheville be-
fore the election, we never expect a
supporter of the Journal to attain
high office in the Church, but we
were looking forward to having a
contributing editor in the Senate!

• Next week (it's too late for this
week's issue) we expect to carry the
impressive convocation address de-
livered at the opening of the new
term at Reformed Theological Semi-
nary by the Honorable W. Jack
Williamson, an attorney of Green-
ville, Ala., who is also on the Joint
Union Committee of the General
Assembly. We had scheduled this

message for later in the year, but
have moved it to the head of the
line, and with this preliminary no-
tice, on account of a not unexpected
muckraking of Mr. Williamson in
the Presbyterian Outlook. The Out-
look, which has never been on the
side of the angels so far as we per-
sonally have been able to determine,
seems to love nothing better than to
have an opportunity to practice a
bit of personal character assassina-
tion. In typical fashion, it pub-
lished its attack on Mr. Williamson
without bothering to get even the
most elementary facts straight.

• This one has been collecting
dust in the files for a while but is
still good: In Philadelphia, a flap
developed over the TV showing, by
Columbia Boadcasting System, of an

"X" rated film, "The Damned." But
the flap was not over the showing
of the film, it was over the editing
of the film to make it suitable for
family audiences before it was
shown. CBS removed some of the
racier sequences and guess who pro-
tested to the Philadelphia Bulletin}
The Rev. H. Alton Lee, director of
information and publicity for the
United Presbyterian USA Board of
Christian Education. "Any out-
rages about the showing of this film
should be directed at CBS and
Warner Brothers for the way they
botched up a masterpiece with sense-
less cutting," wrote the Reverend.
What outraged him the most was
the fact that "The Damned" had
been given an "X" rating in the
first place. SI

PAGE 3 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 22, 1972

NEWS OF RELIGION

Australian Churches Vote on Union

VICTORIA, Australia — A vote on
church union among Presbyterians,
Methodists and Congregationalists
in this land has resulted in an over-
whelming approval among Presbyte-
rian governing courts, and at the
same time, in a majority of Presbyte-
rian congregations deciding to re-
main out of the union in a contin-
uing Presbyterian Church.

Two separate courses of action
were approved by Parliament which
had to enact a law permitting
Churches to vote on union.

Four of Six Approve

The first of these was legislation
permitting the vote by presbyteries
and by the six regional Assemblies
of the Presbyterian Church (rough-
ly corresponding to regional synods) .

For approval, four out of six re-
gional Assemblies must have voted
for union. In fact, all six approved.
A minimum of 32 presbytery approv-
als were necessary to ratify. Some 40
approved. So the General Assembly
of Australia may ratify a united
Church when it convenes next May.

On the other hand, legislation was
enacted to permit congregations to
decide whether they wished to enter

AFRICA — A cooperative evangeli-
cal organization called the Commit-
tee for the Rehabilitation of South-
ern Sudan (CROSS) has been
formed to provide relief and reha-
bilitation service in the southern sec-
tor of Sudan.

The cooperative committee has
been formed primarily of represen-
tatives of the Sudan Interior Mis-
sion, Sudan United Mission, Africa
Inland Mission, and Missionary
Aviation Fellowship, all of which
had work in the area before it was
closed to missionary work in 1964.
Other evangelical groups will be
welcome to help.

CROSS has been given permission
to send in personnel to survey the
areas to be served and draw up de-

the united Church, or remain in a
continuing Presbyterian Church. In
order to enter it was necessary for
the congregation to approve by two-
thirds vote.

At the conclusion of the tally, 735
congregations had voted for the con-
tinuing Church, 712 had voted to
enter the united Church.

Leaders of the pro-union move-
ment have expressed dismay. Some
have said they believe the entire
proposal should be dropped.

On the other hand, aggressive pro-
ponents of union continue eager to
proceed with the concluding steps
necessary to achieve a single united
Church.

A small group are insisting that a
second vote be taken on both ques-
tions, which under Australian law
can be arranged if the parties re-
quest it. Observers doubt that there
is sufficient sentiment to bring
about a second vote.

Advocates of the continuing
Church have indicated their satis-
faction with both votes and their
willingness to go ahead on the basis
of results already tabulated.

The Hon. F. Maxwell Bradshaw,
leader of the continuing Church
movement, said: "This looks like a

tailed proposals of their program.
Government officials in Juba re-
ceived representatives warmly and
encouraged them in their programs.

Recommendations include im-
mediate provision of food supple-
ments for distribution through hos-
pitals and existing supply depots,
construction and staffing of tempo-
rary medical dispensaries, and the
implementation of basic agricultural
and clothing schemes similar to
those used successfully in Nigeria
after the Biafran conflict.

The relief program is now pos-
sible because the Sudan and the
Southern Sudan have reached an
accord bringing peace to the area
for the first time in many years. SI

providential opportunity for Israel
to escape from the bondage of(
Egypt."

The Presbyterian Church of Aus-
tralia, like Presbyterian bodies in|
the United States, has moved steadi-J
ly to the left in recents years. ffl

'Bookrack Evangelism'
A Hit at the Pentagon

VIENNA, Va. (RNS) — Military
reports are not the only documents)
being studied in the Pentagon these

days.

Christian literature, distributed
through the Bookrack Evangelism
(BRE) program of the Mennonitel
Board of Missions, has been a pop-
ular source of reading material for!
Pentagon staffers in recent months.

At a Bookrack Evangelism meet-
ing here sponsored by the Beachy
Amish Mennonite Church of Wash-
ington, D. C, Pentagon personnel
described the success of the program'
there.

"More than 2,000 books have been
sold since May from the two Life-j
Line racks in the Pentagon," George
Jett, a lawyer who services the book-!
racks, reported. "Furthermore, the
attendance at our monthy luncheon'
for Christian men of the Pentagon!
has increased fourfold since the racks
were placed," he added.

Kyle F. Davis, a retired army col-
onel who was instrumental in get-
ting the program started at the Pen-
tagon, confessed that he had been
taken aback at first when he was ap-
proached by Simon Schrock, BRE's
Washington, D. C, sales representa-
tive. Asked by Col. Davis what he
did, Mr. Schrock replied, "I work for
Jesus Christ."

Recalling the encounter, Mr. Da-
vis commented, "I thought he was
a bit naive." He added, "I have
since come to have a deep appreci-j
ation for him."

Scott Wauhop, manager of a
bookstall at Washington National
Airport, reported that religious lit-
erature has won a growing popu-
larity there, too.

"We have moved more than 20,-
000 religious paperbacks from seveik
locations in the airport in two
years," he said, "And as the weeks!
go by, Mr. Schrock keeps carting in!

THE CHURCH OVERSEAS

PAGE 4 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 22, 1972

more and more books."

Mr. Schrock commented: "While
Satan moves through the minds of
men to get his messages to the peo-
ple, God also moves through men to
jet His message before the people."

David Augsburger, speaker on the
Mennonite Hour radio program, de-
scribed the advantages of the print-
ed word as a means of evangelism.

"Books can affirm the truth in Je-
sus Christ and say, 'I care,' " he
said. "God can take the printed
page and make it the living
Word." ffl

Persecution Continues
In Greece, Ethiopia

MINNEAPOLIS (RNS) — Dr.
Arnold T. Olson, president of the
Evangelical Free Church of Amer-
ica, charged here that pressure from
Orthodox Church officials in Ethio-
pia and Greece has led to imprison-
ment of evangelicals in both coun-
tries.

Dr. Olson said he learned of the
Ethiopian situation while he was in
Addis Ababa for the first world as-
sembly of the United Bible Socie-
ties, of which he is a vice-president.

He said he and other Bible So-
ciety leaders had met with Ethio-
pian government officials in behalf
1 of the imprisoned Ethiopian evan-
i gelicals and the officials agreed to
i "reconsider the matter."
i Some 200 to 600 university stu-
:i dents who turned to evangelical
Christianity through a revival con-
-| ducted by an indigenous Pentecostal
i group are held in prison, Dr. Olson
i said.

<* The reason, he explained, is that
the students begin to drop some of
H the practices of the Orthodox
i Church, thus arousing the antag-

i onism of Church officials "who hold
djpower over the government."

He said foreign missionaries
| "have a lot of freedom" in Ethiopia

ii but indigenous Churches — other
In than the Orthodox Church and a
i Lutheran-affiliated Church — have

difficulties and are not able to ob-
!', tain government licenses,
a Dr. Olson's report concerning the

(Ethiopian Christians has been sup-
el ported by the Rev. Decourcy H.

Rayner, editor of the Presbyterian

Record, magazine of the Presbyte-
rian Church of Canada.

Mr. Rayner said the charges on
which the young people were arrest-
ed ranged from "immorality" to
"occultism."

In Greece two evangelicals were
sentenced to six months in jail for
proselytizing — that is, seeking to
convert Orthodox to the evangelical
faith, according to Dr. Olson.

He said his Church's summer
camp, conducted for children of
evangelical Christians and built with
funds contributed from America and
Germany, was ordered closed, al-
though its facilities are modern and
were approved by the Greek govern-
ment's health and welfare depart-
ment.

It was closed on orders of "some
higher up" in the Greek government
even though it operated within the
laws against proselytizing, Dr. Olson
said.

Greek evangelicals, according to
the churchman, feel that only public
opinion from outside Greece can
help them and Dr. Olson said he
hopes to rally support for them. EE

Rhodesian Group Hits
World Council Support

SALISBURY (RNS) — A spokes-
man for a group of Rhodesian
churchmen, "The Rhodesian Chris-
tian Group," said here that his or-
ganization "repudiates" the World
Council of Churches' "condoning of
terrorism" as "morally outrageous."

The Rev. John Gardner, an Angli-
can rector who is vice-chairman of
the group, also said the organiza-
tion "deplores" the tendency of the
Christian Council of Rhodesia "to
follow its parent body, the WCC."

The reference was to controversial
WCC grants to organizations in
southern Africa in the Council's
Program to Combat Racism. Critics
charge that these groups advocate
violent revolution.

Last August, the Central Com-
mittee of the WCC increased its Pro-
gram grants from 5500,000 to $1 mil-
lion. Two of the targeted recipient
groups are in Rhodesia: the Zim-
babwe African People's Union
(ZAPU) and the Zimbabwe African

National Union (ZANU) .

Mr. Gardner said church leaders
should be allowed to exercise their
rights and "insist" that church mon-
ey not be used for "vile purposes,"
or else should insist that WCC mem-
ber churches in Rhodesia "cut off"
their financial support of the WCC
"to make clear where they stand."

In September 1971, the Anglican
Church in Rhodesia officially disas-
sociated itself from the 1971 WCC
grants. The Church also opposed
the 1970 allocations.

The Rhodesian Christian Group
was founded early in 1972, with the
aim of countering "attempts to use
Churches and Church organizations
in Rhodesia as instruments of revo-
lutionary policy." Ill

Growth Of Local Groups
Cited By Business Men

PORTLAND, Ore. (RNS) — For
the first time in several years, an
overall increase in the number of
local committees has been reported
by Christian Business Men's Com-
mittee International.

At its 35th international conven-
tion here, the board of directors of
the evangelical organization report-
ed that the increase was attributable
to the formation of 47 new com-
mittees.

A new leadership training pro-
gram called CTL — Certified Trained
Leaders — was described to the
1,500 delegates to the convention. It
is a three-year program of Bible
study and reading of pertinent
books, and practical training in
CBMC activities and concepts. Up-
on completing the program, a trainee
will be equipped to guide others
into the one-to-one evangelism tech-
niques that have been the primary
emphasis of the organization since
its founding in Chicago.

The 50/50 program remains
CBMC's most successful thrust. It
means that an effort is made to have
at least half of those in attendance
at a CBMC luncheon or dinner
meeting uncommitted men.

The rationale behind the idea was
explained by James Brady, retiring
board member and proposed new
field representative. EE

PAGE 5 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 22, 1972

Campus Crusade Expects
300,000 for Explo '74

WASHINGTON, D.C, (RNS) —
Explo 74, a mass Christian train-
ing conference to be held at Seoul,
South Korea, in August 1974, was
officially announced here at a press
conference.

William R. Bright, founder and
president of Campus Crusade for
Christ International which is spon-
soring the conference, told newsmen
that he expects some 300,000 persons
from all parts of the world to attend.

"Korea was chosen as the site of
the conference," he said, because it
is the most logical place in the world
for such a meeting. There are more

Presbytery, Synod
Take Up Division Issue

ORLANDO, Fla. — A "middle ju-
dicatory staff consultation," held in
conjunction with the annual meet-
ing of the Presbyterian Church US
Stated Clerks Association here, took
up the question of congregations
planning to separate from the de-
nomination.

A panel discussion focused on
"conflict in the Church" and cre-
ative management in "conflict" sit-
uations.

Some of the discussion under-
scored the importance of keeping
the constitutional law of the Church;
being considerate to the people in-
volved; steering away from emotion-
al responses to crisis situations.

It was also brought out that state
laws differ, therefore there can be
no general answers to such ques-
tions as how to proceed in property
disputes.

The ninety presbytery and synod
executives, associate executives and
stated clerks also heard the Rev.
Paul A. Crowe Jr., general secretary
of the Consultation on Church
Union, speak in support of COCU.

Serving as consultants to the
group were the Rev. John Bryan
and the Rev. William Cushni, both
of Richmond and both associated
with the Task Force for Research,

Christian leaders (in government
and industry) in Korea than in any
country of the world except the
United States," he asserted.

Students and laymen will come
from every country of the world
"to learn how to live a more abund-
ant Christian life, and how to ef-
fectively communicate their faith
in Christ," he said.

Explo '74 is being patterned after
Explo '72, which drew 80,000 young
people to Houston last summer.
That week-long event, said Mr.
Bright, who organized and directed
it, was a "message to the world that
young people and adults are find-
ing answers to their own problems
and a purpose for living through
their relationship with Christ." ffl

Urban Strategy and Training
(TRUST) .

In connection with the business
of the Stated Clerks Association, the
Rev. William M. Gettys of York, S.
C, was elected president; the Rev.
R. Neal Dean of Pulaski, Tenn., was
elected first vice-president; the Rev.
R. Christy Morgan of Corinth, Miss.,
was chosen second vice-president;
and the Rev. James E. Andrews of
Atlanta, was reelected secretary-
treasurer. Ill

Laymen Are For Facts
Not Pronouncements

PHILADELPHIA (RNS) — An in-
dependent organization of United
Presbyterian laymen has asked the
denomination's unit on Church and
society to limit its work to fact-find-
ing and to refrain from pronounce-
ments or actions on social, economic
and political issues.

The directors of the Presbyterian
Lay Committee recently adopted a
resolution on the Church's Advisory
Council on Church and Society, part
of a new national structure.

Formed in 1965, the lay committee
is made up of persons concerned
about "the increasing emphasis of
the Church on political and social
issues," said Paul J. Cupp, president.

"We believe that the primary
mission of the Church is to provide

spiritual leadership as a Christian
Bible-believing institution," he add
ed.

Mr. Cupp said that his committei
encourages individual social involve
ments but feels that church organi;
zations should not issue social prot
nouncements "unless the authority
to speak and act is clearly Biblical
the competence of the body ha:
been established and all viewpoint
have been thoroughly c o n s i d j
ered." S

Black Alabama Church
Gets 'Evangelism' Gift

ATLANTA (PN) — A grant oj
$26,040 to North Alabama Presby
tery has been approved by the Boarc
of National Ministries for the Fel
lowship Presbyterian Church, Hunts
ville, Ala.

The 13th allocation made thi:
year for "Creative Ministries ir,
Evangelism," this grant will be usee
for the "Project in Innovative Evan
gelism for College Students anc
Community Residents with Similai
Socio-Economic Backgrounds," de
veloped by the Huntsville church.

Fellowship Church is a black con
gregation located close to college anc
residential communities. The are.
has large numbers of persons in lov
socio-economic circumstances whe
need morale boosting as well a:
spiritual and ethical guidance.

"Creative Ministries in Evangelisn
are designed to supplement, no
to replace, the ongoing, tradi
tional evangelism approaches o
witness and nurture carried on b;
congregations," says the Rev. Don
aid E. Neel of the Board of Nation
al Ministries.

The program is part of the cur
rent three-year emphasis on evan
gelism of the Presbyterian Churcl

us. a
Russell Represents PCUS

MEMPHIS (PN) — The Rev. Henri
Edward Russell, pastor of Seconci
Presbyterian Church, Memphis, will
be the official delegate of the Presby
terian Church US to a commemora
tion in Edinburgh, Scotland mark!
ing the 400th anniversary of th«
death of John Knox.

Knox, the famed reformer of th<
16th century, is considered th<
founder of the Church of Scotlanc
(Presbyterian) in which the Pres
byterian Church US has its roots. 3

THE CHURCH AT HOME

PAGE 6 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 22, 1972

Modern Americans can still profit from the example of the Puritans —

Wanted: Modern Pilgrims

This month we celebrate the an-
niversary of the "holy experi-
Iment." Perhaps that is not exactly
jwhat you think you are a part of,
■but that is what it was called by
■those who began it. I think it is ap-
propriate to review some of the
■events which led to the founding of
■this nation, that we might see just
jwhere we came from and what we
ought to be.

1 When the Pilgrims landed at Ply-
mouth, this was not the first effort
to establish a colony in this land. A
long time before, in 1587, some 100
men and 17 women landed on the
island of Roanoke. What happened
to them? They disappeared with-
out a trace; they were slaughtered
one and all, or they died of famine
or disease.

Others came, lured by gold. The
first gold rush was not in California,
it was the Jamestown Experiment in
Virginia. Five hundred gold-seekers
came in 1609, and that winter they
ite cats and dogs and rats and mice
ind boiled shoes. By spring, only
50 of the 500 were still alive, and
:his number was further decimated.

The next effort was made not by
jold-seekers but God-seekers, the
Pilgrims, who arrived at Plymouth
R.ock in 1620. The voyage in the
Mayflower had taken longer than
expected, and they landed far north
)f their intended destination. Win-
er had set in, and they were in for
i very difficult year.

Can you imagine what it would
lave been like to land upon this
inhospitable coast, with dense for-
;sts filled witli savage beasts and
ndians? Even their ship was not
o be a home for them. The cap-
=

The author is pastor of the Coral
tidgc Presbyterian Church, Fort
Lauderdale, Fla.

"In everything give thanks: for
this is the will of God in Christ Jesus
concerning you" (I Thess. 5:18) .

tain threatened to dump them over-
board unless they found a place
quickly so that he could return to
England.

Let us note one of the lessons we
can learn negatively from them.
They established a form of govern-
ment and a form of economy. In a
purely socialistic state, founded
there on Plymouth Rock, it was each
man according to his ability, each to
receive according to his needs.

Socialism a Failure

The experiment was a failure; in
less than a year over half of them
were dead. Governor William Brad-
ford then disbanded the socialistic
scheme and the American capitalist
concept began.

Today that system which the Pil-
grims gave us, founded upon Bibli-
cal principles, has produced an
amazing result. The free enterprise
system of America has produced a
wealth in this nation unparalleled in
all the history of mankind anywhere
else on the face of the earth.

America has a gross national prod-
uct greater than all of the peoples
of the Orient, including the almost
numberless Chinese and those of In-
dia and Japan. All the nations of
the Orient combined have less total
wealth than 200 million Americans.
Our economy and its national prod-
uct also far exceed the entire econ-
omy of the 550 million people of
Europe.

Yet today some people have the
temerity to stand up on a soapbox
and say, "Our system has failed; we
must adopt that of the rest of the
world." What utter and glorious stu-

D. JAMES KENNEDY

pidity! Fortunately, our founding
fathers learned their lesson in a year.
It may take us longer to learn it to-
day.

They had their debts, too. If you
think interest rates are high today
consider this: The interest rate on
the money loaned to them for the
Mayflower was 45 per cent. From
3,000 miles away, those Pilgrims
paid off the entire debt, although
it took them 23 years at those rates.
In contrast, the Virginia Company
seeking gold, which turned out to
be iron pyrites anyhow, spent $17
million at today's value and went
completely broke. Most of them
lost their lives as well as their in-
vestment.

A Christian Cause

Alongside Plymouth Rock grew a
small community of men and wom-
en that was to produce this nation.
What were they like? First of all,
with the exception of a few they
called "strangers," they were Chris-
tians who came for a Christian cause.

They came seeking God, not gold.
They came to found a nation based
upon Christian principles. They
were not always right, but this was
their intention and they succeeded
to an admirable degree. The May-
flower compact declared their pur-
pose: "To the glory of God and for
the propagation of the Christian
faith . . . ."

Furthermore, the Puritans of Eng-
land believed in purity of doctrine,
purity of church government, purity
of life, purity of worship. They came
to found a land where people could
worship Biblically and purely.

The doctrines of Calvinism had
much to do with the founding of
this country. All the Pilgrims who
came on the Mayflower were Cal-

PAGE 7 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 22, 1972

vinists, and the leaders were Calvin-
ists of the strictest sort: John Endi-
cott, first governor of Massachusetts;
William Bradford, thirty times elect-
ed governor of Plymouth; John Win-
throp, second governor of the Mas-
sachusetts Bay Colony; Thomas
Hooker, founder of Connecticut;
John Davenport, founder of New
Haven; and Roger Williams, founder
of Rhode Island.

At the time of the American Rev-
olution, Calvinists still prevailed. In
1776 there were three million peo-
ple in America, and of those ap-
proximately 900,000 were Scotch or
Scotch-Irish Presbyterians; about
600,000 were Puritan English; some
400,000 were German and Dutch Re-
formed. A number of Calvinistic
Episcopalians, and others added to
these, brought the total to slightly
over two million who were stout de-
fenders of the Calvinistic faith dur-
ing the time of the Revolutionary
War.

A Presbyterian War!

In England this war was
called the "Presbyterian Rebellion."
Horace Walpole stood in Parliament
and announced the rebellion by say-
ing, "Gentlemen, cousin America has
run off with a Presbyterian parson!"
No doubt referring to John Wither-
spoon, the only clergyman to sign
the Declaration of Independence
and an ardent Colonial supporter,
he wrote King George III:

"I fix all of the blame for these
extraordinary procedures upon the
Presbyterians, for they have been
the chief and principal instruments
in all of these flaming measures and
they do and ever will act against
government from that restless and
turbulent antimonarchial spirit
which has always distinguished them
everywhere."

So the Presbyterian rebellion be-
gan and a constitutional republic
was established. Anyone who says
that Calvinists had little to do with
the founding of this country is simply
saying he knows little about the sub-
ject.

With the exception of one, all of
the colonels who fought in the Rev-
olutionary War were Presbyterians
and Calvinists, and over half of the
enlisted men and other officers were
Presbyterians. A French historian
said that the founder of America
was John Calvin.

Why did these people come and

what did they establish? Their views
of the sovereignty of God caused
them to believe that God was to be
worshiped in all of life, that every-
thing was to be brought under the
control of a sovereign Lord.

Someone has said that when the
Pilgrims landed in America, they
first fell on their knees and then
they fell on the Indians! This was
not the case. They purchased what
land they had from the Indians and
they traded with them. More impor-
tant still, they brought them to
Christ.

One Nation Under God

In the Plymouth colony, Indians
even served on juries. English juries
at Plymouth tried, convicted and ex-
ecuted two Englishmen for killing
an Indian. And it was Massasoit
who came and brought the venison
which provided the first Thanks-
giving meal in that colony.

Despite the hardships, none of the
Pilgrims desired to return to Eng-
land when the opportunity came in
1622. These Pilgrims were Chris-
tians, they were people of faith.

This country was founded by
faith, as a holy experiment by peo-
ple who had faith in Jesus Christ. It
was a clear, well defined, well under-
stood, reasoned faith which pro-
duced the intellectual climate of
New England that lasted for over
300 years.

Not until the early part of this
century did that tremendous faith
of New England begin finally to dis-
solve into a desert wasteland of un-
belief. In the great educational in-
stitutions which were founded for
the glory of God and the propaga-
tion of the Gospel we see now great
outbreaks of lawlessness and ungod-
liness.

Ironclad Faith

Wanted today are modern pil-
grims who have such an ironclad
faith in Jesus Christ that they put it
above everything else. Now and then
I meet a person who says he is look-
ing for a church where Christ is tru-
ly proclaimed, worshiped and served.
That person finds the church first,
then he finds a place to live, and
then he finds a place to work.

That was the attitude of the peo-
ple who founded this nation. Their
faith was not something that was
second or third in life, it was abso-
lutely first and dominant and every-

thing else was subservient to it.

The Puritans were willing to suf-
fer and they were willing to work
for it. If anything typifies the early
Puritans it was their industry which
resulted from their faith. They
were people willing to work. Would
to God that there was more of that
today in America.

They Had a Vision

The Puritans had a vision of the
kingdom of God and they were try
ing to establish it in the hearts ol
men and women throughout the
whole land. What we need today
are modern pilgrims who not only
have such a faith and are willing to
work, suffer, even die for it if need
be, but who also have a vision ol
the kingdom of God established
again in this land and throughout
the world. We need people willing
to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus
Christ.

However, I am afraid that foi
many this holy experiment has be
come an unholy experiment. Foi
many, faith has turned to unbelief:
industry has been replaced by sloth
morality has become immorality; de
pendence on God has become de
pendence upon the State; the hob
experiment has been replaced wit!
an unholy experimentation wit!
drugs and immorality and and
Christian ways. I wonder what Goc
is going to do with our experiment

Not only is every Christian a pil
grim, but in the broad sense ever
person is a pilgrim, for this life i
a pilgrimage from birth to death in
to eternity.

Jesus Christ said that there an
two roads: A broad one leads to e\
erlasting destruction, and on tha
road most people are traveling. Th
narrow one leads to life. We ar<
asked to enter through the gat
which leads to that narrow road
That gate, that door is Christ
through His cross, His free grace|
through trusting in Him we ente
into the holy pilgrimage whicl
leads to life eternal.

Are you a Christian pilgrim? Ha
Christ come into your life and se
you upon that way everlasting? 1
not, may God grant to us to se
again those ideals and commitment
upon which this nation was foundec
that we might see how far we hav
fallen and might repent and retur
unto the way before it is too lat<
God grant that you and I will b
pilgrims. f

PAGE 8 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 22, 1972

The proposed confession presents the work but not the person of the Holy Spirit —

Chapter V: The Holy Spirit

I he proposed new confession is
really a non-creed. It is de-
scriptive but not definitive. It is an
effort to do the work of theology in
a kind of vacuum.

The fifth chapter of the proposed
confession is one of the least objec-
tionable chapters and in it are many
good, clear expressions about the
work of the Holy Spirit. However,
we are led into a presentation of the
work of the Holy Spirit without ever
being introduced to Him. No prep-
aration for understanding Him is
given either in this chapter or in
those preceding.

Trinity Not Mentioned

That is to say, the ideal oppor-
tunity to present the Holy Spirit in
terms of the doctrine of the holy
Trinity is not taken. This great,
common, central word, so useful to
the Christian religion, Trinity, is
not used in this or in any other
chapter. We realize that the omis-
sion is studied, but we cannot accept
this way of handling our glorious
theology.

What could possibly have pos-
sessed the thinking of the ad interim
committee so to abbreviate and real-
ly to denature Presbyterianism and
Christianity? This is trying to make
things too simple. The early Chris-
tian centuries have surely taught us
better.

f They came to grips with the data
'of Scripture through thorough Bible
istudy and discussion, and they ham-
'mered out the synthesis which they

This article is one of a series on
'the proposed new confession of
\faith. The author is pastor of Trin-
ity Presbyterian Church, Montgom-
ery, Ala.

"And be not drunk with wine,
wherein is excess; but be filled with
the Spirit; speaking to yourselves in
psalms and hymns and spiritual
songs, singing and making melody
in your heart to the Lord; giving
thanks always for all things unto
God and the Father in the name of
our Lord Jesus Christ" (Eph. 5:18-
20) .

and we have called the doctrine of
the Trinity. This enormous contri-
bution is not lightly to be dismissed
nor summarily to be ignored. Our
astonishment gives place to a sense
of outrage.

Here was a place to make it clear
that we confess the one eternal, liv-
ing and true God who has eternally
existed in the three persons of Fa-
ther, Son and Holy Spirit, who are
of the same substance and equal in
power and glory. No teaching
about God can be called either Pres-
byterian or Christian that does not
make this central concept in the Bi-
ble explicit and clear and emphatic.

The trouble for one thing lies in
the method followed by the ad in-
terim committee. In each section of
this chapter there is first an effort
to recite briefly a part of the story.
Then follows a paragraph of mod-
ern application. This kind of ap-
proach invites a bland product with
minimal theological content, which
is what is actually submitted to us
in the proposed new confession.

In the first section the heading is,
"The Spirit of God came in a new
and powerful way." The committee
draws a parallel between the result
of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit
at Pentecost, when the disciples be-
gan to proclaim boldly the way of
Christ, and the power of the Holy
Spirit at work in the Church when

ROBERT STRONG

it "seems dead and even beyond
hope of renewal."

The Holy Spirit is said to give us
"courage to fight despair and leth-
argy." This is another illustration
of the faulty style of the proposed
new confession. The Holy Spirit
doesn't do that; He lifts us out of
our despair and lethargy, so that we
"point to Christ in word and deed."

One Good Part

One of the best paragraphs we
have met so far is in the second sec-
tion where the new birth and con-
version to Christ are the theme.
Wholesome echoes of the catechism
are heard; for example, "He shows
us our sinfulness and need." How-
ever, it should have been said that
the Holy Spirit persuades us, rather
than "invites us," to put our trust
in Christ.

The sentence, "We are awesome-
ly responsible for this decision and
have the fearful ability to say no to
God" needs reworking to remove any
uncertainty concerning the sove-
reignty of the Holy Spirit.

There is nothing but praise to be
offered, however, for this statement:
"But when we have trusted and re-
pented we see clearly that God's
Holy Spirit worked this in us. We
have nothing to boast of and every-
thing to be thankful for."

We Presbyterians are Calvinists.
We believe that the new birth logi-
cally precedes faith and repentance.
We learn from Jesus that except a
man be born again he cannot see
the kingdom of God.

We learn from Paul that the un-
saved man finds foolishness in the
things of God; spiritual matters are
discerned by the minds of sinners
only through the Holy Spirit. We
also learn from Paul that unsaved

PAGE 9 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 22, 1972

people are spiritually dead and must
be spiritually resurrected by an act
of God Himself.

We are taught by the Scriptures
that the unsaved man is totally un-
able to turn to God; that God has
chosen out of the fallen race a peo-
ple whom He has willed to redeem
by Christ; that the saving benefits
of Christ's atoning work are extend-
ed only to God's elect or chosen; that
the Holy Spirit effectually sees to it
that God's elect are brought to faith
in Jesus Christ; and that the Holy
Spirit perseveres in the lives of those
thus brought to Christ to fashion
them in the likeness of their Saviour
and finally to fit them for entrance
into His presence.

In these Biblical teachings Presby-
terian distinctiveness in theology is
discovered. They need to be stated
and restated, and we do not imitate
Paul in declaring the "whole coun-
sel of God" unless we do so. We are
glad to see a degree of recognition
of Presbyterian distinctiveness in the
proposed new confession. We wish
that it were more carefully and fully
enunciated, and we hope it will yet
be done.

Down Payment

As the second section in essence
dealt with effectual calling and re-
generation, or the new birth, the
third section of Chapter V deals
with the perseverance of the saints.
We praise the paragraph which
states:

"We believe that the Spirit works
today in any growth we make to-
ward maturity in Christ. His pres-
ence assures us that God will com-
plete what he has begun in us. In
the end he will make us all that he
intends us to be."

Yes, the Holy Spirit works in us
to form us in the likeness of Christ.
Yes, the Holy Spirit is the "earnest"
(down payment) of that complete
redemption Christ merited for His
people.

The fourth section reflects the
great ecumenical zeal which charac-
terizes so much of the visible Church
today. We wonder why it should
be "confessed" that the PCUS Pres-
byterians have split the Church "in-
to numerous competing bodies." It
is not a true description of our own
contemporary situation to say that
"within the same church we form
warring parties, and lines of race and
class separate congregations."

Our trouble is not sociology and

economics, but doctrinal differences.
We are repeating what the UPUSA
body went through. Some of our
leaders call for an inclusivism that
buries the issue of the meaning and
extent of inspiration, the full truth-
fulness of the Bible, the miracles of
Scripture, the substitutionary atone-
ment of Christ, the bodily resurrec-
tion of Christ, our Calvinistic dis-
tinctives, the ethical standards of the
Ten Commandments.

Reconciled to What?

The word "reconciliation" is
much used among us. Some liberals
would like for us all to go along un-
questioningly with the General As-
sembly in its programs and deliver-
ances. Some leaders would like us
to believe that there is room for ev-
ery type of Presbyterian in our de-
nomination; some say that officers
should have full confidence in each
other because we have taken the
same ordination vows. Unity and
diversity is the catch-phrase of this
approach.

On the other hand, some of us
think that reconciliation can only
be achieved through repentance: re-
pentance for following a low view
of Scripture, repentance for promul-
gating anti-Scriptural social views,
repentance for official countenanc-
ing of anti-confessional teachings,
repentance for an ecumenical drive
that would result in a liquidation of
our Presbyterian theology and order.

It is fantasy to claim that "de-
spite our divisiveness the Spirit
makes us one and holds before us
the promise of greater unity" when
the Church's mind is unsettled about
the nature of the inspiration of the
Spirit-given Word, and major doc-
trines of that Word are in dispute.

In Plain Words

Chapter V concludes with a very
brief paragraph about the Holy
Spirit and His equipping the Chris-
tian community for mission: "He
gives his gifts, not to elevate some
above others, but for our witness to
Christ in the world. We should de-
sire those gifts that make our mes-
sage plain. The greatest gift is
love."

Look now at the Westminster
Confession of Faith. Its ninth chap-
ter, titled "Of The Holy Spirit,"
was added to the Confession by a
recent generation of Presbyterians.
It is an excellent piece of work fully

in the spirit of the Westminster As-
sembly, though written just thirty
years ago!

It opens with an exact definition
of the Holy Spirit as the third per-
son in the Trinity, the same in sub-
stance and equal in power and glory
with the Father and the Son, right-
fully to be trusted, loved, obeyed
and worshiped. Some may account
it outmoded language, but we find
it clear and edifying when the con-
fession says:

"The Holy Spirit, whom the Fa-
ther is ever willing to give to all
who ask him, is the only efficient
agent in the application of redemp-
tion. He regenerates men by his
grace, convicts them of sin, moves
them to repentance, and persuades
and enables them to embrace Jesus
Christ by faith.

"He unites all believers to Christ,
dwells in them as their Comforter
and Sanctifier, gives to them the
spirit of adoption and prayer, and
performs all those gracious of-
fices by which they are sanctified
and sealed unto the day of redemp-
tion ... By Him the Church will
be preserved, increased, purified,
and at last made perfectly holy in
the presence of God."

The terms used are all drawn from
the Bible and are still in use. What
valid reason can be urged for not
employing them? What better task:
can ministers, teachers, and spokes-
men for the Church engage in than
instructing this present day in the
meaning and in the use of the words
and concepts of Scripture?

Theology and Practice

Again we admit that it is nag j,
enough to talk about our theology.
We all need to translate it into prac- 3
tical experience. At no point is this
more necessary than when we discuss
the Holy Spirit. He has made us
new creatures in Christ. He bap-,
tized all of us who truly believe in ^
Jesus into Christ and into His spiri-
tual body. He indwells us.

He produces fruit in us: "Love.! ;,
joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness. -,
goodness, faith, meekness, self-con-
trol." He gives us boldness and pow-
er to bear witness to Christ. His \
chief office is to magnify the Son 2,
of God; so He stirs us up to do also.

Paul commanded us all to be
filled with the Holy Spirit and hi j
explained what this means. The ex-: ^

(Continued on p. 19, col. 1)

PAGE 10 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 22, 1972

There were others who gave thanks before the Pilgrims arrived —

The First Thanksgivin

At about the time the Pilgrims
were wondering if the May-
flower was safe to travel in, 39 col-
onists knelt on the sandy banks of
the James River near Berkeley Plan-
tation, Virginia, to offer the first
Thanksgiving.

It was Dec. 14, 1619, and the small
band had just arrived in the strug-
gling colony of Virginia after a 2%
month journey aboard the ship Mar-
garet from Bristol, England.

With breastplates glinting in the
low autumn sun and halberds at the
ready, the colonists watched as Capt.
John Woodleaf opened the com-
pany's charter and read its instruc-
tions.

"Impr wee ordaine that the day
of our ships arrival at the place as-
signed for the plantacon in the land
of Virginia shall be yearly and per-
petually kept as a day of thanksgiv-
ing to Almighty God."

This is the view held in Virginia,
a state rarely known to be modest
about its history.

In proclaiming Thanksgiving in
1963, Gov. Albertis S. Harrison Jr.
ignored the long accepted Plymouth
Rock version and said the day would
serve as a memorial to the Vir-
ginians "who gathered at Berkeley
near Richmond in 1619 to observe
America's first Thanksgiving cere-
mony."

Virginia's claim on the first
Thanksgiving has been raised only
in recent years, although the land-
ing and the services at Berkeley are
documented.

As an annual holiday, the state
has celebrated Thanksgiving only

This material first appeared near-
ly ten years ago as an Associated
Press syndicated feature and is re-
printed with permission.

for the past 77 years. In the years
before and after the Civil War Vir-
ginia was only too happy to give all
the credit to New England and ig-
nore the whole affair.

Historians believe the settlers at
Berkeley Plantation commemorated
the landing again in 1620 — the
year the Pilgrims set foot on Ply-
mouth Rock — and again in 1621.

Correspondence from the parent
company in England reminded the
colonists in August 1620 that the
Thanksgiving was to be observed
each year.

Plans for a fourth observance were
ended by Chief Opechancanough
when he led an Indian uprising on
Good Friday in 1623 and slew 350
settlers along the James.

By OfficiaS Action

The Virginia General Assembly
set aside the date of the colony's de-
liverance from the "bloudie massak-
er" for commemoration and it was
observed for a number of years.

Thereafter followed another series
of Thanksgivings in Virginia's his-
tory. Between 1692 and 1705 the
legislature proclaimed nine days of
Thanksgiving for events ranging
from survival of a caterpillar plague
to English victory at Blenheim.

Essentially, historians noted, Vir-
ginia's Thanksgivings were religious
in nature and had little of the social
overtones found in the Pilgrim holi-
days.

In the last century, particularly
for a time when Thanksgiving be-
came linked with the abolition of
slavery, Virginia rejected the ob-
servance completely.

The first Virginia governor to call
upon the state to observe Thanks-
giving as a national holiday was

JERRY BUCK

Gov. Gilbert C. Walker, who served
from 1869 to 1874.

The Richmond Dispatch noted at
the time "there was with many a
feeling of indignation that in the
light of then recent events he (Gov.
Walker) was trying to set this New
England plant in our sacred soil."

Thanksgiving was not celebrated
in the state again until 1885, when
the Dispatch reported that a guber-
natorial proclamation was enthusi-
astically received.

Even without a claim on the first
Thanksgiving, the Berkeley Planta-
tion has a firm place in the nation's
history. Here were born Benjamin
Harrison, a signer of the Declaration
of Independence, and his son, Presi-
dent William Henry Harrison.

Benedict Arnold sacked the man-
sion for the British in the Revolu-
tionary War and burned the por-
traits of the Harrisons on the front
lawn.

In the Civil War it became the
birthplace of Taps and headquarters
of Union Gen. George B. McClel-
lan. President Abraham Lincoln
came here in 1862 to see McClellan
and he landed at approximately the
same place as did the 39 colonists
243 years earlier.

And, in one of those quirks of his-
tory, it was President Lincoln who
set aside the last Thursday of No-
vember as Thanksgiving Day.

The landing at Berkeley has been
re-enacted several times — one year
in a driving rain — but there is no
rush to make it an annual produc-
tion. There is already fear that it
would become commercialized.

Virginia can be expected to con-
tinue to assert its claim to the first
Thanksgiving, as it joins the rest of
the nation in celebrating the holi-
day — perish the thought — Ply-
mouth Rock style. EE

PAGE 11 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 22, 1972

EDITORIALS

Let's Add a Prayer for Mercy

The only holiday in America de-
voted explicitly to religion is
Thanksgiving. No other holiday,
not even Christmas, announces to
the world as pointedly as Thanksgiv-
ing that America is supposed to be
a God-fearing nation.

By continuing Thanksgiving as a
national holiday, with an annual
proclamation by the President, a sort
of national embarrassment has be-
gun to ensue. How can the nation
pause to give thanks to God when
the current mood supports a strict
separation of Church and state?

The San Diego Union pondered
the problem, and discussed it in con-
nection with some observations on
Christmas. Here is what it said, un-
der the heading, "Hollow Holi-
days":

"Public schools in Boston have
been notified that Christmas decora-
tions this year must not depict any-
thing in connection with Christ's na-
tivity, nor can children sing Christ-
mas carols that in any way resemble
'hymns.'

"It will be a challenge to teach-
ers to prepare Christmas programs
without mentioning what the cele-
bration is all about. If reference to
religious tradition is a 'no-no' in the
Boston schools, we would assume
that Thanksgiving programs are cov-
ered, too.

"No mention of the Pilgrims, of
course. Children might ask embar-
rassing questions about the religious
freedom colonists were seeking in
the New World. Why, they might
even insist on knowing to whom the
Pilgrims were giving thanks when
they bowed their heads over that fa-
mous feast at Plymouth."

The ultimate demise of an insti-
tution, or a nation, or a civilization,
is always preceded by a period dur-
ing which the ultimate issue is not
in doubt, but life seems to go on
pretty much as usual. In many
terminal cases there is even a surge
of vitality just before the end.

The vital signs of America's heart-
beat — in those areas where life
may be detected and measured — all

point to certain demise unless a
miracle occurs. No nation, ever, has
survived the moral, spiritual, eco-
nomic, political and judicial symp-
toms that America displays for the
world to see. In every instance, na-
tions whose life reached the level
now characteristic of America, died
as a direct result.

With our thanks this year, per-
haps an earnest prayer to God for
mercy would be appropriate. SI

No, Dr. Thompson,
You're Mistaken

Dr. Ernest Trice Thompson,
whose continuing political and edi-
torial activities within the Presby-
terian Church US greatly belie his
age (he is the senior ecclesiastical
figure on the public stage, having
it over the current moderator by 28
days) , has developed an interesting
interpretation of Ephesians 2:20.

In an article prepared for Union
Seminary's As I See It Today, Dr.
Thompson says Paul's reference to
the Church "built upon the founda-
tion of the apostles and prophets"
means that there is a continuing
Word from God in every age
(prophets) to supplement the writ-
ings of Scripture (apostles) .

Writes Dr. Thompson: "No word
from the past has ever been suffi-
cient, not even the supreme Word
which became flesh and dwelt
among us. Jesus himself declared, 'I
have yet many things to say to you,
but you cannot bear them now.
When the Spirit of truth comes, He
will lead you into all the truth.' "

The office of prophet, says Dr.
Thompson, is that of a spokesman
for God who declares His message
for his own day. Therefore, if the
Church is built upon prophets as
well as apostles, the word of God's
messengers in our day is as necessary
as the word written by the apostles.

We should take this viewpoint
seriously, because it is that interpre-
tation of authority which permits
the introduction of new ideas under

the guise of "continuing revelation."
With all due respect, we would point
out that it is precisely the viewpoint
which took Rome downhill into the
Middle Ages and against which the
Reformers energetically reacted with
their slogan, Sola Scriptura, the
Bible alone!

It seems to us that when Paul was
speaking of the Church founded up-
on prophets, he was pointing to the
past, not to the future.

It seems to us, further, that when
the Lord Jesus promised the apos-
tles that He would reveal further
truth to them through the Holy
Spirit, He was foretelling the inspira-
tion of those who would write the
New Testament after He had re-
turned to His Father. The Lord's
promise that there would be specific
revelation given those gathered
about Him on that historic night
surely did not mean we can assign;
divine authority to any new word
spoken by any man today.

Dr. Thompson is correct when he
points out that Christians depend-
ing on the Bible alone have often
been mistaken in their interpreta-
tion of God's will for their own day.
That's because no appropriation of
Scripture is ever perfect in appli-
cation by sinful men.

But please! Let's not make it an
article of faith that "revelation"
given today must be put alongside
the Scriptures else "the Church is
in danger of dry rot and final
death."

That is the quickest way we can
think of to assure the human in- i
stitution's final death. IS

i

Putting Things
In Perspective

Occasionally we've heard from
readers: "Some Journal editorials
say the same thing over and over1
again. Can't you find something
fresh to talk about?''

That one is hard to answer, be-
cause some of the most important
things needing to be said these days $
have been said before. Many times, i

For instance, this one.

A Greenville, S. C. pastor has de- %
plored the movement towards a con- |
tinuing Church on the part of those -si
he says "have lost faith in a system g
of government which guarantees the ^
means of expressing grievances and
bringing about change."

Then he says: "The Church must
be neither liberal nor conservative,

PAGE 12 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 22, 1972

THE LAYMAN AND HIS CHURCH

Why Thank God? I Did It!

it must be both liberal and conser-
vative. The Church of the New
I Testament is a Church of unity with

■ diversity. It takes all kinds of people
ijand all points of view held with hu-
mility and appreciation for one an-
il other. This is what makes a Church

great."

The implications here are two-
fold: 1) that those who disagree

■ with what's going on have the means
If at hand to make changes; and 2)

that the differences which have di-
I vided us fall within permissible lim-

I i^-
There are two things to be said
u about this approach to our prob-
I lems: 1) it is mistaken; and 2) it
a borders on the hypocritical.

The pastor who seeks to bank any
^ potential fires of discontent within

■ his flock by suggesting that those at
t odds with the system haven't tried
I to do something about it through

■ approved channels is either, 1) not
i with it, or 2) trying to deceive. This

particular pastor's record of block-
I ing efforts to clean up the spiritual
f stench in the Church is pretty no-
► torious.

When he goes on to make room

■ for everybody under the umbrella
I of the Church, he is not being gen-
I erous towards the spiritual conserva-
I tive. He's being generous towards
I himself.

I Every informed liberal knows that

■ if strict adherence to the New Tes-
[j tament were the norm, only the con-
servative would qualify. That's

why he refers to us as "fundamen-
I talists," "literalists," "Bible wor-
i shipers" and the like. He tries to
I make a dirty name out of one who
|i takes the Bible seriously because he
I is only too aware that he does not.

When he argues that the Church
lis a body in which all points of
Iview may be held, he really is ar-
h guing, "The Church, as I see it, is
broad enough to include me, too."
Here he is probably being as near-
! ly sincere as he can manage, because
pj he is not consciously aware that he
: constitutes the problem. He doesn't
■ take the Bible seriously because
there is too much in it he cannot
swallow. He doesn't take the consti-
1 tution of the Church seriously be-
I cause he doesn't believe an intelli-
gent person can live that far in the
past. He blocks efforts to reform
'■ the Church because he honestly be-
lieves the proposals are reactionary.
As the Bible says, spiritual truth
< must be spiritually discerned. 3D

Each year the President of the
United States issues a proclamation
setting aside one day for the giving
of thanks. As a consequence of ob-
serving this lone occasion, Thanks-
giving Day, many are deluded into
believing that America is a Christian
nation. In reality, thanking and
praising God is relegated to such an
insignificant part of the celebration
that the day often becomes meaning-
less.

People who are rightly charac-
terized by the name Christian are
not satisfied to compartmentalize
the giving of thanks. The Bible
states, "In all things give thanks,"
which implies that Christians are to
give thanks to God around the clock.

Thanks is to be an expression of
joy flowing forth to acknowledge
God as the great provider of not
only all of our material needs but,
more importantly, our spiritual
gifts. Christians should continually
thank God and praise Him for what
He has done. He has given His Son
who vicariously offers all people eter-
nal life in heaven, and the joy of

This week the layman's viewpoint
is brought by A. Wayne Wilhelm of
Black Mountain, N. C.

abiding in Him while living on this
earth.

Only a fractional minority gives
thanks to God for spiritual bless-
ings. The emphasis is on things of
the flesh attained by self effort.
Many no longer believe that God
gives them all of their blessings. In
arrogant conceit they boast that
what they have comes from them-
selves. Consequently, why thank
God?

To whom do many Americans give
thanks on Thanksgiving? Them-
selves? Polls taken to sample Amer-
icans' reaction to God show that over
90 per cent profess belief in Him.
Then why do so many ignore His
importance in their lives? Why with
tongue in cheek strike a pious pose
once a year? Does this suffice to
prove a spiritual relation to God?
Perhaps if our people gave up the
traditional observance of Thanks-
giving we would be more worthy in
the eyes of our all-seeing God. In
the Word it states that thanks must
be given and vows paid before we
can call upon God in time of trou-
ble. Must we be reduced to help-
lessness before we will exalt Him
who has given us all we have and
all we know?

It is tragically unwise to shackle
ourselves by self-reliance. Reliance
on what we have attained by our
own brilliant efforts pays homage
to a false god. We (that god) ,
not almighty God, can do it! This
often is our boast.

The Scriptures tell us that to ig-
nore the source of our abundant
blessings and privileges will lead to
forfeiting His gifts. His judgment
will fall on those who show so lit-
tle gratitude. In Deut. 8:18, 19 we
read, "The Lord thy God is he who
gives you power to get wealth . . .
And it shall be, if you do at all for-
get the Lord and walk after other
gods, I testify against you this day
that you shall surely perish."

We are doing the very thing those
people did, when we ignore God,
the source of all blessings. They re-
tained a religious front and so do

(Continued on p. 18, col. 2)

PAGE 13 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 22, 1972

SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON

For December 10, 1972

A Nation Against God

Rev. Jack B. Scott

INTRODUCTION: The section
of Jeremiah which we will be study-
ing today is part of a message to Je-
rusalem in Josiah's day. The whole
message is contained in chapters 2
through 6. Perhaps a word about
the overall structure of Jeremiah is
in order here.

The first part of the book is made
up of a series of messages given by
God through Jeremiah. Twenty-one
such messages were given at various
times during Jeremiah's ministry,
and they are included in chapters 2
through 35. Usually the separate
messages are clearly delineated.

Next there follows a record of his-
torical events in the latter part of
Jeremiah. These events are related
in chapters 36 to 44, and they cover
the last days of Judah and the fall
of Jerusalem.

Then in chapter 45, after a spe-
cial message to Baruch, Jeremiah's
close friend, we find the messages
concerning the nations of the world
in chapters 46 to 51. The book closes
with one more historical section,
chapter 52.

Our study today is in the first of
the long series of messages men-
tioned above. We know that it was
given in Josiah's day (Jer. 3:6) , and
it came early in Jeremiah's career
as a prophet of God. Jeremiah's
ministry began in the time of Josiah
(Jer. 1:2). Remember also that it
was in Josiah's time that the spiri-
tual life of Judah was at its height.
In those days Josiah, the good king,
sought to lead God's people back to
God; his reform is described in II
Kings 22-23.

I. THE APOSTASY OF GOD S
PEOPLE (Jer. 2:1-8) . The concept
of an apostasy requires that there
has been a turning away, because
apostasy means departure from some
better position.

God described first the former
state, the days when He and His
people were close and when Israel
loved Him, pointing all the way
back to the wilderness days (2:2) .
Looking back we see how God
showed His love for Israel and guid-

Background Scripture: Jeremiah 2:

1-19, 3:6-5:31
Key Verses: Jeremiah 5:21-25, 29-

31

Devotional Reading: Jeremiah 2:4-
9

Memory Selection: Jeremiah 2:13

ed Israel through the years of wan-
dering (Deut. 2:7, 4:37).

In the light of God's great love
to them, He asked of them a re-
turning love (Deut. 6:4-5) . In those
years in the wilderness Israel first
learned to depend on God and love
Him, and it was then that the sweet-
est fellowship with God obtained.
Compare Hosea 2:14-15 and 11:1.

In addition, in those days Israel
strove after holiness (Jer. 2:3) . She
was holiness to the Lord. After God
had called Israel out of the land of
Egypt, He set the people aside to be
a special, holy people (Exo. 19:6;
Deut. 7:6) .

After having declared them to be
His unique people by virtue of His
special love to them, God gave them
the Ten Commandments as the ex-
pression of His will for them. They
were the means by which, in obedi-
ence to His will, they would express
their love of God in return and their
holiness as God's special people.

This, then, was the state that ex-
isted in the wilderness when God
loved and guided His people, and
His people loved God and sought to
be His holy people in obedience to
His Word (Jer. 2:2-3) .

However, time changed this situ-
ation. No longer did Israel serve
the Lord as she once did. The peo-
ple apostasized from the Lord, going
far from Him (2:5) . They no long-
er remembered God's love to them
when He brought them out of Egypt,
and led them, protecting them from
all their enemies (2:6) . They for-
got how the Lord brought them vic-
toriously into the land of promise
and blessed them there (2:7) .

Instead, they walked after vanity

The International Sunday School Lesson Outlines
are copyrighted 1972 by the Committee on the
Uniform Series of the National Council o(
Churches ot Christ.

(2:5) . This means that they turned
to other gods and lived not by God's
will, but according to the standards
of the Canaanite pagans in whose
land they dwelt. They also defiled
God's land and polluted the heritage
which God gave them (2:7) .

We need only review the history
of Israel from the time of the Judges
until Jeremiah's day. With few ex-
ceptions, the generations after Josh-
ua walked in disobedience to God's
will and turned more and more to
foreign gods. In all of that time,
only once did Israel seem to seek
after God and do His will as a whole
people. That was the time of Sam-
uel and David.

Through Jeremiah, God leveled
the charge of apostasy against Is-
rael, or at least what remained of
Israel, the people of God. In Jere-
miah's day, only Judah, mostly Je-
rusalem and a few cities around it,
remained. The rest had been car-
ried away into captivity by the As-
syrians.

Much of the blame for this apos-
tasy had to rest on faithless leaders
who had themselves become corrupt
and had encouraged the people in
their own corruption. The Lord
pointed directly to the priests, who
though they handled God's law, did
not know (believe in) God; to the
rulers, (kings) , who sinned against
God and were a stumblingblock to
all of the people; and to the proph-
ets, who instead of prophesying in
God's name, prophesied in the name
of Baal (2:8) .

All the leadership, prophets,
priests and kings, failed the Lord
and those whom they were supposed
to lead.

Most apostasy in the Church be-
gins here, with the spiritual leader-
ship. When the ministers and pro-
fessors in the seminaries depart from
God and from His Word, they lead
the people astray into unbelief. It
was true in Jeremiah's day, it was
true in Jesus' day, and it is just as
true todayl

Congregations must seek leaders
who above all are faithful to God
and believe in the infallibility and

PAGE 14 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 22, 1972

authority of His written Word; they
must be leaders who not only hear
that word, but also put that word
into effect in their own lives daily.

II. THE LORDS CONTEN-
TION AGAINST ISRAEL (Jer. 2:
9-19) . The contention mentioned
in 2:9 is reminiscent of several oth-
er passages in which God spoke His
case against Israel in forensic terms.

It is as though the Lord would
take His case against Israel to court!
I Compare, for instance, Hosea 2:2;
jlMicah 6:1; Amos 7:4, among others,
iln each of these, God is the one
I bringing charges against His people.

God is the innocent one. He chal-
lenged the people to state any un-
righteousness found in Him (2:5) .
I Obviously, they could find none.
| Therefore, God brought charges
| against them. Put in few words, the
[charge was that they changed their
| glory for what does not profit (what
is vain) (2:11).

To be more precise, He said that
jthey committed two evils: they had
I forsaken God, the fountain of living
!l waters; and they had hewed out cis-
fterns which were broken and could
[not hold water (2:13) .

In other words, they turned their
i backs on the ever flowing spring
(which was the source of their life
I (see Psalm 1:3) and trusted in their
own devices, which were like a leaky
^cistern or pond which will not hold
water.

I The imagery used here is
particularly significant for a people
i in a part of the world where water
!is extremely scarce, as it is in Pales-
tine. Here in America we find no
real difficulty getting water. We
jdig wells, and we have an abundance
of springs, rivers and rain. But in
I Palestine, wells are extremely rare,
springs are hard to find. And most
; of the streams are dry for most of
the year.

The dry seasons are very long, and
the people had to dig out cisterns
to collect and hold the rainwater
which fell in the rainy season. If
these cisterns leaked, then obviously
they were of no value. Israel ex-
changed the greatest privilege in the
iworld, being God's people, for the
ishame of being just like all the oth-
er nations, pagan and full of corrup-
tion.

In our day, how sad it is to see
Churches doing the same thing. Re-
fusing to be unique and a different
people, they seek to become like the
world and reject the uniqueness of

being God's special people. They
act like the world and scoff at God's
Word as the world does. They shat-
ter the law of God in their lives, as
does the world. How very sad it is.

The result of rejecting God is de-
scribed in verses 15 to 19. Since Is-
rael no longer trusted God, He gave
the people over into the hands of
their enemies. The Assyrians on the
north and Egypt on the south rav-
aged their land (vv. 16, 18) . These
nations, like roaring lions, sought to
devour Israel (v. 15) . Having for-
saken God, the only real hope and
strength, Israel was forced to face
evil and bitter consequences (v. 19) .

Here Jeremiah used one of his
favorite words to describe Israel's
faithlessness, backsliding (Jer. 3:6,
8, 11, 14, 19). By this term he
meant Israel's turning away from
former love and obedience in the
wilderness and turning to other na-
tions and their evils as standards of
living. The charge was that the peo-
ple of Israel brought their misery and
troubles on themselves (v. 17) .

This charge can also be brought
against present-day Churches as
well, which are in a state of spiritual
decay because they have departed
from their only hope, commitment
to the Lord Christ, their Saviour,
and to His Word.

Jesus warned the churches of
Asia Minor, too, that if they did not
repent and turn from their faith-
lessness and return to their commit-
ment to Him, they would be judged
(Rev. 2-3) . How can we today ex-
pect to be exempt from God's judg-
ment when we do the same things?

III. GOD'S STANDARD AND
THE PEOPLE'S FAILURE (Jer.
3:6-5:31) . God's standard for the
conduct and commitment of His
people was given in the wilderness:
They should love the Lord their
God with all their heart, soul, and
might (Deut. 6:4) . To do this, it
was necessary to put God's word in
their hearts — not just merely know
it, but take it to heart (Deut. 6:7) .
They needed hearts that would fear
God and keep all His will (Deut.
5:29) .

But what was the case with Israel
in Jeremiah's day? Although they
had a revival in Josiah's time, they
did not return to God with their
whole heart but only outwardly (3:
10) . Their hearts were still evil (3:
14, 18) . They were still rebellious
(5:23, 24). The need is clear.
They still need clean hearts (4:4,

14) . If not, all of them, leaders in-
cluded, will surely perish (4:9, 5:
31).

Because of their great sin, the peo-
ple could not clean up their own
hearts, but God could do this by
His great grace and love. God had
foretold this (Deut. 30:6) and Jere-
miah promised it again (Jer. 31:31-
34) . But the people would never
know changed hearts unless first they
saw their own sin. Therefore, in
this first message Jeremiah was chief-
ly bringing the people to face their
own sinfulness and need of God.

CONCLUSION: This Scripture
is chiefly a judgment passage against
the sin in Israel, yet even here there
is a glimpse of hope. The concept
of a remnant is seen frequently.
That is, after judgment a remnant
of people will arise. They will be
given new hearts and will learn to
love and obey God from these new
hearts. We see these allusions to
that remnant in various passages (4:
27, 5:10, 18) . Thus, in the midst of
a judgment passage, we see God's
mercy.

At Calvary, in the midst of God's
judgment against our sin, as Christ
died for our sins, the mercy of God
is also to be seen in that through
the death and resurrection of Christ,
God gives to us new hearts, a new
birth, to believe and serve Him.

The lesson is clear. We will come
to trust in God alone for salvation
only when we realize our own sin-
fulness and complete need of Him.
Jeremiah was called to pluck up,
break down and destroy, and over-
throw all vain hope in self, so that
God could build and plant a people
whose trust and foundation were in
God (Jer. 1:10) . ffl

NEW design!

NEW organization!

NEW editor!

NEW questions for
discussion!

PELOUBET'S
NOTES

1972-1973

THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL
Weaverville, N. C. 28787

PAGE 15 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 22, 1972

p

YOUTH PROGRAM

Scripture: I John 4:7-21
Suggested Hymns:

"Love Divine, All Loves

Excelling"
"More Love to Thee, O Christ"
"Thy Life Was Given for Me"

PROGRAM LEADER'S INTRO-
DUCTION: John Calvin said that
the marks of the Church are the true
preaching of the Word, the true ad-
ministration of the sacraments, and
exercise of discipline.

If these are the marks of the na-
ture of the Church, then surely love
for one another must be one of the
essential marks of the life of the
Church. Even pagans were impressed
by this characteristic in the life of
the early Church. They said of the
Christians, "Behold, how they love
one another."

Love is a constantly recurring
theme in the letters of the New Tes-
tament. It is most prominent in the
writings of John, but it is also strong-
ly stressed in the writings of Peter,
Paul and James.

It is being said that the Church
is losing its effectiveness in our time,
and there are some indications that
this is true. Many explanations are
given as to why the Church is lack-

For December 10, 1972

Love One Another

Rev. B. Hoyt Evans

ing in effectiveness. Surely one of
them is that Christians do not love
one another as they ought to. In
many congregations the people do
not even know one another, much
less love one another.

A little bit of looking and listen-
ing makes us realize that love is not
very prominent in much of the life
of the Church. Young people are
too often sharply critical of each oth-
er and of their elders in a way they
would not be if Christian love were
a moving force in their lives. Too
often among us there is a lack of
respect and concern for others which
is not consistent with Christian love.

Love for one another is not some-
thing that can be brought about by
a dutiful announcement that we love
everybody. Such general, pious state-
ments do not necessarily have much
meaning at all. Christian love means
actually loving individual persons,
even those who are disagreeable, in
thought, word, and deed.

FIRST SPEAKER: Love calls for
desiring good for others. It means
really wanting good things for them.

At best we are often different
with regard to other people. It is
all right with us if they are success-
ful and happy, but we do not spend

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much time worrying about them
unless they happen to be our spe
cial friends.

We said that we are indifferent at
best. At worst we are plainly re-
sentful when good things come into
the lives of those whom we consider
unworthy and objectionable. We
find ourselves hoping that "they will
get what is coming to them." This
means that we desire evil for them
rather than good.

The demands of Christian love
can never be fulfilled by being indif-
ferent toward others. Love calls for
something positive, for desires and
prayers that other people may ex
perience good things in their lives
Any person who does not share this
feeling is to be pitied. The people
who spend their time resenting and
disliking other people are among
the most miserable to be found.

SECOND SPEAKER: Love de-
mands that we speak good things of
others. Few of us have an adequate
understanding of how powerful
words can be. With words we can
build up, and with words we can de
stroy. With words of love and truth
people can be converted, strength-
ened, encouraged, and comforted.
With words of thoughtlessness and
malice they can be hurt, defeated.,
humiliated, and discouraged.

Thoughtlessness is no excuse for
using damaging words about anoth
er. A person who really loves willl '$
be thoughtful and not thoughtless
The way we really feel about peo
pie will determine the way we use
words with regard to them. We car
be hostile and thoughtless on the
one hand, or we can be loving or
the other.

Have we ever thought of the wa)
our church is affected by the way we
use words about other people? How
many young people have been en
couraged to come to our meeting;
and perhaps to join our church be
cause of the things they have hearc
us say about the people of the
church?

How many have decided not tc

PAGE 16 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 22, 1972

;ome and not to join because of oth-
;r things we have said? Once our
.vords are spoken they cannot be re-
:alled. We can ask God to forgive
as if we have spoken unloving words,
ind we can make up our minds that
,vith His help we will speak words
if love.

THIRD SPEAKER: Love calls
"or working positively for the good
)i others. It is not enough to have
and desires about other people and
|.o speak kind words about them.
We need to put our desires and our
vords to work.

I We need to give hands and feet
|.o our professions of Christian love.
(Too often we have failed to see that
us Christians we have an obligation
|o those who have physical and ma-
ll erial needs. Sometimes we have
I ailed to see that there is a connec-
tion between saving a man's soul and
|ninistering to his body.
I Jesus Christ saw this connection,
l)ut in our failure to recognize it we
nave relinquished the physical min-
istry to people who may not believe
lhat the soul needs to be saved. The
greatest need of all is ignored, and
Ive are partly to blame. By our
ailure to engage in positive action
Ive have been untrue to our Lord
I md to our claims that we love God
i tnd our neighbors.

I PROGRAM LEADER: How can
Ive love someone who is actually ir-
ritating to us? It is not easy, but
} here is a way. We can look at
tod's love for that person. If God
Ian love him, as righteous and holy
lis God is, what excuse have we for
liot loving him?

I We must also look at God's love
lor us. In our sinfulness we are
Irritating and unattractive to God,
■put He loves us just the same. If
|jod can love us, and He does, what
Ixcuse can we offer for not loving
; >thers?

Closing Prayer.

ffi

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THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL
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PAGE 17 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 22, 1972

LOOKING FOR

a new career?

a change of pace?

a rewarding experience?

We may have the job
for you!

The Presbyterian
Church U. S. is seeking
dedicated Christians to serve
overseas. Openings include

• teachers for all
levels

• Medical specialists

such as anesthesiologists
and chest surgeons

• Ministers to serve in various
situations

Short term spots and career
opportunities are available

For information, write:
The Rev. Stewart Bridgman
Office of Recruiting, Box 330
Nashville, Tenn. 37202

Layman— from p. 13

we; they observed religious festivals
and we celebrate a Thanksgiving
Day. They did not deny the ex-
istence of God, but like us, they went
their own rebellious way of self-re-
liance. Theirs was the sin of secu-
larism. Often the same is our sin.

Secularism has spawned and nur-
tured terrible indifference to the
Word of God. So all-consuming is
its influence that even many who
confess Christianity show disgrace-
ful ignorance of Bible truths. Secu-
larism has so dominated communi-

cation that Jesus Christ is seldorx
mentioned in conversation, even af
ter Sunday worship.

Official Thanksgiving Day proc
lamations make no reference tc
Christ, showing either abject ig
norance or political tact for fear o
offense to voting atheists. Deliberate
omission of Christ in our persona
lives and in government leadership,
will boomerang and invite His judg
ment.

There is still hope if we will but
find our way back to God; still time
to repent and then forsake the goc,
of self. 5

}eC/c Simpson

31 stores in 8 states serving you
with this pledge ....

• To give prompt courteous service, treating our customers as you would a gueat
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budget needs in Stores doing credit business.

Since the opening of the first Belk-Simpson Store, it has been our
endeavor to be more in a community than just another merchant.
We have set forth a united concentrated effort, dedicated to the task
of securing superior quality merchandise, giving our customers a
better value than any other merchant.

SOUTH CAROLINA

Belk-Simpson Co.

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J. A. Ellison, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson-Plaza Store

Greenville, S. C.

R. Grier Robinson Jr., Res.

The Dollar Store

Greenville, S. C.

R. P. Crumpler, Res. Mgr.

Belk's of Pleasantburg

Greenville, S. C.

A. M. Smith, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store
Lancaster, S. C.

B. L. Plyler, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store

Camden, S. C.

J. A. Hagins, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store

Clinton, S. C.

D. B. Smith, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.
Darlinqton, S. C.
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Mgr.

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Laurens, S. C.

David Middleton, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Abbeville, S. C.

J. S. Hagins, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Hagins Co.

Kershaw, S. C.

C. E. Hinson, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.
Easley, S. C.
R. J. Womack, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Beaufort, S. C.
Al Wilson, Res. Mgr.
Mgr. Belk-Simpson Co.

Fountain Inn, S. C

E. J. Copeland, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Woodruff, S. C.

F. B. Hagins, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Honea Path, S. C.

T. R. Martin, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Whitmire, S. C.

Clyde Smith, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Manning, S. C.

W. M. Gettys, Res. Mgr.

OHIO

Belk-Simpson Co.

Athens, Ohio

Joe Kelly, Res. Mgr.

MISSOURI

Belk-Simpson Co.

Carthage, Mo.

Charles Wilson, Res. Mgr.

OKLAHOMA

Belk Dept. Store

Miami, Oklahoma

J. T. Holmes, Res. Mgr.

NORTH CAROLINA

Belk-Simpson Co.
Hendersonville, N. C.
R. E. McCormack, Res. Mgr.
Belk's Department Store
Brevard, N. C.
J. M. Felty, Res. Mgr.

KENTUCKY

Belk-Simpson Co.
Harlan, Ky.
Delmar Tolliver, Res.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Corbin, Ky.

W. C. Ashley, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Winchester, Ky.
T. L. Beckham, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
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Belk-Simpson Co.
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J. D. Prow, Res.

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GEORGIA

Belk-Simpson Co.

Bainbridge, Ga.

M. D. Ashley, Res. Mgr.

ARKANSAS

Belk-Simpson Co.

Paragould, Ark.

W. H. Wade, Res. Mgr.

i

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These stores are a small part of the entire Belk or-
ganization and have been in existence approximately
50 years. The Belk stores were launched in 1886-88.

SEE THE MANAGER NEAREST YOU FOR CHURCH CARPET, ROBES, ETC.

PAGE 18 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 22, 1972

Chapter V—from p. 10

position of this great central idea
[or Christian living is gloriously pos-
tive. To be filled with the Spirit
s to have a new song in the heart,
he song of praise to the God and
Saviour who has given us salvation.

To be filled with the Spirit is to
lave a heart continuously giving
hanks, whatever the outward cir-
:umstances may be, to our God and
ather in the name of our Lord Je-
us Christ. To be filled with the
ipirit is to have Christian love to-
vards one another and readiness to
five service to each other.

Every Christian, every day, should
>e filled with the Spirit and con-
inue to be filled with the Spirit all
lis waking hours. His first thought
in rising from sleep is of his Saviour
nd of His forgiveness and of His
ove. Constantly through the day
te turns in gratitude to God for Je-
us Christ and all His mercies and
>lessings. He ever looks for oppor-
unities to serve God in the lives of
thers.

This is for the businessman. This
> for the housewife. This is for the
eacher. This is for the student.
This is for every Christian. The
ong of his heart is: "Christ is for
ic The heavenly Father loves me.
he Spirit of God dwells in me. All
tiings work together for my good,
thank God in everything. I am the
x>rd's servant among and to His
•eople, Hallelujah."
The mind, the will, the feelings
re engaged. The whole inner man

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is filled with Christ.

We are only once baptized by the
Spirit. We are again and again and
again to be filled with the Spirit.
We must allow Him to lead our
thoughts to Jesus. We must follow
Him as He exalts the Redeemer. We
must be sensitive to His promptings
as He applies the Word of the Lord
to us.

We must follow Him into paths
of service to our fellows, rendered
for Jesus' sake. The reading of the
Word, and prayer, and living for
Christ, and speaking of Him will
most pleasurably engage us.

It is God's command. Ministers,
elders, deacons, members of the Pres-
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Holy Spirit! EH

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PAGE 19 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 22, 1972

To Loyal Southern Presbyterians:

During the last few years thousands of Southern Presbyterian
ministers, missionaries, church officers and members have
been praying that God's Holy Spirit would guide in the
formation of a Church which will be true to His Word, loyal
to historic Presbyterian doctrine and polity and obedient to
the Great Commission.

Since August of last year a Steering Committee apoointed by
the executive committees of Concerned Presbyterians,
Presbyterian Churchmen United, Presbyterian Evangelistic
Fellowship and the Presbyterian Journal has been working
diligently to lay the foundations for such a Church. God
has answered our prayers and it now seems certain that the
continuing Church will become a reality in the very near
future .

During September Concerned Presbyterians received two
unsolicited gifts — one of $5000 and one of $50,000 —
to be delivered to the Treasurer of the continuing Church
when it is formed. Many such gifts will be needed to get
the Church off to a flying start. We hope to have at least
$5,000,000 in hand when the Church is launched.

We would encourage the Sessions of all conservative churches
to include as large a gift as possible for the undergirding
of the new Church in their 1973 benevolence budgets, we
invite all faithful stewards to designate a sizeable share
of their 1972 year-end gifts for this special purpose.

Your gifts may be sent to any of the four organizations
above mentioned. They should be designated for the
Undergirding Fund for the Continuing Church. Ihey will be
tax deductible.

Yours in His service,

President

KSK/k CONCERNED PRESBYTERIANS,

PAGE 20 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 22, 1972

INC.

n

VOL. XXXI, NO. 31

NOVEMBER 29, 1972

the

PRESBYTERIAN

Idvocating continuation of a Presbyterian Church loyal

$4.00 A YEAR

JOURNAL

to Scripture and the Reformed faith

Coram Deo

The center of Christianity is the relation of man to God.
This relationship is more than theology j it is more than philos-
ophy or science. It is the living encounter of a creature with
his Creator.

If man were an ordinary creature, there would be no occa-
sion for concern. But inasmuch as man has been made like his
Creator, with intellectual and spiritual capacities and a personal
existence that will continue forever, his relationship to God is
superior to all other relationships in his life.

— W. Jack Williamson
(See p. 7)

S. LESSON AND YOUTH PROGRAM FOR DECEMBER 17

cLWOO

0M TTIH tedmto

mi ok jo MfsasAfun

UOT1O9TTO0 o M

MAILBAG

FOLLOW UP FROM KOREA

This is a letter of follow-up to
my request for help for the some 100
TB patients in the rest home near
our Kwangju Christian Hospital
here (Journal, Aug. 9) .

When I wrote there looked like
no answer to their desperate need

for food — from government, city
or province, or any relief agency we
could contact. They were tempo-
rarily existing through the kindness
of a local Christian rice merchant,
but the debt had to be paid.

In answer to my brief note, some
20 persons and organizations re-

the

PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL

Rev. G. Aiken Taylor, Ph.D., Editor
Rev. Henry B. Dendy, D.D., Managing Editor

Circulation leader among independent publications in the Presbyterian-Reformed world

THIS WEEK— Vol. XXXI, No. 31, November 29, 1972

The Challenge of Your Calling 7

Dedication, discipline to diligence, and development of
disposition - By W. Jack Williamson

Chapter VI: The Word of God 9

The proposed new confession of faith alternates between
accuracy and error By Robert Strong

The Word, Words, and the Flesh 11

Technological advances in spreading words leads us away from
the Word By Tunis Romein

The Contrary Christ 13

Our Lord did not walk the path of self-interest or herd
instinct By R. Norman Herbert

De partments —

Editorials 14

The Layman and his Church 15

Sunday School Lesson, December 17 16

Youth Program, December 17 18

Book Reviews 19

SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: $4 a year
for individuals, $3 for members of
Every Family Plan churches. All cor-
respondence regarding subscriptions,
advertising or other business matters
should be addressed to the business
office in Weaverville, N. C. 28787.
Second class postage paid at Weaver-
ville, N. C. 28787.

THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL, a

Presbyterian weekly magazine, devoted
to the statement, defense, and propa-
gation of the Gospel, the faith which
was once for all delivered to the saints,

is published every Wednesday by the
Southern Presbyterian Journal Co.,
Inc., in Weaverville, N. C.

POSTMASTER: Send Form 3579 to
Presbyterian Journal, Box 635 Weav-
erville, N. C. 28787. Subscribers
should allow three weeks for change
of address in continental U. S. Change
of address notices should include both
old and new addresses (with zip
codes).

NEWS AND EDITORIAL correspond-
ence should be addressed to P. 0. Box
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TELEPHONES: (All area 704) edi-
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business office, 645-3310, 645-3962.

sponded with enough to pay the
debt and supply their needs through
the critical winter and spring months.
The patients are most thankful and
the small staff most encouraged.
They all give thanks to God for you.

While a diminishing disease here,
TB still is a major problem and
works havoc, especially among fam-
ilies of marginal financial means.

The other very real need is for
funds for the newer anti-tuberculosis
"secondary drugs" which can cure
many who fail to be cured by the
"primary drugs" such as streptomy-
cin. The "primary drugs" are pro-
vided by the government to our hos-
pital, which is one of the places pa-
tients can come who need these spe-
cial medicines. Many patients can-
not afford the $10 per month cost
(for 6 months) and we try by every
means possible to procure these medi-
cines for them. (The Board of
World Missions has a special item in
the "special askings" list for this ob-
jective.)

Thanks to you again for the help
in His name.

— Dr. Herbert Codington
Kwangju, Korea

While we rejoice in the response that
Journal readers give to almost any
worthy appeal, we blush that this re
sponse was not in greater propor
tion — 20 out of an estimated 80,000
readers. — Ed.

FROM SOUR TO SWEET

I am sure it is very disconcerting
for a pastor to face a sparce congre-
gation of sour faces.

This should never be the case, be-
cause we should expect a church con-
gregation to be composed of happy
Christians anticipating a service of
praise to and worship of God. In
such a case, their happiness would
be revealed in their faces.

Sad to say, however, nowadays in
all too many churches the numbers
in the congregations are becoming
fewer and the happy faces among
them are becoming more scattered,

Why? I would not want to say it
is because fewer of those present are
Christians. It must be due to the
fact that they are not anticipating
a service of praise to and worship ol
God. Instead, they have braced
themselves for another lecture or
some such subject as humanism, an
ti-Americanism, socialism, or broth
erhood to all — except fellow-Chris
tians who might offer constructive
criticism.

It is too bad that so many minis

:id

It!

ters, upon being faced with a small
congregation containing few smiling
faces, fail so utterly to realize the
reason for the situation. It is a pity
that more do not concentrate upon
an effort to make the service one of
true worship of and praise to God.
All Christians, regardless of econom-
ic standing or political persuasion,
would joyfully anticipate this.

However, too many ministers, not
possessing the abilities of a Bob
Hope, make futile efforts to crack
the long faces with jokes. Though
they may be rewarded with a chuck-
le here and there, chances are those
efforts cause many to wince the
worse.

I pray that more and more minis-
ters will come to realize that the
time set aside for corporate worship
is for the benefit of the entire con-
gregation and should be used to help
=ach one experience the presence of
die Holy Spirit within himself.

I pray that they will crush the
:emptation to misuse this hour for
:he purpose of espousing their own
iocial or political philosophies, or
:heir personal views on controversial

• With all due respect to the min-
sterial contributors to this issue of
he Journal, the two articles in our
:stimation deserving special atten-
ion were written by laymen. It is
are, in this world of many ideas, to
ncounter a fresh new thought. In
he article by Tunis Romein (p. 11) ,
here's an impressive new thought.
Ve- liked it when first we read it,
>ut it wasn't until we read it care-
idly in page proof that the impor-
ance of what Dr. Romein was say-
fig began to sink in. We invite you
3 let it sink in, slowly!

• W. Jack Williamson is one of the
lost selfless laymen we know. It
as been our experience thaf while
lany preachers talk about sacrifi-
ial service, a few dedicated laymen
re quietly practicing it. Of such
< Mr. Williamson, secretary of Con-
?rned Presbyterians, Journal board
lember, General Assembly ad in-
to :rim committee member and peren-
IJf ial (!) Assembly commissioner. We

roudly carry his convocation ad-
ress at Reformed Theological Semi-

public matters.

Then the eyes upon the pastor
will twinkle with joy, and the num-
bers will multiply.

— Jonathan H. Allen
Dallas, Tex.

THIS AND THAT

I have never written before but
have read and enjoyed the Journal
for several years and Clydie just
makes my day complete every time
she writes. Do wish she would
write more often.

The reason for this letter is the
thoughts I had after reading Rev.
Robert Hann's letter concerning the
writing of the new confession and
Clydie's handling of words.

It just makes me smile when I
read how touchy they get about a
word ("may") when used in objec-
tion to anything proposed by the
liberal people but couldn't care less
about words when these are their
own.

It seems to me all that needs
changing is the heart of man and
then everything else will fall in line.

nary on p. 7.

• Montgomery Presbytery (PCUS)
thinks that "lobbying" at the Gen-
eral Assembly should be "open and
under public scrutiny." To this end
the presbytery has overtured the
1973 (Fort Worth) Assembly to reg-
ister special interest groups and pro-
vide them with designated meeting
places. During the debate on the
overture, references to all-night se-
cret caucuses were made, which some
presbytery members thought were
terrible. We wouldn't particularly
object to such a procedure at meet-
ings of the General Assembly — the
airtight, rigid discipline of the lib-
erals, with their absolute control
over the motions, speeches and
voting of their constituency has cap-
tured our admiration for years. We
wish conservatives could be persuad-

Keep the Journal the same fine
and tair magazine it has always
been.

— Mrs. John Ziegler
Falling Waters, W. Va.

MINISTERS

John A. Brothers Jr., from Max-
ton, N. C, to the Woodland
church, New Orleans, La.
James R. Bullock from Jackson,
Tenn., to the Riverside church,
Jacksonville, Fla., as associate pas-
tor.

Arthur Vann Gibson, Atlanta,
will retire from the pastorate Jan.
1 to become associated with Pres-
byterian Career and Personal
Counseling Center, Decatur, Ga.
Iain Inglis from Honea Path, S.
C, to the Fairview church, North
Augusta, S. C.

J. C. McQueen Jr., from Louis-
ville, Ky., to the South Highland
church, Birmingham, Ala., as as-
sociate pastor.

R. Ronald Ragon from Trion,
Ga., to the Brainerd church, Chat-
tanooga, Tenn.

ed to work together as well. But
if anyone thinks he can prevent As-
sembly commissioners from meeting
together to discuss the issues and
make plans, one thing's for sure: he
hasn't attended many Assemblies!

• In Chicago, school principal Wil-
liam Rankin has refused to require
the children in his school to fill out
elaborate personal questionnaires
prepared by the Department of
Health, Education and Welfare. He
believes the detailed personal his-
tories being compiled by HEW con-
stitutes an "invasion of privacy" and
are contrary to the Constitution.
The result of Mr. Rankin's decision?
He has been rated "unsatisfactory"
and will face a hearing to determine
his future status. He says he ex-
pects the outcome will be his firing.
How is it in your school system? 51

ACROSS THE EDITOR'S DESK

PAGE 3 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 29, 1972

NEWS OF RELIGION

First Rescue Mission Is 100 Years Old

NEW YORK (RNS) — He was de-
scribed by contemporaries as a "river-
rat," a thief, a drunkard, an outlaw,
a scoundrel.

This year, thousands of Christians
have taken part in special observan-
ces in memory of him and his work.

It was in October, 1872, that Jerry
McAuley opened the world's first
Christian rescue mission on New
York City's lower East Side. Today,
the original McAuley Water Street
Mission is gone, but the work con-
tinues in a larger, more modern
building on nearby Lafayette Street.

From the original "skid row" mis-
sion here, the work that Jerry Mc-
Auley began has expanded into the
International Union of Gospel Mis-
sions (IUGM) . Today, it has some
350 missions with about 950 individ-
ual leaders and other workers around
the world.

Jerry McAuley came to New York
from Ireland in 1852 at the age of
13. Some of his early experiences
with religion consisted of his throw-
ing things at his grandmother while
she was praying on her knees, after
which she would get up and curse
at him.

After coming to New York, the
young McAuley fell into the dirt of
the city's Fourth Ward both figura-

tively and literally. Although he was
sent to live with a married sister
after his father died, he soon moved
into a boarding house, and event-
ually spent most of his evenings
sleeping with his gang under the
waterfront piers or in filthy cellars.

His career of thievery won him a
reputation of being one of the lowest
of the low. He was hauled into
court countless times, but ironically
when he got sent up to Sing Sing in
1857 it was for a crime he never
committed — highway robbery.

Embittered at being sent to the
"can" on a trumped-up charge, the
19-year-old McAuley suffered the
squalid prison conditions of a day
when the concepts of reform and re-
habilitation were unknown. But one
day, he had a vision.

"I was standing at my work, and
my mind became absorbed," he later
recalled, "and it seemed that I was
working for the Lord down in the
Fourth Ward. I had a house, and
people were coming in. There was a
bath; and the people came in; and
I washed and cleansed them on the
outside, and the Lord cleansed them
on the inside. They came at first by
small numbers, then by hundreds,
and afterwards by thousands."

It was from this experience that

THE CHURCH OVERSEAS

LAOS — The charred bodies of two
women believed to be missing Amer-
ican missionaries affiliated with the
Plymouth Brethren have been found
in the smoking ruins of Kengkok, a
town about 250 miles southeast of
Vientiane.

A preliminary post mortem on the
bodies of the two women showed
that they were Caucasian bodies of
about the same build as the missing
women, but they were too badly
burned to be definitely identified.

An official of the Plymouth
Brethren said that the missing wom-
en are Miss Evelyn Anderson, 25, of
Coklwater, Mich., and Miss Beatrice
Kosin, 35, of Federal Way, Wash.

They were members of the Christian
Missions in Many Lands, Inc., which
is affiliated with the Brethren.

The women were taken prisoner
Oct. 27 along with two male mission-
aries by the Communist-led Pathet
Lao when they seized the town.

The two men, Samuel Mattix, 19,
of Centralia, Wash., and Lloyd Op
pel, 20, a Canadian from British Co-
lumbia, are still missing.

The four missionaries were put
under house arrest and later the men
were taken to a different location.

The bodies of the women were
found after governments troops re-
gained possession of Kengkok. ffl

Jerry McAuley went to open the
Helping Hand Mission on Water
Street. He died in 1884, but his
work has grown and prospered since
that time.

In October, the IUGM executive
committee and 200 friends of the
present-day McAuley Mission gath-
ered here to observe the centennial.
Letters from well-wishers all over the
country were read, including one
that said, "You reach the century
mark at a time when your compas-
sionate commitment to humanity is
needed more than ever."

It was signed "Richard M. Nix-
on."

Today the new McAuley Mission
on 90 Lafayette Street still carries on
the work its founder began 100
years ago. It houses about 30 resi-
dents, and serves about 100 "tran-
sients" every night, providing food,
clothing, shelter, and a Gospel mes-
sage. II

As Free in N. Vietnam
As USA, Says NCC Leader

NEW YORK — Religion is as free
in North Vietnam as it is in the
United States, a top official of the
National Council of Churches de-
clared here after a seven-day visit to
North Vietnam.

"There is every indication," said
Dr. David Hunter, deputy general
secretary of the NCC, "that religion
is as free to practice its faith in the
Democratic Republic of Vietnam as
in the USA."

When religious groups oppose the
government, they meet opposition
"and pay a price," he continued,
"but no more in the DRV than in
the USA."

Dr. Hunter said he could learn of
no instances of churchmen being im-
prisoned in North Vietnam for their
opposition to the government "as
has happened in the United States
and in South Vietnam."

He added, "Our meetings indi-
cated that churchmen, like all citi-
zens, are supporting the revolution
with religious zeal."

Dr. Hunter said he made the trip
as an official representative of the
National Council of Churches, with
the authorization of NCC General
Secretary Edwin Espy and NCC

PAGE 4 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 29, 1972

President Cynthia Wedel and with
his expenses paid by the NCC.

The delegation of which he was
a part represented the Episcopal
Peace Fellowship, the People's Co-
alition for Peace and Justice, the
I Project Air War, the Indo-China
Peace Campaign and other leftist
groups.

In discussing the question of the
Church's freedom under Commu-
nism, Dr. Hunter said that a North
Vietnamese religious leader told
I him, "It is America that is destroy-
ing our churches, not Communism."

The NCC official reported that he
had attended a 5:30 a.m. church
service in Hanoi and found it full
with an estimated 1,000 worship-
ers.

He said the service included al-
most as many men as women and
large numbers of children, teenagers
and young adults. "I have never

1 seen a service in this country where

! the distribution was as good," Dr.
Hunter said.

On the final day of the visit, the

' entire delegation had an hour and
a half interview with the North

! Vietnamese premier, Pham Van

i Dong.

"We left feeling we were brothers
in the same cause," Dr. Hunter said.
(Editor's note: And that, friends, is
the National Council of Church-
es.) ®

Journalist Tells How
He Came to Jesus Christ

TORONTO, Ont. (RNS) — Mal-
colm Muggeridge, famed journalist,

i author, broadcaster and critic, told

j a thousand students at the Univer-
sity of Toronto that his conversion
to Christianity was not sudden like

•• St. Paul's, but something that devel-
oped after he had tried almost ev-
erything else.

The former editor of Punch, the
British humor magazine, said that
70 years of living had brought him

! to "the unshakable conclusion" that
Christ's way is the solution to the
riddles of life. »

He said he had reached the time
in life when there was very little use
in posing or in saying things for ef-
fect. Then he told of his conver-
sion.

Mr. Muggeridge was in Canada to
film a TV version of his memoirs.
Of the recently completed first vol-
ume, "Chronicles of a Wasted
Time," he said:

"As I look back, it's amazing how
much that seemed so important at
the time now seems negligible — am-
bitions, passions and the rest.

"You get the strange feeling that
the play you were rehearsing is not
the play you were actually living.
This raises the question, What is
the real drama that life is all about?'
For me, the answer now is found in
the light of the Christian message,
the same truth that turned the dis-
ciples on 2,000 years ago."

Mr. Muggeridge's comments came
during the first of two lectures on
campus sponsored by the Inter-Var-
sity Christian Fellowship.

He charged the mass media with
offering "a way" that is totally op-
posed to Christ. He said the media
had constructed a world of fantasy,
cutting people off from the real
world.

"Thus we find in great wealth,
poverty; in gorging that we are still
hungry; in erotic uniting of flesh
that we are still separated from each
other. We pass through the valley
of abundance, through gardens of
fantasy into wastelands of satiety."

Mr. Muggeridge charged the me-
dia with calling people "to con-
sume, indulge our greed, vanity and
appetites."

There was laughter and applause
when he said:

"I can imagine some so-called
backward people of the world look-
ing at reruns of old TV shows, like
'I Love Lucy,' or 'Peyton Place,' and
thinking, 'All we need is to have
universities, a high standard of liv-
ing, universal democracy, et cetera,
and then we, too, will be able to
rise to the heights of producing en-
tertainment like that.' "

Mr. Muggeridge warned that civi-
lization is in the process of ending
and that around the corner may be
another Dark Age. He said society's
earlier sense of moral order had
been derived from the Christian
faith.

"If we lose our sense of moral or-
der, we will soon lose all other or-
der — economic, political and so-
cial," he added. IB

Reformed Churches
Hold New Talks

HOLLAND, Mich. — Delegates of
the Reformed Church in America
(RCA) and the Christian Reformed
Church (CRC) met here to discuss
differences and similarities.

The two denominations, once
united, have been separated for 115
years. During this period there has
been little discussion on an official
level between them regarding the
cause for separation and the present
differences.

The RCA in America dates back
to 1628. Today it has about 400,000
members, mostly in New England,
the midwest and west. About 25 per
cent of the 300,000 members of the
CRC live in Canada.

The RCA allows the local church
a great deal of autonomy along the
lines of a modified congregational-
ism, while the CRC has its power
vested in its General Synod, as in
the Netherlands.

At the close of the meeting, CRC
representatives recommended seeking
closer denominational unity. Specific
goals of the RCA caucus included
exploring the possibility of federated
churches, united campus ministries,
and combined teacher training and
educational materials. El

Inter Varsity Growing,
Will Sponsor Institute

CHAMBLEE, Ga. — A Winter
Theological Conference will be spon-
sored by Inter Varsity Fellowship at
Covenant College, Lookout Moun-
tain, Tenn., it was announced here.

Speakers will include Dr. John
Bray, professor at Wayne State, Ne-
braska, Dr. James Mallory, director
of Atlanta Counseling Center, At-
lanta, and the Rev. Harold Burk-
hardt, Inter Varsity director from
Philadelphia.

Inter Varsity operations are re-
ported to be on the increase through-
out the Southern states, with partic-
ularly active groups on the campuses
of Agnes Scott College, the Univer-
sity of Georgia, Duke University,
and other major schools. SI

PAGE 5 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 29, 1972

p

THE CHURCH AT HOME

Stated Clerk Resigns
Effective Next June

ATLANTA (PN) — Dr. James A.
Millard Jr., stated clerk of the Gen-
eral Assembly of the Presbyterian
Church US, has announced his resig-
nation after 14 years' service to the
950,000-member denomination.

The resignation will be submitted
to the Church's General Assembly
next June when it meets at Fort
Worth.

Dr. Millard has served as stated
clerk since 1958 when he was called
to the post from the faculty of
Austin Seminary in Texas. He is
the seventh stated clerk in the de-
nomination's 111-year history.

In a letter to the Rev. Davison
Philips of Decatur, Ga., chairman of
the Permanent Committee on Assem-
bly Operation, Dr. Millard wrote:
"When at the insistence of your
committee, I accepted another three-
year term, it was — to our com-
mon understanding — in the light
of the transitional situation of the
Assembly. I now feel that there is
nothing further of constructive value
for me to offer, and that I prefer to
utilize my ministry in some other
ways."

Dr. Philips, commenting on the
resignation, said: "Dr. Millard has
no peer in the realm of church pol-
ity. He has served the Presbyterian
Church US with distinction as pas-
tor, theological professor, and more
recently as stated clerk and treasurer
of the General Assembly.

"A loyal churchman, a gifted
church polity authority and a use-
ful executive, he will be greatly
missed." EE

Some Benevolences
Are Down, Some Up

ATLANTA, Ga. — Benevolent gifts
received by boards and agencies of
the Presbyterian Church US amount
to $5,470,217.84 so far this year, ac-
cording to the report of the central
treasurer of benevolences. This
amount is 60.26 per cent of the bud-
get to date.

Total gifts for the month ending
Nov. 10 amount to $520,775.27.

For the same period last year, the
benevolence gifts were $5,462,211.49,

total, and $514,016.15 for the month.
This represented 64 per cent of the
budget.

Although the giving was up
slightly, about one tenth of one per
cent, the per cent of the budget re-
ceived was down.

Two agencies have received a
greater percentage of their budgets
than the others: The Board of An-
nuities and Relief has received
$436,820, or 69 per cent of the bud-
get to date; and the Lord's Day Al-
liance, having received $3,729 to
date, has 372 per cent of its budget
to date. EE

Vanguard Presbytery
Formally Organized

PETERSBURG, Va. (PN) — Van-
guard Presbytery today adopted its
constitution and received six con-
gregations into the new conservative
southern-based Presbyterian Church.

The dissident Presbyterians unani-
mously adopted the 1933 edition of
the Presbyterian US Book of Church
Order and the 1789 version of the
Westminster Confession of Faith.
Adoption of the standards came on
the recommendation of the Rev.
Morton H. Smith of Jackson, Miss.,
who attended as a representative of
Presbyterian Churchmen United.

He explained that a conservative
coalition within the Presbyterian
Church US is planning to use these
documents in forming a new denomi-
nation.

Speakers indicated that Vanguard
Presbytery expects to become a part
of that new Church.

Three of the six churches received
into the presbytery today are PCUS
congregations that have renounced
the jurisdiction of the denomina-
tion. However, they still have not
been officially released by their pres-
byteries.

The three PCUS churches are Eb-
enezer, Huntsville, Ala.; Talucah,
Valhermosa Springs, Ala.; and First,
Louisville, Ky.

The other three are independents:
Reformed Presbyterian Church of
Manassas, Va.; Drusilla, Ellenboro,
N. C; and Eastern Heights, Savan-
nah, Ga.

Eastern Heights is a former PCUS
church. Its pastor, the Rev. Todd
Allen, led the congregation in a

breakaway action in 1966 that end-
ed in the U. S. Supreme Court up-
holding its right to withdraw with
its property.

Presbytery also received two new
ministers: the Rev. Harold Arnold
Maves of Hopewell, an evangelist
with the Presbyterian Evangelistic
Fellowship, and the Rev. Robert G.
Eppler, pastor of Louisville's First
Church.

A three-man commission was
named to organize a church in Fay-
etteville, Ga. Nucleus for the new
Faith Presbyterian Church is drawn
from the families of four former of-
ficers of Fayetteville Presbyterian
Church. EE

Reformed Seminary
Starts Support Effort

JACKSON, Miss. — Presbyterian
churches in Mississippi have been
approached by the Reformed Theo-
logical Seminary in an effort to
form a woman's support group for.
the institution.

The project is proceeding under
the name of FORTS, which is an
acronym for Friends of Reformed
Theological Seminary.

The Rev. Sam C. Patterson, chair-
man of the seminary's board of
trustees, said, "We feel we have a
long way to go in publicizing the
work and goals of the seminary to
the people of Mississippi."

Under the new venture the group
will be in touch with local Women
of the Church organizations asking
them to appoint one of their mem-
bers as chairman of a FORTS circle.

The suggested program of activi-
ties would include quarterly meet-
ings to receive reports on seminary
life and progress, to pray for the in-
stitution, and to receive a list of
needs. EE

MacDonald Honored

SUMMERVILLE, S. C. — A plaque
honoring the Rev. Malcolm A. Mac-
Donald for his work as president of
Thornwell Home for Children was
dedicated at the South Carolina
Presbyterian Home here. Thornwell
is located in Clinton, S. C.

The special service was co-spon-
sored by the home and by the Will-
cox Bible Class of First Presbyterian
Church of Florence.

Dr. MacDonald, third president
of the children's home, largest in the
South, is now retired and living in
Easley, S. C. EE

PAGE 6 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 29, 1972

Sound words of practical wisdom to young men whom God has called as messengers —

The Challenge of Your Galling

I ZJ. reetings to you as ministers of
B-J Christ and stewards of the mys-
eries of God. You are tonight be-
ginning preparation for the highest
if all callings, that of being God's
pecial messengers to this planet in
pur time.

The center of Christianity is the
■elation of man to God. This rela-
lionship is more than theology; it is
nore than philosophy or science. It
s the living encounter of a creature
vith his Creator.

i If man were an ordinary creature,
here would be no occasion for con-
tern. But inasmuch as man has
been made like his Creator, with in-
ellectual and spiritual capacities
[md a personal existence that will
[|:ontinue forever, his relationship to
God is superior to all other relation-
hips in his life.

I The two facts which overshadow
Bill others, then, are the existence of
pod and your relationship to Him.
plijah put them together in the two
pises of his life when he exclaimed,
['As the Lord of hosts lives, before
ivhom I stand . . . ."

This formula conveys the essence
[)f true religion: God's reality and
pan's standing before him. This
jealization was necessary to make a
[one individual strong before Ahab
md Jezebel and the prophets of
Uaal. Because Elijah knew that he

This convocation address was de-
ivered to the students at Reformed
Theological Seminary, Jackson,
Miss., at the beginning of the new
\chool year. Mr. Williamson, an el-
ver of his church and an attorney of
Greenville, Ala., is secretary of Con-
cerned Presbyterians. He also serves
is a member of the joint committee
working on union plans with the
JPUSA Church, having been ap-
pointed as one who is "unhappy
mth the plan of union."

stood in the presence of the living
God, before whom whole nations
are "like a drop from a bucket," he
was equal to the challenge and so
fulfilled his ministry.

So you, young men, if you be
equal to your challenge, must know
the personal reality of God and be
conscious that each moment of each
day you stand in His presence.

I trust you have stood in God's
presence and answered His call as
did Isaiah in the temple in the year
that King Uzziah died. Isaiah heard
the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom
shall I send and who will go for us?"
So overwhelmed was Isaiah with a
sense of mission and the feeling of
God's presence, he answered, "Here
am I; send me."

fn God's Presence

Israel's greatest king is another
unusual example of a person who
lived with an acute awareness of
God's presence. He told of his fel-
lowship with God in these familiar
words, "The Lord is my shepherd."

But one greater than David ap-
peared and God manifested His pres-
ence in the midst of His people.
Jesus Christ was Immanuel, God
with us, and when men had been
with Him they knew they had been
with God. Before His return to
heaven He promised, "Lo, I am with
you alway, even unto the end of the
world."

Thereafter a marked awareness of
being in the presence of their Lord
has been the experience of His peo-
ple. So Peter and the other apostles
answered the council, "We ought to
obey God rather than men;" or
Stephen, so conscious of this pres-
ence could declare, "Behold, I see
the heavens opened and the Son of
Man standing on the right hand of
God."

W. JACK WILLIAMSON

Martin Luther used to represent
his sense of standing in the presence
of God with the Latin expression,
coram Deo, "in the presence of
God." It was this sense of the divine
presence which enabled Luther to
declare at the Diet of Worms that
with God as his helper, he could do
nothing else.

If you are to meet the challenge
of your calling, you must have this
concept that your whole existence is
lived coram Deo, in the presence of
the living God. If you know the
reality that God lives, and if you
know that you stand before Him,
coram Deo, all the challenges of
your calling will derive their answers
from these primary truths.

Three challenges to your calling
will soon confront you. The first
concerns the degree of your dedica-
tion. I have observed an increasing
tendency for ministerial candidates
to express uncertainty about their
calling.

Compelling Call

Recently a young man was exam-
ined as a candidate before our pres-
bytery. He had graduated from
Georgia Tech in engineering, but
he did not know what he wanted
to do. He went to California for a
year to find himself, and there he
decided that he might like the minis-
try. He decided to try it so he en-
rolled in a seminary.

For too many today in our Church
the ministry is a vocation or avoca-
tion rather than a calling. There
should be no question in your mind
that God has laid His hand on you
for this special task. You should be
sure, as Paul was after Jesus encoun-
tered him on the road to Damascus.
Some years later Paul in defense of
his faith declared, "Whereupon, O
King Agrippa, I was not disobedi-

PAGE 7 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 29, 1972

!**•*"'• •f:: :rn.':i ' ' 1 M'-iri 'I, .l.i.li- :•' "i |-« - " K it'-

ent unto the heavenly vision."

There should be a compulsive,
compelling dedication to your call-
ing. The men I have known who
have been successful are those who
have been totally dedicated to one
idea. As we watched the Olympics,
we saw this great dedication.

Gold Medal Winners

The coach of Kathy Rigsby said
she had trained for two years for an
average of 7 to 9 hours per day. Dan
Grable, our gold medal wrestler,
trains for 9 hours a day and even
did training exercises on the day he
won the medal. Mark Spitz, our
great swimmer, said that he had
little time in the past four years for
anything but swimming.

Paul observed, "Know ye not that
they which run in a race run all, but
one receiveth the prize? So run that
ye may obtain .... Now they do
it to obtain a corruptible crown; but
we an incorruptible." You should be
dedicated to your mission to such a
degree that it consumes your life.

As you live coram Deo, you share
with Paul the compulsion, "for ne-
cessity is laid upon me; yea, woe un-
to me if I preach not the Gospel."

The second challenge of your call-
ing is discipline to diligence. You
should discipline yourself to be dili-
gent in your practice of prayer and
your perseverance in preparation.

Pray, Prepare

Prayer is the breath of your soul.
Neglect it at the peril of your own
personal spiritual life. Failing to
pray is like standing in the presence
of God and putting your fingers in
your ears so that you cannot hear
Him. It is a striking trait of our
age that no one wants to meditate.
Between talk, travel and T.V. we
occupy our time.

We go to great lengths to avoid
being alone and particularly think-
ing about and talking with God. I
am not speaking of a conversation
with God while riding or walking
to class, or a corporate communica-
tion in some prayer group with your
fellows, as efficacious as that may be.

I am speaking of a time when
alone and at length you wrestle with
God daily, as did Jacob, and allow
Him to communicate His will and
His way for your living of the day.
This discipline is the most impor-
tant of all your disciplines. If you
are not diligent in it you will remain

a spiritual pygmy. If you learn in
this first year the discipline to dili-
gence in prayer, you are on the right
road to becoming a spiritual giant.

You must likewise discipline your-
self to persevere in preparation.
Many things will distract you from
your preparation, but not all of them
are bad. Wives, children, recreation,
discussion, and opportunities for ser-
vice may wreck this discipline. You
must remember that your calling
is to communicate God's Word to
His people and to call His children
unto Him.

Paul's advice to his young minister
friend Timothy was: "Study to show
thyself approved unto God, a work-
man that needeth not to be ashamed,
rightly dividing the word of truth."
Your primary calling is to preach
the Gospel. Therefore, the most im-
portant phase of your ministry be-
gins when you open the Word of
God and seek to proclaim it to the
people. You need now to develop
the discipline of diligence to perse-
vere in preparation in spite of all
distractions — good and bad.

Ministerial Nemesis

No other life offers the temptation
to dilatoriness and laziness as does
the ministry. Most men are disci-
plined by their work. They have
regular hours and a regular job, but
the ministry offers the greatest temp-
tation of all to put off preparation
until tomorrow. This is truly the
Achilles heel of the ministry. You
can always find so many good things
to do to avoid perseverance in prep-
aration.

The pattern you set this year will
be the pattern of preparation for
your ministry. I implore you to dis-
cipline yourself now to diligence in
persevering in preparation. I warn
you that if you neglect this discipline
God will truly discipline you, and
although His discipline is chastening
in love, it is not pleasant for Him or
you.

So, young men, the challenge of
your calling is self-discipline to dili-
gence in your prayer and your prep-
aration.

Satan's Two D's

Finally, the third challenge of
your calling is the development of
your disposition. Surely you realize
that by answering your call you have
set yourself as a prime and special
target for Satan.

As you know, "we wrestle not
against flesh and blood but against
principalities, against powers, against,
the rulers of the darkness of this
world, against spiritual wickedness
in high places."

I am convinced that Satan's sharp-
est and subtlest darts against yot1
will be to develop in you a disposi-
tion of discouragement and despair
You cannot see the end from begin
ning. God will not even permit. yot)
to see the full effect of your labors

Satan will use these facts to try tc
discourage you into believing that
you are a failure and to try to drive
you to such despair that you will
forsake your calling. But even ii
you remain in the ministry, Satar
will try to convince you of your in
effectiveness and try to get you tc
question the wisdom of God foi
your life.

The World a Pulpit

A discouraged and despairing
preacher is an anomaly. Put on tn
whole armor of God so that you maV
be able to stand against these twir
wiles of the devil — discouragemem
and despair. They will destroy youi
peace, your joy, and your effective
ness quicker than any other.

Holy gladness and holy boldnes:|
will make you a good preacher, an^
all the world will be a pulpit foi
you to preach in. Cheerful holines:
is the most forcible of sermons, bu'j
the Lord must give it to you. Seel
it in the morning before you go intc
the world. When it is the Lord'
work in which you rejoice, you neec
not be afraid of being too glad. (

Divine Mandate

Your life has a meaning that ij
determined by God. God, in calling
you, has revealed this meaning fo
your existence. God makes no mis
takes in your life. You are wholly ii
His hands, so always live confident!
before the face of the Lord. Trus
your life to God and permit no|
Satan to mar your calling by devel
oping in you a disposition to dis
couragement or despair.

So my dear young brothers ii1
Christ, other challenges may con1
front you, but your calling wilj
be challenged by the degree of you
dedication, the discipline to dil:
gence in prayer and preparatior
and in the development of your dh
position.

To face and meet these challenge
we join with the apostle in prayini

PAGE 8 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 29, 1972

:hat God "would grant you accord-
ng to the riches of His glory to be
strengthened with might by His
ipirit in the inner man; that Christ
nay dwell in your hearts by faith."

Beyond measure it is desirable
i.hat you should have the person of
fesus constantly before you to in-
;rease your love towards Him and
o increase your knowledge of Him.

would to God that you were all
•ntered as diligent scholars in Jesus'

n this day of theological contro-
*- versy, we first need to discover
ow a person views the Scripture.
Vhat s his doctrine of the Bi-
le's authority? Its truthfulness?
ts inspiration? Its sufficiency? The
leological complexion of the ad in-
;rim committee is disclosed in this
liapter of the proposed confession,
ad although some good things are
lid, the worst statement in the
hole new confession is also in-
[uded.

Chapter VI, the longest because
f the range of topics treated, opens
ith a general statement about
'Od's special revelation under the
eading, "The Spirit armed God's
eople with God's word." The term
word" is never capitalized except
hen it refers to the Lord Jesus
hrist.

The second section, "Jesus Christ
the living Word of God," hands us
le key to the committee's under-
anding of special revelation: God
is authoritatively spoken in Jesus
hrist. Christ is attested in holy
ripture. The Holy Spirit led the
rst Christians deeper and deeper
4x> what God meant in sending Je-
s.

A distinction between two levels

. This is another in a series of ar-
les examining the proposed new

mfession of faith in terms of our

ttStoric Presbyterian beliefs. Dr.
rong is pastor of the Trinity Pres-

t'terian Church, Montgomery, Ala.

college, students of Corpus Christi,
or the body of Christ, resolved to
attain unto a good degree in the
learning of the cross.

To have Jesus ever near, your
hearts must be full of Him, welling
up with His love, even to overrun-
ning. He must actually so "dwell in
your hearts by faith." See how near
the apostle would have Jesus to be.
Not that He may call on you some-
times as a casual visitor; but that He

"For this cause also, thank we God
without ceasing, because, when you
received the Word of God which ye
heard of us, ye received it not as the
word of men, but, as it is in truth,
the Word of God, which effectually
worketh also in you that believe"
(I Thess. 2:13).

of authority appears: Christ is the
supreme authority; Scripture, as
viewed by the committee, although
it attests Him, does not seem to
come with the same authority as
that of Christ.

But the whole of Scripture comes
to us with the authority of Christ!
There is no other Christ but the
Christ of Scripture. That Christ has
put His absolute endorsement upon
the Old Testament. That Christ
sets a similar authority upon the
writers of the New Testament. Scrip-
ture is the voice and Word of Jesus
Christ. This fundamental Presbyte-
rian and Christian point of view is
not made clear. Consider the fourth
paragraph of section 2:

"We therefore declare that the
one Word of God which we have to
hear and which we have to trust and
obey in life and in death can be no
other than Jesus Christ as he is at-
tested for us in Holy Scripture."

The suggestion is subtle but real
that there is a disjunction between
Jesus Christ and the Bible. Christ is
attested in holy Scripture, says the
proposed new confession, but what
He says is not declared identical

may dwell; that Jesus may become
the Lord and tenant of your inmost
being, never more to go out.

Then you will understand with
Elijah the essence of true religion.
For the reality of God will be made
known through Jesus who dwells in
your heart and you will consciously
stand for eternity in his living pres-
ence — coram Deo. Herein is the
secret to meeting and conquering
the challenges of your calling. EE

God

ROBERT STRONG

with holy Scripture.

The way is open to a certain sub-
jectivism in handling the Bible. We
are to hear what Christ says. Will
there be parts of Scripture which are
not fully faithful to Christ? How
will we discern? What will be our
touchstone? Confusion in interpre-
tation and doctrine seems bound to
result from this kind of approach.

At the same time I express ap-
preciation for a paragraph in section
2 which, taken as it reads, is excel-
lent: "In Christ we hear God's
word of acceptance. We are set right
with God, adopted as children of
God, not because of anything we
have done, but because of what
Christ has done."

Inaccurate Statement

The third section, "The Bible is
the written word of God," traces out
the very long period of time it took
for Scripture to come into being.
The proposed confession asserts that
as the books of the Old and New
Testaments "were read and ex-
pounded in the church, they proved
sufficient and reliable as witnesses
to Jesus Christ, the living Word.
Therefore the church acknowledged
the Old and New Testaments as the
canon, or rule of faith and prac-
tice."

This is not historical or accurate.
The early Church, and also the apos-
tles, accepted the Old Testament,
the very same thirty-nine books we

iistorical inaccuracies, un-Presbyterian beliefs, even heresy mingle with Christian affirmations —

Chapter VI: The Word of

PAGE 9 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 29, 1972

have, because Jesus endorsed it.

The New Testament books made
their way on their own intrinsic au-
thority. To be included in the can-
on (meaning, to be accepted as be-
longing in Scripture) , they must
have been authored by apostles or
apostolic men. The test was apos-
tolicity, which meant that the writ-
ers must clearly have spoken with
the authority of Jesus Christ.

The test was not pragmatic, as the
new confession alleges. The test was
the authority the books themselves
bore. This point is of high impor-
tance. The Westminster Confession
covers it in this way:

"The authority of the Holy Scrip-
ture, for which it ought to be be-
lieved and obeyed, dependeth not
upon the testimony of any man or
church but wholly upon God (who
is truth itself) , the authority there-
of; and therefore it is to be received,
because it is the word of God" (I, 4) .

Again, at the same time that we
are critical we offer commendation.
I refer to the paragraph: "Led by
the same Spirit, we gladly subject
all our understandings of faith and
life to the judgment of the Lord
who speaks in Scripture. It is for
us the word of God as no other word
written by human beings. We must
test any word that comes to us from
the church, world, or inner experi-
ence, by the word written in the Old
and New Testaments. We do not
worship the Bible. We worship Je-
sus Christ who is its center. Because
the Bible is the decisive testimony
to him, we require no new Scrip-
ture."

A Word of Caution

I express a caution concerning the
conclusion of the third section: "We
cannot regard any interpretation of
Scripture, including this confession,
as valid for all times and places. The
word of Scripture is always contem-
porary because the living Lord
speaks through it in every new mo-
ment of our lives."

This seems to me an unnecessary
belittling of the theological achieve-
ments of the centuries. There can
be no debate about the doctrine of
the Trinity, that God is one and yet
that there are three persons in the
unity of His essence. There can be
no debate about the person of
Christ, that He is one person in
whom deity and a human life are
inseparably joined.

There can be no debate about the

fact that the death of Christ has
gained salvation for believing sin-
ners. There can be no debate about
the literal resurrection of Christ
from the dead. Numerous other
points embodied in the Westminster
Confession of Faith and other creeds
constitute the things given in Chris-
tianity.

These teachings are valid for all
times and places. Yet it is true that
there is ever new light to be expect-
ed to break from the Word of God.
It will always have something to say
to us in the new crises that arise.

Confusion and Error

Both confusion and error are
found in the fourth section, "True
preaching of the word of God is the
word of God." The important dis-
tinction between inspiration and
illumination is overlooked. Scrip-
ture is infallible, but no preacher of
the Scriptures is infallible.

Confusion is in the sentence:
"Musicians, artists, builders have
given it [the word of God] form."
What does this have to do with
preaching? You do not give form
to the Word of God with a paint
brush or a hammer and saw.

Do we hear echoes of Barth in the
sentence, "We are to listen for the
word of God when the church gathers
to communicate and celebrate the
gospel"? This sounds like the no-
tion that special revelation is the
continuing, dynamic experience of
realizing that God is speaking when
something from Scripture is made to
come alive for the hearer by remark-
able awareness of God's presence
communicated by the Holy Spirit.

The Presbyterian way to teach this
kind of idea is to affirm that the
Bible is objectively the Word of
God, whatever the reader or the
hearer may say in his heart in re-
sponse to it. By the inward illumi-
nation of the Holy Spirit the reader
or hearer is enabled to say, "Yes,
this is God's Word."

Heresy!

Another brief note concerning
style is offered. It is confusingly
awkward to say that God's presence
is "still under way toward his pur-
pose for the world."

It seems to me that the proposed
new confession reaches its most ob-
jectionable and lowest point when it
says, "We must be open to his word
from other religions, from the op-

pressed and excluded, from move-
ments we regard as radical or reac-
tionary or irreligious."

We Presbyterians hold to the ex-
clusiveness of Christianity. We hold
to the finality of Scripture and to
its sufficiency. It is heresy to teach
that the Word of God can come to
us from other religions.

Although all error is partial truth
the glimmerings of truth found ir
the teachings of other religions are
but pale reflections of the origi
nal revelation God gave to man. Ir
man's wanderings after the floot
mankind, except for the chosen peo
pie, more and more distorted thi.
revelation. It is equally erroneou
to suggest that the downtrodden anc
underprivileged and radical move
ments have some new word from th<
Lord.

Earlier in the proposed confessior
it was said that "we require no nev
Scripture." At that point it shoulc
have been also said that there is n<
intention on God's part to give u
new Scripture. The Westminste
Confession is emphatic about this:

"The whole counsel of God con
cerning all things necessary for hi
own glory, man's salvation, faitt
and life, is either expressly set dowi
in Scripture, or by good and nece
sary consequence may be deduce
from Scripture: unto which nothin
at any time is to be added, whethe
by new revelations of the Spirit,
traditions of men" (I, 6) .

We are at a loss to account for th
thinking in the ad interim commi
tee that led to the inclusion in the
confession of a blatantly heretic
paragraph.

Not Signs and Symbols

The fifth section of Chapter VI
headed, "The sacraments are tl
word made visible."

It is confusion to say: "In tl
common life of God's people, tl
word has not only been read ar
proclaimed, but also seen, taste
and touched."

Christ the living Word was se(
and touched. But the water of ba
tism and elements of communk
are not the Word of God. That
why we insist on using the wor
from Scripture for baptism to 1
valid, and the words of institute
for the sacrament of the supper
be valid. The Word of God com
to us in the sacraments (and t
confession should say so at tr
point) as propositions, as languaf

PAGE 10 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 29, 1972

froi

not signs and symbols.

The treatment of baptism is
seriously defective. It is not Presby-
terian to say that as God acts in bap-
tism, "He cleanses us from corrup-
tion. He gives us new life." This
is baptismal regeneration; Roman
Catholicism teaches this, but Presby-
terians do not. We are truly aston-
ished at the new confession's de-
parture here from Presbyterian
teaching.

At its close the chapter rises to an
excellent treatment of the second
sacrament: "We believe the risen
Christ is present at the Lord's Sup-
per. He makes himself known to us
as the one who stood in our place
and has conquered death for us. He
offers us bread and wine as powerful
symbols of his broken body and
shed blood. We offer ourselves to
him in return."

Chapter VI is thus of very uneven
quality, with a distressing alterna-
tion between what is sound and good
and what is erroneous and confusing.

The Westminster Confession is in-
comparable in setting forth the in-
spiration, authority, and value of the
Word of God. The Assembly-adopt-

ed Brief Statement of Belief is also
greatly superior to the proposed new
confession. The Brief Statement is
worth quoting in conclusion:

"The living and only true God
has made Himself known to all man-
kind through nature, mind, con-
science and history. He has espe-
cially revealed Himself in His pur-
pose for man in the variety of ways
recorded in the Old and New Testa-
ments. The Bible, as the written
Word of God, sets forth what God
has done and said in revealing His
righteous judgment and love, culmi-
nating in Christ.

"The Spirit of God who inspired
the writers of scripture also illumines
readers of Scripture as they seek His
saving truth. The Bible calls men
to an obedient response to the Gos-
pel and is the supreme authority and
indispensable guide for Christian
faith and life.

"The Bible becomes a means of
grace through preaching, teaching,
and private study, as the Holy Spirit
speaks to human needs and reveals
the living Word of God who is Jesus
Christ. It illuminates man's thought
and experience as it provides an oc-

casion for the Holy Spirit's work of
redemption and as it testifies to the
working of God, but it is not intend-
ed to be a substitute for science and
inquiry.

"In preaching and teaching, the
church proclaims and interprets the
mighty acts of God in history and
seeks to relate them to every phase
of human life. The prayerful and
diligent study of the Scripture guides
the Christian in his relationships
with God and his fellowman, and in
his personal life."

I repeat: If we need a short form
of affirmation, we have only to re-
mind ourselves of the Brief State-
ment, now just ten years old. We
dare not water down the high view
of holy Scripture held by the West-
minster standards. The Bible makes
testimony to itself.

Confession, catechisms, the Brief
Statement honor the Bible's self-
claims. A vigorous spiritual life
can be maintained among us only
if we take the Bible seriously at ev-
ery point, and most surely at the
point of its complete authority, its
total truthfulness, its full divine in-
spiration. IB

Technology can give us more words, but not more meaning —

The Word, Words, and the Flesh

Something new is happening
under the sun, a paradoxical
development in which man's search
for meaning is threatened by the
profusions of his own discourse.
From all sides the human soul is
bombarded with an increasing
sound and fury of words, words,
words.

Assuming that words are power-
ful because they are the unique bear-
ers of meaning, it should follow that
recent unprecedented breakthroughs
in graphic and electronic techniques

The author is director of physi-
cal education and assistant principal
of Carver Middle School, Due West,
S. C.

for word production and reproduc-
tion ought to be ushering in an era
of spectacular cultural enrichment.

On the contrary, the modern
scene is a picture of a sizable break-
down in meaningful communication.
Like the tower of Babel dilemma,
impressive outward progress is par-
alleled with a concomitant confu-
sion of inner meaning and purpose.

Verbal Potential

Trying to comprehend the far
reaching power of words is no light
and superficial exercise. Ancient
Greek philosophers were so im-
pressed with the potential of the
human word that they inferred
therefrom the existence of an eter-

TUNIS ROMEIN

nal Word in which they believed re-
sided the totality of meaning and
purpose. Similarly, although by vir-
tue of a different authoritative in-
sight, Moses and the prophets were
continually witnessing to the awe-
some power of the Word of the
Lord.

In fact, the Bible throughout is an
eloquent testimony to the suprema-
cy of words, and this deep rooted
respect for the word reaches its ulti-
mate expression in the Gospel of
John where it is written, "In the be-
ginning was the Word, and the
Word was with God, and the Word
was God . . . And the Word was
made flesh . . . ."

It is of no little significance that
the apostle used "the Word" to sym-

PAGE 11 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 29, 1972

bolize the awesome mystery of the
eternal Godhead becoming flesh.
Also remarkable is the fact that in
the Genesis "prologue," a whole
universe came into being because
God "spoke."

In both prologues it is the clear
and simple testimony that all things
were made by this Word, and with-
out Him was not anything made
that was made. As the psalmist put
it, "By the word of the Lord were
the heavens made; and all the host
of them by the breath of his mouth."

Unique Evidence

In this connection it is important
to note that man was created in the
image of his Maker, and surely we
can infer that one unique evidence
of the divine image in man is his
capacity to speak. That the human
word in some profound way images
the divine Word is itself a signifi-
cant tribute to the power and
majesty of the human word even
within its finite context.

Today scholars and philosophers
continue to be impressed with the
unique power of the human word,
and all kinds of men try to capi-
talize on this power for a thousand
different ends. Yet, few seem to be
impressed with the doctrine that the
power of the human word is insep-
arable from, and ultimately de-
pendent upon, the divine Word.

The secular mind today is much
more impressed with a kind of nat-
uralistic theory that man's word has
emerged from an earthly source as
the result of a long evolutionary
process. Eons of interaction be-
tween the primitive human or-
ganism and its surroundings, they
theorize, is the matrix out of which
human discourse emerged.

For Example

That is to say, the flesh (experi-
ence) gave birth to the word. In
short, St. John's testimony that the
Word became flesh is neatly re-
versed and rearranged. The Word
is ignored, and the flesh becomes
the source of the word. This rever-
sal of priorities between Word,
word, and flesh is today a subtle
heresy of far reaching proportions.

In educational circles, both pub-
lic and church-related, the dominant
theories presuppose that meaning-
ful communication issues only out
of human experience. If the teach-
er does not make the word synony-

mous with doing, according to many
an expert, he impoverishes the
learner.

It is strongly presumed that the
word carries prestige to the extent
that it is the issue of action or do-
ing. Or to put it another way, liv-
ing is the basis of learning. The
human word must be some kind of
facsimile of fleshly experience in or-
der to be effectively utilized for
teaching and communication.

The heretical trend in this pic-
ture stems from the fact that a sub-
tle shift has been made from the
original Biblical emphasis that ex-
perience is important, to the mod-
ern radically secular stance that ex-
perience is the primal source of
learning and wisdom. This secular
tendency to ignore the priority of
the eternal Word and to attribute
the vitality of the human word to
some form of fleshly nurture has
had a critical impact upon the dis-
course of the Church in modern
times.

If it is the primary calling of the
Church to witness to the good news
that the Word was made flesh in or-

There Must Be Authority

The man in the pulpit must speak
with authority; the preacher who
speaks apologetically will soon have
nothing but empty seats. But his
authority must issue from God's
Word and a Spirit-filled experience.
— T. J. Spier, in The Alliance Wit-
ness.

der for men to receive the gift of
eternal life, then it is a grave diver-
sion indeed for Church pulpits and
Church schools increasingly to found
their witness and their authoritative
word in human experience.

A sensory basis for ecclesiastical
pronouncements is likely to be ap-
pealing to a secular world which has
already capitulated to the senses, but
the price to be paid is a disordered
ecclesiastical testimony similar to
the anarchical disorders already ex-
isting in the intellectual communi-
ties at large.

Much of so-called Christian litera-
ture published by the Church these
days is unapologetically experience-
oriented, for after all that is the
kind of discourse which appeals to
an experience-oriented world. But
the Church's acknowledgment that
all its words and all its experience

are subordinate to the eternal Word
is overtly or covertly lost in the
shuffle.

What makes it doubly difficult
to deal with the intricate relation-
ship of experience to truth and learn-
ing is the fact that the Bible
throughout presents a solid defense
of the importance and validity of
human experience. No other book
surpasses it in the utilization of
earthly and fleshly imagery: com-
mon, everyday experiences — green
pastures, still waters, tares, sheep,
marriage, bread wine — to utilize
its teachings and its truth.

No Other Book

It is an awesome tribute to the
flesh that the eternal Word became
flesh, that the One who thought it
not robbery to be equal with God
humbled Himself and became a
man. However, John also made
it clear that the Word became flesh
not that the flesh and its word
should glory, but that flesh should
behold His glory, full of grace and
truth.

It is also a great glory to man that
the written Word was supplied to
us out of earthen vessels, so to speak.
It is also the testimony of these
Scriptures that the power and the
glory are of God and do not origi-
nate in the earthen vessels them-
selves.

Urgent Alternative

There is abundant evidence in
our age that when human experi-
ence per se becomes the prior source
of truth, the outcome is Babel in
which words lose both their power
and meaning, whether it be in the
discourse of the Church or of the
world. Human experience in itself,
changing, elusive, often distraught,
when it becomes the sole basis of
the human word, is bound to leave
the hearer perplexed, confused and
even spiritually numbed.

An urgent alternative for the
Church (above all, the Church) is
to hear once again what the Apostle
John said: "The Word was made
flesh." The flesh indeed, but first
the Word. An humble acknowledg-
ment of this priority of the eternal
Word will vitalize once again the
depth and variety of the Church's
discourse, and at the same time pro-
vide the spiritual weaponry for un-
doing the tyranny of words which
these days threaten the fragile de-
fenses of the human soul. SI

PAGE 12 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 29, 1972

Against every natural instinct, Jesus went out to meet the cross —

The Contrary Christ

Jesus was not contrary in some
repugnant sense; He was just
iifferent from other human beings
md, most of all, different from what
/ou and I know of ourselves.

In His attitude Jesus was contrary
n the matter of self interest. "Jesus
:herefore, knowing all things that
ihould come upon Him, went forth,
ind said unto them, Whom seek ye?"
\n angry crowd had gathered; Judas
-vas leading them. It was obvious
:hat Jesus had been betrayed into
;;he hands of sinners, yet He went
but and said, "Whom seek ye?"
I He was not a fool, nor a suicidal
Inaniac as some have lately tried to
bicture Him. He was a man in love
j/vith life, who brought life to its
'ullest dimension, who gave that di-
mension to you and me and will give
t still, if we trust in Him and live
[n Him.

Facts of Life

But He went out, contrary to His
mman interests, contrary to the con-
Em which causes you and me to
liide from the facts of life, and fairly
aced those facts, so that people like
>ou and me might have forgiveness,
'night know love, might find the
neaning of life in His name.

He gave His life a ransom for
inany, according to the deliberate
jounsel and foreknowledge of God.
|ie gave Himself that you and I
inight live. How different was His
ife from your life and mine, as we
uide from the facts, supposing that
jhey will somehow change, somehow
lemper, somehow vary, if only we
jvait long enough. Jesus' nature was
Ijontrary to yours and mine: He
aced the facts of life,
j! "Jesus answered, I have told you

The author is pastor of the First
fresbyterian Church. (UPUSA) ,
Vaukegan, III.

that I am he: if therefore ye seek
me, let these go their way." Here
again He acted in a contrary fashion,
contrary to the herd instinct that
marks your life and mine. How we
like to hide in the midst of the
crowd! How uneasily we move out
on our own initiative and in our
own direction.

I think I know a little bit about
that, having gone, on occasion,
against the grain of presently pre-
vailing religious movements. I know
what it is to stand alone and feel
a sense of utter isolation, like some
modern Elijah wondering where the
other 6,999 may be.

The herd instinct marks our com-
mon humanity, and mars it, as well.
God has called such to be His own,
with lives marked by the singular
reflection of His glory in a unique
way, yet we want to go and hide
and cry or, at best, go and bury our-
selves in the herd.

Contrary to human nature which
seeks cover in numbers, Jesus said:
"If you seek me, then let these go
their way." He had been three years
building their friendship, the rap-
port of His spirit with theirs, but
what He had to do, He had to do
uniquely and alone. The cross was
His to bear, first and foremost. Only
when it had been so borne, could He
say to others: "Rise, take up your
cross and follow me."

Then, when Peter angrily drew
his sword, He turned and said to
him, "Put up thy sword into its
sheath: the cup which my Father has
given me, shall I not drink it?" Here
He was contrary again, not only to
personal interest and herd instinct,
but contrary to the very natural in-
stinct of man to preserve himself.

Jesus was no brawler, no senseless
fool, fighting His way through life.
Our Lord was a man willing to
fight for the rights of others, to go

R. NORMAN HERBERT

in and cleanse the temple, but He
gave up His life with an utter sense
of what it meant to live. He bore
the passions of our flesh and the
concerns of our life within Himself,
else He could not have stood in our
place. He loved life, yet He went
against His natural instinct to pre-
serve His own.

"Shall I not drink this cup which
my Father has given me? Peter, put
up your sword. I won't hide be-
hind you. I won't run away. The
cross is here, and it is mine to bear."

He Met the Cross

Sometimes, as we contend for the
faith, as indeed we are called to do,
we get so excited in our contending
that we become downright conten-
tious. We become so excited with
what we believe to be our right that
we fail to see the rights of others.

I'm surely as guilty of this as most
people I know, and then I see my
Lord, in all the clarity of lis con-
cern and equanimity of His involve-
ment, putting His life on the line
and saying, "Peter, put up your
sword. Forget the folly of fighting.
This is a battle to be waged at the
level of the spirit. It is mine." And
so against every natural instinct
which was His, He went out to meet
the cross.

The call of this contrary Christ
is clear upon your life and mine. In
the light of what He has done, we
rise, take up our cross and follow
Him. Although it may be against
personal interest, though it be
against herd instinct, though it be
against every natural instinct to pre-
serve ourselves, we are to walk with
Him who defied all these things and
gave His life that we, in newness of
life and in the power of His might,
may yield our own lives in common
cause to serve the Christ and all
mankind. E

PAGE 13 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 29, 1972

EDITORIALS

The Commandments
No Longer Matter

From the four quarters of the com-
pass, readers have sent us copies of
the latest (Fall) issue of Faculty
Forum, a paper associated with the
"Christian" campus movement and
published (in part) by the Presby-
terian Church US.

This one has an article by the
Rev. Deane W. Ferm, a United Pres-
byterian minister who is chaplain at
Mount Holyoke College for women.
It purports to be a "letter to Sue,"
who has just gone off to college, on
the subject of sex.

Written as by a father and mother
to their daughter, the "letter" says,
in part:

"We would recommend that you
confine intercourse within the limits
made by the promise to marry ....
You will note that I suggested that
you limit intercourse to the mar-
riage promise rather than the mar-
riage ceremony.

"It is naive to think that the wed-
ding night should mark a radical
change in the physical intimacy be-
tween two loved ones. This abrupt
attempt to 'switch it on' can often
promote unnecessary tensions that

will compound the problems of ad-
justment to married life.

"Once the promise to marry is
made, a man and woman, in their
sharing of dreams for the future, can
often experience in their sexual in-
timacies a deepening fulfillment of
their love. Such a gradual sexual
adjustment may make the early
stages of married life that much
more harmonious and wonderful.

"We recognize, however, that love
is a many-splendored thing and that
there are no rules to determine the
proper behavior for every situation
in which you will find yourself. The
value to the so-called 'new morality'
is that you yourself must decide
what is the responsible thing to
do ... .

"It may be that you will decide
differently about premarital sex
than we have advised. You may
think it quite proper to engage in
intercourse under circumstances be-
yond our suggested limits. This is
your decision to make as an adult
and we trust that you will make it
wisely, honestly and responsibly. If
you so decide, then there are some

Commission Goes Too Far, Wakes Church Up

We've just heard from another
presbytery which, like most presby-
teries today, has a Commission on
the Minister and his Work that is
willing to do just about everything
short of physical mayhem to keep
out any minister bearing the faint
aroma of conservatism.

This one, in dealing with one of
its smaller congregations, turned
down a man who has never been
controversial, never divisive, never
anything but highly regarded — but
he signed the "Declaration of Com-
mitment" of Presbyterian Church-
men United.

So the commission told the con-
gregation that "he cannot give the
kind of strong leadership" it needed;
that "his lack of support of his Pres-
byterian obligations indicates a less
than healthy working relationship
with the presbytery"; that "he did

not graduate from one of our semi-
naries" — and so on and so on.

Wrote the pulpit committee chair-
man to us: "One good thing has
come out of it all. It has awakened
our congregation to what is going on.
Now it is not some distant church
off in another state that has been
affected by the issues, but our
church. We have spent the past few
Wednesday evenings studying the is-
sues before the Church and we are
getting a lot of help from the Jour-
nal. We now have a copy going to
each member of the church."

We've seen this sort of thing in-
creasingly of late, as the liberal
brethren manage to overstep them-
selves in case after case.

Come to think of it, maybe we
need more commissions like that
one! IB

things we think you ought to know
about our own feelings toward you

"First, we would not want you to
feel guilty. It is unfortunate that
most of our traditional teaching
about premarital sex — and all sex
for that matter — has been couched
in negative 'thou shalt nots.' Such a
negative approach only serves to in
crease guilt, suspicion and tension.

"So do not feel ashamed that you
have acted contrary to what
your church and we as parents have
suggested. Society, church and par-
ents are as fallible as you are in
their judgments as to what is right
and wrong."

Note the author is chaplain at a
woman's college. How would you
like to have him advising youi
daughter in spiritual matters?

Just another reason why the coun
try desperately needs a new Presby
terian witness that is true to Scrip
ture and to the Reformed faith.

Depends On
How You Look at It

In an interesting answer in hi
"Questions and Answers" column in
the Survey, Ben L. Rose said thai
withdrawal from the Presbyterian
Church is un-Scriptural because the
Scriptures "condemn false swear
ing." He went on to explain:

"When your church was organized
. . . the congregation was asked the
question, 'Do you in reliance upor
God for strength, solemnly promise
and covenant that you will wall
together as an organized church or
the principles of the faith and ordei
of the Presbyterian Church in the
United States . . . .' The faith anc
order of the PCUS does not permi
a congregation to withdraw with it:
property, without the permission o
the presbytery which has jurisdic
tion."

We will forego speaking to tha
last sentence, which is based on th(
silence of the constitution rathei
than a particular provision. It i
true that the constitution does no
permit a congregation to withdrav
without permission. It also does no
forbid such.

Dr. Rose's answer almost suggest
that he means to say it is unconsti
tutional to take the action describee
— which is different from sayinj
that the constitution eloes not pro
vide for such action.

The point that caught us, howev
er, was another. If the congrega
tion swore a solemn oath to covenan

PAGE 14 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 29, 1972

THE LAYMAN AND HIS CHURCH

What Do You Believe?

together "on the principles of the
faith and order of the Presbyterian
Church US," then what should it
do if the Presbyterian Church US
departs from its own principles of
faith and order?

Note the oath is not to the organi-
zation, but rather to the principles
bound up in a constitution.

Would a congregation adhering
to Biblical and Reformed principles
— those of the faith and order of
the PCUS — be "false swearing"
if it rejected the PCUS's own false
swearing, as a denomination?

There are some who are convinced
that the only way a congregation
can be true to its Christian and ec-
clesiastical commitment is to reject
the Presbyterian Church in the Unit-
ed States.

Then only can it be true to its
vows. SI

What Price Change?

Some things have to be said over
and over because the same queries
keep coming in, over and over.

Now that the series of articles on
the proposed new confession of faith
has been running for a while, the
queries are beginning to come in:
"Why are you opposed to a new
confession of faith? Don't you be-
lieve the Church should state its
faith in the language of each gen-
eration?"

We'll say it again: We would be
perfectly willing to support the
modernization of the Church's con-
fession — we would even be willing
to support the writing of a wholly
new confession — if we had any rea-
son to believe that it could be done
by those in charge without muti-
lating the essential faith of the
Church.

So long as the aim of revision is
the abolition of essential Christian
truth, we oppose revision.

Put it another way: The Confes-
sion of Faith is the constitution of
the Church, identical in purpose and
use with the constitution of the
United States. It isn't a "commen-
tary" designed to "speak relevantly"
to a particular generation. It is a
"law" such as Newton's Law, which
is designed to state truth for all
time, or until proved wrong.

Let's straighten out our thinking
about this matter. And if we can-
not accept the Church's confession,
let's be honest enough to say so in-
stead of camouflaging our intent
with appeals to "relevancy." Ill

To each of us in our Christian
lives comes a time when we are
asked, "What do you believe?" To
those of us who are privileged to be
called as officers in the Presbyterian
Church US, what we believe and
confess, publicly or privately, has a
great impact on others — whether
we at the moment realize it or not —
for we are looked upon and called
upon to be "examples to the flock."

Recently the question was asked,
"How do I know that the Scriptures
are the Word of God?" This is an
honest and fair question to ask of
any believer, be he layman or of-
ficer. If one does any amount of
witnessing, this question will be fre-
quently posed in an argumentative
sense. This shouldn't be a cause of
worry. We should have a firm, defi-
nite answer which will be expressed
by and through our faith, a faith
given to us by God and nurtured in
us by the Holy Spirit.

As an elder in the church, I have
stated before a congregation that I
believe the Scriptures to be the
Word of God, the only infallible
rule of faith and practice, and I ac-
cept the Westminster Confession of
Faith and the Catechisms as contain-
ing the system of doctrine taught in
the holy Scriptures. So let us turn
to these books and see what is there
that might clarify this question,
"Are the Scriptures the Word of
God?"

Question #4 of the Larger Cat-
echism asks: "How doth it appear
that the Scriptures are the word of
God?"

The answer is: "The Scriptures
manifest themselves to be the word
of God, by their majesty and purity;
by the consent of all the parts, and
the scope of the whole, which is to
give all glory to God; by their light
and power to convince and convert
sinners, to comfort and build up be-

Milford H. Lyman, who has
served as deacon and cider in the
Presbyterian Church US, is clerk of
session, Pinelands Presbyterian
Church, Miami Fla.

lievers unto salvation. But the Spirit
of God, bearing witness by and with
the Scriptures in the heart of man,
is alone able fully to persuade it
that they are the very word of God."
References: John 16:13-14; I Cor. 2:
6-9.

In chapter 1, paragraph 4 of the
Confession of Faith we find: "The
authority of the Holy Scripture, for
which it ought to be believed and
obeyed, dependeth not upon the tes-
timony of any man or church, but
wholly upon God (who is truth it-
self) the author thereof; and there-
fore it is to be received, because it is
the word of God." References: I
Thess. 2:13; II Tim. 3:16; II Pet. 1:
21; Gal. 1:11-12.

My belief and adoption of the
above hasn't lessened, but on the
contrary has grown more positive in
affirming that, "This I believe, with-
out any doubt, that the Bible is the
word of God."

Also I believe because of what has
occurred in my own life. The truths
set down in the latter part of Ques-
tion #4 above have proved to me
that the Bible has to be God's in-
spired word, i.e., "by their (the
Scriptures) light and power to con-
vince and convert sinners (me!) , to
comfort me, to build me up unto
salvation. The Spirit of God using
the Scriptures in my heart, persuad-
ed me, that they (Scriptures) are
the very word of God."

How do I know that the Scrip-
tures are the inspired word of God?
Why, because those words changed
my life completely. There is no
doubt in my mind and heart as to
what I once was and what I now am.
If a book like this can turn a man
around completely after 46 years,
then there is a God of love and
mercy and He speaks to you and me
through the words of this holy Book.

I can also see the evidence of this
same light and power working in
others who through reading the
Scriptures alone were changed from
"enemies of God to sons and daugh-
ters of God."

{Continued on p. 22, col. 3)

PAGE 15 7 THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 29, 1972

SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON

For December 17, 1972

When Loyalty Becomes Costly

Rev. Jack B. Scott

INTRODUCTION: When the
Lord called Jeremiah to be a proph-
et, He called him to bear a hard
message to His people. In the mes-
sage God said He would utter His
judgments against Israel because of
her great wickedness (1:16). Last
week we saw some of the details
of this judgment message from the
Lord delivered by Jeremiah.

As Jeremiah continued to speak
the truth, his message became more
and more vivid for everyone. It
was apparent that he had come to
tell Jerusalem that because of her
sins she would be judged and over-
thrown by her enemies.

Jeremiah had told of seeing the
potter make vessels as he willed and
destroy them as he pleased. From
this God showed him that Israel was
like clay in His hands, to be molded
as He pleased and, if unacceptable,
to be destroyed at His will (Jer.
18).

Then Jeremiah took a clay vessel
made by a potter and smashed it be-
fore the people saying, "Thus saith
the Lord of hosts: even so will I
break this people and this city, as
one breaketh a potter's vessel that
cannot be made whole again" (19:
11) . The message he spoke, togeth-
er with this visual aid, was quite
clear to the people, and it drew the
fire of hostility from those who dis-
agreed with him.

The problem, then, was how Jere-
miah would bear up under the con-
stant attacks against him by God's
enemies in Israel. He was in the
battle up to his neck. He was stand-
ing with the Lord and thus against
the unbelievers in the Church. Trou-
ble would surely come.

I. JEREMIAH'S CRISES (Jer.
20) . Pashur, the chief officer in
the house of the Lord and a very
important leader of the Jews, lashed
out against Jeremiah and had him
put in stocks.

As a religious leader Pashur had
great power. He was one of thou-
sands who kept telling Jerusalem
that God would protect the city,
that it would not fall. He lied, as

Background Scripture: Jeremiah

20, 21, 37, 38, 39:15-18
Key Verses: Jeremiah 38:2-13
Devotional Reading: Jeremiah 20:

7-12

Memory Selection: Jeremiah 1:19

they all lied, but the people pre-
ferred to believe a lie rather than
repent of their sins as Jeremiah
called them to do.

When Pashur released Jeremiah
the next day, Jeremiah denounced
his action and predicted his own
personal destruction at the hands
of the enemy (vv. 3-6) .

After his denunciation of Pashur,
Jeremiah turned to the Lord with
a heavy heart. His message was so
hard, with so little comfort; the
plucking up, breaking down, de-
stroying, and overthrowing aspects
of his ministry were in full swing
(1:10), and it was so very difficult.

First, Jeremiah was made a laugh-
ingstock. Everyone was mocking
him (v. 7) . Even worse, God's word
was being made a reproach. Peo-
ple did not wish to hear it and it
grated against their ears (v. 8) .
Even Jeremiah's own friends and
family were denouncing him and
were looking for an opportunity to
get revenge on him (v. 10) .

We are reminded here of the suf-
fering which our Lord endured at
the hands of His enemies while on
earth. As Jeremiah's "familiar
friends" fought against him, many
who had pretended to be with Jesus
in the end turned against Him.
(Compare Psalm 41:9 and John 13:
18).

At times Jeremiah felt like ceas-
ing to preach God's word (v. 9) ,
but that word was like a fire burn-
ing inside of him. It had to come
out. He was willing to suffer for
his Lord and share the suffering of
Christ himself. This was the cost
of discipleship.

Jeremiah knew that the Lord was
with him (v. 11) and he knew that

The International Sunday School Lesson Outlines
are copyrighted 1972 by the Committee on the
Uniform Series ol the National Council of
Churches of Christ.

all men stood either with or against
the Lord. He had a sense of the
enmity that necessarily existed be-
tween the child of God and the child
of Satan. (Compare Genesis 3:15).

He prayed for what God had
promised, that all unrighteousness
and unrighteous ones would be over-
thrown, that Satan would be defeat-
ed (20:11-13). This is the prayer
that all of God's children must pray
if we are to be in harmony with
God's purposes and promises. (Com-
pare Psalm 1:5-6; Psalm 139:21-22).

When we read the cursing of his
day of birth (vv. 14-18), we must
not be quick to judge Jeremiah here
as unspiritual. Remember that he
was called on to bear an extremely
difficult burden, just as was Job
(Job 1,2). Job also cursed his day
(Job 3) .

These two great men of God were
undoubtedly called upon to bear
more than most of God's children
have to bear for the glory of God.
This cry of agony in the midst of
their trials cannot be dismissed by us
as signs of spiritual weakness. In-
deed, they are evidences of the great
strength which God gave to them to
go on in the face of such suffering
and hardship.

We are reminded of our Lord's
cry on the cross (Matt. 27:46) . We
certainly do not consider Jesus' cry
a sign of weakness but an evidence of
great agony he went through, not
merely physical, but spiritual agony.
In a lesser but nevertheless a similar
way, Jeremiah and Job suffered
while sharing in the suffering of
their Lord.

This was the crisis in Jeremiah's
life. The question was, how would
he continue? Would he modify his
message to make his life more bear-
able or would he continue to bear
the message God had given him?

II. THE TESTS OF JERE-
MIAHS FAITH. The tests came
in the form of inquiries from the
king of Judah, Zedekiah, and the re-
sults are seen in Jeremiah's response
to him in each case.

A. Zedekiah's first inquiry (Jer.

PAGE 16 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 29, 1972

21) . This test came when King
Zedekiah wished to know from Jere-
miah whether, as in the days of
King Hezekiah, God would deliver
Jerusalem from her enemies' hands.
No doubt Jeremiah had heard what
the false prophets kept telling the
king, namely that all was well and
that there would be peace (com-
pare Jeremiah 6:14).

This is a situation similar to the
one in Jehosaphat's day when false
prophets tried to compel the prophet
Micah to lie and tell the king that
all was well when in reality it was
not well (see I Kings 22) .

Jeremiah surely knew that the
king wished to hear good news, but
good news is not what the Lord gave
him to tell. Instead, God said, "I
myself will fight against you" (v. 5) .
The threefold curse of God would
fall on Jerusalem: pestilence, sword
and famine (v. 7) . The only hope
for the king and the people was to
surrender (vv. 8-9) .

This kind of message took great
spiritual courage. It went against
the grain of men's thinking. It was
most unpopular, for all wished to
believe the lies of the false proph-
ets. Jeremiah stood this test but it
cost him greatly.

B. Zedekiah's second inquiry
(Jer. 37) . Again Zedekiah ap-
proached Jeremiah for some word
of assurance. Though unpopular,
Jeremiah was still free to preach (v.
4) . The situation was this: Nebu-
chadnezzar was laying siege to Je-
rusalem, and Jeremiah warned the
people to surrender.

At this time, to make matters
worse for Jeremiah, the Egyptian
army came up from Egypt and the
Chaldean siege of Jerusalem was tem-
porarily broken up (v. 5) .

The king saw this as a sign of
hope and assumed that Jeremiah
would say that God through Egypt
was delivering His people. To the
contrary, Jeremiah continued to
preach the sure message of doom
(vv. 9-10) .

While the Chaldeans were gone,
Jeremiah took the occasion to go to
his parental home to see the land
which he earlier purchased (w. 11-
12; 32:8) . At this point his actions
were misunderstood and his enemies
accused him of treason (going over
to the enemy — Babylon) .

He was put in prison, yet even
there he refused to speak what the
king wished to hear. He was faith-
ful to the Lord in prison (v. 16) .
Later, even in prison, Paul contin-

ued to preach the Gospel and serve
the Lord (Acts 28) .

C. Zedekiah's third inquiry (Jer.
, 38) . The enemies of Jeremiah, not
satisfied with his imprisonment and
because, though in prison, he was
still a formidable witness of God's
truth, next accused him of treason
and therefore worthy of death (vv.
1-4).

At an earlier time, these same
princes who called for his death had
defended Jeremiah (see chapter
26) . Then they went over to Jere-
miah's enemies, the false priests and
false prophets in the Church.

Zedekiah, who had looked to Jere-
miah before for help, looked the oth-
er way while Jeremiah was put in
the pit to die (vv. 5-6) . At this
point God raised up a deliverer for
Jeremiah, a man called Ebed-Melech
(v. 7) . He received permission from
the king to rescue Jeremiah.

"Surely now," the king may have
reasoned, "Jeremiah will tell me
what I wish to hear" (v. 14) . But
again, not forsaking the Lord, Jere-
miah declared exactly what he had
before: surrender or be destroyed,
it is God's judgment against sinful
Jerusalem (vv. 17-23). Once more
Jeremiah stood the test of faithful-
ness.

III. GOD CARES FOR HIS
OWN WHO ARE LOYAL TO
HIM (Jer. 39:15-18; 45; 1:17-19).
These passages illustrate how God
cares for those who are faithful to
Him. It cost Ebed-Melech to stand
with Jeremiah when he was so hated
by most people. He risked his life
and his future for God's servants
and God assured him of deliverance
and salvation. "Because thou hast
put thy trust in me" (39:18).

It also cost Baruch to be the
scribe of Jeremiah. Read how he
risked his life to read God's word
through Jeremiah to the people and
the princes. God assured Baruch al-
so that though he suffered then, God
would preserve his life when the rest
would be killed in judgment (Jer.
36, 45) .

Finally, we have seen the courage
and the great cost of courage for
Jeremiah. He laid his life on the
line for God constantly. To his
own generation he appeared a fool,
but he was a fool for God. At the
time of his call he was told of the
suffering he must endure. All of his
life was a continuing trial of his
faith. He was eventually carried
off to Egypt against his will after

Jerusalem fell, but he never wavered
in his faith.

God's promise to him at the time
of his call sufficed for Jeremiah as
it did for Moses and Joshua and for
all of God's children. "I am with
thee ... to deliver thee" (1:9).

CONCLUSION: From this we
should see that when we stand for
our Lord it will be unpopular with
men, even those in the Church who
are not guided by God's word. They
will oppose us while opposing God's
word.

Jesus warned that this must hap-
pen (John 15:20) . It is our privi-
lege to suffer for Christ's sake. When
Jesus called men to follow Him, it
was to a hard task — He spoke in
terms of His own cross to illustrate
what following Him would mean
(Matt. 16:24).

Loyalty does cost, loyalty to our
Lord may cost even our lives, but
God never deserts His own. He did
not desert Ebed-Melech, He did not
desert Baruch, and He did not desert
Jeremiah. He will not desert you,
either. IB

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on the base, six on the treble; a full
organ tab; five octaves on the keyboard.

Cost is $1,000 F.O.B. Sullivans Island,
S. C. Write: W. R. Willauer, Box 622,
Sullivans Island, S. C. 29482.

PAGE 17 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 29, 1972

YOUTH PROGRAM

Scripture: Acts 17:16-32
Suggested Hymns:

"O, for a Thousand Tongues

to Sing"
"O Word of God Incarnate"
"My Jesus, I Love Thee"

PROGRAM LEADER'S INTRO-
DUCTION: The system of deities
in the city of Athens was so elabo-
rate that the people were not sure
they knew all their gods. In an at-
tempt to pacify any god who might
have been overlooked, they made a
place to worship "The Unknown
God."

Paul saw in this their unwitting
acknowledgment of their basic prob-
lem, the real God was unknown to
them. Paul used this observation as
an introduction to the sermon he
preached in Athens. It was a clever
move, and he held their attention
until mention of the resurrection of-
fended their sophisticated intellect.

It is possible that some churches
existing today should be dedicated
to the unknown God. There is no
widespread worship of carved or mol-
ten idols. Most people recognize
that God is some kind of spiritual
being, and that constitutes an im-
provement over the Athenian atti-
tude.

But really, how many people who
claim to be Christians and who en-
gage in some form of worship with
fair regularity have a very clear idea
of the nature of God? How many
of us feel that we are personally ac-
quainted with the Lord? To a great
many people, even to some who bear
the name "Christian," God is still a
relatively unknown person.

A young lady who had spent five
years in a convent said afterwards
that the Lord used this passage in
Acts 17 about the "unknown god" to
bring her to Himself. She said that
she, like the people in Athens, was
very "religious" but she did not real-
ly know the Lord.

FIRST SPEAKER: Let us look
at some of the ideas which people

For December 17, 1972

0384 v/OY THW mm — JQOH3I

The Unknown God

Rev. B. Hoyt Evans

hold about God, ideas which indi-
cate that they do not really know
Him. Some people think of God as
a stern, heartless judge who sits on
a throne and metes out punishment
to those who are relatively bad and
rewards to those who are relatively
good.

It is true that God is unbending
in His righteousness and justice. He
must be if He is to be consistent and
dependable, but God is not stern
and vindictive. Jesus told us to
address Him as "our Father in
heaven."

He is not especially concerned
about relative badness and goodness.
Anything less than perfect righteous-
ness is bad in His sight, so there is
no possibility of our being relatively
good enough to earn His favor and
blessing.

The Bible says, "There is none
righteous ... no not one." All the
blessings we receive from God are
gifts of His grace. For any person
who has not grasped this idea, God
is still unknown.

Other people think of God as a
man who lived a long time ago and
who is a proper example to hold
before children. It is no wonder
that they are not very enthusiastic
about their worship of Him.

They need to know that God is
very much alive. They need to
know that He is virile and power-
ful. They need to know that He
holds this universe (both physical
and spiritual) in the hollow of His
hand. Until they come to this un-
derstanding of Him, God will re-
main unknown to them.

Still others think of God as some
kind of benevolent influence, some-
thing similar to the: better side of
human nature. God, to them, is
like the "milk of human kindness."
He is the ideal of goodness and love
as we see it expressed in the lives of
nice people.

These persons need to know that
God is a very real and present per-
son who once took to Himself ij a
body of flesh and blood and entered
into human history. They need to

8

r'l

10

C

I!
10

in

know that He suffered, died and
rose again, and that He lives and
rules in His world today. No one
knows God who does not know Him
as a person.

SECOND SPEAKER: How is it
that men may come to know God
as He is? There is a sense in which
it cannot be done at all. We can-
not know God perfectly. Our minds
are too small and too limited to con-
ceive of Him fully.

"For my thoughts are not your
thoughts, neither are your ways my
ways, saith the Lord. For as the
heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your
ways and my thoughts than your
thoughts" (Isa. 55:8-9) . While we
cannot know God fully, we can
know Him in a way which is ade-
quate for our needs and for His
glory.

We know God only as He makes
Himself known to us. It is not a
matter of our seeking and finding
Him. It is a matter of God's reveal-
ing Himself, and this He has chosen
to do. He makes Himself known in
His works of creation and provi- 1 «l
dence. "The heavens declare th&\
glory of God, and the firmament
showeth his handiwork" (Psa. 19:1).

"The invisible things of him from
the creation of the world are clearly
seen, being understood by the things
that are made, even his eternal pow-
er and Godhead" (Rom. 1:20) . The
sin in the heart of man has made
him misinterpret the revelation of j
God in the works of creation and
providence, so He has spoken to us
of Himself in an even clearer way.

God reveals Himself to us in the
Scriptures. The Bible is truly the
Word of God, having been inspired
by God the Holy Spirit. "All Scrip-
ture is given by inspiration of
God . . ." (II Tim. 3:16) . God
speaks to us of His nature and of
His will in words of human lan-
guage.

An Eskimo, oni hearing that the' H
Bible was translated into his native *
language, said, "Now God speaks Es-*, ^c

PAGE 18 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 29, 1972

i

I

I
ft)
Mk
k
Ml
Id

it,

kimo." Even this revelation in words
did not prove adequate to acquaint
sinful man with God.

The full revelation of God was
and is made in the person of God's
awn Son who came and lived among
us as one of us. He came not only
to show us what God is like, but He
came to remove the sin which blinds
Dur spiritual eyes, making it impos-
iible for us to understand the revela-
tion which has already been given.

Christ reveals God by showing us
God's nature in Himself, and by re-
moving our sin through His sacri-
fice in our place. Only when we are
nade new creatures in Christ and
ire clothed in the righteousness of
God which He supplies are we able
o know God in an adequate way.

We can know God only as we give
jur lives in faith to Jesus Christ to
3e cleansed by Him. We can know
God adequately only as we know
Him in Jesus Christ. In other words,
person does not have a satisfactory
nowledge of God until he becomes
Christian.

If anyone is concerned about
nowing God, the very first thing
le must do is to be sure of His sal-
tation through Christ. Jesus said,
'No man cometh unto the Father
nit by me" (John 14:6) . Again He
aid, "He that hath seen me hath
een the Father" (John 14:9) .

PROGRAM LEADER: Once a
)erson has been enlightened by
Christ he should continue to make
ise of the other ways of revelation,
iod's creation and the study of the
icriptures.

God will give increased knowledge
if Himself to those who seek to
.now Him better. "Ask, and it shall
>e given you, seek, and ye shall find,
:nock, and it shall be opened unto
ou" (Matt. 7:7) . We know the
vay to the knowledge of God. Let
t not be said of us that we ignorant-
f worship an unknown god.

BOOKS

Closing Prayer.

m

I Scripture gives no false informa-
ion. — Augustine.

OURTH HOLY LAND TRAVEL AND
TUDY PROGRAM, Feb. 19, 1973. Tour
lembers have special two-week itinerary
l Israel. Qualified students study and
avel from American Institute on ML Zion.
irst class hotels, scheduled airlines only,
ponsored by Senior Class, conducted
y Dr. J. C. DeYoung. For information
/rite Reformed Theological Seminary,
422 Clinton Blvd., Jackson Miss. 39209.
hone (601) 922-4988.

HOW TO START YOUR OWN
SCHOOL — AND WHY YOU NEED
ONE, by Samuel L. Blumenf ield. Ar-
lington House, New Rochelle, N. Y.
381 pp. $9.95. Reviewed by the Rev.
Robert R. Davis, Administrative Vice
President, Westminster Christian
School, Miami, Fla.

In our changing times a great
number of private schools have been
started. These schools are a prod-
uct of the concern of parents who
are acting because they are fearful
of the quality of education their
children are receiving in public
schools.

Seeing this demand for private
schools, the author has written to
set forth a preliminary guideline for
those who wish to start their own
school.

Blumenfield has a very interest-
ing section about the failure of the
public school system, in which he
details some of his own experiences
in such school systems. He very
astutely sets forth the philosophical
reasons for this failure. The philos-
ophy behind a private school is most
important, and the author guides
the reader's thinking into the right
philosophy.

To find out what has practically
worked, the author visited various
private schools in several states. Us-
ing their experiences, he then lists
the practical aspects of how to get
started, how to choose a curriculum,
how to pick a faculty, and other
practical matters. Among the more

important things about this book are
the appendices which list organiza-
tions of interest to private schools.

Any parent who is interested in
starting a private school should get
this book. It also would be of great
value to any concerned person who
works with the public school system.
It would help guide them in keeping
the public schools on the right
track. E

LIVING THAT COUNTS, A Study
Guide to the Book of James, by W. J.
Krutza and P. P. Dicicco. Baker Book
House, Grand Rapids, Mich. 120 pp.
$1.25. Reviewed by the Rev. Fred
Thompson Jr., pastor, First Presbyte-
rian Church, Woodruff, S. C.

Written by two qualified laymen,
this brief but concise study guide to
the book of James is a refreshing
commentary on one of the most pow-
erful books in all the Bible. Ortho-

The Kingdom
Of The Cults

by

Walter R. Martin

"For years to come this volume
will be widely recognized as the
outstanding work on the history,
teachings, and tragic errors of the
cults of our age." — Wilbur Smith.
$6.95 postpaid
Order from
THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL
Weaverville, N. C. 28787

INTEREST

Offered by prospectus only

FIRST MORTGAGE CHURCH BONDS

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PAGE 19 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 29, 1972

^PRESBYTERIAN

^<xuuvaL

A Presbyterian magazine devoted to the statement, defense
and propagation of the Gospel, the faith which was
once for all delivered unto the saints.

WEAVERVILLE, N. C. 28787

Dear George & Carol:

You've asked two excellent questions:

(1) "How large is the budget for the Continuing Presby-

terian Church (Loyal to Scripture and the Reformed
Faith)? "

(2) "What plans have been made to raise this money?"

(1) As of right now, the Continuing Presbyterian Church
(Loyal to Scripture and the Reformed Faith) has not been or-
ganized; but many loyal Presbyterians stand ready, waiting
for God's signal to take this step. We believe that this will
come in the very near future. When this time comes, we know
that this Continuing Church will need a great deal of money to
initiate its current expense and benevolent budgets.

(2) As of now, there is no organized Fund-Raising Campaign. We
believe that this is God's work and that He will provide the

necessary funds. These funds will come through people

people like you and me who are led by the Holy Spirit to be a
part of this great work. We know that even now He is already
working in the hearts of countless Christians to accomplish

Hi s purpo se .

Let us continue to ask for the guidance of the Holy Spirit
that His will may be done in this matter of Stewardship.

Yours in the Master's Service,

CL. Ijfcfc.

Steve A. White, Chairman

Board of Trustees, The Presbyterian Journal

P.S. You may send your gift ( tax- de due t ible ) designated for the
Continuing Presbyterian Church to any one of the following:

The Presbyterian Journal
Weaverville, N. C. 28787

Presbyterian Evangelistic

Fellowship
Box 808

Hopewell, Va . 23360

Conci
100 N
Miami ,

erned Presbyterians, Inc
N. Biscavne Blvd.

Biscayne Blvd
Fla. 33132

Presbyterian Churchmen

United
3^36 Wellington Rd .
Montgomery, Ala. 36106

PAGE 20 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 29, 1972

dox and evangelical to the hilt, it
calls upon the reader to examine his
life to see if he is actually living up
to the Biblical standards enunciated
by the brother of our Lord.

Perfect for circle studies, Bible
study groups, Sunday school classes,
it seems to be just the thing for any-
one wanting to really come to grips
with the strong Biblical teaching by
one of the most outspoken writers in
all of Scripture. HE

JAMES, A Practical Faith, by
Murray W. Downey, Moody Press,
Chicago, HI. 143 pp. $2.25. Reviewed

by the Rev. Fred Thompson Jr., pastor,
First Presbyterian Church, Wood-
ruff, S. C.

As a detailed study guide to the
book of James, this scholarly, yet
down-to-earth work by professor
Downey has many valuable assets.
A wealth of information on the
background of the book is offered
with an especially full coverage on
the question of authorship.

Other major divisions of the book
give sections for study group discus-
sions, a series of "sermonized" verses
with material for sermon develop-
ment, and a section of word studies

GOOD GIFTS

The Living Bible $9.95

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Since the opening of the first Belk-Simpson Store, it has been our
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We have set forth a united concentrated effort, dedicated to the task
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PAGE 21 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 29, 1972

WANTED!

dedicated Christians to
serve in the following
capacities:

• Evangelist to proclaim
the Word of God along the
Westward outreach of the
new highways of Brazil

• Radio technician to work
in Christian broadcasting

in Zaire

• Chest surgeons,
anesthesiologists, pathologists,
skilled nurses to work in
mission hospitals

These and many other
opportunities are offered
through the Presbyterian
Church US to those who
wish to serve the Church
in other nations.

Do you have a year to
give — or the rest of
your life . . . ?

We may have the job
for you!

For information, write:
The Rev. Stewart Bridgman
Office of Recruitment, Box 330
Nashville, Tenn. 37202

in which key words in the text are
examined to help derive their full-
est meaning within the context of
the Scripture.

A Bible professor at Canadian Bi-
ble College for over 30 years, author
Downey has the academic qualifica-
tions for this thoroughly finished
work. El

WISDOM, THE PRINCIPAL
THING: Studies in the book of
Proverbs, by Kenneth L. Jensen. Pa-
cific Meridian Publ. Co., Seattle,
Wash. Paper, 167 pp. $2.95. Reviewed
by Robert M. Metcalf Jr., Memphis,
Tenn.

Here the author does a study in

N-E-W
Peloubet's
Notes

for September 1972
to August 1973

» New Editor!

Dr. Ralph Earle,
Kansas City, Mo.
1 New Format!
1 New Suggested Intro-
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and Youth, and New
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1 New Discussion

Questions!
■ New Contemporary
Application!

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$3.95 cloth
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The Presbyterian Journal

Weaverville NC 28787

considerable depth of one of the
Old Testament favorites: the book
of Proverbs. There we do have a
rich vein of gold to be mined by
personal digging and through such
help as is in this book.

Why do so many leaders, Billy
Graham among them, strongly rec-
ommend that youth read Proverbs?
This book throws much light on the
reasons. The author says, "What
parents communicate to their chil-
dren determines what the next gen-
eration will do with their society,
their nation and the world."

The unusual and striking illustra-
tions carry one Biblical truth after
another home to the reader. One's
already existing appreciation of the
book of Proverbs is lifted as this
work expands on the teaching in
this valuable part of the Bible. With
explanation and enlargement, the
power of the message is markedly
enhanced.

Much stress is laid on the train-
ing of the young, and rightly so.
The volume is based on a selection
of sermons on Proverbs given by
Pastor Jensen; it can serve to give
excellent ideas in that line to Jour-
nal minister-readers.

"Wisdom is the principal thing;
therefore, get wisdom. With all thy
getting, get understanding."

"Every word of God is pure; He
is a shield unto those who put their
trust in Him." 51

Layman— from p. 15

The "inspired Word of God"?
The "sword of the Holy Spirit"?
What else could it be? The psalmist
expressed it better than I when he
wrote, "Thy word is a lamp unto
my feet and a light unto my path"
(119:105), to which may I joyously
sing, Amen! Hallelujah! BB

THE LIVING BIBLE, Paraphrased

Billy Graham says . . .

"In this book I have read the
age-abiding truths of the Scriptures
with renewed interest and inspira-
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phrase communicates the message
of Christ to our generation. Read-
ing it will give you a new under-
standing of the Scriptures."
$9.95 postpaid

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PAGE 22 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 29, 1972

announcing...

WI7VTER

THEOLOGICAL

INSTITUTE

STRONG VANHALSEMA WIDEMAN OSTERHAVEN

Reformed Theological Seminary cordially invites you to plan now to
attend the 1973 Winter Theological Institute. The speakers this
year are:

Rev. Bruce Wideman, Pastor of the Warrington Presbyterian Church,
Pensacola, Florida, who will be the featured preacher on both
evenings.

Dr. M. Eugene Osterhaven, Professor of Systematic Theology at
Western Theological Seminary, Holland, Michigan, who will give
four lectures on "The Spirit of the Reformed Tradition."
Dr. Dick L. Van Halsema, President of Reformed Bible College,
Grand Rapids, Michigan, who will present four Biblical expositions.
Dr. Robert Strong, Pastor of Trinity Presbyterian Church, Montgomery,
Alabama, who will speak twice on contemporary religious
phenomena and lead two panel discussions on Christian life and
practice.

The program begins 1:00 P.M., Monday, February 5, and concludes

at 1:00 P.M., Wednesday, February 7, 1973.

This institute is designed to stimulate the mind and heart of both

pastors and church members by bringing them to a clearer

understanding of Christian doctrine and life.

For additional information regarding the schedule, reservations,

and registration write the Director, Professor Albert H. Freundt, Jr.

Reformed Theological Seminary

5422 Clinton Boulevard, Jackson, Mississippi 39209, Telephone 601-922-4988

PAGE 23 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 29, 1972

A brilliant young minister asks,
"Is God really dead — or is He just thoroughly disgusted with us?'

THE PROTEST OF A TROUBLED PROTESTANT
by Harold OJ. Brown

CORGIVE US for repeating what has be-
* come banal, but millions of Christians
are sick at heart over conditions in our
churches. Yes, there are protests. But all
too often, they take the form of shrill
tracts that put off the intelligent reader
and, in truth, do no credit to the good
cause they aim to serve.

But now the Rev. Harold O.J. Brown
has put the case for traditional Protestant-
ism in a new book that is graceful in style,
compelling in its message. Here is a book
that faces up to all the questions that are
troubling you and your children — and if
the answers are blunt and unfashionable,
they come from a man who can look the
Zeitgeist in the eye and still be a con-
vinced and convincing Christian:
D What has happened to moral values in
America; to the religious convictions that
used to guide us in our family and our
national life?

D Isn't the Brave New World of the Lib-
erals a world of computers and beer cans,
pollution and glass towers — and spiritual
emptiness?

A SELECTION OF
THE CONSERVATIVE
BOOK CLUB

n What is going on in the churches? In
your denomination? In your own congre-
gation?

D Are we losing touch — or is it the world
that is heading off toward nowhere, ever
more convinced of the "truth that there is
no truth?"

The arrogant age we live in flings these
questions up at us. But Harold Brown,
very much the modern man, finds truth,
and life, in the old beliefs. If you some-
times feel your spirit sagging, this book
rekindles hope.

And if someone dear to you, perhaps a
youngster in college, now feels that the
Christianity of our fathers is no longer
"relevant," Harold Brown puts the case
for the old faith in reasoned terms that
command respect.

Risk-Free Examination

The Protest of a Troubled Protestant is
the work of a committed Christian who
with great candor and insight faces the
serious (but not insurmountable) prob-
lems of the besieged Church. The answers
he reaches are not easy, nor pat, nor
likely to ring pleasant in the modern ear.
But we can see in our churches, and in
our own lives: the easy, pleasant answers
have failed.

Send for a copy on risk-free examina-
tion. If not well pleased, you may return
it within 30 days of delivery, and receive
a refund in full plus extra cash to
cover return postage. Mail coupon
with $5.95 to your bookseller or:
Arlington House, Publishers, 81 Cen-
tre Ave., New Rochelle, New York
10801.

Dr. Brown's pen probes at every issue
facing the Church today. Examples:

■ Christ's kingdom not of this world. What
this means for the Christian. Why "City
of Man" theologies founder.

■ Christianity's defensible good works.
The social obligations of the Christian.
Why it is unnecessary to add socio) con-
tent to the Gospel.

■ Yesterday's blasphemy, today's common-
place from the pulpit. The motives for un-
belief. The secular fevers: relativism,
syncretism. What they are and how they
infect the Protestant denominations.

■ Worship that is a bore. Ritual without
content.

■ Theology: the science we hold in com-
mon with devils, not angels. Theology in
the scientific age. Is it comparable to other
sciences? Can it be forced to fit the 20th
century by the modernists? The need for
literal inspiration.

■ Is the U.S. a Christian nation? The limits
of legislation. The "substantial minority"
who profess faith.

■ How the teachings of some Church lead-
ers reverse the priorities of Jesus.

■ Prohibition vs. civil-rights legislation.

■ Why some of the most sensitive, most
deeply committed, most orthodox Chris-
tians attend no church.

■ Roman Catholicism's interest in the new
Protestantism: is it healthy? Grave dangers
of ecumenism.

■ Politics: is it "the vehicle through which
the will of God is done in the world to-
day?"

■ Accommodating the Christian message to
the times and to the world: why it never
succeeds.

■ Disobedience to rightful authority equals
submission to tyranny. Casting out one
demon only to have seven worse take over.
Nihilism and the drug "experience." Differ-
ence between authority and tyranny.

■ The Liberal-evangelical chasm. Liberal
theology: another religion. The greatest
reality in Protestant theology today.

■ Bishop Pike's new cause. Cults, spiritual-
ists, and other nonsense. Satan worship-
pers: not amusing.

■ Hallmark of today: rejection of reality.
The Beatles. Allen Ginsberg. Blow-up.

■ What Christians have to tell the op-
pressed and downtrodden, and what to
hurl in the teeth of the oppressor.

■ Why legislated morality does not work.
Repeat: does not work. Legislative ex-
cesses.

Articles by Dr. Brown hove appeared in
Christianity Today, .National Review, The
freeman. Eternity, Christian Herald and
several foreign publications, including The
Jimet of London— on sports. He is an or-
dained minister in the Congregational
Church, and presently serves as the theo-
logical secretary of the International Fel-
lowship of Evangelical Students In Laus-
anne, Switzerland.

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PAGE 24 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 29, 1972

(13$ ^
SUP

VOL. XXXI, NO. 32

DECEMBER 6, 1972

$4.00 A YEAR

the

dvocating continuation of a Presbyterian Church loyal

to Scripture and the Reformed faith

God's Marred Image

Man's spiritual image is muddied much in the same way
a drop of water falls into a lake and the ripple extends not just
for a few feet but on and on until it reaches the shore. This is
why the Scripture says that the whole earth is groaning, yearn-
ing for the adoption of the sons of God.

God's Spirit still broods over His creation even as He did
in Genesis. He grieves over His creatures. In mercy and grace
He is constantly reaching down to man. Man has never been
able to completely forget God because he still has the impulse
of the spiritual image. But man's own polluted judgment closes
his eyes so that at times he may believe that God is dead, when
it is man himself who is dead in his own sin.

— Charles E. Somervill Jr.
(See p. 7)

S. S. LESSON AND YOUTH PROGRAM FOR DECEMBER 24

dWOO

tlSLZ ON TTIH H0<iBqQ
CUT DM jo Xris^aA^u/i

110X^0 81X00 o M

MAI LB AG

THEY MADE UP THEIR MINDS

At a meeting yesterday of the ses-
sion of the First Presbyterian Church
of Waynesboro, Georgia, Inc., at-
tended by all seven of our ruling
elders and the moderator, Rev. Ken-
neth M. Kepler, the following three
actions were taken, the vote being
unanimous in each case:

1) Passed a resolution deploring

and dissenting from the action of the
Presbytery of Augusta-Macon at its
meeting on October 24, 1972, where-
by there was admitted to presbytery
an ordained minister who did not af-
firm without equivocation essential
doctrines of our faith (among them
the virgin birth of our Lord) .

2) Adopted the "Declaration of
Intent" for the "continuation of a

the

PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL

Rev. G. Aiken Taylor, Ph.D., Editor
Rev. Henry B. Dendy, D.D., Managing Editor

Circulation leader among independent publications in the Presbyterian-Reformed world

THIS WEEK— Vol. XXXI, No. 32, December 6, 1972

His Spiritual Image 7

From bondage to freedom as God adopts us as His
children By Charles E. Somervill Jr.

Chapter VII: The Church of God 9

Look to Westminster for distinction between the visible and
the invisible Church By Robert Strong

No Substitute 10

People give many reasons for not attending church, but no
one of them is valid By Linwood G. Wilkes

De partments —

Editorials 12

The Layman and his Church 13

Sunday School Lesson, December 24 14

Youth Program, December 24 16

Book Reviews 17

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i

Presbyterian Church loyal to Scrip-
ture and the Reformed Faith."

3) Authorized the calling of a con-
gregational meeting for the purpose
of hearing and questioning a speak-
er or speakers in behalf of a contin-
uing Presbyterian Church and tak-
ing such action as might be appro-
priate in this connection.

It was my pleasure and privilege
to attend a meeting sponsored by
the Steering Committee for a Con-
tinuing Church and held at the
Vineville church of Macon, Geor-
gia, with the Rev. Henry Hope as
host pastor. Mr. Jack Williamson and
the Rev. James M. Baird of the First L
Church of Macon were the panelists, jr
with the Rev. John Oliver of the [
First Church of Augusta as modera- §(
tor. It was the most informative and
inspiring, largest and most enthusi-
astic meeting of the kind I've ever
attended, and we hope and pray that
it augurs good progress in our pres-
bytery.

— John J. Jones
Waynesboro, Ga.

The denomination has become so pa'
gan that more and more congregations
are reacting this way. See editorial,
"What If Language Becomes Mean
ingless?," p. 12. — Ed.

HE LIKES IT LIBERAL

Thank you for publishing the ser-
mon, "The Misplaced Issue" (Jour-
nal, Nov. 15) . It is an excellent
message and lends strength to thl
wisdom of the Church through the
centuries which never saw fit to ab
solutize any single theory of Biblical
inspiration — or of the atonement
for that matter.

1

ink

r
to

BE

The zeal with which you trumpet
the theory of verbal inspiration
might be more effective if in humil-
ity you might admit that any theory :,tl
of inspiration at best captures but a
facet of a truth too large for the hu-
man mind.

I

Itt

TELEPHONES:

torial office,
business office,

(All area 704) edi-
254-4015, 254-4016;
645-3310, 645-3962.

Also, rather than this sermon be-
ing an embarrassment to the author,
I would dare say that he has ex-'
pressed admirably a position that a
majority of Presbyterian US minis-
ters can in honesty feel at home with
as opposed to that expressed by Dr
Palmer Robertson in the same issut
of your magazine. The God who i;
too small is the one who is com
pelled to fit the constricted theorie;
and viewpoints of men who are tog
small.

— (Rev.) James A. Rohne
Charlottesville, Va.

i je

FOLLOW THE RECIPE!

While reading the sermon, "The
Misplaced Issue," in the Nov. 15
Journal, the following thought came
to my mind:

There is a recipe for living, found
in the holy Scriptures. As a house-
wife, I can bake a cake by a recipe
and if I follow the directions I will
have success. On the other hand, if
[ say the person who wrote the reci-
pe did not really know the correct
ingredients nor directions and I can
idd my own any way that I see fit,

he result will be disaster.
If I did not believe the author of

he recipe, why bother to use any

rart of it?
It is only in believing and using

he total that success can be

ichieved, in cooking or in spiritual

iving.

— Mrs. Thomas M. Gammon
Paris, Ky.

THIS AND THAT

Regarding Pastor Weinman's re-
lew of Dr. Overton Stephens' To-

® Three items across the desk
lis week reminded us of a
ondition which the Lord Jesus said
ould indicate the proximity of
lis return: In the wake of Cuba's
nnouncement that it intends to try
lose three hijackers of that South-
m jet, the U. S. has asked the Cu-
an government to extradite the hi-
ickers so they can be tried in the
aod ole U. S. A. We began think-
lg about the probable outcome
lould Cuba agree: The men will
brought to the U. S. at great ex-
nse and arraigned before some do-
estic court. Their court-appoint-
attorneys (court-appointed be-
iuse they cannot afford their own)
ill manage a series of delays that
ill put off the trial for at least a
ar. At the end of the trial itself,
hich could last another six months,
ley just might be convicted. They
ill receive moderate sentences and
ter a period of prison rehabilita-
an they will be turned loose. For
ir money the best way to discour-
;e hijacking to foreign countries is
let those countries try them ac-

day is All You Have (Journal, Nov.
8) , you may be interested to know
that Dr. Stephens passed away this
fall, shortly after his book went to
press.

The type of counseling exempli-
fied in this book is typical of the
outlook of the Faith at Work move-
ment, in which Bruce Larson, writer
of the introduction to the book, is a
prominent leader. I'm sure they've
done much good for many people,
but they also seem to overemphasize
the experience of Christianity (and
specifically its role in overcoming
personality conflicts) at the expense
of a sound foundation in Christian
doctrine.

— (Rev.) Edward A. Johnson
Ohiowa, Neb.

MINISTERS

Charles E. Aregood from Miami,
Fla., to graduate study at Re-
formed Theological Seminary,
Jackson, Miss.

Curry W. Davis, Miami, Fla., has

cording to their own codes of justice.

• This one's political too, in case
you failed to see by the papers that
the so-called "Chicago 7" had their
convictions overturned by an ap-
peals court. You remember the
"Chicago 7," of course. They're the
ones who were taken to have been
largely responsible for the carnage
at the 1968 Democratic convention.
At their trial, they did everything
within human power to make a
mockery of American justice, with
unspeakable obscenities and behav-
ior. Someone after the trial said
that Julius Hoffman, the judge,
should be given some sort of medal
for keeping his sanity. So now the
appeals court has reversed the ver-
dict. On what grounds? On the
grounds that the conduct of the
judge was prejudicial to a fair trial!

• But yesterday was Thanksgiving

been appointed executive secretary

of the Home Mission Committee

of Everglades Presbytery.

H. Timothy Fortner Jr., from

Coral Gables, Fla., to the First

Church, Hazelhurst, Miss.

J. Douglas Heck from graduate

work, Columbia, S. C, to the

Evangelical Alliance Mission in

Japan.

Richard W. Sauerbrun from Al-
bany, Ga., to the Westminster
church, Miami, Fla.
David Shoemaker, recent graduate
of Columbia Seminary, to the Me-
morial church, West Palm Beach,
Fla., as assistant pastor.
Norman A. Wilson from Belle
Glade, Fla., to Westwood Lakes,
Miami, Fla., as teacher at day
school of First Baptist Church.

DEATH

E. B. Tucker, 91, former president
of Arkansas College and also of
Austin College, died November 17
in Madison, Tenn.

(that's how early the column has to
be written) and the day when the In-
dians, fresh from their massacre of
the Bureau of Indian Affairs, took
over the Mayflower in Plymouth
harbor. The newsreels showed them
climbing into the rigging of the ship,
which England sent us a few years
ago as a gesture of good will, to haul
down the flag. Then they went to
Plymouth Rock where the one
dressed like a chief with a great dra-
matic gesture jumped the fence to
spit on the rock. The newsreels al-
so showed smiling policemen stand-
ing by and the commentator said,
"The police decided it would be bet-
ter to do nothing than to try and
stop them."

• The verse of Scripture? It's in
the Book: Matthew 24:12. For full
effect, read it in the Amplified New
Testament. D

ACROSS THE EDITOR'S DESK

PAGE 3 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 6, 1972

NEWS OF RELIGION

Latin Activist Heads WCC Evangelism

GENEVA, Switzerland — Observers
here believe that recent shifts in the
top posts of the World Council of
Churches indicate a continuation, if
not intensification, of the council's
involvement in the politics of many
countries.

To the post vacated by the Rev.
Philip Potter, black Caribbean
churchman who succeeded the Rev.
Eugene Carson Blake at his retire-
ment as general secretary, the Com-
mission on World Mission and Evan-
gelism has named one of South
America's most controversial reli-
gious figures, the Rev. Emile Castro
of Uruguay.

Before Dr. Blake's departure, the
World Council of Churches was al-
ready deep in Uruguay's politics. A
3-man "investigating team" composed
of the Rev. William P. Thompson,
United Presbyterian Church, the
Rev. Thomas J. Liggett, Christian
Church (Disciples) , and the Rev.
Eugene L. Stockwell, United Meth-
odist Church, had reported that
"there is impressive evidence that as
part of the violations of human
rights, both physical and psychologi-
cal torture is practiced on political

prisoners."

In a letter to the President of
Uruguay, delivered "through diplo-
matic channels" in October, the
World Council spoke of "the abuses
that today darken so many homes
and cloud the future of Uruguay,"
calling on him to "reestablish the in-
dividual rights of citizens . . . since
these are basic to all human life."

Mr. Castro, a Montivideo Meth-
odist minister, has been head
of the Provisional Commission
for Latin American Evangelical
Unity (UNELAM) . Sponsored by
the World Council as an organiza-
tion with the potential of gathering
Protestants throughout Latin Amer-
ica into a general Movement of
Christian Unity, UNELAM had a
relatively brief life. It was rejected
by most evangelicals because of its
Marxist tone.

In 1965, before the formation of
UNELAM, Mr. Castro signed a let-
ter castigating the United States for
its "invasion of the Dominican Re-
public."

In 1966, he was identified as vice-
president of the Prague (Czechoslo-
vakia) Peace Conference.

THE CHURCH OVERSEAS

JAPAN — The National Christian
Council of Japan is trying to raise
$10,000 to oppose legislation which
would give state recognition to a
Shinto shrine that was established
as a memorial to the dead of World
War II.

The Christian organization, as
well as some Buddhist groups, has
been fighting the nationalization of
Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo for years,
successfully so far.

Yasukuni Shrine proponents are
seeking a parliamentary act which
would exempt it from existing pro-
visions on religion and make it an
object of national adoration.

The small Christian minority and
the Buddhists, whose numbers are

increasing rapidly, especially in the
Soka Gakkai sect, argue that nation-
al recognition of Yasukuni Shrine
would be followed by a nationaliza-
tion of other Shinto centers and
might revive the former established
religion of the state which figured
in the militant prewar nationalism.

Churches have tried for many
years to have the names of four Prot-
estant pastors who died during the
war removed from the list of the war
dead "deified" at Yasukuni Shrine.

Veneration of the emperor as a
descendant of the Sun God was part
of Shrine Shinto before its disestab-
lishment. Emperor Hirohito abol-
ished the claim of divinity in
1947. ffl

31

11

Also in 1966, he served as a leader
at the controversial Geneva Confer-
ence on Church and Society. In one
of his addresses to the conference he|
said the Church should "use direct m
action, such as mobilizing the masses;
and even direct political pressure'
to effect change.

Christianity Today carried an ar
ticle that same year in which his so
cial proposals were described as lean
ing "so far to the left that they have1
been accused by responsible peo
of being Marxists in Christian cloth
ing."

In 1970, the new director of evan
gelism and mission was arrested, irt|]
company with a Jesuit priest, b)
Uruguayan security forces in connec j.
tion with the kidnapping of foreign
diplomats by the Tupamaros guer
rillas. He was released after a short
time.

I'1

No Neutrality

Addressing the World Methodis
Conference in Denver in 1971,
said the Churches cannot be neutra
in the struggle for justice, liberatioi
and peace.

"Either we perform here in a co
ordinated attack on a world seal
and certified by our sacrificial mili
tance in each of our countries, or al
our pretended Christian affirmatioi,
is nothing more than an exterio
adornment," he said.

In other news, the World Counci i
has announced that contribution
from East Germany to its Progran
to Combat Racism have amountei
to approximately $260,000.

Originally set up in 1970 with
goal of $200,000, the fund is desif
nated for aid to "liberation" group,
throughout Africa, some of whic
have been charged with attemptin
the violent overthrow of their go^
ernments.

While total receipts from its 26
member Churches have not been ai
nounced, it is believed that the coi
tributions from East Germany, io>
warded through the Afro-Asian So
idarity Committee of the Germa
Democratic Republic, may represer
more than a third of the total.

Half the sum given by the iro
curtain country has gone to aid pr>
grams in "liberated" areas of Angol
Mozambique and Guinea-Bissa ~

I

k

1(1

td

■dei

PAGE 4 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 6, 1972

ireas where black movements are at-
empting to oust the Portuguese.

Some of the movements are openly
nvolved in warfare with the Portu-
guese colonial powers which in turn
tave been condemned by the ma-
ority of member nations in the Unit-
id Nations. SI

\iding Christians In
Zhina Is 'Sales Point'

WASHINGTON, D. C. (RNS) —
The possibility of aiding clandestine
Christians in China has become a
'sales point" for evangelical enter-
irises, but just how much evangeli-
al effort goes on there is open to
[uestion, according to the Rev.
Carl F. H. Henry.

A noted evangelical theologian,
)r. Henry reported recently on his
xtended stay in Hong Kong in
Christianity Today, the evangelical
Drtnightly published here.

In the second of two articles he
lid that while some reports estimate
ierhaps one million evangelical be-
ievers in China, others say the
evangelical penetration and poten-
ial" has been exaggerated.

Dr. Henry cited a journalist who
lid reports of mass conversions
nd baptisms, and the distribution
f thousands of Bibles, are spurious.

According to the journalist, he
lid, most of the Bibles intended
)r the Chinese mainland end up in
lurch and school basements in
[ong Kong.

Dr. Henry said the China Bible
und, founded by George and Ruth
ox Holmes of England, has distrib-
ted 380,000 Scripture portions and
libles in Chinese to churches and
2fencies which promise "to redistrib-
te these solely to believers going in-
) mainland China."
How many copies get across the
order is a "moot point," according
) Dr. Henry, who added that the
Communist hostility to Christianity
JStifies some risk ventures, how-
'er unsure the returns."
He said that toleration of Chris-
ans seems greatest along the sea-
>ast of East China facing Taiwan.
\lthough church buildings cannot
- used for services, believers there
;:, eeting as groups for worship ser-

vices and the Lord's Supper, and
various evangelical clusters are
aware of one another's activities. But
elsewhere in China, followers of the
risen Lord face greater risks."

Dr. Henry said the number of "se-
cret believers" is impossible to de-
termine, and he did not seem hope-
ful that Mr. Holmes will be success-
ful in persuading the Mao govern-
ment to permit the printing of Bi-
bles on the mainland. Mr. Holmes
was a British consul in China many
years ago. EE

Drug Problem Is Real
At Eastern Colleges

NEW YORK (RNS) — A survey of
college campuses in New York, New
Jersey and Connecticut revealed that
the use of marijuana and other
"soft" drugs is widespread, but the
use of heroin and other "hard" drugs
is diminishing from campuses.

The survey, conducted by The
New York Times, revealed that the
campus market for heroin has "vir-
tually disappeared." The demand
for hallucinogenic drugs such as
LSD and for "speed" and other am-
phetamines is found to be dropping.

Cocaine was found to be the only
hard drug in moderate supply and
demand.

The most popular drugs on cam-
pus were found to be marijuana,
hashish and various barbiturates
and depressants.

The survey revealed that despite
strict anti-drug policies, campus of-
ficials are reluctant to call in police
and have developed a lenient atti-
tude toward "soft" drug use. On
many campuses, marijuana was
found to be smoked openly in dor-
mitories.

"Soft" drug sellers were found to
be numerous on campuses, almost all
of them male students who deal on
a small scale among friends as "pro-
viders of a popular service."

There have been several drug-re-
lated murders on campuses, but
these violent incidents are not be-
lieved to be commonplace. How-
ever, some campuses have reported
a sharp rise in "shakedowns" of deal-
ers for drugs or money and thefts of
drugs or valuables to buy them. 15

Supreme Court Upholds
Discharge of Adventist

WASHINGTON, D. C. (RNS) —
The U. S. Supreme Court here re-
fused to review lower court rulings
which upheld the firing of a Sev-
enth-day Adventist who refused to
join a union for reasons of con-
science.

The 8-to-l decision, with Justice
William O. Douglas dissenting, was
seen by some observers as an
ominous precedent for conscientious
objectors working in union shop sit-
uations.

The case involved Newell Ham-
mond, a former employee of the Wa-
tervliet Paper Company, a division
of Hammermill Paper in Watervliet,
Mich., a town in Berrien County.

Some two years ago, Mr. Ham-
mond, who now lives in Lake Orion,
Mich., was discharged when the shop
in which he worked came under the
United Papermakers union.

He offered to pay the equivalent
of union dues to a nonreligious
charity, as is done in some cases
when an employee opposes union
membership on religious or consci-
entious grounds. The United Pa-
permakers were not willing to make
the concession.

After the termination of his ser-
vices, Mr. Hammond, with the back-
ing of local, regional and national
units of the Seventh-day Adventist
Church, filed suit against the union
in the U. S. District Court for South-
ern Michigan. He lost there and
again in the U. S. Court of Appeals
for the sixth circuit.

As explained to Religious News
Service by James B. Scully, associate
secretary for public affairs and reli-
gious liberty of the denomination,
Adventists do not oppose organized
labor.

He said his Church believes that
constitutional rights and conscience
are violated when a person must
join a union or lose a job.

While recognizing values in
unions, the Adventist Church has
historically instructed members to
stand apart from "industrial strife."
Union support of political candi-
dates is also viewed with skepticism
in Adventist circles. El

PAGE 5 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 6, 1972

THE CHURCH AT HOME

Presbyterian Center
Prepares for New Role

ATLANTA (PN) — The relation-
ship of Presbyterian Center Inc. to
the new structure of the Presbyterian
Church US commanded attention at
the annual meeting of the center's
board of trustees. The board
pledged to give any aid it can to the
new General Executive Board dur-
ing the restructuring period.

Nine major agencies of the
Church, plus the Synod of Georgia
and Atlanta Presbytery — a total of
185 people — are now housed in the
seven-story building on Ponce de
Leon Avenue.

After restructure, the functions of
two other major boards, presently
outside Atlanta, are expected to be
centered here. The trustees do not
now anticipate a need for addition-
al building space however. The
Board of World Missions is located
at Nashville. The Board of Chris-
tian Education is now in Richmond.

No dates have yet been projected
for moving the functions of these
two boards to the Atlanta headquar-
ters. It is expected to be a "gradual
process," according to F. Burt Varde-
man, who added it is likely that space
formerly used by the Presbyterian
Bookstore may be converted into of-
fices. EE

Health Physics Program
Is Launched at Davidson

DAVIDSON, N. C. — With nuclear
power and public concern about ra-
diation dangers increasing every
year, Davidson College has initiated
a new undergraduate program in
health physics with Oak Ridge Na-
tional Laboratory in Tennessee.

"Health physics is a relatively new
profession which is concerned with
the protection of man and his en-
vironment from radiation exposure,"
said Dr. John I. Hopkins, chairman
of Davidson's physics department.

Davidson's cooperative program
with Oak Ridge Laboratory will
give interested students on-the-job
training and work experience in
health physics in coordination with
their on-campus academic studies.

Students in the program will take
courses in physics, biology, chemistry

and mathematics, plus elective
courses.

Included will be two new courses
in health physics. One will study
problems of the protection of man
and his environment from radiation.
The second will emphasize the
theory of detection instruments, hu-
man protection, reactor safety, and
waste disposal. ffl

Committee Is Working On
New Abortion Statement

ATLANTA (PN) — Speakers rep-
resenting the pros and cons of abor-
tion presented viewpoints before the
subcommittee working on a paper
for the Permanent Theological Com-
mittee of the Presbyterian Church
US.

The 1972 General Assembly in-
structed the permanent committee to
name a subcommittee of four of its
members and five women from the
Church-at-large to prepare a com-
prehensive paper on abortion with
specific attention to Scripture, need,
safety, morality, legality and polity.

A brief statement on abortion was
adopted by the 1970 Assembly.

In its efforts to hear all sides of
the question and from a number of
professional viewpoints, the subcom-
mittee has listened to physicians, at-
torneys, ministers, educators and
others with special knowledge in
areas that apply to the subject under
study.

The subcommittee hopes to make
a report to the permanent committee
in late January.

Appearing to speak on the pro
side were the Rev. Emmett Hern-
don, campus minister at Emory Uni-
versity and chairman of the
Council on Therapeutic Abortion
(COTA) ; the Rev. Elizabeth Hill,
who is affiliated with the Georgia
Mental Health Association; Airs.
Margie Hames, Atlanta attorney
who recently pleaded the abortion
question before the U. S. Supreme
Court; Sally Mulligan, who works
with family planning; and Alex
Booth of Kenova, W. Va., commis-
sioner to the 1970 General Assembly
who also served on the earlier study
committee on abortion.

Mrs. fune Webb of Atlanta, rep-
resenting Christian Action for Life,

showed slides and made a plea
against abortion. Dr. Jones Robit-
scher, a psychiatrist and psychoan-
alyst, holding the Henry R. Luce
professorship of law and behavioral
sciences at Emory, presented a paper
opposing abortion except for certain
circumstances. II

Birthday Offering
Continues To Rise

ATLANTA (PN) — With the 1972
Birthday Offering of the Women
the Church still rising, total funds
received through Nov. 21 have
reached $316,700.

Of this amount, $50,000 has al-
ready been sent to the American Bi
ble Society for translations of sec-
tions of the Bible in Spanish and
certain Indian languages, and idk
publishing and distributing more
copies of Today's English Version oj
the New Testament. Part of thi
$50,000 will also go for Scripture
packets.

The major portion of the 1972 of
fering will endow a professorship o
business and create scholarships foi
business students at Stillman College
in Tuscaloosa, Ala.

The offering has grown $15,00(
since initial announcement of $301
730 at the women's conference ii
Montreat, July 16.

Birthday objective for 1973 wil
be "Amazon Breakthrough," advanc
ing a pioneer evangelism progran
in Brazil, and "Hunger Mobilize
tion," an effort against worfi
hunger.

Union Seminary's Board
Now Includes 2 Women

RICHMOND, Va. — Two wome;
have been elected as members of th
board of trustees for Union Theolc
gical Seminary, for the first time i
the 160-year history of UTS.

Mrs. Wilborn S. Swaim of Sali
bury, N. C, and Mrs. Richard I
Gi fiord of Lynchburg, Va., partic
pated in the semi-annual meeting i
the first women members. Also pa
ticipating on the board were tint
other new members: Stuart B. Cam]
bell Jr., an attorney oi Wythevill<
Va.; Rev. Fred C. Holder, pastor (
Amity Presbyterian Church, Cha
lotte, N.. C; and Richard H. Paul,
businessman of Elkins, W. Va.

PAGE 6 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 6, 1972

As adopted children of God we are His heirs —

I His Spiritual Image

A man told me not long ago that
the doctrine of adoption means
i great deal to him personally be-
;ause he was an adopted child. He
,aid that as he grew up, his parents
itressed that they had sought him
md selected him because they real-
y wanted him. He never had any
ioubt that he was a wanted child,
[t is not always true that children
ire wanted but, if you are adopted,
/ou know you are. They told him
;hat they looked for him a long
time, then found him and chose him.

God's search for man is an exten-
;ive one, too. So few of us have
jeen adopted by God, but God is
lot willing that any should fail of
Sis adoption, and He searches con-
itantly for His own. His relation-
hip with man began years ago at
he creation of the world. God gave
nan something with which to recog-
lize Him and this we call the "im-
ige of God." God put His stamp
>n man.

Man Is Insensitive

What exactly is this image of
iod? We read in Genesis that God
ireathed into man's nostrils and
nan became a living soul. Why?
iecause God gave man something of
iimself, something of His Spirit, of
-lis own being so that man had the
apability to recognize God. And
nan in his religious pursuits con-
tantly seeks God. In every civiliza-
ion from the dawn of mankind to
(he present day, you find man seek-
ng after His maker because he was
nade in the image of God.

It is not a painful experience to
>ecome an adopted child of God. It
orresponds to an embedded desire

The author is pastor of the First
hesbyterian Church, Denton, Tex.

Romans 8:15

that God has given us from the time
of creation — from a spiritual image.
We seek that which we are like.

Seeking has become clouded over
with sin, however, because man has
a choice of seeking God or other
things. He chose to break away
from God, and the tragic metaphor
which describes that is "death," to
be dead in one's sin, to be insensi-
tive, to be numb, to be paralyzed.
Paul cried out that the thing he
wanted to do, he found himself do-
ing the opposite. He sought to do
good and found only evil in his
grasp, because man has become in-
sensitive to the spiritual image of
God in him.

Prayer Evangelism

Much is said today of mass evan-
gelism and visitation evangelism,
but very little of prayer evangelism.
Indeed, prayer evangelism might be
regarded as the neglected factor in
the life of the modern Church. —
Donald G. Bloesch.

Man's spiritual image is muddied
much in the same way that a drop
of water falls into the lake and the
ripple extends not just for a few feet
but on and on until it reaches the
shore. This is why the Scripture
says that the whole earth is groaning,
yearning for the adoption of the
sons of God.

God's Spirit still broods over His
creation even as He did in Genesis.
He grieves over His creatures. In
mercy and grace He is constantly
reaching down to man. Man has
never been able to completely for-
get God because he still has the im-

CHARLES E. SOMERVILL JR.

pulse of the spiritual image. But
man's own polluted judgment closes
his eyes so that at times he may be-
lieve that God is dead, when it is
man himself who is dead in his own
sin.

Some people become so insensitive
to their own sins that they begin to
boast of their own good works. "You
call yourselves Christians'. I am a
better person than you are because
of the good things that I do." And
they list them.

Selfish Motives Intervene

When we look at good works we
very often find selfish motives be-
hind them. Why would a person
want to do good? There are many
reasons: prestige, the good opinion
of others for the good he does, the
good reputation of his own family,
the appeasement of his own con-
science. When we examine our mo-
tives we find an element of self-seek-
ing warring against God-seeking, of
giving not because we cannot help
but give, not because of an over-
powering love that causes our lives
to overflow into lives of others, but
because we are trying to get some-
thing out of other people. Only
when the Spirit possesses man does
he become an adopted child. Then
and only then does his life overflow
without boasting of good deeds.

The process of God's adoption be-
gins with the new birth. This is
new in many ways, one of which is
the realization for the first time of
the self's true potential. It is self
opening up to the initiative of the
Spirit of God, responding because
we are made in the spiritual image.
There is the true self which yearns
constantly for the fulfillment of
God's Holy Spirit. The new birth is
life in the Spirit opening; the Holy
Spirit brings the fulfillment of God's

PAGE 7 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 6, 1972

intentions of becoming a part of our
lives intimately. He makes His home
in us so that we become a temple of
the Holy Spirit.

Paul wrote this to the Romans:
"To set the mind on the Spirit is
life and peace .... You are in the
Spirit if the Spirit of God really
dwells in you .... If Christ is in
you . . . your spirits are alive ....
If the Spirit of Him who raised Je-
sus from the dead dwells in you, He
who has raised Christ Jesus from the
dead will give life to your mortal
bodies also through His Spirit which
dwells in you .... For all who are
led by the Spirit of God are sons of
God . . . the Spirit Himself bearing
witness with our spirit that we are
children of God" (8:6-16 ASV) .

Like Empty Boxcars

As man has been given the image
of God, he finds fulfillment only
with God's adoption and in the in-
filling of the Holy Spirit. We're
like empty boxcars sitting on an end-
less railroad track. Suddenly, God's
locomotive, the Holy Spirit, comes
rolling down the tracks, fills us with
the desire for service, hooks us up to
Himself and leads us out into eter-
nity. As boxcars we have not the
capacity to hook up to this locomo-
tive, the power. Nor do we have the
power ourselves to move along with-
out the engine. It is only when we
are willing to receive this power, this
Spirit, that we can move along to
eternity.

Because we are made in His im-
age, we are aware of what His pow-
er can do for us. This is what sepa-
rates man from the rest of the ani-
mals of the world — the spiritual
image — not emotions, or creative
ability, but man's ability given by
God to surrender to the will of God,
to respond to God. To do so is
not a process which man would
shrink from except for his own sins.

A New Picture

It is the pollution of the world
that keeps man from fulfilling his
true self. The true self is the spiri-
tual image, who constantly yearns
for redemption as the adopted son
of God.

I think we get a new picture of
evangelism and Christian education
when we see man as he really is, a
creature who desperately yearns for
the fulfillment of himself. It makes
one particular notion of some church

people very silly indeed: that the
Gospel might in some way be an
imposition on outsiders. Living wa-
ter which overflows with freshness
and sparkling energy is hardly an
imposition to anyone. The Scrip-
ture says that, "Out of your heart
shall flow living waters," as the
Spirit brings life.

Look at the difference this reality
can make in our sharing the good
news. In evangelism we are like
surgeons who stimulate the heart,
but it is God who quickens it
through the Holy Spirit. We are in
the business of bringing dead men
to life. If the dead wish to stay
dead it is their tragic choice, but
life in the Spirit is never an impo-
sition. This is the Christian belief.

Some people don't want to impose
Christianity upon their children.
But they teach them words like "dad-
dy." They certainly want them to
understand who daddy is — he's the
funny looking man. Some day the
child will stop calling every man he
sees "daddy" and identify only his
own with that word.

Parents also teach the child the
words for food because it's necessary
for them to reach out and be able
to identify. They teach them col-
ors. All these things, they say, are
necessary for the survival of the

More to it than 'Freedom'

One of the prime reasons for send-
ing young people to college is to
make good citizens of them. If
they do not learn that, all of their
book learning will be futile. The
two basic requirements for citizen-
ship are discipline — including self-
discipline — and respect for estab-
lished authority. — Editorial over
WBTV, Charlotte, N. C.

child. But then sometimes they de-
liberately omit words like Jesus, the
Holy Spirit, God and they say, "No!
The children should make their
own choice about that," as if the
child had a choice.

The result is that the child has
a head start on everything but spiri-
tual reality when the greatest heri-
tage we can give our children as
Christians is our spiritual heritage.
Do we believe the baptismal vows
are all nonsense when we promise
to raise our children in the nurture
and admonition of the Lord? There
is a saving knowledge but that is
not the knowledge of a funny man

called daddy, or a favorite color, or
a choice piece of food, but the defi-
nition that God has given of Him-
self called Jesus.

The child first learns the name
of Jesus, then he learns that is what
God is like. Later comes the time
when the self opens up to the spiri-
tual life by reason of having received
the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of adop-
tion causes him to cry out, "Abba
Father," just as a child learns to cr)
out to his earthly father.

The promise for parents whc
teach their children is very plain. "U
you who are evil know how to give
good gifts to your children, how
much more will your heavenly Fa-
ther give the Holy Spirit to you?"

Our Confession of Faith has this
to say about adoption: "All those
that are justified, God vouchsafeth
in and for his only Son Jesus Christ
to make partakers of the grace oi
adoption: by which they are taken!
into the number, and enjoy the lib
erties and privileges of the children
of God; have his name put upor
them; receive the Spirit of adoption
have access to the throne of gract
with boldness; are enabled to cry
Abba, Father; are pitied, protected
provided for, and chastened by hirr:
as by a father; yet never cast oil
but sealed to the day of redemption!
and inherit the promises as heirs oi
everlasting salvation."

From Bond to Free

Paul made an interesting com
parison. He said that we go fron
the spirit of bondage to the Spiri
of adoption. In that day the Ro
mans valued adoption much mori
than natural birth. When a slavi
was adopted as his owner's son, i
assured the slave of inheriting hi
new father's estate, and witnesse
sealed the process of adoption. I
was a time in which the master
thought so much of the slave that h
rejected his natural children an<
adopted him. From that time fort)
the child was assured of receiving
an inheritance, the inheritance of hi
father.

The Bible goes on to say that Hil
Spirit bears witness with our spirit]
that we are His children and as chi.
dren, heirs. We shall receive the in
heritance which is promised as Hi
adopted children. May we in all thl
days when we honor earthly father
realize our true heritage as adopte
sons of God and cry out, "Abba, M
ther." f

PAGE 8 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 6, 1972

\God still guides those churches which are willing to listen to Him —

Chapter VII: The Church of God

Chapter VII of the proposed
new confession, short and es-
sentially noncontroversial, suffers
■from a lack of definition. We are
inever told who compose the Church
land what are the marks of the
I Church.

I The basic viewpoint is that of the
■Church's oneness: God has always
ween with the Church. He was with
fthe Church in the days of the Roman
■Empire. He purified the Church
Again, as through the monastic sys-
tem. He sent reformers "to stand
mt great cost for the authority of his
rlvord." God caused the Church to
■pread to the ends of the earth. To-
illay the Church is disestablished and
■nust perforce live in a secularized
iociety.

'Part of Our Story'

Every part of Church history, the
locument asserts, is "a part of our
iwn story with God." We are sup-
>osed to confess that "we may not
lisown any century or the record of
ny branch of the Church." This is
sadly undiscriminating approach;
t is to forget that not all that is re-
orded in Church history is the story
i the true Church.
The Westminster Confession gives
balanced statement of the matter:
'The catholic or universal Church,
irhich is invisible, consists of the
'hole number of the elect, that have
>een, are, or shall be gathered into
ne, under Christ the head thereof;
nd is the spouse, the body, the full-
ess of Him that filleth all in all.
j "The visible Church, which is al-
:> catholic or universal under the

Hi This is another in a series of ar-
/ cles which examine the proposed
; ew confession of faith. The author
,'! j' pastor of Trinity Presbyterian
hurch, Montgomery, Ala.

"And I say also unto thee, that
thou art Peter, and upon this rock
I will build my Church, and the
gates of hell shall not prevail against
it" (Matt 16:18) .

Gospel (not confined to one nation
as before under the law) , consists
of all those throughout the world
that profess the true religion, togeth-
er with their children; and is the
kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ"
(XXVII, 1,2).

Here the indispensable distinction
is made between the invisible
Church and the visible Church. This
is essential for any satisfactory deal-
ing with Church history. How neces-
sary it is to point out also that parts
of the Church have gone so grievous-
ly astray that they no longer deserve
to be called the Church. The West-
minster Confession helps here most
excellently:

"The purest churches under heav-
en are subject both to mixture and
error: and some have so degenerated
as to become apparently no churches
of Christ. Nevertheless, there shall
be always a Church on earth, to wor-
ship God according to His will"
(XXVII, 5) .

What a contrast between the two
approaches! We are forced to say
that the proposed new confession is
more sentimental than theological
and historical. The summary of
Church history during the time of
the Roman Empire is defective. It is
not correct to say, "When the empire
divided the Church divided." The
style is poor, and an instance of faulty
generalization is the confession's al-
legation that the Church "marched
to the beat of surrounding society."

In the third section an almost un-
qualified approval is given to the
monastic orders. We are hard put
to think of any true reformers God
sent "to stand at great cost" against
political tyranny.

ROBERT STRONG

It is the cavalier treatment of the
Protestant Reformation that really
disturbs us: "Yet the Reformation
divided the Church and led to ar-
rogance, repression, and bloody
wars." Many of us will find it intol-
erable that in a Presbyterian creed
it is proposed to apologize for the
Reformation.

To Protestants with a sense of his-
tory and an abiding appreciation of
the Bible, the Protestant Reforma-
tion was the greatest religious move-
ment that has occurred since the
days of the apostles. It is not ex-
traneous here to remind ourselves of
the significance of the Reformation.

The Reformation rediscovered
Biblical exegesis. The Reformers
pointed out that at Caesarea Philip-
pi, when Peter had confessed that
Jesus was "the Christ, the Son of the
living God," our Lord had not said
He would found His Church upon
Peter — in effect clothing Peter with
superior authority.

Jesus said, "Thou art Peter (Pe-
tros) , and on this rock (Petra) I
will build my Church." The Church
would not be founded upon Peter
but on Christ Himself as confessed
by Peter. Peter was but a little
stone; the Church would be found-
ed on the great rock mass which was
Christ. The play on words is im-
portant to take into serious account.

No Arbitrary Power

The Reformers pointed out that
the authority to bind and loose, an
authority extended not only to Pe-
ter but to all the apostles, did not
convey arbitrary power to them.
What was to be bound and loosed
on earth would have been already
bound and loosed in heaven. Apos-
tolic authority rested in their gift
of inspiration, literally translated,
"Whatever you bind on earth will
have been bound in heaven. What-

PAGE 9 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 6, 1972

ever you loose on earth will have
been loosed in heaven."

The Reformers pointed out that
the supreme authority among men
is the Word of God. It is not for
the pope or any Church council to
attempt to bind the consciences of
men. This belongs only to Scrip-
ture to do so.

The Reformers pointed out that
not the pope nor any ecclesiastical
council stands as the authoritative
interpreter of the Bible. The Bi-
ble as the Word of God, a book
clear enough in its treatment of sal-
vation and duty, may be understood
by any believer for himself.

The right of private judgment
was one of the great principles of
the Reformation. It is not, of
course, that a man may impose his
thinking upon the Bible, but that
believers may come to the Bible as
to a plain book and understand it
under the illumination of the Holy
Spirit.

To All Believers

The Reformers pointed out that
while church officers fill a necessary
place in God's plan, every believer
may enjoy, quite independently of
them, access to God immediately
through the one mediator the Lord
Jesus Christ. All believers are
priests.

The Reformers also emphasized
that salvation is not in the hands of
the Church to dispense by its system
of sacraments, but that it may be
received from God by His free grace
through faith in His Son the Lord
Jesus Christ. When the doctrine of
justification by faith was proclaimed
and men began to see once more the
first-century Gospel, a mighty reli-
gious revival came into being.

All over Europe men were realiz-
ing that the Bible teaches that God
accounts believing sinners righteous
in His sight, because He places to
their account the obedience in life
and death of His incarnate Son.
Knowing themselves thus at peace
with God through faith in Christ,
believers greatly rejoiced in their lib-
erty from guilt, from oppressive ec-
clesiastical requirements, from fear
of ecclesiastical tyranny, from the
mere traditions of men.

Yes, the Church was divided. The
medieval Church would not be re-
formed by the Word of God. It cast
out the Reformers who had no re-
course but to form new churches. So
grew the Word of God mightily and

in many places it prevailed.

The great slogan of the Reforma-
tion was, "The Church — Reformed
and Ever Reforming." Let it be
noted that the meaning of this
classic expression is that the Church
must ever be correcting itself by the
Word of God.

Modern notions, majority votes in
assemblies and councils, changing
mores are not the source of that
continuing reformation. Scripture,
Scripture only, Scripture more fully
understood, this is the means where-
by the Church is to be more and
more purified.

In the wake of that mighty reli-
gious revolution which was the Prot-
estant Reformation came excesses
and struggles. There have always
been those who would exploit re-
ligion for their own selfish ends. But
we do not apologize for the Refor-
mation. We thank God for it. We
are not ashamed to declare that we
Presbyterians are among the grate-
ful sons and daughters of the Refor-
mation.

We are at a loss to understand
what the proposed new confession
means in its statement: 'We have
made of past reformations idols that
obstruct the changes we need to
make now." This seems to us rhet-
oric rather than fact.

In Good Company

The Reformation season has been
only recently observed among us.
Likely we reminded ourselves of Lu-
ther's 95 theses offered on October
31, 1517, to spur discussion of the
indulgence system. When asked to
recant his teachings at the Diet of
Worms, April 17, 1521, he replied
heroically: "Unless I can be shown
by Scripture that I have spoken
falsely, I will not recant. My con-
science is bound by the Word of
God. Here I stand. I cannot do oth-
er. God help me. Amen."

Thomas Carlyle said that moment
was "the greatest scene in modern
European history, the point, indeed,
from which the whole subsequent
history of civilization takes its rise."

We also agree with the Roman
Catholic scholar Joseph McMahon
who wrote: "In studying the life
and work of Martin Luther, we must
recognize frankly that he was one
of the greatest personalities in the
history of the human race." We de-
clare our thankfulness to be in the
company headed by Martin Luther
and his great allies John Calvin and

John Knox.

The Reformation is still alive, and
wherever Christ and His cross ana
a free salvation from sin are de-
clared, there is the Reformation to
be found. It will never die.

The proposed new confession con-
cludes the chapter on the Church
with some statements that can only
be called trite. Who would ever
think of identifying the Church
with one particular nation or cul-
ture or economic system? What is
the point of concluding the chapter
by reference to the Church as dis-
established?

Implied Antagonism

The suggested antagonism be-
tween philosophy, science, art, music,
and the Church is not helpful. All
of these areas owe an incalculable
debt to the Church. Particularly is
this true of science. Its basic con-
cept — this is an orderly universe —
comes out of the theism of the Bi-
ble. Art and music were marvelous-
ly nourished and encouraged by the
Church.

If in America the Church resists
a total divorce from the state, it i.<
in recognition of the American tra k
dition of separation with hearty co k
operation. It is in recognition ol il
the principle that our country haci It
Christianity as part and parcel ol i
its beginning. It is in recognitior ]
of the principle that Christ must b< v(
confessed in every area of life.

We do not accept the seculariza ip
tion of society as "God's chastening (\
and liberating work." Scriptun fa
teaches us to say that Satan and hi ae
kingdom of evil are at work. Thi %
prince of darkness, grim ever, seek
to pull down a curtain between Goc
and men. We are not ignorant o
his devices. G

lie

Welt Stated

I h

We shall still proclaim Christ a ?t
Lord of every sphere. We shall ir jj|
sist that every thought should b •l,
brought into captivity to Him. An( |f
at last the kingdoms of this worlc ^
will become the kingdom of our Go« ^
and of His Christ who shall reig
forever.

The clarity and Scriptural faitl1 tadi
fulness of the Westminster Confe %f,
sion have, been pointed out. Agaii
we allude to the Brief Statement c
Belief as also greatly superior to th U

(Continued on p. 21, col. 1)

PAGE 10 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 6, 1972

Those who need sermons about church attendance are seldom present to hear them —

I

No Substitute

I was glad when they said unto
me, let us go into the house of
the Lord" (Psa. 122:1) . So said the
psalmist many centuries ago, and so
it is for the people of God today.
There is something wonderful and
: satisfying about entering the Lord's
house to worship, and the Christian
, today can feel this same good feel-
ing about worship which the psalm-
ist expressed, "I was glad . . . ."
s There is no substitute for church
attendance for a Christian. I mean,
• of course, every Christian who is
! physically able to attend church. It
has been said that you cannot carry
; the water of life without some kind
of container, and the church is to
the Gospel of Jesus Christ what a
container is to a measure of water.

The gift of worship is a great gift
! of God to us. The freedom to wor-
' ship God as the Bible directs us is
a precious right in our great nation
of the United States. Christians un-
der the bond of Communism today
' are generally denied the right of
(worship which we enjoy.

The Privilege of Worship

God chose to reveal Himself
i through the Hebrew people, and He
; used these people as an example to
I all mankind. Much as a gym teach-
er will take one child, and use that
i child to demonstrate to the class the
i exercise to be learned, God chose
iithe Jews to show the world that He
i wishes to be worshiped as the one,
I true and living God. The Jews
:were faithful in their worship of
I God, and they passed their great
I tradition along to those first Chris-
tians who were themselves, like their

Hebrews 10:19-25

The author is pastor of the Tabb
Street Presbyterian Church, Peters-
burg, Va.

Master, of the seed of Abraham.

The text tells of the privilege
Christians have. We may come
boldly into the holy presence of God,
and we may do something most nat-
ural for a Christian. We may offer
directly to God our praise, worship
and thanksgiving. We are also re-
minded of the great privilege of cor-
porate worship, our worship with
other Christians. What a strength
we can draw from one another! "Let
us consider one another to provoke
unto love and good works. Not for-
saking the assembling of ourselves
together . . .'* (Heb. 10:24-25) .

A 'Happy' Time

I often think of my childhood ex-
perience in church, as some of my
most vivid and pleasant memories
center around church. My family
attended regularly, and my father
was a faithful elder for as long as
I can remember. Aren't some of
your best memories centered around
church attendance? Just think, one
of the finest things which we are do-
ing right now for our children is
giving them something good to re-
member as our families attend
church together.

Perhaps you have heard the story
which comes to us from California.
I understand that driving on those
congested expressways is really mur-
der. One lady driver became so
frustrated and nervous in the traffic
that she was pushed off one of the
exit ramps. Coming to a motel, she
went in and called her psychiatrist.

Well, he had a strong tranquilizer
delivered to her, and suggested she
call the police for suggestions on
how to get her car home. So she
called the police, and they said that
since the next day was Sunday, it

LINWOOD G. WILKES

would be best to wait until then to
leave, and to leave just at 11:00 a.m.
This hour was important, the police-
man explained, because the Cath-
olics would be home from church,
the Protestants would be in church,
and the heathen would be on the
golf course. The lady did just as
she was told, and closing her eyes
rushed onto the expressway — only
to be hit broadside by a Seventh Day
Adventist!

The Problem About Worship

We have a problem about wor-
ship, and it really is not the Seventh
Day Adventists. The difficulty con-
cerning Christian worship is hard to
explain. Many people who have con-
fessed faith in Jesus Christ and
joined a church simply do not at-
tend their church. Regrettably, this is
a problem as old as the church. The
writer of Hebrews was encouraging
early Christians not to omit wor-
ship, "as the manner of some is"
(v. 25).

A survey taken of the churches in
one community recently revealed
that little more than 10 per cent
of our total population are in
church on an average Sunday. Why?
Why, really, do so many just stop
going to church? In the last analy-
sis I think the Bible scholar Moffatt
may be correct. He says there are
three simple reasons why some peo-
ple stop coming to church: fear, fas-
tidiousness and conceit.

Some have friends and associate
with people who think religion and
church are ridiculous, and they have
a fear of the criticism and contempt
of these people. Then, some people
are hard to please, they are immature
and easily hurt. These people will
withdraw from contact with the

(Continued on p. 22, col. 1)

PAGE 11 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 6, 1972

EDITORIALS

Figures Don't Tell All, But . .

The Church of Jesus Christ is
probably the only institution on
earth which does not measure success
by numbers. In fact, it is a part of
our faith that Christians will always
be in the minority wherever they are.

This, of course, is a chief reason
why it is possible to say, with great
conviction, that the liberal aim of
"redeeming all the structures of so-
ciety" is a hopeless dream. Until the
Lord returns, we are expressly told
to expect social conditions to grow
worse and worse — with occasional
pockets of blessing here and there.

However, while the Church will
always be a minority group, nothing
in the promises of God suggests we
may not measure the success of its
mission by comparing its record in
one year (or age) v/ith that of an-
other.

That is to say, if the vital statis-
tics show a definite trend upward,
there is no reason to doubt that the
Church's witness is basically on the
right track. If the vital statistics
show a definite trend downward,
there is no reason to doubt that the
Church's witness is basically on the
wrong track.

Given almost any criterion of
measurement, the record of the Pres-
byterian Church (both UPUSA and
US) suggests it most surely has been
on the wrong track. By juggling,
by union and merger it may be pos-
sible to convey an impression of
spiritual health, but the facts sug-
gest otherwise.

Look at the table below. Prepared
from statistics published by the
Presbyterian Church US, the overall
results would be even more dismal
if taken from UPUSA records. (The
UPUSA gained 159,370 by profes-
sion and reaffirmation in 1958; 97,-

934 in 1971. It baptized 34,018
adults in 1958; 13,238 in 1971. It
had a Sunday school enrollment of
1,932,954 in 1958; 1,211,922 in 1971
— a loss of 721,032, which isn't far
from the total membership of the
PCUS.)

The PCUS decline has been steady
for the past 20 years with occasional
spurts in one or two categories. The
smallest number of churches report-
ing no professions of faith at all
during the past twelve years was
1,144, or some 28 per cent of the to-
tal number of churches.

Perhaps the most sobering statis-
tic of all is the fact that every year
there are some big churches that re-
port no one won to Christ — most
years even one or two of over 1,000
members have so reported!

Another sobering statistic is that
the addition of "union" churches in
those "union" presbyteries (which
helped swell the total of churches in
1970 and 1971) did not halt the
downward trend!

Where did all these people go? It
sometimes is fashionable to speak of
a "normal settling down after the
post-war boom." Not on your life!
The Gospel is still winning people.
Presbyterian losses are part of the
reason why the conservative denomi-
nations are booming.

No, the Christian Church does
not measure success by numbers. But
it surely is possible to measure
failure by numbers. These num-
bers either label Presbyterianism as
a failure (in which case we would
have every reason to reexamine our
heritage) , or they label a particular
institution as a failure (in which
case there is urgent need for a new
institution) . 51

What If Language
Becomes Meaningless?

An incident in Augusta-Macon
Presbytery serves to illustrate the
very fragile ties that bind some Pres-
byterians to the faith of the Lord
Jesus Christ, and hence to one an-
other.

In its Fall meeting, a minister was
received "amid cheers and applause,"
according to one account, after he
repeatedly had refused to define the
virgin birth as meaning, "without
human father."

In answer to the question, the
minister said he "believed in the
virgin birth." In answer to another
question he said he did not know
whether Jesus had a human father
or not — his view of "virgin birth"
did not require him to take a posi-
tion on that.

By way of explanation, he saidr
that "truth" can be "symbolic" with-
out necessarily being "literal." Thus
it was possible for him to believe in
the virgin birth in a symbolic sense
and also believe that the Lord Jesus
had a human father in the ordinary
sense.

This is the same presbytery, by;
the way, that just a year ago over-
tured the General Assembly to de-
clare its acceptance of "the inerrancy
of Scripture."

Human relationships depend up-
on language which has meaning
One of the problems in internation
al relationships is that of under
standing the "other side" well
enough to know what is mean
when something is said (or written
into a treaty) . It is virtually im
possible, for instance, to reach agree
ment with the Communists because
they use language ("democracy,
"freedom," "peace") to mean what
they want it to mean and not what
everyone else assumes that it means

In a confessional Church it is im-
possible to reach agreement on state
ments of faith when some choose to
interpret those statements so tha
they convey an opposite meaning to
the meaning they convey to others
You cannot, for instance, include
the virgin birth as an article of faith
when to one person it means "with
out human father" while to another
it means, "with human father."

This fact of life in denomination
al affairs is exactly why all the talk
about a new confession of faith i
little more than an exercise in futil
ity. The committee drawing up th

No. of

Churches reporting

Total

Churches

no professions of faith

Prof, of Faith

1966

4,002

1,304

25,532

1967

3,987

1,295

25,198

1968

3,960

1,370

23,928

1969

3,926

1,364

23,136

1970

4,063

1,424

22,476

1971

4,230

1,499

22,272

PAGE 12 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 6, 1972

"...an institute of theological
studies established upon the
authority of the Word of God. .

This passage from the school's charter is the key
to the unique strength and purpose of Reformed
Theological Seminary! The school was founded
in 1964 by a group of Presbyterian laymen and
ministers who chose to rely on the Bible as God's
inspired, infallible Word.

The Seminary has experienced amazing develop-
ment. Youthful enthusiasm abounds on a beautiful
Mississippi campus. Zeal for the Reformed faith
and evangelism spreads from this center, renewing
conviction and committment, as RTS graduates go
forth to preach Cod's Good News.

PROGRESS CHANGES THE
LANDSCAPE, BUT NOT
THE FOUNDATION

Major construction has been almost constant at
RTS. We are accustomed to the hum and churn
of bulldozers and concrete mixers. But these are
only external signs of growth. Inside the buildings
is where the real excitement is. Students supple-
ment classroom studies with regular assignments
in hospitals, jails, rescue missions and similar
institutions. These activities give students a sym-
pathetic understanding of troubled people as well
as an opportunity to point to Christ as the answer!
Preaching opportunities are available in nearby
cities.

Student enrollment has soared from 17 to over
125 in six years and is projected to rise dramat-
ically. The present faculty of 12 full-time
instructors will increase with continued growth.

AND WHAT

IS OUR FUTURE?

Plans for the continuation and expansion of the
Seminary depend entirely on our Lord's will. His
people can show their understanding and ap-
preciation of this mission by tangible support.
There are opportunities in buildings, landscaping,
library acquisitions, scholarship and student aid.
Individual unrestricted gifts are most needed.
All will be applied to helping prepare men most
effectively to serve our Lord Jesus Christ.

Please let us hear from you.

Reformed Theological Seminar) I

5422 Clinton Boulevard, Jackson, Mississippi 39209

new confession seems willing to
write into it most anything neces-
sary to bring "reconciliation." If
this is because the meaning doesn't
matter, the entire effort becomes a
waste of time.

One helpful by-product of the pa-
gan behavior of some Church courts
is that formerly dozing congrega-
tions are now wide awake. (See Mail-
bag, this issue.) El

Dividends of Knowledge

"Grace and peace be multiplied
unto you through the knowledge of
God" (I Pet. 1:2).

Knowledge is a powerful key. It
has power to. unlock the dark prison
of ignorance; power to bring money,
position and honor; but greatest of
all it can free a man from the pow-

[ er of sin and Satan, and make him
a child of light.
In the first eight verses of I Peter

II, we have the word "knowledge"
mentioned five times. Peter, the
rough uncouth fisherman, is a per-
fect example of the power of knowl-
edge. Evidently of humble origin,
and not much education judging
from his occupation; impulsive, ig-
norance showing many times, he
stumbles through the Gospels. Lov-
ible, because we are permitted to

I ;ee his sincerity and his humanness,

I (his likeness to us) .

The greatness came after "he had

: aeen with Jesus and learned of
ffim." That knowledge, enhanced
3y the Holy Spirit, made of Peter

l:he fearless spokesman of Acts 2,
ind the inspired writer of the books
learing his name. Peter himself is

i'irst to give honor to its source, "ac-

: :ording as His divine power hath

• jiven unto us all things that pertain

Ijo life and godliness, through the

•knowledge of Him that hath called

las to glory and virtue" (v. 3) .
i The knowledge of Christ freed Pe-

i er so that he became the great man
hat he was. Because he came to

ftjinow Christ and God the Father so
veil, Peter became a leader of the
ipostles, one of the great religious
eaders of his day. Jesus invites each

\ )f us to "take my yoke upon you,
f ind learn of me . . . and ye shall
ind rest for your souls" (Matt. 11:

1:9) .—Ruby Sailor. El

j The trouble with most Christians
oday is that they would rather be
>n the judgment seat than on the
witness stand. — Unknown.

THE LAYMAN AND HIS CHURCH

Troubled? Look Outward and Upward

"If the foundations be destroyed,
what can the righteous do?" asked
the psalmist (11:3). Although not
always expressed, this is the heart-
cry of thousands of Christians today,
for the foundations of faith in the
inerrancy and authority of the Bible
and the person and work of Christ
as incarnate have been undermined.

As a result, the standards of home,
morals, respect for the authority of
both man and God, all of which af-
fect every area of life, are rapidly
crumbling. Many are wandering
"like sheep without a shepherd," not
knowing where to turn. What is the
answer?

First, there are Bible study and
prayer — personal Bible study and
prayer. This is absolutely essential.
Some congregations who have sat
under sound, spiritual preaching for
20, 30 years or more, now enthusi-
astically receive a modernistic min-
ister, with pleasing personality and
smooth, interesting speech, who de-
nies the Word of God and omits the
Gospel of grace.

Why is this so? It is because they
have not daily fed themselves on the
Scriptures and communed with God.
They have depended on the minis-
ter to do these things for them.
They have remained spoon-fed babes
in Christ. Perhaps many have never
had a transforming experience with
the crucified and risen Lord and
Saviour, Jesus Christ, and thus have
never been "born again."

The result in either case is that
many people are dropping out of
churches altogether. Others are
turning to false cults which offer a
semblance of spiritual life, but cen-
ter mainly in ecstatic emotional ex-
periences, often claiming a supernat-
ural power bordering on the occult
not in accord with the Word of
God. The young people in their
dissatisfaction often turn to open re-
bellion. Yet they will zealously re-
spond to a positive proclamation of
the Scriptures as the authoritative

This week's layman column was
written by Vernon W. Patterson, a
long lime elder of Charlotte, N. C.

Word of God.

If your church has departed from
the true faith and standards, the
next essential step is to seek out one
where these are upheld. In case a
church home in your denomination
cannot be found at a convenient dis-
tance, what then? Get a step ladder
— a high one may be needed — and
look over the denominational fences
to see what God is doing in the
world around you.

You may be amazed at the thou-
sands of groups, all true to the Word
of God and Christ the Lord. Some
meet for prayer, Bible study, and
numerous evangelistic activities;
many missionary agencies, schools,
seminaries carry out relief and wel-
fare work; radio and television
broadcasts blanket the world, and
Christian books and literature are
ready to be studied.

A thousand voices are calling to
you for help in innumerable oppor-
tunities for service: personal witness-
ing for Christ, groups working spe-
cifically to reach children, youth,
business men and women, and oth-
ers; there is a need for writers, doc-
tors, nurses, radio and electronic
technicians, pilots, mechanics, and
others — all for the primary purpose
of winning souls to Christ and nur-
turing them in the faith. Join the
great crusade to finish the Lord's
Great Commission in this genera-
tion.

Begin now, just where you are.
You will find others interested.
There are many troubled hearts in
all the major denominations, for all
are afflicted by the same falling
away from the faith. The conflict
centers now on belief in the Bible
as the Word of God and the person
and work of Christ. Invite those
you find interested into your home
to discuss spiritual problems. Form
prayer and Bible study groups.

Meet frequently with like-minded
Christians, "not forsaking the assem-
bling of yourselves together, as the
manner of some is; but exhorting
one another: and so much the more,
as ye see the day approaching"
(Continued on p. 22, col. 3)

PAGE 13 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 6, 1972

SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON

For December 24, 1972

The Promised Messiah

INTRODUCTION: On this day
before Christmas it is appropriate to
pause and consider what the Lord
spoke through the prophets concern-
ing the most important event in all
of man's history, the coming of Jesus
Christ. Since we are in the midst
of studying the writing of the proph-
et Jeremiah, we shall look at his mes-
sianic prophecy.

I. THE OFFICE OF THE MES-
SIAH Qer. 23:5-6) . The term mes-
siah means "anointed one." The
term is used variously in Scripture
to refer to prophets and to kings, to
kings of Israel and also other kings
whom God appointed to special
work, such as Cyrus, whom God
chose to free Israel from captivity.

Primarily the term refers to the
Christ (the Greek for "anointed") ,
the hope of Israel, the true servant
of God, the true Prophet, Priest and
King.

Appropriately, the prophecy in
Jeremiah concerning the Messiah
comes in the section of Jeremiah
where the kings of Judah are re-
viewed. Chapters 22 and 23 of Jere-
miah deal with the kings of Judah
in the latter part of that nation's
history.

Generally the kings of Judah were
exhorted to seek justice and righ-
teousness (22:3) , the two duties
which God requires of all of His
people (Gen. 18:19, etc.). As kings,
they were to set the example for all
of God's people.

If they obeyed, then continuing
prosperity for the land was prom-
ised (22:4) . If they did not obey,
the kings would be dethroned
(22:5).

Following this general exhortation
to the rulers of Judah, specifically
the record of each king was exam-
ined and God's verdict of his reign
given. Shallum or Jehoahaz was
mentioned first. He failed and was
carried into captivity to Egypt, nev-
er to return (22:11-12) .

Jehoiakim was next mentioned
(22:13-23). He was very evil and
because of his evil heart God de-
stroyed him. Finally, Jehoiachin,

Rev. Jack B. Scott

Background Scripture: Jeremiah
23:5-6; 33:14-16; Matthew 2:1-
12

Key Verses: Jeremiah 33:14-16;

Matthew 2:1-6
Devotional Reading: Luke 1:68-79
Memory Selection: Luke 1:68

or Coniah, was reviewed and similar-
ly rejected (22:24-30). All had
been found wanting before God.
They failed to do the work of a
king.

Then in a general all-inclusive
prophecy concerning these evil lead-
ers, God declared that He would
punish them all for failing to pro-
tect His people (23:1-4). Like evil
shepherds, they destroyed the flock
(God's people) instead of helping
them.

At this point we have the proph-
ecy of the righteous branch who is
to come, who will be the true and
righteous king (23:5-6) .

Here He is called the branch of
David, indicating that He will come
of David's line. This prophecy is
in accord with passages written
earlier, such as Isaiah II: Iff. This
foretells of the shoot out of the stock
of Jesse (David's father) who, as a
branch, will bear fruit and will
move in the power of God's Holy
Spirit. Similarly, Isaiah spoke of
the Lord coming to rule and feed
His flock like a shepherd (Isa. 40:
10-11).

Our Lord's title as king of God's
people is more fully described as
"the Lord our righteousness" (Jer.
23:5-6) . This can only mean that
our righteousness comes as a gift
from the Lord and not by our own
merit. Isaiah in a similar way spoke
of righteousness coming from the
Lord to us (Isa. 45:24-25; 54:17).

Thus we read in Genesis 15:6 that
Abraham believed in the Lord and
it was reckoned to him for righteous-
ness, that the righteous shall live by
their faith. (Compare Habakkuk 2:
4) . Of course, the great doctrine of
justification by faith which Paul

The International Sunday School Lesson Outlines
are copyrighted 1972 by the Committee on the
Uniform Series of the National Council of
Churches of Christ.

stressed in the New Testament
(Rom. 4:3; Gal. 3:6.) is related to
these passages.

In the office of Messiah, we see
foretold Christ's kingship over us all
and His bringing righteousness to all
who trust in Him. By His humility
and suffering, Jesus gains our righ-
teousness (Isa. 53:11) and by His
glorification He reigns as king (see
the Shorter Catechism questions 22-
23, 26-28) .

II. THE WORK OF THE MES-
SIAH (Jer. 23:5; 33:14-16). Three
particular works of the Messiah are
given: 1) He shall reign as king;
2) He shall prosper (a better trans- J
lation than "deal wisely") ; 3) He
shall execute justice and righteous-
ness in the land (23:5) .

We have already dealt with the
first, the office of Christ as King.
All of the kings of Judah pointed
to their perfect king and stressed,
by their own imperfections and in-
ability to lead God's people as they
should lead them, the necessity of
His coming. The kingship of Christ
is put in contrast to the kingships
of this world quite clearly in such
passages as Psalm 2 and Isaiah 9:
6-7.

The second aspect of the work ol
Christ is to prosper. All other kings
whether secular or of Israel and Ju
dah, fell short of the perfection
which God holds up as the only ac
cep table standard (Gen. 17:1;
Deut. 18:13; Matt. 5:48). The
Christ is foretold as the King whc
will succeed. (Compare Isaiah 53:

10-) 1
The success or prosperity of the

Christ lies in His work in the realm

of justice and righteousness, the

third aspect of His work.

From the beginning, God's wil

for His people has been expressec

in terms of justice and righteousness

When God first chose Abraham, H(

tells us that He knew (or chose)

Abraham to the intent that hd

should command his children anc

household to keep the way of th<

Lord. This way was described a

doing righteousness and just

tl!

ice

Is

1

&
loi

PAGE 14 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 6, 1972

(Gen. 18:19).

The Lord never lowered this high
standard for His people. This is
always what He looked for in Is-
rael. Isaiah brought this out quite
clearly in his prophecy: God expect-
ed righteousness and justice but in-
stead found oppression and crying in
Israel (Isa. 5:7) .

Righteousness has to do with a
right relationship to God, the rela-
tionship of one who is acceptable
to God. Israel could never produce
this herself. Justice means primarily
the putting into effect the law of
God in all facets of life.

This can be shown by looking at
Exodus 21: Iff. The passage, "these
are the ordinances" or "justices,"
uses the same word "justice" which
is found in our text. The ordi-
nances, then enumerated, are details
of how God's law is to be exercised
in daily living among God's people.

Since Israel, God's Church, was
.never able to satisfy the Lord in re-
spect to righteousness and justice,
the prophets show us how God Him-
self would accomplish both on our
.behalf through the Christ.

Again, Isaiah described the Christ
as the Prince of Peace, who will up-
hold His kingdom by justice and
righteousness forever (unfailingly)
.; (Isa. 9:7) .

| Later, describing the Messiah as
[a stone in Zion sure and tried,
dsaiah wrote that He will accom-
plish His work by justice and righ-
teousness. Note here that men
[''benefit in this righteousness and jus-
tice by faith (Isa. 28:16-17) .

Isaiah declared that the Christ will
fill Zion with justice and righteous-
ness, thus fulfilling what men can-
i'not accomplish (33:5) . God de-
clared that His justice and His righ-
teousness (what He does on our be-
thalf for our salvation) will fill Zion
land go forth by the Gospel (Isa.
51:4-5). Immediately following this
passage, in Isaiah 53, we are told
how the Christ in perfect obedience
to God, is both righteous and the
rf justifier of God's people.

Going back to Isaiah 28:16-17, we
acquire the benefits of Christ's work
'by faith in Him (Isa. 28:16-17). So
t'it is that we are told that Abraham
was justified by faith in the Lord
(Gen. 15:6) and Habakkuk said the
same thing, "the righteous shall live
;by his faith" (2:4).

III. THE COMING OF T H E
MESSIAH (Matt. 2:1-12). For the
period of the Old Testament God's

people awaited the accomplishment
of all which God promised to those
who put their faith in Him. They
believed in the word which God
promised and in the power of God
to do all He said He would do.

Then when Jesus was born of the
virgin Mary in the days of Herod,
the king of Judea, certain wise men
from the orient came expecting to
see the one born of the Jews who
was to be the king. They did not
mean Herod (Matt. 2:2) . They
mentioned the star which they had
seen in the East sometime before
their arrival.

The exact meaning or identifica-
tion of the star is not known nor do
we know who the wise men were.
They were not called kings though
one of our familiar Christian hymns
speaks of three kings. Neither does
it say that there were three of these
men, though it does mention that
they brought three gifts.

The only Old Testament proph-
ecy of Christ mentioning a star is
found in Balaam's prophecy in Num-
bers 24:17: "There shall come forth
a star out of Jacob and a sceptre
shall rise out of Israel . . . ." This
may be the prophecy which the wise
men knew. It is conceivable that
the prophecy of Balaam, also an an-
cient wise man of the East, was pre-
served by his successors in the area
of Mesopotamia.

All of this is uncertain. What is
certain is that they knew to expect
a star and a king which Numbers
24:17 does foretell.

Naturally Herod was troubled.
Any child born to be king was a
threat to him and his heirs. He
learned from the Jewish scribes who

quoted from Micah 5:2 that the
Messiah was expected to be born in
Bethlehem.

The wise men looked for the
Christ to worship Him (Matt. 2:2,
11) but Herod desired only to find
Him so he could destroy Him. Here-
in lies a kind of microcosm of his-
tory. The world has always sought
to destroy Christ, being led by Sa-
tan, while God's people seek to serve
Him. (Compare Revelation 12:13,
17.)

We see in Matthew's account how
the Christ came to fulfill the office
of King as God said He must do. As
we read Luke's account of Christ's
birth, we see that He was to come to
redeem and save His people, as had
also been foretold in the prophets
(Luke 1:68-79).

CONCLUSION: When Jesus was
born, God kept His promise to come
and save His people. What before
had been given as the word of prom-
ise in the Old Testament led God's
children to believe in His name.

In the birth of Jesus the Word
became flesh. John tells us that Je-
sus' birth meant that the Word was
flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:
14) . With Him came both grace
and truth: truth, in that He was all
we could not be, perfect in justice
and righteousness; and grace, in that
through Him and His work we who
believe have salvation given to us
freely.

He is our righteousness and en-
ables us to live lives of justice, not
perfectly yet, but more and more to
God's glory and in accord with His
will. Without Christ's coming we
would all be truly without hope. 51

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PAGE 15 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 6, 1972

YOUTH PROGRAM

For December 24, 1972

The Meaning of Christmas

Scripture: II Corinthians 5:14-21
Suggested Hymns:

"O Come, All Ye Faithful"
"Joy to the World"
"Thou Didst Leave Thy
Throne"

PROGRAM LEADER'S INTRO-
DUCTION: It is quite possible to
say a great many true things about
an event without ever saying the es-
sential things.

A lady reports on her attendance
at a ball game. She observes many
things, and all her observations are
accurate. The sky was clear and the
weather was warm. The stands were
filled with ardent fans, and many of
them were women because it was
"ladies' day."

Huge amounts of peanuts, pop
corn, and soft drinks were consumed.
Some of the players wore white uni-
forms trimmed in red, and others
wore gray uniforms trimmed in dark
blue.

All of these things were true and
interesting, but the lady could not
tell you who was playing or what
the score was.

Much of our observance of Christ-
mas is like this. We give attention
to gifts, decorations, programs, cam-
paigns for worthy causes, greetings,
music, social events, food and cloth-
ing. These things are certainly not
bad in themselves, but they do not
come very close to the meaning of
Christmas.

We may even talk of the religious
nature of Christmas: Bethlehem,
shepherds, wise men, the birth of a

Rev. B. Hoyt Evans

child, peace, joy, good will, and char-
ity. These things are good, true, and
worthy, but we may talk of them as
much as we will and still miss the
real meaning of Christmas. We may
think about and do many kind and
generous things in observance of
Christmas and still not know what it
really means.

The Bible verse we are emphasiz-
ing in this program is not usually
associated with Christmas at all, but
it does carry the basic message.
"God was in Christ reconciling the
world unto Himself." This is the
real meaning of Christmas, the com-
ing of Christ into the world.

FIRST SPEAKER: The verse tells
us what God did. He reconciled the
world to Himself. What is recon-
ciliation? It is the restoration or
the healing of a fractured relation-
ship. In this case it is the healing
of the fractured relationship between
God and man.

What is the nature of the fracture?
Some represent it as being merely a
matter of man's disinterest in God.
Reconciliation, then, would be noth-
ing more than a matter of persuad-
ing man to come back to God, to
regard Him and be interested in
Him.

It is true that man has departed
from God, but there is much more
to the broken relationship than this.
Man has truly become uninterested,
but God has been outraged. The
essential thing is that God has been
offended by man's sin. Man, by his
sin, has destroyed the bridge that
unites him to God.

The fractured relationship means

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not only that man regards God with
little interest or respect, but it
means that God regards man as an
alienated sinner. Before reconcilia-
tion can take place, man's attitude
toward God must be changed. More
importantly, man himself must be
changed so that he becomes accept-
able in the presence of God's righ-
teousness.

It is true that a criminal who is
serving a life sentence must be will-
ing to accept his pardon before he
can go free, but it is more essential
to the nature of the matter that the
society which he has offended shall
grant him the pardon in the first
place. The granting of the pardon
is more basic than its acceptance.

When the Bible speaks of God's
reconciliation it is speaking primari-
ly of what has been done to satisfy
the righteousness and justice of of-
fended deity. The effect on man is
important but secondary.

SECOND SPEAKER: This passage
in II Corinthians about which we
have been thinking goes on to de-
scribe how God has acted to recon-
cile the world to Himself.

The first thing we need to observe
in this connection is the integrity of
God's character. God is not one
who makes rules and then breaks
them Himself. When God says holi-
ness and righteousness are essential,
He means it. When God says that
sin must be punished, He means that,
too.

It is because righteousness is es-
sential that Christ was born. It is
because sin must be punished that
He died. The incarnation and the
crucifixion speak to us clearly of the
integrity of God's character. For
God, there is no cheap, easy way of
reconciliation.

If man is to be reconciled to God,
to return to Him, he must not only
have the inclination to do so, but
the broken bridge must be repaired.
This means that man's sin must be
cleansed and that he must be made
righteous in the sight of God.

PAGE 16 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 6, 1972

As far as man's ability is con-
cerned, both of these are utter im-
possibilities. Only by God's inter-
vention and gracious activity can the
'bridge be rebuilt, sin pardoned and
man provided with acceptable righ-
teousness.

God has intervened in the person
of Christ: "He hath made him to
jbe sin for us, who knew no sin, that
jwe might be made the righteousness
jof God in him."

"He died that we might be for-
given, he died to make us good, that
we might go at last to heaven, saved
jby his precious blood."

THIRD SPEAKER: The Scrip
ture says: "The love of Christ con-
straineth us." If anything can move
us to seek God, it is the knowledge
of His love for us which has paved
the way for our return to Him at
great cost to Himself.

When we say "God loved us" and
"Christ loves us," we are saying the
same thing, because Christ is God.
When Christ suffered in the garden
and on the cross, God was suffering.
When Christ toiled to make us righ-
teous, God was intimately and vital-
ly involved.

The price He paid for our recon-
ciliation, to make it proper and pos-
sible for us to come into His righ-
teous presence, is an indication of
the depth of His love. For sinners
to refuse to return to Him is worse
than their rebellion in the first place,
because this is to repudiate His sacri-
ficial love.

PROGRAM LEADER: This,
hen, is the essential meaning of
Christmas, that "God was in Christ
econciling the world unto Himself."
What is our response? We must rec-
ognize the centrality of this truth to
oe sure, but this is not all.

Correctness of theology is impor-
ant, but it does not suffice to satis-
fy God. We must respond to God's
ove in humility and gratitude by re-
viving the forgiveness and righteous-
ness which He freely offers. Have
you ever honestly and sincerely ac-
:epted God's forgiveness and thanked
Him for the gift of eternal life? If
you have not, why not do so at this
very moment?

If you have, then share the good
news with someone else. "We are
ambassadors for Christ, as though
God did beseech you by us; we pray
you in Christ's stead, be ye recon-
iled to God."

BOOKS

A PEOPLE CALLED CUMBER-
LAND PRESBYTERIANS, by Ben M.
Barrus, Milton L. Baughn and Thomas
H. Campbell. Frontier Press, Mem-
phis, Tenn. 625 pp. $10.00. Reviewed
by C. Gregg Singer, professor, Cataw-
ba College, Salisbury, N. C.

This undoubtedly is one of the
best, if it is not the best denomina-
tional history produced in the last
decade. In tracing the develop-
ment of the Cumberland Presbyte-
rian Church from its beginnings on
the American frontier in the first
years of the 19th century until the
present, the authors have provided
a most interesting commentary on
the trials and tribulations of historic
Calvinism with its emphasis on a
well trained ministry and rigid doc-
trinal standards as it sought to win a

place on that American frontier.

The chapter dealing with the sep-
aration of this Church from the par-
ent body in Kentucky and Tennes-
see is probably the best account of
that secession movement available
today. The authors deal with the
origination of this denomination
with a high degree of objectivity and
impartiality.

In so doing they strive to main-
tain a sharp distinction between the
movement which resulted in the for-
mation of their own Church and
another taking place at the same
time which resulted in the forma-
tion of the Christian Church (Dis-
ciples) .

With great insight they also trace
in detail the ultimately futile at-
tempt of the Cumberland Church to

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PLAIN TALK ON MATTHEW by Manford Geo. Gutzke 1.95
PLAIN TALK ON JOHN by Manford Geo. Gutzke 1.95
PLAIN TALK ON JAMES by Manford Geo. Gutzke 1.95
LIVING IN THE SPIRIT— IS IT REAL? by Manford Geo. Gutzke 2.95
PLAIN TALK ON ACTS by Manford Geo. Gutzke 1.95
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Closing Prayer.

A STUDY OF JOB — From Tragedy to Triumph

by H. L. Ellison

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PAGE 17 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 6, 1972

A Faith for All Seasons

by Marjorie Wilkinson

The Christian faith is for
every season of the year,
for every season in life,
through pressure and
change, from birth to
death. Observations for
persons who want to
grow spiritually.

Per copy, $1.25; 10 or more, $1.00 ea.
Break thru

Compiled by Wilson O. Weldon

The thoughts and
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Per copy, $1.50; 10 or more, $1.30 ea.

The Upper Room
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Daily devotions for a full
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maintain a modified Calvinism as
their doctrinal standards and the
ultimate triumph of a complete Ar-
minianism in the Church.

Perhaps the most important chap-
ter in this book as far as our own
day is concerned is that one which
deals with the unhappy attempt at
union with the Presbyterian Church
USA. In graphic terms the authors
portray the agonies of that union,
the broken promises so freely given
and so easily broken, once the
union was accomplished.

FOR YOUR LIBRARY

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The Bible and Modern Science
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THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL
Weaverville, NC 28787

This chapter serves as a sharp re-
minder to those who seek a similar
union between the Presbyterian
Church US and the United Presby-
terian Church today that such
an effort will only serve to create
a result which also took place in
1906. m

THE COVENANTAL SABBATH,
by Francis Nigel Lee. The Lord's Day
Observance (Inc.), London, Eng. 343
pp. $5.00. Reviewed by the Rev. Mar-
ion G. Bradwell, executive director,
Lord's Day Alliance of the U. S., At-
lanta, Ga.

This detailed and scholarly work
is a slight abridgment of the au-
thor's dissertation for his doctor of
theology degree from the University
of Stellenbosch, Republic of South
Africa. A former Roman Catholic,
now a minister of the Dutch Re-
formed Church, he says this thesis
"reflects the story of my life."

In his introduction he tells of his
pilgrimage from Roman Catholi-
cism, through atheism to Calvinism.
"Here I could rest in the great Sab-

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If you are moving to an area where
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PAGE 18 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 6, 1972

I

path day creation of God the Fa-
ther; rest in the Lord's Day resur-
rection of God the Son; rest in the
insurance guaranteed me — by God
|:he Holy Spirit who came on Pente-
j:ost Sunday."

It is this warm, personal note
which makes this work more than
in exhaustive and detailed study. It
highlights the fact that the subject
af the Sabbath is of more than aca-
demic interest and should spur evan-
gelicals, some of whom seem to have
\i "Sabbath blind spot," to renewed
| 'searching of the Scriptures."

The author raises two questions:

Is the Sabbath of perpetual obliga-
tion? Was the historical change of
the Sabbath day from Saturday to
Sunday Scriptural or not? Both of
these he answers in the affirmative.

The affirmation he gives is the
affirmation of the Scriptures. These
he examines under the following
heads: The Everlasting, the Adamic,
the Noachic, the Abrahamic, the
Mosaic and the New Covenantal
Sabbaths.

This work, together with its refer-
ence notes, is a unique and helpful
contribution to a too often neglect-
ed teaching of the Scriptures. EE

presents. . .

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PAGE 19 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 6, 1972

Are You Looking For The Right Gift
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and Reformed than a subscription to The Presbyterian Journal.
Just list them below, rush the coupon to us, and we'll take care of
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TO: The Presbyterian Journal, Weaverville, N. C. 28787

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COMMENTARY ON I PETER, bj
Robert Leighton. Kregel Publications,
Grand Rapids, Mich. 511 pp. $8.95
COMMENTARY ON ROMANS, by
Wm. S. Plummer. Kregel Publications,
Grand Rapids, Mich. 646 pp. $8.95,
Reviewed by the Rev. George E. Sta-
ples, Thornwell Home for Children,
Clinton, S. C.

These two volumes are part of the
Kregel Reprint Library which is
bringing back to the market pre-
viously out-of-print books. These
are scholarly works, hefty in size,
typographically clear, and from a
cursory examination appear to be
thorough and devotional. I find it
difficult, however, to give a valid
judgment on commentaries until
I have had a chance to use them in
actual study.

Robert Leighton (1611-1684) had
a varied career as pastor, professor
of divinity in Edinburgh, and Arch-
bishop of Glasgow. His reputation
as a gifted preacher carries over to
this work, which is more of a homi-
letical commentary than an exegeti-
cal study. There is limited use of
the Greek language and only minor
attention to textual problems. Prin-
cipally this work is designed to ex-
plore the spiritual and pietistic
depths of First Peter.

Of particular interest to Presby-
terians in the South is Plummer's
Commentary on Romans. Following
a series of pastorates including pul-
pits in Petersburg and Richmond,
Plummer became a professor of
theology, first at Western Seminary
in Pittsburgh and later at Columbia
(1867-1880). He approached the
text in a verse-by-verse study, using
not only a wide range of source ma-
terials, but the enrichment of his
own long life of scholarship.

While neither these authors nor
their commentaries are well known
to a majority of present-day students,
and their work is necessarily dated,
pastors and teachers will do well to
acquaint themselves with this
series. IB

GLEANINGS FROM ELISHA, by
Arthur W. Pink. Moody Press, Chi-
cago, 111. 254 pp. $5.95. Reviewed by
Mrs. Charles J. Knapp, Moultrie, Ga.

This is an excellent summation of
the life and miracles of Elisha. The
author reveals the reason for and
the meaning of miracles, and his
belief that prophecy and miracles
partake of much the same nature
since prophecy is really an oral mir-
acle, and miracles are virtually

la

as

SO

itn

a

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to

Hi

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Hi

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DSS

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lea:
tal
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PAGE 20 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 6, 1972

arophecies (foretelling of God) in
iction.

In this book one learns that Eli-
ha performed more miracles, and
vas given more answers to prayer
han any other of the Old Testa-
nent prophets. One sees that in
ilisha's evil day nothing short of
niracles or supernatural manifesta-
ions would have impressed the
keptics around him. Idol worship
vas the order of the day. Most of
he nation knew little about the God
>f Israel.

In traveling with Elijah, Elisha
lad learned much of the great needs
)f his people. When Elijah was
:alled to his eternal reward, his
jlessing fell upon Elisha. God com-
nissioned him to serve as His proph-
:t and messenger.

The author contrasts the charac-
er of the miracles of the two
prophets showing that Elijah's mir-
icles often were associated with
leath, while Elisha's were works of
lealing and restoration. He also
tresses the tragic resemblance be-
:ween Elisha's day of apostasy, false
Drophets, idolatry and sin on which
Sod's judgment was visited, and
tnir own day. Yet, he optimistically
isks, "Who can tell what mercy God
nay yet show the world?" since God
;ent Elisha to follow Elijah.

The book is valuable because it
nterprets Elisha's miracles in such
m illuminating manner that God
is glorified for His supernatural
Dower and exalted for His great
works. EE

Chapter VII— from p. 10

■proposed new confession:

"The true Church is the whole
j :ommunity, on earth and in heaven,
■those called by God in the fellow-
ship of Him and with one another
■to know and do His will. As the
Ibody of Christ, the Church on earth
lis the instrument through which
■God continues to proclaim and ap-
■ply the benefits of His redemptive
work and to establish His kingdom.
1 "The Church in the world has
many branches, all of which are sub-
ject to sin and to error. Depending
liupon how closely they conform to
.the will of Christ as head of the
Church, denominations and congre-
gations are more or less pure in wor-
ship, doctrine and practice . . . The
■visible Church is composed of those
who profess their faith in Jesus
■Christ, together with their children."
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PAGE 21 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 6, 1972

Church. We belong to many organi-
zations, but the Church is the best.
This line of reflection prompts us
to echo Timothy D wight's wonder-
ful lines:

I love Thy kingdom, Lord,
The house of Thine abode,
The Church our blest Redeemer
saved

With His own precious blood.

I love Thy Church, O God!
Her walls before Thee stand.
Dear as the apple of Thine eye,
And graven on Thy hand.

For her my tears shall fall;
For her my prayers ascend;
To her my cares and toils be
given,

Till toils and cares shall end. El

No Substitute— from p. 1 1

"common churchgoers."

Finally, conceit will keep people
from church, because many people
just simply feel they don't need
church. That is why it does not
bother them to miss for long periods,

or even not attend for many years.

This is a serious problem. When
each person joins the church, the
session asks each individual to make
a solemn promise to attend church
to the best of his ability. The Word
of God has made it plain that He
wishes to have us worship Him in
His church.

The Power in Worship

There is power in worship which
can make us strong for the tasks of
life ahead. Dr. William Barclay put
it this way:

"The wisest man is a fool in the
sight of God; and the strongest man
is weak in the moment of tempta-
tion. There is no man who can live
the Christian life and neglect the
fellowship of the church. If any
man feels that he can do so let him
remember that he comes to church,
not only to get but to give. He
ought to come not only to receive,
but to make his own contribution
to the life of the church. If he feels
the church has faults, it is his duty
to come in and to help to mend
them."

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of

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There is real power in worship-
it is here that the Word is preached
and this will mean salvation to some
and be the strengthening of the faith
of others. It is here that the sacra
ments are served in keeping with the
wishes of our Lord. It is here thai
prayer and praise are offered up tc
God to the soul's delight. It is hen
that offerings are made, and other*
receive the material needs as a bless
ing from God. And it is here thai
Christ is present in His Holy Spirit
For "without me ye can do noth
ing."

Someone to Trust

Perhaps one of the most powerf
things about worship is just being
here in church. Just sitting quietly
and calmly in the Lord's house.
"Be still and know that I am God."

David H. C, Read, a well known
minister in New York City, tells of a
particularly hard day when he was
rushing from one meeting to anoth-
er. He ran down the subway steps,
just in time to see his train pull
away. He recalls how he quickly
became part of the tense restless
crowd milling about on the plat-
form, all watching the dark tunnel
for the right train.

"Suddenly I felt that someone was
looking at me. I turned and met
the wide-open, unblinking eyes of a
six-month-old infant lying peaceful-
ly in his mother's arms. He was
completely undisturbed by the noise,
and in those blue eyes there was not
the slightest reflection of the ner-
vous, anxious glances all around
him. It was as if he said to me
What are you all worried about?
Where I come from a couple of min-
utes here and there means nothing
at all. Look, I'm in my mother's
arms and I trust her completely.
Have you nothing to rest on, no one
to trust?' "

Maybe one of the most important
things about worship in these fast
moving and anxious days is simply
this, to sit quietly in God's house.

I praise God for the privilege and
the power of worship. Don't you? SI

Layman— from p. 13

(Heb. 10:25).

Refuse to be fenced in. Look out-
ward. And look upward. You will
then be on the road to a happy and
fruitful fellowship, and most likely
to a church true to the Word of
God and the faith once for all de-
livered to the saints (Jude 3) . 51

PAGE 22 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 6, 1972

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PAGE 23 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 6, 1972

Helping People...

that's

what it's all about

THROUGH THE BOARD OF ANNUITIES & RELIEF "

The Presbyterian Church in the United States, 341 Ponce de Leon Ave., N.E., Atlanta, Ga. 30308

George H. Vick, Executive Secretary

PAGE 24 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 6, 1972

Slip

VOL. XXXI, NO. 33

DECEMBER 13, 1972

$4.00 A YEAR

the

Advocating continuation of a Presbyterian Church loyal

to Scripture and the Reformed faith

The New African Nations

When black native rule succeeded white foreign "im-
perialism," justice did not replace injustice in what came to be
known as the emerging African nations. Cannibalism and
slavery still exist in many parts of black Africa, and in some
African nations there is far less individual freedom than existed
under white rule. Cruelty is almost commonplace.

Over half the people of black Africa today live under mili-
tary rule, and the eleven military governments on the continent
spend an estimated half a billion dollars each year on their
armed forces, including internal police to guard the govern-
ment.

Dorothy A. Faber
(See p. 7)

S. S. LESSON AND YOUTH PROGRAM FOR DECEMBER 31

CIRCLE BIBLE STUDY FOR JANUARY

dHOO

DM TTIH TQdteno
<Vn OK jo ^TsasAXCin

U0T108TT_0Q o M

MAILBAG-

EXACTLY !

I have been following with con-
siderable interest the Journal's com-
ments on the proposed new con-
fession and was heartened by your
printing of the entire document, the
remarks concerning changes in the
draft which have made it more ac-
ceptable to the conservative point
of view, and some of your construc-
tive criticisms.

But the editorial in the October
11 issue entitled "It's a Crisis of
Faith" was really incredible. If I

understand what you say, it is that
anything laid before the Assembly
with the approval of the liberals
will not be acceptable to you as it
will not be Reformed or Biblical or
even Christian "in the necessary
sense." In other words, whatever it
is, if the liberals vote for it, you
would vote against it!

Look for a moment at the logic of
your position.

First, how are you going to identi-
fy a "dedicated liberal"? Obviously
not by his confessional position be-

the

PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL

Rev. G. Aiken Taylor, Ph.D., Editor
Rev. Henry B. Dendy, D.D., Managing Editor

Circulation leader among independent publications in the Presbyterian-Refortned world

THIS WEEK-

Vol. XXXI, No. 33, December 13, 1972

Africa Today 7

Some astute observations about Africa — the way it is, and the
way it should be By Dorothy A. Faber

Chapter VIII: The Mission of God's Church 10

The proposed new confession of faith has gone far afield
from Scripture By Robert Strong

De parturients —

Editorials 12

The Layman and his Church 13

Sunday School Lesson, December 31 14

Youth Program, December 31 16

Circle Bible Study, January 17

Book Reviews 20

SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: $4 a year
for individuals, $3 for members of
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respondence regarding subscriptions,
advertising or other business matters
should be addressed to the business
office in Weaverville, N. C. 28787.
Second class postage paid at Weaver-
ville, N. C. 28787.

THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL, a

Presbyterian weekly magazine, devoted
to the statement, defense, and propa-
gation of the Gospel, the faith which
was once for all delivered to the saints,

is published every Wednesday by the
Southern Presbyterian Journal Co.,
Inc., in Weaverville, N. C.

POSTMASTER: Send Form 3579 to
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of address notices should include both
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NEWS AND EDITORIAL correspond-
ence should be addressed to P. O. Box
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TELEPHONES: (All area 704) edi-
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business office, 645-3310, 645-3962.

cause he cannot be trusted to mean
what he says he believes. But then
what other means are you going to

use?

Second, then what is the purpose
of any confessional standard, includ
ing our present ones? Even if it is
thoroughly conservative, Biblical,
Orthodox and Reformed it will still
do no good, for "dedicated liberals"
could accept it, but mean something
quite different.

Third, if the Church were to ac-
cept your position wouldn't it cease
to be a confessional Church? For
one's own prejudiced and biased
position (as to who is a dedicated
liberal) would become the norm
rather than the confessional stan-
dard (which might mean something
different from what it says) .

It seems that you are judging the
confession by the people who ac-
cept it rather than the other way
round, which would be the con-
fessional position.

In other words, being on the op-
posite side from some in the
Church has become more important
than the statement of faith. If this
is the case, then all rational debate
on the proposed new confession is
useless. For a priori your mind is
made up. No matter what it says,
no matter what further changes are
made, you will still oppose it be-
cause those preparing the statement
are "dedicated liberals" and what
they support will not be Reformed,
or Biblical, or even Christian "in
the necessary sense."

— (Rev.) G. Thompson Brown
Seoul, Korea

Exactly. See, "When Language Be-
comes Meaningless," Dec. 6 Journal.
—Ed.

PERMITTED vs. FORBIDDEN

I have read your editorial in the
November 29 Journal regarding my
answer in the Presbyterian Survey.
In the Survey I said, "The faith and
order of the PCUS does not permit
a congregation to withdraw with its
property without the permission of
the presbytery which has jurisdic-
tion." In rebuttal you said, "It is
true that the constitution does not
permit a congregation to withdraw ™
without permission. It also does not
forbid such" (italics mine) .

Surely, sir, you are enough of a;
constitutional lawyer to know that, l £
in any constitution, any power which I
has not been specially delivered has
been reserved — reserved, not to the

to

lice
i
h

or,!,

local congregation, but to the whole
Church, meaning the entire mem-
bership in all its parts.

The whole Church could amend
the constitution so as to give this
power to a local congregation, but
until the constitution is so amend-
ed, the parties to the constitution
(including a local congregation)
have no right to exercise a power
not specifically delivered. If our
constitution were required to forbid
every power not delivered, then the
document would be of impossible
length.

— (Rev.) Ben L. Rose
Richmond, Va.

MINISTERS

William A. Adams from Athens,
Ga., to Atlanta, Ga., as executive
presbyter of Atlanta Presbytery.
Harold F. Apple Jr., from Natchi-
toches, La., to the University
church, Baton Rouge, La., as as-
sistant pastor.

• We're entering the "season of
food will" and it is easy for men of
food will to be persuaded that they
hould give themselves diligently to
he pursuit of happiness for all men.
iecause they look to the Prince of
eace they commit themselves to
peace in our time." Because they
ead that Christians have been
freed from the law" they work to
ree all men from the rule of law.
iecause Christian people have ex-
>erienced the benefits of self-govern-
aent, they labor to extend the right
self-government to all men every-
where. And that sometimes pro-
uces severe complications, as you
ill read in the pages of this issue,
'fen of good will are not al-
ways informed and discerning Chris-
ans, and we can think of no more
nvincing evidence of that fact than
e record of the modern Church in
ontributing to the spread of slav-
y, pain and bloodshed in our time,
id we say the Church? Just read
le material beginning on p. 7, then
onder the action of American
hurches supporting the boycott of

Julian H. Clark Jr., from graduate
study to the Milner Memorial
church, Raleigh, N. C, as assistant
pastor.

William E. Eichelberger (UPUSA)
from Newark, N. J., to Louisville
Presbyterian Theological Semi-
nary, as associate professor of
Christian social ethics.
Gary Hoffius from Fort Smith,
Ark., to the Westlake church,
Bethany, Okla.

Zeb H. Holler, Raleigh, N. C, will
become general pastor of Orange
Presbytery.

Ernest Johnson received from St.
Andrew Presbytery (UPUSA) to
Starmount church, Greensboro, N.
C, as assistant pastor.
Pedro Lopez, received from South-
ern Baptist Convention, to the Sec-
ond Church, San Benito, Tex.
Don E. Moore from graduate
study to First Church, Mangum,
Okla.

Rhodesia, withdrawing their invest-
ments from banks doing business in
South Africa, condemning Portu-
guese "colonialism," supporting Ni-
geria's war against Biafra, and in a
hundred other ways contributing to
the conditions described by Mrs. Fa-
ber. The Presbyterian Church US
got into the act when the 1972 Gen-
eral Assembly, at the instigation of
the Board of National Ministries,
adopted a series of proposals aimed
at the economic boycott of South Af-
rica (see Minutes, pp." 183-184) .

• One of the papers we enjoy on
an exchange basis (at their request) ,
is the National Catholic Register.
There are at least three reasons why
we read this paper with no small ap-
preciation. First, they carry thought-
ful and helpful pieces. Second, they
occasionally reprint Journal edi-
torials. Third, they have a sense
of humor, Texas style (that's where

Charles Murphy, graduate of Gor-
don Conwell Seminary (Mass.) to
the First Church, Coahoma, Tex.
S. Curtis Patterson from Beckley,
W. Va., to administrator of the
Center for Creative Living and
Spiritual Growth, Athens, Ga.
David Pollitt (UPUSA) from
Wilkinsburg, Pa., to the Central
church, Central City, Ky., as as-
sociate pastor.

Earl M. Vaughn from Cleveland,
N. C, to the Woodburn church,
Leland, N. C.

Donald F. Wales, former mission-
ary to Mexico (UPUSA) to the
Pilgrim church, San Antonio, Tex.

DEATH

John Marion Sydenstricker, re-
tired missionary to Brazil, died
Nov. 16 in Campinas, Brazil. The
78 year-old missionary served for
42 years prior to his retirement in
1961.

they publish) . For instance, accord-
ing to the Register:
— "In a nine month period, the gov-
ernment of Greece reports tourists
brought in $300 million in foreign
exchange. Obviously, Greeks don't
beware of tourists bearing gifts.
— "Miami's Metro Mayor John Orr
has banned all fortune tellers. We
approve of that. It isn't so much we
disbelieve in them as we'd prefer not
to know tomorrow's troubles any
sooner than necessary.
— "We've investigated and we've con-
firmed this story is not true. We
mean the story that the day after the
election the Navy moved a fleet up
the east coast, stopped off Cape Cod,
brought out a mile high circular saw
and started sawing off Massachusetts
to let it float off into the Atlantic."

• Oh yes. You wonderful friends
are not going to forget the Journal
at the end of the year, are you? BB

ACROSS THE EDITOR'S DESK

PAGE 3 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 13, 1972

NEWS OF RELIGION

Some *Blue Laws' Still in Effect, Some Not

NASHVILLE, Term.— Far from be-
ing a settled issue, Sunday closing of
businesses still sparks lively contro-
versy in several sections of the Unit-
ed States, as evidenced by develop-
ments here and in New York City.

Here, the city council has wiped
out Nashville's blue laws after a lo-
cal judge made headlines by ridicul-
ing them with orders issued to city
police to "close everything down."
In New York City, an effort to open
major department stores on Sunday
ran into stiff opposition and was
abandoned.

"Bring me every preacher who
preaches on Sunday," ordered Judge
Andrew Doyle, of Nashville, "every
picture show that opens on Sunday.
Let's close everything down — buses,
street cars, churches, beer joints, ev-
erything," said the judge.

Judge Doyle said he felt the city
council should follow the results of a
straw vote on the blue laws taken
last August. By a margin of 4,000
votes, the citizens opposed the ordi-
nances directing Sunday closing of
businesses.

A compromise proposal which
would have amended the existing
provisions to allow businesses to

open between the hours of 1 p.m.
and 6 p.m. on Sundays was defeated
by the council in August.

Early in October, police began a
publicly announced crackdown, ar-
resting 31 managers and proprietors
of stores. Later the judge dismissed
the charges, telling police that any
further arrests on Sunday would al-
so violate blue laws against their
working.

In New York, Alexander's Inc.,
had announced that it would open
its five stores from noon to 6 p.m.
on Sundays during the Christmas
shopping season. The announce-
ment met with "surprising furore,"
according to Milton E. Mermelstein,
chairman of the corporation.

One of the strongest expressions of
opposition came from New York's
largest retailer, R. H. Macy & Co. At
the annual meeting of the store's
board, chairman Donald B. Smiley
said his firm believes "the city, coun-
ty and state law officers should move
vigorously and fairly to enforce the
law .... We hope that Alexander's
will not force a confrontation that
could lead to widespread breakdown
of law enforcement in the city."

The Greater New York Retail La-

P

THE CHURCH OVERSEAS

VIETNAM — A tribal Christian
leader, earlier thought to have died
of injuries suffered in the Commu-
nist attack on An Loc, has turned up
safe and recovered.

Dieu Huynh, a young pastor from
among the tribal people in Vietnam
who had received a seminary educa-
tion and was considered the key per-
son in tribal evangelism, was wound-
ed in April and evacuated to a near-
by provincial hospital. Others in the
tribal group who were not wounded
left An Loc the day after and either
were killed or captured by the en-
emy.

When he seemed to improve,
Huynh's uncle and his future father-
in-law carried him on their backs

from the hospital to the home of a
friend. That night the enemy scored
a direct hit on the civilian hospital,
killing scores of patients, including
the one lying on the bed where
Huynh had been just hours before.
The incident led to the rumor that
he had been killed in the attack.

During the succeeding month,
Dieu Huynh's fiancee and friends
nursed him back to health, barter-
ing all their possessions and clothing
for enough rice to stay alive.

Relief among the tribal people of
Vietnam is largely in the hands of
voluntary relief agencies, including
the World Relief Commission, Box
44, Valley Forge, Pa. 19481. IB

bor Council, a group of 20 retail
unions with a total membership of
150,000, sent telegrams to the five
district attorneys in New York City,
the police commissioner and the
state attorney general to oppose
Sunday openings.

Alexander's, the unions charged,
had declared "an open intention to
violate the Sabbath law."

In the face of the opposition,
Alexander's canceled its plans to
operate on Sunday.

Some stores in the Times Square
area of Manhattan are open seven
days a week. They generally pay
fines ranging from $5 to $25 for each
occurrence. EE

Africa's Least Known
Religious War Ends

JUBA, Sudan — The trickle of
refugees returning home to the
southern Sudan is slowly increasing
as conditions inside the region im-
prove. After 17 years of war with re-
ligious overtones (most of the Chris-
tians lived in the South and charges
of persecution were frequently lev-
eled) , peace apparently has come.

According to the U.N. High
Commissioner for Refugees, more
than 30,000 persons have returned
from neighboring countries, while
more than 200,000 displaced south
Sudanese have come out of hiding
in the bush.

Following an agreement reached
in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in March
1972, between the Sudan govern-
ment in Khartoum and Anya-Nya
forces in the South, reconciliation
has moved ahead.

Former Anya-Nya troops have
been integrated into the Sudanese
army and former exiled political
leaders have taken their place in
the regional government set up in
the South. But urgent problems of
resettlement and planning for the
long-term future of the country per-
sist.

Sudan is the largest country on
the African continent. It covers an
area of about a million square miles.
A population of 15 million depends
largely on the sale of cotton, and the
annual per capita income rarely
rises above an average of $120.

PAGE 4 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 13, 1972

The southern region has few nat-
ural resources, no paved roads, bad
communications and little in the
way of basic infrastructure. Years of
war have left a legacy of destruction,
houses have been obliterated,
schools burned, and hospitals and
modern medical facilities are almost
nonexistent.

Clement Mboro, head of the gov-
ernment's resettlement commission,
describes the south Sudan as "back
in the Stone Age."

Yet the land of the "forgotten
war" — it raged for nearly two
decades without much interest from
the outside — is in danger of becom-
ing the land of the forgotten peace,
and the forgotten relief and rehabili-
tation program.

Few governments and relief agen-
cies have come forward with sub-
stantial help to aid the region in
picking up the pieces.

The U. N. High Commissioner
for Refugees has started repatriation
and planned efforts in health, agri-
:ulture and education. The govern-
ment is doing what it can with in-
adequate resources and a lack of
.rained personnel. The struggle is
uphill, with emergency needs miss-
ing except in a few isolated places,
south Sudan is really faced with the
aroblem of how to develop itself
:rom scratch.

The greatest resource is the peo-
ale, a large propor tion of whom are
Christians. Through 17 years of war
bey showed remarkable self-reliance
md dignity. Bush schools and medi-
al centers flourished with hardly
iny outside help.

Whether Christians will now be
Dermitted to practice their faith by
he largely Moslem north, remains to
>e seen. EE

Rhodesia Recognition
Mot Near Despite Hints

WASHINGTON, D. C— The U S.
itate Department has denied a re-
tort that the United States is con-
idering a reversal of its policy and
eestablishing diplomatic relations
vith Rhodesia.

According to some press dispatches
rom Salisbury, and information cir-
ulating at the United Nations in
'few York, Clark MacGregor, for-

mer adviser to President Nixon for
Congressional relations, said in a
Rhodesian interview that the Smith
government might be recognized by
Washington.

This would end the formal boy-
cott of the existing government of
Rhodesia, now in effect as a result
of a United Nations resolution at
the request of Great Britain.

Mr. MacGregor was reported as
saying it was "unnatural" for Rho-
desia not to have international rec-
ognition.

"In a free society such as ours, un-
natural situations which are unpop-
ular tend to be subject to change,"
the director of Mr. Nixon's reelec-
tion campaign reportedly said. "So
I am sure change will come, for the

Inter-Varsity Looks
Towards Urban a '73

URBANA, 111.— With the memory
of the largest student missionary
gathering in American history still
fresh in mind, Inter- Varsity officials
are beginnng to put together an even
greater effort for December 27-31,
1973 at the University of Illinois,
here, under the theme: "Jesus Christ,
Lord of the Universe, Hope of the
World."

From an attendance of 575 at the
first convention in 1947, the triennial
affair reached a total of 12,300 stu-
dents, missionaries, pastors and
Christian leaders in 1970.

Over 1,600 of those who attended
the last convention have since in-
dicated through personal correspon-
dence that they intend to serve God
overseas as missionaries. At the con-
vention itself, the delegates gave
$93,000 in an offering for student
work overseas.

Inter-Varsity leaders say that "Ur-
bana '73 will proclaim the timeless
yet relevant message that in Jesus
Christ there is hope. This means
hope for liberty and fulfillment in
this life. It also means hope for the
future. IVCF unashamedly accepts
the promise of Jesus Christ that He
will return."

Inter-Varsity USA was born in the
fall of 1941. It promotes campus
evangelism, summer leadership train-
ing, special campus seminars and a
missionary outreach. EE

better," he was quoted as saying. "I
can't predict how or when, but I
rather expect it will be sooner than
most people realize."

The State Department spokesman
noted that Mr. MacGregor is no
longer with the administration, hav-
ing recently taken a post with the
United Aircraft Corp.

Among Church agencies in New
York opposed to the white govern-
ment of Rhodesia, there was a ques-
tion as to whether the statement of
of Mr. MacGregor might be a "trial
balloon" to determine what, if any,
reaction to U. S. recognition of Rho-
desia might come from the Amer-
ican people and the international
community. EE

Church Commercial
Property To Be Taxed

SANTA FE, N. M. (RNS) — New
Mexicans voted overwhelmingly to
approve a state constitutional amend-
ment which specifies that church
property used for commercial pur-
poses is not exempt from property
taxes.

With 1,003 of the state's 1,133 pre-
cincts reporting, the vote was 130,-
903 for the amendment and 68,308
against it.

The amendment does, however,
provide exemption from property
taxes for "any property acquired by
churches and used for educational
or charitable purposes."

Before the amendment, the New
Mexico constitution stated that "all
church property" is exempt from
taxation. However, a state supreme
court judgment some years ago es-
tablished the scope of the definition
of "all church property" as noncom-
mercial property, or that used for
worship purposes.

This supreme court definition has
been applied in various degrees by
county tax assessors, especially in
cases involving church camps and
assemblies. Thus, the main purpose
of the amendment drawn up by the
1972 legislature was to specify that
commercial property owned by a
church is not exempt from the state
property tax.

Arguments cited for the amend-
ment were that the commercial en-
deavors of a church should compete
on an equal basis with others. EE

PAGE 5 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 13. 1972

THE CHURCH AT HOME

GEB Narrows Field of Staff Nominee's

ATLANTA (PN) — The provision-
al General Executive Board has
begun narrowing the field of some
360 nominations for six top exe-
cutive positions in the new structure
of the Presbyterian Church US.

At the same time, it extended the
cutoff date for nominations and ap-
plications in order to give ample
time for hearing from missionaries
overseas.

GEB's Executive Committee
scheduled a meeting for Dec. 1 in
Atlanta to further screen the nomi-
nations, and the board was to hold
a special meeting Dec. 2 for final
review and input of names to be con-
sidered for the positions of general
staff director and for directors of
five divisions: Central Support Ser-
vices, Corporate and Social Mission,
International Mission, National Mis-
sion and Professional Development.

A schedule of interviews for those
given further consideration is now
planned for mid-December, with fi-
nal interviews likely in early Jan-
uary.

Job Help Offered

The 65-member GEB also ap-
proved policies for assistance and
benefits for present board and agen-
cy employees not to be reemployed
in the new structure.

It approved a half million initial
Job Search and Relocation Fund to
assist the denominational employees
in finding new employment; and for
career counseling and placement
services, retraining and severance al-
lowances.

GEB agreed to notify each board
and agency "at least six months in
advance of the date of GEB 'take-
over' of actual staff functions, in
order to provide some present un-
derstanding of tenure and to pro-
vide ample lead time for relocation
of employees who are not to be re-
trained."

A temporary personnel unit was
authorized to oversee personnel se-
lection for lower echelon staff posi-
tions.

Initially, the unit will consist of
a staff person and a secretary at-
tached to the office of GEB's tem-
porary coordinator.

It will receive applications from
present staff employees and advertise
for positions. Final decision on em-
ployment will be made in consulta-
tion with the new staff directors
when they come on the field early
next year.

The Division of Central Support
Services advised the board it is hir-
ing a technical consultant to as-
sist in gathering data, designing sup-
port systems, assist in making ar-
rangements for housing GEB staff
and to coordinate legal transactions.

A recommendation that GEB per-
sonnel and functions be housed at
the Presbyterian Center in Atlanta
"for the present'' was approved.

In response to a directive by the
1972 General Assembly, a five-man
committee was named to make a
study of how the Board of Annui-
ties and Relief is meeting its as-
signed responsibilities under the
existing structure and whether these
might be met under restructure as
a part of the Division of Profes-
sional Development.

The Assembly asked that the com-
mittee be comprised of profession-
als with expertise in the areas of in-
vestments, actuarial science, insur-
ance, pensions and trust law.

The following were named: Ben-
nett A. Brown, George K. Cavan-
augh, Donald Hart, Fred C. Jackson
and Ray U. Tanner. Named as al-
ternates were Henry C. Unruh,
Thomas H. Clarke, John C. Crist, J.
Chase Moss and Paul Manners.

Speaks for Mexicans

A three-man delegation from
Texas made an unannounced ap-
pearance to appeal for better Mexi-
can-American representation on de-
nominational agencies and commit-
tees.

They specifically urged GEB to
employ either the Rev. Ruben Ar-
mendariz of Corpus Christi or the
Rev. Ben Gutierrez of Houston as
one of the staff directors.

The Rev. John Robert Smith of
the Board of National Ministries
staff, Atlanta, was named to direct
the newly established office of re-
cords of the present PCUS boards
and agencies in the new structure

which replaces them.

Smith will continue to serve BNM
for the duration of that board's
life.

The Division of International Mis-
sion announced plans for its mem-
bers and three from Professional De-
velopment to attend the January
meeting of the Board of World
Missions in Nashville.

The Division of National Mis-
sion reported it is urging the emerg-
ing new synods, combining 15 into
7, and their presbyteries, to include
organizational components that as-
sure full involvement of women.

The Division of Corporate and
Social Mission announced plans for
a Feb. 2-3 consultation to seek di-
rection for carrying out its respon-
sibilities. 11

Lady Minister To Direct
Meeting on Minorities

ATLANTA — Concerns of minorities
and women will be the subject of a
special consultation sponsored by the
Presbyterian US General Assembly's
Committee on the Minister and his
Work under the direction of a lady
minister called to the staff of the
Assembly's committee for that spe-
cial purpose.

The Rev. Miss Patricia McClurg
of Dallas, Tex., will carry the title
of associate on the staff of the Com-
mittee on the Minister and his
Work until the fall of 1973 when
she will return to Dallas to complete
her doctorate in ethics at Southern
Methodist University.

Miss McClurg's base of operations
will be her office in Texas. She also
will maintain an office in Atlanta.

Her duties will include planning,
developing and implementing a Mi-
nority Ministries Consultation, and
coordinating the preparation of a
report to the 1973 General Assembly
in the form of an Equal Employ-
ment Opportunity position paper.

She will also represent the Assem-
bly's committee on the Interboard
Task Force on Women in Church
and Society, and will serve as part-
time staff to the denomination's
Board of Women's Work in its rela-
tionship with the interboard task
force.

Miss McClurg is one of the ap-
pointees of Moderator Matthew
Lynn to the committee preparing
the proposed new confession of faith.
She is also a member of the Council
on Church and Society.

PAGE 6 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 13, 1972

World-wide demands for African "freedom" have had some bad results —

Africa Today

Post-colonial Africa has been
characterized largely by radical
and frequent change, rather than by
stability. Since Europe relinquished
her colonies on the African conti-
nent, there have been more than 30
coups or abrupt switches in govern-
ment.

When black native rule succeeded
white foreign "imperialism," justice
did not always replace injustice in
what came to be known as the emerg-
ing African nations." Cannibal-
ism and slavery still exist in many
parts of black Africa, and in some
African nations there is far less in-
dividual freedom than existed under
white rule. Cruelty is almost com-
monplace.

Over half the people of black
Africa today live under military rule,
and the eleven military governments
on the continent spend an estimated
half a billion dollars each year on
their armed forces, including inter-
nal police to guard the government.

Nigeria, for example, maintains a
! 250,000-man army, the largest in
)lack Africa, at an estimated cost of
i $250 million a year. In spite of this,
Nigeria has a crime problem, so
Gen. Yakubu Gowon, President of
Nigeria, recently announced that any
person convicted of armed robbery
would be executed by a firing squad,
with the public invited to witness.
As of August, 1972, at least 150 per-
sons have died in this manner, with
crowds as large as 100,000 watching.
! Cruelty is nothing new in Nigeria.
The entire world became aware of it
in 1970 when Nigeria virtually de-
stroyed the nation of Biafra, after a
war that lasted for more than two
years. The Nigerian federal army

The author is editor of the chris-
tian challenge, an independent
,:i Episcopal paper from which her ar-
iai tide is reprinted, with permission.
See lead editorial, p. 12 of this issue.

is made up largely of Hausa tribes-
men, who are Moslems and who hate
the Biafra Ibos many of whom are
Christian.

Before the war the Ibos were re-
cognized as the most capable within
the Nigerian federation. As a result,
they held the best jobs, controlled
the richest section of the country,
and refused to change their religion.
Secession came in 1966 when the
Hausas vented their frustration by
murdering 40,000 Ibos.

Ibos Decimated

The Ibos fought brilliantly, but
their supply lines were limited and,
in the end, they lost the war through
sheer starvation. Living skeletons of
babies with greyish hair, scaly skin
and bulging eyes became a common
sight.

Desperately needed food and
medical supplies, flown into Biafra
by volunteers, were the only things
that prevented annihilation of the
entire Biafran population, which
consisted of about 14 million when
the war began. When it ended, only
four million Ibos remained alive.

In 1971, President Jean-Bedel Bok-
assa of the Central African Repub-
lic celebrated Mother's Day by or-
dering the execution of all men
jailed for crimes against their moth-
ers. More recently Bokassa, who
proclaimed himself president for
life this year, announced that all
thieves were to be beaten.

Whereupon, he personally led a
contingent of soldiers into a prison
compound which housed 46 men
convicted of stealing, and told the
soldiers to "keep on hitting them
till you kill them." The soldiers
did as they were told, and the re-
sults were put on public display.

The government code provides
drastic punishment for thieves, such
as progressive losses of ear, right

DOROTHY A. FABER

hand, and finally life. But clubbing
seems to be Bokassa's own idea.

A New York Times report from
the same country told of Pygmies
living in slave conditions as chat-
tels of African planters. A priest who
paid a visit to some of his African
parishioners to pray for the Pygmies
said he was met with laughter, be-
cause the blacks do not regard the
under-sized Pygmies as civilized, and
consider them subhuman.

The audience at a public function
held recently in Kenya began to beat
an unidentified man who attempted
to sit next to President Jomo Ken-
yatta, apparently because they
thought the man was a would-be
assassin. But when the man's broth-
er tried to explain to the avengers
that their victim was mentally de-
ranged but harmless, they turned
on the brother and beat him to
death.

Military Rule

A few months ago, President Ken-
neth Kaunda of Zambia placed pick-
ets on the street to prevent house-
wives from shopping, boarding
buses, or even moving from one
street to another unless they had
membership cards, showing paid-up
dues, in his political party. After
throwing the Zambian vice president
into prison for criticizing him, Kaun-
da then made Zambia (formerly
Northern Rhodesia) a one-party
state. At the moment, Kaunda, with
help from the Chinese Communists,
is heading a drive to "emancipate"
free Rhodesia.

In Congo Brazzaville, the former
French colony, Marxist revolution-
ary Maj. Marien Ngouabi runs a
"People's Democracy," according to
AP reporter Larry Heinzerling in a
feature story which appeared in
American newspapers in February.
"In tiny Togo," said Heinzerling,

PAGE 7 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 13, 1972

"Brig. Gen. Etienne Eyadema has
sought support through a referen-
dum while encouraging private en-
terprise and foreign investment to
stimulate the economy. Mali, Soma-
lia, Sudan and Upper Volta show
no outward signs that military rule
will evolve into democracy."

Last January in Ghana, an army
junta seized the government, abol-
ished the National Assembly,
banned all political parties, and
withdrew the country's constitution.
In Sierra Leone, slave trading still
exists in the interior; the country
has been battered by repeated coups,
detentions and jailings; and democ-
racy is non-existent.

Because of an ancient feudal sys-
tem among the tribes in Tanzania, a
land pledged to socialism, President
Nyerere has had trouble with his
plan to collectivize agriculture, just
as he has had problems trying to
abolish slavery. There are no free
elections in Tanzania, but the pres-
ent government has given sanctuary
and encouragement to African guer-
rilla groups.

Massacre in Burundi

The bloodiest fighting of 1972 has
not occurred in Vietnam, as might
be expected. It has taken place in
Burundi, a tiny African country
that lies against the eastern border
of Zaire (formerly the Congo) , not
far from Rhodesia.

Burundi and Rhodesia are alike
in that both are governed by minor-
ities— Rhodesia by whites and Bur-
undi by the black Tutsi tribe,
though an estimated 84 per cent of
the three or four million population
are members of the Hutu tribe. For
a period of 42 years, Belgium man-
aged to maintain the peace in Bur-
undi. However, when the Belgians
moved out of the area and Burundi
became independent, the shrewd,
autocratic Tutsis took control, al-
though they comprise only about 15
per cent of the population.

The usually subservient and hard-
working Hutus reportedly have been
influenced in recent years by the
Chinese Communists at work in that
part of Africa. Mao Tse-tung has
been quoted as saying that "Burun-
di is the road to the Congo, and
when the Congo falls all Africa will
follow." If this is accurate, then it
becomes clear that Burundi is a ma-
jor target of the Red Chinese.

On April 29, hordes of frenzied
Hutus, armed with machetes and

fortified with hashish which they
thought made them immune from
bullets, launched an attack against
government police, soldiers and of-
ficials. The Hutus were mowed
down by machine gun fire, and a
bloodbath ensued for about ten days.
At the same time, it was estimated
that the death toll ranged from
50,000 to 125,000, and a million
persons had been displaced.

But the internecine warfare has
continued, and more recent esti-
mates put the dead at between
100,000 and 200,000 persons. At
least 40,000 people are believed to
have fled the country.

The Living Church reported that
the Anglican Church in Burundi
has lost at least one third of its
clergy in the mayhem, and many
male nurses, male teachers and
evangelists working in outlying dis-
tricts have also been "taken." Some
reportedly have been shot on the
spot, and many more have been driv-
en off in trucks and are not ex-
pected to be seen again.

National Review pointed out that
while the slaughter was still under-
way in Burundi, back in the United
States the Black Congressional Cau-
cus sponsored a two-day conference
of black groups "that stridently con-
demned U. S. policy toward all of
Africa and exhorted blacks there to
seize economic and political power
from whites. Of this latest massacre
of black Africans by other black Af-
ricans, there wasn't a word."

As of this writing, the same situa-
tion exists with American Church
leaders who have been so outspoken
against South Africa and Rhodesia
because they oppose minority rule
by whites in these countries, and
because they object to South Africa's
legal separation of the races known
as apartheid.

Black Racism in Uganda

After seizing power by a military
coup d'etat in January 1 97 1 , Uganda
dictator Idi Amin began a system-
atic tribal pogrom, during which
most of the Acholi and Langi tribes-
men in the country's 10,000-man
army were slaughtered. To show
their appreciation for not murder-
ing them along with the Acholis and
Langis, members of the Baganda
tribe recently presented Amin with
one of their young women to be his
fourth wife.

Amin has also offered Uganda as a
training base for the United African

Army and Air Force, to be supplied
by the Organization of African Uni-
ty for the "liberation" of the white-
ruled nations of southern Africa.

Then, in early August, Amin sud-
denly announced that 50,000 with
British passports and 10,000 with
Indian, Pakistani or Bangladesh pass-
ports would have to leave Uganda
by the first week in November.
Though he claimed there was "noth-
ing racist" about the order, no
reason other than ancestry is appar-
ent.

Africans Resent Asians

According to the U. S. News 4
World Report, the Ugandan order
will mean the expulsion of virtually
all the country's middle-class and
professional workers, and it will
make serious problems for a nation
that is in economic difficulties al-
ready. One diplomat was quoted as
saying:

"Resentment by blacks in Uganda
against the Asians is commonplace.
What angers the Africans is the way
they think Asians treat them as in-
feriors. They've always felt this. But
now, when they have political power
and find things still don't go their
way, they have no qualms about pay-
ing off old scores."

Curiously enough, on August 23,
it was reported that the Rev. Dr.
Eugene Carson Blake, retiring sec-
retary general of the World Coun-
cil of Churches, had sent a telegram
to President Amin saying, "I feel
obliged to call upon you to consider
the profound human consequences
such a decree may have for those af-
fected."

Four days later Amin announced
he was altering his order, and that
some of the Ugandans of Asian an-
cestry would be allowed to postpone
their departure for a year, but only
by special invitation of the govern-
ment.

But there are reports that the
Ugandan government may deny on
some technicality the citizenship of
almost half the 25,000 Asians who
consider themselves Ugandan na-
tionals, and there is little hope that
the 55,000 Asians eligible for Brit-
ish passports will be spared being
driven into exile.

The Chicago Tribune reported
that resettlement in Britain of the
Asians from Uganda probably will
cost the British government $75 mil-
lion. The forced sale of all European
enterprises in Uganda will cost

PAGE 8 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 13, 1972

British business up to $35 million,
the paper also noted, since President
Amin has said that all business and
property owned by non-Uganda citi-
zens must be sold quickly to black
Ugandans. If Ugandans don't have
enough money to pay even knock-
down prices, Amin has said he
would force banks to lend them the
money, and the main banks in Ugan-
da are British.

A British Council of Churches of-
ficial, the Rev. Elliott Kendall, was
quoted as saying that Asians are be-
ing told they will be allowed to take
only $125 in cash when they leave
Uganda, and some refugees arriving
in London and India have reported
they were stripped at sea and air-
ports of all money, jewelry, watches
and other valuables.

Commented a Chicago Tribune
editorial: "Those naive enough to
expect independence to be more
just than imperialism have been dis-
appointed again."

Zaire's Mobutu

The country of Zaire (formerly
Congo Kinshasa) is known to Ameri-
cans largely because of the civil war
that erupted there after the Congo
gained its independence in 1960.
That unhappy land has suffered an
invasion by United Nations forces,
military coup, bloodshed and massa-
cre. Under the remarkable misrule
of Joseph Mobutu, who overthrew
the duly constituted authorities in
1965, Zaire has never reached econ-
omic stability, in spite of its vast
mineral wealth.

Reports from the area indicate
that Mobutu, who now calls him-
self Mobutu Sese Seku, apparently
has withstood both Russian and
Communist overtures because he
will not tolerate opposition from
any source. However, the highway
being constructed by the Red Chin-
ese from Kenya to the seaport of
Lagos could, in time, prove to be
Mobutu's undoing.

In the meantime, indications are
that Mobutu Sese Seku has built up
60,000-man army, including an
"stimated 7,000 crack troops to pro-
tect his palace and his person. It is
also believed by observers that Mo-
utu has bought a villa near Lau-
sanne, reported to have cost over
300,000, and has a large Swiss bank
ccount plus considerable real es-
tate which provides him with enor-
mous private income — and a future.
His concern for the poor black

people of Zaire has never been one
of his more obvious characteristics.

He has shown concern in a few
interesting areas. Early in Septem-
ber, for example, Mobutu ordered
the arrest and expulsion of a Roman
Catholic priest for baptizing a baby
girl under a Christian name.

Mobutu's action was in conformity
to his earlier decision to abolish all
Christian names in pursuit of his
declared policy of "a return to (Af-
rican) authenticity" and obliteration
of every trace of the colonial past.
A "Voice of Zaire" radio broadcast
said the government has ruled that
all Zairans must henceforth call
themselves by their "authentic"
names, and that Christian names
may not even be printed in brackets.

Any citizen of Zaire who contin-
ues to refer to himself by a Christian
name, according to the radio report,
will be regarded as a "reactionary"
and a "counter-revolutionary."

Not being reported generally in
the United States is a situation in
one part of Africa that made head-
lines in early May in the British
Daily Express. Columnist John Elli-
son and photographer Reg Lancas-
ter, who said they had penetrated
the dense bush barrier which seals
off the country from all access ex-
cept by foot, reported the existence
of "a phantom state, created, armed
and largely controlled by the Soviet
Union."

The Hidden War

This embryonic nation, according
to Ellison, is emerging in a key
strategic area of West Africa, though
its existence is barely known to the
outside world. "Yet it has grown up
in spite of nine years of savage and
largely unreported warfare with the
NATO equipped Portugese army in
Portugese Guinea — one of the three
major African colonies still under
the direct control of Lisbon."

Ellison and Lancaster reported
they saw the new "kingdom" being
built by Marxist leader Amilcar Ca-
bral. He claims to have "one of the
finest equipped armies in black Af-
rica" which Moscow has provided
with rapid-fire and anti-aircraft
guns and heavy artillery batteries
equipped with portable rockets hav-
ing a 12-mile range.

These guerrilla forces, said Elli-
son, "move like killer cats" and
"they have evolved a savage am-
bushing technique which they prac-
tice alike on Portugese patrols and

armored columns which venture on-
to the roads." The natives are being
trained ideologically by political
commissars, and bush schools have
been set up where "ten-year-olds are
taught to read and write — and to
kill."

The British writer believes that
Cabral naively thinks he and his
Party for the Independence of Gui-
nea and the Cape Verde Islands
(P.A.I. G.G.) can remain indepen-
dent of Moscow, once his war against
Portugese Guinea is won. "But,"
said Ellison, "if this bitter war is
to continue much longer, the final
victory could well prove to be not
Cabral's but Moscow's. And the los-
er will not be Lisbon but the West."

If Ellison's report is true, then
those in the United States who pro-
test continually against the white
governments of the Portugese Afri-
can nations, against Rhodesia and
South Africa, might well consider
for a moment the specter of a na-
tion created for the sole purpose of
killing.

Rhodesia and South Africa

The plight of blacks in Rhodesia,
wrote Guy Wright of the San Fran-
cisco Examiner about a year ago,
might command more sympathy "if
the death rate of democracy in the
rest of black Africa was not so high."

If Rhodesia's blacks were granted
the dream of one-man-one-vote, it
would not be likely to result in gov-
ernment of the people, by the peo-
ple. "The sorry history of self-gov-
ernment in Africa," said Wright, "is
first, one-man-one-vote time; and
then one-man rule and one-party dic-
tatorship.

"I can count 33 nations in Africa
where the people have one choice.
They range from nations like Mala-
wi and Tanzania, where one-party
rule is written into the constitution;
to nations like Togo and Dahomey,
where one party rules by the grace
of a military clique; to Ethiopia,
which permits no political parties
at all ... .

"In all of Africa, outside the
white-ruled South, only tiny Gam-
bia, so insignificant it does not
count, has been untouched by mili-
tary coup or one-party suppression.
This dismal record is extraordinary
since almost to a man the African
leaders who took over at indepen-
dence pledged themselves to uphold

(Continued on p. 20, col. 2)

PAGE 9 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 13, 1972

The proposed concession misunderstands the task of God's Church-

Chapter VIII: Mission of God's Church

VV/ hat a tremendous task to im-
' * pose upon a tiny company of
eleven men! True, Jesus had hun-
dreds of additional followers who
would be drawn into the undertak-
ing. When He gave His last com-
mands to the apostles, however, they
could have known enormous inner
dismay.

To testify in Jerusalem, that was
easily possible. To cover Judea, they
could also do that. To bear witness
in Samaria, that was distasteful and
involved a disagreeable effort to
overcome their own and the Samari-
tans' prejudices. But to go to the
ends of the earth — how could that
possibly be accomplished?

They had a great message: Messiah
Jesus' death was a sacrifice for sin
and His resurrection a demonstra-
tion of His deity and truthfulness.
But the task of bearing witness to
Jesus everywhere.

Nevertheless, after the promise of
the empowering Holy Spirit was ful-
filled, they must be about their
assignment, and in due time, indeed,
the original Christian company went
everywhere preaching the Word.

Did they misconceive their mis-
sion? Many in our day are willing to
say so. They think and assert that
the mission of God's people is to
change society. They want His
Church to involve itself fully in
social causes and politics.

Some of them went so far in the
recent political campaign as to or-
ganize themselves as "Ministers For
McGovern." Surprisingly, certain
conservative ministers organized
themselves as "Evangelicals For Mc-

This is another in a series of ar-
ticles on the new confession of faith
proposed for the Presbyterian
Church US. Dr. Strong is pastor of
the Trinity Presbyterian Church,
Montgomery, Ala.

Ye shall receive power, after that
the holy Ghost is come upon
you; and ye shall be witnesses unto
me both in Jerusalem, and in all
Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the
uttermost parts of the earth" (Acts
1:8).

Govern."

Everybody knows how the World
Council of Churches, the National
Council of Churches, General As-
semblies, denominational confer-
ences and conventions have been
giving more and more attention to
issues of war and peace and to social
questions. What should we conceive
the mission of God's Church to be?

The proposed new confession says
that God sends the Church into the
world "to glorify God and to serve
the world," and that the Church
should "mark where God is at work
in the world and join him there."
Then in three extensive sections it
moves into a discussion of the "strug-
gle for justice," ministries of com-
passion, and "the effort to end war."
The final section deals with God "at
work leading all people to know
him."

What Did They Mean?

At once we are therefore confront-
ed with questions about the think-
ing of the ad interim committee. By
dealing with missions and evangel-
ism at the end of the chapter, are
they intending to rise to what they
conceive to be the climactic empha-
sis? Or by dealing first and so fully
with political and social matters are
they indicating that these things
should have first emphasis in the
Church?

In any case, I think this chapter
of the proposed new confession suf-
fers from a common failure to be
found among those who have a
great zeal to involve the Church in

ROBERT STRONG

political and social problems. This
is the failure to make the distinction
between common grace and specia
grace.

Common grace is what God does
for man and his environment apart
from the distinction of who is right
eous and who is unrighteous. Jesus
said that God sends the sunshine
and also the rain on the just and the
unjust. "God's tender mercies are
over all His works."

So the earth enjoys her seasons
and brings forth food for mankind
So mankind receives gifts from God,
Some are strong and some are smart
and some are beautiful and some are
leaders.

Some are decent and some are
kind and some are law-abiding and
some are passionately humane. Some
are healthy and some are strong anc
some are long-lived. So God makes
possible society, government, busi
ness, culture, invention, and general
human progress.

If wickedness were unrestrained, if
human society were chaotic, if there
were nothing but defiance of law,
cheating, dishonesty and murder,
nothing constructive would occur
The Church itself could not exist,
Common grace is essentially for the
purpose of giving special grace the
opportunity to find working room

Fundamental Fault

Now the proposed new confession
gives nearly equal priority to all
worthwhile objectives, and this is its
fundamental fault. It would have us
so use the energies of the Church
and of Church people that very little
time could be left for the mission ol
the Church as the Lord Jesus taught
the apostles to conceive of it.

Not to be overlooked in our cri
tique are certain details in the nev
confession's call for social involve
ment. When it is asserted that God'i

Wii

PAGE 10 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 13, 1972

"judgment is aroused when rich na-
tions grow richer at the expense of
poor nations," is rich America by
implication indicted?

Any reasonable person must surely
think of our lavishing billions of
dollars worth of food, agricultural
machinery, and industrial equip-
ment upon poorer nations. He notes
that America's struggle with the
balance of payments problem is
largely due to our foreign aid pro-
gram.

He thinks of the lives and treasure
poured out by the United States in
behalf of threatened and oppressed
peoples. Why should an American
creed seem to point the finger at its
own country?

Committee's Extremism

How extreme is the assertion that
"courts seldom punish the guilty
who can pay and often condemn the
innocent who cannot."

What an oversimplification is the
statement about prisons. The im-
plied indictment of America for ra-
cism is also extreme.

How peculiar the statement that
"sexism prevents women from ren-
dering full service in the life of the
church itself." Any pastor would
testify to the vital significance of
women in the life and work of his
congregation. Likely their reference
is to office-bearing and the exercis-
ing of top level control.

Some women make ungraceful
demands concerning these areas.
They do not speak for very many. It
is to be regretted that they some-
times seem to brush aside the teach-
ing of the Bible concerning the
creation order.

Does God indeed send the Church
"to help the poor and the weak get
resources and power, to work for
better laws, fairer courts, prisons
that are more humane, to put the
welfare of all people above national
or personal self-interest"? This
would mean complete involvement
of the Church in politics.

And, incidentally, it would mean
^hat the Church would forget its
natural and inevitable ties to the na-
tion in favor of an internationalist
jind socialist approach to world
roblems.

I think you and I would say that
hristian men and women, through
he insight they have gained from
he knowledge of God's Word and
he strength they have received from
orshipping God triune, are to act

in all the avenues of life as Chris-
tians should. They will take part in
public life, voting, standing for of-
fice, accepting appointment to posi-
tions in the structure of the state.

It gives me great pleasure to re-
port on the way Trinity church
members are doing this. Among
them are to be found the first lady
of Alabama, a federal judge, two
state supreme court judges, two cir-
cuit court judges, a probate judge,
a state senator, the chairman of the
county school board, the just retired
county superintendent of schools, a
member of the county board of
commissioners, a member of the
state board of education, a member
of the governor's cabinet.

Others are a former postmaster
general who offered himself as a
candidate for the United States Sen-
ate, the chairman of the Republi-
can county committee, the secretary
of the Democratic county committee,
a Republican national committee-
man, the state superintendent of
public instruction for high school
and elementary schools. They are
Democrats and Republicans.

Wouldn't the Church be foolish
to espouse a particular political par-
ty? Were not those ministers unwise
who formed themselves into a com-
mittee called, "Ministers For Mc-
Govern"? If it be argued that every-
thing has moral implications, should
the Church pronounce on every par-
ticular issue and thus succeed only
in dividing men of equally good
conscience from each other?

Partisanship and the political ap-
proach to social improvement are
better left to political parties and
individual citizens. The Church best
serves by grounding its members in
the Word of God, so that in the
areas of common grace, these mem-
bers may bring to bear the under-
standing they have received from
Scripture.

Appeal for Pacifism

The section headed, "God is in-
volved in the effort to end war,"
again and again echoes the liberal
side in the current discussion of
Vietnam. Without saying it in so
many words it makes an appeal for
pacifism. Here I have particular
reference to the sentence: "God is
at work where people see war for
what it is and demand in growing
numbers that it be ended."

The difficulty in the ad interim
committee is again a faulty theo-

logical understanding. The commit-
tee does not sufficiently recognize
that the world is sinful: it is full of
evildoers, and therefore many na-
tions follow policies that are evil.

God has given government the
power of the sword (Romans 13)
for the restraining and punishing of
evildoers. The proposed new con-
fession asks that nations "take the
risks of peace" and declares that the
Church should "unmask tht idola-
try that places national security
above all else." This kind of think-
ing is not only unpatriotic, it is
foolish.

It is not surprising that govern-
ment listens impatiently to church-
men and then pays very little atten-
tion to their views. Representatives
of the World and National Councils
of Churches have been complaining
about the unreadiness of the Wash-
ington administration to receive
their opinions, and no wonder.

The recent election will hardly in-
duce the president to become more
willing to listen to these conciliar
spokesmen. Their kind of advocacy
gives too much support to the Com-
munist line. So does this part of the
proposed new confession.

I think that Presbyterians have
only to read this section of the pro-
posed new confession to see at once
that it does not belong in any creed
of ours. We do not glorify and bless
war, as the new confession seems to
imply. We hate war. But we know
that national security is important
and we echo Presbyterian Woodrow
Wilson, who said, "The right is
more precious than peace."

Family, Church, State

God established three institutions:
the family, the Church, and the
state. Each has its sphere of author-
ity. Each must respect the authority
of the other. As the state must not
meddle with business peculiarly
proper to the Church, the Church is
not to meddle with business pecu-
liarly proper to the state.

Much criticism has been directed
at the Westminster Confession of
Faith where it says: "Synods and
councils are to handle or conclude
nothing but that which is ecclesias-
tical: and are not to intermeddle
with civil affairs which concern
the commonwealth, unless by way
of humble petition in cases extra-
ordinary; or by way of advice for

(Continued on p. 22, col. 3)

PAGE 11 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 13, 1972

p

EDITORIALS

Of Churchmen And Politics

There's something incongruous
about the double posture of Amer-
ican liberal religious leaders towards
events taking place in the so-called
Third World — specifically, Africa.

On the one hand, churchmen (in-
cluding Presbyterian social activists)
are willing to go to any length, in-
cluding boycotts of banks and busi-
ness establishments with connections
in Africa, to promote the "libera-
tion" of African revolutionaries.

On the other hand, these same
churchmen deplore, with vast pro-
testations of regret, the wholesale
bloodbaths that inevitably seem to
follow too-hurried independence.

The story of the past ten years of
African politics has been a study of
one bloodbath after another, as new-
ly "liberated" peoples have energeti-
cally celebrated their independence
by slaughtering one another.

Most recently in the news has been
the full-fledged genocide practiced
by the dominant tribe in Burundi, as
it has with considerable success
obliterated another tribe — which
just happens to have represented the
greater part of the country's popula-
tion.

Not long ago it was the Sudan
which captured the headlines. Be-
fore that, Nigeria. And the Congo.
And Tanzania. And Zambia.

Invariably, Christians have borne
the brunt of much of the savagery
that has accompanied much of the
"growing pains" evident in the
Third World.

So the so-called Christians in the
civilized world find themselves in
the awkward position of having con-
tributed to the mounting toll of
Christian martyrs in this century of
the martyrs.

Liberal idealism demands "libera-
tion" for all men, then somehow
manages to avoid any feeling of com-
plicity in the death of 20,000 or 50,-
000 human beings which follows as
a direct result of agitation on behalf
of liberation.

The Lord Jesus Christ once spoke
a parable concerning people who
would be utterly surprised to learn,
in the Judgment, that they would
be held accountable for the welfare

of others in whose lives they felt no
involvement at all. We wonder if
American churchmen who clamored
for "freedom NOW!" in Burundi
will discover that the Lord holds
them partially responsible for 50,000
people slaughtered since "freedom"
was granted?

To us, much of the news simply
proves that religious leaders should
stay out of fields in which they are
clearly incompetent — such as in-
ternational politics, and the internal
affairs of foreign nations. They
know little enough about internal
affairs at home. EH

A Parable of
Three Deacons

Now the benevolences of the Pres-
byterian Church US may be likened
unto three deacons. All were moved
by their pastor's stirring sermon on
Christian stewardship. They were es-
pecially touched by an illustration
based on a missionary's account of
how $300 a year would support a
pioneer evangelist in an area where
the Gospel had never been preached.

Each determined himself to make
an "extra" gift of $300.

Deacon Brown at once sent his
check for $300 to the church treas-
urer to be forwarded to presbytery's
treasurer, but without special in-
structions. The latter, following the
directives of various councils, di-
verted all but about $60 to numer-
ous presbytery, synod and Assembly
causes, as the presbytery quota for
missions was already filled. Of the
$60 that actually went to missions,
50 per cent was further diverted to
various ecumenical projects.

Deacon Jones, learning of Brown's
experience, and knowing something
of central treasurers, made out his
check direct to a missionary he knew
and whose work he wished to bene-
fit. The missionary thanked Jones
for his generosity but explained that
a report of the gift would have to
be made to the treasurer of the
Board of World Missions, who
would have to acknowledge receipt

of the same to the various councils
anyhow.

Furthermore, the treasurer of the
board would also have to deduct an
equal $300 from funds already ear-
marked for the missionary that Jones
tried to help, and report the same
to Jones' presbytery, to be counted
against the budget, so it came to
pass that the missionary got no more
than he would have anyhow, and
presbytery's treasurer was able to re-
mit $300 to an obscure cause that
had not received its quota.

Deacon Smith pondered the ex-
periences of Brown and Jones and
wondered if there was any way to
make a gift that stood some chance
of getting where he wanted it to go.
While he was pondering the same, it
came to pass that at Rotary lunch- i
eon he ran into good old Charlie, it
chairman of presbytery's Committee i
for Summer Camps. Said Charlie, if
"Say, we've got a swell lake out at a
the camp, but too bad we don't have »'
a high diving tower! $1,000 would m
do the job."

Smith promptly whipped out his
checkbook and put up the full *„
amount. The check cleared presby- k
tery's treasurer with nary a dime de- is
ducted for any other cause (not ie
even the nearby orphanage) . And h
the gleaming tower, with a metal Id
plate announcing the donor, created h
quite a splash in the presbytery.

Now what think ye? Which of the1 *
three deacons succeeded best in obey- Smi
ing the prompting of the Holy Spirit
to support a pioneer evangelist in
his vital work? Efl

Restoring Harmony

"And the servant of the Lord [f

must not strive; but be gentle unto la

all men" (II Tim. 2:24) . T

Gentleness generates confidence, S|

and confidence trust. Gentleness dis- t|

arms the person bent on strife, brings r,

peace to troubled situations. Paul ^

wrote emphatically in his letter to |n

Timothy, "The servant of the Lord, (

must not strive." The servant of ^

the Lord is a Christian and if he isi m

Christlike, (which his name im- |m

plies) , he will be gentle, kind and' jti!

charitable, losing sight of his own ,„

need for these considerations from • ,

others and from his Lord. ^

This does not say that there will :

always be harmony wherever he goes. ?

Sometimes the fact that he is a Chris- :

tian will bring tension and strife; ; j

but the source should never be in :
him. He should be careful that he

PAGE 12 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 13, 1972

meets them when they do come with
gentleness and love, going out of his
way to restore harmony and relax
tension.

His first thought should always be
to please his Lord and then to do or
say nothing that would turn anoth-
er from Him. It is so easy in a mis-
understanding to strive for our own
defense; it is a temptation under
tension to "let off steam" and ease
our own feelings; to be less than
kind because of some injustice which
has come our way.

But it is in this kind of circum-
stance that the Christian has the
greatest opportunity to manifest a
Christlike attitude. Here he will be
the best witness of the grace of God.
Anyone can be calm when all is go-
ing well, and kind when feelings are
at ease, for no special grace is need-
ed then. However, the servant of
the Lord who shows by his attitudes
under pressure that he really cares
for others will eventually win their
confidence and later perhaps win
them to His Lord.

The secret? Begin each day by giv-
ing yourself anew to God to use that
day for His glory, and then renew
that surrender occasionally through
the day. When tensions come, si-
lently ask Him to relax you and to
help you to let Him use you to show
kindness and love. And whatever
the circumstances, "let the peace of
God rule in your heart." — Ruby
Sailor. EE

How To Pray

In our prayers, we often ask God
for many things. Nor is it wrong
to do so. But it is important that
we not come to feel that prayer is
merely the tabulation of our desires.

There is more to prayer than the
listing of our requests. We must
not let "things," by their very abun-
dance, keep us from the real pur-
pose and blessing of prayer.

In prayer, we bask in the sunlight
}f God's glory; we adore Him and
araise Him; we strive to enter into
rommunion and fellowship with
Him. We try to see Him for what
He is and so speak as to create with-
in us the frame of mind that ac-
knowledges His will to be the most
mportant thing. Having this atti-
:ude in prayer, we will find that
*rhen we seek from Him courage and
>trength to meet the needs of each
lay, He will give them to us, togeth-
:r with many of the things which
ve have not dared requestl EE

THE LAYMAN AND HIS CHURCH

m

A Good Gift

The multiplicity of things we pos-
sess is so great these days that we
hardly know what to give to friends,
neighbors or children on special
occasions. I wonder if you have
thought of presenting a Bible as a
gift?

"Most people have one of those,"
you say. How about giving a larger
edition, perhaps just larger print,
an indexed or red letter one, a
softer binding, or a chain reference
Bible? This could be an everlasting
gift whose use through the years
would refresh the receiver's memory
of the giver.

Most books and their authors
pass away and are forgotten, but
not the Bible, which is the best
loved book in the world. About 25
million copies are manufactured and
distributed every year. Down
through the corridors of the centur-
ies for over 2,000 years its teachings
have weathered every conceivable
storm, even the atheist's negation.

Just so it will weather the present
storm of indifference and unbelief
which prevails today, because God
has said, "Heaven and earth shall
pass away, but my word shall not
pass away" (Matt. 24:35) .

The personality of Jesus Christ is
the Bible's great subject, and its
purpose, of course, is to acquaint
man with God. It blesses and en-
lightens wherever read — its mystery
and prophecy intrigue and appeal to
old and young alike.

The scarlet thread of promise
which runs through the Bible from
the portals of Genesis to the last
gateway in Revelation applies to us
as a nation as well as to individuals,
because the foundations of our re-
public were laid in the Word of
God.

The Pilgrim fathers knelt and
prayed, history relates, before leav-
ing the Mayflower. They opened the
Bible and in the light of its holy
teachings drew for their colony a

Mrs. W. D. Wahl, an elect lady of
Columbia, S. C, is the author of
the column this week.

charter which was a forerunner of
the Constitution of the United
States.

They were laying the groundwork
for human freedom, and it has
been truly said that it is impossible
to enslave, mentally or socially, a
Bible-reading people.

Today as Communists are allowed
and even encouraged to speak in our
colleges and universities, surely the
Bible would be the ideal gift to a
student. Right conduct must have
the right views of truth, and where
else can truth be found? And when
has a Communist been truthful?
Yet young people are being offered a
doctrine which works overtime at a
leveling downward of humanity, but
never a leveling up.

The truth of God's Word is the
antidote for fighting the deadly in-
fection. Do you know of a finer,
surer way to lead these young ones
aright than through the teachings
of this holy book?

Two groups are definitely in our
trust, our children and our fighting
men. They depend upon us. In the
conquered countries of the world is
the proof of what the apostles of
Communism fall heir to: hunger,
slavery and death. Will we bequeath
this to our children? Or will we
point them to eternal life through
God's Scriptures? We have the
"sword" to fight evil and we must
use it more effectively. The Bible
is the gift supreme for the young
graduate.

Let us consider the Bible as being
to us what the star was to the wise
men: "The entrance of thy words
giveth light" (Psa. 119: 130). Have
we ever needed the "light" more?
Do we dare let God's words go to
waste?

Let us use this book, and let us
give it. EE

The Bible may be divided into
two parts: the law and the Gos-
pel. The law indicates the sickness,
the Gospel the remedy. — Melanch-
thon.

PAGE 13 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 13, 1972

•

SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON

For December 31, 1972

Israel in God's Hands

Rev. Jack B. Scott

INTRODUCTION: The Lord of-
ten spoke to Jeremiah in the context
of ordinary everyday events. No
doubt Jeremiah had seen a potter at
work many times in his life. Sud-
denly the Lord told Jeremiah to go
look again because God would teach
him a truth for the Church through
the potter.

I. GODS SOVEREIGNTY
AMONG THE NATIONS (18:1-
12) . What we have here is a kind
of audio-visual aid for the Church.
We always remember better the
things learned with both ear and
eye, not merely the eye or the ear.
So God, to impress a truth on His
people, not a new one but an old
one, sent Jeremiah to the potter.
There Jeremiah saw the potter work
with clay, fashioning and refashion-
ing the clay as it pleased him.

The potter was in absolute con-
trol of the clay and the clay was al-
together in the potter's hands. Its
final shape depended on what was
in the potter's mind. Jeremiah
could only know what the potter de-
sired as he watched the potter's
hands and saw the final product
(18:1-4) .

Then God spoke to Jeremiah to
add oral to visual revelation. Israel
was like the clay in the potter's
hands and the Lord was like the pot-
ter (vv. 5-6) .

More broadly, the Lord applied
the principle to all nations. God
controlled totally the destiny of na-
tions as He did that of Israel. There
is much here that relates to the very
call of Jeremiah. At the time of his
calling, God told him that he would
set Jeremiah over the nations to
pluck up, break down, destroy, over-
throw, build and plant (Jer. 1:10).
Using these same terms, the Lord
showed that as sovereign God, He
would do these things among the na-
tions (18:7, 9) .

Specifically, God revealed that it is
His method always to warn the sin-
ful nation of overthrow, then if the
people turn from evil, He will re-
pent of the evil He formerly said
that He would bring. The use of

Background Scripture: Jeremiah

18:1-11; 32:1-25
Key Verses: Jeremiah 18:1-11
Devotional Reading: Isaiah 64:4-9
Memory Selection: Isaiah 64:8

the word repent here is not to be
understood as teaching that God is
at any time uncertain of the out-
come. But God has set steps for
His judgment. His threats then must
always be understood as conditional
— unless the people repent.

An excellent illustration of this
is the experience of Nineveh, a pa-
gan city under God's wrath. Jonah
was sent to tell them that they would
be destroyed (Jon. 1:2; 3:2-4). No-
where did God say that if they
turned from evil, He would spare
them.

However, this is the obvious con-
dition attached to His message be-
cause when they did return from
their evil God did spare them and
repent of the evil He at first pur-
posed (Jon. 3:10). What Jeremiah
was saying was that this is in accord
with an established principle in
God's dealings with all of the na-
tions (v. 8) .

Similarly, if God establishes a na-
tion and blesses it and causes it to
prosper, but that nation turns from
Him, then He will repent of the
good He had purposed and will not
do it.

Israel is the primary example of
this. As God had shown in the Pen-
tateuch, He loved Israel and did the
people much good. He established
a covenant with them and caused
them to prosper in the land which
He had given to them. However,
this continued prosperity was de-
pendent on their continuing in
obedience to God.

If they failed to keep His word,
then God would pluck them up and
destroy them from the land. This
is the situation that had developed
by Jeremiah's day. God would pluck
up His people because they had
turned from Him.

The International Sunday School Lesson Outlines
are copyrighted 1972 by the Committee on the
Uniform Series of the National Council of
Churches of Christ.

Several times Scripture expresses
God's repenting of the good He had
formerly purposed. God repented
of having made man on earth since
man had turned to be so evil (Gen
6:6) . Again, God said He repentec
of having made Saul king (I Sam,
15:11). In both cases, we must see
the word repent in the context of
Jeremiah 18. Do not understanc
God as having changed His mind
God's promise to do good and His
threat to bring judgment are both
conditional in His dealing with the
people (Jer. 18) . They are de-
pendent on the action of the people,

II. THE PRINCIPLE APPLIED
TO ISRAEL (18:11-12; 19:1-11; 32
1-5) . Through the prophets from
Joel to Jeremiah, God warned the
people of evil to come. He called
on the people time and again to re
turn from their evil (II Kings 17
13). I

But what was the reaction of the
Jews? They said, "We will walk af-
ter our own devices" (18:12). They
refused to listen to God. Rejecting
the doctrine that their hearts are
evil and need to be changed, the)
trusted in the judgment of their owr,
hearts and determined to leave Goc
out of their lives.

God had already shown how
wicked their hearts were (Jer. 17:9)
Then they said that they would nev
ertheless depend on their sinfu
hearts rather than on God's Wort
(18:12).

Continuing to use the illustration
of the potter's vessel, God orderec
Jeremiah to purchase a vessel from
the potter and then to break it be
fore the eyes of all of the people, tc
show how God would break this peo
pie and this city (Jerusalem) , be
cause of their stubbornness and disi
obedient hearts (19:1-3, 10-11).

God showed that He had destined
to bring evil on Jersusalem and it
inhabitants which was too awfu
even to mention (19:3) . Remembe:
that the term "evil," as used in Scrip
ture, refers both to the sinful deed
of men and the consequent judg
ment which God brings on sinners I;

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PAGE 14 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 13, 1972

Thus God is said to create evil in
the second sense, not in the first.
God does not do moral evil but He
does bring evil things to happen to
those who are morally evil.

The judgment pronounced against
Jerusalem and the Jews is similar to
the judgment described in Revela-
tion against all sinners in the world
in the final day (19:7) . Compare
Revelation 19:17-18.

In a specific historical context,
God warned that the evil which He
had purposed would be the over-
throw of Jerusalem by her enemy,
Babylon (32:1-5). God in His sov-
ereignty would give Jerusalem into
the hands of the king of Babylon
(32:3) . There would be no possi-
bility of survival anymore because
God would no longer prosper these
people. The covenant of God with
them to prosper them in the land of
Canaan was finished because they
did not continue to obey God (32:
5).

Here we see the sovereign God,
like the potter, breaking and destroy-
ing what He made because it did
not please Him. Jeremiah, the
prophet of God, was God's instru-
ment for pronouncing this difficult
judgment-message on Israel. Jere-
miah, in doing God's will and being
His messenger, had to suffer greatly
but he had to tell the truth.

III. THE SOVEREIGN GOD
AND FAITH (32:6-25) . When we
think of the sovereign God we
should not think only of His power
to punish and destroy what dis-
pleases Him. He is sovereign and
in His sovereignty He has also re-
vealed Himself as "merciful and
gracious, slow to anger, and abun-
dant in lovingkindness and trust"
(Exo. 34:6; Jer. 32:8) .

The same potter who destroys one
vessel because it is displeasing can,
from the same clay, remold the clay
into a vessel which pleases him.
Compare Romans 9:19-24.

The Lord gave Jeremiah only a
hint of what He purposed. The
event recorded here might have been
a rather ordinary event, an uncle of-
fering Jeremiah the opportunity to
buy a piece of land.

However, before the offer came,
God had already prepared Jeremiah
to see in this event His revelation
for His Church (32:6f.) . Jeremiah
understood the whole event as signi-
ficant for God's people (v. 8) . In
raith in His Lord, Jeremiah pur-
chased the land, knowing full well

that it would soon fall into the
hands of the enemy, Babylon (vv.
9-14) .

He heard God's promise that He
would again restore the land to His
people (v. 15) . This was an out-
standing act of faith on Jeremiah's
part. He acted solely on the word
and promise of the Lord and this
is what faith is all about.

What made Jeremiah act so faith-
fully before God? Was it not his
sure knowledge of God? He was cer-
tain about God, not himself, not Is-
rael, but God. That is what faith
is, certainty about God.

Jeremiah showed the basis of his
faith: his knowledge of God. He
saw God as the almighty creator of
heaven and earth. God is able to
do all He desires to do (vv. 16-17;
compare Genesis 17:1, 18:14). God
also revealed Himself as merciful
and lovingkind (v. 18; compare Exo.
34:6f.) .

Jeremiah viewed God's dealing
with Israel in His sovereignty.
God, the Lord of history, had shown
in the past how He could love Israel
and bless her (32:20-23a) .

When Israel refused to respond to
God's love, then judgment had to
follow. The Chaldeans (Babylo-
nians) stood at the door, threaten-
ing to take the city (vv. 23b-24) .
The Potter determined to destroy
the vessel because it did not please
Him.

Yet God, who is merciful, would
not ignore the lump of clay in His
hands but would refashion it. This is
the hope which God spoke through
Jeremiah. God had told Jeremiah to
purchase land that would soon fall
into the hands of the enemy. This
would seem unwise, but Jeremiah
understood that it indicated that
God had other plans for the good
of those who put their trust in Him
(v. 25) .

Jeremiah's act of faith that day
would be a sign of great hope for
those who knew God to be sovereign
in His mercy and love, able to raise
up and build again a people who
were cast down.

The old covenant had failed. A
new covenant was needed, one that
depended not on Israel's ability to
do good, for such a covenant could
not save them. Instead, a new cov-
enant was needed in which God
would change their sinful hearts; the
new covenant in Christ's shed blood
was needed. It would come. In our
next lesson we will see how God
promised this new covenant through

Jeremiah.

What does the prophet say to us
who live in a time when the Church
as it has existed seems to have de-
parted from God and failed Him?
God can and may well choose to set
aside the present visible Church as
He did Israel in Jeremiah's day. If
so, we will all go through great
agony as did Jeremiah.

Nevertheless, we must remember
that God, who can and will set aside
the Church that displeases Him
(Rev. 2:5) , is also a merciful and
lovingkind God who can refashion
the Church to be to His glory. Old
church structures may go and new
structures arise. The same Lord is
sovereign over all and able to do
what pleases Him.

What then should our reaction be
in such days as these when the fu-
ture structure of Christ's Church is
uncertain? Like Jeremiah, we must
act in faith in God. We must not
give up on the Church but demon-
strate our faith that God's Church
will continue, not necessarily in the
structure or along the denomina-
tional lines which we have known,
but His true Church will continue.

All of our plans and purposes
must demonstrate this. These are
days that call for great faith on our
part, faith not in the goodness of
men or the ability of men to com-
promise and save the Church as it is
now, but faith in God who as a pot-
ter can crush what displeases Him
and fashion the Church to His
glory. 33

INVITATION TO PILGRIMAGE, March
1-22, 1973, with Dr. Robert Strong, Dr.
John R. Richardson, Rev. Sam Patterson,
Dr. William T. Strong, to Jerusalem,
Bethlehem, Galilee, Nazareth, Athens,
Rome, Florence, Geneva — by Jet 747,
finest accommodations. Write Dr. Robert
Strong, 2052 S. Hull Street, Montgomery,
Ala. 36104, for descriptive brochure.

DELIVER US FROM EVIL

by Don Basham

Don Basham has written of his
own extraordinary face-to-face en-
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the subject of exorcism.

Price $4.95 postpaid

Order from
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Weaverville, N. C. 28787

PAGE 15 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 13, 1972

YOUTH PROGRAM

For December 31, 1972

S'.l

Knowing and Doing the Will of God

Scripture: I John 2:1-17
Suggested Hymns:

"Wonderful Words of Life"
"Trust and Obey"
"Jesus, Keep Me Near the
Cross"

PROGRAM LEADER'S INTRO-
DUCTION: G. Campbell Morgan
was a well loved English preacher
and Bible teacher. On the walls of
his study in London hung a motto,
and these were its words: "The will
of God. Nothing more. Nothing
less."

I believe most of us could agree,
at least in theory, that the most im-
portant thing we can do in life is
the will of God. If we can come to
this conclusion honestly, we shall
have gone a long way toward real
wisdom. We must recognize, how-
ever, some very real problems con-
nected with knowing and doing the
will of God.

Sometimes it is not easy to know
exactly what He would have us do;
these are times of honest uncertainty.
At other times it is even harder to
resign ourselves to doing what we
are persuaded is His will for us.
Someone has said that we don't

Rev. B. Hoyt Evans

know as much as we should, and
that we still know far better than
we do.

In this program we are thinking
first about how we can better know
God's will for our lives, and then
we shall consider how to do His will
more faithfully.

FIRST SPEAKER: How do we
know God's will? We know it first
of all in the Scriptures. No one who
is truly concerned about finding the
will of God for his life can afford
to ignore the Bible. This book is
literally filled with statements as to
what God wants us to do. Here are
some examples:

"For this is the will of God, even
your sanctification .... In every-
thing give thanks, for this is the will
of God in Christ Jesus concerning
you." God wants us to believe in
Christ, to pray, to know the truth,
to love Him, to love one another, to
tell the truth, and to be pure.

There is no excuse for being ig-
norant about a multitude of the
things God wants us to do. They
are clearly spelled out in the Bible,
and when they are not explicitly
stated, clear principles guide us in
our decisions.

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We know God's will through the
instruction of the Holy Spirit. Many
people, even well educated people,
find the Bible very confusing. Oth-
ers, some of them quite limited in
formal schooling, find it a great
source of inspiration, comfort and :i
instruction.

What makes the difference? Some
do not have the illumination of the
Holy Spirit and others do. The
same Spirit who inspired the writ-
ing of the Bible is ready and willing
to aid us in the understanding of it
when we read and study the Scrip
tures. Jesus said: "But the Com-
forter, which is the Holy Ghost,
whom the Father will send in my
name, He shall teach you all things,
and bring all things to your remem-
brance, whatsoever I have said unto
you."

Again, He said: "Howbeit when
He, the Spirit of truth is come, He
will guide you into all truth . . . ."
The gift of the Spirit is not reserved
for a select few, but His enlighten-
ment is available to all who seek it.
"If ye then, being evil, know how to
give good gifts unto your children:
how much more shall your heaven
ly Father give the Holy Spirit to
them that ask Him?"

You can know the will of God for
your life if you will faithfully study
the Bible, if you will ask for the en-
lightenment of the Holy Spirit, and
if you are honestly willing to go in*
the way you are led. God does not
reveal His will simply to satisfy our
curiosities, but if we are serious
about walking in His ways, He will
make those ways known to us.

SECOND SPEAKER: How do wety
actually do the will of God? The
most obvious way is by being obedi-
ent. When God says, for instance,
"Thou shalt not bear false witness
against thy neighbor," He means *
just that. Nothing short of full to
obedience will be satisfactory. The '
only problem here is our own stub
bornness.

Following God's will means a
willingness to do what you do

PAGE 16 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 13, 1972

t

in]

bi

want to do. It means putting God's
will first. We can be sure that Jesus
did not actually want the agony of
the cross. He said so, but He also
;aid, "Not my will but thine be
lone." To Him, what the Father
wanted was more important than
what was immediately pleasant, and
io the Father's will became His own.

This means giving up what you
want to be in order to become what
God wants you to be. It may mean
i willingness to be separated from
someone who is very dear in order
o do God's will.

Doing the will of God means let-
ing God work in you. At times we
ind it hard, even impossible, to do
he very things which we know we

Can you understand why the pri-
nary need in being a good servant
s humility?

Continuing our study of the Chris-
lian, God's servant, let us look to
he parable of the Pharisee and the
jublican found in Luke 18:9-14:

"And he spake this parable unto
ertain which trusted in themselves
hat they were righteous, and de-
pised others:

"Two men went up into the tem-
)le to pray; the one a Pharisee, and
he other a publican. The Pharisee
tood and prayed thus with himself,
iod, I thank thee, that I am not as
•ther men are, extortioners, unjust,
dulterers, or even as this publican.

fast twice in the week, I give tithes
if all I possess.

"And the publican, standing afar
iff, would not lift up so much as
ds eyes unto heaven, but smote
ipon his breast, saying, God be
nerciful to me a sinner.

"I tell you, this man went down
o his house justified rather than the
'ther: for every one that exalteth
Limself shall be abased; and he that
lumbleth himself shall be exalted."

In this parable told by Jesus of
Nazareth we are given a clue as to
/hat would make a man acceptable
o God. Dr. Torrey preached on
lis parable and he had one of the
Dngest sermon titles that I had ever

ought to do. Paul said, "To will is
present with me; but how to per-
form that which is good I find not.
For the good that I would I do not:
but the evil which I would not, that
I do."

This is the experience of every
one of us when we try to live a
righteous life in our own strength,
but it is not necessary to do it on
our own. God comes to us, and lives
in us, and makes us able to do those
things which are pleasing to Him.
"It is God which worketh in you
both to will and to do of His good
pleasure."

PROGRAM LEADER: You
would certainly say that Jesus Christ

Manford Geo. Gutzke, D. D., Ph.D.

Luke 18:9-14

seen: "How a Bad Man Went to
Heaven and a Good Man went to
Hell."

First there is the Pharisee, famous
for diligent personal effort to win
God's favor, then the publican, a
man notorious for ungodliness, a
known sinner. Each man sought the
favor of God, both came to worship
God. Our interest is to note which
one was acceptable to God. Notice
their personal attitudes, first the one
which was not acceptable.

The Scripture tells us why Jesus
of Nazareth used this parable. He
"spake this parable unto certain
which trusted in themselves that they
were righteous, and despised others."
The account seems to indicate that
the Pharisee looked upon public
worship as routine. In his worship
there is no special awareness of God
Himself as a Person. Evidently this
Pharisee regularly worshiped God
in public. He went through the ex-
ercises.

We read in Matthew ". . . for they
love to pray standing in the syna-
gogues and in the corners of the
streets, that they may be seen of
men" (16:5) . This should speak to
those who are inclined to let their
church attendance become routine.

had a successful career, wouldn't
you. His enemies and even His
friends were not impressed at the
time of His death, but He was satis-
fied, and the Father was satisfied,
and history has given agreement.

What was the secret of Christ's suc-
cess? It is found in His own words:
"For I came not down from heaven
to do mine own will, but the will of
Him that sent me." He accepted
what was painful, shameful, distaste-
ful, but it was the will of God and
the way to glory. The way of God's
will may sometimes be painful for
us, but it too will be the only way to
satisfaction and success.

Closing Prayer IB

Or to feel righteous because we reg-
ularly go to church twice on Sun-
day.

Notice that when he did come
into the temple "he prayed thus
with himself." What a revealing
statement that is. He apparently was
not conscious of God. How careful
the person must be when he leads
in prayer to be very conscious of
God and not of himself and the
people. It is a common snare in all
public religious services.

God Is Not Impressed

It is an easy thing for the person
to think that when he goes to
church, prays and sings a hymn he
has done something special. This
activity does not impress God. God
looks on the heart. What did you
mean? How did you feel?

We could define the word "sanc-
timonious" as a kind of religiosity
which some people have that just
makes a person feel a little sick. They
put on such pretense. Listen to the
Pharisee: "God I thank thee, that I
am not as other men are, extortion-
ers, unjust, adulterers, or even as
this publican."

Notice how he picked out all the
ugly things. It is such an easy thing
to bring to mind the crass, vulgar

WOMEN'S WORK

Supplementary Circle Bible Study

January: The Acceptable Servant

PAGE 17 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 13, 1972

WANTED!

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• Radio technician to work
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• Chest surgeons,
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These and many other
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Do you have a year to
give — or the rest of
your life . . . ?

We may have the job
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For information, write:
The Rev. Stewart Bridgman
Office of Recruitment, Box 330
Nashville, Tenn. 37202

sins of other people and then to feel
very self-righteous. "I'm not like
that. Some people get drunk, I don't
get drunk. Some people gamble away
their salaries, I don't gamble. Some
people carouse around all night
long, I don't do that kind of thing."
A person has to be so careful.

An Offense To God

That is not the only kind of sin.
While it is sinful for a man to abuse
his body by getting it sodden with
alcohol or stimulating it with drugs,
how many of us know those in
church, well dressed, acceptable,
courteous, suave or, in the case of a
lady, refined, even perfumed, but
proud as the devil. That would be
just as offensive to God.

To be proud of my preaching or
to think that I am doing anything
big because I lead in public prayer
could be as offensive to God as
some poor sinner who can't help
himself and is drunk on the side of
the street. God looks on the heart.

This Pharisee was full of himself.
He was in the temple, standing
there before God. He preened him-
self and thought how good he was.
He had confidence in himself. He
was quite sure everything would be
all right and he was satisfied with
himself.

He was smug. He was proud. He
was proud of his record. Proud of
himself. Proud of his habitual prac-
tices. Deep down in his heart he felt
he was so far ahead of other people
that he was glad and he did not
want to be like these other people.
This man was unacceptable to God.

Even as Me and Thee

Now we bring in this other man,
the publican. Normally, he would
be known as a worldly, sinful person.
Men who are sinners find their way
into the church with the hope that
they may get to meet God in His
mercy. They need help. They do not
find this help anywhere else. They
have heard about Christ Jesus and
they hope that a bit of the mercy
and compassion of God will rub
off on them.

This publican came standing afar
off, feeling unworthy. He is the
fellow who sat on the back row.
When I was pastor I came to have
a great sympathy for those back row
sitters. It never bothered me that
people sat back there. If they would
just get inside that door, just come

i ii

101

in and sit down I could tell them
something about the Lord.

It is when they know the Lore
that they can come up to the front
It is when they know the Lord they
cannot get close enough. They wantl!
to know more of His mercy and His
marvelous grace. The publican ap
parently didn't know about this anc
he was standing afar off.

You can feel his very attitude o
awe. Deep down in his soul he bows
down before God. He makes you
think of the occasion when Isaiah ti
saw the glory of the Lord in the
temple.

He saw the seraphim around Him
with six wings. We read that with
twain they covered their face, their
eyes, and with twain they did cover
their feet and with twain they did
fly. They covered their eyes for the;
were not good enough to look on
His holiness. They covered their feet
because they did not do well enough
to warrent His presence and with
twain (with two wings) they did jjj
fly to serve Him.

Of

II!

Reverence

o

10!
It

This man comes into the presence
of God, bows his head, would not
so much as lift up his eyes unto heav-
en, conscious of God. He would
hold his breath, conscious of God in
His greatness, in His wonder,
almighty power. What a wonderfi
example to any person as he com(
into God's presence. A feeling
reverence, awe, unworthiness. Quie
yourself down and pause before
Him.

Some people in almost childish
fashion seem to imply today that ii
one could be boisterous in the pres
ence of God everything would tx
fine. That will do for little babie}
and children. One can never be satis
fied with that as a proper attitude.

Reverence. He stood afar off anc
the humility was in him, he woulc
not lift up so much as his eyes t(
heaven. Remember Isaiah: "Woe i:
me! for I am undone; because I air
a man of unclean lips, and I dwel
in the midst of a people of unclear
lips; for mine eyes have seen the
King, the Lord of hosts."

Humility. His self reproach re
minds one of Job: "I have heard o
thee with the hearing of the ear bu ^
now mine eyes seeth thee and I ab
hor myself in dust and ashes." Thi ^
man we read smote upon his breas
saying, "God be merciful to me
sinner."

Hi
to

The

PAGE 18 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 13, 1972

Conscious of God. Aware of God,
onscious of his own weakness. A-
A'are of his own sinfulness. This
nan came in repentance. We can
ejoice and thank almighty God
hat the repentant soul is welcome.

humble and a contrite heart He
vdl not despise.

For any servant who wants to be
icceptable in the presence of God it
vill start right here. A deep down
tonest sincere actual repentance be-
ause of one's self. Just not fit. This
nan was honest.

No Alibi, No Excuse

One is reminded of the prodigal,
vho had gone away from home, had
pent all, had lived a wanton world-
life, and had lost everything. He
ame finally to himself to realize
irhat had happened. We read: "I
vill arise and go to my father and
vill say to him, I have sinned and
m no more worthy to be called
y son."

Oh, if we would just remember
hose words as the way to enter into
lie presence of God. Come in saying,

h

For Discussion

How did Jesus of Nazareth cau-
tion His disciples in Luke 10:17-
20?

Why is this message especially im-
portant to those active in organ-
ized church work?
Give several examples to show
how power in prayer could be
hindered among good people.
List Scriptural comments by Paul
that show his humility.

have sinned and am no more wor-
ry to be called thy son. The great-
st qualification you could ever have
3 serve God is to know that you're
ast not fit. No self-defense. No ex-
lanation. No alibi. No excuses. No
romises to do better.
Just an humble honest repentant
snfession. I am just not worthy,
he Lord Jesus said, "This man
ent down to his house justified ra-
ler than the other." Do not miss
lis. We have it very clearly put in
lis parable.

The Lord had one further word:
For everyone that exalteth himself
lall be abased; and he that hum-
leth himself shall be exalted." This
lould be taken to heart. Here is
ially and truly a plain statement of
>mething that works both ways.
The moment a person gets the

idea that he is better than anyone
else, that he has got it made, he can
expect to be humbled. Just as sure-
ly as there is a God in heaven, He
resisteth the proud but He giveth
grace to the humble.

Look at the other side of this.
What a marvelous statement is
made: "He that humbleth himself
shall be exalted." The Christian is
encouraged to this in every way. If
he is invited to a feast, he is urged
to take the lowest seat. Avoid going
up to the front. They might ask you
to step back.

Go down to the bottom and they
will help you up. In every way, the
approach to almighty God is to hum-
bly confess personal unworthiness.

One may be reminded of the oc-
casion when the disciples had been
sent out in the name of Jesus of
Nazareth to teach the people in the
villages. They were given power to
cast out demons and to heal the
sick. They came back from their ex-
ercises with joy and they told the
Lord, "Even the very demons were
subject to us."

They were rejoicing in what had
been possible and the Lord Jesus
told them, "Nevertheless in this re-
joice not, but that your names are
written in heaven." In other words,
even when we are successful in our
work, we must be very careful to re-
member that it is not we who have
done it, but God. Give God the
credit and glory.

We as servants are but messengers,
like a telegraph boy. He brings the
message, but he did not write the
message. He has no authority to do
that. The only authority he has is to
deliver that message to the person to
whom it is sent.

And that's the way it is with us
when we serve God. The Lord Jesus
could say that He as the Son of man
could do nothing of Himself. "My
Father worketh hitherto and I
work."

Christians need to be so alert and
careful lest they fall into the snare
that was pictured here in this para-
ble, to think that somehow that
credit belongs to us. Let us beware.
No! If any good comes from any-
thing we do, it is God that does it.

Gamaliel, that wise teacher of the
Jews said long ago, "If this thing be
of men, it will come to nothing, but
if it be of God you can't overthrow
it." Never forget everyone that ex-
alteth himself shall be abased, he
that humbleth himself shall be ex-
alted.

And Christians seeking to serve
the Lord need to be alert and care-
ful lest they fall into this snare. May
God help us each one. IB

# # # #

Dr. Gutzke is professor emeritus
of Biblical exposition, Columbia
Seminary, and broadcaster of "The
Bible for You." This study is avail-
able on tape recording, $3 per reg-
ular tape containing 4 lessons ($9
the set, Nos. 71, 2, 3) and $3 per
cassette containing 3 lessons ($12 the
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PAGE 19 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 13, 1972

p

BOOKS

THE HUMAN QUEST, by Richard
H. Bube. Word Books, Waco, Tex.
262 pp. $5.95. Reviewed by the Rev.
John E. Hill, associate pastor, Casa
Linda Presbyterian Church, Dallas,
Tex.

Here is another book to add to
the growing collection of recent con-
tributions in the area of apologetics.
It addresses itself to the continuing
conflict between science and Chris-
tianity with a healthy thrust toward
concern for respect and appreciation
of a true science and a Biblical
faith.

Since most apologetics books are
more helpful to the Christian than
the non-Christian (who seldom reads
them) , Dr. Bube has added helpful
discussion questions at the end of
each chapter to be used in academic
situations or advanced church study
groups. These suggest the keen in-
terest he has in the practical service
of such discussion to bring about
awareness and involvement in hu-

man problems.

Dr. Bube is well qualified as both
a scientist and a committed Chris-
tian. He is professor of "materials
science" and electrical engineering
at Stanford. His approach to vari-
ous levels of understanding is unique
and helps the reader to approach
the problems discussed. The Human
Quest will challenge the seeking
young minds of today but will be
over the heads of most Christians
who already have their pat answers
and do not encounter such people
or problems. IB

Africa — from p. 9

parliamentary democracy."

In March 1970, a group of 40
American newspaper men and wom-
en toured Rhodesia and South
Africa to view the situation in these
white-run nations of Africa for
themselves. In his extensive report

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of the tour, publisher Nathan Bolton
of Bastrop, Louisiana, said that
Rhodesia is a multi-racial nation
where blacks and whites mix freely,
"The blacks," said Bolton, "do
not have their proportionate repre
sentation in Parliament, but it
would be impossible to have a one-
man-one-vote system in Rhodesia
There are hundreds of different
tribes in Rhodesia and 35 main
chiefs, speaking different languages
having different customs, dress, etc.,
and each is dependent on the chief,
who with his council makes the lo
cal laws and votes in Parliament.

Stone Age People

"A woman has no rights among
the tribesmen; she is a chattel whom
her father sells to a husband for
five head of cattle, and the husband
may have a half-dozen or more
wives. The Rhodesian government
and the missionaries are attempting
to educate the four million blacks,
but it is a gigantic task and a heavy
expense on 300,000 whites, bringing
(Continued on p. 22, col. 1)

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PAGE 20 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 13, 1972

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

FRANK M. BARKER, JR.
ROBERT J. COKER, JR.
CHARLES H. DUNAHOO
DONALD C GRAHAM
M. A. MACDONALD
CARL V. MCMURRAY
ROBERT J. OSTENSON

PRESBYTERIAN CHURCHMEN UNITED

PAUL G. SETTLE, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY
3436 WELLINGTON ROAD
MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA 36106
TELEPHONE: (205) 262-5126

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

DONALD B. PATTERSON
JAMES PATTERSON
GORDON K. REED
JOHN E. RICHARDS
KENNEDY SMARTT
MORTON H. SMITH
AIKEN TAYLOR

AN OPEN LETTER TO BIBLE-BELIEVING PRESBYTERIANS

Dear Friends In Christs

The Executive Committee of Presbyterian Churchmen United represents an
increasing ministerial effort to bear a testimony to the doctrines of grace,
to protest serious errors of faith and life In our denomination, and to mag-
nify Jesus Christ, the Head over all things to His Church.

Such efforts have Involved us in the diligent preparations for a contin-
uing Presbyterian Church that Mill be true to the Bible, the Reformed faith,
and obedient to the Great Commissi on.

We are working and praying fort

--a Church where you may worship with confidence under the whole
counsel of God;

—a Church whose Christian education literature is Bible-based and
Christ-centered;

—a Church whose youth program materials will challenge our young
people to love and obey Jesus Christ in every area of life;

—a Church wherein the women's work will Involve the ladies in what
Christ Is doing;

—a Church vitally active In a social ministry based upon Biblical
principles;

--a Church whose officers are well trained in the faith and order of
historic Presbyter Ian ism;

—a Church whose ecumenical concerns extend to all truly Reformed
and Presbyterian believers in the land*

This is the kind of positive ministry you can conscientiously support
with your prayers and financial gifts, Is it not? We believe it Is, and we
appeal to you to channel some of the Lord's money, entrusted to you, into the
ministry of Presbyterian Churchmen United* Our greatly expanded service re-
quires a greater expenditure of funds* We are trusting God to supply those
funds through your concern for His truth and His Church* Let us hear from
you soon I

Thank you, and may God richly bless you in His joyful service*

Sincerely in Christ,

Chairman

PAGE 21 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 13, 1972

some of them out of the stone age.
Some men do not even know how
to use a shovel."

Bolton pointed out that while the
"emerging nations" of Africa cry
about discrimination against blacks
in Rhodesia and South Africa, at
least a dozen of these black-ruled na-
tions also have laws which do not
permit whites to vote or own land
or have any voice in the govern-
ment. "So it would seem," he com-
mented, "that discrimination against
whites is all right in American
opinion, but not against blacks."

Bolton's reaction to what he saw

in white-controlled Africa was borne
out more recently by George Beebe
of the Knight Newspaper chain. In
an article appearing on July 12,
Beebe wrote from Johannesburg:

"The South African black is bet-
ter off than most of his brethren in
the so-called African free nations.
He is as well dressed as most blacks
and whites in the United States. He
is well fed.

"His housing in some areas is
wretched, but still better than what
I observed in Nigeria and Zaire, as
well as in the slum areas of Latin
Harlem. His income is greater than

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110

in America and the Caribbean — ant
elsewhere in Africa. South Africa i
in the midst of a tremendous econ1
omic boom, and many of the 14 mil
lion blacks are sharing in it."

Beebe said he was surprised t<
find so many blacks employed ir
so many business areas, such a
store clerks, waiters, postmen, trucl1
drivers, construction workers, jockey:
at the race tracks, and bank tellers
In addition, the government rail
way, airline and harbor activity ha
given thousands of jobs to non
whites which heretofore have beer
reserved for whites.

Though there are still separate
and well-marked facilities thai
blacks must use each day, separate
drinking fountains and separate1
seating on buses and trains, for ex
ample, there are indications at
change. In recent months, he re
ported, signs have been removed
from elevators which required black.1
to use one, whites another.

The worst slum areas are disap a
pearing, said Beebe, but the govern «n
ment hasn't been able to build fasl'
enough to meet the demand for ne\*
housing, which consists usually oi
four rooms and which blacks rent
for $11 a month plus electricity

As Dr. Jack Penn wrote in Tht
Christian Challenge, there are nc
simple solutions to the problems in
South Africa, or any part of Africa:
because the problems themselves art
not simple.

But it is clear that Americans needi
far more factual information about
all the nations of Africa before they
can form a sound judgment on thci
tightness or wrongness of any situa
tion on the Dark Continent. E

ill
111

i

T

Chapter Vlll-from p. 1 1

:-

satisfaction of conscience, if they be,
thereto required by the civil magis
irate" (XXXIII, 4) .

This declaration is regarded as z
dead letter by many of our leaders
We do not hesitate, however, to urge
its wisdom. The influence of th«
Church is best exerted when it!
members carry the high principles o:
the Bible with them into political
action and social involvement. Lei
them speak and minister in the
name of Christ. This is the way tci
extend His sovereignty in human af
fairs. And let the Church be the '"
Church.

The concluding section of Chap
ter VIII devotes itself to the area o
special grace, the work of evangel *
ism and missions. It is truly saic Tl

PAGE 22 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 13, 1972

II

hat God "has made human beings
so they cannot be satisfied even with
justice, compassion, and peace on
sarth."

It is well said that "God is at
.vork where his word is translated
nto languages of people who could
lot read it before, where the gospel
s proclaimed in places where it has
lot been heard, where men and wo-
nen are concerned to share faith
j/vith their neighbors in word and
ife."

We wish it had been made era-
matic that, as the Westminster Con-
ession declares, "unto this catholic
isible church, Christ hath given the
ninistry, oracles, and ordinances of
od, for the gathering and perfect-
ng of the saints, in this life, to the
nd of the world" (XXVII, 3) .

The winning of souls and the
building up of Christians in faith
nd holy living, this is the great and
jrimary task of the Church. This is
xactly what the New Testament
ommands. In obedience to Christ,
he Church must gather people to
lim and train them to represent
iim in the world. The Church
hould never lose sight of this task,
md neither should we, the more be-
ause of the desperate need of our
ay.

The physical birthrate in the
yorld is far outpacing the spiritual
iiirthrate. If every benevolence dol-
ar were directly invested in missions
nd evangelism, it would be still far
oo little. To a degree our Church
as got off course. We need to listen
lore closely to the final commands
f our Lord.

We reject the suggestion in the
inal sentence of this chapter of the
ew confession that we should seek
new thought forms for the gospel."
iod gave us unchanging thought
arms in His revelation, holy Scrip-
are. We will never turn from the di-
ine ideas of salvation, justification,
mctification, glorification. We shall
•y to express these tremendous
loughts in language that will help
le ignorant to understand.
The Church will find itself thor-
ughly involved and busy nearly to
le exclusion of all else if it will hear
le conclusion of this chapter:
(God) sends us to tell the good
pws to all humankind, to risk en-
mnter with people who are differ-
itit . . . to point to Christ and not to
|urselves, to commend him by our
eeds as well as our words."
This, this, is the mission of God's
hurch. Here is our top priority. IB

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PAGE 23 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 13, 1972

that s
what it's all about

IHitU&Cenosil RelCel

THROUGH THE BOARD OF ANNUITIES & RELIEF "

The Presbyterian Church in the United States, 341 Ponce de Leon Ave., N.E., Atlanta, Ga. 30308

GEORGE H. VlCK, Executive Secretary

PAGE 24 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 13, 1972

VOL. XXXI, NO. 34

DECEMBER 20, 1972

$4.00 A YEAR

the

idvocating continuation of a Presbyterian Church loyal

to Scripture and the Reformed faith

Gkroa Sttotttnja of (&vmt Imj

And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in
the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo,
the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the
Lord shone round about them ; and they were sore afraid. And
the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you
good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For
unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which
is Christ the Lord.

And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe
wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And sudden-
ly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host
praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on
earth peace, good will toward men. — Luke 2:8-14.

5. S. LESSON AND YOUTH PROGRAM FOR JANUARY 7

JW00

VIQLZ DM IITH T^qO
9.11 DK JO StieAftlQ

p

MAI LB AG

THEY DESERVE EACH OTHER

I have just returned from a meet-
ing of my presbytery which featured
a panel discussion on the Plan of
Union between the PCUS and
UPUSA. Needless to say, the discus-
sion was entirely positive.

One panel member was a ruling

elder of the UPUSA who is a mem-
ber of the Joint Committee of our
General Assemblies. His glowing in-
troduction of the discussion out-
lined all of the wonderful things of
our two Churches, but he "confessed
the sin of disobedience" in our di-
vision. He said the largest obstacle

the

PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL

Rev. G. Aiken Taylor, Ph.D., Editor
Rev. Henry B. Dendy, D.D., Managing Editor

Circulation leader among independent publications in the Presbyterian-Reformed world

THIS WEEK— Vol. XXXI, No. 34, December 20, 1972

Triumph Over Tragedy 7

Joy replaces sorrow when we accept God's great gift to
us By Gordon K. Reed

First Candlelight Service 8

An ancient Christmas custom has roots in even more ancient
history By Handel H. Brown

Christmas 1972 10

Our Lord gives life meaning and purpose when we live in
Him By Gary De Witt

Christmas All Year 11

By Helen Kooiman

De partments —

Editorials 1 2

The Layman and his Church 13

Sunday School Lesson, January 7 14

Youth Program, January 7 16

Book Reviews 17

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facing the union seemed to be "the
rooting out and neutralizing of the
stubborn conservative pockets in
the southern Church.

The PCUS was represented by the
pastor of one relatively small congre
gation, and the stated clerk of one of
the presbyteries whose bounds fall
within our own very large presby
tery. This man, who is also execu
tive secretary of his presbytery, told
our assemblage that the PCUS is
characterized by provincialism and
conservatism.

On behalf of the PCUS, he con
fessed the "sin" of leaving the "moth
er church" and continuing to fight
the Civil War. He also informed u<
that "four and one-half" organiza
tions within the PCUS are working
against this union; that the one or
ganzation working in favor of the
union had been disbanded; and
that a semi-official secret newspapei
is being circulated among the libera
elements of the Church promoting
union.

He further told us the PCUS Gen
eral Assembly and new synods wen
undertaking to restructure the con
servative presbyteries so that ead
would contain at least one large ur
ban area for the express purpose o
outnumbering the conservativ*
churches which would be in the nev
presbyteries, thus neutralizing/revers
ing the opposition to union.

During the question and answe
period, which centered on the es
cape clause in the Plan of Union
he expressed the opinion that tm
escape clause might be amended ||
require churches to wait one yea

after union and then vote to witl
draw, saying that the dissiden
churches might change their minds.

This is the point: The pro-unio
forces in both Churches have no ii-
tention of presenting an opportunit
for bipartisan discussion or debate
they intend to use every means t
chicanery and deceit to propagandiz
their views; and gerrymandering (
presbytery boundaries for the spec
fic purpose of disenfranchising coi
servative churches is the strategei
of the PCUS.

And most appalling to me is th;
the UPUSA condones and abets th
sort of underhandedness. Perhaj
our liberal brethren do deserve eac
other!

— Name withhel

We have withheld the name of th
Florida UPUSA minister in order
avoid reprisals. — Ed.

It

Jit"

»(

Scab
Chris

THIS AND THAT

In September 1971, at a motel on
a trip to Florida, I saw my first copy
of the Presbyterian Journal. Before
we left the motel I mailed you a
check and have enjoyed every copy
since.

—Leon W. Steffy
St. Petersburg, Fla.

Suggest you celebrate the anniversary
each year by leaving a copy in some
motel room. — Ed.

CAN'T BUY SEAWELL

Sorry, I can't "buy" Seawell's ar-
ticle, "A Woman's Ignition," in
the Nov. 8 Journal. I enjoyed the
okes at the beginning, but the
whole thing is based on the false
conviction that by the very nature
of her sex, a woman is endowed with
a certain character. Without Christ
there is slight chance that a woman

will be all that Welfly says she is,
unless there are fantastic numbers
of persons in my area dressed as
women, who aren't!

In Christ there is no male or fe-
male, we are told. Outside of Him
there are no prayers and few pleas
for righteousness. I think it is a
frivolous article that offers nothing
toward the solution of the very real
problems in many American homes.
The answer is the Gospel, not con-
formity to sexual roles in govern-
ment.

— Nancy May Penney
Pasadena, Tex.

MINISTERS

B. Blake Breitenhirt, H.R., from
Big Stone Gap, Va., to the Gilbert,
W. Va., church as stated supply.
Robert G. Bruce from Hot Springs,
Va., to the Pickens, S. C, church.

Jose Burgos from Chicago, 111., to
the Juan Marcos church, Houston,
Tex.

Walter A. Dealey from Richard-
son, Tex., to graduate study, An-
dover Newton Theological School,
Newton Centre, Mass.

Joseph A. Greer from Henderson-
ville, N. C, to Raleigh, N. C, to
start a new congregation in the re-
search triangle area between Ra-
leigh, Durham and Chapel Hill.

A. Emerson Johnson, honorably
retired by Greenbrier Presbytery,
from Huttonsville, W. Va., to
Staunton, Va.

Harry S. Topham from St. Albans,
W. Va., to the Inman, S. C,
church.

Robert E. Turner from McArthur,
Ohio to the Pines church, Hous-
ton, Tex.

• Russell Kirk believes that the
commercialization of Christmas is so
well entrenched that it is hopeless to
try to reverse the trend. In a syndi-
cated column, Mr. Kirk wonders if
professing Christians ought not to
"abandon December 25 altogether
to the devotees of mammon" and
move the religious celebration to
January 6, the Feast of the Epiph-
any, or Twelfth Day, sometimes
called "Old Christmas." Such a
shift would permit religious people
in peace to "commemorate the di-
vine nature of the One who drove
the money-changers from the tem-
ple," Mr. Kirk believes. He quotes
some of the ancient fathers of the
Church, including the third century
Christian philosopher, Origen, in ap-
proval of such a shift. Evidently
even back then the birthday of the
Lord Jesus was marred by pagan
connections.

• Christmas entertainment is pre-
dictable, with the proliferation of
"Christmas shows" on television.
Not often does the evangelical em-
phasis get adequate exposure, if for

ACROSS THE EDITOR'S DESK

no other reason than the huge ex-
pense of a TV production and the
fact that it would have to be pro-
duced under commercial auspices. A
notable exception to the rule is a
Christmas special produced by the
Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.
Entitled "Christmas Is," this pro-
gram will be on for the third year
over 100 TV stations across the U.S.
Look for it. Even the media have rec-
ognized the quality of this " 'mar-
riage' between good entertainment
and a seriously important religious
message," and the Television Bureau
of Advertising has awarded a special
distinction to Lutheran Television
for "Christmas Is."

• We wish we could send a per-
sonal greeting to each and every
member of the Journal family —
the literally thousands of people
whose names and addresses are on

cards in our correspondence files, in-
dicating that there has been a per-
sonal contact of one kind or another.
Some of you have warmed our hearts
with words of encouragement, with
material for these columns, with val-
uable information, with the assur-
ance of your prayers, with other con-
crete evidence of support. We'd even
like to send a greeting to you who
have scorched us with verbal fire
and brimstone. There's something
special, howbeit frustrating, about
the relationship between friends who
are on opposite sides of controversial
issues for reasons of sincere, pro-
found and unshakable conviction.
Even if the differences are so im-
portant that they seem to require
a parting of the ways, somehow re-
spect for the other is never entirely
lost. To each, therefore, a truly
joyous Christmas! EE

PAGE 3 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 20, 1972

NEWS OF RELIGION

NCC Restructures, Elects Black President

DALLAS, Tex. — In a meeting un-
marred by the bizarre demonstra-
tions that disrupted its last General
Assembly in Detroit three years ago,
the National Council of Churches
restructured itself here and elected
its first black president.

Nobody poured red paint on the
speaker's table and no symbolic cof-
fins were carried in snake dances
through the delegates' section to pro-
test a lack of militant aggressiveness
in social contests.

The nearest thing to a demonstra-
tion was mounted by B'nai B'rith, a
Jewish organization, which protested
the appearance of LeRoi Jones, a
black radical who was paid $1,600 to
tell the assembly that "too often"
the Church has been "the most re-
actionary force in the world."

B'nai B'rith felt that Mr. Jones —
dutifully addressed by the admiring
Protestants as Imamu Amiri Baraka
— should not have been invited to
join the company of other speakers
on account of his record of anti-
Semitism.

Mr. Jones, who said he was not
a Christian but subscribed to ethical
principles derived from African tra-
ditions, urged the Church to become
"revolutionary" or it would "dis-
appear."

As a result of the restructuring
adopted here and described as a
"drastic overhauling of the coun-
try's biggest ecumenical enterprise,"

this was the last triennial assembly
of the NCC.

The National Council's name was
retained, but the body was decen-
tralized, in one respect, to include
local and regional organizations, and
more centralized in another, with a
350-member Governing Board re-
placing the present General Board
half that size, and meeting twice
annually.

Instead of the triennial assemblies
as top governing bodies, all decisions
will be vested in the board.

The plan of reorganization also
envisions a periodical national "ecu-
menical congress," to include both
council members and denominations
that don't belong, such as the Ro-
man Catholic Church and the South-
ern Baptist Convention. Planners
openly hoped that such an arrange-
ment would also prove attractive to
various evangelical bodies.

In all new committees, as well as
the new board, it was made manda-
tory that at least one out of four
members shall be women, one out of
eight shall be under 28, and one half
shall be laymen.

Not all leaders of the ecumenical
movement rejoiced at the reorgani-
zation. The Rev. Edwin T. Dahl-
berg of Phoenix, Ariz., a former
NCC president, expressed misgivings
at the abolition of the general assem-
bly. "It provided something of the
democratic process I hate to see

THE CHURCH OVERSEAS

KOREA — Questions have been
raised about the need for the hun-
dreds of orphanages now operating
here.

An article by Bill Bray in Chris-
tianity Today suggests that the Ko-
rean government is weary of the "or-
phan image" which has developed
from extensive appeals in the West.

Officials of the Korean Ministry
of Health and Social Affairs want
the orphanages replaced by foster-
home programs which will not de-
stroy the traditional Korean family
structure, Mr. Bray wrote. The min-
istry has already closed 80 orphan-

ages this year.

Under the new codes, orphanages
directed by pastors and others who
are not "qualified" social workers
must close. Some have been closed
voluntarily and the facilities con-
verted to other uses. An extensive
day-care program has also been de-
veloped.

Christian leaders fear that the
changing policy will result in re-
duced funds for schools and medical
operations as well as for orphanages,
and create a real financial crisis for
the Korean churches involved in
ministries. IB

lost," he said.

Elected president of the council
was the Rev. F. Sterling Cary of
New York, a United Church of
Christ minister, who describes him-
self as black first and a Christian
second. Although Religious News
Service termed him "not a 'raving
liberal,' " Mr. Cary did endorse the
controversial Black Manifesto and
its demands for reparations from
white Churches in 1969.

The Manifesto sparked much of
the internal tension which denomi-
nations have experienced in the past
three years, and which they openly
admit. It was one factor leading to
the restructure of the National
Council.

Mrs. Victor Baltzell of Dallas, a
leader in the Christian Church (Dis-
ciples) was elected first vice-presi-
dent.

"We've got to begin talking less
and doing more" to achieve racial
equity and integration, Mr. Cary
said. "The day of pronouncements
and resolutions is pretty much end-
ed. What we need is more low-key
action with less platform dressing."

Mr. Cary succeeded Dr. Cynthia
Wedel, a Washington, D.C. Episco-
palian, for a three-year term.

The NCC learned officially that
its general secretary, the Rev. R. H.
Edwin Espey will retire at the end
of 1973.

In the last hours, the Assembly's
800 delegates issued a large number
of pronouncements in the form of
resolutions, ranging from amnesty
to young men who refused service in
the Vietnam war to welfare reforms.

One called on congregations to
prepare for worship services when a
cease-fire is signed. Such services,
according to the resolution, should
include "prayers of thanksgiving for
the end of hostilities, of penitence
for our own complicity in causing
suffering and death on both sides and
of intercession for victims of war
in all parts of Southeast Asia and
America."

Other resolutions asked Churches
to increase support to "liberation"
movements opposing white racism in
southern Africa, and laid plans to
assure that future meetings of the
NCC will never be served iceberg
lettuce not bearing the label of the
United Farm Workers Union. 51

PAGE 4 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 20, 1972

He

in
ioi
in

NCC General Board
Meets for Last Time

DALLAS, Tex. — In a meeting pre-
ceding the triennial General Assem-
bly of the National Council of
Churches, the NCC's General Board
took action supporting amnesty for
draft dodgers, and narrowly defeat-
ed a resolution which would have
condemned Israel.

Voting 91 to 16, with five absten-
tions, the Board called upon the U.S.
government to adopt an attitude of
"human compassion and political
[forbearance" toward those who had
[resisted military service in the Indo-
jChina war.

The resolution, passed by dele-
gates from 33 Protestant and Ortho-
|dox Churches, said, "We view am-
Inesty not as a matter of forgiveness,
pardon or clemency, but as a
I'blessed act of oblivion,' the law's
lown way of undoing what the law
(itself has done."

A majority of the delegates at the
meeting would have passed another
^resolution condemning Israel for an-
nexation procedures growing out of
the 1967 Israeli-Arab six day war,
(but the measure was defeated for
[the lack of a required two-thirds ma-
jority.

The failing text said, in part: "We
join with our Jewish, Christian and
Moslem brothers in and outside Is-
rael who have protested the viola-
tions of human rights and interna-
[tional law by Israel in the occupied
[territories."

The final tally was 55 to 34 with
[12 abstentions. Opposition to the
[resolution labeled it "inadequate"
[and "inflammatory" and not con-
sonant with the facts in present-day
; Israel.

In other action prompted by the
[Assembly meeting, the Anti-Defama-
ition League of B'nai B'rith refused
rto send observers because Imamu
jAmiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones) , de-
licribed by the ADL as an "anti-
Semite," was part of the official pro-
bgram.

A resolution reaffirming the im-
Iportance of freedom of expression,
|pres£ and broadcasting rights passed
Rby almost unanimous agreement.
■The statement was introduced by
|Dr. Everett Parker, director of com-

munications in the United Church
of Christ, whose committee in the
past has managed to secure the re-
vocation of TV and radio station li-
censes in Mississipppi, Oregon and
Pennsylvania.

While supporting freedom of the
press, the board also upheld the so-
called "fairness doctrine" under
which a broadcasting station is re-
quired to give equal time to those
who opposed its views. Freedom of
speech and press, the board's resolu-
tion said, must take into considera-
tion the rights of viewers and lis-
teners as primary, and the rights of
broadcasters as secondary. IB

Christmas Mood Changes
To Spiritual Emphasis

NEW YORK — Despite charges of
"commercialism" and "secularism,"
there are signs that Christmas 1972
will have a deeper spiritual dimen-
sion than those of previous years.

Businessmen involved in the
"Christmas industry" report a revival
of interest this year in religious
themes for such things as greeting
cards and decorations.

Richard Horn, product manager
of Hallmark Cards, told Religious
News Service that "a growing num-
ber of Christmas shoppers appear to
be buying their greeting cards this
year to the tune of 'Give me that
old time religion.'

"And it is not just old-timers mak-
ing a decision for Christ on their
cards," he said. "A resurrection
among young people seems to be tak-
ing place, with emphasis on tradi-
tional Christmas symbols and lan-
guage, although sometimes these are
translated into "mod versions," he
added.

Mr. Horn said there has been a
movement this year toward the "in-
fusion" of meaning into Christmas
greetings, with inspirational mes-
sages heavily favored. Traditional
religious writings have been pop-
ular, along with verses which "ring
with fresher meaning," as this one:

"Jesu! Jesu! most and least;/ For
the sweetness of Thy birth / Every
little bird and beast, / Wind and
wave and forest tree / Praise God
exceedingly / Exceedingly!" IB

Justice Rehnquist Says
Church Should Win Souls

WASHINGTON, D. C. (RNS) —
An Associate Justice of the Supreme
Court told a group of clergymen
here that since his arrival in Wash-
ington four years ago, he has been
struck by the "relatively small num-
ber of people" he has come in con-
tact with "who seem to have any
very deeply held convictions."

Justice William H. Rehnquist, at
48 the youngest and "newest" mem-
ber of the Court, added that there
are "even a smaller number of those
who seem to be willing to speak out
for their convictions."

He contrasted this with the 16th
century reformer, Martin Luther,
recalling Luther's famous statement
before the Diet of Worms, "Here I
stand . . ."

"If I properly apprehend his char-
acteristics," Justice Rehnquist con-
tinued, "it seems to me that the first
of them was the tremendous, deeply
held convictions which he had."

He quoted a comment by the
noted British historian Lord Acton,
who said: "Luther at Worms is the
most pregnant and momentous fact
in our history."

Justice Rehnquist, an active mem-
ber of the Lutheran Church in
America, addressed a Lutheran pas-
toral conference. "I realize the
temerity with which I should and do
suggest to this assembled group,"
he told pastors and their wives at a
luncheon in the Senate dining
room, "that the primary mission of
the Church is the salvation of souls."

"And to the extent the Church
goes beyond that — and the rela-
tionship between what it does and
that primary mission becomes more
and more attenuated — the Church
runs the risk of becoming a river
that's a mile wide, but only a yard
deep," he said.

Justice Rehnquist, who has served
as a congregational council vice-
chairman and Sunday school teacher
since he joined the LCA ten years
ago, said he hoped the Lutheran
Church would never forsake the im-
age and teachings of Luther, whom
he perceives as being "first and fore-
most a theologian." IB

PAGE 5 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 20, 1972

Methodist Church Spent
$65,000 on Abortion Vote

LANSING, Mich. (RNS) — An un-
successful campaign to liberalize
Michigan's abortion law was given
$65,000 through a United Methodist
agency, a report to the state indi-
cated.

The report, made public here, in-
dicated that about 59 per cent of the
campaign operated by the Michigan
Abortion Referendum Committee
was financed by money channeled
through the United Methodist Board
of Christian Social Concerns in
Washington, D. C.

A spokesman for the denomina-
tion in Washington told Religious
News Service that the money came
from gifts by individuals and
groups who had been specifically do-
nating for the purpose of aiding such
abortion efforts.

None of it, he said, came from the
denomination's funds or the funds
of the board.

According to the report made to
the Michigan state government,
$109,745 was spent altogether on the
effort to liberalize the abortion law,
which was defeated by the state's
voters by almost 2 to 1.
(Editor's note: If Internal Revenue
Service upholds the law as it says it
does, it will move against the Meth-
odist Church.) IS

Jewish Leaders Devise
Anti'Conversion Steps

NEW YORK — Jewish leaders and
organizations are beginning to mo-
bilize against the inroads on the Jew-
ish community being made by evan-
gelistic efforts of Christian groups,
particularly student organizations
such as Campus Crusade and Inter-
Varsity.

Frankly admitting that Christian
evangelism is having its effect among
Jews, the Amercan Jewish Commit-
tee, the Union of American Hebrew
Congregations, and the American
Jewish Congress have initiated ef-
forts to counter the trend of "pros-
elytizing."

Rabbi Maurice N. Eisendrath,
president of the Union, told his or-
ganization's board of trustees here
that its department of interfaith ac-
tivities is now preparing materials
and programs "designed to help Jew-
ish youngsters challenge statements
made by Christian evangelicals on
the Jewishness of Jesus, the resurrec-

tion and the Jewish idea of the Mes-
siah."

Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg, pres-
ident of the Congress, has written a
letter to members of his organiza-
tion around the country, asking
them to submit names and addresses
of relatives or friends on college cam-
puses, plus a $5 fee to cover mailing
costs of what he described as an
"ongoing stream" of literature on
Jewish life that the Congress will
send to students.

Rabbi Balfour Brickner, director
of the Union's interfaith depart-
ment, told his organization's board
of trustees that "traditional Chris-
tianity" has cited such passages as
the 53rd chapter of Isaiah "in order
to incorrectly justify its belief that
the Hebrew Bible predicts the com-
ing of Christ."

To counteract such efforts, he said
his department is planning to mobi-
lize retiring rabbis, rabbinic students
and qualified laymen to visit cam-
puses "to 'rap' about and teach Ju-
daism and Christian-Jewish rela-
tions."

Rabbi Tanenbaum has cautioned
Jewish leaders that their reaction to
Jewish evangelism programs should
not be taken too far. He reminded
them that there is "massive" Chris-
tian support for Soviet Jewry, in-
creasing sympathy for Israel and "a
rejection" of anti-Semitism.

Cautioned Rabbi Tanenbaum:
"These gains must not be lost
through irrational overreaction to
movements which rely on persuasion
and not coercion." 33

NAE Briefings To Cover
Man/ Federal Agencies

WASHINGTON, D. C. — An event
for evangelical churchmen will be
the annual Washington Leadership
Briefing, Jan. 8-12, sponsored by the
National Association of Evangelicals.

For four days, participants will
get an inside look at the operations
of government and will hear talks
by a number of high-ranking admin-
istration officials.

The program will include a brief-
ing at the U. S. Supreme Court by
Justice Byron R. White and at the
Pentagon by Army Chief of Chap-
lains Gerhardt Hyatt and Dr. John
Broger, director of the Office of In-
formation for the Armed Forces.

There also will be sessions with
the Department of State, Depart-
ment of Labor, Department of

Health, Education and Welfare, the
Federal Bureau of Investigation, the
Immigration and Naturalization
Service, the White House, and rep-
resentatives of the Washington press
corps.

Dr. Clyde W. Taylor, director of
NAE's Washington office, is in
charge of the arrangements. II

Vanguard Presbytery
Forms First Church

FAYETTEVILLE, Ga. — Newly
formed Vanguard Presbytery, an in-
dependent body formally inaugu-
rated in Petersburg, Va., last month,
has organized its first congregation
from a group of interested persons
here.

The Rev. Todd W. Allen of Sa-
vannah, moderator of the presbytery,
presided over the organization of
Faith Presbyterian Church, with 17
persons listed as charter members.

Three elders and one deacon were
named in the organizational meeting
and after assuming the vows of of-
fice were installed.

Mr. Allen presented to the new
church, on behalf of the Christian
Reformed Church of Savannah and
Mr. and Mrs. Howard Hansen, a
communion service, a baptismal font
and an offering plate. II

ARP Charismatic Group
Organizes New Church

CHARLOTTE, N. C. — The pastor
and over a hundred members of an
Associate Reformed Presbyterian
congregation here have organized a
congregation with a Presbyterian
statement of faith which will include
the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

The Rev. Bill Cooke, formerly pas-
tor of the Ebenezer ARP Church,
was asked to resign by a majority of
the session for reasons associated
with an alleged charismatic empha-
sis in his ministry and evidence of
"speaking in tongues" among the
congregation.

Although a majority of the con-
gregation voted to maintain the pas-
toral relation, this was dissolved by
the presbytery. As a consequence, a
substantial proportion of the congre-
gation left Ebenezer and joined in
the formation of Grace Presbyterian
Church.

The new congregation will remain
independent, according to Mr.
Cooke, in order to function without
restraints. *

PAGE 6 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 20, 1972

God gives us the victory in the expectation of our Lord's return —

Triumph Over Tragedy

There is one aspect of Christmas
which we overlook, probably
intentionally. This aspect is the es-
; sential sorrow and tragedy that are
a part of Christmas. Thus we rob
ourselves of a sense of the reality
of it and, indeed, of the reality and
i relevance of the Christian faith.

Disaster, griefs and sorrow are
I hard to take at any time, but they
are particularly galling and heart-
, breaking at Christmas time. Those
who have attained any years of ma-
turity at all will understand that
, mingled with our Christmas mem-
ories of gaiety, songs, presents, fam-
ily fun and parties with friends, are
also more somber memories of sick-
ness and sorrow which are not so
pleasant to us.

A Grim Story

All around us at this Christmas
season we see much that distresses
us deeply and gives us intense pain.
Our choice young men have been
falling in battle far from home.
Many families even in this land of
fabled wealth are hungry and cold.
There are children with no presents
(can there be a greater tragedy?) for
whom talk of Christmas toys and
Santa Claus is only a wishful but
| unfulfilled dream.

There are lonely people, without
family or friends, and aged people
who can only sit or lie abed in some
home for the elderly and dully re-
member happier Christmases.

We read of plane crashes with ap-
palling loss of life, wreck-strewn
highways with their ghastly _ toll of
killed and maimed, storms at sea and
|lost ships. We hear of broken homes

The author is pastor of the Sec-
ond Presbyterian Church, Green-
ville, S. C.

Luke 2:22-38

and broken hearts this Christmas
tide.

All of these sad and tragic things
go right on happening on Christmas
as well as every other day in the
year.

Grief Too Deep

In response we feel a certain de-
spair. We sense a grief too deep
for words at the many heartbreaks
of humanity, knowing that we and
our loved ones are not immune to
all this. Perhaps a more realistic
look at Christmas as it is presented
in the Scriptures will help us to do
more than just feel bad and grieve
over the tragedies of the present day
Christmas, and the real world in
which we live.

To begin with, the whole story of
Christmas is set in the background
of the great tragedy of man's sin,
fall, and resulting curse. The enor-
mity of that awful curse of sin hits
home as we view the history of man
since the fall.

Adding to our anguish is the
knowledge that in the beginning
things were different, and man did
not have to fall as he did. Man
chose deliberately, willfully to walk
his own way.

He chose freely to turn his back
on God, life and joy, and to walk in
darkness, sin and death. So then,
the very necessity of Christmas is in
itself the greatest tragedy of all time.

Woven into the simple and beauti-
ful accounts of the birth of Jesus
Christ are also tales of woe, hardship
and stark tragedy. The long and
difficult journey of Mary on the
back of a donkey during the last days
of her pregnancy was hardly a
pleasure trip.

GORDON K. REED

A young virgin giving birth to a
child in a barn, unattended, is not
any easy thing to think about. Be-
fore the echoes of the heavenly choir
had faded away in her ears, Mary
heard Simeon's warning in the tem-
ple that "sorrow like a sharp sword
will break your own heart."

There was more to come: a sud-
den flight by night across the cruel
Sinai desert, scarcely a step ahead
of Herod's execution squads who
raged through Judea slaying all the
baby boys under two years of age.
The little town of Bethlehem which
had so lately heard the beautiful
music of angelic choirs heard anoth-
er anthem: the weeping and wailing
of mothers, crying over little sons
who would never grow up.

The Real World

What am I trying to do, ruin
your Christmas? Not at all, please
understand. What I'm trying to do
is help you see that the world back
then was just as real as the world
we live in now.

Sorrows were just as keenly felt.
Cold winds had the same chill. The
loss of a child was just as tragic then
and just as hard to take as it is for
us today.

Now perhaps we are ready to real-
ly consider the meaning of Christ-
mas and the Christmas message.
Now we are ready to pose the ques-
tion of the hour. What message did
God send into the world at Christ-
mas? Was it a real message? Was it
and is it relevant? Does it speak to
the misery and tragedy of the hu-
man race?

If there is a story of tragedy woven
into Christmas, and there is, still
it does not alter the fact that the
basic message of the Christmas story
is one of triumph over tragedy.

PAGE 7 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 20, 1972

What a victory God won!

The angels who sang with joy
well knew of earth's sorrows and
woes, but they had a message that
would conquer all sorrow and bring
eternal peace and joy. They an-
nounced the birth of a Saviour, one
who would walk the common way
of all men, up to and including the
very experience of death.

Source of Our Joy

They told of one who would save
His people from their sins. The
doors of heaven were flung wide
that night for the human race, and
they have never been closed again.

This is the reason for their song,
the source of our joy, that God has
an answer for sin, the root cause of
all woe, trouble and sorrow. He
has dealt a fatal blow.

The Saviour's name was called
Emmanuel, God with us. This in
itself is the heart and soul of the
Christmas message. God is truly
with us. In the midst of all life's
complexities and tragedies we have
Emmanuel.

He walks with us through each
trial of faith. He goes before in
each battle of life. He is the cap-

tain of our salvation. He will never
leave us nor forsake us. Even though
we walk through the valley of the
shadow of death, we will fear no
evil, for God our Saviour, Emman-
uel, is with us.

The human race has one of its
own in heaven. Our kinsman is
there, in the flesh of the resurrec-
tion body. He is there to give us
assurance that "our Father's house
of many mansions" is no phantom il-
lusion, but is reality itself. This is
the glory and the triumph of this
grand day. This is the message of
Christmas, Emmanuel!

God With Us

As we celebrate the Lord's Sup-
per on this Christmas day, we are
again reminded both of the tragedy
and the triumph of Christmas. This
meal speaks to us of the one who
came to save His people from their
sins, but it is a somber reminder of
the price He paid.

It speaks of the sword that broke
Mary's heart, yet also the healing of
all broken hearts. It speaks to us
of Emmanuel who is still with His
people and, in a special way, at this
supper. He is the living Christ who

dwells richly in our hearts by faith.

In the years of the early Church
the people of God were crushed
down by oppression and persecution
When the mailed fist of Rome
pounded the body of Christ, the
Christians fled for refuge to Em
manuel.

Maranathal

This sacrament was truly a sacred
meal for them. It was their link
with eternity and their hope for
things not seen. In those days the
communion service often ended
with a word which was a prayer.
The word, "Maranatha," which
means "Come O Lord," was more
than just a prayer for the presence
of Christ by faith, it was a fervent
prayer for the glorious return of ]&
sus Christ.

This hope was their only hope and
still today in our own time it re-
mains our only true hope. Surround
ed by a flood tide of tragedy and
woe, depressed by the apparent tri-
umph of evil, we join voices at this
service with the saints of old with
whom we still have that mystic,
sweet communion: "Maranatha, Em-
manuel!" Ill

A Christian custom is rooted in the ancient feast of Hanukkah —

First Candlelight Service

Antiochus Epiphanes was a very
successful Syrian king, and his
empire, spread far and wide, includ-
ed Palestine. He decreed that all
his subjects must worship the same
god and profess the same religion.
In an effort to stamp out the Jewish
faith completely, he banned circum-
cision and forbade the observance
of the Sabbath; he ordered all copies
of the law to be burned.

In December 168 B.C., Antiochus
personally defiled the temple. He
sacrificed a huge swine on the brazen

The author is pastor of the United
Presbyterian Church, St. Cloud, Fla.

altar in honor of the pagan god
Zeus. Portions of the animal were
boiled, and the liquid was poured
over every sacred spot. This in-
famous act became known as the
"abomination of desolation." The
king later ordered that such sacri-
fices should be made at every Jew-
ish altar throughout the country.

In religion, as well as in politics,
there have always been those who
were willing to collaborate. Many
apostate Jews obeyed the edict with-
out protest. Even some of the vil-
lage priests, in fear of their lives,
sacrificed to the pagan gods.

At a sanctuary known as Modin,
an old priest, Mattathias by name,

HANDEL H. BROWN

refused to perform such a ceremony.
When a more "relevant" priest
stepped forward to obey the king's
command, Mattathias killed him,
Then he and his five sons fled to
the hills.

No Jewish Quisling

They were joined by hosts of the
faithful. The guerrilla warfare in
which they engaged so severely
harassed the Syrians that these Jews
came to be known as the Maccabees,
which means the "hammerers." One
of Mattathias' sons, Judas Macca-
beus, led the revolt to victory.

Exactly three years after the al-

PAGE 8 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 20, 1972

tar had been desecrated, the temple
was rededicated to the glory of God
in December 165 B.C.

There is a legend that when the
Jews cleaned out the temple, they
found only one cruse of holy oil.
That was one day's supply. The
story says that when the sacred lamp
was relit, it did not go out until a
fresh supply of oil arrived a full
week later.

To celebrate the victory of Judas
Maccabeus and the rededication of
the temple, the Feast of Hanukkah
was instituted. Because the holy
oil had lasted eight days, the feast
was to last that long, too.

Unlike the other great Jewish
feasts, which demanded that men
should go up to Jerusalem, Hanuk-
kah could be celebrated anywhere.
It became peculiarly the festival of
the home.

Hanukkah Lights

Because of the legend of the oil,
lights were associated with Hanuk-
kah. On the first night each house
was expected to have a light on the
door. If the family could afford it,
there was a light for each member.

Unfortunately, this could become
tremendously expensive, as the num-
ber of lights on the doors had to be
doubled each night. Those who be-
gan with one ended with 128, and
those who began with four, ended
with 512 lights!

Special lights glowed within the
houses as well. A blaze of lamps,
lanterns and torches threw their un-
accustomed illumination everywhere.
Like our Christmas lights, they were
a center of attraction to old and
young alike. Neighbors vied with
each other for the best display. Fam-
ilies pooled their ingenuity to come
up with something new.

The places of worship were gaily
lit, too. The first candlelight ser-
vices were held as grandparents, par-
ents and children marched to the
synagogue in a torchlight procession.

Rejoice!

The people not only carried lights,
they carried branches of palms as
well. These, and strippings from
other green trees, were paraded from
house to house, then they were de-
posited in the house of worship as
an important part of the festal deco-
rations.

Hanukkah was a very happy time.
A famous and oft repeated injunc-

tion of the Deuteronomic code says,
"Thou shalt rejoice before the
Lord." The Jews certainly did that
during the Feast of Lights.

Everywhere there was great jubila-
tion. It was forbidden to fast;
mourning was prohibited; doleful
music was not allowed. The people
danced in the streets to joyful
strains.

This Feast of Lights began on the
25th day of the month Chisleu,
which occurred about the time of
the winter solstice. When those
dreary and misinformed killjoys try
to spoil your Christmas by telling
you it is the remains of a pagan
nordic festival, ask them if they
have ever heard of Hanukkah! The
ancient Catholic Church adopted
this date as the birthday of Jesus.
Christmas has a Jewish, not a
heathen source.

It all fits in well with the holy
incarnation. What is Christmas but
the dedication of the true temple,
which was the body of Jesus, and
the feast of the true Light who
came, in very truth, to be "the Light
of the world"?

If those Jews had cause for re-
joicing, and they did, how much
more we have cause for rejoicing in
the happiest event ever known: "Un-
to you is born this day, a Saviour
which is Christ the Lord."

Hanukkah is a remarkable fore-
runner of Christmas. Here is a pat-
tern we may well copy, an example

In Behalf of Discipline

New Christian powers are loose in
our day; now they need some chan-
neling. It is a good thing that the
Jesus People's approach is simple
and direct. But a long history of
Christianity from Augustine to
Dooyeweerd via Pascal and Calvin,
not to mention Barth and Tillich,
would seem to indicate that there are
marvelous riches of the spirit yet to
be mined, and that these young be-
lievers wouldn't even have a Bible
in their hands if someone hadn't
been disciplined enough to master
Hebrew and Greek. This is not for-
eign to one's personal devotional
life. If one governs what he does
only by what he feels, he will feel
less and less about doing it. —
Adapted from an editorial by Addi-
son H. Leitch in Christianity To-
day.

we need not fear to follow. So deco-
rate your houses with lights, remem-
bering that devout families praised
God in this manner even before Je-
sus was born. And deck the halls
with holly, for the verdant handi-
work of God was used by His people
in worship and gratitude.

We make Christmas the festival
of the home because of that home
in Nazareth which was made com-
plete by the presence of Him whose
birthday we celebrate at this time.
The Hebrew people never got away
from the basic idea that whatever
religion you find in church is of lit-
tle or no value if you leave it there.
They knew it must be carried home.

At Christmas time we rejoice, not
because of a warrior's victory, but
because of a Saviour's love. We
rejoice, not that the enemy is driven
out of the land, but that Jesus came
to drive him out of the heart.

Feast of Dedication

Let us remember the other name
for Hanukkah, the Feast of Lights,
which was also called the Feast of
Dedication. The Gospel of John
tells us: "And it was at Jerusalem
the feast of the dedication, and it
was winter. And Jesus walked in
the temple, in Solomon's porch"
(John 10:22-23).

Our Lord observed the feast in
the traditional manner. He recalled
the story of Judas Maccabeus; He
rejoiced in the inheritance that was
His. However, He taught the peo-
ple there was little use in making
a national holiday merely to remem-
ber a historic occasion, no matter
how great.

Jesus wanted the people to see
that the dedication of the temple
actually meant very little, unless they
themselves were dedicated to the ser-
vice of God.

This Christmas, let us come to see
the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem of
Judea, great as it is, does not really
mean much to us, or do very much
for us, until He is born again in us.
The candles which we light in the
sanctuary have very little signifi-
cance unless we carry in our hearts
"the Light of men."

This holy season, let us see that
Christmas is not really a time or a
season, it is an experience. The glory
of Christmas is that it is an experi-
ence which can be ours, and will be
ours, if we sincerely pray: "O come
to my heart, Lord Jesus, / There is
room in my heart for Thee." IB

PAGE 9 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 20, 1972

Let our song of joy be, "The Lord has come" —

Christmas 1972

s there anything new to say about
3- Christmas? The story has been
told again and again, but it is al-
ways refreshing to hear it. The
first message of Christmas came to
a lonely band of shepherds on the
ancient hills of Judea. The message
this year comes to a weary, heart-
broken world, full of sorrow and ani-
mosity. We need the message of
heavenly hosts so much in this pres-
ent century.

There is despair in the hearts of
millions because they have no an-
chor for their lives. One newspa-
per showed a picture of a small ref-
ugee child from Pakistan. He was
weeping. His eyes glistened with
tears and one little fist was seeking
to wipe them away. He had no
home, no loving parents to take him
in their arms and assure him of their
love and care. He was hopeless and
the world promised him nothing.

This is our world. It is full of
despair. It is insecure. Even in
our affluent land, hearts are empty
though our hands and stomachs are
full. There seems to be no one to
assure us that in the maze of our
universe there is one who cares.

They tell us that fewer than two
people in one hundred attend a
church service on a given Sunday
in Britain. Superstition and witch-
craft are taking over. Other coun-
tries fare little better.

In America these conditions are
not as self-evident, but our hearts
are empty and the demons are wait-
ing to come in. There is a grow-
ing dissatisfaction with the estab-
lished Church. Some of the criti-
cism may be unjust, but in many
cases the desperate ones are being

This material is here reprinted
with permission from Missionary
Monthly. The author is co-editor of
the publication.

fed stones instead of bread.

We need the story of Christmas.
We need to get beyond our decora-
tions, our feasting, our drinking, and
find the wonder of the star and the
message of the heavenly host. With-
out Christ, life has no ultimate
meaning.

The older groups find it difficult
to understand why the younger gen-
eration take so little interest or
pride in their dress, cleanliness, or
established religion. Perhaps we
haven't discovered that today's
youth want more than husks. They
are searching for meaning in a
world without meaning — if there
is no Christmas.

The older generation has come to
accept forms and patterns of life
that have little basis in reality. We
are empty and we must discover the
truth and dynamic of the advent of
our Lord Jesus Christ.

If God Didn't Care

When I think of Christmas I try
to imagine what life would be if
God did not care for His people.
The story of the birth of Jesus with
its surrounding facts telis us that
God does care.

Yesterday I sat with an old man
in a nursing home. He is waiting
to die. Often his mind wanders; he
cannot communicate. Once he was
a strong-willed man who could keep
his place in the economic world and
in society. He is surrounded by the
concern of loved ones, but is that
all he has? If so, tomorrow would
look very bleak indeed.

No, the Christmas story tells us
that God cares, and as a result a
child was born in Bethlehem. It was
the God-child who became the ran-
som of His people from sin and de-
spair. He came because God cares.

This lonely man isn't an isolated
case. Another sat nearby, helpless,

GARY De WITT

waiting. Life had gone by and to-
morrow no longer really mattered.
So it is in this life unless there is
the message of Christmas. Tomor-
row we may sit with them, waiting.
But through it all, we can remem-
ber that our heavenly Father cares.
This is Christmas.

Thinking of Christmas reminds
me that life is like beads on a string.
Each day may be separated from its
predecessor but the days are bound
together in an overshadowing pur-
pose. There is a goal to living. If
God came down to live among His
people and bore their burdens, sure-
ly there is an ultimate goal to life.
It doesn't end in nothingness but
leads to a definite end.

Logical Sequence

This is what the Bible teaches
and assures us. This is the logical
sequence to the Christmas message.
This is affirmed in the resurrection.

Never could the shepherds accept
defeat and despair again. They
knew now that God had entered hu-
man existence and lifted it out of
its despair again. They knew now
that God had entered human ex-
istence and lifted it out of its de-
spair and had given it meaning in
shining big letters. This could nev-
er be forgotten. It was no longer a
silent universe, oblivious to the cries
of hopeless refugees; the sky had
spoken. The curtain had been lift-
ed revealing the concern of God.

Christmas can be meaningless un-
less it touches the heart strings of
our existence. All our beautiful dec-
orations, so intricately made and
hung, can be like the flowers placed
on a coffin. We shall discard them
tomorrow. All our feasting can be
pleasant and very empty. There
must be something more. It is ex-

(Continued on p. 20, col. 3)

PAGE 10 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 20, 1972

Listen! nothing shall drown out the message of Christmas —

Christmas All Year

A friend sent a Christmas note
which read: "Our baby is in
the hospital. His heart beats too
fast. He's very anemic and has
pneumonia. He's had a blood trans-
fusion and is under an oxygen tent.
Our pastor came by and left us a
thought from the Christmas story in
the Gospel of Luke: 'His name shall
be called Emmanuel which means,
God with us.' " The friend con-
cluded her letter by stating, "I take
that personally."

And that's the message of Christ-
mas — God with us. God coming
to us by becoming one of us, a lit-
tle child. All the fullness- of the
Godhead dwelt in this child — God
Himself in the flesh; but His glory
was hidden beneath His humanity.
It's an awesome thought: Christ
:oming to a borrowed manger on
His way to the cross. That's why my
friend could say with such confi-
dence, "God with us. I take that per-
sonally!"

When God took upon Himself a
form He gave us love personified,
so that regardless of what time of
/ear it is, when we know Him the
;lory of Christmas stays with us ev-
?ry day.

But only God, a loving heavenly
Father, could have thought of
Christmas. As parents we delight
:o give our children good gifts. Of-
:en at Christmas we prove this in
;pecial ways. Just so, God proved
4is preat love for us by becoming
me of us (John 3:16). God in
Hhrist is our contemporary. Not
>nly did He make His personal visit,
>ut He left us the pattern for true
md happy living. He is no absen-
ce impersonal omnipotence. Even
ifter Christmas day is over, God is
eft.

The Christmas afterglow can be as
>eautiful as the angels' song and as
:heering as the guiding star must
lave been to the Wise Men. When
Christmas is over not everything
tbout Christmas needs to be packed
iway. What's left?

What of significance will remain
or you when Christmas Day is past?
•"or my friend, Christ's presence was
'ery real as she hovered over the
>edside of her desperately ill baby,
ihe could remember Christ's words,

This material is reprinted with
Permission fro?n the December 1971
Christian Economics, publication of
Christian Freedom Foundation, Inc.

"Lo, I am with you always . . ."

For myself, I well remember two
months after Christmas a few short
years ago when I stood by the grave
of my precious mother and remem-
bered that the Bible promised that
"We are comforted of God." He had
not left. He had promised, "I will
not leave you comfortless" and I ex-
perienced it — Christmas in Feb-
ruary.

The "good tidings of great joy
which shall be to all people" that the
angelic choir heralded across the Ju-
dean hillside those many years ago
still reverberates around the world.
Though there are many strident
voices being heard in every nation,
disorder, chaos and turmoil cannot
drown out the message of Christmas.

HELEN KOOIMAN

Bethlehem is much more than a
mark on a map, or an event held in
the hem of history. It's a condition
brought into being by the birth
within men's hearts of the same holy
One whose advent twenty centuries
ago changed the course of the world.
If you would keep the spirit of
Christmas alive all year, then you
must act upon the message delivered
that first Christmas day.

Like the shepherds who first came
running, and left running and re-
joicing, we are to glorify and praise
Him regardless of our circumstances.
It's a message that's meant to be
shared. When you share the Christ
of Christmas I can promise you it
will be Christmas for you every
day. IS

¥YYY¥¥¥Y¥ ****

f 1

|* 2^ <Witk (&dit <

J* <

on December 25

— The Staff of the Presbyterian Journal

PAGE 11 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 20, 1972

EDITORIALS

Christmas in the Heart

The wonder of Christmas can nev-
er be appreciated until the Christ
of Bethlehem becomes a guest in the
heart.

Commemoration of God's entrance
into history in the person of His Son
has become so secularized and com-
mercialized that to many it is no
more than a pagan holiday, dedicated
to the satisfaction of the flesh and
devoid of spiritual significance.

That there was no room for Him
in the inn was prophetic of His
status for millions today, for He
neither is wanted nor welcomed by
many.

Our Lord's birth in a stable was
likewise prophetic of the role hu-
manity must play in the hearts and
minds of men if Christ is to rule.

One can imagine the smug com-
placency of those so fortunate as to
have secured shelter in the inn that
starry night. Complacent when the
Son of God was to be cradled in a
manger only a few feet away; com-
placent while the heavenly host
spoke to men on the hillside, men
whose hearts were softened and
ready, capable of receiving and act-

ing on the message telling of the
Saviour's advent.

Was there a prophetic note in the
smugness and complacency of some
that night? Was there a prophetic
note in the open hearts and willing
minds of those humble shepherds to
whom the message of the Lord was
revealed?

What does Christmas mean to
you? To me?

The first Christmas was an his-
toric page in God's calendar of eter-
nity. Planned in the council halls
of heaven before the creation, God
knew of man's coming separation
from Him and He prepared the only
way. Christ, the Son, shared in those
plans and on that first Christmas
came back to the world He had cre-
ated, a world marred by revolt and
disobedience.

Is Christmas to us chiefly a time
of giving and receiving of things?
Has the Christ of Christmas been as-
signed to a place in the stable while
we celebrate in the inn? Is the mes-
sage of the angels drowned out by
the din of the market place?

Let us take care lest we lose the

And on Earth

In Russia, and some of the other
Iron Curtain countries, there is no
Christmas. It is just another work-
ing day. But since old traditions
die hard and Saint Nicholas has al-
ways been a beloved symbol, the So-
viets have conveniently invented a
character named Grandfather Frost.

In Communist Romania, authori-
ties have sought to smother Christ-
mas by designating all of December
as "The Month of Presents."

In Cuba, Christmas has been post-
poned until next July when the sug-
ar harvest is in. That of course de-
prives it of all of its significance.

Here in America we may claim
that Christmas has become overcom-
mercialized, but one thing is cer-
tain: We still have it and, with or
without the gifts and tinsel, it is a
time when love and friendship car-
ry the field, when charity and com-
passion surge to the heart, when

peace and good will take on an
urgent meaning.

Who does not know the Christ-
mas story? — the Babe in the manger,
the bright shining star, the shep-
herds in the fields, and the three
kings from the East. The hardest
of hearts can't help but love its
beauty and appreciate its calm, gen-
tle message.

It is, in itself, a bright, shining
star to which men have turned for
many centuries and to which the
least privileged, the most greatly
scorned, the most callous and the
most cynical can still turn for com-
fort and light.

Our best possible wish for each
of you is, that your day may be
filled with the love and kindness,
the comfort and joy that lie at the
heart of the Christmas message. —
An editorial broadcast over WBTV,
Charlotte, N. C. El

l!

message of Christmas and in losing
that message lose the Christ of
Christmas. All about us there is
the incessant babbling of a lost
and dying world; of a world gone
and looking for pleasure, excite
ment, gracious living; a world which
cares not that the Redeemer has
come and that the hour is very late

But to meek souls everywhere, the
message of Christmas is one of peace:
comfort, hope, for it is to such that
He comes and in whose hearts He
takes up His abode.

Before that first century had
passed, the Holy Spirit spoke and;
the aged apostle John wrote of the
Christ of Bethlehem, now the cruci
fied and risen Saviour, "Behold, I
stand at the door and knock: if any
man hear my voice, and open the
door, I will come in to him and sup
with him, and he with me."

Christmas is devoid of meaning
for you, and for me, until the gentle
knock has been heard and the door
of our hearts joyfully opened to thel
One who alone has the right to reign
in our lives.

Then, the Bethlehem story has not
been completed in respect to out
participation in it until we too make
known abroad the greatest message
this world has ever heard: "For utt
to you is born this day ... a Saviour
which is Christ the Lord." E

This Layman Gomes
Across Loud and Clear

We are prepared to award the all
time prize for composition of a "let!
ter to the editor" to Richard D
Carver of Sellersburg, Indiana.

Mr. Carver addressed, not us, bu
the Louisville Courier- Journal in re
action to an earlier letter from con
troversial Louisville Seminary profes
sor George Edwards. Dr. Edwards
the seminary's leading agitator, ha(
written an "appeal to Presbyteriai
ministers and churches to recognizi
anew the great religious importano
of basic civil liberties and the in
herently heretical character of th
anti Communist mindset."

With devastating logic, Mr. Carve
replied:

"In his letter of September 21
George Edwards polished, strearr.
lined and souped-up an illusion ii
order to chauffeur a chrome-plate'
mirage. Even a sophisticated preacl
er-teacher must do more than desig
a fancy bucket in order to draw w<
ter from a dry well.

tP

Jiai

lli

KB

ill;

PAGE 12 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 20, 1972

THE LAYMAN AND HIS CHURCH

Christian Fellowship in the Church

"Mr. Edwards, in an earlier cor-
respondence, criticized my grammar.
I now question his crimson concep-
tion of the Christian ministry. By
what degree of justification can a
supposedly loyal Presbyterian help
promote atheistic Communism and
also profess Christianity?

"Can this type of reasoning be
construed as pretentious belief, in-
tentional deceit or just plain hypoc-
risy?

"I seriously doubt that 'spreading
the Gospel' means to take up Marx-
mongering or that Christians need
to know more about poly-communes
than they do about Holy Com-
munion.

"It is rather to be expected that
this peculiar brand of modern reli-
gious mayhem will put more vodka
in the brotherhood than Christians
in the pews, more politics in the pul-
pit than worship in the service, and
more infidelity in the populace than
morality in the masses,
i "The Truth is in the Holy Bible.
Karl Marx proposed to take care of
everybody — while his own children
starved. A grim fable indeed."

It is repeatedly true that the most
fearless defenders of sanity and rea-
son, as well as the faith, frequently
are the laymen. Confronted with
the satanic heresies of our day, too
many preachers (and Church courts
from presbytery to General Assem-
bly) either weasel out, or defend the
miscreant.

Mounting reason for a continuing
Church faithful to Scripture and to
the Reformed understanding of the
Gospel. m

A Murmur in Presbytery

During a debate in a meeting of
presbytery, a minister observed that
for Presbyterians, the words "Presby-
terianism" and "Christianity" are
synonymous. His remark was greeted
with a mild murmur of disapproval.

He was entirely correct, of course,
[f we believe that the Bible is the
Word of God, and if we swear a sol-
emn oath that we believe the Con-
fession of Faith correctly interprets
|che Bible, then we confess that our
Eaith and the Christian faith are one
ind the same.

[ About that mumur of disapproval.
For a few — a very few, no doubt —
that murmur meant they disagreed

(Continued on p. 17, col. 1)

Fellowship is a word used often
in church circles, but its full mean-
ing is rarely considered. Fellowship
takes place when Christians are in-
volved in social relationships with
each other. True fellowship exists
only among true believers. True fel-
lowship transcends external and tem-
porary differences and welds togeth-
er into one body all the members of
the family of God.

Christian fellowship activities
should always be encouraged, be-
cause Christians have so many things
in common. Christians are partakers
of the "divine nature." This means
that they are brand new creatures
and, having a new nature, they do
not intentionally practice sin. Chris-
tians "have become partakers of
Christ" and by becoming partakers
of Him, they are recipients "of a
heavenly calling."

The elect experience chastening
given by their loving heavenly Fa-
ther and they are involved in "the
fellowship of His suffering." How-
ever, the suffering is not without
reward, for we read that all Chris-
tians are involved in the fellowship
of future glory. As Christians are
witnesses of the sufferings of Christ,
they are also partakers of the "glory
that is to be revealed."

Examination of the Scriptural evi-
dences shows that fellowship occurs
not just between Christians, but al-
so between Christians and their God.
Therefore, we see from Scripture
that there are two dimensions to
Christian fellowship, the horizontal
dimension dealing with a Christian's
relationship to other Christians, and
the vertical, involving the Christian's
relationship to God.

John pictured these two dimen-
sions: the horizontal, "that you may
also have fellowship with us," and
the vertical, "and indeed our fel-
lowship is with the Father and with
His Son, Jesus Christ" (I John 1:

This week the layman's viewpoint
is brought by Burt D. Braunius, di-
rector of Christian education at the
Mcllwaine Memorial Presbyterian
Church, Pensacola, Fla.

13) . Fellowship activities in the
church must stress both of these di-
mensions.

Where Christian fellowship ex-
ists, its characteristics are obvious.
The following should be seen in to-
day's Church just as they are seen in
the New Testament Church:

1. Mutual love based upon a
common faith in God. Paul begins
his epistle to Titus by calling Titus
his "true child in a common faith,"
and ends the epistle with "greet
those who love us in the faith."

2. Study of the teachings of Scrip-
ture. Early Christians were "contin-
ually devoting themselves to the
apostles' teachings."

3. Sharing of property and pos-
sessions with other Christians. We
read in Acts that they were "sharing
them with all as anyone might have
need."

4. Prayers. Those Christians were
"continually devoting themselves to
prayer."

Several conclusions can be drawn
from the Scriptural teachings on fel-
lowship. First, Christians, because
of their calling and election, desire
and need fellowship. Second, true
fellowship exists only among believ-
ers. It is present as they relate to
each other and to God. Third,
Christians as church members must
be united in fellowship. This union
can in most cases be best expressed
through fellowship groups.

Fourth, fellowship groups, since
they involve social relationships be-
tween Christians, can be effectively
organized according to age. Most
churches could easily have a junior
fellowship, junior high fellowship,
senior high fellowship, college age
fellowship (Westminster fellowship)
and an adult fellowship. Finally, all
church fellowship groups must be or-
ganized on the grounds of a love of
Christ based upon a common faith
and for the purpose of the study of
Scriptural teachings, sharing and
prayer. ffl

• • •

I would rather walk in the dark
with Christ than go alone in the
light. — Mary Brainerd.

PAGE 13 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 20, 1972

SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON

For January 7, 1973

INTRODUCTION: We have
noted before that Jeremiah is the
prophet of the heart. One of the
great themes of his messages is the
heart of man. He reveals a clear
and honest look at the heart of man
as God sees it. We can trace this
theme as Jeremiah develops it
through the book.

First he noted why the reformation
under Josiah, the good king of Ju-
dah, failed. Josiah himself was faith-
ful and sincere in his efforts to bring
Judah back to God, but the people,
though outwardly conforming, did
not really change.

Jeremiah saw and spoke of this:
"Judah hath not returned unto me
with her whole heart but feignedly,
saith the Lord" (3:10). In other
words, the heart remained un-
changed.

The people still walked after the
stubbornness of their own evil hearts

(3:17). Therefore, the people were
called to circumcise their hearts, i.e.,
to clean them up (4:4, 14) . Sin
reached to the hearts of the people

(4: 18) . In their hearts they rebelled
against God (5:23-24) . Outward con-
formity availed little when the heart
plotted evil (9:8) .

God Himself is not impressed with
the outward man, but with the in-
ner man. He judges the heart, the
real man (11:20; 12:2). The kind
of heart God sees in men is an evil
heart (16: 12) , rebellious (17:5) , de-
ceitful and very corrupt (17:9) . The
hearts of these sinners in Jeremiah's
time revealed only covetousness,
murder, oppression and violence (22:
17).

Jeremiah stated what was needed:
new hearts that will know (obey)
the Lord (24:7) . This is tantamount
to saying that they needed a new
birth and in reality this is what Jere-
miah was saying here. So when we
come to chapters 31 and 32 of Jere-
miah, we find at last God promising
to do what they can never do for
themselves, that is, give them new
hearts to believe and obey God.

I. THE EVERLASTING LOVE
OF GOD (31:1-17) . The sole basis

The New Covenant

Rev. Jack B. Scott

Background Scripture: Jeremiah 31;
32:36-41

Key Verses: Jeremiah 31:31-34; 32:
36-41

Devotional Reading: Isaiah 55:3-11
Memory Selection: Jeremiah 31:33

known to us for God's having saved
such a stubborn and rebellious peo-
ple, as described in Jeremiah and
elsewhere in God's book, is the love
of God.

Indeed, as God explained to Is-
rael when He took them out of
Egypt, He did it not because they
deserved it or because they were bet-
ter than anyone else, but because
He loved them (Deut. 4:37; 7:7) .

Ultimately all of God's dealing
with Israel and with us, who are
equally as evil as they, is His great
love. God's love is not dependent
on what we have done or deserve but
comes wholly from the goodness and
mercy of God.

So here God reaffirmed what He
said at the time He led them out of
Egypt. "I will be your God and you
will be my people" (31:1). The
Lord who commanded Jeremiah to
break down, pluck up, and destroy
the old Israel because of her sins
(Jer. 1:10), would build again (31:
4) . His love is everlasting and so
will be this new building.

Using the shepherd motif which
God so often used before to express
His love for His people, He de-
scribed His work as like that of the
good shepherd who gathers the scat-
tered flock (31:10). Compare here
Genesis 48:15; Numbers 21; 27:17;
Psalm 23; and Isaiah 40, which all
deal with the concept of God as a
good shepherd.

In the New Testament, of course,
our Lord similarly spoke of the good
shepherd who tends His flock and
goes after the scattered sheep (Luke
15:3-7) . Jesus also spoke of the good
shepherd who gives His life to re-
deem His sheep (John 10:11).

The International Sunday School Lesson Outlines
are copyrighted 1972 by the Committee on the
Uniform Series of the National Council of
Churches of Christ.

I,

Here, too, in Jeremiah we have
hints of this in the next verse where
the Lord spoke of redeeming and
ransoming Israel "from the hand
of him that was stronger than he"
(31:11).

Not the goodness of Israel (Hos
6:4) , but the everlasting goodness
of God is what is needed. The hope
of the people is the goodness of God
shown in His love (31:12, 14).

This theme of hope in the lattei
end is one of the great doctrines oi
the Old Testament prophets (31:
17) . As we have noted in other les
sons, the theme of hope is closely re-
lated to the doctrine of the rem
nant, a people of God who shall en
dure the judgments and trials com
ing on Israel because of her sins.

The doctrine of a remnant is im
troduced in the Pentateuch, but par
ticularly in Amos its developmenl
begins. After a long section con
demning Israel for her sins and
warning of sure judgment to come
God nevertheless said that a rem
nant shall survive and He woulc ^
bless this remnant (Amos 9:8b.) .

Jeremiah developed this remnan
theme also. We see it first in 4:27 nd
"Yet will I not make a full end' ml
(compare 5:10, 18) ; then in 6:9 th(
remnant is mentioned — the Israel
which will remain after Israel ha:
been gleaned (purged) . It is or
this remnant that the compassior
and love of God will ultimately b<
shown (12:15).

In contrast to the evil shepherd
of Israel who scattered the sheep o
God, the Lord Himself (the gooc
shepherd mentioned in 31:10 above)
will gather the remnant of His flocl tup
(23:3) . So the remnant in Jere
miah's prophecy is the real peoplt
of God (31:7) . The doctrine of th<
remnant, like the doctrine of tht
heart of man, climaxes in the 31s
chapter of Jeremiah.

In spite of a sinful people the did
everlasting love of God will not b< le\
turned off. God will love the peo
pie, moving His remnant to hopij
in His salvation in the latter da-
(31:17).

lira

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(ar

h

Sir
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ttoi
Go

PAGE 14 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 20, 1972

II. THE EVERLASTING WORK
\0F GOD (31:18-37). The love of
I God is always expressed in terms
of what God has done. When God
speaks of His love, He invariably
follows this by speaking of what He
( has done for His people.

The doing is an expression of
God's love. Likewise, when God in
Scripture calls us to love, there is
always implied what God expects us
1 to do in showing that love.

1 The groundwork was then laid
d for the necessary work of God. Jere-
j miah showed the sinfulness of the
: hearts of the people. Next he be-
gan to show what God will do for

4 them who cannot save themselves. It
lis first expressed here in terms of a
" prayer: "Turn thou me, and I shall
J be turned" (31:18).

Here is implied the acknowledg-
\ ment that we cannot turn or change
"ourselves. We need God's help and
' this is precisely what God has been

2 teaching the people through all of

I His years of patiently enduring their

II sin and rebellion. We see in verse
11 19 the necessity for God's bringing
1 us (turning and correcting us) , if

we are ever to repent and believe in
ii Him.

i Thus rebirth, the new life given,

ii precedes our own response of re-
in pentance and trust in the Lord. This

is why, much later, our Lord once
again in talking to Nicodemus, the
Pharisee, said: "Except one be born
anew he cannot see the kingdom of
God" (John 3:3) .

God who plucked up, broke down,
and destroyed the old Israel which
under the old covenant could not
please Him and remain in the land
af promise, would build and plant
the new Israel whose hearts are

-] turned by the power of God to trust

i] in Him (31:28) .

\ This was the new covenant, not
[he blessings of God dependent on
J the obedience of the people in the
, land of Canaan (31:31-32) , but the
J olessings of God dependent on the
■■■ learts which He could change and
j renew and make obedient to Him
.j (31:33-34) .

; Israel, which had been redeemed

)ut of Egypt and given opportunity
( to serve God in Canaan, failed to be
% aithful and thus lost the blessings

Sod attached to the old covenant,
j -vhich had said that as long as they

ibeyed God and did His will, they
j Arould prosper in the land and be
j /ictorious over their enemies,
j God promises in a new covenant

lot failure but success, showing that

indeed the new covenant is a real
change in His people that will in
the end make them to love His di-
vinity and obey it from their hearts.
They will have new natures, they
will be new creatures.

In the New Testament Jesus ex-
plained to the disciples that His
death and resurrection were neces-
sary to the institution of this new
covenant in His blood. His blood
cleanses their sin away and gives
them these new hearts which God
has promised.

Just as the love of God i^ declared
to be everlasting, so this great work
of redemption of the remnant, this
change of their hearts and contin-
uing blessings are declared to be ev-
erlasting. The promise is based on
the most solid foundation conceiv-
able, the very sovereignty of the
Lord himself. The promises are as
everlasting and enduring as the very
ordinances of God (31:35-37).

As sure as God is sovereign and
His ordinances are certain, so sure
is the promise and so lasting the
new covenant of God. He has based
this promise on His own almighty
power and sovereignty. The prom-
ises are as certain and sure as God
Himself. There can be no more
certain and enduring promise than
this.

III. THE EVERLASTING
COVENANT OF GOD (32:36-41).
From the very beginning of all of
His dealings with His people, God
had spoken in terms of the good
which He would bring to them. In
His early words about this covenant
of salvation which He spoke to Abra-
ham, we see this clearly.

In Genesis 18:19 He spoke in
terms of that which He intended to
bring to His people. The very pur-
pose of His "knowing" (choosing)
Abraham was that the people would
obey Him and receive His blessings.

It was necessary for the people to
learn, however, that they received
the benefits and blessings of God
not in their own efforts but solely
in God's mercy and love. Thus the
Lord established a covenant with
them in the wilderness to give them
Canaan as an inheritance and to
bless them so long as they obeyed
God.

When the people disobeyed God,
He began to curse them rather than
bless them. Under this old arrange-
ment (covenant) — obedience re-
warded by blessing — the people
miserably failed. God furthermore

established the sacrificial system to
show them that they failed and to
teach them that the consequence of
sin is death.

The sacrificial system, as we have
taught before, was intended to break
their hearts, not to be a means of
their redemption. It was to lead
them to trust in God alone and not
in themselves.

However, most of the people did
not rightly understand the sacrificial
system and so regarded it as a work
in itself of redemption. They did
not learn what the sacrificial system
was intended to teach them, namely,
their own sinfulness and their need
of God.

In reality, those who did not see
this and who were filled with pride
and trusted in their own works were
not God's people. God's people un-
derstood and they learned to trust
in God as Abraham had (Gen. 15:
6; Hab. 2:4, etc.) .

The trust of God's people among
the Israelites was not misplaced;
God said that He would do as He
had earlier promised (32:37) . He
would give His people a new heart, a
heart that would obey God. Unlike
the old covenant that failed, this
new covenant will endure forever,
based on the better work of God, not
the inadequate work of men.

The promises, too, would be bet-
ter, not continuation in the land of
Canaan but a place forever in the
kingdom of God. The book of He-
brews tells that Abraham, and those
with him of like faith, really looked
for a city not built by men, i.e., not
in the literal Canaan, but a city built
by God where His people would for-
ever live with and share the fellow-
ship of God (Heb. 11:9-10).

This is that better inheritance
based on a better promise about
which the writer to the Hebrews told
in his epistle (Heb. 3:10). Jere-
miah called this new covenant the
everlasting covenant (32:40) .

CONCLUSION: Jeremiah tells us
of the everlasting love of God which
culminates in His everlasting work
on our behalf and which points to
an everlasting covenant of hope that
will not fail. How beautifully the
book of Jeremiah points to the ful-
fillment of all of these promises in
the person and work of Jesus Christ,
God in the flesh!

Today's lesson concludes our stud-
ies in the book of Jeremiah. Next
we begin the study of some of the
lessons from the prophet Ezekiel. IB

PAGE 15 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 20, 1972

YOUTH PROGRAM

Scripture: Psalm 19:1-4
Suggested Hymns:

"Holy, Holy, Holy!"

"Till the Whole World Knows"

"We've a Story to Tell"

PROGRAM LEADER'S INTRO-
DUCTION: Can you know God in
any way? Can you know that a Su-
preme Being is running the universe?

Psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud ar-
gued that the concept of God ex-
presses a wish of man to have some
kind of being over him and respon-
sible for the universe, someone he
can turn to in times of suffering or
trial.

Man wants some kind of being he
can turn to in worship, so he pro-
jects this being into existence with-
in his own mind, Freud said.

Thus, according to Freud, the con-
cept of God is just a wish of man:
God is just something man has
made up in his own mind. He says,
"Let us not think of God as any-
thing real, but as just a figment of
man's imagination."

Today man has put forth another
argument to claim that God does
not exist. It seems to be the op-
posite of Freud's claim. Many men
are saying that there is no need for
God to exist. Man has outgrown
the need for God. Man has come
of age and is sufficient in himself.

You have heard of the "God is
dead'' movement. Most church peo-
ple react negatively when they hear
that "God is dead" and don't stop
to think through what these men are
saying.

Could those men be simply pro-
jecting certain wishes that exist in
our society today? Could they have
enjoyed the popularity and publicity
they received if this were not so?
Man does not want God to exist.

Man says, "I can create my own
system of morality. What is impor-
tant for me is to live in a society that
seeks its own best interests. Our
technology is so great that we can do
anything we want here on this earth.
We don't need a God to do all this

For January 7, 1973

Is There a God?

Rev. Henry J. Mueller

guiding and providing." Thus, there
exists today a wish to do away with
God.

Some people wish for a God, some
to do away with God. Actually these
arguments cancel each other out.
The real question is whether the
very concept of God is too great for
man to dream up on his own.

FIRST SPEAKER: When a per-
son starts talking to people about
God, especially if he's a Presbyterian,
he talks about the Bible first. How
can we know God? Where do we go
to find Him? But one question must
be asked first: "Is there a God?"

If you start with the Bible you are
assuming there is a God. People who
doubt the existence of God will not
let us start with the Bible. Do we
have any answers to give to these
people?

A long time ago Augustine, one
of the Church's greatest teachers,
gave an answer to the question, "Is
there a God?'' He said we know
God because we know Him within
ourselves. We know Him intui-
tively.

Man is made in such a way that
he assumes there is a God. Even
the very fact that he denies God's
existence shows that he has a con-
cept of God in his mind. If you
deny God, then you have some kind
of concept of God to deny.

So man has an intuition that there
is a God. Of course, that doesn't
tell us anything about God. How-
ever, it is an argument that can be
used with a person who doubts the
existence of God. (Read Romans 1:
19 in The Living Bible.)

SECOND SPEAKER: Another ar-
gument for the existence of God
goes by the name of the ontological
argument. This means the argu-
ment from the existence of beings
such as you and me. The very fact
of the universe and people with per-
sonality serves to show that a per-
sonal God is behind it all. The very
existence of personality suggests a
great personality in back of all.

ii

13

Another similar argument
called the cosmological. It says that
if you look at the world, you will
see cause and effect.

You know that if I were to kick
the chair you are in, there would be
some effect. I'd be the cause and
my foot would probably hurt anc
the chair would turn over. You
would spill to the floor, get up anc
try to knock me down. That's cause
and effect.

As we look at the universe we see
cause and effect. Somewhere along
the line something or someone hac
to start all this into motion. Thus,
there had to be a beginning cause,
and we call this first cause God. Goc
is the prime mover; He brought the
universe into being and started it
moving.

THIRD SPEAKER: The fourth
of the great arguments for the ex
istence of God is called the teleologi
cal, a word that means purpose. This
is based on the tremendous orde:
that exists in our universe. Every-
thing has a purpose.

Think about how complex ar
atom is. It is made of protons, neu
trons, electrons and many other par
tides arranged and bound together1 i(
so that it works just perfectly. And *
there are all kinds of atoms. Each
element has a different number ot
particles in its distinctive atom1 fe|
What a marvel is that minute thingj *
we call an atoml

Now let's go from the minute tc
the great. What a stupendous crea
tion is the solar system. The planei
earth has to be where it is or life a;!*
we know it wouldn't exist. The eartl
must go around the sun once a yeai
and rotate on its axis every twenty Jfn
four hours.

Even the moon must be where i'
is for our life to exist as it does. Ap
intelligent pattern to the whole uni
verse appears. If there is, then surely
a great mind was behind all t h i i| ^
creation.

Some say all this came into beinp
merely by chance. We may be abl<*
to conceive of some chance accumuiL^

K
tl
Id
I)

(

r

di

Fn

PAGE 16 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 20, 1972

lation of matter doing some things.
But all of this! The mathematical
:hances for such are so fantastic that
you couldn't begin to even name
:hem.

Then think about man and the
way he is created and exists. Is this
land of chance possible? The meet-
ing of molecules and chance work-
ng out of circumstances to bring
nan up out of the slime or the wa-
:er or wherever? The odds are
igainst it. All these point to some
*reat Planner behind all that exists.

Not only do we find order in the
iniverse, but also purpose. History
hows that man is making progress.
Mot always the best kind, but
Drogress anyway. If there is progress,
aerhaps, it points to something, an
nd. All this points to some great
3lanner behind everything.

(This will be continued next
veek. It is suggested that you con-
lude this program with reading
salm 19:1-4 and meditation.)

Closing Prayer EE

Editorial— from p. 13

vith the thought that Presbyterian
Reliefs are taught in Scripture. In-
vitably, some think thus.

But most of those who murmured
lid so for another reason. We have
>een conditioned, in this day of the
cumenical Church, to believe that
»ur denominational heritage is a bit
ike an appendix — essentially unnec-
ssary. Instead of being proud that
ye are Presbyterians, we have been
aade to feel a bit guilty about it, as
hough being a Presbyterian were
ome sort of sin.
From youth to maturity we have
een taught to smile a bit when
omeone asks, "What Church do you
►elong to?" And for those who went
o seminary lately, there is the im-
•ression that "our founding fathers
ould have been mistaken, you
now."

That mumur, above all else, meant
ne thing: The day is hastening on
/hen the survival of the Christian
estimony depends on a continuing
"hurch loyal to Scripture and to the
Reformed faith. EI

/ANTED: Dedicated workers to serve in
Children's Home. Couple or lady willing
> give up much to provide Christian
aining for children. Young at heart. For
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sndent, Box 1108, Laurel, Miss. 39440.

BOOKS

STOP TREATING ME LIKE GOD!!,
by Levi Keidel. Creation House, Carol
Stream, 111. 220 pp. Cloth, $4.95. Re-
viewed by the Rev. Paul E. Rowland,
Chapel in the Gardens, Garden City,
Ga.

The author tells of his personal
struggles in moving from his mis-
sionary pedestal to the fallible, hu-
man level he secretly knows himself
to occupy. How refreshing are his
words of testimony on the last page
of the book, "We are facing the
foreign field again. Admittedly
there are some misgivings . . . but
my heart overflows with gratitude
to God for the fresh measure of
grace He has accorded me . . ."

The last section of the book is
devoted to the subject, "The Mis-
sionary and His Supporters." This
part of the book alone makes it well
worth the price, for pastors and
church libraries.

The author has served as an evan-
gelistic and literature missionary
under the Congo Inland Mission
since 1951, and is well qualified to
write on his subject. El

INDEPENDENT BIBLE STUDY, by
Irving L. Jensen. Moody Press, Chi-
cago, 111. 188 pp. $2.95. Reviewed by
the Rev. George E. Staples, coordina-
tor of children's services, Thornwell
Home and School, Clinton, S. C.

The expressed intention of this
book is laudable — to help those
interested in Bible study to "do it

yourself." The author, who chairs
the Bible department at Bryan Col-
lege in Tennessee, has produced a
number of self-help guides.

He emphasizes the need for an
analytical approach to Bible study.
He makes considerable use of de-
tailed charts, reminiscent of the
method of Dr. White's Bible school
which eventually became Biblical
Seminary in New York. In fact, Ap-
pendix II, "The Student, The Fish,
and Agassiz" has been used by every
White-trained teacher I have known.

For the serious student of the Bi-
ble with a good philosophical back-
ground, this book offers some excel-
lent helps. For the layman who
wants to engage in Bible study, but
not as a life work, it is of lesser value.

There are some good introductory
chapters, particularly one entitled,
"The Bible as Literature," and a
comprehensive bibliography. El

EXPOSITION OF ISAIAH, Vol. 1,
by H. C. Leupold. Baker Book House,
Grand Rapids, Mich. 598 pp. $7.95.
Reviewed by the Rev. W. Earle Stev-
ens Jr., pastor, First Evangelical
Church, Memphis, Tenn.

This commentary covers the first
30 chapters of the book of Isaiah.
To say that it is an exposition is in-
sufficient. It is a devotional study
as well as a critical investigation of
Isaiah's authorship, with a special
emphasis on the historic background
and prophetic outlook.

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PAGE 17 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 20, 1972

The commentary is unquestion-
ably the work of a scholar, and Dr.
Leupold is a scholar. He is profes-
sor of Old Testament theology at
the Evangelical Lutheran Theologi-
cal Seminary at Capital University,
Columbus, Ohio, which post he has
held since 1929. He has a rich back-
ground of experience and training
as educator and author, all of which
is evident in the volume under re-
view.

The commentary is complete. Dr.
Leupold not only offers a verse by
verse exposition of Isaiah, but he in-
troduces every chapter and every ma-

jor section within every chapter with
a brief but valuable introduction es-
pecially dealing with the problem
of authorship.

He writes, for example, in his in-
troduction to Isaiah 19, "It is a
chapter of many difficulties and one
whose authorship by Isaiah has been
sharply called into question. Some-
times the whole chapter is denied
the great prophet."

He then proceeds to answer the
arguments of the higher critic. Ev-
ery chapter ends with his "Notes,"
a word study of the Hebrew text
which wraps up his exposition of

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the chapter.

Dr. Leupold's position through
out is warmly evangelical. He stress
es repeatedly the sovereignty of God
commenting that "the sole sovereign
ty of God is one of the major em
phases of the prophet," and "al
these nations" are nothing more
than tools in the Lord's hands, gov-
erned and used by Him, not as the
tool pleases, but according to His
own sovereign plans."

His 50-page Introduction is invalu
able. It contains a 10-page, in-
depth outline of the 39 chapters un-
der consideration, a study of the
historical situation prevailing in
Isaiah's day, the prophet and his
theology, the forms of prophetic ut
terance and the above mentionec
outline.

Dr. Leupold deals at length with
the great Messianic verses of Isaiah
and his exposition is permeated
throughout with explanatory verses
from both the Old and New Testa-
ments.

Though not in agreement with
his amillennial viewpoint, this
premillennial reviewer has richly
profited in his hours spent in this
commentary. I will be drawing from
it in the days ahead as I continue
to study the Word of God, and high
ly commend it to every minister who
preaches with an expository empha-
sis.

THE NEW WORLD IDEA INDEX
TO THE HOLY BIBLE, ed. by Har
vey K. Griffith. World Publ., Nem
York, N. Y. 908 pp. $14.95. Reviewed
by the Rev. Horace L. Villee, H.R.
Columbus, Miss.

Here is something new: a compre
hensive idea guide which overcome
most of the mechanical shortcoming
involved with traditional concor
dances. Not just words, but con
textual ideas and their interrelation
ships throughout both the Old anc
{Continued on p. 20, col, 3)

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PAGE 18 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 20, 1972

^P/tesbyte/ucm fii/ange&stic ^eHHowskp

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THE TIME IS AT HAND!

The time has come for every true believer who holds to the
books of the Old and New Testaments as the inerrant, infallible
word of God the sole and complete authority and revelation
of God to man -- to put that conviction into action and help
in forming a continuing Church true to the Scriptures and loyal
to the Reformed Faith.

Great is the task before us and great are the needs the need
for prayer, the need for faith, the need for spirit filled
boldness, the need for money.

We of the Presbyterian Evangelistic Fellowship have felt moved
of God to join the other three organizations dedicated to
the formation of the continuing Church because we are profoundly
convinced from the Word of God that it is not only our obligation
to propogate the truth but it is also our duty to defend the
truth by the power of the spirit.

We join with Concerned Presbyterians, Presbyterian Churchmen
United and the Presbyterian Journal in calling upon you to pour
out your earnest prayers that God's Holy Spirit will guide in
every detail of the plans being made for the continuing Church
and that the funds which will be needed to properly undeigird
the new Church will be forthcoming.

The financial needs will be great. Money will be needed for
a "home mission" fund to assist needy churches and to organize
new churches in fields which are "white to the harvest." We
will need substantial amounts for "world missions" to send the
Gospel to the ends of the earth, for genuinely Christian
educati on, for organization and promotion.

Gifts designated for the Continuing Church Undergirding Fund
may be made through any one of our four organizations and they
will be tax deductible.

Brethren, now is the time, your time, God's time. Let us "gird
up our loins" and prepare to get into the battle for truth,
taking up the task which God has committed to the hands of
those who truly stand on His word and rest in His righteousness.
We must fight the good fight of faith, not with carnal but with
spiritual weapons. The stronghold of Satan built upon error,
half truths, falsehoods and sinking sands of men's thinking
must be replaced with a Holy Temple for the glory of God,

PAGE 19 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 20, 1972

New Testaments, and the Apocry-
pha, are listed in cross-references.

The editor, of Colorado Springs,
Colo., was assisted by seminarians
under the consultation of Dr. Ed-
ward Everding, professor of New
Testament Studies at Hi f £ School of
Theology, Denver, and the Rev. Pat-
rick O'Donnell, professor of Old
Testament Studies at St. Thomas
Seminary, Denver.

To insure exhaustive and accurate
classification, a separate board of edi-
torial consultants was established,
representing an ecumenical cross sec-
tion of religious persuasion. Their
experience ranges from literary
scholarship in colleges and univer-
sities to active clerical work in
churches and parishes.

Using this reference guide which
is the result of 14 years' painstaking
work, a clergyman preparing a ser-
mon on salvation, the student re-
searching a theme such as resurrec-
tion, a church class or study group
discussing Paul's teachings on per-
sonal discipline, or a professor of
theology tracing the theme of divine
intervention, can now pinpoint the
exact chapters and verses where
these specific concepts intersect, in-

cluding passages that might be over-
looked when using a traditional
word concordance.

To facilitate its use, 25 additional
pages give instructions for the use
of the idea index, definitions of
ideas, thesaurus of related ideas, and
idea index of the holy Bible. By
the use of an alphabetical listing of
concepts and exhaustive references,
this Index leads the user to all the
passages expressing similar or relat-
ed ideas.

There are more than 56,700 di-
rectly related combinations of con-
cepts in the index. The user is en-
abled to locate the point where sev-
eral varied ideas have one text in
common. For example, if someone
is studying the overall theme of rec-
onciliation, the index will lead the
user to the text locations where the
key concept of reconciliation is
found, as it relates to such things as
family, love, infidelity, or any of
several other specific concepts.

This book should be of great val-
ue to sincere students of the Bible
who want to know not only the
words of Scripture but also the ideas
presented in God's Word. However,
it is not a "short cut" which one may

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Name

take without considerable work on
his own part.

Christmas— from p. 10

pressed in the carol, "Joy to the
world, the Lord has come."

If this is the song of our hearts
the hopelessness will turn into re
joicing; the emptiness will be filled
with life. It won't make much dif-
ference if we are alone or in a crowd;
the joy of the Lord, the voices of
the heavenly hosts, will be heard in
our hearts. That is what Christmas
means.

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PAGE 20 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 20, 1972

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Advocating continuation of a Presbyterian Church loyal

to Scripture and the Reformed faith

In Support of Simplicity

Every age has its own characteristics. Right now we are
in an age of religious complexity. The simplicity which is in
Christ Jesus is rarely found among us. In its stead are pro-
grams, methods, organization and a world of nervous activities
which occupy time and attention but can never satisfy the long-
ing of the heart.

The shallowness of our inner experience, the hollowness
of our worship, and that servile imitation of the world which
marks our promotional methods all testify that we, in this day,
know God only imperfectly, and the peace of God scarcely at

If we would find God amid all the religious externals we
must first determine to find Him, and then proceed in the way
of simplicity — Christ. Now as always God discovers Himself
to "babes" and hides Himself in thick darkness from the wise
and the prudent. We must simplify our approach to Him.

all.

— A. W. Tozer

S. S. LESSON AND YOUTH PROGRAM FOR JANUARY 14

5H00

ra/iS ON II TH iactet*P

<VP1 0& JO £%JG*QAIU£

Tzofq.o©TIO0 D M

MAILBAG-

OPEN LETTER TO DR. LISTON

May I use the columns of the
Journal to write an "open letter" to
Dr. R. T. L. Liston who has just
distributed throughout the Church,
as a member of the committee, his
further critique of the proposed new
confession?

I am thankful to God for you and
your many years of dedicated service

to the Presbyterian Church US and
its institutions, Dr. Liston. I am
thankful for your belief in the Word
of God and your faithful teaching
of it through the years. I appreci-
ate so much your stand now in the
crisis before our Church. I think
you have hit the nail on the head
with your forthright and scholarly
article, "Get Off the Fence."

the

PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL

Rev. G. Aiken Taylor, Ph.D., Editor
Rev. Henry B. Dendy, D.D., Managing Editor

Circulation leader among independent publications in the Presbyterian-Reformed world

THIS WEEK —

Vol. XXXI, No. 35, December 27, 1972

The Fullness of Time 7

Philosophy does not give reason and meaning to life, but
Jesus Christ does By D. James Kennedy

Chapter IX: God and the Future 9

What Christians know from Scripture about the life to come
after death By Robert Strong

A Devastating Doctrine 11

The new look for contemporary theology is simply another
species of humanism By John H. Knight

Departments —

Editorials 12

The Layman and his Church 13

Sunday School Lesson, January 14 14

Youth Program, January 14 16

Book Reviews 17

SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: $4 a year
for individuals, $3 for members of
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Second class postage paid at Weaver-
ville, N. C. 28787.

THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL, a

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to the statement, defense, and propa-
gation of the Gospel, the faith which
was once for all delivered to the saints,

is published every Wednesday by the
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TELEPHONES: (All area 704) edi-
torial office, 254-4015, 254-4016;
business office, 645-3310, 645-3962.

Now, may I continue to express
my honest opinion?

I believe you and the rest of our
able conservative leadership have re-
mained on the fence far too long
Let me illustrate this way:

Once upon a time there sat a
group of men in pews (on the fence) ,
listening to a fellow minister say in
a sermon that the Bible was not the
Word of God when read by anyone
other than a believer in it. It was
the Word of God only when read as
such. These men in the pew (on the
fence) were asked if this was really
what our Church taught. In reply,
they answered, "I am not sure I
know what Mr. Doe meant by his re-
marks, he knows better."

Again, a visiting lecturer from a
liberal seminary declared in a lec-
ture at one of our seminaries, "The
teaching of the virgin birth of Christ
is a myth." Said the men in the
pew (on the fence) : "He didn't
really mean it like it sounded."

I have reported actual conversa-
tions that I have heard in past years,
as men tried to maintain their bal-
ance on the fence without falling
off.

Down through the years, as good
men sat on the fence, the liberal
termites continued their attack up-
on the foundation of the House and
ate through the whole structure un-l
til now the foundation is gone, the
walls are leaning and the roof is
caving in.

Yes, I agree it is time to get ofll
the fence, but where will we go at
this late hour? We can't go back in l
to the house, for the termites now
have complete possession. The onl)
thing left is either to build a new
one, or move in with relatives.
— (Rev.) J. Edsel Farthing
Pulaski, Va.

SIGN OF THE TIMES

Thank God for "Name Withheld'
and his article, "The Misplaced Is|
sue" in the November 15 Journal.
was beginning to think that the cosl
of my free subscription to your mag
azine was in excess of its value, bui
no longer.

By the way, if the author of "Th
Misplaced Issue" truly desired tha
you not embarrass him by revealin
his name, which I seriously doub
I would be pleased to have the ai
tide attributed to me.

— (Rev.) Fred L. Keith
Northport, Ala.

As a matter of interest, there hav
been more letters like this one (a..

that other published in the Dec. 6
Mai'.bag) supporting Biblical rela-
tivism than there have been support-
ing Biblical integrity. Another sta-
tistic: every letter we've received from
a minister has defended the Biblical
doubter. Every letter from a layman
has defended the Bible believer. And
this: Every minister writing in has
been in the ministry less than 3 years.
—Ed.

THIS AND THAT

I would like to thank you for the
time and space devoted to publish-
ing Dr. Robert Strong's articles on
the new confession of faith.

And I am sure that I represent
j thousands of Journal readers across
I the Assembly when I say thanks to
|Dr. Strong.

— R. L. Richardson
Meridian, Miss.

Congratulations on reprinting the
fine article by Dorothy Faber, editor
of Christian Challenge (Journal,

• Somehow, under the pressure of
,«(a deadline on last week's issue, we
^completely forgot to call attention
[,.to the new name on the youth page
er(see p. 16) . Our apologies to the Rev.
Henry J. Mueller, who is back with
la series of youth programs after an
absence of several months. These
studies on the reality of God should
iprove quite interesting to the young
people. Mr. Mueller is pastor of
Jthe Edgemont church, Bristol, Tenn.
J • Ever since the Columbia Broad-
casting System announced that it
""iintended to broadcast "Woodstock,"
J% documentary on that notorious
rock, sex and drug extravaganza of
1969, concerned Christians have been
itrying to do something to persuade
JtCBS to change its mind. The three-
"Jpour picture, which tends to glorify
' America's subculture, is scheduled
11 for April 19, 1973. The showing,
should it take place, would seem to
conflict with CBS's promise never to
show any X-rated films or even R-
rated materials. It could very well
signal the beginning of a new era of

km

Dec. 13) . These are truths that
most of us are not only afraid to
talk about or write about, but even
to think about.

The principal problem in the U.
S. is cowardice. Courage is the great-
est of the virtues, for without it there
can be no others. Congratulations on
your courage and good sense in re-
printing this article. There is much
more worth reprinting in that par-
ticular issue of Christian Challenge.
—Joel D. Sugg
Jackson, Miss.

MINISTERS

James J. Alexander from Board of
National Ministries, Atlanta, to
Presbyterian Chaplains Council,
Washington, D. C, as associate
executive, eff. Jan. 1.

G. Willard Gray from Winnecon-
ne, Wis., to the Monterey, Va.,
church. He will also serve the
Pisgah, Beulah and Crabbottom
churches.

Lester N. LaPrade Jr., from Cro-
zet, Va., to the First Church, Har-
risonburg, Va., as assistant min-
ister.

Robert A. Larson from Knoxville,
Tenn., to the Trinity church, Bir-
mingham, Ala.

Charles M. Olsen from Board of
National Ministries, Atlanta, to In-
stitute of Church Renewal, Atlan-
ta, eff. Jan. 1.

H. R. (Ellie) Whiddon, graduate
of Presbyterian School of Chris-
tian Education, has been ordained
by Southwest Georgia Presbytery
as assistant pastor of First Church,
Columbus.

Leonard E. Woodward from Gold-
en Gate, Fla., to the Green Hill
church, Enterprise, Ala.

ELDER

The Session of the Church In The
Pines, Laurel Hill, N. C, has me-
morialized one of its members, Ed-
win Morgan, who died July 11, at
age 79.

ACROSS THE EDITOR'S DESK

semi-pornography on TV. If there
are any among Journal readers who
care, the man to write is Mr. Thom-
as A. Swafford, Columbia Broadcast-
ing System, 51 West 52nd St., New
York, 10019.

• As this is the last issue of the year,
perhaps it would be an appropriate
time to recognize, with congratula-
tions, those who have lately won a
beautiful copy of the King James
Version of the Bible for the perfect
recitation of the Shorter Catechism:
Markus Moss and Elza Moss of the
Manning, S. C, church; Deborah
Pattison of the Bel Air, Md., Re-
formed Presbyterian Church Evan-
gelical Synod; Jonathan Whiteside
of the Granada church, Miami; Mil-
dred McNair of the New Harmony
church, Alcolu, S.C.; Carl Walter

of First Church, Anniston, Ala.; Re-
nee Vise and Charles Vise of the
Mount Calvary church, Roebuck,
SC.

• This one is personal: Does any-
one, among our readers, have a copy
of any volume of the sermons of
John Calvin that they would be will-
ing to let us borrow? The volume
could be in English or in French.
Unfortunately, only a few of the
many volumes of Calvin's sermons
have been translated into English,
and most of these are out of print.
We've been doing a bit of personal
research into Calvin's preaching and
would be grateful to anyone who can
help us out.

• A very joyous New Year to each
and every one who loves the Lord
Jesus in sincerity! IS

PAGE 3 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 27, 1972

NEWS OF RELIGION

Less Talk, More Action, NCC Board Urges

DALLAS, Tex. — With about half
its members present, the new Gov-
erning Board of the National Coun-
cil of Churches in its first meeting
heard both the NCC's new president
and its top executive call for fewer
pronouncements and more social ac-
tion.

The Governing Board replaces the
old General Board under a sweep-
ing reorganization accomplished here
by the ninth General Assembly of
the NCC. Under the reorganiza-
tion, the ninth was also the last Gen-
eral Assembly, with most of that
body's authority transferred to the
Governing Board.

"We've given birth to a new kind
of baby," said the Rev. W. Sterling
Cary of New York City, the coun-
cil's first black president.

"It is time we begin to sit around
a common table and respond to
heartbeats rather than to words," he
continued. "The day of pronounce-
ments and resolutions is pretty well
ended."

"We can now look for less plat-
form rapping and more empower-
ing of groups to deal with real prob-

SPAIN — New opportunities for
broadcasting evangelical programs
here are increasing rapidly as sev-
eral broadcasters are moving into
this big field.

In response to a daily 15-minute
program on Radio Espana in Mad-
rid, an average of 200 letters a day
are being received. To each person
who writes a free copy of the New
Testament is sent. Many have ac-
cepted the Lord as Saviour, have
been baptized and are testifying of
their faith.

Rev. Florent Toirac of the Span-
ish World Gospel Mission records
Spanish messages from his studios in
Winona Lake, Ind. He reported that
radio time was offered him on Ra-
dio Miramar, Barcelona, in the cen-
ter of an area of 10 million people
for $100 per 15 minute broadcast
each week.

lems of people — promoting funds
for low-cost housing, and aid to the
development of minority economic
development," he told the 180 rep-
resentatives of the NCC's 33 mem-
ber denominations who were pres-
ent. (The new board has 347 mem-
bers.)

'Birth Control'

As the organizational meeting
got under way, General Secretary R.
H. Edwin Espy issued this plea: "It
is hoped we can exercise some birth
control with regard to the creation
of new resolutions during this first
meeting."

The proliferation of pronounce-
ments and resolutions has been
blamed for the NCC's controversial
reputation, and also for disaffection
within its ranks, as well as Roman
Catholic reticence in moving towards
closer relations with Protestant ec-
umenism.

Representatives of nine of the 10
Orthodox Churches in the council
were absent from the board's organi-
zational meeting and the lone Ortho-

"There is not another Gospel
broadcast in the area at the mo-
ment," he said. "This is the first
time in 40 years that this station has
considered airing Gospel programs."

Spain is now open with 34 million
people to be reached, and radio is a
very effective way of getting to the
people in their own homes. Evan-
gelicals are accepting the challenge
and are taking advantage of the op-
portunity by signing the contract for
one year.

Dr. Miner B. Stearns, director of
Global Gospel Broadcasts in Europe,
reports an opportunity to broadcast
a Christian program on a chain of
18 stations in Spain at a cost of $200
per week. Spanish Christians pro-
ducing the program, "Evangelismo
en Accion," are trying to fill this fa-
vorable opening. EB

dox delegate who showed up took ,,
the occasion to suggest that disen-
chantment with the NCC may have
been a contributing cause.

"I don't know why the other Or- ^
thodox representatives are not here," ■
said the Rev. Nersess Jebejian of
the Armenian Orthodox Church of
America, "but perhaps you should
be concerned and aware they are
not."

Another Orthodox clergyman who |
had been an assembly delegate but ,
who did not attend the board meet-
ing was more specific: Withdrawal
of Orthodox Churches is "possible,"
warned the Rev. Photius Donahue
of the Russian Orthodox Church in
the USA, if a proposed abortion
statement is approved.

"There have been feelings for
some time that the divergent points
of view between the majority Prot-
estant membership and minority Or-
thodox Churches are being pressed
to the breaking point," Mr. Dona-
hue said in a New York interview.

il

Next: Abortion

The "new kind of baby" to which
Mr. Cary referred in his remarks
to the new board may well get its
teething in February when a deci-
sion is made on the issue of abor-
tion.

A task force chaired by Miss
Claire Randall has prepared a policy
statement which asks that the issue:
of abortion be removed from the:;
criminal category and made a matter
between the woman involved and
her doctor.

Discussion at the board meeting , ■
here indicated that the statement
may never be adopted as a pro-i
nouncement at all, but rather dis-a J(
cussed and distributed to interested ,
persons for further study as a guide- I "
line. Such a treatment of con-
troversial issues could pave the way
for continued exploration of rela-ij
tions with Churches for whom pre-
vious pronouncements have created
problems, in the opinion of some.

Many churchmen acknowledge 1
that the NCC and the more liberal
denominations have "pronounced"
on virtually every issue before the
public. While they defend the ef-
fectiveness of the practice, they rec- p
ognize that it has supported the lib- [j

THE CHURCH OVERSEAS

PAGE 4 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 27, 1972

eral viewpoint to the exclusion of
others.

They are asking: "Is there justifi-
cation in an ecumenical age for a
National Council of Churches which
is the voice of liberal Protestantism
alone?" This is a crucial issue
which the Governing Board will be
; tackling in the months ahead. El

Pastors' Seminars To
Commence in Korea

SEOUL, Korea — A series of pas-
tors' seminars for the more than 7,-
000 Christian ministers in this coun-
try will be launched on a monthly
basis under the leadership of the pas-
tor of the world's largest Presbyte-
rian Church.

The Rev. Kyung Chik Han, pas-
tor of the Young Nak Presbyterian
Church of Seoul, will be working
with the Rev. Marlin Nelson, Direc-
tor of World Vision operations for
( Korea. The seminars, lasting ten
■days each, will be held at the World
■ Vision headquarters here.
J Dr. Han, who preaches to three
1 congregations every Sunday morn-
] ing, with the services carried to oth-
Ter parts of the church by closed cir-
J.cuit television, will also help develop
land participate in other evangelistic
[activities being planned.
1 A particular burden to Dr. Han is
Ithe state of the Christian witness in
IjNorth Korea, where the political sit-
Tluation has resulted in families sep-
■Jarated for over 20 years. He feels
tthat a major obligation upon Chris-
Itians is to pray for divine interven-
■Jtion in the North. EE

if

Scot Tells Preachers,
'Don't Lose Your Nerve'

BIRMINGHAM, England— Church
c .eaders should not "lose their nerve"
md let themselves be "panicked by
. the avante-gardes into translating the
t Christian message into current social
. nanifestations, which are themselves
fj. ibart of the sickness of humanity," a
loted Presbyterian theologian from
Scotland told an ecumenical con-
;» [erence here.

i Professor Thomas F. Torrance of
Edinburgh University told some 500

people attending a 10-day conference
on "Discovering God's Will To-
gether" that such a social obsession
"is, alas, the line so often pursued
by reactionary liberals in the name of
'involvement,' as though the Church
were some sort of religious disco-
theque."

Instead, Dr. Torrance said, "I
want to challenge (churchmen) to
follow the example of the Greek
Fathers in undertaking the coura-
geous revolutionary task of a Chris-
tian reconstruction of the founda-
tion of culture. Nothing less is
worthy of the Christian Gospel."

The speaker also emphasized the
importance of current attention
being given to the "historical Jesus,"
but he warned against separating the
"human" from the "divine" Jesus.

He said that if scholars fail to
make Jesus relevant to the modern
age, then the Jesus Movement will
show that the "common people still
hear Him gladly." EE

New York Presbyterians
Take Up Foreign Affairs

NEW YORK — The Presbytery of
New York City, at its stated meeting
here, expressed deep concern about
the emigration tax in the USSR and
political trials in Czechoslovakia,
both of which it declared to be in
violation of human rights.

The presbytery decided to send a
letter to the President of the Soviet
Union, Nikolai Podgorny, asking him
to abolish the recent emigration tax
which violates a basic human right,
the freedom of movement.

In its letter to President Podgorny,
the United Presbyterian unit ex-
pressed its deep concern regarding
the recent introduction in your coun-
try of high special levies up to $25,-
000 which are required from per-
sons desiring to emigrate from the
USSR in payment for their educa-
tion received in the Soviet institu-
tions of higher learning."

The presbytery also approved a
letter to President Svoboda of Czech-
oslovakia. It made "an urgent ap-
peal to use your constitutional pre-
rogatives and commute sentences of
certain Czechoslovak citizens, includ-
ing two clergymen and several lay-

men of the Evangelical Church of
Czech Brethren, recently imprisoned
for alleged subversive activities."

"We believe that these citizens
were exercising their basic human
rights in expressing their opinions
concerning elections in Czechoslova-
kia. Their imprisonment," the pres-
bytery's appeal to President Svoboda
continued, "is in conflict with re-
peated assurances by your govern-
ment that there would be no politi-
cal trials in your country."
(Editor's note: Even if one should
agree ivith the thrust of the actions
taken, by what curious line of rea-
soning did the Presbytery of New
York City determine its competence
in the internal affairs of other coun-
tries?) EE

Court Says Abortion Law
Is Not Constitutional

HARTFORD, (RNS) — Connecti-
cut's new abortion law, passed at a
special General Assembly in May,
was ruled unconstitutional here by
a three-judge federal panel.

Last April, the same three-judge
court struck down the state's 19th
century abortion statute by a 2-to-l
decision — the same margin by
which the new law was invalidated.

Judge Jon O. Newman, who wrote
the majority opinion, rejected the
state's contention that a fetus was a
legal person entitled to constitution-
al rights. He said the abortion law
violated the rights of a woman "to
privacy and personal choice in mat-
ters of sex and family life."

"There is nothing in the history
of that amendment (14th Amend-
ment) nor in its interpretation by
the Supreme Court to give any sup-
port whatsoever to the contention
that a fetus has constitutional
rights," said the 16-page opinion,
which was supported by U. S. Sen-
ior Circuit Judge J. Edward Lum-
bard.

"No doubt," the court's majority
opinion said, "in the opinion of some
people, the nature of the fetus as a
human being is a matter of absolute
moral certainty. We do not doubt
the sincerity of those who hold this
view.

"But under the Constitution,
their judgment must remain a per-

PAGE 5 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 27, 1972

sonal judgment, one that they may
follow in their personal lives and
seek to persuade others to follow,
but a judgment they may not im-
pose upon others by the force of
law."

In affirming a woman's right to
privacy and personal choice in sex-
ual and family matters, the majority
opinion said: "If the right of pri-

vacy means anything, it is the right
of the individual, married or single,
to be free from unwarranted govern-
mental intrusion into matters so
fundamentally affecting a person as
the decision whether to bear or be-
get a child."

(Editor's note: So now the PCUS
has legal sanction, if not divine sanc-
tion, for its abortion program.) EE

THE CHURCH AT HOME

Task Force implements
Church's 'Top Priority'

ATLANTA — Implementing the
"top priority" given to hunger by
the 1969 General Assembly, the Pres-
byterian US Task Force on World
Hunger approved here four grants
totalling $11,000.

The grants were made from the
Church's $16,000 Halt Hunger Fund.

One grant for "up to $2,000" will
be given toward a scholarship for
Brazilian agriculturist Edivilson
Barbosa Gomes, who is preparing to
direct a "Land for the Landless"
project in the interior of Brazil.

A grant of $5,000 will go to the
Florida Farmworkers Organization
at Bartow to establish a cooperative
grocery store.

Another grant of $1,800 provides
emergency aid for the Marietta-Cobb
County (Ga.) Community Service
Center. The center provides trans-
portation services for senior citizens
and low income people.

Some $2,200 will be given to
Young World Development (YWD) .
The money will help fund seminars
and conferences in eight communi-
ties, designed to inform citizens of
problems in their areas.

Cities in which conferences will be
held are, Norfolk, Va., Blacksburg,
Va., Greensboro, N. C, Richmond,
Va., Atlanta, Knoxville, Tenn., and
Jacksonville, Fla.

Task force members heard that a
Consultation on World Hunger and
Development will be held at the Uni-
versity of Georgia, at Athens, May
27-31, bringing together persons,
principally from the PCUS, who by
profession, training or position, can
influence the attack on root causes
of world hunger.

A progress report was received on
five regional workshops on Rural

Poverty and Economic Development
sponsored by the task force, the
Southeastern Jurisdiction of the
United Methodist Church and the
Southern Baptist Home Mission
Board.

Purpose of the workshops is to
study rural poverty and the need for
community-based human and eco-
nomic development. 51

King College Receives
Largest Single Grant

BRISTOL, Tenn — The largest gift
ever made by a single family has
swelled the King College Advance
Campaign on behalf of a new science
center, a campus center/dining hall,
and the college's endowment, it was
announced by President Powell A.
Fraser here.

A total of $1,090,000 in the form
of a bequest of $600,000 from the
late Frank W. DeFriece, and gifts of
$490,000 from Mrs. Frank W. De-
Friece and Mr. and Mrs. Frank W.
DeFriece Jr., make up the gift.

The greater part of the bequest
was designated as "challenge gifts"
and these have already been met
from other sources, Dr. Fraser said.

Goal of the Advance Campaign is
$3 million. EE

Rock Eagle Conference
To See 'Power To Share'

ATLANTA, Ga. — "Power to
Share" will be the theme for the
next Rock Eagle Missions Confer-
ence sponsored by the Society for
Missionary Inquiry at Columbia
Seminary.

Scheduled for April 27-29 at the
Rock Eagle 4-H Club Conference
Center at Eatonton, Ga., the con-
ference is planned by the semi-

narians for high school and college
students from Georgia and neigh
boring states.

"Our theme comes from the
Church's involvement in Key '73, the
interdenominational evangelism em
phasis for 1973," explained Sher
wood McKay, president of the spon-
soring society and conference chair
man.

"The conference will present the
good news that Christ is Lord, sug-
gesting ways of communicating that
news, and helping the conferees
gain an understanding of world mis
sion (s) through contact with repre
sentatives of the Presbyterian Board
of World Missions," he said. El

Missionary to Japan
Gets 'Ecumenical' Post

ATLANTA (PN) —The Rev. Lewis
H. Lancaster Jr. has been approved
by General Assembly's Permanent
Committee on Inter-Church Rela-
tions to serve as an interim ecumeni-
cal staff person of that committee.
As such he will "coordinate the ecu-
menical relations of the denomina-
tion."

The action confirms an Oct. 31
vote of its executive committee.

Mr. Lancaster, a PCUS missionary
in Japan, has begun his year's fur-
lough early in order to start his new
duties at the Presbyterian Center in
Atlanta. 51

Union Seminary Sprunt
Lecturers Are Named

RICHMOND, Va. — Sprunt Lec-
ture week at Union Seminary here
will feature a specialist in American
philosophy, a seminary president and
three Union professors.

Sprunt Lecturer, under a grant
originated in 1911 by the Rev. James
Sprunt, an elder in the First Pres-
byterian Church, Wilmington, N.^
C, will be Dr. John Edwin Smith of
Yale University.

Other speakers during the week
of Jan. 29-Feb. 2, will include the
Rev. Albert C. Winn, president of
Louisville Seminary and chairman
of the Presbyterian US committee for
a new confession of faith; and three
Union professors who will be deliv-
ering inaugural lectures as newly
elected full professors: the Rev. Don-
ald G. Dawe, the Rev. Henry Mc-
Kennie Goodpasture and the Rev
Patrick D. Miller Jr. S

PAGE 6 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 27, 1972

What effect did celebrating Christmas have on you? —

The Fullness of Time

The most preeminent of all of
the historians ever to grace the
faculty at Yale was unquestionably
Philip Schaff. As this man surveyed
the history of mankind from its
earliest date to the present and
weighed the various influences
which had affected the life of man
for good or ill, he came to this con-
clusion:

The coming of Jesus Christ into
the world is the most momentous
event in the history of mankind and
since religion represents the highest,
holiest and noblest of aspirations of
men, the introduction of the Chris-
tian faith has been the greatest boon
that mankind has ever known. It
! divides all of the history of the world
very decisively into B.C. and A.D.
In fact, all history before His birth
must be viewed as simply a prepa-
ration for His coming and all un-
folding history since His death sim-
ply portrays the diffusion of His
Spirit and the coming of His king-
dom in the hearts of men.

From Father Abraham

The preparation was twofold. It
began, of course, with the creation
of man and proceeded until a time

(about 1,900 years before Christ.
Then appeared a man who had a

i tremendous influence upon the
world. Born in Babylonia, a child
of heathen moon worshipers, he
was destined to divide mankind in-
to two groups for thousands of years

'after his life. His name was Abra-
ham.

From his day, all mankind was
divided into the unequal branches
of Judaism and heathenism and in
.this division is seen the preparation

r i

The author is pastor of the Cor-
\ Jo/ Ridge Presbyterian Church, Fort
Lauderdale, Fla.

"But when the fullness of the
time zvas come, God sent forth His
Son, made of a woman, made under
the law, to redeem them that were
under the law, that we might re-
ceive the adoption of sons" (Gal.
4:4-5) .

of God for giving His Son in the
fullness of time.

The two were united at last in
the God-man, the universal Person
who united in Himself all things.
The black night of heathenism and
the crimson dawning of Judaism
gave way to the bright noon time
sun of righteousness when Christ
came in all of His power.

Judaism and heathenism have
been likened unto the story of
the prodigal son. The heathen re-
ligions represent the prodigal, fled
to the far country, wasting his sub-
stance in riotous living, only after
much time and suffering to come
to himself and return to his father.

Judaism, representing the elder
brother, remained at home but even
while staying home, he grew self-
righteous, pharisaical and perhaps
farther from the father's house than
the boy in the pigsty.

A Wild Growth

Jesus came and all was changed.
Heathen religion, which was but a
wild growth upon the fallen soil of
depraved humanity, darkened the
original consciousness and knowl-
edge of God. It eclipsed the true
revelation of the Lord, deified the
creature instead of the Creator and
thus finally sanctioned the most nat-
ural and unnatural vices of men as
even being the worship of God.

Judaism became so self-righteous,
so confident that the people were
good and holy and noble, that they
had character and could be accepted

D. JAMES KENNEDY

by God on the basis of what they
were, was one day to realize, at least
in part, that they were clothed in
filthy rags. They had no righteous-
ness of their own and they had fallen
short in every way; their only hope
was to be found in the grace of God
through the crucified Saviour.

Just Like Today

In the heathen effort to find God,
we notice a number of aspects still
prevalent in this day. The heathen
had sought the Lord through phi-
losophy, and the golden age of
Grecian philosophy was nearly 400
years old by the time Christ was
born in Bethlehem.

Socrates, Plato and Aristotle had
come and gone, and men had used
all of the power of the greatest in-
tellects the world had ever seen to
pierce the finitude surrounding man
to find God. And yet still there was
an emptiness in human hearts and
man had not found the living God
or the real reason for living.

Men sought in philosophy and in-
tellectualism a reason for living, a
purpose for life, and yet they found
it not. Their religion had degen-
erated into agnosticism by the time
of Christ. They had turned to
pleasure, to sensual delights, think-
ing that perhaps in these they would
find some significance for their life.

After Rome conquered the world,
it turned to the gratification of the
flesh and the ancient Roman world
under Nero or Tiberius was a giant,
hulking monster without a soul,
moving with sure and certain,
though plodding steps, towards its
ultimate dissolution.

Men sought in pleasure a reason
for living but the more they in-
dulged themselves, the less they were
fulfilled. As the Roman world was
turning to socialism and allowing
the state to support them while they

PAGE 7 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 27, 1972

indulged themselves in the pleasures
provided by that state, the moral
fiber of the nation was being de-
stroyed and undermined and soon
Rome was to fall.

Will We Follow Rome?

Able historians have seen a very
close parallel between what is hap-
pening in America today. Amer-
ica has conquered the world, so to
speak, and now we have turned in
large part to our own pleasures to
try to find the meaning for life in
sex, in sensate enjoyments, in alco-
hol, in drugs.

It is obvious that soon, unless
something happens to America, it is
going to go the way of Rome. Bar-
baric forces outside our borders still
have the discipline and the will to
overrun this soft and emaciated
country. Rome fell inward from cor-
ruption, just as America unquestion-
ably will unless there is a change in
the hearts of our people.

Under the Star

But one day in the midst of all of
the darkness and hopelessness of that
time 1,900 years ago, a star appeared
and Jewish shepherds and heathen
sages merged together at a manger
to look into the face of a Babe who
was to make all things new. But
before He could unite them in one,
Jew and Gentile alike, they united
to crush Him, and though they
could agree in practically nothing
else, the Jews and the Gentiles
agreed to hate Christ.

Jesus was hated by the Jewish
hierarchy, betrayed by His friend
Judas, accused by false witnesses,
condemned by the Sanhedrin, re-
jected by the people, denied by Pe-
ter, declared innocent by Pilate,
crucified by soldiers, and mourned
principally by Mary and John.

But on His cross, He accomplished
more in that one day than all of the
statesmen and philosophers and edu-
cators and moralists and ethical
teachers have ever done. He had
conquered by that cross more lives
than all of the armies of the world.
By His blood He made Jew and Gen-
tile one, and the wall of partition
was done away.

Christ is the one who is the ful-
fillment of all things and the desire
of the nations, the One who is abso-
lutely perfect, the One in whom even
His enemies could find no fault.

It has been said that to the artist

He is the altogether lovely one, to
the architect He is the chief corner-
stone, to the astronomer He is the
sun of righteousness; to the baker
the living bread, to the banker the
hidden treasure, to the doctor the
great physician. He is the sure
foundation, the great teacher, the
true vine, the righteous judge. To
the student He is incarnate truth,
to the sinner He is the Lamb of God
which taketh away the sin of the
world. And to the Christian, He is
all in all.

All in All

Without Him life would be noth-
ing. Whatever the world experi-
enced in its preparation for His com-
ing has been experienced by each of
us. Perhaps your experience is like
that of the prodigal son, or perhaps
more like the older brother.

Perhaps you have gone to live in
sin and you thought that you would
find fulfillment and satisfaction for
your life in the pleasures of this
world. But you have found, or will
find, that it will leave your life
empty and will turn to ashes in your
mouth.

For though the sins of this world
have their pleasures, they are for but
a season. It has been said by Augus-
tine, "The heart is restless until it
rests in Thee." You will never find
the true fulfillment or meaning of
your life in anything else but Jesus
Christ.

Your Hope of Heaven

Perhaps you have been like the
elder brother who remained at home.
You have gone to church, you have
been religious, and yet you have
been self-righteous. Your trust is in
yourself, your own character, moral-
ity, and goodness, your own church-
going, baptism and confirmation.

Your good life represents your
hope of heaven. You have made
the same tragic error as the elder
brother and you have not realized
that the only hope of any person on
this globe is that the Son of God
came and died for us in our stead.

The greatest discovery that Jew
or Gentile can make is that the al-
together lovely One was marred and
bruised for us; He descended into
hell and there He suffered infinite-
ly for us the pain which we ought
to bear. He suffered that we might
have the free gift of eternal life.

Jesus Christ came to bring to the

world the greatest glad tidings that S
it has ever known, that eternal life
is not earned or merited or deserved.
It is not obtained by religious
works, by piety, by prayers by church
going, by Bible reading, by morality,
character or ethics, for in every one
of those categories each one of us
has fallen short. The law of God
does not save us, it condemns us;
but the Son of God does not con-
demn us, He saves us if we will re-
ceive Him into our hearts.

We will never know what it means
to live until first we set the cross
up in our hearts. First, we open the
door to Him who stands and knocks,
who would come to cleanse us from
every stain of sin, from every secret
and vile deed which burdens the
conscience and robs us of our joy
and will ultimately send us to hell.

When We Trust Him

He who went to hell for us will
take us to heaven in Him if we will
cease to trust in our strivings and
trust in His sufferings. For that is
why He came, to die that we might
live freely by His grace, "For though
the wages of sin is death, the gift of
God is eternal life."

Have you received that gift? If
you have received it, you will know
it. If you don't know it, you haven't
received it! It is just that simple.
Do you know that you have eternal
life? Do you know that Christ has
come into your life? Has He given
you the joy of everlasting life, the
assurance of heaven? Do you know
that you are going to be with Him
forever? If you don't, you are not;
if you do, you know your are.

Because He Loves Us

He came because He loves you
He would have your life to be filled
with all of His fullness. He would
have you know the reason He has
created you. He would give you joy
unspeakable and a peace that
passeth understanding, a purpose
for your life that will transcend the
grave, if you will let Him.

"How silently, how silently the
wondrous gift is given . . . where
meek souls will receive Him still,
the dear Christ enters in."

Has He come into your life to ful-
fill it and fill it? Or do you still
wander in the self-righteous dark-l
ness of Judaism or the blackness of
heathen night? For you, why did
Christ come? I

PAGE 8 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 27, 1972

Scripture, not the proposed confession, answers questions about the life to come —

Chapter IX: God and the Future

ROBERT STRONG

In terms of theology, the last chap-
ter of the proposed new confes-
sion offers us the weakest presenta-
tion to be found in the whole ef-
fort of the ad interim committee. It
is vague and equivocal. Nothing is
made plain, and heresy is embodied
in this chapter.

You read it and then you ask:
What about heaven? What about
hell? What about the second com-
ing of Christ? What about the resur-
rection of the body? What about
eternal judgment? How will the
new heaven and the new earth be
brought in?

This is a chapter that ought to be
a shout of triumph. It is, however,
> a chapter which is pallid and anemic.

Again we must say it, the pro-
posed new confession has not the
slightest claim to inclusion in a book
of confessions alongside the West-
minster Confession of Faith and
Catechisms. If every necessary cor-
rection in its teaching were made,
, still we would have to say that the
proposed new confession is not of
< the quality that would warrant its
| being dignified by promotion to
|i equal rank with the Westminster
l documents. We most earnestly hope
i) that the courts of the Presbyterian
['Church US will defeat the proposal.

Cause for Grief

As I said at the beginning of this
series, adoption of the proposed new
confession would have the practical
effect of moving our denomination
into a least-common-denominator
approach. This will be clearly seen
.if the predicted effort is made to
change the wording of our ordina-

This is the last in a series of ar-
ticles on the proposed new confession
of faith by the pastor of Trinity
Presbyterian Church, Montgomery,
Ala.

"For we know that if our earthly
house with this tabernacle were dis-
solved, we have a building of God,
an house not made with hands, eter-
nal in the heavens" (II Cor. 5:1) .

tion vows.

We deplored the terrible down-
ward step taken by the United Pres-
byterian Church when it adopted
the Confession of '67. By this ac-
tion, the UPUSA altered its ordina-
tion vows to require acceptance of
the several official confessions mere-
ly as a guide. What a great occa-
sion of lamentation would be fur-
nished if the more theologically ori-
ented Presbyterian Church in the
United States chooses a similar path
of indifference to the tradition of
a carefully articulated theological
system!

The first section of the final chap-
ter of the proposed confession is
headed: "God's work gives us hope
for the future of the whole world."
Immediately we are alerted to the
possibility that universal salvation
will be taught. This seems the im-
plication of the language:

"God's just and loving rule will
surely come. His design for the
wholeness of humanity will be re-
alized. Creation will be renewed."

The strange phrase, "the whole-
ness of humanity," seems to suggest
that with the renewal of creation
will come the salvation of the whole
human race. We are at once prompt-
ed to ask if this idea will come to
clearer expression further on.

At the same time we ask what is
meant by the renewing of creation.
I detect the postmillennialism of
the social gospel advocates, when
the proposed new confession says
the hope of a renewed creation is
never based on our success in
the work of the Church or on the
idea of "inevitable progress in hu-
man history." For neither in the

world nor in the Church nor in our
own lives, it is acknowledged, "do
we see the end of injustice, loveless-
ness, suffering and death."

God's promises will be fulfilled
because Christ confirms them, and
"in Him we glimpse the shape of
the world God intends."

The paragraph is woefully am-
biguous because it views the future
victory not in terms of the triumph
of the Gospel but as a bringing to an
end of the ills that afflict mankind.

The next section deepens our im-
pression that the plan of God is
viewed as social correction, with the
new world realized thereby. The
confession says: "Evil will be rooted
out of God's good creation. People
and nations will be held account-
able. All will be set right."

This is not the language of Bibli-
cal consummation; it is certainly not
the language of the doctrine of the
second coming of Christ. Of Him
it is said only that "He is at [human
history's] center. He will also be at
its end. Because judgment is in His
hands we are filled with hope."

Life After Death

The discussion of death in the
third section of this chapter is inter-
esting but evasive concerning the
teaching of Scripture on the subject.
There is no recognition that death is
the penalty of sin. The resurrection
of Jesus Christ is affirmed, being
called, "God's own victory over
death."

What is meant by the statement,
"No life is cut short so soon or tragi-
cally that its meaning and value are
destroyed"? What about the death
of the wicked? And what is meant
by the statement, "In the end death
will die"? How will death die? To
leave the matter incomplete is alto-
gether unsatisfactory.

In the fourth section the proposed

PAGE 9 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 27, 1972

new confession reaches its lowest
point. Consider this sentence: "We
do not know or need to know exactly
what lies beyond death for us or
others."

But we do know! Scripture does
not answer all our questions about
the life to come, but it is most ex-
plicit about that life's reality as con-
tinuing conscious existence for the
saved in heaven and for the lost in
hell. How explicit, Biblical, and
therefore satisfying is the Westmin-
ster Confession as it discusses the
state of man after death:

"The souls of the righteous, being
then (at death) made perfect in
holiness, are received into the high-
est heavens, where they behold the
face of God in light and glory, wait-
ing for the full redemption of their
bodies; and the souls of the wicked
are cast into hell, where they remain
in torments and utter darkness, re-
served to the judgment of the great
day. Besides these two places for
souls separated from their bodies,
the Scripture acknowledgeth none"
(XXXIV, 1).

Scriptural Support

The Bible absolutely supports the
Westminster Confession in the story
Jesus told of the rich man and Laza-
rus, as recorded in Luke 16. So do
other passages: "Whilst we are at
home in the body, we are absent
from the Lord . . . We are confident,
I say, and willing rather to be ab-
sent from the body, and to be pres-
ent with the Lord (II Cor. 5:6, 8) .

"I am in a strait betwixt two, hav-
ing a desire to depart, and to be
with Christ; which is far better: nev-
ertheless to abide in the flesh is more
needful for you" (Phil. 1:23-24) .

"Ye come ... to the heavenly Jeru-
salem, and to an innumerable com-
pany of angels ... to God the Judge
of all, and to the spirits of just men
made perfect" (Heb. 12:22-23).

"These are they which came out
of great tribulation, and washed
their robes, and made them white in
the blood of the Lamb. Therefore
are they before the throne of God,
and serve him day and night in His
temple: and He that sitteth on the
throne shall dwell among them"
(Rev. 7:14-15) .

There is no ground whatever for
today's widely taught notion that
the New Testament teaches only the
resurrection and not the continuing
existence of a soul after physical
death. Such a teaching is a blatant

departure from the Word of God
and from the Westminster Confes-
sion of Faith. Uncertainty on this
issue seems to underlie the proposed
new confession in this chapter.

Souls of the Righteous

Let there be no indecisiveness
among us on this issue. Let us re-
member how firmly, under the guid-
ance of Dr. J. McDowell Richards,
the General Assembly of 1967 insist-
ed that the Theology Committee, in
its report on the life to come, be
faithful to Scripture and Confession
in declaring the doctrine of the in-
termediate state: The souls of the
righteous indeed continue in con-
scious existence and are in heaven.

We should all be deeply distressed
with the second paragraph of section
4: "We take with utmost serious-
ness the biblical warnings to those
who reject God's love in Christ. We
take with equal seriousness the soar-
ing declarations that in Christ all
mankind shall receive the gift of
life. We are confident that God's
future for every person will be both
loving and just."

This is Janus like, that is yes-and-
no equivocation. First the para-
graph says that the biblical teaching
about unbelievers' destiny must be
taken seriously. Then it contradicts
this by an unmistakable universal-
ism.

All men through Christ are to re-
ceive the gift of life, says the pro-
posed new confession. It can only
mean that they will be saved.

This flatly departs from the Bi-
ble, as well as the Confession. What
has been suggested here and there
in the proposed new confession
comes at the end into flat assertion.

Error of Universalism

We reject the universalist error.
We will not consent to see the jus-
tice of God compromised. We will
not accept the cutting of the nerve
of evangelism and missions — for
if all are to be saved there is no
urgency in evangelizing and there is
still less point in sending mission-
aries to convert the heathen.

We stand with the Westminster
Confession: "God hath appointed a
day, wherein He will judge the world
in righteousness by Jesus Christ, to
whom all power and judgment is
given of the Father . . . The end of
God's appointing this day, is for the
manifestation of the glory of His

mercy in the eternal salvation of the
elect; and of His justice in the dam-
nation of the reprobate, who are
wicked and disobedient.

"For then shall the righteous go
into everlasting life, and receive that
fullness of joy and refreshing which
shall come from the presence of the
Lord: but the wicked, who know not
God, and obey not the gospel of Je
sus Christ, shall be cast into eternal
torments, and punished with ever-
lasting destruction from the presence
of the Lord, and from the glory of
His power."

Over and over and over again the
Bible testifies to judgment and rep
robation. Our love for mankind and
natural wish for their eventual hap-
piness bows before and yields to
God's revelation of the awful end
of the wicked.

The proposed new confession con
eludes with a paragraph that is
meant to be a word in praise of
hope. Actually it is so vague that
we are forced to ask if this is the
best the ad interim committee can
do with the glorious eschatology of
the Bible.

At the Last Day

Scripture does not leave us in un-
certainty. The prophetic picture is
clear both for the lost and the saved,
At death, the spirits of those who
are not Christians go to hell and suf-
fer the anguish of vain and bitter
recollection. Their bodies will be
raised at the last day so that the
soul and body joined, may consti
tute the whole person which will re-
ceive the word of final sentencing.
The lost will be cast with the devil
and his angels into the lake of fire

The souls of the saved at deathl
are made perfect in holiness and are
at once received into heaven and its
glory to be with Christian loved ones
who have gone before, to know each
other, to grow in understanding, to
experience self-fulfillment, to enter
into new friendships, and best of all
to be with Christ. Their bodies are
still joined to Christ and at His sec
ond coming will be summoned from
the grave into incorruptibility, glory,
and immortality.

Soul and body will be joined to-
gether to constitute the person
Whole. He will receive judgment in
terms of the advance made in Chris-
tian living here on earth and service
rendered to the Lord Jesus and His

(Continued on page 18, col. 1)

PAGE 10 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 27, 1972

Some modern philosophical theologians discard the plain teaching of Scripture —

A Devastating Doctrine

Anew theology appearing among
Protestants throughout the
world is a new species of universal-
ism, attractive to the modern specu-
lative mind and to the philosophical
thinker.

It springs forth as a corollary of
the newly devised conception of
equality, oneness, togetherness,
which is sweeping like a tempest
through the social sciences. In the
field of theology, it is a manifesta-
tion of the one-sided emphasis upon
the love and goodness of God which
has prevailed in the 20th century.

Will all men finally be saved or
restored by divine goodness? Is it
true that there is no eternal hell, but
only an eternal heaven? Were Chris-
tians of all ages (Romans as well as
Reformed) wrong when they under-
stood God's Word as teaching that
the wicked will be punished hereaf-
ter, and that this punishment will
be endless?

'New Light'?

Or do these modern philosophical
theologians have "new light" which
our forefathers did not possess and
which gives evidence that man's con-
dition is not fixed at death, but that
all will ultimately be saved?

No doctrine of "togetherness" was
taught by the "divisive" divines of
the Westminster Assembly. In 1647,
vowed to fidelity to the Word of
God, they wrote:

"God hath appointed a day where-
in He will judge the world in righ-
teousness by Jesus Christ. In which
day, not only the apostate angels
ishall be judged; but likewise all per-
sons, that have lived upon the earth,

The author, honorably retired
from the ministry of the Presbyte-
rian Church US, lives in Smyrna, Ga.

shall appear before the tribunal of
Christ, to give an account of their
thoughts, words, and deeds, and to
receive according to what they have
done in the body, whether good or
evil.

"The end of God's appointing this
day, is for the manifestation of the
glory of His mercy in the eternal
salvation of the elect; and of His
justice in the damnation of the rep-
robate, who are wicked and disobedi-
ent. For then shall the righteous go
into everlasting life, and receive that
fullness of joy and refreshing which
shall come from the presence of the
Lord; but the wicked, who know not
God, and obey not the Gospel of Je-
sus Christ, shall be cast into eter-
nal torments, and be punished with
everlasting destruction from the pres-
ence of the Lord, and from the glory
of His power" (Confession of Faith,
XXXV, 1-2).

There is no universal restoration
here, nor in the pages of God's di-
vinely inspired Word. Universal-
ism, when accepted as a prevailing
philosophy, would discard every
great major doctrine of the Chris-
tian faith. The universalist does not
regard man as under the wrath of
God due to original sin.

To the universalist, man is not

This is the Way

The way to salvation is funda-
mentally not a series of rationally
ascertainable steps to heaven but
simply Christ on the cross. We can-
not follow His path, but we can fol-
low Him. Following the road to
Calvary meant entering into com-
munion with Christ. To follow in
His steps means to walk in the light
of His Word. — Donald G Bloesch.

JOHN H. KNIGHT

really a fallen but only an unfold-
ing or developing being. The fall
of man as taught in holy Scripture
becomes only a myth, or at best, "a
fall upward" in the evolutionary de-
velopment of mankind. According
to this false teaching, no one is lost
so no one needs to be saved. A
Saviour is banished from the scene.

If any atonement is acknowledged,
it is not of a penal and substitution-
ary nature as the Scriptures teach.
It is only to influence the moral na-
ture of man, and to draw him nearer
toward perfection in God. The
Christian life, therefore, is not su-
pernaturally conceived, but comes
by man's conforming his character
to the will of God. When death
comes, man's soul enters upon a new
plane of existence, a further devel-
opment of the present life.

Sentiment or Scripture

Such teaching discards the Bibli-
cal doctrines of the resurrection and
the general judgment. To the uni-
versalist, most eschatology is marked
off as mere metaphor, or "rabbini-
cal vagary," but the superabound-
ing goodness of God will bring to
pass a supposed universal salvation!

Life is just a play upon the stage
of history, the universalist says. Af-
ter the play is over, all the actors,
even the devil himself, will be in
heaven to take their little bow. God
would not hurt anyone!

Sentiment has superseded Scrip-
ture. Rationalism has routed revela-
tion. The uncertain beneficence of
mortal man has taken the place of
the righteous judgments of a holy
God.

Such is the eschatological quag-
mire produced by the philosophy of
a humanistic universalism.

May God have mercy! BQ

PAGE 11 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 27, 1972

EDITORIALS

Of Crime and Punishment, VIII

One day's action at the regular
criminal term of U. S. District Court
in our fair city included the follow-
ing:

— For embezzlement from a local
bank: suspended sentence, plus a
fine.

— For "receiving and concealing a
stolen motor vehicle": suspended
sentence, plus restitution to the
owner.

— For forging a U. S. treasury check:
suspended sentence, plus a fine.

— For possession of moonshine
whiskey: 18 months in jail.

— For operating a moonshine still:
2 years in jail.

Two others found guilty of bank
robbery were not sentenced, so we
cannot report whether their penalty
was suspended or imposed.

The pattern is familiar and rou-
tine. The one offense for which
you can be absolutely sure of going
to jail is competing with the liquor
industry.

The same day this was going on,
Clayton Fritchey's syndicated col-
umn from Washington reported that
"prison reform is finally getting the
attention it has long deserved" and
out of the widespread study accom-
panying such reform "has come the
simple, but novel idea of not put-
ting ordinary offenders behind bars
at all."

Mr. Fritchey remarks that the idea
of eliminating punishment for some
categories of criminal offenders is
not to be taken as "another example
of liberal, softheaded permissive-
ness," because it has "the interest of
a growing number of experienced
judges, including Mr. Nixon's own
handpicked chief justice, Warren
Burger."

Mr. Burger, according to Mr.
Fritchey, notes that some European
countries already "accept the idea
that well supervised release is a far
better solution than confinement to
a prison."

The columnist hints that the
American public supports by "more
than 2 to 1" the belief that a new
openmindedness is needed towards
the whole idea of the prison system,
and he quotes David Rothenberg as

a "penal expert" who suggests that
prisons should be abolished alto-
gether.

We forego commenting on Mr.
Chief Justice's apparent interest in
eliminating prison sentences for
criminal offenders, for we don't
know how much his views have in-
fluenced the court's decisions which
protect criminals at the expense of
potential victims of crimes.

We rather repeat what we have
said before: No culture in history
has ever reached America's level of
permissiveness, moral chaos and so-
cial instability, and survived.

We may rejoice in the winding
down of the war and the upsurge of
the Dow Jones averages. But bar-
ring a sweeping revival that will
clean house in our Churches and
our courts, this nation is most cer-
tainly doomed.

What a time for Christians to
come together! ffl

Accent on Youth

Last summer a group of Presbyte-
rian young people paid an "exchange
visit" to a summer camp operated
for the youth of another denomina-
tion. They were highly mystified
to discover that the lake and the
tennis courts were closed on Sun-
days. They couldn't understand why.

It was not that they disagreed,
having thought through the issue
and having reached a decision about
it. They were, instead, bewildered
in the presence of the unexpected
and unknown.

That simple story describes the
spiritual predicament of too many
Presbyterian young people today.
They are bewildered because they
do not know.

Young people differ from their

The Offer Is To All

Ministers of the Gospel may prom-
ise to all remission of sins in Christ
through faith; (just as) they may
denounce damnation upon all who
receive not Christ. — John Calvin.

1

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often sophisticated teachers in one
subtle but important respect. Their
teachers were preceded by a devout
generation. They were brought up
on the Bible and the catechism. If
they "reacted" against the faith of
the fathers and took their journey
into a "far country," it was a delib
erate leaving of a spiritual "home"
they knew and from which they de
liberately determined to depart.

When they subsequently made
their uneasy peace with their situa-
tion in the "far country," (on a lib-
eral basis) , it was with an intelligent
understanding of the ways of righ
teousness, whether they walked them
or not.

This generation of young people
is different. Many of them began
their spiritual pilgrimage in that
"far country" to which their elders
departed. They do not have a back-
ground in the Bible or in the cate-
chism. They have never been home!

When taught the faith by teachers
who have reached their own uneasy
spiritual synthesis through the devi-
ous meanderings of a liberal reli-
gious education, that spiritual syn-
thesis is the highest and best they've
known.

For some of them, theological po-
sitions which evangelical Christians
would recognize as sub-Christian are
the pinnacle of faith. Evangelical
positions themselves are foreign and
incomprehensible, like a dead lan
guage.

Youth today sometimes react to
evangelical Christianity, as repre
sented by such organizations as
Young Life, Inter-Varsity, Campus
Crusade, and the like, in much the
same way that youth group reacted
to the closed lake. It is the reaction
of a young puppy on his first en
counter with the unknown, repre
sented by a lawn mower or a
vacuum cleaner.

When such young people go to a
campus Young Life or Inter-Varsity
meeting, they sometimes respond in
exactly the same way a Chinese or
an African might respond to his first
hearing of the Gospel.

We do not mean to suggest that!
the evangelical youth organizations b
are perfect. Far from it. Their ,j]
weaknesses, especially in the area
represented by the Church, are evi-
dent. But we do believe they rep-
resent a vital, evangelical Christian-i|(ri
ity. And our point is that too many
youth today are not capable of eval-i
uating evangelical Christianity ob-
jectively.

ill:

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HOI

Ail:

PAGE 12 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 27, 1972

THE LAYMAN AND HIS CHURCH

Christ, the Motivator

They may be on the session, they
may become youth delegates to the
General Assembly. But they have
never really met up with the Gospel.
This is their tragedy.

Do we have the courage to make
some changes so the next generation
will know Christ? IB

Satisfied
With His Provision

"Godliness with contentment is
yreat gain" (I Tim. 6:6) .

The Lord Jesus Christ has com-
pletely upset the world's standards
and ideas. Among men strength is
the most desirable thing, but in the
kingdom of God it is a recognized
weakness; for weak we are and when
we acknowledge it we are making
way for the power of God. Honor
ind position loom large in the world,
but in Christ's teaching we are to
De meek and lowly in heart.

And so we might go on showing
the complete reversal of earth's
standards. Our Scripture verse em-
phasizes the difference between the
Christian and the non-Christian
yiews of wealth, between the false
ind the true riches.
, In the first place we are remind-
sd that our life is not to be judged
by its accumulation of goods or its
reserves of money. There are times
when wealth may be of the greatest
use, but there are times when it is
the greatest weight and danger, as
nany have recently found in lands
where the political systems have
..•hanged.

In any case wealth means respon-
sibility and often anxiety, so that
if a man has simple tastes and these
ire met, he is truly rich.

Real wealth according to Scrip-
;ure economics is just enough to meet
life's simple needs with God's bless-
ing. The dangers of too much or
too little make the wise man pray
to be delivered from both extremes.

The basis of the godly man's con-
tentment is that he has a rich Fa-
ther in heaven, who carries riches
Without a burden and uses them
without a danger. This good Fa-
ther has promised that His children
will lack no good thing.

With such a Father and such
promises let us refuse to be anxious
ibout the future, and let our con-
versation be without any trace of
povetousness. If God our Father
i }>ees that more will be better for us,
!we may trust Him to send us more.
— Fred Mitchfxl. 51

In the scientific community of
the Western world, motivation is
often attributed to genetically in-
herited characteristics. The child
of ambitious parents often, because
of chromosomal character, becomes
an ambitious man.

In the Eastern world of Russian
Communism, Mendelian genetics is
replaced by Lychenko's concepts
which stress environment. That is
necessary in such a society, for it
must be continuously shown that a
man is motivated because of the
"glorious'' communal pattern of liv-
ing. Mendel, of course, must be dis-
credited, in Communist thought, be-
cause he was a product of the West
and of the Church. In the Commu-
nist society the child of a mo-
tivating environment becomes the
ambitious man.

No doubt to most students, moti-
vation is the result of interaction be-
tween both one's parents' genes
and the social milieu of the com-
munity into which he is born, in
which he is reared, and in which he
matures. The "turned-off" hippie
entering college reflects the condi-
tions of his birth and rearing. The
revolutionist leaving the univer-
sity adds to that the effects of the
society in which he matures — the
campus.

The observer of the campus scene
need not be especially keen to note
this. What amazes him is to realize
that parents fail to recognize their
offspring are reflecting — and in
reflecting, exaggerating — parental
views about life, its pleasures, its dis-
appointments, and its inequities.

The Saturday night country club
party, the failure to win the juicy
contract or the plush assignment,
and the claim that the boss isn't
fair are mirrored by the student's
Saturday night pot party, the failure
to pull a passing grade or win over

Thoughts of a layman are contrib-
uted this week by Laurence C. Wal-
ker, dean of the school of forestry,
Stephen F. Austin State University,
Nacogdoches, Tex.

a date, and the violent actions to
make the established administration
knuckle under because it isn't fair.

The Christian parent caught up
in this predicament with his chil-
dren may find some consolation in
knowing that the parental views
which are reflected need not be his
own but, more likely, are the collec-
tive images of the age class of the
group to which he belongs.

But motivation is not limited to
the interactions of inheritance and
environment. Even sociologists as-
cribe motivation to more than cul-
tural and/or biological transmission.
To the non Christian, it may have to
do with the search for status. Hence,
one child of the ghetto (which the
writer knows well) may flee its
grasp while another seems bound by
its bonds.

The Christian sees another source
that moves men to act. It is re-
markably demonstrated on the col-
legiate campus where students for-
merly of the turned-off type are sud-
denly ablaze. Political and cultural
revolutionists become moralists,
withdrawn introverts enthusiastical-
ly rap with colleagues, and the spiri-
tually depraved vigorously study the
Bible.

Never mind that the Jesus freaks
are Scripturally illiterate, that the
long-hairs want no part of the or-
ganizational church, or that the san-
dal-clad ones wearing the sign of the
fish are insecure in the presence of
the short haired square of the par-
ental generation. They've been mo-
tivated by the knowledge, as sure
to them as the chemistry professor's
dogmatic H-)-OH equals water, that
Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God,
Saviour of men, and the only way
out of the amoral, agnostic, and
atheistic jungle of 1972.

Again, however, the observer of
the intellectual encounter notes that
this new motivation is not limited
to spiritual matters. Holy Writ
says that where new men come from
a new birth, it means a regeneration
— hopefully of a whole generation

(Continued on p. 17, col. 3)

PAGE 13 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 27, 1972

SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON

For January 14, 1973

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Ezekiel Among the Exiles

Rev. Jack B. Scott

INTRODUCTION: Today we
begin a series of four lessons on the
messages of God from the prophet
Ezekiel. The first four verses tell
about the man and his times:

Ezekiel was among those taken
captive from Jerusalem to Babylon
by the forces of Nebuchadnezzar,
before the final fall of Jerusalem.
This captivity (II Kings 24:8-16)
was at the time Jehoiachin reigned
in Jerusalem. This young king, on-
ly 18 years old, reigned for just three
months.

When Nebuchadnezzar beseiged
Jerusalem, he took the king and
many fine young citizens with him
to Babylon (II Kings 24:12-14) . Pre-
sumably among those taken with the
king was Ezekiel; all this occurred
about 597 B.C.

God began to reveal Himself to
Ezekiel by visions in the fifth year
of Jehoiachin's captivity. This would
be about 592 B.C., some six years be-
fore the final fall of Jerusalem in
586 B.C. The thirtieth year men-
tioned in verse 1 probably refers to
the age of Ezekiel himself, though its
meaning is not certain.

Ezekiel was a priest. Beginning
about 592 B.C., he wrote the visions
which God showed His captured
priest. Ezekiel foretold the neces-
sity of the final fall of Jerusalem to
the captive Jews, while Jeremiah far
away in Jerusalem was telling God's
same message to the Jews still living
in Jerusalem.

Both men had difficult tasks be-
cause neither in Jerusalem nor in
Babylon did the Jews want to be-
lieve that Jerusalem must fall. They
had all put their hope on the city
rather than on God, the Lord of the
city.

I. EZEKIEL 'S CALL (2-3) . Scrip-
ture gives us in detail the calls of
some of the great men of the Old
and New Testaments: Moses, Isaiah,
Jeremiah, Ezekiel, several of the dis-
ciples, and Paul, to mention a few.

These were written for our in-
struction, to teach us what is involved
in God's calling men to follow Him:
God's purpose for each man is dis-

Background Scripture: Ezekiel 1:

1-3; 2-4; 33:1-9
Key Verses: Ezekiel 1:1-3; 3:14-

17; 4:1-3
Devotional Reading: Psalm 42
Memory Selection: Ezekiel 3:17

tinct and yet God has one great task
to which He calls many servants.
They also teach us what God's pur-
pose is in calling men to Himself.

A. To whom he was called (2:1-
7) . Ezekiel was called to go to
preach to a people who had already
shown that they disregarded God's
Word. They were rebellious and
transgressors over a long period of
history (v. 3) . They were also
called impudent and stiffhearted (v.
4) , by no means a receptive people.

One might wonder why God kept
on sending His message to such peo-
ple until we look around at the
Church today and find it full of
those who are just like the ones de-
scribed in Israel. The fact is, if God
withdrew His message because of
the disinterest of the people, for the
most part there would be no message
heard today. We can see much of
ourselves in Israel. Let us be hon-
est.

God in His graciousness and long-
suffering puts up with such impu-
dence because He loves His people.
He tolerates vessels of wrath because
of His elect whom He will reach.
To be sure, in the end all unbelief
will be punished and purged from
His Church and only true believers
will endure forever.

In the last half of verse 5 we see
another significant truth. The mes-
sage is not changed. The "thus
saith the Lord" that has been heard
down through the ages from Moses to
Ezekiel is not altered at all. Today
some preachers who observe the un-
willingness of churchgoers to listen
to the Word of God try to fit their
message to suit the wishes of the
people. It has always been so.

In writing to Timothy, Paul

The International Sunday School Lesson Outlines
are copyrighted 1972 by the Committee on the
Uniform Series of the National Council of
Churches of Christ.

seemed to be describing a pattern of M
rejection that occurs among men
who bear God's Word (II Tim. 4
3-4) . False prophets have always
been willing to preach what people
want to hear and have joined Satan
in trying to stop the truth. (See I
Kings 22:5-28.)

The message to Ezekiel is clear:
God's servant is called to proclaim
His Word. Whether an Old Testa-
ment prophet, a New Testament
apostle or a minister of the Word
today, he has the obligation of
preaching not what men wish to %
hear but what God says.

Finally, Ezekiel was told not t|
be concerned for whether the Word
will or will not be received by those
to whom he preached (vv. 5-7) . The
message and the success of the mis-
sion were not dependent on the peo-
ple's receptivity. How many of the
prophets were apparently totally re-
jected! By today's standards they ,
would be considered failures, so few
responded to what they said.

In our day, we regard an evan-t f
gelist "successful" by his converts.
What a false standard. The ques-
tion is: Does he preach faithfully, ,|
God's Word? If he does, he is a sue-, j
cess in the only meaningful use of
that term. He is a success in God's
eyes. Measuring preachers today by
their popularity is vain and contrary
to the Scripture.

Whether people hear is not the
question. Whether the Word is
faithfully preached, that is the issue!
God's concern is that His name be
glorified. "They shall know that
a prophet has been among them."

Paul said something very much! iw
like this to those in the Corinthian m
Church: "We are a sweet savor of1

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15

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Christ unto God, in them that are
saved, and in them that perish, to
the one a savor from death unto
death; to the other a savor from li fe I
unto life" (II Cor. 2:15, 16). Im
portant is the fact that we please It
the Lord. Only this really matters.

B. The nature of the call (2:8-3::
3) . In order to impress on Ezekiel
that the call to be God's spokesman
to a rebellious people was not glam

fci

PAGE 14 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 27, 1972

|)rous or exciting or thrilling,
■(standards we use today for the ap-
Ipeal of a call or a profession) , but
I hat it would be filled with difficul-
ty and bitterness. Ezekiel was given a
Ijicroll and told to eat it.
! The book was filled with lamenta-
tions, mournings, and woe. This no
lioubt symbolizes the message which
lEzekiel would have to bring, and al-
io the burden he would feel as he
liore that message. By eating it,
iSzekiel saw that he could not be de-
tached from his message. He must
■be a part of it.

No man can be a true messenger
Jbf God's Word today unless he be
Irlosely related to that message. If
Ive can preach the judgment of God
Ibn sinners without the burden of the
liwful judgment felt in our own
liearts, then we should not preach
[at all! God's messenger is a part of
plis message.

I John the apostle had an experi-
ence quite similar to that of Ezek-
iel (Rev. 10:9-11). The book of
Revelation is symbolic of the bitter-
Ivweet Gospel which must be
Ibreached in all the world for a wit-
ness to the nations.
r C. The difficulty of the call (3:
§1-15) . To reiterate the difficulty
Ibf Ezekiel's task, the Lord further
! old him of Israel's unreceptivity to
■lis message. Though he had no lan-
guage or cultural barrier (3:5), he
Ilid have the greatest of barriers, that
|)f stiff hearts (v. 7) .
I This points up the truth that the
■problem of the reception of the Gos-
pel in the world is not the problem
mi the different languages and cul-
ll.ures, as some would argue.

In reality the problem is the same
iiard hearts whether one be Chinese,
■Russian, German, African, English,
l)r American, or even one's next door
Ireighbor. This is the great obstacle
find as Jeremiah showed us, only
■Sod's changing that heart removes
■ he obstacle.

j Again Ezekiel was shown that he
■nust first take God's message to
Iieart himself (v. 10) . It is impera-
tive that we who are to bear a dif-
ficult message to an unreceptive peo-
■ole must ourselves believe in that
■oiessage and in the Lord who has
Lent it.

All too many so-called servants of
■he Lord have not believed what
■they preached. They either become
■discouraged and quit, bringing dis-
Igrace on the Gospel, or else they
tailor the message to suit the hear-
lirs' wishes and so deceive and mis-

lead the hearers.

As the Lord had much earlier
taught through Moses, the bearers
of and teachers of God's Word must
themselves believe in the Lord with
all of their heart, soul and mind
(Deut. 6:4-7).

The whole experience was for Ezek-
iel very bitter; there was no glam-
or in this call. God made Ezekiel
face the fact and see the difficulty
of his task. It was so impressive
that Ezekiel sat overwhelmed for sev-
eral days, speechless as he contem-
plated the tremendous task of his
call (3:15).

Today when one decides to serve
Christ, let him hear what Jesus said,
"Let him take up his cross and fol-
low me." Jesus does not call to an
easy but to a difficult task. Just
as Jesus' task, terminating in the
cross, was not easy but extremely
difficult. Better to be discouraged
from even beginning to serve Christ
than, having begun, to become dis-
couraged and quit.

D. The responsibility of the one
called (3:16-21; 33:1-9). These two
passages should be put together in
our study of the responsibility of
Ezekiel as one called to be a watch-
man.

After Ezekiel had been awed and
overwhelmed for several days by the
enormity of his task, he was given a
greater picture of his call in terms
of his own precise responsibility.

He was to speak God's truth to
warn the world. To illustrate this
responsibility, the Lord likened Ezek-
iel to a watchman on guard duty
over a city. If he is alert and warns
the city of the approach of trouble,
then he has functioned properly.

It is not the watchman's respon-
sibility to mobilize the defense of
the city and fight off the enemy. He
is to warn. If he does his task well,
he is exonerated. If he falls asleep
or neglects to sound the warning
clearly, then the blood of the slain is
on his hands.

In a similar way, Ezekiel and all
of God's watchmen are sent to warn
the hearers of God's Word and judg-
ment. If the watchman or evan-
gelist or minister of the Word is
alert, believing himself God's Word
and speaking it forth clearly, then
he pleases God whether or not the
people give heed.

The messenger himself is not re-
sponsible for the reaction of the peo-
ple but for the truth of the message,
i.e., his own faithfulness to preach
the whole counsel of God.

Today many who consider them-
selves ministers of the Word are con-
cerned only for the results, so they
spend and consume their lives in or-
ganizing and leading people to this
or that reaction. By exhausting
themselves in details of response and
never really telling the people what
God has said, they fail God. Such
people are often called activists, but
their activity is not according to
God's will.

The picture of blood on the watch-
man's hands is a graphic one. It
teaches that the task of the procla-
mation of God's Word is a great and
serious responsibility. Although the
watchman is not responsible for the
reaction of the people (whether or
not they are receptive) , he does have
a responsibility to warn them of
God's judgment.

When one is called to preach or
teach God's Word, therefore, it is
not an elective with him which he
can decide to ignore, if he so chooses,
with impunity. He is from that
time under obligation and under
heavy responsibility to make God's
truth known.

II. EZEKIEL'S MESSAGE (4).
We shall only briefly look at a sam-
pling of Ezekiel's message in this
lesson. Ezekiel was called upon to
act out what God said. By this
again we see how Ezekiel had to be-
come a part of what he said.

Remember that God spoke also
at this same time through Jeremiah
to tell the people of Jerusalem that
the city must fall into the hands of
Babylon. It was not a popular mes-
sage with the people in Jerusalem,
and they made Jeremiah feel the
sting of their anger. Similarly Eze-
kiel had the task of telling Jews in
captivity that they could expect no
hope, no help from Jerusalem. The
city would fall.

Ezekiel was told why God would
judge. First, there were the 390
years of iniquity of the people (v.
5) . If we count back from the time
of Ezekiel's message in 592 B.C., to
390 years earlier, we come to the
middle of the 10th century B.C.

That was the beginning of the
evil pattern that culminated in the
captivity. God was saying that from
the time of Solomon on, the pro-
longed period of iniquity was the rea-
son He would judge Jerusalem.

The forty years mentioned in the
latter part of verse 6 probably was
intended to remind the people of

(Continued on p. 18, col. 3)

PAGE 15 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 27, 1972

YOUTH PROGRAM

Scripture: Romans 1:19-23
Suggested Hymns:

"Praise Ye the Triune God"
"Christ is the World's True
Light"

"Christ Shall Have Dominion"

PROGRAM LEADER'S INTRO-
DUCTION: (Begin by reviewing
last week's lesson briefly but clearly.
You may want to ask questions that
will enable each member of the
group to come to grips with the pre-
vious subject matter. Lead into to-
day's program by saying that the next
speaker points out another argu-
ment for the existence of God.)

FIRST SPEAKER: Answers can
be given to most of the other argu-
ments, and none of those discussed
before offer conclusive proof that
God exists. They might get an
atheist or agnostic to think about
God, but would not ultimately con-
vince him. The moral argument is
the most significant and probably
the most subtle of all. It goes like
this:

Throughout history, all the races
of men show certain elements of ba-
sic morality. Some standards in
morality are relative, but as long as

For January 14, 1973

Is There a God?

Rev. Henry J. Mueller

there is rationality in a man's mind,
you will find basic moral principles.
This points to the existence of a mor-
al force — God — who created this
in man.

An example of basic morality is
this: A man's wife is his, and if an-
other man takes her he is commit-
ting adultery. It is not normal for
men to share their wives. Now this
basic principle doesn't say how many
wives a man should have (although
the Bible does) .

There is also the concept of prop-
erty. Some things belong to me;
if you take them from me you steal.
It has been that way all through his-
tory.

Some qualities appear in man
which are basic to a moral sense in
our ways of living. This basic moral
sense must have come from some-
where and this points to the ex-
istence of God. (You may want to
research encyclopedias for the an-
cient Chinese concept of Tao and
the Hammurabi Code of ancient
Babylon. Point out there are areas
of agreement, suggesting an instinc-
tive sense of right and wrong given
to all men.)

PROGRAM LEADER: Christians
can look at all the arguments and

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in

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9

see that they definitely point to the
existence of God. Some of them
may mean more to us than others;
but other people will look at them
and not see as much in them as we
can.

This is because we believe in God.
We know He is there. We can look
out at nature and see His handi-
work. (Read Psalm 19:1-4
unison.)

For some people these evidences
are not enough. How do we answer
this question, "Is there a God?," for
them? If these arguments don't
persuade them to look for some kind
of supreme being and ask Him to
reveal Himself to them, then we
don't have an answer for them.

Nobody can be argued into be-
coming a Christian. This is God's
work. We may be His instrument
through which He works to lead a
friend to faith. We should be as
well informed as possible. We are
not ignoramuses. We are people
who can think logically and rational
ly explain our faith. We do this
realizing that faith is more than
fact, it also involves the will.

SECOND SPEAKER: Charles
Spurgeon said that faith can be de-
scribed in three steps. First is knowl-
edge. We need to have a knowledge
of God we can believe in. (Next
week we will find that this knowl-
edge of God as He really is comes
from the Scripture. From the Bi-
ble we can see Him in other places.)

It takes more than just facts, how^
ever; anyone can make a list
of facts. We must have some kind
of understanding of them. Thirdly,
faith involves belief and trust in
what we know and understand. We
have to believe that God is real and
then trust Him. Trust means act-
ing on what we believe.

A skydiver can know all about para-
chutes and airplanes and air cur-
rents. He can have all the knowl-
edge — and he needs to have the:
knowledge before he jumps from the
plane.

He must believe when he jumps

I:
fc
.51

n

■

PAGE 16 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 27, 1972

that the parachute is going to hold
him up. He can think to himself,
"When I pull this ripcord, the para-
chute is going to open, and glide me
safely to the ground," but this belief
will not do him any good until he
acts on it. He must pull the ripcord.

He must know certain facts and
understand how they work. He then
i must show he believes and trusts
I them by jumping out of the plane
land pulling the ripcord.

It's the same way for us with God.
[We can know about Him and un-
i demand what He does and who He
[is, but until we commit our lives to
Him — until we trust Him for our
Hives then we don't have real faith
\in Him at all. Faith means that we
live with God, as He really is, every
'day.

PROGRAM LEADER: The argu-
ments for the existence of God can
|;do at least two things. They can be
la tool we use to point someone to
God, and they can also strengthen
lour faith in Him. We can see that
He really does exist and that He is
fat work in our world now and in
jour individual lives.

(To conclude this program divide
) into two groups. One group is to
■do a role play in which they try to
i convince one person who is an athe-
nst of the existence of God using
*the arguments discussed in these two
programs.

; The second group will discuss and
iaiake a list of ways that these argu-
ments can be used to strengthen
tweak Christians, especially one who
>eems to walk around depressed and
defeated all the time.
Give them 15 to 20 minutes to do
■this and then meet together with
.' jroup one performing the role play
I first and then group two sharing
■heir findings. Encourage discus-
sion if it grows out of these nat-
I ..rally.)

Closing Prayer. GO

A sociological study of the leaders
Df 14 rural communities in southern
Dhio revealed: "In terms of person-
il satisfaction derived from mem-
bership in the organization, church-
;s rank second only to Rotary and
iiwanis." — Eternity.
-

VANTED: Dedicated workers to serve in
Children's Home. Couple or lady willing
i o give up much to provide Christian
raining for children. Young at heart. For
idditional information contact Superin-
endent, Box 1108, Laurel, Miss. 39440.

BOOKS

MUCH MORE!, by Jack R. Taylor.
Broad man Press, Nashville, Tenn. 160
pp. $4.95. Reviewed by the Rev. Hor-
ace L. Villee, pastor emeriLus, First
Presbyterian Church, Columbus, Miss.

This is a sequel to The Key to
Triumphant Living by Dr. Taylor,
pastor of a Baptist church in San
Antonio, Texas. Having testified
in his previous book how the Holy
Spirit transformed his Christian ex-
perience, here he goes deeper into
additional spiritual truths about
faith, prayer, family life, evangelism,
and death to self.

The book speaks to a drop-out
generation that is turning on to a
new expression of fresh experience
with God, calling them to a renewed
faith that the God who led Israel
over the Red Sea can lead us through
the mess in which we've been bogged
down for years.

We have here a blessed affirma-
tion of Biblical faith with some in-
sights that are fresh and rewarding.
It is a volume for believers, primari-
ly. But it offers guidance from the

Scriptures for those lost, offering Je-
sus Christ as the way to hope, to
happiness, to holiness, and to
heaven.

The writer says of Jesus, "Yield-
ing to His Lordship is like standing
at the entrance of a gigantic treasure-
house, overwhelmed at the much
more of it all." Money and time
spent on this book will be a reward-
ing investment. IB

Layman— from p. 13

— of folks with an altruistic mo-
tivation to clean up the environ-
ment, to shape up sloppy establish-
ment practices in Old Main and in
the State House, and to take over
the leadership of the Church.

These are the people upon which
the whole world may need to de-
pend for intellectual, moral, and
spiritual sanity, recognizing that an
orderly social order must operate
on absolutes. These are spelled out
in Scripture and include the state-
ment, "You must be born again." SI

NEW IDEAS ON FINANCING
AND MANAGING YOUR CHURCH

A one-day seminar tells how churches can secure extra gifts through
wills, life insurance, stocks and loans.

Already scheduled in 20 major cities in 1973:

• Atlanta • Denver • Minneapolis • Portland

• Boston • Detroit • New Orleans • San Francisco

• Chicago • Kansas City • Philadelphia • St. Louis

• Cincinnati • Los Angeles • Phoenix • Tampa

• Dallas • Miami • Pittsburgh • Washington

For Pastors. Other Church Leaders. Interested Laymen. Church-Related
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Staff: Robert F. Sharpe, Rev. Olan Hendrix, Philip R. Converse, LLB.

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PAGE 17 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 27, 1972

i

Chapter IX— from p. 10

cause; reward or recognition will be
accorded as a further evidence of
God's grace.

The earth and its works will have
been consumed in a tremendous con-
flagration. Out of earth's debris
the Creator will fashion a new earth
in which only righteousness will
dwell.

At the return of Christ the bodies
of living believers will be trans-
formed into the likeness of Christ's
resurrection body and their souls per-
fected in holiness. Preceded by the

resurrected righteous dead, they will
rise to meet the Lord Jesus. In the
new heaven and the new earth the
righteous will dwell in fellowship
with God triune to enjoy Him and
the inexhaustible treasures of His
wisdom forever.

This is both the Scripture's way
and the Westminster Confession's
way of dealing with the wonderful
topic of God and the future.

Recently I have been in correspon-
dence with one of our distinguished
ministers in Virginia. I quote from
his latest letter:

"We must surely do all within our

power to bring the official deliver- j
ances, of the Church back to a Bibli-
cal position as reflected in the West-
minster Confession. This new effu-
sion appears to me to be amateurish li
in contrast to an exact scientific:
treatise such as we have in the West- ;
minster Confession. The ad interim
committee has obviously forgotten <
that theology is the queen of the
sciences!"

Presbyterian theology is a glorious
exposition of the system of doctrine
which the Bible contains. It is a
royal system indeed. It does not de-
serve to be demeaned. It does not
deserve vagueness, ambiguity, sub-;
tie contradiction. We love our theol-
ogy because we love the Bible. The
Westminster Confession is a worthy
statement of Scripture's teaching.
The proposed new confession is too
light, too ephemeral, too imprecise, I
too stylistically faulty, altogether too
weak and uncertain to be placed
within the same set of covers as the
Westminster Confession of Faith and
Catechisms. We are moved fervent-
ly to pray that the Church will so
decide. 11

S. S. Lesson— from p. 15

the 40 years of their wandering and
disobedience in the wilderness.

The judgment was to come in the
form of the siege and fall of Jeru-
salem. Ezekiel acted this out, il-
lustrating such side effects of a siege
as starvation and pollution; famine
and lamentation (vv. 7-9) . This
was to be the thrust of the early part
of Ezekiel's message, but like the
other prophets, he also brought hope
for the remnant as we shall see in
a later lesson. EE

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NEW for PHASE TWO
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Here is a 140 page Layman's
Guide to the Study of Luke

MESSAGE TO THEOPHILUS
Studies in Luke's Gospel

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PAGE 18 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 27, 1972

annotmcin^...

WI7VTER

THEOLOGICAL
INSTITUTE
February S'7, '73

STRONG VANHALSEMA WIDEMAN OSTERHAVEN

Reformed Theological Seminary cordially invites you to plan now to
attend the 1973 Winter Theological Institute. The speakers this
year are:

Rev. Bruce Wideman, Pastor of the Warrington Presbyterian Church,
Pensacola, Florida, who will be the featured preacher on both
evenings.

Dr. M. Eugene Osterhaven, Professor of Systematic Theology at
Western Theological Seminary, Holland, Michigan, who will give
four lectures on "The Spirit of the Reformed Tradition."
Dr. Dick L. Van Halsema, President of Reformed Bible College,
Grand Rapids, Michigan, who will present four Biblical expositions.
Dr. Robert Strong, Pastor of Trinity Presbyterian Church, Montgomery,
Alabama, who will speak twice on contemporary religious
phenomena and lead two panel discussions on Christian life and
practice.

The program begins 1:00 P.M., Monday, February 5, and concludes

at 1:00 P.M., Wednesday, February 7, 1973.

This institute is designed to stimulate the mind and heart of both

pastors and church members by bringing them to a clearer

understanding of Christian doctrine and life.

For additional information regarding the schedule, reservations,

and registration write the Director, Professor Albert H. Freundt, Jr.

Reformed Theological Seminary

5422 Clinton Boulevard, Jackson, Mississippi 39209, Telephone 601-922-4988

PAGE 19 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 27, 1972

WE

THANK
YOU

(KOREAN)

CRRCIRS

(SPANISH!

Nhieu lam

(VIETNAMESE!

(BENGALI!

The words "Thank You" are the only way these children can find to express their appreciation. How-
ever, the most effective means of communicating with the depressed people of these countries in
which we work is usually not through words- It is through loving care and concern . . the love that
is made possible by the generous gifts of friends of World Relief Commission.

CHANGING FACES

If you have ever looked into the sad, bewildered
eyes of a lonely, homeless, dispirited child, you
can easily understand the feeling that comes to a
benefactor when that look changes to brightness
and hope. We have seen it thousands of times, as
reflected by some of these pictures — children
who have been given help through the generosity
of concerned evangelicals.

Thousands upon thousands of times during this
year, the words "thank you" have been uttered to
World Relief Commission field personnel, by the
sick, depressed and needy people in Korea; Viet-

nam, Bangladesh, etc. And most often they have
been spoken by children ; because it always seems
to be the children who suffer the most from the
ravages of war and disaster. Many of the children
who have been helped are shown in these photo-
graphs. Unfortunately, many other children could
not be included because we could not get to
them soon enough with enough. These words
of thanks are not only for World Relief Com-
mission, but for the friends who gave so
generously of themselves throughout the past
year.

HERE IS WHAT CHRISTIAN GIVING DID IN 1972

26,000 children lovingly cared for at Hoa
Khanh Children's Hospital
Emergency aid for Vietnamese war refugees:
200,000 at Danang and 20,000 tribal people
at Banmethout.

Vocational training programs at Danang,
Hue, Dalat

' Necessities of life for Bengali refugees in
India and as they returned to their new
nation of Bangladesh, where WRC is still
working:

1 Helped settle 60,000 in Copalganj. Built
1000 houses, and started an agricultural
program to help the people feed them-
selves

2 High-yield rice project in South Khulna
District

3 Land reclamation at Chandraghona

4 Teachers and students at Savar University
given financial aid. Also books for the
library.

Aid to the Christian Action Commission of
India in operation of schools. Also emer-
gency shipments of rice.
In Korea, continued help with the Honam
Upland Reclamation Project, and aid to or-
phanages and schools.

Work projects in Chile, as well as a nutrition
program for expectant mothers, and funds
to an orphanage.

Aid to refugees in Zaire, Laos, Cambodia,
Thailand.

Funds to evangelical missionaries serving in
areas of natural disaster in the Philippines
and Iran.

To continue putting smiles on little faces we need your gift, large
or small. We promise it will be used to help in every way possible
to provide for physical and spirital needs of people throughout
the world, particularly the children. All gifts are tax deductible.

WORLD RELIEF COMMISSION

P.O. BOX 44 • VALLEY FORGE, PA. 19481

OVERSEAS RELIEF ARM OF NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF EVANGELICALS

PAGE 20 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / DECEMBER 27, 1972

VOL. XXXI, NO. 36

JANUARY 3, 1973

$4.00 A YEAR

the

Advocating continuation of a Presbyterian Church loyal

to Scripture and the Reformed faith

A Right and a Duty

Once again I must emphasize that silence means co-respon-
sibility for what is going on in the Church. I cannot help feel-
ing that in this respect evangelicals are guilty before God and
that our first act towards the reformation of the Church must
be one of confessing our guilt.

But then we must go on and do something. I do not mean
that we should immediately proceed to separation. In fact, it
is my firm conviction that those who have always been silent
have no right whatever to separate from their Church. In their
case such an act would mean a refusal to obey the first and pri-
mary commandment for every church member, namely, to love
and care for his Church.

Only those who have seriously tried to bring the Church
to reformation but who have found that the Church not only
refuses to come to reformation, but rather continues to shield
error and heresy affecting the fundamentals of the Christian
faith, have the right and the duty to separate.

— Klaas Runia

in Reformation Today

S. S. LESSON AND YOUTH PROGRAM FOR JANUARY 21

dMOO

MAILBAGr

A SOUTHERN LADY REACTS

In reading over some past issues
of the Journal,, I came across the
biggest lot of tommyrot that I have
ever seen reported from a woman's
meeting — I have reference to the
story of the Board of Women's Work
meeting under the heading, "PCUS
Women Say Their Work Is Essen-
tial" (Oct. 18 Journal) .

"The South is more militaristic
than other areas of our nation" is a
plain untruth. That woman should
learn the difference between "mili-
taristic" and "loyal." We of the
South support our nation, love our
God, and believe that women who
have no more sense than to stick
their noses into political matters by
rehashing radical petitions and fol-

the

PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL

Rev. G. Aiken Taylor, Ph.D., Editor
Rev. Henry B. Dendy, D.D., Managing Editor

Circulation leader among independent publications in the Presbyterian-Refortned world

THIS WEEK— Vol. XXXI, No. 36, January 3, 1973

A New Beginning 7

The best resolution for the year is to let Christ take
charge of your life By A. H. Bennett

Truth and Tradition 8

By George S. Lauderdale

Religion and Politics 9

What happens when Church and State organizations are
controlled by the State By Claude R. Foster Jr.

The Blessing of Books 11

The poet said, "Books are keys to wisdom's treasure, books
are gates to lands of pleasure" By Bernard R. DeRemer

De partments —

Editorials 12

The Layman and his Church 13

Sunday School Lesson, January 21 14

Youth Program, January 21 16

Book Reviews 17

THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL, a

Presbyterian weekly magazine, devoted
to the statement, defense, and propa-
gation of the Gospel, the faith which
was once for all delivered to the saints,

is published every Wednesday by the
Southern Presbyterian Journal Co.,
Inc., in Weaverville, N. C.

SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: $4 a year
for individuals, $3 for members of
Every Family Plan churches. All cor-
respondence regarding subscriptions,
advertising or other business matters
should be addressed to the business
office in Weaverville, N. C. 28787.
Second class postage paid at Weaver-
ville, N. C. 28787.

POSTMASTER: Send Form 3579 to
Presbyterian Journal, Box 635, Weav-
erville, N. C. 28787. Subscribers
should allow three weeks for change
of address in continental U. S. Change
of address notices should include both
old and new addresses (with zip
codes) .

NEWS AND EDITORIAL correspond-
ence should be addressed to P. 0. Box
3108, Asheville, N. C. 28802. Editorial
offices located at 247 Charlotte St. in
Asheville.

TELEPHONES: (All area 704) edi-
torial office, 254-4015, 254-4016;
business office, 645-3310, 645-3962.

lift

lowing the worn-out patterns of ai ]
tack which downgrade the Soutl
should get out their Bibles, read an< |ni
pray. It would also help if they di<
a bit of research instead of pol-pai l\
roting senseless statements they ma
have picked up in reading.

I would hate to depend on he
type for protection. Does she thin!
she could peddle her shallow reh
gion if her freedom to do so had no
been bought at a price? Would sh
have the great Washington and Le
University closed because it i
named for two generals? Does sh
feel the same way about Grant Higl
School when she says that it i
Southern schools that are named fo
military men?

Thank God for those U. S. Arm1
and Navy officers who, as one mem
ber of the board observed, "hav<
Southern accents." I also thank Gocf'f
that it is the officers and not the draf
dodgers who have the Southern ac
cents.

If women's work in the Churcl
has degenerated into such trash a
seems to have been put forth at Mon
treat at this board meeting, thei
may God have mercy on His Church
Apparently the central obligation
"Go ye into all the world and preacl
the Gospel" has been dumped.

And they call their board's wort
"essential"!

— Annie Stark Wilson
Tupelo, Miss.

mi
lid

FROM THE BOTTOM UP

It was interesting to read Dr. Ber
L. Rose's letter in the Mailbag ii
December 13 Journal. I cannot helj
wondering if, subconsciously, he ii
not reflecting one of the fundamen
tal differences between the presen
"establishment" that would take u
into an episcopal form of govern
ment and those who are determined
to preserve, not only the confession
al position of the Presbyteriar
Church US, but also the presbyte
rian form of government. The quesj
tion is, "Where is the repository o
undelegated power?"

Doctor Rose obviously would del
egate power from the top down
Thus, it is clear that he views tbi
General Assembly as the repository
of all undelegated power. But i
analogy is to be drawn from civi
government, power is to be delegated
from the bottom up. A local congre
gation must exist before the presby
tery can come into existence — pres
byteries must exist before a Genera

inn

lit

i Assembly can be established.
To draw a specific analogy:
"The powers not delegated to the
United States (General Assembly)
by the Constitution, nor prohibited
by it to the states (presbyeries) , are
reserved to the states (presbyteries)
or to the people" (Article X, Con-
stitution of the United States of
America) .

— Frank C. Horton
Jackson, Miss.

IDEOLOGICAL HEIRS

Some Christians can trace their
lineage to Puritans of the Mayflower,
to the Calvinist Congregationalists
or to the Calvinist Scottish Presby-
terians. These folk left England not
to gain wealth; they were willing to
spend their wealth in seeking a place
where they could practice the Paul-
ine doctrines of the Gospel.

In the succeeding 350 years, the
primates of the professional religious
hierarchies have practically elimi-
nated the doctrines of St. Paul from

• Several items across the desk
suggest a proper mood for this, the
first column of a new year. One is
a letter which, according to the Bul-
letin of Trinity Episcopal Church
of Victoria, Tex., was sent to all the
members of an Episcopal congrega-
tion in Illinois. In brief, the letter
informed the church members that
all would be "required to attend
Sunday services at least twice each
month from now on. Registration
will be taken each Sunday to deter-
mine which names remain in good
standing as members of the church.
Unless you have some legitimate rea-
son for not attending, you will not
'be permitted to remain on the roll
as an active member if you are not
really active in your support of the
church." The letter went on: "If
some of you who are inactive are
angered by this action enough so
that you withdraw your member-
ship and become active in another
church, a great step forward will be
taken. If you simply withdraw your
membership and remain inactive, no
'ground will have been lost. The
kingdom of God will not have been
weakened, since you were inactive
anyway." Concluded the letter:

the creedal confessions and from the
preaching in the pulpits of the 230-
odd Christian denominations.

Today, small groups of men and
women who have been called and
attended by the Holy Spirit are
again forming small, independent
congregations, where Pauline theol-
ogy, doctrines and absolutes eluci-
dated by John Calvin can be taught,
preached and offered as a living tes-
timony to the world — a world which
begins just outside the skin of every
Calvinist.

Salvation is not purchased by
membership in a church, nor by lis-
tening to the mouthings of a pulpit
politician. Neither is salvation of-
fered en masse at the courthouse or
on the state capitol steps.

— H. C. Smiley
Memphis, Tenn.

MINISTERS

Marion B. Boozer from Stanley,
N. C, to the Southminster church,
Winston-Salem, N. C.

"We say, then, to you what we feel
God must be saying to the churches
of this day — 'Shape up or ship
out!' " The Bulletin reports that the
effect has been "an immediate 60%
increase in attendance at divine wor-
ship, in participation in other activi-
ties and in financial support."

• The Presbyterian National Sam-
ple has just done a survey through-
out the Church based on the pro-
posed new confession (covered by
Dr. Robert Strong in his recent series
of articles) . The questions asked
were basic theological questions
founded upon statements in the pro-
posed confession. We were interest-
ed to notice that only one received
a unanimous response. The state-
ment, "Love is the most important
manifestation of the Holy Spirit's
presence," was not denied by a sin-
gle person interviewed. Other ques-
tions were greeted with a somewhat

David B. Conley from New Or-
leans, La., to the First Church,
Hopkinsville, Ky.
Albert C. Hemenway from New
Orleans, La., to graduate study.
John D. Holmes from Blair, S. C,
to the First Church, Opelika, Ala.
David C. Kennedy from Matthews,
N. C, to the First Church, Besse-
mer, Ala.

Ronald T. Kilpatrick, received
from UPUSA, to the First Church,
Rome, Ga., as assistant pastor.
William R. Stepp from East Tal-
lahassee, Ala., to the Golden Gate,
Fla., church.

Robert L. Temple from Wade, N.
C, to the Lillington, N. C, church.
Thomas B. Tyndall from Char-
lotte, N. C, to the College Hill
church, Oxford, Miss.
W. Russell Ward Jr., from Ron-
ceverte, W. Va., to the Highlawn
church, St. Albans, W. Va.
Dean Thompson from graduate
study to the Montgomery, W. Va.,
church.

less unanimous response. "Man does
not have an immortal soul" was af-
firmed by 8 per cent of the min-
isters. Two per cent of the minis-
ters said they thought miracles were
"impossible." More than half of
the ministers said the reason Jesus
did not sin was not because He was
God but rather because He was "tru-
ly human." And two per cent of the
ministers said they believe God will
save everyone whether they accept
or reject Christ. By the time we
got to the statement, "The Bible is
the ultimate authority for Chris-
tians," we were prepared to note that
20 per cent of the ministers, 29 per
cent of judicatory staff and 11 per
cent of board and agency staff peo-
ple said, "No!"

• If you are among those interest-
ed in the future shape of a national
Presbyterian and Reformed witness,
don't miss the top story on p. 5. BB

ACROSS THE EDITOR'S DESK

PAGE 3 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 3, 1973

m

NEWS OF RELIGION

Rally Begins Year-long Key '73 Program

ST. LOUIS, Mo. — "If some-
one were to ask me what the message
of Key 73 is, I would have to say
quite simply, it's the Bible! And
if someone asked me what part of
the Bible, I would have to say the
whole thing." This is how the Rev.
Oswald Hoffmann, speaker on the
Lutheran Hour, St. Louis, defined
the purpose of Key 73, an interde-
nominational evangelism thrust
aimed at calling the North Amer-
ican continent to Christ during the
year 1973.

Dr. Hoffmann was one of three
speakers addressing the Key 73 Pan-
orama Banquet in the Chase-Park
Plaza Hotel, one of the highlights
of a meeting of some 400 top lead-
ers in the movement.

The Rev. Carl F. H. Henry, edi-
tor-at-large of Christianity Today
magazine, spoke on "The Meaning
of Key 73" and the Rev. Thomas
Zimmerman, superintendent of the
Assemblies of God, told of "The
Mandate of Key 73."

Dr. Henry, who is credited with
conceiving the idea of a coopera-
tive evangelism outreach at a meet-
ing of concerned churchmen near the

Francis Scott Key Bridge in Arling-
ton, Virginia five years ago, said the
effort "has enlisted the cooperation
of more denominations than any
movement since the Protestant Ref-
ormation."

Key 73 presently involves more
than 150 denominations and reli-
gious organizations, representing a
potential involvement of 200,000 lo-
cal congregations and over 100 mil-
lion people. "Key 73 is broad
enough," Dr. Henry said, "to send
the message of the Gospel through-
out the U. S. and Canada."

Dr. Zimmerman told the religious
leaders, "Key 73 is on the brink of
going into orbit . . . but its success
rests not on man, but on God." The
chairman of the movement said the
mandate of Key 73 comes from
Christ's words to His disciples when
He told them to "go and make dis-
ciples of all nations .... This man-
date is an obligation for all follow-
ers of Christ," Dr. Zimmerman said.
"We cannot choose an alternative.
The essence of our struggle is not for
the promotion of any denomination
or group. We seek to set men free
as only Christ can make men free."

P

THE CHURCH OVERSEAS

KOREA — A dormitory for 60 doc-
tors and nurses was dedicated No-
vember 27 at Kwangju Christian
Hospital.

The attractive and comfortable
new 3-story building was constructed
at a cost of $55,000, provided by the
Medical Benevolence Foundation. It
is the second in a series of four build-
ings which when completed in 1974
will mean a completely new plant
for the hospital.

Don L. Kinder, Presbyterian mis-
s i o n a r y , supervised construction
with Na Yang Kun of the hospital
staff.

Other missionary personnel of the
hospital include Dr. Ronald Diet-
rick, director and surgeon; Mrs.
Cledith Kinder, secretary; Dr. Her-
bert Codington, TB specialist; Dr.
Adrian Wolbrink, orthopedic sur-

geon; and Rev. Betts Huntley, chap-
lain.

The 200-bed hospital is both a
general and a TB hospital. There
are four chaplains. Each year be-
tween 800 and 1,000 patients become
Christians. Gospel portions and
other Scriptures are given each pa-
tient. These are provided by inter-
ested individuals.

Linens for the hospital are given by
Women of the Church groups, Pres-
byterian Church US, through the
White Cross program. The Board of
World Missions, besides providing
personnel, gives a subsidy to the hos-
pital to help with free care for poor
patients.

The hospital also has been an ob-
jective of the annual Appalachia
Synod World Missions Conference
held at Gatlinburg, Tenn. 51

Dr. Hoffmann told the group that
he had already seen signs of the suc-
cess of Key 73. "I was scheduled
to speak at a meeting of Lutherans
involved in Key 73 in Chicago," he
said. "I was told that there would
be about 500 people at the break
fast gathering. Then about two days
before the meeting I was informed
that there would be 800 people. That
morning, when they opened the
doors of the place, 1,346 people en-
tered. We had to take away the ta-
bles and forget about the breakfast.
They stayed from 7:30 to 11:30,
wrapped up in Key 73." Dr. Hoff-
mann said this was an indication of
what will happen "if we have a mes-
sage to give."

Call to Repentance

"We have that message," he said,
"it is the message of repentance to-
ward God and faith in Jesus Christ.
And we must bring this message to
our fellowmen with a genuine feel-
ing of love — love for our fellow-
men that they might be won for Je-
sus Christ."

Dr. Theodore A. Raedeke, Execu-
tive Director of Key 73, served as
master of ceremonies for the Pan-
orama program. Others participating
were Col. John Waldron, Salvation
Army, New York City; the Rev. Vic-
tor Nelson, Billy Graham Evangelis-
tic Association, Minneapolis, Minn.;
the Rev. Paul Benjamin, Christian
Church-Churches of Christ, Lin-
coln, 111.; the Rev. Leonard R. Cham-
bers, Springfield-Cape Girardeau Di-
ocese, Springfield, Mo.; and Dr. Al-
tha Baugh, American Baptist Church-
es in the USA, Valley Forge, Pa.

Dr. Eugene R. Bertermann, chair-
man of the Mass Media Committee,
reported on the various radio and
television events starting with a
Launch Television Special to be
telecast for 30 minutes into nearly
every community in the U. S. and
Canada.

The coordinating center for the
mass media efforts for the U. S. will
be under the supervision of Dr. Ben
Armstrong, Executive Secretary of
National Religious Broadcasting
and chairman of the Sub-Commit-
tee on Mass Media. The Mass Me-
dia Office for the U. S. has been re-
cently opened in the James Build-

PAGE 4 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 3, 1973

N.P.R.F. Will Present Francis Schaeffer

ing, Madison, N. J. 07940. The tele-
phone number is 201/377-4403.

At noon daily, Christians will be
urged to stop whatever they are do-
ing and pause momentarily to pray
that millions will be led to Christ
through Key '73. Participants will
be urged to ring church bells, sound
sirens, toot horns, all to call atten-
tion to a continent-wide involve-
ment in prayer. In addition, noon-
time prayer groups will be estab-
lished.

Meeting places for prayer will be
established in offices, factories,
churches and schools. Further, mass
media will be used to make the
Noon Prayer Call a reality by bill-
boards, radio spots, television spots,
newspaper ads, news releases, posters,
bumper stickers, lapel buttons. IS

Jewish Study Discounts
Reports of Conversions

WASHINGTON, D. C. — Contrary
to reports of large-scale conversions
among Jews, the actual percentage
of Jewish students turning to Chris-
tianity is "negligible," a major Jew-
ish organization has claimed here.

B'nai B'rith says that a study of
80 major colleges made by its stu-
dent organization, the Hillel Foun-
dation, has disclosed that aggressive
programs by "Jesus People," the
Campus Crusade for Christ and oth-
er evangelical groups are not making
U. S. colleges a "Jewish disaster
area," as some Jewish leaders have
feared.

Hillel Foundation directors at
each of the 80 schools reported that
anti-Semitism has not been an "iden-
tifiable factor" in any of the Chris-
tian programs.

Results of the study, released here
at the annual meeting of B'nai
B'rith's board of directors, state that
only 15 campuses reported known
Jewish conversions and that these
generally numbered fewer than five
at each school. Only a few institu-
tions reported 25 to 30.

David M. Blumber, president of
B'nai B'rith, said the number of
non-Jewish students accepting Ju-
daism, without being proselytized,
may be equal, if not greater to those
moving the other way. El

ATLANTA — A February 15-16
rally, to be sponsored here by the
national Presbyterian and Reformed
Fellowship, will feature three ad-
dresses by the Rev. Francis A.
Schaeffer, noted author and lecturer.

Currently director of L'Abri, in
Switzerland, Dr. Schaeffer will fly
directly to Atlanta for the rally,
whose sponsors include conservative
and evangelical ministers and elders
from some eight Presbyterian and
Reformed denominations.

Dr. Schaeffer is author of Escape
from Reason, The God Who Is
There, The Church Before the
Watching World, and other books.

To be held at the College Park
Presbyterian Church, in southwest
Atlanta, whose facilities have been
loaned to NPRF for this meeting,
the program is intended to create
interest in the fellowship.

Stated purpose of NPRF is, "to
join for encouragement and mutual
assistance, those who seek in our time
the unity of a pure witness to the
Word of God and the testimony of
Jesus Christ in the communion ap-
pointed by Christ through His
apostles and prophets in the New
Testament."

The rally will kickoff promptly at
1:30 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 15, with
the first of Dr. Schaeffer's addresses,
according to the Rev. Donald C.
Graham of Montgomery, Ala., NPRF
executive director. The message will
be followed by presentations on vari-
ous aspects of the fellowship's inter-
ests by speakers from the several de-
nominations from which NPRF
draws its membership.

A business meeting of the fellow-
ship on the second day of the rally
has been announced by President G.
Aiken Taylor, Journal editor, to be
held at rally headquarters, the Hil-
ton Inn at the Atlanta airport.

Invited to attend the business meet-
ing are the inter-church relations
committees of the Orthodox Pres-
byterian Church, the Reformed Pres-
byterian Church Evangelical Synod,
and the Reformed Presbyterian
Church of North America. Others ex-
pected to be present are leaders of
the conservative coalition working in

behalf of "a continuing Church
loyal to Scripture and the Reformed
faith."

The meeting replaces a previously
announced conclave, originally sched-
uled for Jan. 4-5, and later can-
celed.

Other officers of NPRF include,
the Rev. Edmund P. Clowney, presi-
dent of Westminster Theological
Seminary, Philadelphia, vice presi-
dent; the Rev. John H. White, pro-
fessor at Geneva College, Beaver
Falls, Pa., secretary; and the Rev.
Russell E. Horton, pastor of First
Reformed Church, Lansing, 111.,
treasurer.

Other denominations from which
NPRF draws its membership, in
addition to those already listed, are,
Reformed Church in America,
United Presbyterian Church USA,
Reformed Episcopal Church, Re-
formed Church in the U.S. (Eureka
Classis) , and Christian Reformed
Church. ffl

Billy Graham Announces
Major '73 Commitments

ATLANTA — Evangelist Billy Gra-
ham announced three major overseas
commitments in 1973 upon his re-
turn from a six week around-the-
world trip. He will speak at an in-
terracial evangelism congress in
South Africa in March, in Korea in
late spring in what may be the larg-
est evangelistic crusade of his career,
and in late summer at a first-of-its-
kind youth gathering in London.

In addition, he is scheduled to
conduct major evangelistic crusades
in four American metropolitan areas
next year: Atlanta, Ga.; Minneapolis-
St. Paul, Minn.; Raleigh-Durham,
N. C; and St. Louis, Mo.

The London engagement, Aug. 27-
Sept. 2, was accepted only recently.
Graham will deliver several addresses
during SPRE (Spiritual Re-Empha-
sis) '73, an event in which 25,000
youth delegates are expected to par-
ticipate. The closing meeting will
be in Wembley Stadium with an an-
ticipated attendance of 100,000.

The evangelist noted the trip to

PAGE 5 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 3, 1973

South Africa will be his first to that
nation. He accepted the invitation
from sponsors of the South African
Congress on Evangelism on condi-
tion that the event will be totally in-
tegrated, he explained.

Graham said the crusade in Ko-
rea's capital, Seoul, may be his larg-
est because of the interest which is
being expressed. His associate evan-
gelists will preach a week in six oth-
er Korean cities in May. EE

THE CHURCH AT HOME

Austin College Is Given
$1.1 Million in U.S. Funds

SHERMAN, Tex. — A second ma-
jor funding of Austin College by the
U. S. Government in 1972 has taken
place with a $552,547 development
grant by the National Science Foun-
dation, it was announced here by Dr.
James C. Kellet Jr., director of the
College Science Improvement Pro-
grams of NSF.

Earlier, a nearly equal grant was
awarded the Presbyterian US insti-
tution by the National Endowment
for the Humanities, making a total
from government sources of $1.1 mil-
lion during the year.

The money will be used to imple-
ment the college's new educational
program which started in September,
under which major calendar changes
and degree program changes are now
operative.

The changes include two seven-
week sessions during the fall term,
three options to a degree, a program
of "individual development" which
features a faculty member as mentor
for a student throughout the college
years, and new courses of study. EE

Colleges Benefit From
Generous Family Gifts

BRISTOL, Tenn. — - Confidence in
private higher education has been
demonstrated by two prominent area
business and civic leaders through
substantial gifts to King and Emory
8c Henry colleges.

King College is receiving $250,000
from the E. Ward King family of
Kingsport, Tenn. In addition to Mr.
and Mrs. King, other family mem-
bers participating in the gift in-
clude Mr. and Mrs. John R. King,
Mr. and Mrs. E. William King, and
Mr. and Mrs. Edwin O. Norris.

Emory & Henry College will re-
ceive $300,000 from the estate of the
late Frank W. DeFriece of Bristol,
Tenn.

Announcement of the two gifts

was made by Frank W. DeFriece Jr.,
chairman of the board of trustees of
King College, at a trustee dinner on
the King College campus.

The gifts will aid both colleges in
financial campaigns currently under
way. King is conducting a $4 mil-
lion drive known as the King Ad-
vance Fund. Emory & Henry is in
its seventh year of a 10 year $10-mil-
lion EMPACT drive for academic
program and facility develop-
ment. EB

Mary Baldwin College
Expands Student Center

STAUNTON, Va. — Mary Baldwin
College will build an addition to its
existing student activities center at
an estimated cost of $500,000, it was
announced here.

Originally built in 1951, the pres-
ent center is named in honor of Mrs.
Henry E. Wenger, the former Con-
suelo Slaughter, who graduated from
Mary Baldwin in 1919.

Recent gifts from Mrs. Wenger,
and the late Mr. Wenger, of Bir-
mingham, Mich., and Fort Lauder-
dale, Fla., in the amount of $110,-
000, have been increased by contri-
butions from other sources to make
possible the addition to Wenger
Hall. EE

Lees-McRae College Fund
Approaches Million Mark

BANNER ELK, N. C. — A $50,000
grant to Lees-McRae College here
has pushed a campaign for funds for
a new physical education center and
a new student-center cafeteria close
to the million mark.

Awarded by the Smith Reynolds
Foundation of Winston-Salem, the
gift lifts the total raised to more
than $950,000. A minimum of $1.2
million is needed for the new build-
ings.

Lees-McRae is a Presbyterian US
junior college. H. C. Evans Jr. is
president. EE

Stillman Dedicates
$1.6 Million Facility

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Six years of
planning and work were culminated
with the dedication of Stillman
College's new Mathematics-Science
building here. The dedication of
the $1.6 million facility came on the
96th anniversary of the founding of
the Presbyterian US institution.

Dr. Samuel Nabrit, keynote speak-
er for the joint Founder's Day and
dedication ceremony, hailed the
modern new facility as an oppor-
tunity for Stillman to become an
oasis of black education and re-
search.

Dr. Nabrit, a prominent scientist
in his own right and the first black
to be elected to the Atomic Energy
Commission, is executive director of
the Southern Fellowships Fund
which is headquartered in Atlanta

During the joint ceremonies in
Birthright Auditorium the de-
gree of Doctor of Humane Letters
was bestowed upon Toddie Lee
Wynne Jr., of Dallas, Texas. Wynne,
a former member of the Stillman
board of trustees, is chairman of a na-
tional steering committee for Still-
man's $7.7 million capital funds cam-
paign. EH

B. Clayton Bell To Direct
Montreat Youth Conclave

ATLANTA — The Rev. B. Clayton
Bell, pastor of First Presbyterian
Church, Rome, Ga., will direct the
Montreat (N.C.) Youth Conference
August 15-19, it was announced
here.

Sponsored by the Mountain Re-
treat Association, the summer gath-
ering of high school students who
have completed the 9th, or higher
grades, has grown from 400 to over
1,000 in four years.

Frankly evangelical in leadership
and content, the conference is under
the direction of a committee headed
by Mr. Bell which also includes the
Rev. Charles E. McGowan of Atlan-
ta, the Rev. William R. Long of Dal-
las, Tex., the Rev. Robert Hender-
son of New Orleans, and the Rev.
John Akers of Montreat.

A complete list of speakers and
leaders is not yet available. How-
ever, it is known that the list will
include the Rev. James Smith, De-
troit area leader in Youth for Christ
International, and Mr. Akers, who is
professor of Bible at Montreat-An-
derson College. EB

PAGE 6 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 3, 1973

// we let Jesus be manager? life can become a new ball game —

A New Beginnin

Christmas 1972 is over. That
is, the celebrating, the merry-
making, the greetings and good wish-
es and Santa's annual visit. It all
came to a climax on that magic
morning a few days ago when love
permeated the atmosphere around
the Christmas tree, as the long
awaited moment blossomed into a
maze of wrapping paper. Indeed, for
20th century America, this is the
high point of Christmas.

But just as sure as time takes its
toll on all living things, Christmas
in this dimension is history. And as
we now look upon the spent and
fading Christmas tree, a mere shad-
ow of its former glory, we realize
that a tired and spent old year will
also soon be history and a brand
new year is fast approaching.

Although the celebrating is over,
the real Christmas, the one that lives
in our hearts, is going right on. Out
of the celebrating there comes a feel-
ing of reflection that makes us want
to take stock of our lives, to examine
ourselves. As we think back over
the past year, we recall that there
were things we didn't do that we
should have done, and things we
did do that we shouldn't have done,
and we are not happy with our-
selves.

Restlessness Within Us

We want to rectify ourselves, so
we use the coming of another year
as a convenient time to do so. We
make New Year's resolutions, resolv-
ing to change our old ways, become
a new person, make a fresh start, a
new beginning.

However, our New Year's resolu-
tions don't last. They're soon
broken and we go right back to our

The author is a Presbyterian el-
der living in Athens, Ga.

old ways, old habits, the old person
all over again. Just as though we
knew all along they would be bro-
ken, we shrug and say, "Oh well, they
weren't very important anyway."

And perhaps rightly so, for New
Year's resolutions deal mostly with
the superficial aspect of our lives and
the making of them is hardly more
than a shallow commitment to our-
selves. The very fact that we go
through these mental gymnastics,
these self promises, though, is an in-
dication that there is stirring with-
in us a restlessness which is pro-
foundly characteristic of our essen-
tial being.

Quest for Knowledge

More than 1500 years ago, Augus-
tine, one of the great Christians of
the early Church, said, "Thou hast
made us for thyself, O Lord, and
restless is our heart 'til it comes to
rest in Thee." Augustine searched
for years for the answer to the mys-
tery which plagued his quest for
truth and peace.

It's no mystery that our sophisti-
cated society, which has the capabil-
ity of providing us with everything
we think will give us comfort, se-
curity, and happiness, freedom from
fear and frustration, cannot satisfy
the restlessness, the longing for ful-
fillment, for meaning and purpose.
So we are constantly searching.

One way we attempt to find satis-
faction is through the quest for more
knowledge about the universe and
the phenomena of life. Certainly
this quest must be divinely inspired
and motivated. Increasing our knowl-
edge about His creation must surely
be according to God's plan and prov-
idence and to the ultimate fulfill-
ment of His divine purpose.

Unfortunately, as we gain more
knowledge, become more sophisti-
cated and intellectual, we feel more

A. H. BENNETT

secure and we feel less need of God.
We find it increasingly difficult to
accept on faith the truths of the Bi-
ble that seem to refute the biologi-
cal and physical laws of nature. So
we begin looking around for com-
promising religions.

God as Co-Manager

One such religion is the natural
religion which is emerging within
the Church. It believes that man is
fairly well capable of managing
things by himself, recognizing, of
course, that God is the one who got
it all started and therefore should
be retained as a partner or co-man-
ager.

This religion would shift the em-
phasis from the fatherhood of God
to the brotherhood of man; from an
evangelical Gospel mission to a social
gospel mission; from a Biblical
attitude towards obedience to God's
moral law and ethical principles to
a lenient, permissive attitude; from
a ministry which teaches the penalty
of sin to one which chooses to de-em-
phasize this fundamental tenet of
the Christian faith. It would recast
the Christian message in order to
make it more acceptable to modern
man.

Such a religion appears to be just
what we need. It appeals to our in-
tellect, it gives us something to be-
lieve in. It enables us to roll up
our sleeves and get to work to make
this a better world for Christ and
ourselves, but it is a false religion.
It will not work because it departs
from the basic truth of the Bible,
that is, God's plan of salvation for
fallen man, and it does not provide
the deep satisfaction that comes with
assurance of this salvation.

The Apostle Paul tells us that all
have sinned and fallen short of the
glory of God. The same old devil
pride that caused our first parents to

PAGE 7 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 3, 1973

fall is still hammering away at us.
Satan would have us try all devious
means to find peace.

The rich young ruler asked Jesus:
"What good thing must I do to have
eternal life?" When Jesus gave him
the truth he couldn't accept it; he
didn't get the answer he was hoping
for. A clue to the answer he was
hoping for is found in his question,
"What good thing must I do?"
He was hoping Jesus would tell him

how he could work it out for him-
self.

Possessions did not keep the rich
young ruler out of God's kingdom,
pride did. It's true he loved his
money, and Jesus knew He was deal-
ing with covetousness, but what the
young man really loved was the in-
fluence, the power, the prestige that
his money could buy. He was proud
of his wealth, his status, and his
ability to manage his own life, and

Our Lord brushed ceremony aside to get to the heart of the matter

Truth and Tradition

We know now that the laws in
the book of Leviticus forbid-
ding Israel to eat certain foods con-
tained sound scientific principles
and saved many lives. Although
these dietary laws were given long
before microscopes revealed the pres-
ence of harmful bacteria and para-
sites, they testify to the omniscience
of Israel's God and to His great love
for His people.

Without discrediting the value of
such statutes in the Mosaic code, Je-
sus nonetheless needed to warn Is-
rael against adherence to the multi-
t u d e of man-made regulations
added by the rabbis. These legalists,
referred to in the New Testament
as scribes and Pharisees, could have
been the true guides and friends of
their people by correctly teaching
the law; instead, they enslaved the
people.

Case in Point

If Jesus had cast aside the law of
God altogether, a sixth grade hy-
giene text would cause us to doubt
His authority, modern science hav-
ing vindicated Moses in the matter
of proper diet. On the other hand,
Jesus could not have set His people
free had He not exposed the misuse
and misunderstanding of the law
fostered by the leaders in Jerusalem.

Elaborate and detailed directions
had been formulated by those reli-
gious leaders who claimed to sit in

The author is an ARP minister
with an independent mission to
Jews, Atlanta, Ga.

GEORGE S. LAUDERDALE

Moses' seat. For instance, food
could not be eaten unless one's
hands had been ceremonially
washed. When Jesus brushed aside
this particular decree, the ire of the
establishment was aroused. So strong
was the hatred toward Jesus for His
nonconformity that the eyes of His
opponents were completely blinded
to the good He was doing, the glory
and praise He continually brought
the Father in heaven.

When hostile charges were leveled
against the Lord Jesus for failing to
observe the stipulation on clean
hands (by their definition) , He
pointed to a genuine law of Moses
and God which the Pharisees
chose to ignore, the fifth command-
ment. No harm is done by "de-
filed" hands at the table, but the
refusal to honor father and mother
discloses a heart black and full of
mischief, and destroys the very foun-
dation of decent society.

The Pharisees wanted to discuss
the disciples' action of eating with
unwashed hands in terms of their
tradition. Christ countered by show-
ing the relation of their tradition
to the law of God. He did not
mince words with the legalists. Call-
ing all the people to Him, He said,
"Hearken unto me every one of you,
and understand: There is nothing
from without a man, that entering
into him can defile him: but the
things which come out of him, those
are they that defile the man" (Mark
7:14-15) .

Knowing that every human heart
needs cleansing, Jesus gave His blood
to work this wonder which obedi-
ence to religious rites cannot do! SI

he couldn't bear the thought of hav-
ing someone else manage it for him.

He obeyed God's commandments
but that wasn't enough. He also
needed to let Jesus take full charge,
to trust Christ with his life. God
doesn't mind if we have great wealth,
but He does mind if we put trust
in it.

There's a beautiful old hymn we
used to sing often in the Church
We don't sing it much any more, but
I wish we did because it is a great
Christian message in song. The
fourth stanza goes: "Then in fel-
lowship sweet, we will sit at His
feet, or we'll walk by His side in the
way; what He says we will do, where
He sends we will go, never fear
only trust and obey."

We might think of life as being
somewhat like a baseball game. Not
a real game, however, because in this
game each of us individually and
singlehandedly makes up the entire
team and we are playing against the
forces of evil. Satan is manager of
the opposing team and God is man
ager of ours.

The forces of evil are at bat and
we are pitching to them. Every
time we throw the ball they get a
hit, and every hit they get is a home
run, for there is no one in the field
or on the bases to put them out.
Each run they score is a sin chalked
up against us.

Our frustration mounts. God is on
the sideline watching, eager to help,
but our pride would have us try to
work it out by ourselves. We'd like
to claim credit for having accom
plished it on our own.

When we finally subdue our own
pride and admit that we cannot over
come evil without God's help, when
we learn that it is not enough just
to obey the rules of the game, but
we must also trust our manager to
run the game according to His plan,
then He will help us gain the vic-
tory. The support we get is Jesus
Christ who, through His own ad
equacy, promptly retires the side.

Our victory is assured, for He not
only makes it possible for us to hit
the ball completely out of reach of
the forces of evil, He sees to it that
all the runs against us, our old sins,
are erased, and it becomes a brand
new ball game. We get a new be-
ginning — a new life in Christ. No
more fear, no more frustration —
our victory is won, and it is everlast-
ing. The things which are impos-
sible with men are possible with
God. 15

PAGE 8 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 3, 1973

US

pin
iter

h

In the ecumenical movement international religion is the tool of international politics —

Religion and Politics

Sincere theologians with a vision
of worldwide ecumenism have

■ worked for many years to unify
I Christ's Church. Other theologians,

■ perhaps motivated more by politics
I than religion, have worked in the

same direction for different reasons.

Thus far the goal has been frus-
trated by the sharp ideological dif-
ferences between East and West, be-
tween international capitalism and
international Communism, and by
the inability of the ecumenical move-
ment to learn the lesson which Mar-
tin Luther taught: The world can-
not be governed by the Sermon on
the Mount, especially when it is ap-
plied to only half the world.

Now some theologians are at last
beginning to criticize the political
engagement of the part of the
Church as represented by the World
Council of Churches. In the WCC,
clerical managers monopolize power
and manipulate programs. The ecu-
menical effort has become a rostrum
more for nationalists than for Chris-
tians, more for the preaching of po-
litical ideology than for the Gospel
3f Christ.

Lends Prestige

A review of the official pronounce-
ments of some of these politico-reli-
jious bodies shows the similarity be-
:ween Church and State goals when
:he Church and Church organiza-
tions are controlled by the State.

Such is the case in East Germany
(Duetsche Demokratische Republik
~>t DDR) where programs are very
ready identical. Church espousal

The author is professor of history
it West Chester State College, West
Chester, Pa., and an active Presbyte-
ian who often spends time in East-
rn Europe.

lends prestige to the DDR political
aims and Church policy remarkably
parallels that of the DDR.

In July 1970, the Lutheran World
Fellowship met at Evian, near Ge-
neva. The Independent Synod of
the Lutheran Church in East Ger-
many, established at the insistence
of the State on June 10, 1969, was
officially recognized under the name,
"The National Committee of the
Lutheran World Fellowship in the
DDR {Deutsche Demokratische Re-
publik or East Germany) ."

Twenty-three representatives from
East Germany went to Evian, the
largest number of churchmen from
East Germany ever to participate in
an ecumenical conference. The rec-
ognition of the DDR Synod by an
ecumenical body is interpreted in
the East German press as recogni-
tion of the East German state.

The Evian conference called for
membership of all States in the Unit-
ed Nations, a move which would en-
tail political recognition of East Ger-
many. It also called for a general
European security conference for
peace and coexistence and such a
conference is currently a major in-
terest of the Soviet Union.

The fact that the mining of North

Written Long Ago

We trained hard, but it seemed
that every time we were beginning
to form up into teams, we would be
reorganized. I was to learn that we
tend to meet any new situation by
reorganizing, and a wonderful meth-
od it can be for creating the illusion
of progress while producing confu-
sion, inefficiency and demoraliza-
tion. — Petronius Arbiter in 66
A.D.

CLAUDE R. FOSTER JR.

Vietnamese waters and the increased
air strikes over that country did not
provoke the USSR to cancel Presi-
dent Nixon's visit to Moscow ap-
pears to indicate that Soviet priori-
ties are in Europe and not in Asia.

The European Security Con-
ference, the SALT talks, and the
treaties with Bonn are major goals
of Soviet policy. The first two neces-
sitate American participation. The
Bonn treaties have American sup
port.

Church Did Spadework

The ground having been softened
by churchmen who did the first
spadework, the Bucharest Conference
of the Warsaw Pact nations, held
February 18-19, 1971, proposed a
European scecurity conference, nor-
mal relations between East and West
Germany, and the admission of all
States to the United Nations. The
proposed European security confer-
ence would be based on national,
not bloc, representation.

With East Germany recognized as
a legitimate State in an internation-
al arena, this would be the fulfill-
ment of policy pursued by Moscow
and East Berlin since 1949, and
the question of German unification
and the right of self-determination
for the citizens of East Germany
would thereby be evaded.

The World Council of Churches,
meeting in Addis Ababa from Jan-
uary 10-21, 1971, was also attended
by the newly organized East Ger-
man Synod, and prominent person-
alities from East Germany serve on
executive committees. The Council
condemned racism, weapon ship-
ments to South Africa, airline hijack-
ing, arbitrary political persecution,
capital punishment, and it issued a
call for peace.

The political division of the WCC

PAGE 9 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 3, 1973

was revealed in the question concern-
ing antiracism. In Arnoldshain,
West Germany, in September 1970,
the executive board of the WCC, im-
plementing the Uppsala Resolution
of 1968 that racism is patently un-
christian, agreed to provide $200,-
000 to 19 organizations dedicated to
combating racism. Most of the or-
ganizations which are beneficiaries
of the grant are located in Africa,
and some of them command guerril-
la-revolutionary armies, often Marx-
ist oriented, advocating the use of
violence in destroying the present
political order.

Simplistic Solution

In a letter to Eugene Carson
Blake, then general secretary of the
WCC, West German Bishop Her-
mann Dietzfelbinger recognized the
obligation of the Christian Church
to defend and assist people every-
where who are persecuted because
of race. However, Bishop Dietzfel-
binger protested the use of ecumeni-
cal funds for the support of guer-
rilla bands engaged in violent politi-
cal activity.

A rather simplistic solution was
offered by Mikko Juva of Finland,
president of the Lutheran World
Fellowship: "Racism is sin and sin
must be fought. Whoever is against
sin should be supported." The Lu-
theran Church in West Germany,
one of the more generous supporters
of the World Council, ruled that no
money derived from the West Ger-
man Church tax could be used in
supporting the revolutionary organi-
zations.

Difficult Position

Because of this action, the West
German Church has been attacked
in the East German press as being
in favor of racism. The East Ger-
man press quoted Dr. Blake as be-
ing amazed that a protest against
employing ecumenical funds to com-
bat racism should come from West
Germany, a country which just 27
years ago systematically sought to
execute an entire ethnic group.

The World Council finds itself
in a difficult position. It cannot al-
ter the political realities of the
world, nor can it permit itself the
liberty to criticize evils in all coun-
tries.

To engage in criticism of those
nations ruled by the "dictatorship

of the proletariat" would in all prob-
ability destroy the ecumenical move-
ment. Those nations would no
doubt respond by forbidding their
ecclesiastical delegations to attend
ecumenical meetings, and an ecu-
menical leader who engaged in such
criticism would be persona non
grata in those countries.

The price of maintaining com-
munication with East European
Churches is, no public criticism of
the Communist bloc nations. The
only evils left to criticize are those
prevailing in the Western capitalis-
tic countries. "Capitalistic evils"
should, of course, be criticized. This
one-sided attack, however, enables
Communist propaganda to exploit
the public statements of the World
Council for political gain.

The dilemma is thus to condemn
no evil or half the evil; to apparently
abandon to their fate millions of
Christians and Jews forced to live
in a political geography from which
they desire to emigrate and, on the
other hand, to antagonize the West,
from which the World Council de-
rives its greatest financial support.

Church and Marxism

The Conference of European
Churches met in Nyborg, Denmark
from April 26 to May 2, 1971, and
Dr. Werner Krusche, Bishop of
Magdeburg, East Germany, gave the
major address, following the theme
of the conference, "Servants of God,
Servants of Mankind." He said that
while the Church is not permitted
to identify itself with any particular
political or social system, it must
work for the improvement of man-
kind.

In Marxist terms, this means that
the Church must identify itself with
Marxist socialism. It may be very
edifying to have an exchange of
views at the ecumenical level, but
it would be naive to conclude that
the delegations from the Marxist so-

An Excuse

Those who make much of the Bi-
ble as only a witness to the truth
rather than itself true, are often
really concerned to underline their
emancipation from theology. — Un-
known.

cieties are free to discuss all ques-
tions publicly.

The conference, named Nyborg VI,
called for a European security con-
ference, the ratification of the Mos-
cow-Bonn and the Bonn-Warsaw
treaties, all major points in the So-
viet policy for Europe. The Church
is free to agree with the State.

The history of the Christian Peace
Conference since 1968 reveals the de-
termination of the Marxist orbit to
subordinate the Church to State pol-
icy and to exploit any ecumenical
movement for Communist propagan-
da. Josef Hromadka, a highly re-
spected Czech theologian, served as
president of the Christian Peace
Conference at its headquarters in
Europe, and he had earlier received
the Lenin Prize for International
Friendship and Peace.

After the invasion of Czechoslo-
vakia in 1968, Hromadka wrote a
letter to the Soviet authorities tell-
ing of his disappointment, regret and
shame. He added, "In my long life
I do not know of a greater tragedy."

Later, when Hromadka's colleague,
Jaroslav Ondra, general secretary of
the Christian Peace Conference, was
purged for his anti-Sovietism (among
other things) , Hromadka resigned
as president of the Christian Peace
Conference.

His successor was elected in a
meeting in Prague in the autumn
of 1971. The election of the Metro-
politan of Leningrad-Novgorod, Nik-
odim, who is the most loyal ecclesi-
astical advocate of Soviet policy, re-
veals how thoroughly the Christian
Peace Conference has been subordi
nated to political ends.

From a Censored Soviet

An interesting commentary on th<
ecumenical movement is heard wher
the voice crying for a free Gospe
freely preached does not speak frorr
the pulpit of international religion
but from the heart of a censorec
Soviet writer: In a letter at Eastei
1972, to Patriarch Pimen, Alexande;
Solschenizyn complains:

"We are losing the last traces o
Christianity. Should that not be ;
matter of concern for the Russia!
Patriarchate? The Russian Churcl!
pronounces on evil in Asia ant
Africa, but never sees the evil in he
own land. Do not permit us t<
come to the conclusion that tempora
power is more important to Russia]
churchmen than the kingdom c
God." E

PAGE 10 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 3, 1973

Convert your "wasted" moments profitably to reading time —

The Blessing of Books

When I get a little money," the
scholar Erasmus wrote, "I
buy books, and if any is left, I buy
food and clothes."

While today's Christian can — and
should — hardly go that far, he ought
to recognize that "a good book is
the best of friends, the same today
and forever," as Martin Farquhar
Tupper put it.

Paul requested, "The cloak that
I left at Troas with Carpus when
thou comest bring with thee, and
the books, but especially the parch-
ments" (II Tim. 4:13). Parch-
ments were particularly precious,
presumably either copies of Old
Testament Scriptures or possibly
manuscripts and other valuable per-
sonal documents of Paul's own.

"Blessed is he that readeth" (Rev.
1:3) applies, of course, first and
foremost to the Bible. But a host
of other publications may play an
important role in expounding the
message of the inspired Word, as
well as providing valuable addition-
al information, inspiration, and of
c o u r s e entertainment. "Reading
maketh a full man . . ." (Bacon) .

How to Choose

Dr. James M. Gray, for many
years president of Moody Bible In-
stitute, Chicago, used to travel ex-
tensively by train to Bible confer-
ences and other meetings. He al-
ways took three books along — the
Bible, a volume of Shakespeare and
the others varied.

The question arises as to how
one can select from the multitude of
volumes offered today those which
will be most helpful, and then find

The author, a staff member of
Liberty Lobby, lives in Arlington,
Va.

the time to make use of them.

First, follow your own natural in-
clinations and interests, whether cer-
tain aspects of Bible study, prophecy,
missions, devotional life, biography,
or other subjects. Your responsibil-
ity in Sunday school, church, or oth-
er organization will naturally be an
important guiding factor.

Make extensive use of reviews, ap-
pearing in all major periodicals,
both Christian and secular. Reader's
Digest performs an invaluable ser-
vice by condensing some of the best
from the nearly 25,000 new titles
issued annually. Some of them are
unworthy of the attention of Chris-
tians, but others are to be tasted or
swallowed, a few chewed and di-
gested.

Five Hours a Week

Use your local library liberally!
You don't have to buy every book
and periodical that comes along.
Even if you are not in New York,
Chicago, Washington or other ma-
jor metropolitan area, you may still
have access to much of the same vast
store of literary treasures through
the inter-library loan system now
widely used throughout the country.

Remember the importance of
stewardship of time and talent, and
learn to cultivate the odd moments
— a few minutes here and there. I
am always amazed at the large num-
ber of people who sit or stand on
bus or train 10 times every week,
staring blankly out into space, look-
ing up, down, around. If each trip
averages half an hour, that's an as-
tounding five hours a week abso-
lutely wasted!

For years I have utilized this time
effectively and have profited enor-
mously from a multitude of news-
papers, magazines, and books I
wouldn't have been able to see other-

BERNARD R. DeREMER

wise, at least until later.

Dr. S. Maxwell Coder, retired dean
of Moody Bible Institute, learned
Greek simply by studying it on his
daily trolley car trip to work in
Philadelphia. Another friend has
a habit of reading three pages a day
in some book, in addition, of course,
to his personal devotion. An out-
standing servant of the Lord from
a previous generation had his wife
read to him daily while he shavedl

'Redeeming the Time'

I keep a small devotional booklet
on the car seat at all times. When-
ever a red light or a traffic jam
looms, I read — perhaps only a few
lines, again a page or so. Whatever
it is, it's that much blessing I
wouldn't have received otherwise,
and how much better than fuming,
fretting, or fooling away time! I
always carry a magazine to the store,
barber shop, or similar place and
convert otherwise wasted time into
reading time.

One author many years ago ex-
pressed it this way:

I have only just a minute
A tiny little minute
Forced upon me, didn't

choose it
I must suffer if I lose it,
Give account if I abuse it;
Just a tiny little minute,
But eternity is in it.

"Redeeming the time, because the
days are evil" (Eph. 5:16). "As if
you could kill time without injur-
ing eternity" (Emerson) .

I have never taken any of the pop-
ular speed reading courses, but I
have friends who have found them
most profitable. I have, however,

(Continued on p. 20, col. 1)

PAGE 11 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 3, 1973

EDITORIALS

For Firmness of Resolve

In this the first editorial of the
new year of our Lord 1973, we want
to try to answer a question that has
been nagging us ever since it came
across the desk several months ago.
The question: "What is the single
greatest danger facing the Church
today?"

Trite answers aplenty come to
mind: The relaxing grasp on the
authority of the Bible. The loss of
Biblical mission. The preoccupa-
tion with social action at the ex-
pense of the Gospel.

None of these, somehow, satisfies.
We continued feeling nagged until
a copy of the latest Bulletin of a
prestigious Presbyterian seminary
came in the mail. Consisting of a
collection of outstanding sermons
and addresses delivered in connec-
tion with the close of the 1972 aca-
demic year, the messages were no-
table for their high level of devo-
tional, yes of evangelical, zeal.

It was clearly evident that church-
men are viewing the desperate needs
of our time with a new seriousness.
And then we saw it: The greatest
danger facing the Church today is
that the child of God by faith in Je-
sus Christ, the evangelical believer,
will be so beguiled when Satan dis-
guises himself as an angel of light
(II Cor. 11:14), that he will be
tempted to lay down his arms and
sign a treaty of peace.

Concerned Christians who greatly
deplore the liberalizing trends in the
Church and who readily gird them-
selves for battle when the faith once
delivered to the saints is threatened,
somehow seem equally anxious to
put their armor down if only they
are given the barest glimmering of
a reason to.

Hope springs eternal in the hu-
man breast that those who do not
know the way of our God and of His
Christ will see the error of their
ways and turn and be converted. Pro-
duce the smallest hint that this may
be about to take place and the sol-
dier of the Lord relaxes.

Nobody, but nobody, can sue for
peace quite as fast as the reluctant
champion of orthodoxy who is given

any encouragement at all to believe
the roaring lion has turned into a
lamb. This, of course, is quite nat-
ural — doesn't the Scripture say the
servant of the Lord must not strive?
Who, if he be genuinely Christ's,
relishes strife?

So we grasp at every straw: A for-
mer persecutor of evangelical funda-
mentalism becomes a leader in the
charismatic movement. Praise the
Lord! Maybe things are not as bad
as we thought they were. The archi-
tects of restructuring propose to
leave our presbytery pretty much in-
tact in the gerrymandering of the
Church. Again, praise the Lord!
Maybe things are looking up.

A conservative appears in the list
of names proposed for an important
board. Praise the Lord! Maybe
there's hope for peaceful coexistence.
A commission on the minister and
his work approves an evangelical
minister for a contested pulpit.
Praise the Lord! We're not as
threatened as we thought we were.

The denomination proclaims that
the program emphasis for the next
three years will be evangelism. Praise
the Lord! A revival has started.

When we deplore such leaps to con-
clusions we are not simply letting
the pessimistic side of our nature
show through. A careful reading of
that Bulletin reveals that nothing,
really, has changed. Those sermons
may radiate a form of evangelical
zeal, but second examination uncov-
ers the same old liberal shibboleths.
The "converted" ecumenical patri-
arch still rejoices in the spiritual vi-
tality of the modern Church. None

Offered To All

Our opponents allege that there is
no difference between the Jew and
the Gentile, and therefore the grace
of God is offered indiscriminately to
all: I grant it; only let them admit,
according to the declaration of Paul,
that God calls whom He pleases. —
John Calvin.

of those outstanding sermons are
based upon the Word — they take io
as their text a Hindu folk tale by
Krishna, or Par Lagerkvist's novel,
Barabbas. And deep in their bowels
you will find that "Jesus gave his
life away as an example of the style
of life that is truly human."

The emphasis on evangelism turns
out to be a commercial for bestow-
ing on every man the dignity of a
living wage. And only that promise
to leave presbytery lines intact can-
not be questioned for the moment —
it hasn't happened yet.

So we're back where we started
with a consideration of the greatest tea
danger facing the Church today.
This year of our Lord 1973 will be
the year of decision for many Pres-
byterians. We do most earnestly
pray that the decision will be made
on the basis of a true estimate of the
situation.

Not on the basis of some small
straw of hope that came wafting by
on the wind. 11 )«

ath
T

Bf
til
EXf

ha]
10k
ill-
kil

iVtf

T

Ess

The System
Has Changed

With considerable insight, the Rev.
J. Grant Lowe describes the "de-
mise" of the Presbyterian way of do-
ing things, which "has fallen into
disuse and is unable to meet the de-
mands of our modern society."

The name of the old game, accord-
ing to Mr. Lowe, writing in Mon-
day Morning, was competent deci-
sion-making, with elders and pastors
representing all the churches pooling
their resources of leadership to han-
dle the responsibilities of bishop.

The name of the new game is trust.
The presbytery is more likely to be
a body that hears and nods its O.K.
to issues it barely understands. In-
stead, "we trust our departments,
committees — even our hired help.
After all, good people are making
the recommendations." Under the
new system, the real decisions are
made by elected, hired, or hand-
picked people on committees, staffs
and councils.

One evidence of the degree of
change experienced by the system,
Mr. Lowe says, is that some presby-
teries have even taken to mailing a
synopsis of what happened at pres-
bytery meetings to those who attend-
ed, to make sure they get it straight
when they report to their sessions.

Now, when we think of "presby-

p

la
a.

1

PAGE 12 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 3, 1973

THE LAYMAN AND HIS CHURCH

Helping the Helpless

ery" or "synod," according to Mr.
Lowe, we think of headquarters
ather than the collective body.

There's room for much thought
here. In the years immediately af-
ter World War II, the idea of an
'executive secretary" had not yet
terminated — let alone the idea of
'executive presbyter." But in less
han ten years the idea had taken
lold and some presbyteries had three
ull-time executives. Under the new
Dhilosophy of restructuring, the pres-
byteries are supposed to have as
nany as nine.

There hasn't been that much in-
:rease in what the Church does, and
10 increase at all in what the Church
iccomplishes — in fact some are ask-
ng if the Church isn't doing less
or the Kingdom than it was doing
15 years ago when the PCUS had at
east 300 fewer executives.

One constructive effect of the
'orthcoming continuing Church
(hopefully) is that God's people will
jet back to doing the Lord's busi-
less in a less bureaucratic way. 51

Nil Desperandum !

". . . and came and sat down tin-
ier a juniper tree: and he requested
hat he might die" (I Kings 19:4) .

Satan had Elijah on the run! That
preat and seemingly fearless prophet
/vho had defied kings and slain 450
"alse prophets was running from an
ivil queen who threatened his life.
Hungry and weak from running, he
;at down and felt sorry for himself,
ind he asked God to let him die.

We who have read the finish of
Elijah's life can only exclaim, "Die?
When there were still such great
hings to be done?" Two kings and
i prophet had to be found and
inointed for service. Die? This
jreat man who had been so mightily
lsed of God and was chosen to go
)ut in a blaze of glory, die in the
vilderness alone? A thousand times
10!

But remember that "Elijah was
i man of like passions with us." As
s so common with men after a great
piritual battle and victory, he went
nto a spiritual slump. He took his
"yes off God and got them on earth-
y things and down, down, down
vent his spiritual thermometer.

God had the answer to all of Eli-
an's questions, all of his fears, just
is He has to our questions and fears
is well, if we will but listen to the
'still small voice." And God still
ras ministering angels to strengthen

Sometimes those of us of the older
generation look down on the under-
thirty crowd. We unfairly lump
them all with the small percentage
who selfishly demand what they
want regardless of whether this is
best for society in general.

But there are young Americans
whose ideals are "other" oriented,
who live unselfishly, even danger-
ously, working for constructive
causes. Those youth who function
under the direction of World Relief
Commission in Bangladesh, Viet-
nam, Korea and Chile are in this
class.

In Vietnam, a compassionate
young American nurse cuddles a
whimpering little patient at Hoa
Khanh Children's Hospital. The
baby feels the love and snuggles
down.

An American fellow with auto-
motive know-how reaches out to the
teen-age boys in a little hamlet. Per-
haps many of the boys are orphans
and unless they can become self-sup-
porting they will get into trouble.
Learning what makes a motor go
keeps these youngsters interested and
teaches them a trade whereby they
can become self-sufficient and self-
respecting.

A social worker feels gratified
when she looks at the alert preschool-

The layman's viewpoint this week
is brought by Mrs. Everett S. Graf-
jam, staff writer for World Relief
Commission, Valley Forge, Pa. WRC
is the overseas relief arm of the Na-
tional Association of Evangelicals.
Mrs. Graffam also is president of the
Women's Association of First Pres-
byterian Church, Norristown, Pa.

weak knees and fainting hearts. For
of His angels He said, "For are they
not all ministering spirits, sent forth
to minister for them who shall be
heirs of salvation?" (Heb. 1:14).
Think of how much Elijah would
have missed had God answered his
prayer for death!

Never say die while God says live!
— Ruby Sailor. 51

ers who come to the day care center.
She remembers when they first came.
They were lethargic, suffering from
malnutrition. Now they are learn-
ing new skills and receive nourish-
ing meals daily.

In Chile, a young man became
concerned about a practical outreach
of the Gospel when he noticed the
high mortality rate of infants. He
concluded that pregnant women
needed better nutrition, so instituted
nutrition and cooking classes using
American foods-for-peace.

In Korea, poverty-stricken fam-
ilies are working hard to reclaim
useless land. But they need food,
clothing, and medical attention
while building roads, dairy barns,
and preparing soil for crops in food-
for-work projects. The U. S. Gov-
ernment provides surplus foods used
as wages. World Relief Commis-
sion contributes know-how, clothing,
medicine and blankets.

Here a young American feels his
work is important as he follows New
Testament teaching to care for the
poor: "If a brother or sister is naked
and destitute of daily food, and one
of you say unto them, Depart in
peace, be warmed and filled; not-
withstanding you give them not
those things which are needful to
the body, what doth it profit?" asked
James.

Then he answered the question:
"A man may say, You have faith and
I have works: show me your faith
without your works and I will show
you my faith by my works ... by
works was faith made perfect"
(James 2:15-22).

These are only a few of the situa-
tions where Christian youth are help-
ing to relieve misery and pain among
the world's victims of war, poverty
and illiteracy. Much of the day-to-
day work of the World Relief Com-
mission overseas is done by the un-
der-thirty crowd, both American and
national.

These young people are "workers
together with God" as they help the
helpless with "food for the body and
food for the soul" in various areas
around the world. 51

PAGE 13 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 3, 1973

p

SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON

For January 21, 1973

God's Concern for His People

Rev. Jack B. Scott

If

if

INTRODUCTION: In the over-
all structure of the prophecy of Ezek-
iel, the first 33 chapters occur be-
fore the news of the fall of Jeru-
salem. They are primarily judgmen-
tal in nature.

These are followed by the record
of the news of the fall which reached
Ezekiel and the Jews in Babylon.
This event in 586 B.C. is recorded
in Ezekiel 33:21-33.

The final section of Ezekiel begins
with this 34th chapter, our subject
for today. The latter half of Ezek-
iel is concerned with prophecies af-
ter 586 B.C. and points to the hope
for the remnant which trusts in the
Lord.

I. THE FAILURE OF HUMAN
RESOURCES (vv. 1-6). If men are
ever to have hope in the Lord and
trust Him, they must first despair
of men. So long as men believe they
or their leaders are sufficient, they
will never realize their need of God.

From the beginning, the Lord has
shown us man's frailty and failure
so that we can learn that there is no
hope other than through Jesus
Christ. Both the Old Testament
and New Testament consistently
keep this truth before us, as does this
34th chapter. In many ways it is
comparable to Isaiah 53 in its clear
portrait of Jesus Christ.

These first six verses teach us the
failure and utter hopelessness of hu-
man resources. The prophecy is lev-
eled against the shepherds of Israel
(v. 2) , the spiritual leaders of the
people, particularly the kings who
were supposed to lead God's people
to do His will. The condemnation
is probably wider than the kings,
however, since Jeremiah (2:8)
lumped together the three spiritual
offices as all failures and all guilty
before God.

The terminology here is that of
the shepherd and his sheep — the
sheep being the people of the house
of Israel, the Church, and the shep-
herds being the spiritual leaders.

The plight of the sheep is de-
scribed as desperate. They are hun-
gry, diseased, lost, they have been

Background Scripture: Ezekiel 34
Key Verses: Ezekiel 34:1-2, 7-15
Devotional Reading: Psalm 23
Memory Select! sa: Ezekiel 34:31

scattered and have become a prey
for the beasts of the field (vv. 3-5) .

Why were they in this predica-
ment? The shepherds whom God
appointed to be the protectors, lead-
ers and providers, were concerned
only for themselves. They had not
loved their neighbors. They clothed
themselves with the wool of the
sheep, i.e., they had made profit
from the poor and helpless children
of God (vv. 2-3) .

Instead of tending to the needs of
God's children who were sick and
diseased, they were cruel to them.
They had acted like the Pharoahs
of Egypt when Israel was in slavery,
"With force and vigor have ye ruled
over them" (v. 4. Compare Exo. 1:
13).

The situation given here by Ezek-
iel does not greatly differ from what
is described by the prophets Amos,
Hosea and Micah about the cruel-
ties of the leaders and the rich to-
ward the needy in Israel. (Compare
Hosea 4:6f., Amos 2:6f., Micah 2: If.,
etc.)

It is profitable to compare this de-
scription of these evil shepherds with
Jesus' own picture of the good shep-
herd as given in John 10. In the last
analysis, it is because men fail to
help one another that God must and
does intervene — if man is to have
help.

The words of verse 6 complete
the picture of the desperate situa-
tion: "There was none that did
search or seek." This is one of the
Scripture's great lessons. ( Compare
Isa. 59:15b and 16.) If anything was
to be done, God must do it. Jere-
miah taught this same lesson in oth-
er words. Man cannot attain to
God's standards so God must change
man's heart. Here in Ezekiel from
another point of view we see that

The International Sunday School Lesson Outlines
are copyrighted 1972 by the Committee on the
Uniform Series of the National Council of
Churches of Christ.

since there is no hope in man him >*
self for his own salvation, God musi K
intervene if man is to be saved.

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II. THE INTERVENTION OF
DIVINE HELP (vv. 7-16) . This sec-
tion has two basic parts: the judg-
ment against the false shepherds de-
scribed above; and the saving of the
sheep by God.

Verses 7 to 10 speak primarily ol
the condemnation of the false shep
herds; God was declaring war on
them; He would require His sheep at
their hands (v. 10) . This latter
statement ties in closely with our last
lesson about the responsibility of
the one whom God appointed as a
watchman to care for His people
(Ezek. 33:6).

The closing words condemn again
the false shepherds and say that God ^
will destroy them (v. 16) . They
will be fed with justice. This means
that since they failed to show jus-
tice in their own lives as God de-
manded, they will feel the sure jus-
tice of God against them.

God's justice has in it both the
will of God for what men ought to
do in dealing with one another, and
the punishment of God against those
who fail to do His will. Therefore
if one fails in the former justice, he
must feel the sting of the latter jus-
tice.

Verses 11 to 16 primarily deal with
the good work of God, the good shep-
herd, in saving His sheep. Isaiah
had already introduced this picture
of God as the good shepherd (Isa.
40:10-11. See also Micah 5:4, whi#j
is a Messianic passage) . All through; j
both the Old and New Testaments,
the shepherd motif is to be found.

In addition to its application to
God himself, it is also applied from
time to time to spiritual leaders of
the Church. Some of these spiritual
leaders themselves had literally been
shepherds of sheep: Abraham, Moses,
David and Amos. In the New Tes-
tament, Jesus used the figure of the
shepherd to describe His own rela-
tionship to the Church. (See partic-
ularly John 10:1-8 and Luke 15:3-7.)

PAGE 14 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 3, 1973

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The relationship between Ezekiel
54 and John 10 is evident to all who
•ead the two passages. In the book
)f Acts and the Epistles, the term
hepherd or pastor is often applied
o the spiritual leaders in the Church
(Acts 20:28; I Pet. 5:24.) I Peter 2:
!5 is in essence a comment on Ezek-
el 34:1 If.

The following gracious acts of
jrod relate to the salvation of the
ost sheep: God will search and seek
hem out; He will bring them out
rom the world; He will feed them
n good places; He will give them
jeace and protection; and He will
leal the weak and broken (vv. 11-
.6) . One can see in this the very
vork of Jesus Christ Himself. We
ire reminded also of David's beauti-
ul song, Psalm 23.

In other words, God will do all
hat men fail to do. God will do
-limself all that is necessary for the
alvation of men.

III. THE JUDGMENT OF THE
IHEEP (vv. 17-24) . While the lead-
ers of the Old Testament Church
vere rightly condemned for their
infulness and failure to do God's
krill, the rest were not exonerated.
\s Hosea said, "Like people, like
)riest" (Hos. 4:9), and as Amos
aid, "All the sinners of my people
till die" (Amos 9:10) .

The Lord declared: "I judge be-
ween sheep and sheep, the rams and
he he-goats" (Ezek. 34:17). The
>eople were guilty, too, for they
iked to follow in the footsteps of
heir leaders (v. 19) . Jesus used
his same terminology of judging be-
ween sheep and goats. The sheep
ire saved but the goats are con-
temned (Matt. 25:31-46) .

The reference to the fat and lean
heep (Ezek. 34:20) probably refers

0 the sins before mentioned by
imos and Hosea. The ill treatment
)f the poor, the rich getting richer,
he poor getting poorer, as the
wealthy, proud members of the
church took advantage of the poor

lind meek believers, taking from
Ihem what they had (Amos 2:6-7) .

1 We have the promise that God
■till redeem (vv. 22-24) . He will
Wo what men have utterly failed to
Ho. The one shepherd to be set
■>ver them is called David here be-
lause in the Old Testament David is
it type of the true Christ. In addi-
tion, the Messiah is consistently
lalled the son of David (Isa. 9:7, 55:
m-5; Jer. 30:9. See also the begin-
Ijiing of Matthew's Gospel) .

Several great truths concerning
the Saviour to come are to be noted.
First, there is one shepherd, i.e., one
Redeemer and therefore only one
way of salvation (John 14:6; Acts
4:12). Consistently from the be-
ginning God has given us hope in
only one person. He is called the
seed of the woman; He is also
spoken of in terms of Abraham's
seed (Gen. 3:15, 13:15, 17-18), the
one seed which is Christ (Gal. 3:16) .
This is of course consistent with the
doctrine of Deut. 6:4, where there
is one Lord. (Compare Eph. 4:4-6.)

Second, the Lord shall feed them
(v. 23) . The Lord promises to pro-
vide what is needed to all of His
own. In the world, He promises to
meet their every need {Matt. 6:25-
32) and for eternity He promises re-
wards of blessings, an inheritance in-
corruptible and undefiled that will
not fade away (I Pet. 1:4) .

Third, by this one redeemer and
shepherd, God promises to accom-
plish what men under the old cove-
nant could not, i.e., He will indeed
be their God (v. 24) . Before the
giving of the law at Sinai, the Lord
had declared His intent that Israel
should be His people and He be
their God (Exo. 19:5-6) .

But when the people failed to
obey the Lord, Israel as a whole was
cut off from being His people (Hos.
1:9) . Now under the new covenant,
which Jeremiah foretold, by the
work of the one shepherd redeemer
the Lord will continue to be the
Lord of His people who put their
trust in Him.

IV. THE COVENANT OF
PEACE (vv. 25-31) . God's promises
are often spoken of in terms of peace.
From the time of sin's entrance in-
to the life of man, enmity has been
the state that exists in the world be-
tween the children of God and the
children of Satan, (the believers and
the unbelievers) . Therefore, it is
easy to see why God would speak of
the peace for which God's people
should hope.

All of Israel's history was marked
by the warfare which was fought as
Satan and his people sought to op-
pose and unseat Israel from the land
of promise, Canaan. God Himself
sent Israel into Canaan to unseat
the sinners there because sin cannot
be tolerated and sinners will be pun-
ished. Wars and rumors of wars are
a real part of all of man's history.
Wars are but a symptom of the en-
mity that has occurred among men

because of sin.

Peace is clearly identified with the
work of the Christ in the Old Testa-
ment. Isaiah called the Christ the
Prince of Peace (Isa. 9:6) . Peace is
promised, therefore, to those who
put their trust in Him (Isa. 26:3,
12) . When the Redeemer died for
us, He suffered that we might have
peace (Isa. 53:5) . Isaiah called this
a covenant of peace (Isa. 54:10) .

In the New Testament our Lord
spoke often of His peace which He
purposes His believers to have. The
peace of which Jesus spoke is not
the kind of peace which the world
can give. It is a peace in the heart,
to keep the heart from being trou-
bled in times of trial (John 14:27) .

This peace comes from belief in
the Lord and in His Word. Peace
comes through faith in Christ (John
16:33) . Jesus pointed out that al-
though the world may be stormy in-
deed, the peace which He promises
to those whose hearts are stayed on
Him will not be shaken in spite of
the tribulation (John 16:33) .

Paul declared that, having been
justified by faith, we have peace
through our Lord Jesus Christ (Rom.
5:1). It is this peace of Christ
which rules in our hearts to give us
peace in the midst of the storms of
life (Col. 3:15) .

You may recall that once in a
storm on the Sea of Galilee, the dis-
ciples were filled with fear and re-
buked Jesus because He was able to
sleep through the storm. They
pleaded for Him to stop the storm.
He did so, but He roundly rebuked
them for their lack of faith. They
had Him with them, after all. This
should have been enough. Jesus had
peace, even in the midst of the
storm, and this is the peace He
promises to give to those who trust
in Him.

At the same time, being no longer
at enmity with God, we are assured
that all things work together for
good to those who love Him (Rom.
8:28) . This is the basis of our peace,
our faith in and love for God, and
this basis is established on the ac-
complished work of Christ, our Re-
deemer.

Peace as a result of our faith in
Christ brings peace also between us
and others who believe. The old
enmities that separated us from God
and from one another, are removed.
Fellow believers become friends in
Christ (Eph. 2:11-22) .

(Continued on p. 17, col. 1)

PAGE 15 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 3, 1973

YOUTH PROGRAM

For January 21, 1973

God is Here and He Is Speaking

Scripture: II Timothy 3:16
Suggested Hymns:

"Wonderful Words of Life"
"Tell Me the Old, Old Story'
"Standing On the Promises"

PROGRAM LEADER'S INTRO-
DUCTION: We have been studying
some evidences from nature that
points to the existence of God. These
can strengthen our faith, but are not
necessarily enough to convince a per-
son that God really exists.

One man has said, "I believe that
if there is a God, He has shown
Himself to man, and has done so
more than just in the realm of na-
ture which can be interpreted in
many different ways. I believe that
He has revealed Himself in a very
personal and real way — a way that
all of us can know. That way is
through the Bible."

Let us take the Bible and observe
what it says concerning itself. Turn
in your Bible to II Timothy 3:16.
(Read it together.) Notice that it
says "all" Scripture, not some or
most Scripture, is inspired by God,
and it is to be used for doctrine, re-
proof, correction, and for instruc-
tion in the right way of living. The

Rev. Henry J. Mueller

next verse says the Bible does all
this so that a Christian will be able
to know God's will for his life each
day.

The first phrase of verse 16 is
what we need to think about now.
All Scripture is given by inspiration
of God. We will talk about the
word "inspired" later. This phrase
says there is a God who had some-
thing to do with the writing and
transmission of the Bible. He had
something to do with all the Bible,
the Old and New Testaments, in ev-
ery part.

FIRST SPEAKER: We don't base
our understanding of what the Bible
claims for itself on just one verse.
Let's turn to Hebrews 1:1 and read
it together. Here God is mainly
talking about the Old Testament.
He spoke to His people by the
prophets.

In other words, what we read in
the Scriptures of the Old Testament
(this verse particularly points to the
books of the prophets and the his-
torical books) is something God
spoke. We can check for ourselves.

Let's turn to the book of Jeremiah.
We will just take one verse in the in-
terest of time. Turn to Jeremiah 7:1.
(Read it together.) In almost every

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page of Jeremiah we can find a simi
lar sentence.

In this passage Jeremiah stood up jj
in the temple and addressed the peo
pie assembled for worship. He spoke
to them, but not just the words ol
his own imagination. Jeremiah spoke
to the people that which came to him
from the Lord. He wasn't giving!^
them the words of man but of God
They were not his opinions of some
thing God told him. He was God's
spokesman to the people.

In chapter 36 of Jeremiah we find
that God commanded Jeremiah tc
write down all that had been given
to him to say. This gives us an in-
sight as to how God spoke through
the prophets and had them record
it for all people.

Jesus' use of the Old Testamenl
shows that He regarded it as God's
Word. This should be enough tc
convince even the most sincere
doubter. (For more study of this
read and discuss Matthew 4:1-11 and
5:17-20.)

SECOND SPEAKER: We can gc P
on and on through the Scripture;
and find that the Bible makes this
claim for itself — it is the Word oi
God. This is all the further we wil
go at this time. We are just to rec
ognize that the Bible claims to b*
God's Word.

Now, if this is true, and we car
examine to see if it is, then this i
a very unique book. No other bool
has made this claim for itself. Nc
other book has said that it is tm
word of God. That makes it very
very important for all of us.

If we want to know God, and that
is what we are asking, then we have
to turn to the place He has revealed
Himself. (We are still saying "if
— nobody has to accept this.)

If we want to know God then we
will go to a place that claims thai
this is where we find God — this
is how we come to know God. Sc
how do we test whether the Scrip
ture is the Word of God?

The first test we might make is ir
the realm of prophecy. Does it mak4

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PAGE 16 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 3, 1973

a claim that something was supposed
to happen? Did it? Jeremiah 51:41-
43 prophesies that the city of Bab-
ylon would be destroyed. If you read
this passage and compare it to the
facts of history you will find that ev-
ery bit has happened.

The greatest prophecy of the Old
Testament concerns Jesus Christ.
The Old Testament talks about Him
in a very personal way. It predicts
His birth of a virgin and where He
is going to be born. It tells of how
and where He is going to live. It
talks about things He will say. His
death is foretold in very specific
terms. These prophecies were all
very clearly and literally fulfilled.

(An excellent visual aid pointing
out fulfilled prophecies is the Moody
science film, "The Professor and the
Prophets," available from your
Christian film distributor.)

PROGRAM LEADER'S CON-
CLUSION: Fulfilled prophecy is
very strong evidence that the Bible
is the Word of God. The prophets
didn't just have an intuitive gift.
God told them that something was
going to happen and how it was to
happen — and it did!

Closing Prayer. EE

S. S. Lesson— from p. 75

We see, then, why this covenant
spoken of by both Isaiah and Ezek-
iel is called the covenant of peace.

The closing words of this chapter
recall us to God's earliest revelation
of the very meaning of His name.
His name, Yahweh or Jehovah or
Lord, means, "He will be" with us
(Exo. 3:12-15). All through the
history of His dealings with His peo-
ple, God has ever reassured us that
He is the God who is with us (Josh.
1:9; Isa. 7:14; Matt. 1:23, 28:20).
And if God be with or for us, then
who can be against us? (Rom. 8:
31). El

If you are moving to an area where
there is no congregation of the
Presbyterian Church in the U. S.
you may find an Orthodox Presby-
terian Church nearby. A Directory
of Churches and Chapels of the
Orthodox Presbyterian Church
will be sent upon request. Please
address: Orthodox Presbyterian
Church Directory, 7401 Old York
Road, Philadelphia, Pa. 19126.

BOOKS

THE STRUCTURE OF BIBLICAL
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Wm. B. Eerdmans Publ. Co., Grand
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associate pastor, Covenant Presbyte-
rian Church, Columbia, S. C.

The entire concept of authority
is not only questioned in our day,
it is rejected by many. It is refresh-
ing to know that there are conserva-
tive scholars who deal vigorously with
the subject as it applies to Scrip-
ture.

The author, professor of Old Tes-
tament at Gordon-Conwell Theologi-
cal Seminary, offers a reinterpreta-
tion of the nature of the canonicity
of Scripture, based on a reexamina-
tion of the history of the formation

of the canonical Scriptures from Mo-
ses on.

For Dr. Kline, the formal model
for the Biblical canon concept is
found in the ancient Near Eastern
treaties. This was articulated in his
previous book, Treaty of the Great
King, now out of print. In By Oath
Consigned the author asserted that
these treaties were of vast impor-
tance for the interpretation of the
Biblical covenant itself and were
significant for the recovery of the
meaning of circumcision and bap-
tism as covenant signs.

In this book Dr. Kline studies the
doctrine of the Word, focusing
mainly upon the Old Testament,
but some added helps for under-
standing the formation of the New

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PAGE 17 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 3, 1973

Testament are also given. He states
that the Bible as a whole is in its
literary-legal form a covenantal doc-
ument.

The book has apologetic value as
well. Indeed, the book is dedicated
to Cornelius Van Til, who, accord-
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Dr. Kline answers the claims of the
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This is a difficult book to read.
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previously mentioned books, it will
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The needed emphasis of Biblical
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of John 15, the vine chapter. The
title conveys the interpretation the
author places on this passage. The
indwelling Christ is the secret of the
Christian life.

Perhaps a few quotes will aid in
getting his point of view. "All He
(Jesus) wanted to do was to show
people how to come into union with
God so that He could transform
their lives into contentment and
useful service .... The crusade to
change society or others is ever more
attractive than the mission to trans-
form ourselves .... Conversion does
involve a human committal, but it
is essentially a divine act."

Although dealing with the pro-
found, the author writes in a non-
technical, easy to read style. SI

WANTED: Second-hand electric organ
for small church. Stoneville Presbyterian
Church, Box I, Stoneville, N. C. 27048.

WANTED: Dedicated workers to serve in
Children's Home. Couple or lady willing
to give up much to provide Christian
training for children. Young at heart. For
additional information contact Superin-
tendent, Box 1108, Laurel, Miss. 39440.

INVITATION TO PILGRIMAGE, March
1-22, 1973, with Dr. Robert Strong, Dr.
John R. Richardson, Rev. Sam Patterson,
Dr. William T. Strong, to Jerusalem,
Bethlehem, Galilee, Nazareth, Athens,
Rome, Florence, Geneva — by Jet 747,
finest accommodations. Write Dr. Robert
Strong, 2052 S. Hull Street, Montgomery,
Ala. 36104, for descriptive brochure.

NEW for PHASE TWO
of KEY 73

Here is a 140 page Layman's
Guide to the Study of Luke

MESSAGE TO THEOPHILUS
Studies in Luke's Gospel

by Rev. Elbert M. Williamson

"This is one of the best commen-
taries on the Gospel of Luke that I
have ever read . . ." L. Nelson Bell

Order from:
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BROWNSVILLE, TENNESSEE
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$1.50 each

in

PAGE 18 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 3, 1973

Iff!

k

MAN'S PROBLEMS: GOD'S AN-
SWERS, by J. Dwight Pentecost.
Moody Press, Chicago, 111. Paper, 192
pp. $1.95. Reviewed by Burt D.
Braunius, director of Christian educa-
tion, Mcllwain Memorial Presbyterian
Church, Pensacola, Fla.

Problems plaguing people of God
are dealt with in this book. Pre-
pared with the needs of the local
congregation in mind, it helps to
enable Christians to find God's an-
swers to the problems they face day
by day. Dr. Pentecost is able to pin-
point man's problems, because he
is a noted Bible expositor as well as
minister at the Grace Bible Church,
Dallas, Texas.

A chapter is devoted to each of
the following problems basic to man-
kind: guilt, suffering, disappoint-
ment, worry, doubt, irritability, dis-
couragement, living for Christ in a
business world, monotony, resent-
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finding the will of God and materi-
alism.

Each chapter follows the same
helpful format: statement of a spe-
cific problem, reference to a Scrip-
ture passage which deals primarily

with the problem, definition of the
problem, and then description of in-
stances throughout Scripture where
the problem occurs. Individuals in
Scripture who wrestled with this
same problem are analyzed. The
reader is shown how God dealt with
the problem in those lives and then
he is challenged to deal with his in a
similar way.

Pastors as well as laymen will find
this book extremely helpful for use
in counseling. Many will want to
have extra copies for distribution
to the troubled who are seeking
God's guidance. EE

MINUTE PRAYERS, ed. by Edward
Viening. Zondervan Publ. House,
Grand Rapids, Mich. Paper, 336 pp.
$1.95. Reviewed by Mrs. Bettie B.
Parker, Weaverville, N. C.

This book is a sequel to God's
Minute which has sold over 1,000,-
000 copies. These prayers, written
by lay Christians and ministers, have
a related Scripture text for each day.

Minute Prayers would be a good
way to start, end, or supplement
each day's spiritual diet. EE

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A Dictionary of Illustrations

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A Question of Conscience

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Blessing— from p. II

sought to practice some of the same
principles in a sort of "do-it-yourself"
approach. One method is simply to
run your finger down the middle of
the column of type and try to grasp
the meaning without reading every
word of every line. This won't
transform you into a John F. Ken-
nedy, but it will certainly increase
your efficiency.

Plenty to Read

We need all the help we can get,
because the opportunities today are
enormous. The Library of Con-
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stitution, recently expanded its 15.5
million main card catalog into a
third room to provide for a mini-
mum of 10 and maximum of 20
years' growth. "Of making many
books there is no end" (Eccl. 12:12) .

Paul urged Timothy to "devote
yourself to (public and private)
reading" (I Tim. 4:13, ANT), and
to meditation, among other exer-
cises, "so that your progress may
be evident to everybody." The same
formula still works, and the chal-
lenge has never been greater than
it is today. Efl

The Reformation:
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BASIC
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a precise examination of the
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Some N.T. Word Studies

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Penetrating and personal discussion leads
the reader to examine the life of his own
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Paper, $1.50

OUR GUILTY
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The Church, the Gospel,
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Stott finds today's church displaying more
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gelistic mission. An effective challenge to
the individual Christian who too frequently
keeps guilty silence. Paper, $1.45

WM. B. EERDMANS PUBLISHING CO. Grand Rapids, Michigan 49502

PAGE 20 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 3, 1973

VOL. XXXI, NO. 37

JANUARY 10, 1973

$4.00 A YEAR

the

Advocating continuation of a Presbyterian Church loyal

to Scripture and the Reformed faith

To a Son at College

Son, it may come as a shock to you to know this, but I was
young once too. And I'd like to tell you that I know more
about being young than you know about being old.

You are fortunate to be a citizen by birth of the greatest
country on this earth. Your generation has been freed of the
nagging worries of food, clothing and shelter. You're the
product of an af fluency which has been created for you by
your parents.

Today's generation is able to afford a hypersensitivity to
social problems. I would like you to know this, my son: sensi-
tivity is not the property of the young, nor was it invented in
1 950. Your generation didn't invent it, you don't own it. What
you seek to attain all mankind has sought to attain throughout
the ages.

— William F. McCurdy
(See p. 7)

S. S. LESSON AND YOUTH PROGRAM FOR JANUARY 28

ic

CIRCLE BIBLE STUDY FOR FEBRUARY

ic
(S

<JW00

DM IITH I^dteiJO

IP

MAI LB AG

STICK TO LAW ... IF IT SUITS

I was interested to read Brother
Ben L. Rose's remark to the effect
that "until the constitution is so
amended, the parties to the constitu-
tion have no right to exercise a pow-
er not specifically delivered." (Jour-
nal, Dec. 13.)

Now I question, even more than

before, the constitutionality of union
presbyteries with the UPUSA, be-
cause the exercise of such a power
to unite has not been "specifically
delivered" since the constitution was
not changed, nor amended by due
process — in fact it still has not
been properly amended.

It points out all the more where

the

PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL

Rev. G. Aiken Taylor, Ph.D., Editor
Rev. Henry B. Dendy, D.D., Managing Editor

Circulation leader among independent publications in the Presbyterian-Reformed world

THIS WEEK— Vol. XXXI, No. 37, January 10, 1973

Letter to a College Youth 7

A father reminds his son that the younger generation has no
monopoly on hopes and dreams By William F. McCurdy

Ministry on Campus 9

When the faith of our fathers reaches the campus, it doesn't
look much like religion By Dave Steffenson

Let's Quit Abusing Romans 8:28 11

Paul's words are being misapplied to mean something the
apostle never intended By Roger Turner

De partments —

Editorials 12

The Layman and his Church 13

Sunday School Lesson, January 28 14

Youth Program, January 28 16

Circle Bible Study, February 17

Book Reviews 20

THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL, a

Presbyterian weekly magazine, devoted
to the statement, defense, and propa-
gation of the Gospel, the faith which
was once for all delivered to the saints,

is published every Wednesday by the
Southern Presbyterian Journal Co.,
Inc., in Weaverville, N. C.

SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: $4 a year
for individuals, $3 for members of
Every Family Plan churches. All cor-
respondence regarding subscriptions,
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Second class postage paid at Weaver-
ville, N. C. 28787.

POSTMASTER: Send Form 3579 to
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erville, N. C. 28787. Subscribers
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old and new addresses (with zip
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NEWS AND EDITORIAL correspond-
ence should be addressed to P. 0. Box
3108, Asheville, N. C. 28802. Editorial
offices located at 247 Charlotte St. in
Asheville.

TELEPHONES: (All area 704) edi-
torial office, 254-4015, 254-4016;
business office, 645-3310, 645-3962.

certain elements of the constitution
stand in the way of some desired
action, such as union, such elements
are not always amended — they some-
times are simply ignored.

— (Rev.) Adrian R. Munzell
Miami, Fla.

That also could apply to such matters
as the gift from the Board of Chris
tian Education to Florida Governor
Askew's primary campaign. — Ed.

MORE ON ADOPTION

I have received some interesting
comments regarding my sermon on
the doctrine of adoption which you
printed in the Dec. 6 issue. One of
the questions that Christians may
have in discovering their distinctive
quality as the adopted sons of God
is: "What do I say to my non-
Christian friends whom I do not
wish to alienate? Are they not dis-
tinctive?"

I think that if we examine Gen-
esis carefully, we do find that there
is a distinctive quality, species spe-
cific, about every man. Some peo
pie have suggested that man's great-
ness is in his social outreach; others
have pointed to man's unique adapt
ability for survival.

Important as these two qualities
may be, they miss the point of Gen
esis. From the Biblical standpoint
man is made in God's image. He
has been given the unique responsi
bility of developing the garden be
cause man alone has been given th<
genius of creative ability.

When we say that man has beer
created in God's image, the most im
portant aspect of this Biblical trut|j
it seems to me, is that man wfj
made a creative creature. When mai
develops his creative ability, hi
greatness and uniqueness becom
evident.

If I were to undergo a serious op
eration, for example, I would wan
one of God's most creative surgeons
Preferably, I would receive treat
ment from a strong Christian and
highly skilled surgeon. But if th
Christian is poorly skilled, let mi
have a man who knows his work
have confidence in man's unique
ness and his desire to fulfill his ere
ative ability. (I may wish that h
had been a Christian after receivin
his bill.)

But the Bible makes plain wha
is the distinctive quality (quality i
a poor word, perhaps "power"
better) of the Christian life. It
that we are adopted children of Goc
The relationship becomes persona

Btes

prtf
:r
ai

as the fullness of God's person be-
comes a part of us.

When man becomes aware of this
new distinctiveness, the second
birth, he recognizes his creative abil-
ity as God-given and says with the
psalmist, "What is man that Thou
art mindful of him? And the son
of man that Thou dost care?"
— (Rev.) Charles Somervill
Purcell, Okla.

YOUTH WORK IN BRAZIL

The Alianca Biblica Universita-
ria do Brasil, a part of the Interna-
tional Fellowship of Evangelical
Students, wishes to extend its deep
appreciation to you for your in-
spired Christian magazine which we
have received regularly throughout
1972.

We would like to share with you

that this weekly magazine has con-
tributed much to our own spiritual
growth and has helped us in our
preparation of Bible studies, Chris-
tian debates, as well as student meet-
ings in secondary schools and uni-
versities throughout our country.

We have great plans for the evan-
gelization of Brazilian youth and
we hope that you will continue your
kindness in sending the Journal.

I am enclosing some samples of
"mini-messages" from the Word of
God that we distribute as tracts in
schools and universities. We are
having good results from these, for
which we praise the Lord. We call
the series, "Gotas da Verdade"
("Drops of Truth") . The Lord is
using these in Brazil to bring many
souls to Himself.

— (Rev.) Diniz Prado de Azambuja
Belo Horizonte, Brazil

MINISTERS

Dean A. Bailey from Memphis,
Tenn., to the Westminster church,
Charleston, S. C.
Efrain Buenfil from Kingsville,
Tex., to the El Buen Pastor
Church, Austin, Tex.
Clarence P. Buss from the mili-
tary chaplaincy to graduate study,
Burbank, Cal.

Edward V. Cartwright from Tec-
umseh, Okla., to Bryan County
Larger Parish, Durant, Okla.
Charles A. Cobden from Enid,
Okla., to the First Church, Chick-
asha, Okla.

Herman E. Fisher from Havelock,
N. C, to the Oakland, Fla.,
church.

Lee Grisso from Chickasaw, Ala.,
to the St. Andrews church, Shreve-
port, La.

ACROSS THE EDITOR'S DESK

• Another small publication has
gone out of business on account of
the spectacular rise in postal rates.
It was just a small newsletter, pub-
lished by a remnant from the old
Evangelical and Reformed Church
trying to do battle with the giant
United Church of Christ, but it
stood for God and Gospel. We can
stand by and watch household mag-
azines such as Look and Life go out
of business and not feel threatened;
we may even watch religious publi-
cations swallowed up by the several
hundred per cent rise in postal
rates and not feel threatened. But
one of these days it is entirely pos-
sible that most of the reading ma-
terial available will be the kind sup
ported by the public's tastes and
not necessarily in the public interest
— and we will have taken another
long stride downward.

• The above trend reminds us of
an experience in another field. We
had a small policy with Mutual of
Omaha — a famous name and a
policy we valued because it had a
"guaranteed renewable" clause.
Then one day we got our guaran-
teed renewable notice. The premium,

without any change in benefits
whatever, had gone from $96 to
$433.08. We checked with the state
insurance commissioner. Contrary
to what we frequently had heard
and understood, the company did
not have to get approval for rate
increases. All they had to do was
file the increase with the commis-
sioner. Today, as they say, you get
it coming and going.

• On a more cheerful note, we
have heard of another record in
Presbyterian service. The Cross
Roads Presbyterian Church of Meb-
ane, N. C. recently honored two
members of its session who had been
elected to the office of elder on the
same day: October 29, 1922. That
made identical half centuries of
service for James Herbert Tate and
Mark Smith Walker. Both men are
still active, Mr. Tate at 79 and Mr.
Walker at 86.

• The New York Review of Books
recently carried a brief advertise-
ment in its classified section under
"Employment Wanted." The ad
read: "Radical theologian and wife
with Ph.D. in comparative litera-
ture, seek teaching positions in one
community. Thomas and Alma Al-
tizer." We are prompted to hope
that the incidence of "God is dead"
theologians looking for jobs consti-
tutes a trend.

• Some public figures, however,
seem to go on and on. A "letter to
the editor" in the Dallas News from
Madalyn Murray O'Hair demanded
an apology because the paper had
allegedly put her "in the company
of prostitutes and the criminal ele-
ment" when it commented on her
taste for four-letter words in pub-
lic discourse. As far as we know,
the News has not apologized. Bully
for them! GB

PAGE 3 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 10, 1973

1

NEWS OF RELIGION

Church Wins Property From UPUSA

CHICAGO — The Illinois Appel-
late Court, in what could become a
significant decision, has overturned
a lower court ruling which held that
a former Presbyterian congregation
must surrender its property to the
Presbytery of Chicago.

The three-judge appellate court
has decided the property goes to the
congregation.

At issue is the property of the for-
mer Forest Park Presbyterian
Church in northwest Chicago, now
the Forest Park Bible Church. The
congregation's roots go back more
than 100 years, when it was or-
ganized as an independent church.
It united with the Presbytery of Chi-
cago in 1937.

Some twenty years later, in 1958,
the presbytery gave the congrega-
tion a quit claim deed to its prop-
erty, according to the present pas-
tor, the Rev. Frank Peters, to enable
the members to borrow nearly $30,-
000 to renovate the church build-
ing.

By 1968 the debt had been
paid, "except for about $2,000," Mr.
Peters said. It was in that year that
the presbytery decided to dissolve
the church by merging it with the
nearby Park View Presbyterian
Church. The arrangement was to
have included a transfer of the
property to the presbytery.

But the congregation refused to
be dissolved and the upshot of the
dispute was a suit in federal court
based on a provision in Church law
which permits the presbytery to take
possession of property "when a
church is dissolved or ceases to ex-
ist."

The Rev. Wesley Miller, presby-
tery executive, told Religious News
Service that the Forest Park church
was dissolved "because it could no
longer maintain a ministry." Mr.
Miller suggested the action was
taken with the consent of the mem-
bers, before litigation began.

"The dissolution was accomplished
after the church had been in the
hands of a commission for two
years," Mr. Miller told the Journal.
"It was an action in which the con-
gregation concurred."

Mr. Miller also said the deed
given the congregation in 1958 was
"the standard conveyance of title
which embodies an implied trust."

Both Mr. Peters and a member of
the congregation contacted by the
Journal disagreed with Mr. Miller.
"We didn't feel it was right for them
to take our property after we had
paid off the debt," said Mrs.
Edward Thompson, a former Pres-
byterian now active in the church.

Reported by RNS as "reluctant
to discuss the case's background,"

THE CHURCH OVERSEAS

NICARAGUA — Responding im-
mediately to the news of the dev-
astating earthquake which rocked
Managua on December 23, the
World Relief Commission of the Na-
tional Association of Evangelicals
dispatched funds to its in-country
counterpart agency representative to
aid the victims.

The Rev. Bruce Bell, Central
America Director for Baptist Inter-
national Mission Inc., has been ap-
pointed emergency field director of
WRC aid operations. Following its
policy of working through estab-
lished agencies, WRC will operate
through Assemblies of God mission-

aries and Central America Mission
personnel in addition to the Baptist
group.

The U. S. State Department has
suggested the quickest way to help
Nicaraguans is to make monetary
contributions to voluntary relief
agencies. World Relief Commission
will forward funds to evangeli-
cal groups in the area so that need-
ed supplies of food, medicine and
blankets can be purchased locally,
avoiding complications and ship-
ping delays.

Address of the World Relief Com-
mission is Box 44, Valley Forge, Pa.
19481. 1 IS

Mr. Miller said that after the con-
gregation was dissolved in 1968, a
"free lance minister" persuaded
some members to "resist the pres-
bytery" and established the inde-
pendent Bible church. The con-
gregation since has had three dif-
ferent ministers, he said.

Mr. Miller said he understood
that very few of the former Forest
Park Presbyterians are participants
in the Bible congregation which, he
added, is a relatively small group.

Small But Determined

Acknowledging that the congre-
gation is very small, the Rev. Mr.
Peters said, "Most of the then exist-
ing congregation stayed with the
church when the change of connec-
tion was made." This was confirmed
by Mrs. Thompson who added,
"We wanted to continue as a
church."

In the first trial, the court award-
ed the property to the presbytery
on the grounds of the connectional
claim and the implied trust.

The appellate court, in reversing
the decision, said the property had
been "transferred outright" to the
congregation in 1958 and that no
trust could be said to exist in the
absence of an expressly declared
trust in the conveyance of deed.

The presbytery is reported to be
undecided as to an appeal to the
next higher court which, in Illinois,
would be the state Supreme Court.

Mr. Miller said it isn't so much
the value of the property that is
important as it is the principle in-
volved.

The people of Forest Park seem
to feel the same way.

Indian Lay Leader Says
Strong Theology Needed

NEW YORK — A prominent lay
preacher from India said here that
Lutheran Churches have not become
a part of various highly publicized
Church mergers in India because
the merged bodies have not paid
enough attention to theology.

"We have been told that Chris
tianity will die out in India unles:
we unite," said Santhosham Arputh
araj, an attorney visiting the U. S

PAGE 4 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 10, 1973

on a trip arranged by the USA Na-
tional Committee of the Lutheran
World Federation. "That is not
true."

His reference was to the forma-
tion of the Church of South India
and the Church of Northern India,
in which various Christian tradi-
tions have been brought together in
a united Church.

It is known that theological com-
plications developing within the
united Churches have thus far pre-
vented active steps towards further
mergers among themselves.

"Only a Church with a strong
theology can make a significant con-
tribution to the propagation of the
Gospel," Mr. Arputharaj said. 51

Church Bails Out
Convicted Militant

RALEIGH, N. C. — The Rev. Ben
Chavis, a black convicted of fire-
bombing and conspiring to assault,
left Central Prison here after a $50,-
000 cash bond was posted by the
United Church of Christ.

Mr. Chavis was convicted along
with eight other blacks and a white
woman by a jury which included
black persons, on charges growing
out of a year of racial violence in
Wilmington, N. C.

The United Church of Christ does
not expect to post bond for the oth-
ers convicted, according to the Rev.
Everett C. Parker of New York, di-
rector of the Church's Office of Com-
munications, who also has been in-
volved in the issue of radio and TV
station license renewals in several
southern cities.

Mr. Chavis, who is not a member
of the United Church of Christ, was
hired by that denomination's Com-
mission for Racial Justice as a field
organizer to work in the eastern N.
C. area. For a while he worked in
Henderson, helping organize a school
boycott.

Then he was invited to Wilming-
ton to work with the African People
United Front and the Congregation
of the Black Messiah.

During the violence which racked
the port city from February 1971 to
February 1972, police charged that
much of the unrest was organized at
a local church where Mr. Chavis held

regular meetings. Shotgun shells,
small calibre cartridges and sticks of
dynamite were found at the church.

Witnesses in the month-long trial
which followed testified that Mr.
Chavis organized the manufacturing
of fire bombs and led an expedition
to destroy a white-owned grocery
store.

Another witness said he, Mr. Cha-
vis and a third man shot it out with
a white man who drove a truck past
an unmanned barricade into the
black neighborhood on the day of
a particular outbreak of violence.
The white man was killed.

Mr. Chavis was sentenced to 25 to
29 years imprisonment on charges
of fire bombing. He was also sen-
tenced to four to five years on con-
viction of shaping a plot to have
firemen and policemen ambushed
while on the way to a fire.

Dr. Parker told newsmen that the
Church has put up the bond money
because Mr. Chavis was one of its
employees. He added that the de-
nomination did not take a position
on guilt or innocence. ffl

Street Preacher's
Conviction Upheld

RALEIGH, N. C. (RNS) — The
North Carolina Court of Appeals
has found no error in the conviction
of a man for preaching on a street
without first obtaining a permit.

Attorneys for the defendant,
Charlie Clemmons, 30, of Winston-
Salem, said they would appeal the
decision to the North Carolina Su-
preme Court.

Mr. Clemmons was one of several
street preachers at whom the Win-
ston-Salem City Board of Aldermen
aimed an ordinance to prevent them
from preaching daily at the Trade
Street Mall. Merchants there com-
plained that the practice was keep-
ing customers away from their
stores.

The ordinance states that in order
for a person to hold an open-air
meeting on a certain day, he must
apply to the city secretary for a
permit, which then must be ap-
proved by the Board of Alderman,
which normally meets only twice a
month.

The street preachers defied the or-

dinance, charging that it denied
them their freedom of speech and
freedom of religion. In a test case,
Mr. Clemmons was arrested and con-
victed in Forsyth County Superior
Court shortly after the ordinance
was enacted.

Counsel for the defendant, in ap-
pealing the lower court verdict, told
the Court of Appeals that the city
ordinance in question was aimed spe-
cifically at silencing free speech and
limiting religious practice. He ad-
ded that it was discriminatory in
that its enforcement applied only
to the mall. EG

Children Delinquent?
City Makes Parents Pay

CAMDEN, N. J. (RNS) — A new
law, which makes parents responsible
for the delinquent acts of their chil-
dren, has become effective here.

Under terms of the ordinance, par-
ents of offending children, after the
first warning, could be jailed for 90
days and fined $500.

Covered by the new law, said to be
the "strongest of its kind" in New
Jersey, are such offenses as curfew
violations, vandalism, breaking and
entering, mugging, loitering and il-
legal drinking. These offenses are
reportedly the "biggest problems ex-
perienced with juveniles."

City Solicitor Albert Rathblott
said that beginning with the second
offense, the "juvenile could face ac-
tion in juvenile court and the par-
ent would be liable for the fine and/
or jail sentence.

"We'll probably utilize fining
more than jailing at first because a
parent has to remain in the home."

The first offense would usually in-
volve a warning, he said, because
"we're interested in the chronic of-
fender, the youth who has been in
trouble more than three times and
whose repeated offenses might indi-
cate a lack of parental concern."

City Councilman John R. Marini,
originator of the ordinance, said the
foundation for the law's effective-
ness was a clause calling for respon-
sibility of parents to see that their
children obeyed the city's 10 p.m.
curfew for youths up to 18 years old.

Mr. Marini said: "Many of these

PAGE 5 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 10, 1973

parents of chronic offenders tell the
police or the judge they can't be re-
sponsible for knowing where their
children are at night. But if the
parent knows he might have to pay
the city money or stay in jail for the
lack of control, he'll make more of
an effort." SI

Religious Groups Oppose
Anti-Conversion Laws

AHMADABAD, India (RNS) — A
storm of opposition by Christians,
Buddhists, and Muslims is develop-
ing in the western Indian state of
Gujarat over a proposed "anti-con-
version" bill currently being debated
in the state legislature.

The draft legislation is similar to
anti-conversion laws passed in the
states of Orissa (1967) and Madhya
Pradesh (1968).

Known as Freedom of Religion
Acts, the laws seriously restrict the
activity of missionaries and require
that all conversions be reported to
a district magistrate and investigated
by an officer not below the rank of
police inspector.

Recently, following a huge pub-
lic rally in the Gujarat city of Bul-
sar, hundreds of Roman Catholics
and Protestants signed a memoran-
dum appealing to Prime Minister
Indira Gandhi to request the state
government "to throw the bill into
the Arabian Sea."

The memorandum, a copy of
which was sent to the Chief Minis-
ter of Gujarat, Ganashyam Oza,
asked Mrs. Gandhi's intervention in
what it described as "the systematic
discrimination against willing con-
verts to Christianity."

Earlier, the Gujarat Buddhist So-
ciety sent a letter to the Gujarat
legislature criticizing the draft bill
as "unfair and partial," saying it
should more properly be called "the
Hindu religion protection bill."

The prime mover behind the
anti-conversion campaign is a mili-
tant Hindu group, the All-India
Hindu Mahasabha, which, last Feb-
ruary, issued an election manifesto
demanding the conversions of Hin-
dus to Christianity be permanently
banned by law.

The group has charged that
Christian missionaries are engaged
in "anti-national activities," and
that Hindus have been "forcibly or
deceitfully converted" to Chris-
tianity. 51

THE CHURCH AT HOME

'Wilson's Church' Closes
In the Nation's Capital

WASHINGTON, D. C. (RNS) —
The Presbyterian church where
President Woodrow Wilson wor-
shiped from 1913 to 1921 held its
last service on Dec. 31.

The Central Presbyterian church
has been disssolved after 104 years
of history.

Situated at its present location
since 1913, the Presbyterian US con-
gregation decided this fall that it
was physically and financially un-
able to continue.

Trustees were empowered to turn
assets over to the National Capital
Union Presbytery. It had been
hoped that the presbytery would be
able to carry on the work, which
included a number of community
programs.

The move to the suburbs of mem-
bers who once lived within walking
distance of the church is the major
reason for the closing. Central Pres-
byterian once had more than 600
members. The roll now numbers
less than 250, with an average Sun-
day attendance of 75.

Often called 'Wilson's church,"
Central Presbyterian was attended
by President Wilson during his two
terms in the White House.

President Wilson was an elder
from 1913 to 1921 and the church's
educational building is named for
the World War I Chief Executive.
His pew is marked by a silver plate.

Central church was the first South-
ern Presbyterian congregation or-
ganized in Washington. Its closing
leaves only one other, the Church
of the Pilgrims.

Dr. Balmer Kelly, dean of Union
Theological Seminary in Richmond,
was selected to conduct worship and
preach at the final service. IB

Errors Noted in PCUS
1972 Assembly Minutes

ATLANTA, Ga. — Errors in the
Minutes of the 1972 Presbyterian
US General Assembly have been
called to the attention of the Church
by Stated Clerk James A. Millard
Jr. All have to do with the plan for
restructuring Assembly boards and

agencies.

On p. 95, section (d) 1. b. line
two should read: "for education of
church professionals; Committee on
Theological Education, (an agency
at the G. A. level . . .) .

On p. 98, section 7 should have an
item d. now missing: "Approval of
major curricular changes."

On p. 101, an amended text should
have been printed for the original
text of 3.c. (1), as follows: "Pro-
vides the official archives for the
Presbyterian Church US. Ordinarily,
all records, files and other archival
material will be placed by all As-
sembly boards and agencies in the
Historical Foundation after ten years.
In unusual circumstances the Gen-
eral Executive Board may allow spe-
cified parts of its material to be left
out of the General Assembly Ar-
chives beyond ten years. After 25
years, all files, records and other
archival material will be placed in
the General Assembly Archives at the
Historical Foundation." EI

Group Meets To Study
Assembly's Directive

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A consulta-
tion on the place of women in
Church and society held at Louis-
ville Presbyterian Seminary here,
concentrated on ways to introduce
more women into decision-making
positions in the Church, in profes-
sions and in voluntary service.

Assembled by the Presbyterian US
Interboard Task Force on Women,
which in turn was created in re-
sponse to a 1972 General Assembly
pronouncement on women in
Church and society, the consultation
concluded that its assignment was to
find ways of implementing the As-
sembly's pronouncement which
called for more women in leadership
positions.

Reports on an active task force
now functioning in at least one pres-
bytery, National Capital Union, and
on programs in other denominations,
were heard by the consultation.

Steps leading to the formation of
task forces on women in every pres-
bytery, and on programs to train
women to assume leadership posi-
tions, were discussed. SI

PAGE 6 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 10, 1973

Some common sense for those able to take it —

Letter to a College Youth

I am 54 years old and I classify
this as middle-aged. I have lived
through a depression; I have lost
four years to war; I am invested with
sweat and I am absolutely sick of
some of the younger generation: the
hippies, the yippies, the dippies, the
militants and all of their nonsense.

I am tired, as a member of my
generation, of being blamed, maimed
and contrite. I contend that we, my
generation, have spent too much
time telling the younger generation
that they are a different breed —
how wonderful they are.

I submit to you that youth has al-
ways been wonderful. We were won-
derful when we were young but that
didn't give us any license to tear up
the place.

The younger generation tells us to-
day that they're uptight about a lot
of things. I'd like to tell you about
some things that I'm up-tight about.

I'm disturbed that on only a few
college campuses in the United States
today the President of the United
States, the Vice President, a member
of the Cabinet can come to talk to the
students without disruption, physi-
cal abuse or intimidation. Yet at the
same time, a convicted murderer, a
dope peddler or one committed to
overthrow our government can not
only get a respectful hearing, but be
paid a handsome honorarium to
jboot.

Recently I sent a son to college.
And when I stuffed in his pocketbook
the check for his tuition and his
room and board and his books and
his activity fees and on and on, I also
took the time out to write a little

The author is vice president of
public relations, Sears, Roebuck &
Company. This material was taken
from Dateline of the National As-
sociation of Manufacturers and is re-
sprinted with permission.

letter in the hope that he would read
it. I don't know whether it will do
him any good, but here's what I
said:

Dear Son:

So you're off to college! Your
mother and I hope that it will be a
worthwhile experience for you. I'm
not sure about this, I have a friend
who's had a son in college two or
three years and I asked him not long
ago: "Has going to college been
a worthwhile experience?"

He answered, "Well, I think so, it
sure has cured his mother from brag-
ging on him."

I know another young man who
has been in college a couple of years
and I asked him: "What do you
think of college? Has it been worth-
while for you?"

"Well," he said, "I'm not sure.
When I am at college I'm a liberal,
when I'm home I'm a conservative
and when I'm alone I'm confused."

Now we don't want you, my son,
to be confused. We like you the
way you are right now. We think
you think straight about things, but
you're going to undergo a new ex-
perience and I'd like to talk to you
about it a little bit.

It occurs to me that there are
many things about you, your actions
and about your country that I
should have discussed with you al-
ready. Now it may come as a shock
to you to know this, but I was young
once too. And I'd like to tell you
that I know more about being young
than you know about being old.

You are fortunate to be a citizen
by birth of the greatest country on
this earth. Your generation has been
freed of the nagging worries of food,
clothing and shelter. You're the
product of an affluency which has
been created for you by your parents.

Today's generation is able to af-

WILLIAM F. McCURDY

ford a hypersensitivity to social prob-
lems. I would like you to know
this, my son: sensitivity is not the
property of the young, nor was it in-
vented in 1950. Your generation
didn't invent it, you don't own it.
What you seek to attain all mankind
has sought to attain throughout the
ages.

Society, or as your generation
sometimes refers to it, "the estab-
lishment," is not a foreign thing
that we seek to impose on the young.
We know that our generation has
been far from perfect, but I would
remind you that we didn't make it,
we have only sought to make it bet-
ter; and the fact that we have not
been 100 per cent successful is the
story of all generations, just as it
will be the story of your generation.

Far From Perfect . . .

Society hangs together by the
stitching of many threads. No 18-
year-old is the product just of his 18
years. He is the product of 3,000
years of the development of man-
kind and I would remind you, my
son, that throughout those years in-
justice has existed and it has been
fought.

Rules have been outmoded and
they have been changed. Doom has
hung over man and somehow it has
been avoided. Unjust wars have oc-
curred and pain has been the cost of
progress. Need I remind you, too,
that man has always persevered?

And so when your generation says
that we must solve all of the coun-
try's problems by next Wednesday
morning at 9 o'clock or you'll huff
and puff and blow our house down,
I could only characterize this as
stupid, unthinking, irrational imma-
turity. Mankind can never hope for
anything better on earth than to
leave this world just a little bit bet-
ter than he found it.

PAGE 7 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 10, 1973

"All right," you say to me, "What
has your generation done?" Let's
come to grips with this one right
now. When you get to college
you're going to hear a lot of anti-
establishment talk. Now first let's
examine just who is the establish-
ment.

To begin with it's your mother
and your father and your aunts and
your uncles and your adult friends
whom you always seem to think so
much of. We're the establishment.
I'd like you to think of us in this
way: We are the people who have
increased, in our generation, the
life expectancy in this country by
more than 50 per cent.

... But Better Than It Was

We are the people who have eradi-
cated plagues. We are the people
who developed the Salk vaccine. It
came along too late for us, but with-
out it many of you and your genera-
tion would either be dead or crip-
pled today.

We are the people who have re-
duced the working day by one third
and at the same time more than
doubled per capita output. We're
the people who have built thousands
and thousands of high schools and
colleges and have spent billions of
dollars on higher education there-
by making it available to the mil-
lions, when at one time it was the
province of the very few.

We're the people who, without
any bloodshed, back in the 1930's ef-
fected a social revolution so humane
in its consequences that it tends to
make the famous French Revolu-
tion look like a mere outburst of
savagery and the famous Russian
Revolution a downright political
retrogression.

We're the people who defeated
Hitler, contained Stalin and made
Khrushchev back down. There is to-
day a flag and a plaque on the moon
attesting to the fact that my genera-
tion put the first man there. We're
the people who split the atom, for
good or evil, thereby releasing the
primary energy of the cosmos for all
mankind.

In my judgment, during all of this
time we have created a great litera-
ture, exciting architecture and have
conducted extensive experimentation
in all of the arts. And I'm going to
restrain my enthusiasm, perhaps, for
pointing out to you that we also de-
veloped the automatic transmission
and maybe that's why so many of

your generation are so shiftless.

Your generation has been
most articulate in saying what's
wrong with my generation. Our
generation, on the other hand, has
had no voice, no announcers, no
press. That which is right with us
has been buried in silence and we
tend to lose by default. So, my son,
in this letter I'm invoking the first
amendment in behalf of my genera-
tion. My generation was a creature
of the depression.

Not long ago I was invited to a
major university in our country to
speak to the business college — 1,800
kids there. They called it a sym-
posium, they should have called it
a Spanish Inquisition.

This is the way it worked: Every
morning at 8:30 I would make a
statement for 30 minutes on behalf
of the establishment, on the free en-
terprise system. For the rest of the
day, including luncheon, I was at-
tacked by the younger generation.

I'll never forget the first morning.
I got through at 9 o'clock and I got
the first questioner immediately.
The young man stood up with a
Custer hair-cut, a Fu Manchu mous-
tache, naked from the waist up,
barefooted — they dress casually
there. You've heard of the "Ram-
bling Wreck from Georgia Tech."
This kid looked like the "Total
Loss from Holy Cross."

He pointed his finger at me and
he said, "I charge you and your gen-
eration with being materialistic. 1
say that every thought and every
deed of your generation are prompt-
ed by the profit motive. Would you
care to comment on that?"

No Profit In Raising Kids

I said, "I don't think everything
we do is dedicated to profit. Of all
the profitable investments I've ever
known in my life, raising kids is
right at the bottom of the list. And
if all your parents ever thought
about was profit, they would have
drowned you before you ever got
your eyes open."

But I think there is something to
what you say; I think we're ma-
terialistic, yes, I'll admit to it. We're
all creatures of our own environ-
ment and we came along during the
depression days. Things weren't very
good back in the depression days; you
don't know anything about that, but
they weren't very good. Things were
so bad that hitch-hikers were asking
for rides going in either direction,

they didn't care; that's how bad it
was.

But how, how can we explain
those times to you? My son, you
don't know anything about them.
You're leaving for college in a car
that cost your mother and me three
times more than I made the first
year I ever worked for Sears, Roe-
buck and Co. And it wasn't because
your car is that big, it's because my
salary was that little.

That wasn't Sears' fault, that was
the ball game, that was the ball park,
and that was the way that we played
it in those days. Sure I had a car,
in my junior year when I went to
school; it was a stripped-down Model
T. I needed it in order to pick up
laundry and cleaning and pressing.
I was trying to work my way through
school.

Too Much, Too Soon

In those days I never invited a
girl for a date unless she was strong
enough to carry 50 pounds of dirty
laundry. And this may sound
strange to you, but I think that we
were fortunate in those days because
all of our luxuries and most of our
necessities came to us a little bit at
a time. We savored them and we en-
joyed them and we appreciated them
and we were thus motivated to work
harder to get more.

In those days a job was a thing of
beauty and a joy forever. But your
generation has had too much, too
soon.

Let me talk to you just a second,
about what I think your mother and
I owe you. I think that we owe you
food and clothing and shelter and
an education and love and all the re-
spect that you're able to earn for
yourself.

Now let me talk to you about
something I think we don't owe you.
I think we don't owe you our souls,
our privacy, and our whole lives,
our immunity; not only from our
mistakes or from your own. These
are what we don't owe you.

Bob Hope, one of the country's
great entertainers and a great citi-
zen, was asked last spring if he would
speak to a graduating class in the
United States and give them a few
words of advice on going out into
the world. His message was very
brief, he said, "Don't go!"

Well I'm not sure this is exactly
right. I think when you graduate
from college you'll enjoy testing
your wings, I think you'll enjoy a

PAGE 8 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 10, 1973

pride of authorship, I think you'll
enjoy making a contribution to so-
ciety, and I want you to know right
now, my son, there are many things
that you and your generation can do.

I readily admit that everything
that my generation has done is not
right. In solving an economic prob-
lem of the '30s, I know very well
that we created social problems for
the '60s and the '70s and you are
concerned about them and you
should be. And we're proud of
you.

But I think you ought to know
that it takes time to get these things
done. The technology that we've

delivered to you and your genera-
tion today has caused some prob-
lems and every action, as you've
learned in physics, brings about a
reaction.

Today we've got more automo-
biles than any country on earth, and
some people say we've got more pol-
luted air. We've got more TV sets
today than any country on earth and
some people say we've got more pol-
luted minds. We've got more food
today than any country on earth
and more people are dying of obe-
sity.

My research also pointed out we
have more bathtubs than any other

country on earth, too, for whatever
that's worth. But we hope you can
keep the benefits and minimize the
risks, we hope that your generation
can keep the cars and solve the pol-
lution problem, we hope you can
keep the TV and solve the program-
ming problem, we hope you can
keep the food and solve the weight
problem.

Above all else we hope that you
will not destroy the private enter-
prise system in America. We hope
rather that you will understand it,
appreciate it, learn to cherish it.

Sincerely,

Your Dad

How the "new religion" supported by the old Church makes new pagans —

Ministry (?) on Campus

■ ean is a freshman at the univer-
se sity. Having just purchased her
first books for the semester she feels
somewhat overwhelmed. The sprawl-
ing maze of the campus and the
flurry of activity are bewildering,
but the future holds promise.

At the university the Church is
present through the campus minis-
try. Campus ministry is many peo-
ple working to fulfill the commis-
sion of Jesus Christ in the univer-
sity setting. Among these individ-
uals are students, faculty, adminis-
trators, members of campus min-
istry governing boards, and cam-
j pus ministers. How will they
(relate to Jean in the next few years
at college?

For Jean the answer seems ob-
fvious. She attends church only oc-
casionally, and she dropped out of
youth fellowship about the tenth

The author is a campus minister
tat the University of Wisconsin. This
['article was prepared by United Min-
I istries in Higher Education, the "stu-
x'dent work" of several denominations,
)\ including the Presbyterian Church
|£/S. It will help puzzled parents,
\\and others, understand what has
Ahappened to destroy the faith of the
U younger generation.

grade. She has many interests, but
religious concerns seem less impor-
tant at the moment.

Jean came to the campus early to
register. The first Sunday there, it
seemed appropriate to attend the
worship services at the Student Re-
ligious Center, near campus.

The liturgy was lively and color-
ful, and tended to be somewhat dif-
ferent from what she had experi-
enced at home. Also, during the
announcements, she learned that sev-
eral programs were being planned
that appeared quite interesting.

She Breaks a Habit

Monday comes. Jean's college ca-
reer is launched. Quickly, she makes
friends in her dorm, and her involve-
ment in many new experiences on
campus begins. At this point, except
for the Sunday worship experiences,
the activities of the religious center
do not seem as important as they
might.

Jean has made contact with the
campus ministry. Let us follow her
through college and beyond.

We will be interested to see the
points at which her life is touched
by this mission of the Church.

In her eight o'clock biology class
Jean is pleasantly surprised that the

DAVE STEFFENSON

young professor not only makes the
course interesting, he also discusses
the meanings and significance be-
hind the scientific facts he presents.
The course becomes important to
all of life.

Sometime later, Jean learns that
her teacher participated in a semi-
nar for the life science faculty ar-
ranged by the campus ministry. Val-
ue questions behind biological sci-
ence, ethical considerations, and in-
novative teaching methods formed
the agenda which the professor
probed.

With her interest in biology, Jean
becomes involved in the ecology ac-
tion group on campus. Soon she is
working for a recycling program for
her college community's trash-col-
lection system.

She Demonstrates

A peaceful demonstration is held
protesting the construction of a su-
perhighway near a wooded area on
campus. She participates. As an
officer in the group she learns that
her concern for environment often
collides with political and economic
interests in the community.

Many times mediators are re-
quired to keep the various interest
groups engaged in meaningful dia-

PAGE 9 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 10, 1973

logue. An ombudsman campus min-
ister fulfills this role.

As Jean tries to decide how to re-
spond to these conflicts, she becomes
increasingly aware of the individ-
uals around her who seem to ap-
proach these same difficult ques-
tions from a religious perspective.
The campus minister and her bi-
ology professor presented a dialogue
to the ecology action group relating
faith questions to environmental
concerns.

The genuine and open spirit of
this discussion convinced Jean that
the critical problems of our times
need a forum where wide diversities
of opinion can be aired. She gained
an appreciation of the Student Re-
ligious Center as a place that pro-
vided an arena for open and honest
public debate.

The next summer Jean travels to
the West Coast to stay with her aunt
and uncle while working at sub-
sistence wages for a national ecology
program.

Her uncle is an "Archie Bunker"
type, and they often argue about
many disturbing issues. He yells
about high taxes, students parading
in the streets, and because he can't
get his car fixed right. He com-
plains about the beach being so dirty
it is unfit to go to anymore; that
blacks are pushy; and the war just
seems to go on and on.

She Worries a Lot

Jean is concerned that affluent
America has so much poverty, the
government never seems to listen,
the quality of life seems to be de-
clining, pollution is growing, condi-
tions for minorities continue to
worsen, and we keep fighting wars.

This sensitivity to the ills of so-
ciety, which Jean gained in her first
year at college, does not appear too
far removed from her uncle's con-
cerns. However, the respect for di-
versity and pluralistic feelings she
acquired after lengthy conversations
with her fellow students and her fa-
vorite biology teacher gave Jean add-
ed insight into her uncle's frustra-
tions.

Perhaps it was at this point she
began to recall that the campus min-
ister at school referred to "this meet-
ing on equal ground to resolve our
common problems" as reconciliation.
At least, she has learned that the
things dividing people in our times
are really "all in the family," and
this gives a starting place for our

coming together, rather than split-
ting apart into warring camps.

The next year Jean falls in love
with a young man of another faith.
They seek out the campus minister
in her environmental action group
who helps them work through what
that means.

During that same year some of
her friends also have personal con-
tact with the campus ministry. Her
boyfriend finds help at the campus
ministry draft information service as
he wrestles with his conscience in
relation to military service. A friend
becomes pregnant and is helped by
the problem pregnancy counseling
center organized by the campus min-
istry.

Her roommate takes part in a
"personal growth weekend" at the
religious center, and Jean is im-
pressed with her roommate's new
self-understanding.

She Loves the Staff

The impact of Jesus Christ's rec-
onciling spirit, the invaluable ser-
vice to her and her friends during
these formative years, and the love
and appreciation she developed for
the staff at the Religious Student
Center make Jean an enduring advo-
cate for the Church's continuing sup-
port of its ministry in higher educa-
tion.

Jean finishes college and her in-
terest in biology leads her to decide
to become a doctor. With the help
of the new emphasis on women's
rights, she is admitted to medical
school.

The Church has a special campus
ministry at the medical school, and
she finds this to be a valuable re-
source in working through many of
the life-and-death value questions
physicians face every day.

She Explores Ecumenism

After her internship, getting mar-
ried, and settling in a small town
clinic, Jean renews her interest in
the local church. The worship ser-
vices are innovative and have mean-
ing for her religiously.

Because of the experiences she
had in leading a workshop on con-
temporary worship back in college
she was able to lend valuable sup-
port to her local pastor and the
committee on worship in their ef-
forts to lead the congregation in
significant liturgical renewal.

Somehow Jean soon found her-

self on a committee to begin ex-
ploration of the possibility of
merger with two other churches in
their small town.

In a way, this was a natural. She
had served as a student representa-
tive on her medical school's campus
ministry governing board when a
plan of unification was created be-
tween the Protestants and Roman
Catholics.

Jean continues her activity!
around ecology concerns. Her cam-
pus ministry friend from university
days is sending her an "ecology
packet" that she will use to start
an action group in her hometown.

We have followed Jean for sev-
eral years. Her contacts with cam-
pus ministry have been both direct
and indirect. Campus ministry
touched her life in significant ways,
especially through its many recon-
ciling ministries to students, the
community, and the whole univer-
sity.

Jean may or may not be typical.
She is certainly a composite charac-
terization. Regardless, she and her
friends illustrate the potential and
reality of campus ministry in to-
day's complex university.

So Is She a Christian?

Jean's story also shows what cam-
pus ministry can mean to the local
parish. Her new church is strug-
gling with issues and problems
forced upon it by rapid social
change. By its very nature, higher
education lives in the future.

In fact, higher education is help-
ing create the future. Thus, cam-
pus ministry is forced to change its
form of ministry just by being on
campus. It is experimenting with
new ways to carry out Christ's min-
istry to the future.

Not only can campus ministry
experiment with new forms on be-
half of the whole Church, it is also
able to be a resource to the Church.

By continuing to minister to per-
sons in higher education, as it seeks
to be Christ's witness of love and
reconciliation, the Church can also
be an experimental laboratory and
resource for growth.

Campus ministry, supported by
the whole Church and with faith in
Jesus Christ's forgiving love, can be
the key to open the eyes of the
Church to the exciting, if indeed at
times frightening, future awaiting
all of us in the family of hu-
manity, ffl

■po

PAGE 10 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 10, 1973

An unusual approach to a well known passage —

Let's Quit Abusing Romans 8:28

There are numerous passages of
Scripture that I believe mem-
Ibers of the Church of Christ are mis-
lusing by taking them from the origi-
Inal context and applying them to
■something the author did not have
lin mind. One of these is Romans
■3:28 which reads, "And we know
Ithat all things work together for
■good to them that love God, to them
Iwho are the called according to His
■purpose."

As we study the marvelous book
■of Romans we are presented almost
■immediately with the thesis of the
iRoman letter — the Gospel of Jesus
IChrist. Paul is striving to show
■how God, His Son, and the Holy
■Spirit have united in giving us the
■rule of faith — the Gospel of Christ
I — and how all the plans of God
lEor centuries have all worked out for
fcood to those who will benefit them-
Iselves by accepting and obeying the
■rule of faith as it is revealed in the
New Testament.

In Summary

In a very brief scan of Romans we
>ee the following: Chapter 1 shows
the Gospel is for all; Chapter 2 re-
reals that no one, not even the Jews,
:an please God without the New
Testament law of faith; Chapter 3
jives further teaching that all peo-
ple sin, and that obedience to the
Sospel of Christ by all is an abso-
lute necessity to please God.

Chapter 4 uses some Old Testa-
nent characters to help show the
Importance of accepting and obey-
ng the rule of faith; Chapter 5 shows

This article from Firm Founda-
tion, official publication of the
Churches of Christ, is reprinted with
Permission.

that we are justified by obedience to
the rule of faith as given by God's
grace; and Chapter 6 teaches the ne-
cessity of becoming servants of righ-
teousness by obeying the Gospel of
Christ.

Chapter 7 shows that the Chris-
tian (in obeying the Gospel, the law
of faith) becomes married to
Christ and is no longer in subjec-
tion to the Old Testament law;
Chapter 8 gives the assurance of sal-
vation to those who are in Christ
Jesus, who walk not after the flesh
but after the law of the Spirit of
life in Christ. Then in Chapter 9
we see Paul's great love for his peo-
ple and his desire that Israel would
accept and obey the Gospel of Christ,
along with the Gentiles, who have
been called.

Chapter 10 finds Paul continuing
his desire for Israel (and all) to do
God's righteousness and not their
own. He shows further God's plan
for many ages past has been now
revealed in the law of faith; Chap-
ter 11 finds Paul still trying to get
the Jews to see that the reception
of the Gentiles and the salvation
available to all is a result, or end,
of centuries of planning by God to
give man the Gospel, for His is the
power to save all who obey it.

Christians1 Duty

Beginning with verse 33 of this
chapter, Paul bursts forth with a dec-
laration of praise to God for His
great wisdom in this wonderful
scheme of redemption He has
planned and put into operation for
man. Then as we continue into
Chapter 12, Paul gives in concise
form one of the grandest sermons
ever preached as to the kind of life
the Christian is to live.

Chapter 13 continues with how

ROGER TURNER

the Christian is to live, including
our responsibility to the civil pow-
ers; Chapter 14 finds Paul dealing
with another phase of Christian liv-
ing — how we are to treat a weaker
brother; and Chapter 15 continues
with admonitions to the stronger
and sundry admonitions to Christian
living, along with his desire to con-
tinue to preach to the world.

Then Chapter 16 consists of many
salutations to Christians who have
obeyed this Gospel he has been dis-
cussing for some fifteen chapters.

Now, in all this it is evident that
Paul's number one topic is the Gos-
pel — the rule of faith — of which
many, many prophecies and plans
were made and put into action by
our God and Father, showing forth
His great love and wisdom. Many
things, in fact, "all things" neces-
sary for our salvation which were
planned and put into action by God,
work out for good to all who obey
His plans.

I contend that the "all things"
which work out for our good are all
the things God has done to enable
us to have the great and wonderful
law of faith — the Gospel of Jesus
Christ. All the facts of the Gos-
pel, all the commands to be obeyed,
and all the promises to be enjoyed
are all included in the "all things."

Now, "all things work together
for good" to whom? To those whom
He calls in the Gospel (cf. II Thess.
2:14), and obey His Gospel, thus
putting themselves in position and
relationship for all these plans to
work for their good, their salvation.
All the plans God has made — these
"all things" which God has given to
work together for our good when He
enabled us to be saved — certainly
work together for our good when we

(Continued on p. 20, col. 3)

PAGE 11 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 10, 1973

it.

m

EDITORIALS

Seek, And Ye Shall Find

At the end of a decade of space
activity, it is interesting to reflect
that the United States has spent bil-
lions of dollars to answer a ques-
tion as spiritual as it is physical:
Where did the universe come from?

Those trips to the moon were de-
signed primarily to tell scientists
how the moon (and hopefully the
earth) came into existence and over
what span of time.

Most interesting of all is the fact
that the most compelling answer
brought back by the astronauts has
been totally ignored by those who
spent all that money to send them
all that distance to find out.

Almost without exception, the
men who planted their feet on the
moon's surface have come back to
report a profound spiritual experi-
ence almost as great (or in one or
two cases, even greater) than the
physical experience.

As Eugene Cernan said, after his
return from the last trip, "I didn't
see God, but I'm convinced of God
by the order out in space. I know it
didn't happen by accident."

James Irwin was so profoundly
converted by his experience that he
has hit the sawdust trail as a South-
ern Baptist evangelist preaching Je-
sus Christ and calling on people
with tremendous effect to accept
Him as the One Way.

Neil Armstrong has become al-
most withdrawn, in his new occupa-
tion as college professor, as a re-
sult of the emotional and spiritual
after-effects of his trip. The same
is true of his partner, Edwin
Aldrin, who is trying to project his
emotions into a book.

As far as we know, the scientists
who intend to spend years studying
the mineral evidence brought back
from the moon have paid no atten-
tion to the heart answers brought
back.

A scientific commentator on TV
during the flight of Apollo 17 said,
"At this point we don't know where
man came from and where he is go-
ing. If the rocks brought back from
the moon supply some of the an-
swers, they will also raise so many
new questions that it may well seem

we have not yet begun to find out."

What a shame! But as the Bible
says, spiritual truth must be spiri-
tually discerned. And the facts of
life will always seem foolish to them
that perish.

"But what to those who find? /
Ah, this — nor tongue nor pen can
show / The love of Jesus what it
is / None but His loved ones
know." H

What Hath
God Wrought?

It is a characteristic of all sincere
men that they tend to identify God
with what they are trying to accom-
plish.

Thus, in another periodical, we
saw two interestingly contrasting
statements. In one, the author was
rejoicing in what God was doing
through "the struggle of minority
groups for equality and justice." He
was suggesting that we must recog-
nize divine sovereignty in everything
that takes place.

In the other comment, another au-
thor was excoriating Norman Vin-
cent Peale for thanking the Lord in
a public prayer that "divine Provi-
dence" had once again called Rich-
ard Nixon to lead the American peo-
ple.

Said the second author: "Mortal
men who assume positions of power
deserve our prayerful concern, but
never our judgment that their work
is the work of 'divine Providence.'
. . . the results at the ballot box rest
on human limitations, not divine
will."

He was suggesting that we must
not attribute everything that takes
place to God.

'Air Are Called

There is a universal call, by which
God, in the external preaching of
the Word, invites all, indiscriminate-
ly, to come to Him, even those to
whom He intends it as a savor of
death. — John Calvin.

To be sure, the conservative evan-
gelical sometimes tends to sin in the
opposite direction — but also recog-
nizing the hand of the Lord in sec-
ular events that bring satisfaction
and attributing to Satan those devel-
opments that bring dismay.

Professing sovereignty is one thing,
but understanding sovereignty may
be quite another. God may use Cy-
rus as His anointed to accomplish
His will, but the purpose may be tc
drive His remaining children to re-
pentance rather than to rejoicing.

If there is any lesson in all this,
it just may be that we should not
jump to conclusions about the spiri-
tual meaning and purpose of human
events in relation to other human
events.

On the other hand it is perfectly
proper to jump to conclusions about
the spiritual meaning and purpose
of any human event if that conclu-
sion is that we should repent and
turn more fully to the Lord our God

In other words, we avoid the ne
cessity of deciding whether the civil
rights movement is of the Lord while
the reelection of the President wai
not, if we refrain from making eithei
of those developments an extensior
of religion, for primary religion ha:
nothing to do with either.

John Calvin said: "The whole sub
stance of the Gospel is comprised ir
two points only, repentance and re
mission of sins." With that as you)
faith, you can view both the civi
rights movement and the reelectior
of the President as falling within thr
providence of God.

The Church
And Abortion

The current level of interest ii
abortion in the Presbyterian Churcl
US is a good example of the abilit
of the human conscience to adap
to anything if it just hears about i
often enough.

When it first was reported tha
the General Assembly had approve'
abortion for economic reasons a
well as others, the greater part c
the Church unquestionably wa
shocked. Today you can bring
the subject in almost any compan
and all you get is a bored, "H
hum!"

This principle, by the way, is wh
we have hesitated to make any moi
of the proposed new confessio
than we have. To talk about an
thing long enough is to breed a cl

PAGE 12 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 10, 1973

mate of acceptance for it — as pro-
ponents of change know full well.

A committee of the Assembly is
now studying the abortion issue,
with a view to the preparation of a
new "pronouncement" for the next
Assembly to adopt. Just what
changes, if any, will be made re-
mains to be seen.

Meanwhile, one of the most im-
pressive discussions of the issue that
we have seen appeared in the At-
lanta Constitution. Written by a
mother of five children who also is
a medical doctor, the article charges
that women have been "deliberately
misled by the male-dominated medi-
cal profession into thinking that
abortion is merely contraception
slightly postponed."

Dr. Gloria V. Heffernan goes on
to say:

"The greatest tragedy lies in the
fact that doctors have renounced
their ethics to become social tech-
nicians rationalizing their position
with dreary cliches and denying
their own science to make it fit
vague sociological imperatives.

"The traditional responsibility in
obstetrics for two patients has been
denied by the abortionists, whereas
the whole thrust of scientific medi-
cal practice has been to bring the
healing arts to the child in the
uterus, just as it does to any pa-
tient.

"What can we expect from a so-
ciety that can rationalize away the
most fundamental of human values
— the value of life? What is to
become of a medical profession that
substitutes self-serving cliches for its
ethics? What is to become of wom-
en who would ask the courts to in-
stitutionalize death as a legitimate
tool for solving personal problems?

"Such a society is doomed to an
unending spiral of violence if wom-
en do not change it."

All the while, the Presbyterian
Church US continues to put out
thousands of dollars in unequalized
gifts to pay for abortions,
i Who "benefits"? We haven't seen
the statistics. Until we do, and
since the Church's program is quite
substantially in the hands of college
and university chaplains, we'd guess
that the greater part goes to coeds
who don't want mom and pop back
home to know what happened. SI

• • •

We must not be content with the
Word without the Spirit; we cannot
be content with the Spirit without
the Word. — F. B. Meyer.

THE LAYMAN AND HIS CHURCH

Three Commissions

m

In the 5th chapter of the Gospel
of Mark occurs the account of three
healings by our Lord. It is in-
triguing to reflect on the possibility
that it could also be considered to
contain the account of three com-
missions. Jesus' parting words are
different for each situation.

First we meet Legion, the terror
of the tombs, who was even more
frightening to the people as a sane,
fully clothed man. After being
healed, Legion wanted to cling to
Jesus and stay in close physical fel-
lowship with Him. He loved this
one who had given him a new life.

Jesus' commission to him was,
"Go home to your friends, and tell
them how much the Lord has done
for you, and how He has had mercy
on you."

Most of us have not been ridi-
culed, ignored, nor received the
cruel treatment from others that
must have been common occur-
rences in Legion's life. Yet we know
his feelings. The desire to stay at
a meaningful conference, to remain
at a fervent, joyous prayer meeting,
to keep delving into the Word of
God under an inspiring teacher . . .
Who ever wants to leave the moun-
tain top?

The time always comes, however,
when our Lord says, "No," don't
just bask in my presence, hugging
Me to yourself, filling yourself, but
go and tell what the Lord has done
for you. This fellowship must be
offered to others. Jesus did not say,
"Go and explain," nor, "Go and
reason," nor even, "Go and con-
vince," but "Go and tell." Simply
share what you know.

This makes each individual wit-
ness important. We know the same
Lord, but we have received differ-
ent mercies, therefore we can testi-
fy to varied dimensions of God's
glory.

L

Miss Nancy May Penney, the au-
thor of this column, is a mission-
ary of the Presbyterian Church US.
Currently on leave, she is living in
Pasadena, Tex.

Next is told the story about a
woman who was living in cere-
monial shame and uncleanness, who
undoubtedly was suffering from
physical exhaustion and anemia as
well. She scurried from one false
hope to another in search of a cure.
This timid one wanted only to
touch His robe and melt away into
the crowd. Instead, she had to
swallow her fear and step forward,
trembling, to confess her story at
center stage in the spotlight of at-
tention.

And what was she commissioned
to do? "Go in peace, and be healed
of your disease." Nothing to do, no
more frantic effort on her part, just
something to be and receive. To live
in peace would certainly be a new
life for her and speak louder than
words to all who knew her.

Perhaps more today are commis-
sioned to be islands of peace amid
strife, to be centers of calm in the
necessary work and activity of life.
To live in true peace is rare in any
age. When encountered, such a life
will always be a startling, com-
pelling testimony for the good news
about Jesus Christ.

The chapter ends with the rais-
ing to life again of Jairus' daughter.
Here the focus is on the spectators,
rather than on the one healed. The
peoples' laughter and scorn of Jesus
were turned to amazement. Their
derision was cut short. Lacking com-
prehension, they received the strict
charge to tell no one!

Could this be the commission
given to some in the Church today?
Where there is scorn in the place
of love, sophistication instead of
trust, and disbelief rather than
hope, there is nothing to tell. With
nothing to tell, the command still
is to remain silent because there is
no valid life-giving message to share.

What is your situation? Do you
trust and love the Lord because you
have experienced the mercies of
God? Tell it! Have you received
peace and strength from the Holy
Spirit? Live it! Are you living in
the Church with neither of the
above? Quit it! El

PAGE 13 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 10, 1973

m

SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON

For January 28, 1972

Personal Accountability Before God

Rev. Jack B. Scott

tai

101

Ii

ier

INTRODUCTION: Back in the
time of the fall of Jerusalem to the
Babylonian Empire, apparently the
Israelites frequently heard that all
of their trouble had come on them
because of the sins of their fathers.

In a sense, this was true. God had
indeed said that He would visit the
iniquity of the fathers on the sons
to the third and fourth generation
of them that hated Him (Exo. 20:
5-6) . David himself is a good il-
lustration of this principle. His sin
brought great sorrow not only to
him but also to his sons who lived
after him. The consequences of our
sins do indeed have their effect in
the lives of our children. This can-
not be denied.

However, in the days of the fall
of Jerusalem, certain Jews went
farther than God's Word allowed
and actually complained that they
were being punished for the sins of
their fathers (Lam. 5:7) . From this
developed the proverb in our text:
"The fathers have eaten sour grapes,
and the children's teeth are set on
edge" (Ezek. 18:2).

Here Ezekiel quoted a well-known
saying also spoken by Jeremiah (31:
29) . The proverb appears to accuse
God of injustice by assuming the in-
nocence of the children and their be-
ing punished for what they did
not do.

God made clear to His people once
and for all that He doesn't punish
innocent people (Ezek. 18:3-4) . He
announced once again, "The soul
that sins shall die." Death comes
because of sin. The wages of sin is
death (Rom. 6:23) . This is not new.
Through Moses God had said this
long ago (Deut. 24:16). The peo-
ple had forgotten and were there-
fore accusing God of injustice. It
had to be clarified.

I. GOD'S JUSTICE IN DEAL-
ING WITH EACH GENERATON
(Ezek. 18:5-20).

A. The righteous man (vv. 5-9) .
The righteous man is one who is
just in God's sight. His life reflects
his faith in God. (Remember, none
is righteous in God's sight except by

Background Scripture: Ezekiel 18
Key Verses: Ezekiel 18:1-4, 25-32
Devotional Reading: Psalm 139:1-
12

Memory Selection: Ezekiel 18:27

faith— Gen. 15:6; Hab. 2:4.) His
life illustrates that he is truly God's
child, doing righteousness and jus-
tice which God ever expects from
His own.

As James pointed out, "Faith, if
it has not works, is dead in itself"
(Jas. 2:17). Of Abraham, James
further said, "Faith wrought with
his works, and by his works was faith
made perfect" (Jas. 2:22) .

It has always been so with God
that His children live lives that re-
flect that they are different, God's
children indeed. In the Old Testa-
ment this life was summarized in the
fruits of justice and righteousness.
In the New Testament the fruits of
the Spirit describe the character
which show believers to be truly
God's children (Gal. 5:22-23) .

There follows a detailed notation
of the ways in which the righteous
life of the righteous one is reflected:

First, his righteous acts toward
God are in terms of what he will not
do. He will not eat on the moun-
tains (partake in the pagan wor-
ship) nor lift his eyes to the idols of
Israel (worship any god but the
Lord) . Continually in Scripture the
righteous life is described in terms
of negatives. Most of the Ten Com-
mandments are given as "Thou shalt
not . . . ."

In Psalm 1, first the negatives of
the righteous life are noted. Being
righteous does mean being negative
in regard to sin. Sin is so prevalent
in the world that much of our life
is referred to as negative living,
"No, I will not do this," because we
love the Lord. Those who stress
only the positive aspects of life miss
much that Scripture has to say.

Next are noted the righteous acts
toward his fellow men, his justice.

The International Sunday School Lesson Outlines
are copyrighted 1972 by the Committee on the
Uniform Series of the National Council of Churches
of Christ.

He respects his neighbor's wife, life
needs and rights. He is concerned
for justice (v. 9) . In saying he ex
ecutes true justice, Scripture means
that he has applied the will of God
(the Ten Commandments, for ex-
ample) , to every facet of his own
life in all of his dealings with his
fellow man:

He lives in accord with the jus
tice (or ordinances) which God laid
down (Exo. 21-24, immediately fol
lowing the Ten Commandments)
He is therefore called a just man
(v. 9) , a child of God working righ
teousness and justice (Gen. 18:19)
He shall live.

B. The unrighteous son (w. 10-
13) . The son of this righteous man
may be the very opposite. Godff11'
taught parents to instruct their chil
dren in all righteousness and justice
(Gen. 18:9; Deut. 6:4-9; etc.). How
ever, this in itself does not guaran-
tee that children will always do
right.

Samuel is an example of a righ
teous father who apparently taught
his sons to do justice and righteous
ness, but the sons turned out to be
evil (I Sam. 8:3) . In the Scripture,
Samuel is never blamed for their] »
behavior as, in contrast, Eli waspm
blamed for the behavior of his sons
(I Sam. 2:12, 22-36).

The son in this chapter was un-
righteous, and this was seen in his
life. He was a thief and a murderer,
he participated in pagan worship,
he had no regard for his neighbor;
all he did was abominable in God's
sight (v. 13).

No matter that he had a righteous
father. He was to die because he
was guilty before God. The soul
that sins shall die, and the father's
righteousness could not save him.
No more can a parent's righteousness
today save a wicked child, nor can
unbelieving church members today
appeal to godly parents who live
lives of faith righteously before God.
No one will get to heaven on his
parents' coattails.

C. The righteous grandson (vv.
14-18) . Tracing the generation one
step farther, we look at the son of

PAGE 14 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 10, 1973

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.he unrighteous one, a grandson of
he righteous man. The grandson
'eared God and turned from the life
md example of his father. He would
lot do what his father did.

Instead, he lived as his grandfa-
her did, doing righteously before
Sod and his fellow man (vv. 15-
17) . A good illustration of this is
he good king Josiah who did righ-
:eously although his father Amon
ind his grandfather Manasseh did
ivilly. He had two generations of
;vil before him and yet he turned
;o God.

Such a one as this righteous grand-
ion will live, not because his grand-
father was righteous but because he,
ike his grandfather, feared and hon-
ored God with his whole life. Being
he son of a righteous man and the
ather of a righteous man did not
:ave the wicked man in the middle!
de died in his iniquity (v. 18) .
, D. The principle (vv. 19-20) . God
lolds each man accountable for his
>wn life. No one is saved by the
ighteousness of others or condemned
pecause of the iniquity of others.
Only by trust in God, which is re-
flected in a life of righteous deeds,
:an any be saved in God's sight. We
ill stand or fall before God.

Be clear about this: Scripture is
not teaching that any man is saved
jy his own works of righteousness.
This Scripture assumes a knowledge
)f what has already been written,
tfone is righteous except by faith in
he Lord; then God imputes that
pith to the believer as righteous-
less, as He did with Abraham. (See
jjenesis 15:6.)

This is not a New Testament doc-
rine. It comes from the Old Testa-
ment. Any so-called righteousness
)f our own, without faith, is utterly
jejected by God (Isa. 64:6) . At the
ame time, know this: The one jus-
ified by faith will live a life that
glorifies God. He will do what
^leases God. He is not sinless, but
lis life is characterized by righteous-
less.

II. GOD'S JUSTICE IN DEAL-
ING WITH EACH MANS LIFE
j (Ezek. 18:21-29) .

J, 1. The place of repentance (vv.
ttl-23) . The first instance is the
lf:ase of a wicked man who turned
I rom his evil. Scripture makes clear
lihat none can do this but by the pow-
I'iT of God. It is impossible for the
I Unrighteous to do what pleases God.
\\ changed heart is necessary. This
||s what only God can do.

Therefore, Jesus said, "You must
be born again ... of the Spirit"
(John 3:3-5). As Paul wrote, "You
were dead through your trespasses
and sins which you once walked in
. . . among whom we also all once
lived in the lust of our flesh . . .
and were by nature children of
wrath even as the rest. But God . . .
for His great love . . . even when
we were dead through our trespasses,
made us alive together with Christ"
(Eph. 2:1-5).

The case before us is that of one
who was born again, made alive by
God's grace and love. His old sin-
ful life ended and he lived for God
as God's child, his sins forgiven. He
did righteousness before God (v.
22) . God desires that all men re-
pent and believe (v. 23) . See also
II Peter 3:9.

Nevertheless, not all will repent
and believe and live righteously,
even as not all please God in life.
It is a part of God's revealed will
that all should obey Him, but not
all do so. The death of the wicked
is no pleasure to God; however,
many will die because they did not
repent.

B. The occasion of reversion to
sin (v. 24) . In the next instance (v.
24) we have the case of one who
appeared to be God's child. He was
called "the righteous" because his
life appeared so, but in reality his
heart turned from God and he was
not God's child. None of his past
deeds could save him. Because he
was unrighteous, his past was of no
avail. He was like the seed that ap-
peared to be good seed but never
bore fruit that was lasting (Matt.
13:20-22) .

C. The principle (vv. 25-29).
Plainly, no one is justified before
God by his own righteousness. We
are justified by faith only. Without
faith it is impossible to please God
(Heb. 11:6). He who does repent
and believe in God will do what
pleases God and his new life of faith
in God will be what God judges him
by, not his past life in sin.

At the same time, if one has ap-
peared to be righteous but shows in
the end that he is not God's child,
his former "good works" will not
save him. It is not that God is un-
fair (unequal) (v. 25) , but because
men are so unequal, i.e., perverted
in their thinking.

Men try to justify themselves by
their own good works. This no man
can do. God never changes H i s
standards, which are right and equal

and true. But by His love and grace
he does change men to make them
conform to His will by giving them
new hearts (Jer. 31) .

CONCLUSION: (vv. 30-32). By
the word "therefore," the Lord ex-
horted Israel to repent. He called
on all to return, turning from evil
and iniquity which could destroy
them (v. 30) . He called them to
the necessary act of salvation, that is,
the making of a new heart and a
new spirit (v. 31) . Unless they did
so, they would die.

Next week we shall see that Ezek-
iel's message contained the good
news that God will do for them what
they cannot themselves do, namely,
give them new hearts to believe in
Him, but this lesson clearly lays the
responsibility for our lives on our-
selves.

If we die in our sin, it is wholly
our blame, not God's. The fact that
we cannot save ourselves is not God's
fault. We willfully choose to do evil
against God. It is only by His mer-
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PAGE 15 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 10, 1973

YOUTH PROGRAM

For January 28, 1973

God is Here and He Is Speaking

Scripture: II Timothy 3:16
Suggested Hymns:

"Standing on the Promises"
"I Know Whom I Have

Believed"
"Blessed Assurance"

PROGRAM LEADER'S INTRO-
DUCTION: (Before your meeting
prepare a copy of the following
agree-disagree sheet for each person
present. If you have not used one
of these before, please read the fol-
lowing instructions for its use. An
agree-disagree sheet is not a true-
false test. It is a teaching aid to
lead in discussion. After you have
passed the sheets, give the group
about five minutes to mark whether
they agree or disagree with each
statement. When they are finished,
poll the group, noting those state-
ments where there is a difference of
opinion. After you have polled the
group, have them discuss only the
ones they disagreed with each other
on.)

Agree-Disagree Sheet

-1. A person can find God
through studying nature.

-2. Through a study of na-
ture, you can convince

Rev. Henry J. Mueller

someone who doesn't be-
lieve in God that God
exists.

3. If you want to know

God as He really exists,
then He must tell you
about Himself.

4. It is impossible to know

God as He really is un-
less you read the Bible.

5. We know the Bible is

God's Word because the
prophecy in it has been
fulfilled.

This discussion has given the
group a review of what we have stud-
ied the last three weeks and has
helped us see whether we have un-
derstood and applied this to our
lives.

FIRST SPEAKER: How does a
person know that the Bible is the
Word of God? How can we know
this is where we can find God? The
Westminster Confession of Faith
contains the teachings of our Church
concerning this. In Chapter I. 6 we
read, "Nevertheless we acknowledge
the inward illumination of the Spirit
of God to be necessary for the saving
understanding of such things as are
revealed in the word."

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There is no argument we can hu
manly put forth, even though a lot
of them are true, that will convince
a person of the existence of God if e
he doesn't want to believe. The only
way any person can come to know
the existence of God as He has re-
vealed Himself in the Bible is
through the work of God Himself.
Men come to know God by God
working in them.

What does illumination mean:
Have you ever found yourself alone
in a dark room you haven't been in
before? You can find out some things
by feel, but as soon as someone turn.1
on a light you immediately know
the room. You understand the size
and the place and function of the
furniture in a way you did not know
before the light was switched on.

The Holy Spirit does the same
thing in our understanding of God
through the Bible. Facts come to life
in a personal relationship. The word;
don't just give us ideas, they intra
duce us to a living person.

What makes this even more excit L
ing is that the Holy Spirit is the one f,
who wrote the Bible. He inspirec
men to write it. He illuminates L,
gives us light to understand it. Thi
is why we can say that God is hen
and He is not silent.

hi

p

SECOND SPEAKER: What do w(
mean when we say the Holy Spiri
inspired men to write the Bible? Ir
II Timothy 3:16 we read that Goe
did inspire the Scriptures. (Read
together.) So it is a claim that
Bible makes of itself.

II Peter 1:21 gives us a little m<
understanding of this. (Read it to
gether.) Men of God spoke ant
wrote as they were moved by th<
Holy Spirit. (Don't forget that th<
Holy Spirit is God, the third persoi
of the Trinity.) God in the persoi
of the Holy Spirit caused these met
to think, speak and write His words

Now this doesn't mean that Got
manipulated these men like puppet
or programmed them like robots!
God, who was with His people, spok I
words in a language they could ur)

Hill
lit

Id

PAGE 16 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 10, 1973

I ur

ierstand. He knew their thought
patterns and culture situation. He
used men in their society as His in-
struments.

God so guarded and oversaw them
;hat what they said or wrote was
eally His Word which He wanted
nen to know concerning Himself.
What is so amazing about all this is
hat this Word wasn't just for a few
people back then, but was for all
nen through all time.

Some people say that the men who
vrote the Bible were inspired in the
iame way as Rembrandt or Einstein.

Can you see how disobedience in
i Christian would actually be the
Result of selfishness?

Our interest in this series of stud-
es is in the Christian as God's ser-
vant. To be a servant, one must be
nven a task to perform by someone
ilse. It is not something that one

c "igures out for oneself and then goes

Bmt to do.

i A natural response when given a
|T:ask is to ask, "Do I want to do it?"
I This is usually expressed in the form
|f)f a very simple question. Why? How

< nany times it is true when someone
lis asked to do something, the re-
i ponse is "Why?" This implies, "If
|!l think it is good or if I want to be

< issociated with it, perhaps I will do

This question, "Why?" is
i grounded in the attitude: I will do
' mly what I wish to do.

The person who asks why may not
I >e conscious of being self-centered,
■put that is actually the reality.

'Why should I do it? What will I
| jet out of it?" In a person's human

lature he is in his heart committed
Ifo what he prefers.

All such feeling is natural enough,
jput it is sinful. It is not the way
i 'he Lord Jesus Christ did. He said:

"I can of mine own self do nothing
□ oecause I seek not mine own will
ji >ut the will of the Father which sent
■ Tie." This was the mind of Christ,

tnd it is the mind that will be in
I 'he heart of the Christian by the

Holy Spirit in him.
I i It is not so much that a person

PAGE 17 /

These men had great ideas and in-
sights and abilities which were God-
given. Many people have had some
kind of general inspiration to do
good things, but that is not what we
mean when we talk about the Bible
as being inspired by God.

Some other people say that God
inspired the Bible in a limited sense.
It is inspired only in the great
thoughts or the important parts. But
who is to say what these are?

The truth is the Bible claims that
all of itself is God's Word. It is not
some man's opinion of God. It is

Manford Geo. Gutzke, D.D., Ph.D.

Jonah

hears the will of God, the plan of
God, and then decides to do it.
Rather, one yields himself to do the
will of God and then listens to see
what it will mean. It is an attitude
that would look up to God and say,
"Speak, Lord, for thy servant hear-
eth." Some of us know that song,
"I'll go where you want me to go,
dear Lord. I'll do what you want
me to do. I'll say what you want me
to say, dear Lord. I'll be what you
want me to be."

An example of the obedient ser-
vant is found in the book of Jonah,
a short book in the Old Testament,
with four short chapters that are
easily read. The story is very simple,
but very profound. In that story of
Jonah we will notice three things
which are meaningful for the Chris-
tian as God's servant.

First, what Jonah had to do. What
was the servant given to do? He
was given a task, a commission. He
was to go to Nineveh and deliver a
message. There is no mention of
Jonah's personal fitness for the task.
God knew it, of course, whatever it
would be, but God could make him
fit for anything.

When Moses was given his task,
Moses said to God, "I am not able.
I can't talk. I can't speak." God
rebuked him saying, "Who made
your mouth? Who made you? I'm
the Person that made you and I'm

God really telling us about Him-
self.

PROGRAM LEADER'S CON-
CLUSION: If the Bible is where we
find God as He really is, then we
must study it, learn it, and use what
it says in our lives. If we need guid-
ance for a decision then we search
the Bible, praying that God will
lead us to the answer. To do this
we need to believe He is here and
He is speaking.

Closing prayer. EE

the Person that is commissioning
you. I want you to do this thing."

We are not given any clue as to
why Jonah was chosen, nor are we
told anything about the nature of
the task. We are simply told that
there was a wicked ungodly city, and
there was a man, Jonah. Jonah was
told to go to that city and take the
message.

Jonah chose to go another way
and was stopped in his flight away
from the will of God. He admitted
that he was turning his back on
God's will and was thrown over-
board. The fish swallowed him, and
in the belly of the fish, on the
brink of death, he prayed and was
heard.

One of the most wonderful things
a person will ever get in this whole
book is that when Jonah was totally,
utterly helpless, he prayed and then
God heard him. Oh, if we could
but learn this. We are so prone to
wonder if there is any part we can
do. If there is, we are going to wig-
gle and squirm and strain and try
and do it. As long as we do that,
we are delaying the blessing of God.

When Jonah was finally put back
out on the shore and God gave him
His command a second time, Jonah
was willing to do whatever God
wanted him to do. It was the origi-
nal task. The city of Nineveh was
still there. Jonah went and preached.

The people were so affected by
the message they turned to God. God
seemed to change His plan and this

THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 10, 1973

WOMEN'S WORK

Supplementary Circle Bible Study

February: The Obedient Servant

bothered Jonah. He was unhappy be-
cause God's action did not seem con-
sistent. He was shown by an object
lesson of God's mercy and grace. God
didn't punish Jonah for his criticism.
God showed him patiently that His
way was right.

The real point at issue is not
Jonah. The real point is recogniz-
ing God's way of doing things. He
is the Lord. He rules and overrules.
What did Jonah have to do? What
does the servant have to do? He has
to trust God, obey Him. Jonah was
given a task and he was disobedient.
He refused to accept God's will be-

cause he had a will of his own.

Jonah judged God's plan to be
undesirable. God had told him
what to do; Jonah reflected on it
and said, "Oh no, that is not what
I want to do." Later when God
spared the people, again Jonah
judged God.

Any Christian, as a servant, would
do well to remember that a human
being has his own natural interests
and desires. Only as they are over-
come by yielding to the Spirit of
God is the Christian going to be
obedient. He can never be obedi-
ent in himself. The natural man,

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like Jonah, has his own ideas. Eachn[
feels he is free to disobey. He is^
mistaken. Jonah needed to learn jr
that he was not free from God's con-) ^
trol. God gives the Christian an op- 1[£|
portunity to serve Him and the
Christian is not free to do otherwise., '
When Jonah decided to act on his, |oi
own, he evidently did not expect) S(
trouble. He had to learn that God, D(
would invoke suffering if need be.j m
God would bring tribulation if it, u
would take that to bring His servant \
into line. The New Testament) B
makes it clear, those whom He lov-i 'a
eth, He chasteneth, and He will,,
scourge every man whom He receivi m
eth. We know that God will bring) j|(
tribulation and suffering to His peo-|1(]
pie to lead them in the way that He,
wants them to go.

Glory in Tribulation

id

No wonder the Apostle Paul whc \
was a great servant of God coidd say jy
that he gloried in tribulation not bei
cause he liked to suffer, but because
"tribulation worketh patience, and
patience experience and experience!
gives hope and hope maketh not
ashamed because of the love of God
that is spread abroad in the heart."

Thus Jonah had to learn that Goc
will invoke suffering if need be
Jonah also learned that God wil
forgive the repentant soul. What
wonderful thing for any servant tc
have in mind! God will forgive thf
repentant soul. It would make nc
difference what a person has done
"Though your sins be as scarlet, the}
shall be as white as snow; thougl
they be red like crimson, the1
shall be as wool." This is the prom
ise of God.

When God changed His an
nounced course because the peopl
repented, Jonah judged God's actioi
again. He resented God's action
The Christian can appreciate th<
patience and long suffering of God
God did not judge nor punish Jonal
for this. He showed Jonah some
thing he needed to learn; in God'
forgiving the people of Nineveh
that God is not bound. He is alway
free.

God is almighty. He is always fre«
because God is sovereign and if Hi
wants to forgive, He can forgive. I
He wants to suspend His intende(
course of action, He can do thai
There is not any time table to sched
ule God's action. Anyone studyin;
Scripture who is led to estimat
times and seasons is out of bound;

DM

cri

St!

PAGE 18 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 10, 1973

1

5!L

It

t is not for you to know the times
>r seasons. God is not bound by
hem. If God needs more time He
:an make it. Time is His creation,
jod is not bound. He is always
ree. He is sovereign.

Another marvelous truth that is
jart of God is that God is compas-
ionate. There is much to learn as
i servant. Jonah had much to learn
ind he had to learn it the hard way,
>ut Jonah believed in God and was
mabled to learn to serve Him.

What we can learn from Jonah
hat is of importance to us is that
iod wants His message taken even
o the wicked. The message may
lot be pleasant. He wants them
old that they are in danger of His
udgment and destruction. God is
lot mocked. No one is going to
nake a fool out of Him. People re-
ist Him, neglect Him and turn their
>acks on Him, but God will judge
nd work His will. He will destroy.
This is what they need to know. The
ervant may need to bring out that
inessage.

'> Every now and again people feel
hat a preacher should be careful
iot to say that kind of thing. A
rue servant of God cannot fear man.

For Discussion

What is lacking in the confi-
dence of a professing Christian who
jlisobeys God?

K. What evidence can you see that
Jonah was a real believer in God?
». Explain what is involved in the
aying "to obey is better than sacri-
fice"?

1. What can be learned about the
ource of power in the testimony of

it servant of God in the career of
onah?

iod calls believers to obey Him.
Knd so the Christian, as God's ser-
vant, will be given his task. As
ibedient servants we are to do it.
The servant could be disobedient,
Itnd if he is disobedient he will be
hastised. Disobedience will bring
hastisement, even if the chastise-
nent is severe, even unto death.
? The Christian could repent. Now
His a Christian will repent, he has a
vonderful experience awaiting him.
Fhe repentant soul will be received
l[>y God graciously. If a man will
epent, God will receive him and
vill cleanse him, forgive him, de-
liver him.

| When Jonah cried out to God,
^od arranged for Jonah to be

spewed out on the land and he was
put out on the shore by that very
same fish. The repentant soul will
be received graciously. The be-
lieving prayer will be heard. If a
man repent honestly before God, he
can ask God and God will hear
when he asks. The believing prayer
will be heard.

God Can Use Us

Then when you think of what fol-
lows, and this is a wonderful part of
the story, Jonah had started out so
disobediently but was then chastised
and humbled. He repented and
turned to God. God gave him his
assignment to go and do what he
was to do. The ministry of Jonah,
the service of Jonah, actually was
effectual.

God can use anyone who obeys
Him, regardless of that person's past
record. Let the wicked forsake his
ways and the unrighteous man his
thoughts. Let him return unto our
God for He will have mercy upon
him and will abundantly pardon.
That is the story and it is the truth.

The Christian as God's servant al-
so can remember that God is long
suffering, He is meek and He is pa-
tient even in dealing with His ser-
vants. We have a responsibility. We
are to let our light shine that men
may see our good works and glorify
our Father which is in heaven. We

do have a responsibility to other peo-
ple.

A Christian seeing a blind man at
a busy corner can help. If he should
happen to be in a community where
an epidemic breaks out, and the be-
liever knows where the vaccine is,
where a doctor is, then he is respon-
sible to bring help to the sick.

A believer would not think for
one moment of leaving a child
drowning in a canal if he could help
him. No Christian is free to ignore
the cry for help.

God may want his servant, the
Christian, to take a saving message
to wicked people who do not believe
in God. That servant may be change-
able. He may say he won't go and
then he will. He may start out to
go and then not go. But God does
not change His purpose and we learn
so far as this is concerned that the
one thing the servant is to do is to
obey God. What does God ask? Do

that, and trust in Him.

# # * #

Dr. Gutzke is professor emeritus
of Biblical exposition, Columbia
Seminary, and broadcaster of "The
Bible for You." This study is avail-
able on tape recording, $3 per reg-
ular tape containing 4 lessons ($9
the set, Nos. 71, 2, 3) and $3 per cas-
sette containing 3 lessons ($12 the
set, Nos. 71- A, B, C, D) . Order from
The Bible for You, Box 15007, At-
lanta, Ga. 30333. ffl

<£/<

emeu

d *Secondar

TEACHERS

Do you love our Lord Jesus Christ?

Are you committed to the Reformed Faith?
Do you love teaching children?

Are you professionally competent?

If so

WESTMINSTER ACADEMY

is interested in YOU!

Write: Rev. Harry Miller, Headmaster
5620 N.E. 22nd Ave.
Fort Lauderdale, Fla. 33308

An agency of the Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church

PAGE 19 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 10, 1973

BOOKS

AUDIO -VISUAL MEDIA IN
CHRISTIAN EDUCATON, by Gene A.
Getz. Moody Press, Chicago, Illinois.
236 pp. $5.95. Reviewed by the Rev.
Joseph A. Scharer, pastor, First Pres-
byterian Church, Plantation, Fla.

Anyone in the teaching field will
find this an outstanding presenta-
tion of the use of audiovisual tech-
niques. Every phase of this type
of material has, seemingly, been cov-
ered. There are many helpful, de-
tailed instructions, as well as new
ideas presented in a clear and sim-
ple manner.

Much of the material dealt with
in the book concerns the use of pup-
pets, window murals, models, hand-
work projects, teaching posters,
three-dimensional maps, motion pic-
tures, overhead transparencies, slide
films, graphs, cameras, charts, etc.

This book is not only useful to
the teacher in the church, it can be
conveniently used as a class text-
book. Each chapter closes with
projects and discussion questions.

This is a revised and updated edi-
tion of a book first published in
1958.

Dr. Getz's wide experience as a
youth director, assistant pastor, min-
ister of Christian education, teacher,
author of many books, and excellent
educational background enable him
to write with authority on this sub-
ject. He has not only the knowl-

WANTED: Dedicated workers to serve in
Children's Home. Couple or lady willing
to give up much to provide Christian
training for children. Young at heart. For
additional information contact Superin-
tendent, Box 1108, Laurel, Miss. 39440.

WANTED: Correspondence with Church
seeking a Stated Supply. Am retired. Ex-
cellent health. Conservative, supporter of
PEF and Concerned Presbyterians. Able
to carry full ministerial load. Reply
"Minister, c/o Presbyterian Journal,
Weaverville, N. C. 28787."

edge and methods but a desire to
have these tools used as a means to
more effectively communicate the
Word of God in our day.

Those in the ministry of Chris-
tian education will find here a new
awareness of the infinite possi-
bilities available in the audiovisual
media. ffl

THE MIRACLE OF LOVE, by
Charles L. Allen. Fleming H. Revell
Co., Old Tappan, N. J. 126 pp. $3.95.
Reviewed by the Rev. Horace L. Villee,
pastor emeritus, First Presbyterian
Church, Columbus, Miss.

The pastor of First United Meth-
odist Church, Houston, Texas, this
nation's largest Methodist congrega-
tion, is known widely through his
speaking engagements, radio and TV
appearances, and as a newspaper col-
umnist.

Author of a number of inspira-
tional books which have enjoyed
sales of well over a million copies,
in this book Dr. Allen again reveals
his perceptive, interpretational abil-
ity to make the Scriptures come alive
for the reader.

In dealing with the characteris-
tics of love described in I Corin-
thians 13, he considers the power-
ful effects which love, or the ab-
sence of love, can have on individ-
uals, what happens when one is love-
starved, how one can learn to love,
how love works to overcome destruc-
tive emotions, and the significance
of love in the family. The final
chapter contains a collection of beau-
tiful quotations on love which Dr.
Allen has gathered through the
years.

A few hours spent with this book
will give one a better comprehension
of a beautiful miracle — the miracle
of love. Dr. Allen testifies that
"love has potent healing power both
for mental and physical illness." 33

Quality education focused on the individual

PRESBYTERIAN COLLEGE

Clinton, South Carolina 29325

Romans— from p. 1 1

love God and His plan enough tc
obey. This Scripture, then, applies
to the rule of faith, God's plan foi
giving it, and the promises to be
enjoyed by those who obey, and not
to anything else.

To take this passage away from
this context of the saving Gospel
and try to apply it to every conceiv
able event, whether good or bad
which can happen to a child oi
God is misusing the passage in a
most absurd manner.

I have heard this passage quoted
by my brethren and applied to every
kind of gory, gruesome, catastrophic
event that could happen in one's
life. Just picture the bloody cai
wreck, the untimely death of a hus
band, wife, child or other relative:
and someone will take Romans 8:28
away from its beautiful setting and
try to apply it to the situation.

Paul did not have any such in
mind when he penned our text. He
wasn't discussing catastrophic events
that might occur in the life of Chris
tians. He was discussing things
much more beautiful in God's plan:
for mankind.

Let me cite some examples. I know
of a minister who had been to a
neighboring town visiting the sick
On the way home a drunk slammed
into his car and killed him, leav
ing his wife with a family to raise
Many sons of Christian families have
been killed in service of the country
placing hardships on numbers ol
people.

These could be multiplied thou
sands of times, but they will suf
fice to illustrate my point and tc
show the absurdity of taking a swee
beautiful passage from its setting
and try to apply it to such gruesome
events.

The Roman letter was not writ
ten about such matters, consequently
the application of Romans 8:28 tc
such things is a grave misuse o
God's Word. I am aware that ir
some instances of "bad luck," one
might be able to find some poin
of good later on, but this would b<
an unusual thing, and would no
come under the teaching of our text

Brethren, let us leave Romans 8
28 in the beautiful setting and les
son which Paul was discussing anc
quit abusing it by trying to appl;
it to events that he was not dis
cussing. Let us "speak as the oracle
of God." H

PAGE 20 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 10, 1973

i

VOL. XXXI, NO. 38

JANUARY 17, 1973

the

PRESBYTERIAN

tdvocating continuation of a Presbyterian Church loyal

$4.00 A YEAR

JOURNAL

to Scripture and the Reformed faith

A Right and Wrong about Liturgy

If liturgy is the expression of worship, if it consists of
rites and symbols which worshipers use to commune with God,
something which is said and acted out with complete sincerity
and fervor, it is right.

But if liturgy is something artificial and contrived, a series
of words and motions designed to create what they should ex-
press spontaneously and even irrepressibly, it is wrong.

— Rene de Visme Williamson
(See p. 7)

. S. LESSON AND YOUTH PROGRAM FOR FEBRUARY 4

cIHOO

?TQ^S OK IITH I?dtet(Q
uofq.o©xxoo 0 M

m

MAILBAG

THE CHRISTMAS ISSUE

Thank you for another spiritual
"mountain peak," the Dec. 20 Jour-
nal. The articles on the origin of
Christmas by Handel H. Brown will
go into our pamphlet file in the li-
brary of our junior high school
where I am librarian. You may be
interested to know that we also have
the essays on evolution and abortion
in our files, taken from the Journal.

To be able to give students the
Christian viewpoint is of utmost im-
portance, I feel, when they come in
requesting material on both sides of
a controversial subject.

I, too, am a Clydie fan and save
her articles for rereading. When
Clydie shakes her Bible and her dic-
tionary at the august dignitaries who
are indulging in semantic antics to
the detriment of God's Word and

the

PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL

Rev. G. Aiken Taylor, Ph.D., Editor
Rev. Henry B. Dendy, D.D., Managing Editor

Circulation leader among independent publications in the Presbyterian-Reformed world

THIS WEEK— Vol. XXXI, No. 38, January 17, 1973

Integrity and Liturgy 7

The liturgy of a Church should reflect its doctrine and
polity By Rene de Visme Williamson

The Power We Need 9

God answers the prayers of everyone who comes to Him in
faith By John S. Jennings

When the Blind Lead the Blind 11

A good and happy society cannot be created out of sinful and
unhappy people By John Jenks

De partments —

Editorials 12

The Layman and his Church 13

Sunday School Lesson, February 4 14

Youth Program, February 4 16

Book Reviews 17

THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL, a

Presbyterian weekly magazine, devoted
to the statement, defense, and propa-
gation of the Gospel, the faith which
was once for all delivered to the saints,

is published every Wednesday by the
Southern Presbyterian Journal Co.,
Inc., in Weaverville, N. C.

SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: $4 a year
for individuals, $3 for members of
Every Family Plan churches. All cor-
respondence regarding subscriptions,
advertising or other business matters
should be addressed to the business
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Second class postage paid at Weaver-
ville, N. C. 28787.

POSTMASTER: Send Form 3579 to
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NEWS AND EDITORIAL correspond-
ence should be addressed to P. 0. Box
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TELEPHONES: (All area 704) edi-
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o

1

His Church, I don't know whether
to laugh or cry.

I could often weep in rage at the
insults and indignities heaped up-
on our Lord by those in authority
in our Church. Clydie's verbal car
toons are worth a thousand para
graphs. Her rapier wit slices
through the pretenses of liberal
churchmanship to lay bare the in-
ner hypocrisy. No wonder they
would like to silence her.

I do sincerely hold in admiration
those who fearlessly "stand in the
gap" (Ezek. 22:30) against the ris-
ing tide of apostasy and spiritua
delinquency, against verbal brick-
bats and the "fiery darts of thf
wicked" (Eph. 6:16). Wouldn't il
be possible for concerned laymen in
our UPUSA Church to join with
conservative brethren in the South
ern Church in advocating the con.
tinuation of a Presbyterian Church 11
loyal to Scripture and the Reformed
faith?

—Mrs. Harold Van Tress
Springfield, Ohio

Nothing we'd like better than to se<
a movement towards a Continuing
Church in the UPUSA. — Ed.

THE NEW YEAR'S EDITORIAL

Right on target — I mean tl
lead editorial in the issue of Jan.
on the single greatest danger facing
the Church today. It was not to<
difficult to see, even a couple
years ago, that we were in for a
of pseudo-evangelism and even thi
perverted use of fundamentalist Ian
guage on the part of the liberals.

Not only do some liberal publics
tions bear this out but surely mucl ,4
of what is being done as a part 0
Key 73 fits the pattern. If it ha(
not been for the testimony of on
young black girl (bless her heart!'
the recent rally for Key 73 hel
here would have been absolutel
mute as to the real evangel.

1973 is surely a decision year i:
the Presbyterian and Reforme
Churches!

— (Rev.) Nelson Malkus
Columbia, S. C.

Let me flat-footed, straightout
phatically tell you that as much
as often as I've agreed with you
do agree with you, I have neve
agreed with you so much as in tfc
Jan. 3 "For Firmness of Resolve
editorial.

The encouragement that is beir

given the Christians in the Church
is the greatest danger today. Ex-
actly: The love of fellow church-
men, the lack of suspicion, the
prayer for grace not to strive against
another, is the greatest weakness.
And that weakness is perceived for
it is being exploited in every con-
ceivable way today!

— Robert Black
Clinton, S. C.

AND IN OCTOBER

Forgive the delay in responding
to the editorial of the October 18
Journal, entitled, "Off Again On
Again In Again Out Again." I
wanted to indicate that I thought it
a very good editorial, and indeed
most perceptive.

— (Rev.) John D. Erickson
American Bible Soc, N. Y.

MINISTERS

J. Harris Stephens from Clifton
Forge, Va., to Fayetteville, N. C,
as executive secretary of Fayette-
ville Presbytery.

Charles H. Brown from Abbe-
ville, S. O, to Augusta, Ga., as ad-
ministrator of the Augusta Rescue
Mission.

Donald R. Hopkins, Louisville,
Ky., is now associate pastor of the
Bardstown Road church, Louis-
ville.

Wendell K. Patterson from Shaw-
nee, Okla., to the First United
Church, Alva, Okla.
William F. Pruitt, Dallas, Tex.,
who has been serving on the staff
of Highland church while on
leave from the Board of World
Missions, has become assistant pas-
tor of that church.
Charles L. Wilson from Linden,
Ala., to the Aliceville, Ala.,
church.

Jesse Anderson, received from the
Episcopal Church, to the Church
of the Redeemer, Washington,
D. C.

Lewis V. Boyle from Newport
News, Va., to the New Hope
church, Willow Springs, N. C.

Bert K. Carmichael from Isom,

Ky., to the Druid Hills church,

Atlanta, Ga., as administrator of

staff and buildings.

Paul B. Fowler from graduate

study to the Trion, Ga. multiple

field.

Harry R. Holmes, received from
the UPUSA, to the Westminster
church, Alexandria, Va., as as-
sistant pastor.

Thomas Q. Johnston from
Charleston, S. C., to the Memorial
church, Columbus, Ga.
George C. Kaulbach from Foley,
Ala., to the First Church, Crest-
view, Fla.

Richard L. Kell from Morgan
City, La., to the Meadowlawn
church, St., Petersburg, Fla.

DEATH

Miss Susanne A. Colton, 94, re-
tired PCUS missionary to Korea,
died Dec. 20. Prior to her retire-
ment, she had served 32 years
overseas.

• People tell us the Journal is im-
proving — whether for politeness'
sake, or for real we're not always
sure, but it does make the labor
more joyful. If we do say so our-
selves, we think the next two or three
issues will be especially helpful. We
intend to concentrate on the note of
evangelism and missions — in addi-
ion to the perennial issue of the in-
tegrity of the Church, to which Dr.
■Williamson will speak most persua-
sively (see p. 7) .

■ • The most appropriate way to "go
ftmt into the highways and hedges"
these days seems to be by bus. As
five noticed in this column several
•nonths ago, Presbyterians are begin-
; ling to catch on to the value of a
■'bus ministry," meaning the prac-
tice of going out to bring people to
Ihe house of God who would not
; )therwise come. While visiting in
■Hattiesburg, Miss., not long ago,
live were driven past a Baptist church
Wn the yard of which we counted
Ifi/teera buses. And we were told
■hey arrive full. But no sooner had
■Tve returned to the office than we
■aw the January issue of Moody
Monthly, which reported on the fast-

ACROSS THE EDITOR'S DESK

est growing churches in America.
According to the article, the largest
Sunday school bus ministry is that
of the Landmark Baptist Temple,
Cincinnati, Ohio, which sends out
more than 100 buses every Sunday
to bring more than 2,500 children
to Sunday school! If that isn't
enough to challenge a Presbyterian,
the Lord help you!

• It was sure to happen sooner or
later. Perhaps you saw the item in
the December Survey, taken from
the new Shalom curriculum that the
Presbyterian Church is now distrib-
uting. It was a suggestion for a lit-
any to help little folks understand
the facts of death and the suggestion
was that "thanks and intercessions"
be made in prayers on behalf of
"cats and turtles departed, as well as
a sharing of feelings regarding hu-
man death." Just a line, of course,
and no doubt the author failed to
take into consideration the full im-
plication of what he wrote, so we'll

let it go. Until the time comes
when it is suggested that we pray to
cats and turtles — which in time
no doubt we will find just as easy to
overlook.

• A service of major importance is
ready to be offered its member
churches by the National Associa-
tion of Evangelicals. After two
years of planning, a fine fire and
casualty insurance program (with
other coverages available) has been
developed with one of America's ma-
jor insurance companies, making pos-
sible as much as 51 per cent savings
over state insurance board rates.
With many congregations, insurance
coverage is a major item and for con-
gregations able to sign the NAE
statement of faith here is a major
opportunity. But don't be like that
PCUS congregation in Arkansas
which got on the NAE membership
list apparently just to cheat the
NAE purchasing service out of an
electric typewriter! IB

PAGE 3 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 17, 1973

NEWS OF RELIGION

Relief Agencies Move Into Nicaragua

MANAGUA, Nicaragua — A massive
relief operation spearheaded by U.
S. Protestant Church groups and
independent religious organizations
is under way in the wake of the dev-
astating earthquakes which destroyed
this city on Dec. 23.

Tents and field hospitals for
thousands of Nicaraguan refugees
have been set up on the outskirts of
Managua and flights with relief sup-
plies have been landing in a steady
stream at Las Mercedes Airport out-
side the city.

At the time of the tremors, the
only American Church agency main-
taining a relief operation in Nica-
ragua was Catholic Relief Services.
Others have responded quickly to
the emergency.

The Salvation Army announced
in New York that supplies and per-
sonnel have been moved into Nica-
ragua from Panama and Costa Rica.

Church World Service of the Na-
tional Council of Churches and the
World Relief Commission of the Na-
tional Association of Evangelicals
went into immediate action.

The Seventh-day Adventists Wel-
fare Service voted $40,000 in aid and
reassigned personnel from a hospital
60 miles north of Managua to work

with the Red Cross.

World Vision International, head-
quartered in Monrovia, California,
dispatched its president, the Rev.
W. Stanley Mooneyham, to Man-
agua with funds to be used in col-
laboration with national churches
and missionary agencies.

The Medical Assistance Pro-
grams, Inc., an evangelical agency
in Wheaton, 111., sent more than
$400,000 in vaccines. The supplies
were directed to the staff of the
American Baptist Hospital, which
suffered an 80 per cent destruction
of its building. (All patients were
removed, however, before the struc-
ture collapsed.)

Nicaraguan Baptists are affiliated
with American Baptist Churches.
All six of the denomination's sanc-
tuaries in Managua were destroyed.
A seminary was seriously damaged.

The Southern Baptist Foreign
Mission Board earmarked funds for
relief, to be channeled through the
Guatemala Baptist mission of the de-
nomination. A group of Christian
doctors sponsored by the Southern
Baptist Convention of Texas and
calling themselves Amigos Interna-
tionales, was ready to send a plane
load of doctors with supplies with-

THE CHURCH OVERSEAS

KENYA — Since the civil war in
Sudan in mid-1972, rehabilitation
opportunities in Sudan have proved
greater than expected, and ACROSS
(Africa Committee for Rehabilita-
tion of Southern Sudan) team mem-
bers are pushing hard to make the
most of them.

Ten sites for erecting and operat-
ing dispensaries, as well as other
ACROSS offers for help, have been
approved by the government.

The first dispensary at Cweibeit
is the pilot project which also in-
cludes clothing and blacksmith pro-
grams.

Construction of two more dispen-
saries was scheduled to begin last
month.

Funds for ACROSS are urgently
needed, reported Ken Tracey, di-
rector. "To equip our teams and
get them into action, plus getting
the project at Cweibeit functioning,
has involved an outlay of $20,000,
and an additional $35,000 is need-
ed."

The government attitude has
been open and friendly, the direc-
tor reported.

An aerial survey of the relief area
has been conducted by Missionary
Aviation Fellowship. A good air-
strip found at Rumbeck will be used
to service the first three sites.

Successful delivery of supplies
and personnel has already been
made from Ethiopia and Kenya. EE)

in a week after the disaster.

Presbyterian relief operations gen I
erally consist of funds channeled!
through Church World Service. Such
funds are being collected by thf]
Presbyterian US Board of W o r 1 c I
Missions in Nashville, Tenn., anc
the United Presbyterian Commissiorj
on Ecumenical Mission and RelaJ
tions in New York.

Governor Demands Life
For Hard Drug 'Pushers'

ALBANY, N. Y. — Asserting tha
the time has come for "brutal hon
esty" regarding narcotics, New Yorl
State's Gov. Nelson A. Rockefelle:
has proposed a series of tough druj
laws that would provide mandator
life prison sentences for "pushers" o
hard drugs.

The recommendations, made in ;
"state of the state" message, woul<
give New York one of the strides
drug laws in the nation. They repre
sent what the governor's aides sai<
was a "complete about face" in hi
approach to the narcotics problem t||
In the past he has stressed treatmen
and rehabilitation.

"In this state," the governor sai<
in his message, "we have tried ever
possible approach to stop addictioi
and save the addict through edua
tion and treatment, hoping that w
could rid society of this disease an
drastically reduce mugging on th
streets and robbing in the homes."

"We have allocated over $1 billio
to every form of education again;
drugs and treatment of the addicte
through commitment, therapy anlfe
rehabilitation," he said.

"But let's be frank — let's tell I:
like it is. We have achieved very littlfc
permanent rehabilitation, and we'\§v:;
found no cure. Addiction has kei
on growing."

Gov. Rockefeller charged that "
crime, the muggings, the robber:
the murders associated with addi
tion continue to spread like a reig
of terror .... Lots of wonderfi
young people have died and hui
dreds of thousands more have bee
and are being crippled for life.

"This reign of terror cannot 1
tolerated," he said.

The governor's recommendation

PAGE 4 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 17, 1973

included life prison sentences for
violent crimes committed by persons
under the influence of hard drugs
and a cash reward for information
leading to the conviction of hard
drug "pushers."

Under the proposed plan, teenage
pushers of hard drugs would not be
protected by youthful offender laws.
However, teenagers would be eligible
for parole consideration after 15
years' imprisonment.

Of concern to the governor is the
inability or unwillingness of the
courts to crack down on the drug
traffic. "The police are frustrated
by suspended sentences and plea
bargaining in the courts for those
i they have arrested," he said, "and
therefore are discouraged from ef-
fectively enforcing the law."

Covered by the governor's pro-
posals would be the sale of drugs
such as heroin, LSD, hashish, amphe-
tamines and "other dangerous
drugs." It is understood that mari-
juana is not included in the cate-
gory. IB

'Male Sex Hierarchy'
tin the Scripture Is Hit

.'.BOSTON (RNS) — English trans-
lations of the Bible established a
■"male sex hierarchy," Mrs. Anne Mc-
iGrew Bennett charged here.
I She said that the Hebrew text for
the book of Genesis clearly says
lj"God created human creatures" but
■the English translates creatures as
( "man."

It In speaking to the United Church
Board for Homeland Ministries, the
wife of theologian Dr. John C. Ben-

llnett asked what males would feel
like if all humanity were called

r'woman."

The women's rights advocate said
men have an "exalted ego because
God is always associated with their
jlimage." She called for a halt to
I'such thoughts and the language sup-
porting them.
■V According to Mrs. Bennett, the
j ministry of Jesus in the Gospels
I ("transcended the male-dominated
Ijsociety in which He lived." Jesus,
I (she said, "accepted and appreciated
i women as people in full equality
with man." ffl

Christian Stations Are
Held in Law Violation

WASHINGTON, D. C. — King's
Garden, Inc., licensee of radio sta-
tions KGDN and KBIQ-FM in Ed-
monds, Wash., will appeal a deci-
sion of the Federal Communications
Commission here that it discrimi-
nated in its employment practices
on religious grounds when it refused
to hire any but Christians to operate
its Christian enterprises.

The FCC affirmed on Nov. 22 a
previous decision that the two Chris-
tian stations violated FCC Equal
Employment Opportunities rules by
hiring Christians only and also
stated that the stations must not op-
erate solely in the interest of their
particular religious point of view.

The broadcast-regulating agency
also stipulated that the stations
must make time for the presentation
of religious views other than those
for which the stations are operated.

The Christian broadcasting or-
ganization is appealing the ruling
to the U. S. Court of Appeals, Dis-
trict of Columbia.
(Editor's note: If Christian stations
are not permitted, by law to operate
as Christian stations, we've passed an-
other milestone.) 51

Episcopal Church Gives
To WCC Anti-Racism Fund

GREENWICH, Conn— The Episco-
pal Church, lately torn by internal
dissension over grants to various rev-
olutionary groups at home, will
make its first contribution, in the
amount of $25,000, to the World
Council of Churches' Program to
Combat Racism, it was announced
here.

The grant will be made in 1973
by action of the denomination's
Executive Council, in response to a
direct request from Presiding Bishop
John E. Hines.

In his message to the council,
Bishop Hines said: "I regret to say
that the Episcopal Church has not
thus far made any contribution to
the World Council's Program to
Combat Racism, with its strong
thrust to aid liberation movements
and to empower minorities in

Africa, especially Southern Africa."

Other U.S. donations to the WCC
program, which has been said to sup-
port revolutionary groups "includ-
ing armed struggle" in their efforts
to overthrow established govern-
ments, have come from the Reformed
Church in America and the
Seventh-day Baptist Church.

Last summer the WCC's policy-
making Central Committee raised
the special fund from $500,000 to $1
million. ffl

Churches Band Together
To Help Victims of Rape

MINNEAPOLIS — The incidence
of rape has risen so high that a group
of churches here have joined to-
gether to sponsor a Center to min-
ister to victims of rape.

Four Protestant churches, includ-
ing Grace Presbyterian, and a Jew-
ish synagogue, are sponsoring the
Center which will operate out of the
Neighborhood Involvement Pro-
grams Health Clinic with medical
help, housing and counseling serv-
ices. A self-defense class for women
also will be organized.

From a total of 160 incidents of
rape in Minneapolis in 1970 and 228
in 1971, the rate has risen to nearly
one a day with 242 reported for the
first nine months of 1972.

Of the total number of incidents
reported, 51 men were charged with
the crime during both 1970 and 1971.
Of these, all but one were either
convicted, pleaded guilty or settled
for a lesser charge.

Why is there such an increase in
the number of rape cases? Dr. John
Brantner, professor of psychology at
the University of Minnesota, specu-
lates that it is part of a general in-
crease in violent crimes. He also be-
lieves that an increased tendency of
women to move about alone and un-
protected is partly responsible.

Judge Neil Riley of Hennepin
County Municipal court said convic-
tions are harder to achieve. This is
why such a small percentage are ac-
tually charged, he said. SI

• • •

Be sure you put your feet in the
right place, then stand firm. — A.
Lincoln.

PAGE 5 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 17, 1973

p

THE CHURCH AT HOME

Moderator Won't, Executives Issue Call

ATLANTA — After the moderator
of the Presbyterian Church US de-
clined to support the denomination's
office on Church and society in a
pronouncement which would have
demanded an end to the Vietnam
war, the executive secretaries of three
program boards and of the General
Council issued a call to the Church
to petition the President and Con-
gress to stop all aid for the war.

The Council on Church and Soci-
ety has the authority to issue state-
ments in the name of the Church
when it has the concurrence of the
moderator. In declining to concur in
a proposed condemnation of recent
bombing, Dr. L. Nelson Bell ex-
pressed his opposition to the war but
said he did not feel that the Church
was competent to speak, as a Church,
on matters about which only partial
knowledge was available.

"While I deplore the present
bombing and pray that it may cease
today," the moderator wrote, "I am
forced to admit that it is most likely
based on information about which
we know nothing."

"I do not feel that I should com-
mit the Church, in the name of the
Church, to a particular line of action
when -neither I nor others in the
Church are aware of all the facts in-
volved," he said.

"Furthermore," he added, "I be-
lieve the Vietnam war would long
since have been ended had it not
been for the agitation — political and
otherwise — that has given comfort to
North Vietnam."

Following Dr. Bell's communica-
tion to the office of Church and soci-
ety, a "message to fellow Presbyter-
ians" was issued by Dr. John F.
Anderson Jr., executive of the Board
of National Ministries, Dr. Evelyn
L. Green, executive of the Board of
Women's Work, Dr. John B. Evans,
executive of the Board of Christian
Education and Dr. Lawrence I. Stell,
executive of the General Council.

In their statement, channeled to
the Church through both secular and
denominational outlets, the four ex-
ecutives said, "We urge all Presbyter-
ians and other persons of good will
to join us in petitioning the Presi-
dent to negotiate an immediate end
to the war."

In addition, the executives said,
"senators and congressmen (should)
take such action immediately that
the U.S. government will supply no
more military forces or aid for the
war in Indo-China.

"In the name of God and for the
sake of our nation, we urge others
to join us in this plea to the Con-
gress," they wrote.

In conclusion, the statement de-
scribed the "slaughter of the peoples
of Vietnam" as "not only an affront
to persons of good will everywhere,
but also an affront to the Lord of
history." SI
(Editor's note: Unfortunately,
Church law does not provide for im-
peachment of executives.)

Presbyterians Inside vs
Presbyterians Outside

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Presby-
terians stood outside demonstrating
against Presbyterians inside, as the
annual service for members of Con-
gress was held at the National Pres-
byterian Church here.

Inside, worshipers, including Pres-
byterian Senators and Congressmen,
heard United Presbyterian Modera-
tor Willard Heckel and celebrated
the Lord's Supper.

Outside, about 100 demonstrators
heard the Rev. Herbert Meza, pastor
of the Church of the Pilgrims and
activist member of the Presbyterian
US Board of World Missions, pray
that God would "keep (the Presi-
dent's) head bowed so that others
can keep theirs on."

Inside, the Rev. William R. Sen-
gal, pastor of the Old Presbyterian
Meeting House, Alexandria, Va., also
prayed for peace, but awed by the
company of those present he left out
some of the stronger language in a
written prayer which was distributed
to the press.

Omitted were such phrases as,
"... having blood on our hands,"
and references to the view that a
nation is great "when it sets free the
prisoners of war."

Asked by the press why he made
the omissions, Dr. Sengel replied, "I

don't know why. It was probably an
unconcious reflection of the terrible
pressures on me."

At one time Moderator Heckel and
Stated Clerk William P. Thompson
left the church to invite those out
side to come in. They declined be
cause they were refused permissior,
to read an anti-Vietnam statemeni
during the service.

Expressing sympathy for the pro
testers, Dr. Heckel told them
wish I could have been here insteac
of where I was."

Dr. Thompson commented that he
was "deeply shocked" that most
those outside had refused to come in
side to receive Communion.

Fifteen Senators and 63 Congress
men are Presbyterians.

United Church Official
Is PCUS 'Interpreter'

Sl

il

pi;

NASHVILLE, Tenn.— Dr. Howart
Schomer, secretary for world issue:; im
for the United Church of Chris; ul
Board of World Ministries, will b(Ja;
the speaker at the Jan. 16 meeting o
the Presbyterian US Board of Work
Missions.

Dr. Schomer is responsible for tht 11
interpretation of basic public, politi
cal and social issues which affect th<
missionary and humanitarian worlfmr
of the board.

A priority concern of his office i
the search for peace in Indochina I
Prior to assuming his present posi
tion, he served as chief liaison office
between the Division of Oversea
Ministries and the Peace Priorit
Program of the National Council o
Churches.

Presbyterian Conclave
Will Stress Evangelism

in

Cc

MASSANETTA SPRINGS, Va
The annual men's conference spon kn
sored by the Virginia Synod men
organization is scheduled for Jul
13-15, it was announced here

Theme of the 1973 meeting at thi
conference center of the synod wi
be "Men Fishing" and will be ceri Ur<
tered around the Key 73 emphas
on evangelism.

Those seeking further inform;
tion are invited to contact Ca:
Wanderley, vice-president of th
synod men's council at P. O. Bo
112, Grottoes, Va. 24441.

PAGE 6 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 17, 1973

1

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The integrity of Christ's Church is being challenged from all sides —

Integrity and Liturgy

3ver the years I have developed
some firm convictions about
/hat the Christian faith means and
/hat the Church should be if we
linisters and laymen are to be ef-
ctive witnesses to the world in gen-
ral and the university in particular.

One of these convictions is, if I
lay use Barthian language, that the
hurch must be the church. The
autology is purely verbal and ac-
ually no tautology at all. It means
lat the greatest and most important
ervice that the church can render
the world is to keep its integ-
ity. That integrity must be de-
nded and maintained at all costs.
An essential part of the integrity
f the church is worship. The
hurch is not a civic club, discus-
on group, fraternal lodge, conven-
on, lecture hall, or faculty meet-
ig. It is the community of God's
eople meeting in God's house to
;orship Him and commune with
lim.

The church is not a place where
linisters should stand in awe of pro-

This article and the three which
mm follow in succeeding issues of
he Journal are part of a series of
tctures which Dr. Williamson gave
I' Columbia Theological Seminary,
fthe title of the series was "The
ueaning of the Church in Univer-
ity Life," with sections on the fac-
ulty, the students, the administra-

on and the Church. The four ar-
ticles constitute the substance of his
t -'marks about the integrity of the

hurch.

I The author is chairman of the de-
partment of political science at Lou-

iana State University and an elder
nt the First Presbyterian Church,
t\aton Rouge. He has long been ac-
tive in the field of Christian educa-

pn, serving on several Assembly
>ommittees and agencies.

fessors, however great their learn-
ing and reputation; or of university
administrators, no matter how ex-
alted their position; or of students,
be they ever so brilliant and prom-
ising. Campus ministers, especial-
ly if they are young, sometimes give
the impression of being afraid of
the faculty, presumably because
they have not gotten over the old
professor-student relation of under-
graduate days.

They're Sinners, Too

University people are sinners like
everybody else. They, too, need to
look at the immediacies of the mo-
ment in the light of eternal verities,
the problems of their work in the
perspective of God's will, the inad-
equacies and guilt feelings of their
life in the context of God's forgiv-
ing grace.

They, too, need the assurance that
God loves them in spite of pride
of mind, the frantic search for sta-
tus, the wrong decisions, the petty
jealousies, the neglected duties, and
the lack of compassion.

They, too, can satisfy these needs
only in the presence of God, which
is the heart and core of worship.
We can become great only by be-
coming small, and even the greatest
university people are not exempt
from this law. The awe, therefore,
should be reserved for God alone.

It is impossible to talk about
worship without bringing in the sub-
ject of liturgy. Now liturgy is a
controversial subject and, upon re-
flection, we can see why it should
be so because there is a right and
a wrong about liturgy.

If liturgy is the expression of
worship, if it consists of rites and
symbols which worshipers use to com-
mune with God, something which
is said and acted out with com-
plete sincerity and fervor, it is right.

RENE de VISME WILLIAMSON

But if liturgy is something arti-
ficial and contrived, a series of
words and motions designed to cre-
ate what they should express spon-
taneously and even irrepressibly, it
is wrong.

In the first instance, it is a means
of worship; in the second instance,
it is an attempt to manipulate God,
which is the essence of magic.

Liturgies, of course, are many.
History shows a bewildering wealth
of liturgies involving many kinds
of symbols, rituals, modes and for-
mulas. They are as rich and pro-
lific as the life out of which they
grew, and they are full of cultural,
historical and personal associations
which have played a part in the en-
counter between man and God. In
all this we must recognize that no
one liturgy can be the expression of
worship for everybody.

If Depends

To one man, the Roman Catholic
liturgy is so beautiful and meaning-
ful that he cannot imagine how he
could worship without it. To an-
other man, this same liturgy is just
a conglomeration of empty formu-
las and mechanical gestures that im-
pede worship when they do not ex-
tinguish it altogether.

One man thinks the Quaker form
of service (it is impossible to call
it a liturgy) is colorless and lifeless,
but another sees it as worshiping
God in spirit and in truth, free from
man-made inventions.

A Southern Baptist thinks of his
liturgy as full of spiritual vigor and
Christian simplicity, but an Episco-
palian might think it boisterous and
unrefined. Each of these Christians
worships the same God in a differ-
ent way and each is worthy of re-
spect, so long as he worships in the
Lord Jesus Christ and sincerely.

I do not draw from these facts the

PAGE 7 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 17, 1973

1

conclusion that liturgy is a com-
pletely relative thing, a kind of re-
ligious cafeteria in which the wor-
shiper is free to pick and choose
whatever suits his fancy. Liturgy is
rooted in tradition, related to par-
ticular theological orientations, in-
separable from belief, and part of
an institutional church. It is an or-
ganic part of the life of the church
and one of the ways in which a par-
ticular church can be identified.

An individual does not make a
liturgy. If he is a child of the
church, he inherits it. If he first
came to the church as an adult, he
can choose his liturgy sensibly only
by choosing the church that goes
with it.

I am stressing the organic nature
of liturgy only partly because I am
appalled at the shallow thinking
which holds that liturgy is purely
optional. What concerns me much
more is a trend which I see mak-
ing its way in our Presbyterian
Church.

I am referring to the practice of
many of our ministers of wearing
Roman collars and clerical garb, the
growing emphasis on the church
year, the growing complexity of our
worship services with set prayers and
elaborate responses, the procession-
als and the recessionals.

We are fast getting to the point
where it will not be improper to
speak of "high church" Presbyte-
rians.

Clerical Collar

What is wrong with this trend
was illustrated by an incident on
the campus of one of our southern
universities. The dean of women,
who is a Presbyterian, saw her min-
ister on the campus and noticed
that he was wearing a Roman col-
lar, so she asked him why.

The minister answered that he was
wearing it to remind her of her
faith. To this explanation she
made a tart reply: "Well, it's not
my faith that it reminds me of!"

And of course she was right. The
Roman collar immediately brings to
mind transubstantiation, purgatory,
papal infallibility, monasticism, the
indelible character of the priest-
hood, the sacramental approach to
religion, and all the other things
which Roman Catholicism stands
for.

Neither the minister nor the dean
of women nor I nor you created
these associations. History did. An

Episcopal clergyman can be excused
for wearing the Roman collar be-
cause his church has a similar con-
ception of the priesthood and he is
a Catholic of a sort — of the An-
glican variety.

But a Presbyterian minister can-
not do it without confusion, to put
the matter charitably, because he be-
longs to a very different tradition
and speaks for a very different
church. If he wants to wear some-
thing distinctive, let it be the tabs
which symbolize the Reformed tra-
dition and tell the truth about
what he represents.

The same reasoning applies to the
importation of the Episcopal ser-
vice in our churches. The Episco-
pal service is beautiful and mean-
ingful, but it is not ours. If we are
going to adopt the liturgy of an-
other church, let us take the theol-
ogy and the polity that go with it.
But if we go that far, the only right
and consistent thing to do is to
merge with that other church.

Liturgy and Doctrine

Another aspect of the liturgical
trend which should give us concern
is the relation between liturgy and
doctrine. It seems to me that the
weaker the minister is doctrinally,
the more liturgical he gets. Liturgy
becomes a substitute for theological
convictions. This relationship could
lead to appalling situations:

A minister who disbelieves in the
virgin birth might yet lead the con-
gregation in reciting the Apostles'
Creed which affirms the virgin birth
in categorical terms. A minister
might close his reading of Scripture
by saying, "Here endeth the reading
of God's holy Word," when he be-
lieves the words of the passage he
just read are but the words of men
only.

If there is one place where insin-
cerity does not belong, that place is
the worship service.

In making this point, I am not
leveling accusations at any partic-
ular minister or at our ministry
generally. I am aware that the vows
which a Presbyterian minister takes
are to "the system of doctrine" con-
tained in our Standards and that no
single doctrine of inspiration is con-
tained in those Standards. There is,
therefore, some flexibility which per-
mits church officers to have legiti-
mate and honest differences of
opinion.

I am not making an accusation

but sounding a warning against
traveling a very slippery road which
would take us to a destination that
not one of us would care to reach.
A divorce between liturgy and doc-
trine would be a very dangerous
thing indeed.

The liturgical trend is sometimes
defended by an appeal to the au-
thority of John Calvin and the claim
that we are merely returning to the
Reformed mode of worship of the
sixteenth century. It is further ar-
gued that the simpler mode of wor-
ship which has characterized our
church until recently is an inheri-
tance from the English Puritans. Si
be it!

In Tune With Theology

I am a great admirer of Calvin,
but I am proud of the Puritans too,
and there is no inconsistency be-
tween Calvinist theology and Puri-
tan liturgy.

Whatever my personal estimate —
or yours — of the relative merits
of Calvinism and Puritanism may
be, it does not seem unreasonable
to insist that our liturgy be in tune
with our theology and our polity
because all three stand together in
a logical, historical and spiritual
whole.

I am aware of the fact that the
traditions of our church, and all
other churches, for that matter,
mean absolutely nothing to large
numbers of people in our cities and
universities. They are nominal and
superficial Christians for whom our
church is the same as any other
church and for whom the Christian
faith is only a shadowy vestige oi
childhood.

How To Reach Them

Then there are those who are not
Christians in any sense at all. What
are we going to do with all these
people? All of us agree that they
should be reached. Whether we are
liberals, conservatives, members of
the Fellowship of Concern, Con
cerned Presbyterians, or just middle
of-the-road Presbyterians, we are a$
one on this point.

The question is: how do we reach
them? My own conviction is thai
we can reach them only by making
clear to them who we are and what
we believe.

We cannot reach them with "re
ligion-in-general," by some sort oi
contemporary syncretism, by apolo
gizing for our faith, or by trying tc

ii

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sir

Ik

Cfe

PAGE 8 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 17, 1973

anchor our faith to a secular au-
thority such as science, democracy,
Americanism, or existentialism. Oth-
ers can do this better than we could.
If we did reach them that way, it
would not do them any good.

Another approach which is some-
times suggested is what one might
call "Christianity-in-general." Un-
derlying this approach is the as-
sumption that there exists through
all the great communions a basic
common core of Christian doctrine
and Christian life reaching all the
way back to the apostles. The as-
sumption is correct but the approach
is not.

The trouble with the approach is
that it will not work. It will not

work because the only way to enter
the church invisible is through one
of the visible churches. A man be-
comes an ecumenical Christian by
first becoming a member of some
great communion such as the Pres-
byterian, Lutheran, Anglican, Meth-
odist, or Baptist.

For our church, the natural and
logical thing to do is to promote
the Presbyterian way as the path to
this basic core of Christian doctrine
and Christian life and therefore to
membership in the church invisible,
universal, and eternal where we
can have fellowship with Christians
who have arrived there through oth-
er paths.

Liturgy is related to this evan-

gelistic enterprise because worship
is a part of the Christian life. Our
ministers should therefore see to it
that the liturgy is not merely
learned and participated in but un-
derstood. The Covenant Life Cur-
riculum has made a much needed
beginning in this important aspect
of the life of the church, but there
remains much more to be done. If
our worship services are sincerely
performed and their meaning thor-
oughly understood, they can become
one of the means of reaching nomi-
nal Christians and non-Christians.
And we shall not have to introduce
jazz bands and circus shows in or-
der to attract people and hold
theml IS

\The Lord provides for His own if we call on Him in prayer-

The Power We Need

Ilrl ack in the last century, Al-
wr^ fred Lord Tennyson wrote,
■"More things are wrought by prayer
i than this world dreams of." Tenny-
i son was right in what he said, for
t prayer has the power to do far more
■things than this world dreams it can
■do. "Prayer is the mightiest thing
J put into human hands," S. D. Gor-
pdon once said. "If we know how to
t pray, nothing is impossible to us."
»< Today the world needs that mighty

• power of prayer and every Christian
» needs to be generating it, because
I prayer is both the privilege and re-
sponsibility of every single Chris-
Ifian.

I The Bible tells us that we are to
make a habit of praying. The Apos-
tle Paul told the Christians in the

i church at Thessalonica to "pray
without ceasing" (I Thess. 5:17),
and James declared, "The prayer of

l a righteous man has great power in

• 'its effects" (5:16). Evidence of this
;is shown in the lives of the men who
nave prayed.

u\ Men who have accomplished the
most for God have been men of
\ prayer. John Wesley, for example,

The author is pastor of the Farner
°resbyterian Church, Farner, Tenn.

spent two hours in prayer each day
and the great reformer, Martin Lu-
ther, three hours. These men were
convinced of the power of prayer
and in being convinced of that pow-
er, they made a practice of praying.
God did great things because of
their prayers.

Mightiest Force

A few years ago, one of the world's
leading scientists declared that
prayer is the mightiest force in the
universe, but he went on to say that
the Christian world is blind to that
fact. I am afraid that he was right.
One of the most tragic things about
the modern Church is that it does
not really believe in the mighty pow-
er of prayer, and this helps to ex-
plain why the Church is not exert-
ing a greater impact on the world.

Not really convinced of the tre-
mendous power that prayer has, the
Church is not praying in the way
it should be. The result is that God
is not demonstrating His great pow-
er in the way He would really like
to. Those of us in the Church need
to recognize the real power which
prayer has, for only then will we be
led to pray in the way we should,
and in so doing, will we give God

JOHN S. JENNINGS

the chance to do His mighty work
in the world.

We need, for example, to have the
faith of the great men of the Bible
who believed in the power of prayer
and whose prayers demonstrated
that power in a real way. The faith
of the prophet Elijah knew no
bounds. He "prayed fervently that
it might not rain; and for three years
and six months it did not rain . . .
then he prayed again, and the heav-
ens gave rain" (James 5:17-18; see
I Kings 17:1, 18:1).

Then there was Elisha. When he
came into a home where a child lay
dead, he "prayed to the Lord" (II
Kings 4:32), and the child was
brought back to life (v. 35) .

When King Hezekiah found him-
self surrounded by the invading
army of the Assyrians, he "prayed
to the Lord" (Isa. 37:15), and be-
cause he did pray (Isa. 37:21) , the
entire Assyrian army was destroyed
by God. God sent an angel into
the camp of the Assyrians and 185,-
000 Assyrians were killed in a period
of one night. Thus King Hezekiah's
nation was saved from destruction
at the hands of the Assyrians. In
many other illustrations in the Bi-
ble there are instances where per-
sons have prayed and great things

PAGE 9 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 17, 1973

have been done because of it.

Not only has this been true of
those in the Bible but also of Chris-
tians in every generation, for the
power of prayer has been demon-
strated in the lives of millions of
Christians in many different ways.
In fact, the whole American foreign
missionary movement came into be-
ing in direct answer to prayer. One
day five students at Williams Col-
lege in Williamstown, Massachusetts,
took upon their hearts concern for
the unconverted across the seas.
Samuel J. Mills, James Richards,
Francis Robbins, Harvey Loomis and
Bryan Green began to meet after
classes outdoors to pray that God
would open the hearts of Christians
in America to the need for foreign
missionaries. God heard their
prayers, and in 1815, five mission-
aries were on their way to foreign
mission fields. Among the five was
Dr. Adoniram Judson, who was re-
sponsible for the beginning of the
Baptist Foreign Missionary activi-
ties.

Revivals have broken out in re-
sponse to prayer, too. In 1859, four
young men in Northern Ireland be-
came burdened for the need of re-
vival. Meeting in a schoolroom,
they prayed that God would send a
revival, and He did. All of Ire-
land was affected by it, and the in-
fluence of that revival still remains
to this day.

Just as prayer brought about this
tremendous revival in Ireland, even
so has prayer done the same thing
in many other places throughout the
world. Prayer will bring revival to
America, today, just as it did in the
past generations. The history of
America is one of revival as people
have been led to pray for the mighty
outpouring of the Holy Spirit. At
various periods in our nation's his-
tory, the whole life of America has
been radically changed because
of it.

Healing Power

We can see the power of prayer
in still other ways, such as in the
realm of physical healing. The Bi-
ble says that "the prayer of faith
will save the sick" (James 5:15).
Many people, even today, have ex-
perienced the healing power of
prayer.

In referring to this fact, Dr. Clair
B. King, of Canton, Ohio, a mem-
ber of the American Medical As-
sociation, and the American Acad-

emy of Ophthalmology, recently
said that "cancer is being healed to-
day through prayer." The doctor
goes on to say that there are "too
many cases of the healing of cancer
through prayer to explain away by
coincidence." Dr. William Sadler,
the famous nerve specialist, has de-
scribed prayer as being "the greatest
single power in the healing of dis-
ease."

Prayer helps people to face life
each day. Dr. Alexis Carrel, the fa-
mous research scientist and Nobel
prize winner, once said that "it is
by prayer that man reaches God and
that God enters into him." One of
the things God gives people is the in-
ner strength they need to cope with
the pressures and problems of life.
As Martin Luther once said, prayer
gives to the Christian the "power to
bear his troubles and to overcome
them," and prayer will do this for
you, for we have Scripture's assur-
ance that "they that wait upon the
Lord shall renew their strength"
(Isa. 40:31).

Pray Earnestly

The power of prayer can save the
lost. Many people have been led
to receive Jesus Christ as Lord and
Saviour through the power of some-
one's prayer that they might be
saved. Prayer is able to release the
saving power of Jesus Christ in the
lives of individuals, and this can be
true of the lost whom we know, re-
gardless of who they are, or how
hopeless their condition might seem.

But we need to pray earnestly be-
cause the Bible says that when we
pray that we are to pray earnestly.

As He prayed in the Garden of
Gethsemane, Christ prayed so ear-
nestly that "His sweat became like
great drops of blood falling down
upon the ground" (Luke 22:44) . It
is this earnestness which has always
characterized the prayers of God's
mightiest servants in every genera-
tion.

John Hyde, better known as
"Praying Hyde of India," prayed:
"Father, give me these souls, or I
die." Before his ministry was over,
he was leading more than two peo-
ple to Christ every day. David
Brainerd, the great missionary to
the American Indians, prayed in the
snow until his body was wet with
sweat. His results were so fantastic
that his ministry stirred the church-
es of America to begin mission work
among the American Indians.

The famous English evangelist,
George Whitefield, prayed: "O
Lord, give me souls, or take mine."
God gave him souls, as untold thou-
sands were brought to Jesus Christ
on the continents of Europe and
North America. We need this ear-
nestness as we pray to God.

Prayer Is Answered

Then we also need faith. Jesus
said, "Whatever you ask in prayer,
you will receive, if you have faith"
(Matt. 21:22), and "Whatever you
ask in prayer, believe that you re-
ceive it, and you will" (Mark 11:
24).

We need to pray what James
called "the prayer of faith," believ-
ing that God can do whatever we
may ask, for He can. Nothing
is too hard for Him to do (Gen. 18:
14) . Realizing with the Apostle
Paul that God is able to do far more
"than anything we may ask or
think" (Eph. 2:20) , we need to pray
with this conviction.

As I look at the Presbyterian
Church US, I see a Church in which
the number of missionaries is de-
clining steadily, while the number
of lost persons is increasing. I see a
Church in which the number of per-
sons being received on profession
of faith is going down every year.
I see a Church racked by discord
and division. I see a Church which
is exerting very little impact upon
the non-Christian world around. In
short, I see a Church that needs to
get down on its knees, and pray as
it has never prayed before.

Depend on God

The Christians in the early
Church "devoted themselves to . . .
prayers" (Acts 2:42) . In other
words, they were a praying Church,
and that Church exerted such a tre-
mendous impact that the early pa-
gans accused the Christians of hav-
ing "turned the world upside down"
(Acts 17:6).

The Church can do the same thing
today through the power of prayer.
Prayer releases the power of God,
and in doing this, the Church is
able to do far more than it could
otherwise.

The late A. C. Dixon once de-
clared: "When we depend on or-
ganization, we get what organiza-
tion can do . . . When we depend
on preaching, we get what preach-

(Continued on p. 19, col. 2)

x

a
s

if

I]
i

I

PAGE 10 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 17, 1973

Society cannot be transformed without change in individual lives —

When the Blind Lead the Blind

For many years now, we have
witnessed in the institutional
Church an increasing preoccupa-
ion and almost compulsive concern
ibout man's physical and social well
being. This stems from a very cor-
ed appraisal: Man is an unhappy
xeature in an unhappy and alien-
ited society.

Out of this concern and preoccu-
pation, the predominant message of
Institutional Church leadership for
[ears has been directed towards try-
ing to change this unhappy and
lilienated society by reconstructing
Ihe entire social, political and eco-
nomic order. This, it is assumed,
liltimately will result in a happy,
well adjusted man.
I But what have been the results?
IVe find that those unhappy prob-
lems of society have not been solved.
Instead, they have increased almost
|!>eyond our comprehension.
I Lawlessness is rampant. We were
lold in a recent FBI report that
Irhereas the per cent of increase in
iiopulation from 1960 to 1967 was
10 per cent, all crime for the same
I»eriod was up 88 per cent. Increases
In all manner of social disorders, ra-
lial strife, and mental breakdown
Ire staggering.

[ The underlying moral and spiri-
lual climate of today's society gives
Ittle comfort. It probably is true
[fiat there never has been a time in
lie history of this great nation when
Ibciety as a whole has been so iack-

The author is an elder in his
hurch and a member of the Board
f Directors of the Presbyterian Lay
[ommittee, Inc. This excerpt from
'• speech delivered before a confer-
ence of 200 Presbyterian ministers
\t Mount Hermon, Cal., is reprint-
Id from the Presbyterian Layman
y permission.

ing in moral and spiritual character.

The liberal has held predominant
leadership in the Church for many
years. Yet he surveys the contem-
porary scene with its agonizing prob-
lems and concludes, "Man's unhap-
piness stems from an unhappy so-
ciety and the message of the Church
must be directed toward greater re-
structuring of society by changing
even more the social, political and
economic order."

Many Church leaders wonder why
the Church is in trouble with its
membership, why budgets are not
being met, attendance is low in re-
lation to membership and why, in
terms of any real dynamic impact,
much of the Church today appears
to be singularly irrelevant to the
complex problem of today's society.

Misguided Mission

The inescapable conclusion is that
much of the institutional Church's
present priority orientation towards
direct corporate action through so-
cio-political involvement has weak-
ened the Church in respect to laity
confidence and support. It has dras-
tically divided the Church.

In view of such developments, it
becomes obvious to increasing num-
bers of disturbed laymen that much
of today's institutional Church lead-
ership, in a misguided sense of mis-
sion, is leading today's Church to
that negative posture so prevalent
during the middle ages. Then, as
now, the clergy used the pulpit as
a forum from which to propound
their own political prejudices and
to instruct secular society in all
areas of social, political and eco-
nomic concerns.

Purely on the basis of a lack of
competence to judge complicated,
secular matters, the prophetic voice
of today's Church has been dimin-

JOHN JENKS

ished to a point where, as in the mid-
dle ages, it has become the object
of disrespect and indifference rather
than gaining respect and confi-
dence.

ft Can't Be Done

In the estimation of an increasing
number of laymen, the fundamen-
tal problem of the institutional
Church is its failure to recognize
what should be as clear as crystal:
namely, you cannot create a good
and happy society out of unregen-
erated, unhappy members of society.

To many of us who believe in the
Church and its God-ordained mis-
sion, it is a tragedy that the Church
has been given a unique message
and mission of addressing itself to
such a fundamental problem — the
disease of unregenerate human na-
ture itself — and yet has neglected
to give it priority.

And so we see today the irony of
the secularized, institutional Church
abandoning this unique mission and
substituting a frenzy of activity in
the realm of power politics and mass
material welfare benefits in efforts
to treat the symptoms of a diseased
society while the individual man,
who constitutes society, is dying of
a disease which is fundamentally
moral and spiritual in nature.

The genesis of the disease was iso-
lated more than 2,000 years ago by
Christ. It is the depravity of man.
Christ provided the remedy through
His crucifixion and resurrection.
Evils of society never will be eradi-
cated if the cause is ignored, any
more than poliomyelitis would have
been eliminated by building iron
lungs. Yet today we see the Church,
the only institution with an ade-
quate remedy, preoccupied largely

(Continued on p. 19, col. 2)

PAGE 11 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 17, 1973

EDITORIALS

Both Sin Against the Spirit

If the liberal sins against the
Holy Spirit by attributing to Him
works that are not His, the conser-
vative, on the other hand, sometimes
sins against the Holy Spirit by de-
nying to Him works that are His.

Many liberals are likely to believe
that "every liberating movement
among men is of the Holy Spirit" —
after they have decided what is "lib-
erating" and what is not. In so do-
ing, they sometimes confuse the
Spirit with Beelzebub, for some hu-
man activity which seems superfi-
cially good tends to enslave rather
than to liberate.

On the other hand, many conser-
vatives are likely to believe that
"any movement among men which
demands a change in the pattern of
my present convictions is of the dev-
il" — when there may be much in
the pattern of their convictions that
could very well profit from change.
They sometimes tend to forget that
the Spirit works where He will and
not always to the ends predeter-
mined by His human instruments.

A radical minister is on record as
having said that America's support
of South Vietnam "frustrates the lib-
erating movement of God's Spirit
in Southeast Asia." That, of course,
is a view so extreme as to be shared
by very few men of the cloth. If it
does not accord with the truth
which is in Christ Jesus, it could
very well be described as the type
of sentiment which constitutes a sin
against the Holy Spirit.

On the other hand, a conservative
minister is on record as having said
that a certain Christian campus or-
ganization is not Christian because
it tends to offer what he calls "cheap
grace."

That, perhaps, is not as rare an
opinion as one might imagine. We
have before us a publication claim-
ing to be "fundamentalist and evan-
gelistic" which says: "Explo 72
(was) the broad path of ecumeni-
cal evangelism which made common
cause with the enemies of Christ."

A letter across the desk during
the Christmas holidays described

Billy Graham as "the great apostle
of Christless churches." Another
flatly charged the Jesus Movement
"is of the devil."

If it should turn out that God has
been operative in the ministry of
Billy Graham, of evangelical youth
movements, and even of the Jesus
Movement, such sentiments would
most surely constitute a sin against
the Holy Spirit. And that is a serious
matter.

It seems to us that there is a dif-
ference between a sincere approach
to Christian truth which earnestly
seeks to bring every thought into
obedience to Christ through His
Word and that approach to other
Christians (we said Christians)
which rejects fellowship, relegates
to second class status, or denies the
gifts of the Spirit if the pattern of
obedience, or the modus operandi
of ministry, does not precisely con-
form to one's own.

It is possible to believe that only
those whom God calls will come to
Him, and also believe that one can
earnestly plead with a sinner to come
to Christ. The Reformers did it
and that's what Reformed means.

We can be grateful for whatever
gift the Spirit has given us and at
the same time rejoice in different
gifts given to others. That's Bibli-
cal.

The Bible says, "Rejoice with
them that do rejoice." Too many of
us seem willing to add, "only if
their rejoicing is for reasons accept-
able to my systematic theology."

That is the spirit we believe we
should beware. IB

Not Until They Are Called

Though by choosing His people,
the Lord has adopted them as His
children, yet we see that they enter
not on the possession of so great a
blessing until they are called. —
John Calvin.

A Liberal
Is Converted

Not all judges are permissive.

Judge Irwin R. Brownstein of the
New York State Supreme Court says
he has "learned that the criminal is
often a devious, manipulative, bad
person." This discovery, the emi-
nent jurist admits, was made about
a year ago.

Before his discovery, Judge Brown-
stein says he was once "an indulgent,
compassionate judge," but now has
become "reluctantly stern."

What changed him was to discov-
er that the same criminals kept ap-
pearing before him over and over
again. "It became clear to me," he
reports, "that many of these people
had made crime a vocation." The
short sentences they received en-
abled them to "maraud" the citizen-
ry "in between brief periods of in-
carceration."

The judge acknowledged that his
liberal friends are right when they
argue that mandatory long jail terms
do not "rehabilitate" criminals. But
he feels that the present system not
only fails to rehabilitate, it encour-
ages them.

"I propose mandatory jail sen-
tences for the multiple offender
knowing full well that he will like-
ly gain nothing toward rehabilita-
tion from it, but also knowing that
while this defendant is incarcerated,
he is not going to murder, rob, mug,
rape, burglarize, assault, or steal
from anyone."

As Chicago Today reporter Peter
Reich said after telling Judge Brown-
stein's story: "Hurrah for Judge
Brownstein and his enlighten-
ment." If more liberals discovered
the eternal truth about human na-
ture, there might be hope to reverse
the downward spiral of our civiliza
tion.

We Honestly
Don't Understand

Once again we have seen, in pri
a sentiment like this: "I am unhap
py over some of the positions and
pronouncements emanating froic
parts of the upper structure of the
Church, but I think Jesus foresaw
today's institutional Church wher
He gave us the parable of the wheat
and tares."

We have given much thought t(

ft

JtY(

am

tvei

Ki

PAGE 12 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 17, 1973

can
i-

3)o:

THE LAYMAN AND HIS CHURCH

Reflections of an Upstart

this widely held viewpoint and we
wish we could understand how ear-
nest Christians cling to it — they
nre earnest, they are Christians and
[they do most certainly cling to it!

It seems to us the advocates of
'Do not disturb, Christ will take
icare of it when He returns," make
three serious mistakes.

First, they assume that nothing
(can happen at the level of "the up-
per structures" to destroy the essen-
tial integrity of the Church. "There
will always be the Church," they
seem to hold, "and this institution
which goes by the name of PCUS
(or UPUSA, or UCC, or COCU, or
whatever) will remain the Church
until Christ returns."

This assumption cannot be sup-
ported. Institutions come and go
I — have come and have gone. The
word "Presbyterian," as the name
bf an institution, has been in use
for less than one fifth the time-span
since the resurrection — less than
tOO years out of 2,000.
| Next, they assume the Christian
jiperson or the Christian congrega-
tion runs no great risk of damna-
tion by reason of his connections.
'We are the Lord's," this viewpoint
>ays, "and we will persevere until
Itiarvest, no matter where we are
ijplanted."

That assumption may have a bit
fbf theological validity; we do be-
lieve in the perseverence of the
paints. But it strikes us as dan-
*erous to trust so completely in per-
severance as to ignore the warnings
bf Scripture to beware of one's con-
nections: "Blessed is the man that
walketh not in the counsel of the
ungodly, nor standeth in the way of
winners ..."

I Finally, it seems to us that this
piewpoint mistakenly assumes it is

lomehow desirable to perpetuate an
existing structure, or institution, in

ts present form.

j There's a sort of "business" philos-
ophy about this viewpoint — like
B:he approach one might take to

Montgomery Ward or Sears. Mont-
gomery Ward may have its ups and

iowns, but it is a good business, it
Bias a network of good outlets and if
It can be propped up, and maybe

Slaced under new management, it
jfvill throb with new life. The prob-
lem is essentially a managerial prob-
lem which no doubt can be solved
Kit the next stockholders' meeting.
I But the Church isn't like that. It
If s more like a beehive. Once foul-

Many times it has been my ex-
perience to hear Christian adults
comment about a recent seminary
graduate or some new Christian
fired up about becoming one of
God's children, "Ah, he's just a
young upstart. He'll cool off when
he matures a little more."

Well, brethren, classify me as one
of those young upstarts who, after
walking with the Lord for four
years, is still on fire and extremely
burdened for this Presbyterian
Church of ours.

Our wonderful, sovereign God is
a never changing God. It is not
our God who withdraws the flame
from the conviction within young
people. It is not God who causes
adults to say with confidence, "He'll
mature," when they really mean,
"he'll fit into the common mold of
mediocre, lukewarm Christian com-
mitment."

No, dear brothers in Christ, it is
not the fault of our awesome Cre-
ator. We can blame it on many
things. Foremost is the effective
and thriving work of our constant
adversary, Satan, who is an excel-
lent recruiter for those interested
in his full-time service.

Satan finds great pleasure in steal-
ing the testimony of young Chris-
tians. With deepest regret and
heartfelt pain, though, I must ad-

The author of this week's column
is Lauris G. Vidal, a native of Flor-
ida and presently a junior at Co-
lumbia (S. C.) Bible College, who
expects to commit his life to full-
time service in the Lord's work.

brood (a disease) has penetrated a
hive, you cannot solve the problem
by introducing a new queen. You
sometimes have to clean out the hive
and scorch the interior with fire be-
fore it can be used to house another
swarm.

Sometimes it is necessary to start
over, as from scratch. Isn't that also
Biblical? IS

mit that the greatest blame should
fall on the shoulders of local church-
es which are doing ineffective jobs.

As one of these young people,
may I speak for Presbyterian young
people throughout our denomina-
tion to state the case for those
serious about their personal rela-
tionship with the Lord and also for
those outside of the Church uni-
versal seeking the truth:

The vast majority of our churches
are not presenting the person and
work of Christ of the Bible at all.
The Word is not being preached by
the ministers. Consequently, young
people are dying within our denomi-
nation; others are becoming de-
formed in their Christian infancy.
Do you know how many people in
the United States are under twenty-
five? The figure staggers the imagi-
nation!

We youth need help. The prob-
lem is epidemic. We must have
God's written revelation preached
and taught. It is true that the hori-
zon shows glimmers of hope, but the
Continuing Church in itself will not
offer help unless those in it are will-
ing, after conviction, confession,
and commitment to Christ, to realize
the need and meet it.

A recent experience brought signs
of hope to my eyes: Not long ago, I
spoke at a small Presbyterian youth
meeting. Later, while spending the
night with the pastor, I stumbled
into the dark living room and found
that man on his knees before al-
mighty God, seeking His presence.

This is where the future of our
young people lies, in the lives and
the dedication of men of God bur-
dened for their people and for the
integrity of the testimony of Christ.

O church, elder, member, feed us.
We're so hungry! OB

• • •

A business man's ulcers don't
come from the daily crises; they
come when he tries to double-deal
his way around the crises . . . and
panics. — Raymond J. Davis.

PAGE 13 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 17, 1973

SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON

For February 4, 1973

A New Heart and Spirit

Rev. Jack B. Scott

INTRODUCTION: In the his-
tory of God's people, mountains
have always played a significant
part. One can trace the history of
God's dealings with His people in
the Old and New Testaments and
note literal mountains upon which
significant events took place:

Moriah where Abraham's faith
was tested and where his faith proved
to be strong; Sinai where Moses met
with God and received the law;
Zion where the temple was built,
the place representative of the eter-
nal dwelling of God with His peo-
ple; Carmel where Elijah called
down fire from heaven to call God's
people back to God; Calvary where
our Lord was crucified for our sins;
and the Mount of Olives where Je-
sus often went with His disciples
and from which He ascended into
heaven.

In the fluctuations of man's spir-
itual life from figurative mountain-
top experiences to spiritual valleys,
it is noteworthy that there is a per-
manence in the literal mountains.
They continue as they were, as a
constant reminder of God's past
dealings with His people and the
certainty of God's truth.

One day after studying the his-
tory of Jerusalem with an archaeol-
ogist, we visited in that city several
sites of historical significance, all of
which were disputed and uncertain
as to their exact location. The ar-
chaeologist pointed to the Mount
of Olives and exclaimed: "At least
we can be certain about that place.
It is still there and undisputed."

Not all of the mountains of Is-
rael's history are positively identi-
fied today and really that is not the
point. The point is that in the
idea of the mountain is the idea of
something permanent, something
steadfast in an ever changing world.

Therefore, we find our Lord at
times addressing the mountains in
His revelations to His people, par-
ticularly when He would pronounce
judgment against Israel or bring
promises of her release. He made
His case against Israel for her sins

Background Scripture: Ezekiel 11:

14-21; 36
Key Verses: Ezekiel 36:22-32
Devotional Reading: Psalm 15
Memory Selection: Ezekiel 36:26

before the mountains (Mic. 6:1).
He prophesied toward the moun-
tains of Israel when He would fore-
tell the destruction that was to
come on Jerusalem (Ezek. 6) . Now
here in chapter 36 again God com-
manded Ezekiel to prophesy to the
mountain, this time not of destruc-
tion to come on Jerusalem but of
deliverance to come to God's peo-
ple (Ezek. 36) .

I. JUDGMENTS TO COME ON
THE EVIL NATIONS OF THE
WORLD (Ezek. 36:1-7). The
mountains have seen the enemy
come and have felt the heel of his
boot dig into their sides. God
brought against Jerusalem the en-
emy nations because of the con-
tinuing sins of His people.

When Jerusalem fell, it seemed as
though God had deserted His peo-
ple. It seemed that the Church had
been totally defeated by the enemy
and that the promises of Genesis 3:
15 had failed.

The enemy also thought this way.
The enemy with great glee de-
stroyed Jerusalem, making the city
desolate (vv. 2-4) . God said that
because these nations did what they
did against Israel and Jerusalem,
the people of God, and did it with
joy and vain pride, He would sure-
ly punish these nations also (vv.

5-7)- . u.

The Lord is very constant in this

judgment throughout Scripture.

When His people sin, He raises up

enemy nations to punish them.

When He brought them out of

Egypt, He gave them great victory

over Egypt; but when they failed to

trust in Him at Kadesh-Barnea, He

allowed the Canaanites to defeat

The International Sunday School Lesson Outlines
are copyrighted 1972 by the Committee on the
Uniform Series of the National Council of Churches
of Christ.

them. Later, when they entered the
land of Canaan, God gave them
great victory over Jericho, but when
the people failed to obey His law,
He allowed the men of Ai to defeat
them.

So it was through the period of
the Judges. When the people
obeyed God, or called on God and
put their trust in Him, He deliv-
ered them from the hands of their
enemies. But when they forgot
God and lived in sin, He allowed
them to be defeated.

After the dividing of the kingdom
in the days of Rehoboam and Jero-
boam, God raised up other nations
to punish His people for their sins.
First, Syria became an instrument
of God for the punishment of the
people. Then because the Syrians
themselves were cruel and delight-
ed in harming God's people, God
raised up the Assyrians to destroy
Syria and also to punish Israel.

• The Assyrians boasted against
God in the days of Hezekiah of Ju-
dah, and God caused defeat to fall
on Assyria by the hand of Babylo-
nians. Babylon, too, although God's
instrument to punish Judah and
Jerusalem, became filled with arro-
gance and vain pride, so God raised
up Persia and King Cyrus to defeat
Babylon and caused His own people
to return to their home from the
Babylonian captivity.

God may use nations as instru-
ments for punishing His people, but
He may also punish the nations if
they are full of sinful pride. God
will punish all unrighteousness
whether it is found in Israel, His
Church, or in the pagan nations of
the world. This is the point of the
first 7 verses of this text.

II. THE REASON FOR GOD'S
SALVATION (Ezek. 36:8-23). Still
addressing the mountains of Israel,
God promised great prosperity in
terms of hills that would blossom
forth and be fruitful. God often
spoke of the spiritual blessings He
would bring on Israel in terms of
agricultural prosperity. (See for ex-

PAGE 14 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 17, 1973

ample, Amos 9:13, and Isaiah
35:1) .

This later prosperity is in stark
contrast to the way in which the
people of Israel had before profaned
the land. Israel's own ways had de-
filed the land and had greatly mis-
treated that gift from God.

The Lord made it quite clear that
Israel had to be punished by God
because she had proven her own in-
ability to keep and preserve the
land, the gift from God which was
to have been to the glory of God
(vv. 18-19) . Nevertheless, God still
had regard for His own name (His
glory) and would not allow the na-
tions to boast of having defeated
Him and His people.

When the name of God had been
profaned among the nations because
His people failed, God had always
risen to avenge His name to show
that the defeat is not God's defeat,
but happens because the people
have failed God. The Israelites
carried the ark of the covenant to
battle against the Philistines, but
the Philistines thought that their god
was greater than the Lord when the
Philistines won the battle. So the
Lord Himself punished the Phili-
stines, destroyed their idols and
forced them to return the ark to Is-
rael. God always has great respect
and concern for His own holy name
(I Sam. 4:5) .

Later when Rabshakeh, the gen-
eral of the Assyrian army, defiled
and ridiculed the name of the Lord
(Isa. 36:18), God destroyed the
Assyrians for their boasting.

The clearest example, however, is
the way the people of Israel pro-
faned the name of the Lord before
the nations in rejecting the Lord Je-
sus Christ and in crucifying Him
in Jerusalem. At that time, God
overruled the evil deeds of men and
raised Jesus from the dead, and sent
forth His witnesses to the ends of
the world, bringing both hope to be-
lievers and judgment to all of the
unbelievers of the entire world.

From the book of Revelation we
know that God in the final day will
avenge His name before all men.
In His holiness, God will overthrow
all unbelief and give final victory
' to those throughout history who
have put their trust in Him.

Our salvation is closely related to
I God's desire to have a people to
! glorify His name forever. So here
through Ezekiel, God made clear
that He would restore Jerusalem
: and Israel not because they deserved

it or because they had proven faith-
ful to God, but for His own name's
sake (v. 22) . God will have His
name glorified before the nations
and He will have a people who hon-
or His name in the world. This
people is His Church, the remnant
who will believe on the Lord and
glorify Him (v. 23).

III. THE METHOD OF GOD'S
SALVATION (Ezek 36:24-26). The
problem is that people cannot
change themselves. God carefully
taught this lesson to Israel in all of
His dealings with them.

The awful effect of sin is that
man is spiritually dead in his tres-
passes and cannot do anything to
change his evil heart. (Compare
Ephesians 2:1.) The law was given
to show people that when they are
faced with God's holy will, they
cannot measure up.

Over and over, God had shown
them that their own works were de-
filed and that by themselves they
could only displease God. The
righteousness and justice which He
requires these people could not
themselves produce (Isa. 5) .

From the beginning man has been
taught by God to trust in the Lord,
to acknowledge his sin and rely alone
on God for his salvation. God has
promised to save those who believe
in Him.

Abraham understood this and be-
lieved in the Lord who counted that
faith for righteousness (Gen. 15:6) .
Isaiah called for faith on the part
of all of God's people (Isa. 12:2,
26:3-4, 28:16, 53:1). Similarly, we
have Habakkuk's declaration that
God's people must live by their faith
(Hab. 2:4) .

In the book of Hebrews it is made
quite clear that throughout the Old
Testament all of God's true chil-
dren understood this from the time
of righteous Abel on (Hab. 11:4).
Indeed, without faith one cannot
please God at all (Heb. 11:6). We
cannot please God by our own ef-
fort or works. We fail God by them.
We are all taught to despair of self
and put our trust in God.

That trust is not misplaced. God
promises that He will cleanse His
people, sprinkling clean water on
them, ridding them of all unclean-
ness (v. 25) . As He promised be-
fore (Isa. 43:25; Jer. 31-32), God
reiterated that He would give a new
heart and a new spirit so that His
people would believe in Him and do
according to His will and be pleasing

to Him (v. 26) .

Clearly this is what Jesus said
to Nicodemus who inquired of Him
about spiritual things. Jesus showed
Nicodemus that we do not begin a
saving relationship with God until
we have been changed, as Ezekiel
said we must, until we have been
born again (John 3:1). Ezekiel
36 brings us, therefore, to the very
heart of the Gospel itself. God has
in Jesus Christ's blood sprinkled us
from our own uncleanness and made
us able to be His children, truly
living to His glory.

IV. THE RESULTS OF GOD S
SALVATION (Ezek. 36:27-31). The
giving of the Holy Spirit to God's
children has enabled them to walk
in the way which God desires His
children to walk. It enables them
to do what God has always declared
to be His will for His people: to
glorify Him before the nations (vv.
27-31).

So it is that our Lord, after He
had performed all of the work
necessary for our cleansing and re-
demption, commissioned His believ-
ers to go into all of the world pro-
claiming His name and teaching
His truth to all nations (Matt. 28:
19-20).

The result of salvation then is
not limited to our being saved or
to others being saved through our
preaching of the Gospel, as impor-
tant as this is. The greater result
is that God's name is glorified
among men by people who live as
lights in a darkened world to hon-
or and glorify the name of the Lord.

CONCLUSION: In the remain-
der of this chapter Ezekiel again re-
minded the people that their salva-
tion was not for their sake, not just
to the end that they be saved,
but that they as God's people might
glorify the name of the Lord. This
they did not do before God changed
their hearts.

Appropriately, therefore, our
Shorter Catechism in the very first
question asks: "What is man's chief
end?" And the correct answer
shows again as our lesson today tes-
tifies: "Man's chief end is to glori-
fy God and enjoy Him forever." To
that end, God has called the peo-
ple and cleansed them from their
sins. ffl

• • •

Heresy is an act of the will, not of
reason; it is a lie, not a mistake. —
John Hales.

PAGE 15 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 17, 1973

YOUTH PROGRAM

Scripture: I Corinthians 2:1-13
Suggested Hymns:

"Trust and Obey"
"Wonderful Words of Life"
"All the Way My Saviour
Leads Me"

PROGRAM LEADER S INTRO-
DUCTION: The Bible is the Word
of God. It follows then that it is
our only completely trustworthy
guide for our lives. We can find
in it absolutely true leading for what
we think and what we do.

This doesn't mean we should
think of the Bible as a textbook of
biology, sociology or anything like
this. It wasn't written to be any
of these. God didn't write it to be.

We must be careful about going
too far in this direction. What we
find as truths today in every field
of study should not contradict what
we find taught to us in the Scrip-
tures. The Bible, since it is God's
Word, is truth. It is completely
true. It is not full of myths and
fairy tales.

Some people believe there are mis-
takes in the Bible. For instance, in
the 19th century most historians
claimed that Daniel's Belshazzar,
king of Babylon, was just a myth.

For February 4, 1973

A Word to Lead Us

Rev. Henry J. Mueller

They said the evidence shows that
the king of Babylon at this time was
Nabonidus, and that he was not
killed by the invading Persians but
was carried away captive. Daniel
just made up the account about Bel-
shazzar, they claimed, or he just had
his facts all mixed up. They said
the Bible was wrong.

But now archaeological evidence
overwhelmingly points out that Bel-
shazzar was king at the same time
as his father, Nabonidus, and that
he was killed by the Persians. There
was such a person and the Bible is
correct.

FIRST SPEAKER: When a man
is ordained to a special office in the
Presbyterian Church in the United
States he gives an affirmative an-
swer to the following question: "Do
you believe the Scriptures of the
Old and New Testaments to be the
Word of God, the only infallible
rule of faith and practice?" (The
Book of Church Order, 27-6. Italics
added.) The answer to question 3
of The Larger Catechism says that
the Bible is "the only rule of faith
and obedience."

What does all this mean? The
Bible, because it is God's Word, is
the only place we can turn to find

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absolute truth of what we are to be
lieve concerning God. It is the only
place we can turn to find the way
we are to live. God has not left us
on our own. He has given us a
clear message concerning what we
think and do.

To say this another way, the Bi-
ble is a living book, not just words
written on a page. It is facts, but
not just dry sterile ones. When the
Holy Spirit is present while a per-
son reads the Bible, the truths taught
in the Bible become a part of his
life. It deals with all of our experi-
ence in any way we look at it.

The Bible is the living Word, it
is God's Word. He is the one who
makes it alive. We can trust the
Bible to lead us because it is God's
Word. We trust Him.

(Have the group read chapter I,
paragraphs 4 and 5 of the Westmin-
ster Confession of Faith. They are
also to read the Scripture references
after each paragraph.) Discuss Lr
following questions:

*

1. On what does the authorir
of the Bible depend?

2. How do you know the Bible
is the Word of God? How do yoi
know it's not just several men':
opinions about God?

3. Do we believe the Bible is true
because the church says so?

SECOND SPEAKER: All thi:
doesn't mean we are not to think
We don't just take what it says anc
mindlessly accept it. God createc
us with brains. When we invite Je
sus to come into our hearts, w*
don't cut off our heads. God mean:
for us to apply our reasoning pow
er to the study of His Word. He
promises to give us understanding
of what we read.

Understanding is not mindless aci
ceptance. We are to think abou
what the Bible says. We are t<
write it in a way we can understand
We are to struggle with the trutl
we read and apply it to our lives.'

We are to trust what the Bibl
says. This doesn't mean we are t<

lor
ft-

PAGE 16 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 17, 1973

be

come doubting everything we read
in it. In a positive way we are to
seek out God's answers for our liv-
ing and apply them with faith.
When we do so then we will know
that God is here and He is speak-
ing to us. We will be living in the
light of His presence, trusting in
His wisdom and power.

PROGRAM LEADER: (Divide
into groups of three. Have each
group read and study I Corinthians
2:1-13. Each group will use the fol-
lowing questions to help them in
their study) :

1. Verses 1-5. Did Paul use elo-
quent speeches and deep philoso-
phies to introduce people to Jesus
Christ? What did he use? Do you
think he sounded like some unedu-
cated fool? What is the "demon-
stration of the Spirit and power"?
Could this have anything to do with
Paul's own experiences with God?

2. Verses 6-13. What was the
difference between the wisdom Paul
imparted and the wisdom of this
age? How do we understand the
wisdom of God? Where do we find
the wisdom of God today? Do we
go to the rulers of this age? If not,
do we go to the rulers of the church?
What place does the church have in
teaching the wisdom of God? Can
any man interpret the Bible any
way he wants? How do we know
the Holy Spirit is guiding us? Does
the Holy Spirit lead us to interpret
a verse one way today and a contra-
dictory way tomorrow?

(Give about 20 minutes to do
this study. When they are finished,
have them remain in their groups
for the closing prayer. You may
suggest that those in the group pray
for each other.)

Closing prayer. EE

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BOOKS

PREACHING AND PREACHERS,
by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones. Zondervan
Publ. House, Grand Rapids, Mich. 325
pp. $5.95. Reviewed by the Rev. Hugh
Flemming, University of New Bruns-
wick, Saint John, N.B., Canada.

The author needs little introduc-
tion to the Christian community on
either side of the Atlantic. As some-
time minister of Westminster Chap-
el, London, England, and after an
active ministry of over forty years,
he stands out as one of the truly
great preachers of our age.

This remarkable book, dedicated
"to all the members of the Westmin-
ster Fellowship of preachers — past
and present," was originally a series
of lectures delivered to the students
of Westminster Theological Semi-
nary during a six week visit in the
spring of 1969.

It is the writer's aim to be prac-
tical rather than theoretical and the
book's sixteen chapters give every
indication that his aim has been
accurate; so accurate, we might add,
that we have here one of the most
practical books on the subject ever
written.

The author sets the record straight
when he states that "the primary
task of the Church and of the Chris-
tian minister is the preaching of the
Word of God." That preaching is
no longer the primary task of the
Christian minister in many quarters
can no longer be denied, and the
book discloses that the errors which
have precipitated this deterioration

come from within rather than with-
out the Church itself.

Such errors as the loss of belief
in the authority of Scripture; minis-
ters striving to be pulpiteers rather
than preachers; an undue emphasis
on form rather than substance; rit-
ualism; too much entertainment and
the increased emphasis on counsel-
ing are all listed by the author as
root causes underlying the decline
in preaching.

To prove his thesis, the writer
bases his argument upon the Bibli-
cal record and the testimony of his-
tory. The material is presented in
a scholarly manner that is not easily
refuted. We are reminded that
"the decadent periods and eras in
the history of the Church have
always been those periods when
preaching has declined."

For the most part, the inspiration
and source of Dr. Lloyd-Jones' il-
lustrative material is found in the
lives of the early apostles, Luther,
Calvin, Knox, Latimer, Ridley, Ed-
wards, Whitefield, the Wesleys, Row-
lands and Harris to name only a few.

Appropriate Biblical texts are
called upon to prove that "man's real
trouble is that he is a rebel against
God and consequently under the
wrath of God." Preaching, there-
fore, is the only remedy, and most
problems, whether personal or
social, have "always been dealt with
most effectively when you have had
reformation and revival and true
preaching in the Christian Church."

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PAGE 17 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 17, 1973

The author does not believe for
a moment the oft heard cliche that
times have changed nor does he al-
low that reading, television, radio
or group discussions are ever sub-
stitutes for preaching. He says that
"to discuss the being of God in a
casual manner ... is to me some-
thing that we should never allow,
because God ... is not a kind of
philosophic X or a concept."

Furthermore, he admonishes that
"there is a sense in which such a
debate or discussion or dialogue is
impossible because of the spiritual
ignorance of the natural man, the

non-Christian."

The sermon itself must of neces-
sity be both evangelistic and theo-
logical; the latter is particularly
stressed: "There is nothing more
important in a preacher than that
he should have a systematic theology,
that he should know it and be well
grounded in it." Also, the author
contends, true preaching should al-
ways be expository; this, by its very
nature, precludes the use of a sub-
ject as the basis for a sermon.

Probably the two most important
chapters are six and fourteen. In
these we are brought face to face

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with two widespread abuses that
stem from a faulty theological sys-
tem. First, the author deals with
the problem of "lay preaching."
This, he contends, is a new phe-
nomenon practically unknown for di
1900 years. This practice is due to (he
a theological shift from a Reformed of
Calvinistic to an Arminian position id
and made popular by Charles Finney ifo
and D. L. Moody. We are informed aal
that "not all Christian men are^e
meant to preach, still less women!"

Second, the author deals with theject
much abused practice of "calling foriji

decisions." This practice "is some-
thing which we have inherited from
Victorianism. Nothing is needed.]
more urgently than an analysis of
the innovations in the realm of re
ligious worship in the 19th centuryifto
— to me in this respect a devastat-tL
ing century. The sooner we forget{esS
the 19th century and go back to
the 18th, and even further to the

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MESSAGE TO THEOPHILUS
Studies in Luke's Gospel

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PAGE 18 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 17, 1973

ft

Bp

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it

I'

17th and 16th, the better."

The writer objects to this practice
Dn several grounds. He informs us
that it tends to separate the preach-
ing of the Word from the call for
decisions; implies that sinners have
:he inherent power of decision and
)f self-conversion; leads us to believe
:hat the evangelist can manipulate
lie Holy Spirit; produces a superfi-
rial conviction of sin; does not deal
idequately with the doctrine of re-
generation. In light of these ob-
lections the phrase, "to decide for
Dhrist" is entirely inappropriate.

This is undoubtedly the most valu-
able, the most important and the
nost contemporary book on the sub-
ect of preaching produced in our
generation. Every minister of the
fcospel should have a copy of this
hook and immediately apply these
lessons to their individual minis-
Iries. It is my profound belief that,
ivhen this is done, reformation and
1-evival will follow as naturally as
■lay the night. EE

YOU CAN'T STEAL FIRST BASE,
>y Charles Granville Hamilton. Philo-
ophical Library, Inc., New York, N.
If. 137 pp. $5.95. Reviewed by the
lev. Robert McCune, H.R., Berea, Ky.

The writer opens his book with
he thesis: as some rules relate to the
jame of baseball, so do certain im-
peratives relate to the game of life.
The ensuing chapters are launched
rom this springboard.

In all, 39 messages comprise a well
vritten and beautifully illustrated
eries of mostly short sermons. The
nessages are Biblically motivated,
mt they are marked almost through-
>ut by the judgmental temper of a
ocial crusader, rather than by the
loly fire of the Gospel preacher.

It can hardly be said that Jesus
Christ is made the pivot and center
>f all that the writer relates to the
nany valid social concerns which
mrden his soul and which are clear-
y outlined so that all may see.

Bright flashes of Christian insight
ise out of many of these chapters,
nit I failed to find any deep and
mperious summons to embrace the
Redeemer before all else as Saviour
tnd Lord.

We had hoped that once it might
lave been said, as James Stewart of
Edinburgh of tea repeated, "Thou
) Christ, art all I want and need,
Vlore than all in Thee I find."

The author is an Episcopalian
ninister, with a long witness on the
adio and in the pulpit. EE

Power— from p. 10

ing can do . . . When we depend on
money, we get what money can do
. . . When we depend on education,
we get what education can do . . .
But when we depend on prayer, we
get what God can do."

My prayer for us in the Presby-
terian Church today is that we will
begin to depend more on God, and
less on ourselves. It is my prayer
that we shall realize the fact that
without God, we "can do nothing"
(John 15:5) , but that through Him,
we can do "all things" (Phil. 4:13) .
Realizing this, I pray for our
Church, our nation, and our world,
that God's power might be felt in
a mighty way, in the days which lie
ahead. EE

Blind— from p. 1 1

with the symptoms, neglecting the
mandate left by Jesus Christ. That
mandate is the divine solution to
all social disease.

The Problem is Sin

It is basically a problem of sin,
of which all other problems of so-
ciety are merely the symptoms. Sin
can be dealt with only within the
context of personal repentance. It
can be ended only by the acceptance
and experience of the transforming
power of the Spirit of God in Jesus
Christ at the foot of the cross. A
Church which proclaims anything
less than that is not really a Chris-
tian Church.

It is our conviction, then, that
the Church is the unique creation
of God. It was created to serve His
primary purpose of dealing with the
underlying moral and spiritual
problems of human nature itself, so
that many might live in relation-
ship with God.

A Church which abandons this
unique and God-ordained purpose
becomes nothing more than another
man-made secular, political and so-
cial welfare institution that lacks
competence, authority and spiritual
power. It thus tends to become in-
effectual and irrelevant.

This conviction about the insti-
tutional Church in no wise mitigates
the special responsibility which the
individual Christian has to oppose
and correct social, political and eco-
nomic injustice wherever it is to be
found and where he has the oppor-

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PAGE 19 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 17, 1973

tunity, competence and authority to
do so, and the guidance of Biblical-
ly revealed principle and purpose.

If the overwhelming problems of
this strife-torn world are to be met,
there must be a change in direction
and in orientation of the institu-
tional Church. Laymen and clergy
alike, in a spirit of loving but ob-
jective concern, must recognize the
problem resulting from Church lead-
ership influenced by their desire to
change the social order without first
changing the individuals who make
up society.

We believe that if a Church is to
be the Church, the living, dynamic
religious institution which God in-
tended it to be, then it must avoid
corporate involvement in matters of
secular politics and must instead be-
come the prophetic voice and con-
science that is God-ordained. It must
faithfully and constantly proclaim
the compelling Gospel of persuasive
love of Jesus Christ which Chris-
tians believe is the "power of God
unto salvation" and which alone
can transform a life and, through
transformed lives of individuals, can
transform society. SI

ISSUES OF

THEOLOGICAL WARFARE,

Richard J. Coleman.

The major issues dividing Protestant
Christianity into liberal and Evangelical
camps are clearly outlined and exam-
ined. Recognizing that the present
climate is more belligerent than con-
ciliatory, Coleman questions the posi-
tion that an open dialog must result in
a sacrifice of one's basic assumptions.
His concern is to prevent polarization.
Adding to the value of the book as a
study guide, each chapter is followed
by discussion questions and a
bibliography.

224 pages. Paper, $3.45.

WM. B. EERDMANS
PUBLISHING CO.

Grand Rapids, Michigan

Thy Word
Is

Truth"

"...an institute of theological
studies established upon the
authority of the Word of God . . ."

This passage from the school's charter is the key
to the unique strength and purpose of Reformed
Theological Seminary! The school was founded
in 1964 by a group of Presbyterian laymen and
ministers who chose to rely on the Bible as God's
inspired, infallible Word.

Student enrollment has soared from 17 to over
125 in six years and is projected to rise dramat-
ically. The present faculty of 12 full-time
instructors will increase with continued growth.

Plans for the continuation and expansion of the
Seminary depend entirely on our Lord's will. His
people can show their understanding and ap-
preciation of this mission by tangible support.

Please let us hear from you.

Reformed Theological Seminary

5422 Clinton Boulevard, lackson, Mississippi 39209

The Seminary has a racially non-discriminatory admissions policy.

PAGE 20 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 17, 1973

VOL. XXXI, NO. 39 JANUARY 24, 1973 $4.00 A YEAR

the

PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL

4dvocating continuation of a Presbyterian Church loyal to Scripture and the Reformed faith

God-centered Missions

This kind of missions cannot stop with "simple Gospel"
reductionism. It prays for God's kingdom to come, and the do-
ing of God's will on earth as it is in heaven. It is more than
simply a prophetic witness to Christ's redemption. It is the
priestly manifestation of Christ's mercy in love and healing. It
is the kingly demonstration of Christ's Lordship over politics,
society, the world. It claims all and leaves none, it surrenders
nothing to the world and all to Christ.

— Harvie M. Conn
(See p. 7)

. S. LESSON AND YOUTH PROGRAM FOR FEBRUARY 11

moo

ciTI ON jo Xi-fSdSAXun

MAI LB AG-

it MEANS WHAT IT SAYS

I am astounded by your publica-
tion of "Let's Quit Abusing Romans
8:28" (Journal, Jan. 10) .

The premise of that article is that
the "all things" of Romans 8:28
needs some restricting so far as ap-
plication of that marvelous truth is
concerned. It seems to say that the
"all things" encompasses only that
which our finite minds can compre-
hend as "good" and "blessed" on
the basis of our love and obedience
to God! That denies the very na-

ture of God's revelation of Himself
as Father to those He has placed in
Christ.

If any part of the lives we live is
outside the providence of God, even
that which is "gory, gruesome, ca-
tastrophic" then we are indeed piti-
ful flecks in a merciless maelstrom
of impersonal circumstances. In the
few and sinful years of my pilgrim-
age I have seen the ravages of war
first hand, the disasters of flood and
twister, and the indescribable an-
guish of the suffering and death in-

the

PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL

Rev. G. Aiken Taylor, Ph.D., Editor
Rev. Henry B. Dendy, D.D., Managing Editor

Circulation leader among independent publications in the Presbyterian-Reformed world

THIS WEEK —

Vol. XXXI, No. 39, January 24, 1973

Reformed Missions in an Ecumenical World 7

God crossed the line of separation between Church and world
in Jesus Christ By Harvie M. Conn

Integrity and Doctrine 10

Christ is God's Word incarnate; the Bible is God's Word
written By Rene de Visme Williamson

De partments —

Editorials 12

The Layman and his Church 13

Sunday School Lesson, February 1 1 1 4

Youth Program, February 1 1 1 6

Book Reviews 17

THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL, a

Presbyterian weekly magazine, devoted
to the statement, defense, and propa-
gation of the Gospel, the faith which
was once for all delivered to the saints,

is published every Wednesday by the
Southern Presbyterian Journal Co.,
Inc., in Weaverville, N. C.

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flicted by incurable disease.

No divine Father such as He is
ours in Christ Jesus could or would
be so aloof from the lives of His
children as to permit them to be
mangled by suffering that has no
purpose.

The God of Scripture is He who
knows us by name. He knows the
very number of the hairs of our
head, and He marks each sparrow's
fall (Matt. 10:29-31). There is not
a blade of grass, a grain of sand, a
star or far-flung galaxy, or an in
stant in the womb called time that
He does not know and control. It
would behoove us to give a good
reading to Chapter V of the West-
minster Confession of Faith, ex-
amine the Scriptures cited therein,
and rejoice evermore.

In Romans 8:28, "all things
means exactly that: "all things"!
— (Rev.) Jimmy Lyons
Swannanoa, N. C.

it

IT HELPED HER

I disagree with the article in the
January 10 Journal entitled, "Let's
Quit Abusing Romans 8:28."

Jesus quoted Scripture when the
devil tempted Him in the wilder-
ness. In Deut. 8:3, Moses was speak-
ing to the Jewish people. Jesus used
part of this verse, "man shall not
live by bread alone, but by every
word of God." This portion of the
verse comforted Him when He was
hungry and enabled Him to resist
the devil.

Romans 8:28 says, "And we know
that all things work together for
good to them that love God . . . who
are the called according to His pur-
pose." I took this verse for strength
and comfort when I had radical sur-
gery last year. The verse not only
comforted me at the time, it also
opened my eyes to the wonderful
love and peace that God is just
waiting to pour into anyone who is
willing to trust Him.

— Mrs. Luvanne Hubbs
Johnson City, Tenn.

REACTS TO N. VIET PRAISE

I would like to react to the ne
story about NCC official David
Hunter's visit to North Vietnam.,
which appeared in the Nov. 2fi
Journal.

We have it on good authority
from Vietnam that at the time oi
the Communist takeover there wen

)[

75 active churches in North Viet-
nam; today there are only 13. Some
of the church buildings are being
used as store houses. At the time
iof the Communist takeover severe
restrictions were imposed upon the
operation and outreach of the
Church.

It would be hard to convince the
families of Edwood Jacobson, of
Gasper and Janie Makil, Wycliffe
Translators martyred in 1963, or
John Haywood, martyred in 1966,
that there is freedom of religion in
North Vietnam.

The Christian and Missionary Al-
liance missionaries Leon and Caro-
lyn Griswold, Edward and Ruth
Thompson, Ruth Wilting and Rob-
ert Ziemer were all killed in a "free
religious country." Betty Olsen,
who was taken prisoner in 1968
seriously injured, died on the way
to prison camp. Archie Mitchell,
Dr. Ardel Vietti, Dan Gerber and
Henry Blood were all captured and
carried away.

Mr. Hunter evidently talked to
the wrong people while looking in

• There's heady material in this
issue of the Journal — strong meat
[or the spiritually mature, and tied
:ogether: Dr. Conn's address (p. 7)
nakes frequent reference to the news
"rom Bangkok on p. 4, as does the
editorial quoted from another pa-
:>er on p. 12. We're reminded to
;ay that if you are interested in all
his, and particularly in the future
)f the Reformed-Presbyterian testi-
nony in our time, it isn't too late

0 plan to attend the National Pres-
byterian and Reformed Fellowship
"ally in Atlanta, Feb. 15-16, with Dr.
7rancis Schaeffer speaking. Write
is for details, and the Hilton Inn,
\tlanta Airport 30320, for reserva-
ions.

1 • The news from Bangkok (p. 4)
eminds us that liberal religion al-
ways has two things going: 1) a ma-
or social crusade of some sort (race,
joverty, war) , and 2) a major Chris-
ian truth up for reinterpretation
>r redefinition (the deity of Jesus,
he authority of the Bible, Christian
thics) . In the early '60s the big
vord was communication (how truth
s imparted, whether verbally or non-

the wrong direction.

I would like to suggest to Mr.
Hunter that he purchase a copy of
By Life or By Death, by James C.
Hefley, a true story, and read it
carefully and thank God for people
who are ready and willing to drink
of the cup that our Lord partook.

I am happy that the denomina-
tion of my choice is not a member
of the National Council of
Churches.

— W. F. McRoberts
Anchorage, Ky.

MINISTERS

Harry H. Bryan, H.R., from Mon-
treal N. C, to the St. Johns
church, Mt. Roskill, Auckland,
N.Z., as interim supply.
Robert E. Burnette from St. Al-
bans, W. Va., to the Williams Me-
morial church, Charlotte, N. C.
Richard C. Massey has left the
pastorate of First Church, Ham-
mond, La.

Joseph A. McGehee from Hous-
ton, Tex., to the Faith church,
Pasadena, Tex.

verbally) . In the middle and late
'60s the word was mission (whether
we have several missions, or a sin-
gle mission "to the whole man") .
Now we can expect to hear a great
deal about salvation. From thou-
sands of pulpits the message will
ring out: We cannot speak of salva-
tion as a personal matter or one
which affects one's future in eter-
nity only. Salvation is now and ap-
plies to social structures as well as
individual people. We are saved
when injustice is removed, when
poverty is relieved, when oppression
is broken. (Watch for it!)

• As we write this, two addition-
al congregations of the Presbyterian
Church US have just voted, each by
unanimous vote, to withdraw from
the denomination: the West Hope-
well, Va., church and the Friend-
ship church, Black Mountain, N. C.
In each case the congregation is

David M. Moore, missionary to
Japan under the Orthodox Pres-
byterian Committee on Missions,
has been dismissed by Central Mis-
sissippi Presbytery (PCUS) to the
Orthodox Presbyterian Church.
H. Harrison Morgan, Albany, Ga.,
has become stated clerk and treas-
urer of Southwest Georgia Pres-
bytery.

James M. Terrell from Ware
Shoals, S. C, to the First Church,
Denharn Springs, La.
David B. Kidd from Cawood, Ky.,
to the Hillsboro church, Nash-
ville, Tenn.

Joseph C. McCoy from Rose Hill,
Va., to the Marys church, Taze-
well, Va.

Toney Daniel McMillan from
Kingsville, Tex., to graduate work,
Fayetteville, Ark.
Donald Pomeroy from LaGrange,
Mo., to the New Providence
(Ewing) church, Kirksville, Mo.
Donald Peckham, received from
the United Methodist Church, to
the First Church, Sarcoxie, Mo.

small, but that isn't the point. It's
the principle of the thing. We have
made no secret of the fact that we
do not rejoice in the separations
that have taken place, although in
one or two instances they were clear-
ly necessary. There will be a con-
tinuing Presbyterian Church loyal
to Scripture and to the Reformed
faith, but we doubt that it will come
about by the piecemeal disintegra-
tion of the PCUS, or any other ex-
isting denomination. No move-
ment of this kind is advanced by
uncoordination, and no Presbyte-
rian vision is enhanced by a congre-
gational approach to the Church.

• Those careful studies of the pro-
posed new confession of faith by
Dr. Robert Strong have been reprint-
ed and are available as a single tract
from the Weaverville office: $.25
each, $2.50 per doz., $20 per hun-
dred. HI

ACROSS THE EDITOR'S DESK

PAGE 3 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 24, 1973

NEWS OF RELIGION

WCC Studies Salvation as 'Liberation'

BANGKOK — Delegates to the long-
awaited World Council of Churches'
conference on the meaning of Sal-
vation Today heard conference plan-
ners call for "secular strivings for
fuller human life," then turned
aside a German effort to introduce
a spiritual description of their goal,
and wound up pledging their sup-
port to those who refuse to pay
taxes, refuse to serve in armed forces
and are draft dodgers and deserters.

The only serious effort to enlist
the World Council in behalf of a
spiritual mission and a spiritual un-
derstanding of salvation produced
controversy and moderately sharp
tempers.

Rejects Declaration

Dr. Peter Beyerhaus of Tuebing-
en University sought to introduce
the Frankfurt Declaration into this
first conference called by the WCC
since 1963 to consider a major theo-
logical subject. His efforts were met
with "cool rejection" as Dr. Philip
Potter, the WCC's first black gen-
eral secretary, said in response that
the Bangkok meeting had been
called to concern itself with salva-
tion and not the Frankfurt Declara-
tion.

Drawn by a group of prominent
German theologians in 1970 and
widely acclaimed by missionary or-
ganizations and evangelical groups,

the declaration seeks to define sal-
vation in spiritual terms and in re-
lation to the redemption of the indi-
vidual sinner.

Opposition here quickly disposed
of the case, however, as Far Eastern
supporters of the WCC deplored the
efforts of Western churchmen to "in-
troduce the theological controversies
of the West" into the Churches of
the East.

Dr. Beyerhaus denied that his
evangelical position, which differs
substantially from the ecumenical
view represented by the WCC and
the majority of the Bangkok con-
ferees, was not appropriate for dis-
cussion in a conference on the mean-
ing of salvation.

It is not accurate, he said, to claim
that a Biblically based statement of
theology is "imposing Western con-
troversies" on others. He failed to
gain consideration for the declara-
tion, however, after Dr. Potter, who
as former head of the Commission
on World Mission and Evangelism
of the WCC, said it should not be
taken up for world consideration be-
cause it was produced only by a
group of German theologians.

Turning more directly to the heart
of its preoccupation, the conference
then appealed to the world body to
send an ecumenical and internation-
al team of Christian leaders to North
Vietnam as a gesture of solidarity.

There were 11 votes against the

THE CHURCH OVERSEAS

THAILAND — A young American
serving in Bangkok as a Mormon
missionary caused an outrage among
the local populace by being photo-
graphed atop a Buddha image in the
great ruins at the ancient former
capital, Sukothai.

Joseph K. Wall, 20, was identi-
fied by a waitress in Nakorn Sawan
where he was stationed. The inci-
dent was publicized when the film
was being developed and a worker
in the darkroom sent a print to the
newspaper.

When it was learned that Wall
was a foreign "Christian" mission-
ary, a protest caravan of 100 taxis
snaked through the streets of the
provincial capital, and cries to lynch
the American were heard. Police
intervened and arrested Wall and
his friend, both missionaries.

The foreign missionary commu-
nity called a press conference and
visited high government officials in
an attempt to disassociate them-
selves from Wall and the Mormons
as a group. IB

statement and 20 abstentions.

Expressing gratitude to American
Churches for their leadership in pro
testing the war, the conference state
ment pledged support to those who
protest for conscience sake by such
means as refusing to pay taxes, re
fusing to serve in armed forces, and
engaging in other actions which
demonstrate a commitment to e
the war.

Gratitude for Protests

"We acknowledge and support
programs designed to assist draft
resisters and deserters, and to have
them fully accepted as American
citizens who have served their coun-
try well," the delegates for 69 coun-
tries said.

The Roman Catholic Church was
represented here by 11 observer coi|<
sultants, as small groups hammered
out positions on salvation as libera-
tion, not only in the spiritual bul
also in the sociological and political
sense.

Conference findings will be con-
sidered by the policy-making Cen
tral Committee of the WCC foi
drafting and publication as the
council's message to its constituent
Churches.

C

WCC Ships Supplies
For North Vietnam

GENEVA (RNS) — The Worl
Council of Churches announcec
that it will have sent 14 tons o
medicines and surgical supplies t
Hanoi by the end of January.

Churches in Europe provide*
more than $300,000 for the drug
and equipment. The materials wer
scheduled to be handed over to rer.
resentatives of North Vietnam an«
the Provisional Revolutionary Goi
ernment of South Vietnam (Vie
cong) in Paris on Jan. 12.

The first plane was due to leav
Paris on Jan. 15 and go to Hanc
via Moscow; the second on Jan. 2(

The medical aid is part of th
WCC's on-going Indo-China pr»
gram which in the past has chat
neled about $560,000 to the wa
torn area, with most of the func

PAGE 4 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 24, 1973

going to South Vietnam.

Approximately $100,000 in medi-
| cal supplies was sent to North Viet-
nam and areas of the South con-
trolled by the Vietcong.

The WCC recently laid plans for
an ecumenical Indo-China Recon-
struction and Reconciliation Fund
to assist the region when the war
ends. IB

1 Both State and Church
I Deplore WCC Grants

■ SALISBURY, Rhodesia — In the
wake of guerrilla attacks on farms
in the northern section of this coun-
try, both the government and church
leaders have lashed out at the World
Council of Churches for its support
of black "liberation movements" in
southern Africa.

The attacks, which came shortly
i before Christmas, were leveled
against white farmers and against
black workers on those farms. They
were said to have originated in near-
by Zambia and Mozambique, where
several revolutionary groups have re-
ceived grants for "humanitarian"
purposes from the World Council of
Churches.

United Methodist Bishop Abel T.
Muzorewa of Salisbury, black head
of the anti-government African Na-
tional Council, spoke out strongly
against terrorism as a method of
furthering the cause of blacks.

He was commenting on a letter
by two Rhodesian Anglican prel-
ates to the WCC, protesting the at-
tacks which, they said, were spurred
by foreign-based "liberation move-
ments" supported by the council.

Bishop Paul Burrough of Mash-
onaland and Bishop S. M. Wood of
Matebeland said in their letter to
Geneva that the movements "em-
ploy naked terrorism." They added
that they "long for the establish-
ment of a just society in Rhodesia,
but good cannot be achieved by the
evil means of terrorism used against
the civil population."

Bishop Muzorewa, one of the few
high-ranking black churchmen in
Rhodesia, has championed the WCC
program of grants to revolutionary
groups. At the same time, he has
long been on record against ter-
rorism, as have the Anglican bishops.

Bishop Muzorewa, through the
African National Council, is seeking
to transfer power to blacks through
constitutional means. He said it is
necessary to "condemn the terrorist
cause first and then terrorism."

Reacting to the attacks on farm-
ers, Radio Salisbury ridiculed WCC
statements that the money grants
were for "humanitarian purposes."

It said the aid itself "betrays the
unmistakable hand of the Soviet
members of the World Council" and
accused the WCC of being against
what it "considers injustice as long
as it is not behind the Iron Cur-
tain."

A December announcement in the
United States revealed that the Epis-
copal Church will make its first con-
tribution to the WCC program dur-
ing 1973.

Other U. S. denominations that
have given to the program are the
Reformed Church in America and
the Seventh-Day Baptist Conven-
tion. 11

United Presbyterians
Assist City Planners

COLUMBIA, S.C. (RNS) — The
United Presbyterian Church USA
will continue to provide consultative
aid toward the development of
Harbison, a new community to be
built near Columbia on land pre-
viously owned by the denomination's

Committee Recommends
Ordination For DCE's

NEW ORLEANS (PN) — A com-
mittee studying ways to improve the
Presbyterian US ordained ministry
has opted for the ordination of full-
time, professional directors of Chris-
tian education.

Action came at the Jan. 8-11 meet-
ing here of the Ad Interim Commit-
tee on the Church's Use of Her Or-
dained Ministry. The vote was 7-3.

Stating that ordination in the

Board of National Missions.

A federal government pledge of
$13 million in guarantees of assist-
ance will assist the construction of
Harbison, which eventually will ac-
commodate some 22,000 people.

The 2,000-acre property was ac-
quired in 1913, 1914 and 1921 with
funds from the estate of the late
Samuel P. Harbison, a wealthy Pitts-
burgh industrialist. Harbison Junior
College was located on the property
from 1911 to 1958.

In 1971, ownership of the land
was transferred to the Harbison De-
velopment Corporation, but Nation-
al Missions continued to provide con-
sultative aid. The corporation's
board of directors includes repre-
sentatives of Columbia area residents,
delegates of the United Presbyterian
Church and the Synod of South
Carolina-Georgia which initiated the
idea of the development.

Housing is planned for a socially,
economically and ethnically balanced
community, with homes ranging
from one and two family units to
medium-rise apartments. Facilities
for the elderly will be provided.

The community will include
schools and parks within walking
distance of homes, churches, major
department stores, offices, a library
and a community recreation center
for organized sports. Industry will
be developed on a 196-acre corridor
flanking Interstate 26, which cuts
through the property. IS

PCUS is "functional, not sacramen-
tal," the committee recommended
ordination for directors of Chris-
tian education to the Committee on
Certification of Lay Workers and
encouraged that committee to make
its own recommendations to the 1974
General Assembly, "in light of the
report on ordination to come from
the Permanent Theological Commit-
tee" of the denomination.

Emphasizing that studying the
ordination of DCE's was not in its
purview, since the General Assembly
had only called for a study of ways

THE CHURCH AT HOME

PAGE 5 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 24, 1973

to upgrade the existing ordained
ministry, members of the ad interim
committee adopted the statement,
saying a DCE is a "minister of the
Word and should be expected to
seek and receive ordination as a
teaching elder."

Most of the committee's time here
was spent studying the second draft
of "Enabling a More Effective Min-
istry,' a paper which contains the
bulk of the recommendations to be
made to the 1973 General Assembly
in Fort Worth, June 10-15.

The committee expects to recom-
mend further study of some issues
growing out of its examination of
the ministry. 51

Annuities and Relief
Raises Benefits Again

ATLANTA (PN) — Retired Pres-
byterian US ministers and eligible
survivors will receive a 12 per cent
increase in annuity checks mailed
after Jan. 1.

The increase, called a "good ex-
perience credit" was made possible
through effective investment prac-
tices of the Board of Annuities and
Relief.

Dr. George H. Vick, the board's
executive secretary, said many an-
nuities have risen as much as 80 per
cent because of seven increases in
retirement benefits beyond the orig-
inal annuity contract.

In addition, retirees who receive
regular monthly assistance from the
funds of Ministerial Relief received
a bonus at Christmas. Couples re-
ceived $300 and individuals $150. 51

New Union Presbytery
Expands Former Union

INDEPENDENCE, Mo. (PN) —
The organizational meeting of a new
union presbytery composed of 135
churches with 48,000 communicants
in Northwest Missouri and North-
east Kansas was held Jan. 9 in First
Presbyterian Church here.

It combines the former United
Presbyterian presbyteries of Topeka-
Highland and part of Neosha of the
former Synod of Kansas with North-
west Union Presbytery, itself a union
presbytery of the former Synods of
Missouri (UPUSA and PCUS) .

The Rev. Richard Johnson
(PCUS) of St. Louis was named exe-
cutive presbyter, and the Rev. Rus-
sell Lynn of Kansas City, Kan., was

elected moderator.

Dr. John F. Anderson Jr. of At-
lanta, executive secretary of the
PCUS Board of National Ministries,
was principal speaker for the organi-
zational meeting.

The closing communion service
was served on a hand-sewn cloth pre-
dating the Civil War and used in
Independence's First church before
the Presbyterians divided in 1861.
That congregation, organized in
1824, declined to take sides and re-
mained independent of either Pres-
byterian branch for 12 years after
the war.

One of the first projects of the
new presbytery will be a joint Feb-
ruary offering to be equally divided
between the UPUSA "Green Light
for Missions" and the PCUS self-
denial offering for World Mis-
sions. 51

First New PCUS Synod
Is Formally Activated

TEXARKANA, Tex. — The first
of seven new synods to be organized
in the Presbyterian Church US elect-
ed its convenor as its first moderator
and one of its lady ministers as its
regional resource coordinator dur-
ing its organizing meeting here.

The Rev. H. Richard Copeland,
pastor of First Presbyterian Church,
Lake Charles, La., took the modera-
tor's gavel as some 500 pastors and
ruling elders from Texas, Arkansas,
Louisiana and Oklahoma activated
the new Synod of Red River.

By special permission of the 1972
General Assembly, this synod was
activated in advance of the effective
date for restructuring the rest of the
Church, set for July 1, 1973.

Miss Patricia McClurg, first wom-
an to occupy a pastoral position in
the Church, was elected the first of
seven regional resource coordinators,
called for by the plan for restruc-
turing.

As "a key figure in the restructur-
ing and enabling process," Miss Mc-
Clurg will be responsible for as-
sembling and making available re-
sources for strengthening presbyte-
ries in their "mission" from secular
and institutional sources as well as
traditional church sources.

"I have high hopes that this re-
gional synod will be able to take
over some of the programs from the
General Assembly," Dr. Copeland
said upon his election. 51

Minister and His Work
Committee Sets Goals

ATLANTA (PN) — Four subcom-
mittees of the Presbyterian US As-
sembly's Committee on the Minister
and His Work presented a number
of goals to be initiated in 1973.
They were approved by the whole
committee, Jan. 8-9 in Atlanta.

Subcommittees and their goals
facing them for long or short-range
implementation included: 1) Place-
ment/Relocation Process — to de-
velop effective use of professional
placement and relocation which is
personalized, complete and compat-
ible; 2) Pastoral Care — to plan for
and enable counseling and career
development in the PCUS;

3) Minority Ministries Task
Force — to hold a minority minis-
tries workshop in Atlanta sometime
in February to plan for implementa-
tion of strategies adopted for the task
force; and 4) Professional Personnel
Projection Study which has as its
goal to ascertain the present and
projected future balance between
supply of and demand for profes-
sional personnel on a continuous
basis.

The goals are to be implemented
primarily by staff and consultants,
with the exception of pastoral care
and career support efforts which are
to be executed by a coordinator and
a professional advisory board. The
committee is presently taking appli-
cations for the position of coordina-
tor of pastoral care.

The new coordinator will have
headquarters in the office of Assem-
bly's Committee on the Minister and
His Work and will work under
jurisdiction of the executive secre-
tary and the Professional Develop-
ment Division of the new General
Executive Board.

The committee agreed to employ
part-time consultants for ACMHW
staff to assist in their work in the
four program areas of the subcom-
mittees.

In other action, the committee:

• re-elected Dr. Robert G. Hall
of Red Springs, N. C, chairman;
Joseph E. Patrick of Decatur, Ga.,
vice chairman; and the Rev. James
A. Allison Jr. of Roanoke, Va., mem-
ber-at-large of the executive com-;
mittee.

• adopted a 1973 budget totaling
$208,900. This will be presented to
the Committee on Assembly Opera-
tion for approval. 5"

PAGE 6 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 24, 1973

Three views of missions claim the title, "Reformed/' but only one deserves it —

Reformed Missions in an Ecumenical World

Providing a working definition
of "ecumenical" is not very dif-
I ficult. Whether your conception
I comes from Carl Mclntire or Carl
I Henry, whether your New Dealishly

■ initialed ecumenical "suitcase"
I comes with labels like WCC, WEF,
I ICCC, or RES, you use a word
I which has common characteristics

■ for both Visser 't Hooft and Clyde
1 Taylor.

Theologically, ecumenical speaks
■of the unity of the Church and the
I concrete expression of that unity. In
I terms of churchmanship, it means

■ questions like comity, inter-Church
laid, the relation of mission to

■ Church, the role of the missionary.

In terms of things to repent, it of-
Iten calls for denominations to sur-
render distinctiveness, or it may call
■for denominations to surrender lat-
■itudinarianism. It may cry, "Lord,
■forgive us for staying apart," or
■"Lord, forgive us for not getting out
■soon enough." It is the realization
■of witness in six continents, the frus-
tration of partnership in obedience,
■the awareness of the inhabited earth
las now God's stage for the activity
:lof His Church.

In this world, what is the place
■of Reformed missions? And here is
■the difficult question: What, on
wearth, is Reformed missions?
V In the name of Reformed mis-
sions, we bless the idea of an in-
liigenous Church but some curse the
rlindigenization of theology.

In the name of Reformed mis-

A former missionary to Korea,
the author is associate professor of
missions and apologetics, Westmin-
ster Theological Seminary, Phila-
delphia, Pa. This address was deliv-
ered to the annual meeting of the
National Presbyterian and Reformed
fellowship (NPRF) , in Lansing, III.

sions, some of us are frustrated by
Church-mission tensions, and others
are frustrated by the fact that there
is no frustration.

In the name of Reformed mis-
sions, some ask, "When do we
unite?" and others ask, "When do
we separate?" Out of the same word
proceed blessings and cursings.
Brethren, these things ought not so
to be.

It would be delightful if we could
say, "Reformed missions is that mis-
sion work done by Presbyterian and
Reformed Churches." But, alas,
much of what people today call neo-
Calvinism can best be described by
eliminating the "e," and much of
neo-Calvinistic missions deserves a
similar fate.

Within our denominational cir-
cles today, three trends claim the
title Reformed and define themselves
in terms of their relation to the ecu-
menical age. They are what I call
world-centered missions, soul-
centered missions, and God-centered
missions.

Uppsala Definition

World-centered missions is the
definition offered us at Uppsala in
1968 and it appeared again at the
meeting of the World Council of
Churches' Commission on World
Mission and Evangelism in Bang-
kok. Dr. Peter Beyerhaus calls this
the ecumenical definition. With
basic disagreement over Beyerhaus'
sharp refusal to link Uppsala's def-
inition with pre-Uppsala discussions,
we see this movement as the result
of 60-odd years of debate in the mis-
sionary councils of the 20th century.

World-centered missions defines
salvation as the redemption of so-
cial, political and economic struc-
tures. It is not a case of stressing
social, as opposed to personal, di-

HARVIE M. CONN

mensions in salvation — "more"
here to balance "more" there. It is
a complete redefinition of salvation
in terms of the body, and the social,
world-oriented functions of the body.

By this definition, God does not
love the Church any more than He
loves the world. Missions is no
longer the crossing of frontiers be-
tween Christians and non-Christians,
between faith and unbelief. It is
simply and solely the total respon-
sibility of the Church for the world,
and it occurs in those places where
God is most dynamically active.

Its hermeneutics is the hermeneu-
tics of history. The hermeneutical
principle of the Reformation, that
Scripture is its own best interpreter,
is replaced with a new hermeneuti-
cal principle:

'Quest for Liberation'

"The contemporary quest for lib-
eration, whether political, economic,
cultural, or personal" is the Scrip-
ture's best interpreter, "the context
for the Church's mission and its
proclamation of salvation," accord-
ing to the Geneva WCC Salvation
Today and Contemporary Experi-
ence.

World-centered missions, accord-
ing to the WCC working papers, de-
mands that the Bangkok Conference
of the CWME "must listen with at-
tention," not to the Scriptures as the
unique, canonical rule of faith and
life, but "to the actual hopes and
fears of men and women today,
whether expressed in conventional
religious language or not." In this
concept of missions, evangelism
melts into politics and social action.

In this scheme, the Church can
never be the starting point in mis-
sions. Salvation, God's shalom, oc-
curs in the world, and, as J. C. Hoek-
endijk of this school says, "The

PAGE 7 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 24, 1973

Church herself has only that amount
of salvation which she presently
shares with the world." The ecu-
menical mission is not a movement
from God to the world, but of God
in the world.

Soul-centered Missions

Soul-centered missions is our word
for a trend frequently confused with
God-centered missions because it
seems to share so many common fea-
tures. Theologically, you might
want to call this Arminian, perhaps
fundamentalist, perhaps conserva-
tive-evangelical, as did Dr. Beyer-
haus. However, none of these tags
quite fits.

Arminian it is, and yet it is a
method often used even by tradi-
tional Calvinists who keep a great
gulf fixed between their theological
five points and their evangelistic
four laws.

Conservative-evangelical, yes, and
yet the designation of Dr. Beyerhaus
makes no distinctions within the so-
called evangelical camp.

Historically, it might be tagged
as pietism, but that doesn't alto-
gether satisfy either. There's a world
of difference between the pietistic
missions of Zinzendorf and the pi-
etism that sometimes surfaces in the
"Church growth" methodology of
Donald McGavran and his asso-
ciates.

However you label it, it is a pop
ular pattern today. Beyerhaus com-
ments that most missionary organi-
zations free of denominational sup-
port today represent this kind of
thinking. It is a label that can be
pinned on "approximately 55 per
cent of all Protestant missionaries
in the world" (not excluding the
practicing Calvinists) .

In this mind-set, the salvation of
the soul remains the central thrust.
Harold Cook of Moody Bible Insti-
tute defines missions as "the Chris-
tian Church trying to win others to
the Christian faith, especially
through a group of selected work-
ers called missionaries."

In the same vein, Donald Mc-
Gavran continues to divide disci-
pling and disciplining, making dis-
ciplining the work of the Church,
discipling the work he calls the mis-
sionary mission.

"The Church but not the mission
touches all of life," he says. "The
mission has its specific sphere of ac-
tivity — the communication of the
Gospel. The missionary society is

not the Church

Biblical mis-

sions or missionary missions pro-
claim Jesus Christ as divine, and the
only Saviour, and encourage men to
become His disciples and responsible
members of His Church."

In recent years, this pattern of
missions concentrating on the soul
has become more pronounced in its
properly outraged reaction to the
body-centered, world-centered def-
inition which has emerged partic-
ularly within the conciliar move-
ment since 1968.

This soul-centered approach also
tends to avoid worldly tangles. It
is not a big step from Zinzendorf
who spoke of the missionary as "the
Holy Spirit's bag man," avoiding
national politics and social ques-
tions, to the compartmentalizing
words of Harold Lindsell:

"The mission of the church,"
writes Dr. Lindsell, "is preeminently
spiritual — that is, its major con-
cern revolves around the nonma-
terial aspects of life. Of necessity,
it carries out its mission in the ma-
terial realm. But service (diakonia)
... is not equal with but secondary
to the proclamation of the Gospel."

So, too, Harold Cook writes three
chapters on what a missionary does.
Included in his list are things like
"just living," evangelism, counsel-
ing, leadership training, Christian
literature. There is no heading to
describe the role of the missionary
in the fulfillment of the "cultural
mandate" (Gen. 1:26, 28), the mis-
sionary in social change, family for-
mation in the kingdom of God, la-
bor, politics, education.

Gung-ho vs. Gospel

Religion in a time of plenty stops
emphasizing the need to reach up,
and becomes gung-ho over reaching
out. It becomes preoccupied with
do-goodism and this-worldliness. "Af-
ter all," they say, "what has heaven
got that we don't have?" And the
Gospel is lost in a maelstrom of flesh-
ly appetites. Social action replaces
concern for the spiritual side of life.
Physical abundance overshadows
spiritual poverty. People become so
absorbed in inter-personal relations
they do not take time for prayer and
worship. This is actually what lib-
eralism is. — Reuel Lemmons in
Firm Foundation.

This soul-centered approach to
missions may also tend to overlook
deeper doctrinal instruction. The
18th century pietist cried out prop-
erly against orthodoxy of beliefs
without practice, but he found his
answer in a practice that didn't care
much about the jots and tittles of
an all-comprehensive orthodoxy.

Produces No Calvins

Spurgeon's assault on 19th cen-
tury evangelicalism was a wise re-
minder that this kind of thinking
produces ultimately a humanist
named Kant or Schleiermacher, not
a Calvin. It also plays its role in
producing an ecumenical lack of in-
terest in theological precision, a con-
tentment with doctrinal fuzziness
which forgets, to use the language
of Francis Schaeffer, that truth must
be practiced.

It remains a grave danger on the
so-called foreign mission field where
many from Calvinistic traditions do
the work of an evangelist while sep-
arating, in some evangelical C. H.
Dodd fashion, kerygma from did-
ache.

And it remains an equally grave
danger on the so-called home mis
sion field where we produce or use
evangelistic methods that speak of
repentance without speaking of
wholesale submission to the sover-
eignty of God, that speak of elec-
tion and limited atonement after the
convert is in and the barn door is
locked.

God-centered Missions

God-centered missions offers Bib
lical answers to these truncated al-
ternatives. We do not mean here a
combination of the strengths of one
proposal with the strengths of the
other. Beyerhaus suggests this is the
answer. He looks at the Bangkok
CWME session as the place where
there must be "the necessity of a
reciprocal corrective."

"Each side," he writes, "must be
willing to listen to each other and
to repent."

Recently Dr. Arthur Glasser
Fuller Seminary's School of Worl
Missions has expressed himself
very similar terms. While aware
sharp differences between the ecu
menical definition and the evam
gelical definition, he sees a "com
monality" emerging between li©
erals and conservative-evangelical.

PAGE • / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 24, 1973

"that could conceivably resolve the
polarization."

Dr. Glasser finds the liberals dis-
illusioned by unrealistic, unworkable
world-centered missions and the e-
vangelicals repentant over their lack
of success in providing "more radi-
cal commitment to Christ . . . a more
positive response to the social, politi-
cal, economic and ecological issues of
the day."

Never, he says, were conservative-
evangelicals and liberals "in such
deep agreement over the importance
of the Christian's 'horizontal' obliga-
tion to love and serve his neigh-
bor . . . ." The two groups are
polarized, as he sees it, over the
"vertical" dimension.

While deeply respecting the wis-
dom and insights of these men, one
must say No! very resoundingly to
these sentiments. God-centered mis-
sions, Reformed missions, is not a
balancing act, a Chinese golden way
of the middle, combining the best
of a world-centered and a soul-cen-
tered approach. It is a radical, ba-
sic sort of approach; its aim, as J.
H. Bavinck put it, is preoccupation
with God.

Work of Christ

It is the work of Christ, exercised
through the Church, taking place
between the resurrection and the sec-
ond coming. Through this activity,
the people of the earth are called by
the Holy Spirit to repentance and
to faith in Christ, to discipleship.

Through baptism, they are incor-
porated into the fellowship of those
who have seen the kingdom come in
Christ and who await its coming
consummation in the returning
Christ. While they wait, their lives
manifest in every part the power
and love and joy of kingdom service
and ministry in the Holy Spirit
given.

I The heart of Reformed missions
lis its vertical direction. It is Mis-
sio Dei, a work begun by God in a
real garden in space and time when
He called a real Adam fallen into
! real sin.

It began with a call to self-aware-
tiess and a call to grace: "Adam,
[where art thou?" (Gen. 3:9) . It be-
|'gan with God's sovereign promise
iro put enmity between Adam and
pis new friend, Satan. The Old Tes-
tament becomes the record of God
[waiting in grace to put that enmity.
I Acts 14:16-17 tells us "in the gen-

erations gone by He permitted all
the nations to go their own ways.
And yet He did not leave Himself
without witness . . ." In that one
sentence, Paul summarized the
whole history of the Old Testament
time of promise — God waiting, God
permitting, God not leaving.

And then "in the fullness of time
God sent forth His son" (Gal. 4:4) .
God's appointed time of redemption
had come, time's cup filled by
Christ's appearing, God's "now" of
salvation (II Cor. 6:2) no longer
promise but fulfillment in the mis-
sionary whom men call Jesus Christ.
That missionary work He did at the
cross, at the empty tomb. His signs
of witness are nail prints in His
hands, a wound in His side (John
20:30-31).

Jesus appointed a new people, a
Church, to continue this work of
witness. We are the body of Christ
(I Cor. 12:14-26; Rom. 12:5),
Christ's substitutes (II Cor. 5:17-
21) entrusted with the ministry of
reconciliation, fulfilling His suffer-
ing ministry on earth (Col. 1:24),
His sacrificial mission to the world.
"The things that Jesus began both
to do and teach" (Acts 1:1) are con-
tinued in the doing and teaching of
the Church, indwelt by His Holy
Spirit.

Sou/ and Body

That does not mean simply the
salvation of my soul, understood in
some Greek, ghostly fashion. Nor
does it mean merely the salvation
of my body, my Greek-painted prison
house of the soul. It means the sal-
vation of me, me as a body, me
looked at from the outside, me
turned out toward the world (I Cor.

First Things First

The reorganization of the Church
will cost millions of dollars, but it
will not save a single soul, which,
after all, is the primary function of
the Church. In the first century,
11 men turned the Mediterranean
world upside down, not because
they were better organized than the
forces of evil, but because they were
completely dedicated to Christ and
His way of life. — E. G. Montag
in Monday Morning.

15:35-54; II Cor. 4:10). It means
the salvation of me as a soul, looked
at from the inside.

It means all of life for Christ,
"eating, drinking, whatsoever . . ."
(I Cor. 10:31). It means "of Him,
and through Him and to Him are
all things" (Rom. 11:36), all "spir-
itual service" (Rom. 12:1), worship
that moves from Sunday to Monday
to Sunday.

This kind of missions cannot stop
with "simple Gospel" reductionism.
It prays for God's kingdom to come,
and the doing of God's will on earth
as it is in heaven. It is more than
simply a prophetic witness to
Christ's redemption. It is the priest-
ly manifestation of Christ's mercy
in love and healing. It is the kingly
demonstration of Christ's Lordship
over politics, society, the world. It
claims all and leaves none, it sur-
renders nothing to the world and
all to Christ.

Deed of Love

God-centered missions draws a
line between the Church and the
world and says God has drawn that
line. Christ's coming for salvation
to His people is also a coming for
judgment to the world. "And this
is the judgment, that light is come
into the world and men loved dark-
ness rather than light . . ." (John
3:19) .

Missions also acts out God's
placing the world under His ban.
Every Christian hospital built, every
Christian labor union begun, every
Christian school organized, is a token
of God's judgment on a creation
that has misused the Creator's gifts.

However, missions calls for sep-
aration from this world but not iso-
lation. It brings judgment but not
judgmentalism. God-centered mis-
sions also says the line between the
Church and the world has been
crossed: "For God so loved the
world that He gave His only begot-
ten son . . ." (John 3:16), is the
word of God's gracious crossing in
Christ, and the promise of our cross-
ing if we trust in Him.

Missions also acts out this word
of grace, this deed of love. Its Chris-
tian institutional activities proclaim
by deed that God still sends salt to
preserve, light to illuminate, until
that day when candles are extin-
guished and partial fulfillment be-
comes consummation. Until then,
the field remains the world. SI

PAGE 9 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 24, 1973

What does anyone know of Christ apart from the Bible? —

Integrity and Doctrine

Another aspect of the integrity
of the Church is the doctrinal
aspect. We must never forget that
ours is a confessional Church. All
of its officers are solemnly commit-
ted by their ordination vows to be-
lieve in and to uphold the standards
of the Presbyterian Church which,
as you well know, include the Con-
fession of Faith and the Catechisms.

We do not adhere to these
Standards because the bulk of them
came down to us from the 17 th cen-
tury or because the General Assem-
bly has placed its stamp of approval
on them. We are not the victims
of antiquarianism or ecclesiasticism.

Essence of Scripture

We adhere to them because we be-
lieve them to be true, and we be-
lieve them to be true because we
are convinced that they are the dis-
tilled and systematized essence of
Scripture, as valid for the 20th cen-
tury as it was for the 17th.

Should we become convinced that
these Standards in some way er-
roneously interpret the meaning of
Scripture and fail to convey the au-
thentic meaning of Scripture to our
generation, we have constitutional
procedures whereby we can — and
indeed we must — make the neces-

This is the second of four articles
which are a part of a series of lec-
tures, delivered by the author at Co-
lumbia Theological Seminary, en-
titled, "The Meaning of the Church
in University Life." Dr. Williamson
is chairman of the department of
political science at Louisiana State
University and an elder in First
Presbyterian Church, Baton Rouge.
He has long been active in the field
of Christian education, serving on
several Assembly committees and
agencies.

sary correction or corrections.

Our Standards rest solely on the
authority of Scripture which was the
cornerstone of the Reformation. For
us as Presbyterians and Protestants,
therefore, there can be no doctrinal
integrity without fidelity to Scrip
ture.

It should not surprise you to be
told that the doctrinal integrity of
our church, and of all churches, is
under fire from many directions.
There is nothing novel about this
fact, of course, but the attacks take
different forms at different times.

I shall not do more than mention
the so-called "radical theology" of
the God-is-dead movement and its
supposedly Christian atheism. It is
much too far-out and indefensible
to be a temptation to the people of
our church, whatever may be the
case with other churches, and it will
soon be consigned to the ashcan of
history.

Neither do I think it expedient
within the time at my disposal to
discuss all the major lines of attack
upon doctrinal integrity. I shall con-
centrate on a single one of these be-
cause it is making considerable head-
way in American Protestantism to-
day and could be a temptation to
some of our ministers.

Disarms and Deceives

The approach is deceptively dis-
arming. It begins with the asser-
tion that Jesus Christ was the only
Word of God, the final and all suf-
ficient Word of God to us. Could
anything sound more evangelical
and orthodox? What Christian
could possible object to such a fine
conservative affirmation?

Before we leap to conclusions, we
had better take a second look at the
affirmation. Jesus Christ was in-
deed the only Word of God incar-
nate.

RENE de VISME WILLIAMSON

Why the omission of the word
"incarnate"? Because a contrast
is intended between the Word of
God in the flesh and the Word of
God in the script, thereby using
Christ to downgrade Scripture.

Those of you who followed the
proceedings of the General Assem-
bly of the United Presbyterian
Church in Boston will recall that
this contrast was precisely the weap-
on used by the committee that pre-
pared the Confession of 1967 in re-
plying to the objections of the mi-
nority who wanted further changes
in the statement on the authority
of Scripture. I submit to you that
the contrast is as surprising as it is
odious.

The Only Way We Know II

What would we know about
Christ apart from the Bible? Only
from the Bible can we learn what
Christ said and taught. Only from ;;
the Bible can we know how Christ
met persecution, doubt, sickness,
sorrow, fear, hypocrisy, duplicity :°
and betrayal.

Only through the Bible do we
see what Christ means by compas-
sion, humility, love, forgiveness, '
faith, liberation and life. Only in
the Bible do we have a full and re-
liable interpretation of Christ's
words, deeds, life, death and resur-
rection by men who knew Him or
were close to those who did and
were inspired by the Holy Spirit.

Only in the Bible can we find the 1
background of revelation whose cul-: if I
mination and fulfillment were iifr ia
carnate in Jesus Christ.

The Bible is the only record we r ;
have. Without that record we could k\
not even be sure that Christ existed !
at all. Without that record, we
would have had to rely on tradition '
alone with all the distortions, omisi Jti
sions, suppressions and inventions i;

PAGE 10 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 24, 1973

1

which two millenia could produce.

What all this comes to is that we
would not know God in the flesh
without God in the script, and there
is no conflict between the written
Word and the living Word. You
cannot downgrade one without
downgrading the other.

The Bible and Academe

There are those who think that
the Bible, and therefore our Presby-
terian theology, cannot be made ac-
ceptable to university people. How
can so ancient and unmodern a book
be used as authority in a university
world that is forever chasing after
the latest textbook?

What seems like such a serious
disadvantage is actually a very great
advantage. No one is in a better
i position to realize the drawbacks of
obsolescence than university people.
Social scientists know it as they vain-
ly try to keep up with swiftly chang-
ing developments, problems and
techniques.

Natural scientists, whose magnifi-
cent achievements dazzle and be-
wilder us, know it too as they dis-
card and revise the textbooks and
treatises of just a few years ago. The
Christian can say with the author
of the Epistle to the Hebrews: "Je-
sus Christ the same yesterday, and
today, and forever" (Heb. 13:8) .
But what natural scientist could say:
("Science the same yesterday, and to-
day, and forever"?

The situation is no different in
the theological world. After the
writings of Barth, Brunner, Bult-
mann, Tillich and the Niebuhrs
(not to mention those of Altizer,
Hamilton, Van Buren and Va-
hanian) have been long forgotten,
the Bible will still be there.

The Bible is the one indestructi-
ble and unchangeable rock in a sea
lof obsolescence, and no one can ap-
ipreciate this better than university
people.

Knowing the Book

What is more of an obstacle is
the fact that the Bible is an unfa-
miliar book to the majority, prob-
ably the great majority, of univer-
sity people. It is not merely that
they do not know what is in it.
Much of the language needs inter-
pretation.

What good does it do to speak of
the Lamb of God to people who
have never seen a lamb or to whom

the word is associated mainly with
lamb chops? How are worshipers
to understand the full meaning of
Christ's words, "This is my blood,"
if they are ignorant of the signifi-
cance of blood in the Jewish sacri-
ficial system?

It is this kind of unfamiliarity
which makes scholarship so impor-
tant in Bible study. Here again, if
there was a place where scholarship
is understood, that place is the uni-
versity. Scholars, especially if they
are historians or linguists, would be
in an element wholly natural to
them.

Moreover, their own experience
should enable them to distinguish
meaningful scholarship from a vul-
gar display of erudition, realizing
that knowledge about the Bible is
useful only if it enhances knowledge
of the Bible.

That Word Again

Again, if the Bible is to be made
respectable and meaningful in ac-
ademic eyes, it must be interpreted
in another way also. As this point
is usually put: the Bible must be
made relevant to life, our life. We
hear so much about relevance that
we are weary of it, and a bit skep-
tical as well because we concentrate
so much on our own situation that
we sometimes forget what is to be
made relevant.

Nevertheless, relevance is indis-
pensable. Trying to be relevant
makes exacting demands upon us,
as it calls for imagination, creative
thinking, and familiarity with both
Scriptural truth and the conditions
to which that truth is to be ap-
plied.

It forces us to use concepts, lan-
gauge, and thought forms charac-
teristic of our culture. In effect, it
asks us to be translators, and trans-
lation is very risky business.

The Italians have a saying, tra-
duttore, tradilore (translator, trai-
tor) . In Italian, the two words
sound almost exactly alike and are
differentiated by only two letters.
The saying neatly underscores the
danger of betrayal which besets us
all, lest we present as Scriptural
truth what in fact is not.

One of the dangers in this form
of evangelism is jargon. Once more
the temptation to self-enhance-
ment insidiously raises its ugly
head.

For example, we can say: "Paul
was an apostle who saw his mission

as the reconciliation of Jews and
Gentiles by converting them to the
truth of the Gospel and uniting
them in the church."

Translated into jargon, this state-
ment might read something like
this: "Paul's role perception was
the reduction of bi-polar tensions
between Jewish and Gentile cultural
crystallizations by communicating
to them a conceptual pattern hav-
ing intersubjective transmissibility,
thus re-crystallizing them into a new
peer-group."

I fail to see what good this trans-
lation would do and I doubt that
even a sociologist would be attracted
to it or enlightened by it. Surely
this is no way to reach university
people.

In this translation business we
have the benefit of Augustine,
Aquinas, Luther, Calvin and other
great figures of the history of Chris-
tian thought. To these giants of
our Christian past we must add the
works of contemporary theologians
such as Barth, Brunner, Tillich and
the Niebuhrs because they have
struggled to interpret the Christian
faith for our time and culture.

Latter Day Translators

These theologians have by no
means been equally successful trans-
lators. In my opinion, Tillich has
been largely unsuccessful, despite
some very fine insights. Concepts
like "the ground of our being" and
"ultimate concern" which are sup-
posed to be translations for "God"
and "faith" are far removed from
the original and owe much more to
our culture than to Scripture.

However, we can learn from the
mistakes of contemporary theolo-
gians as well as from their successes.
The only reservation I would make
here is that such explorations should
be limited to those of us who al-
ready have a good grounding in
Scripture and in the classics of
Christian thought, lest we con-
fuse contemporary interpretations
of Christian truth with that truth
itself.

Language scholars know that trans-
lation is for experts, not beginners.
Aside from this reservation, the suit-
abality of this phase of evangelism
to the university world is striking
because communication and linguis-
tic analysis are currently of great in-
terest to scholars.

(Continued on p. 19, col. 1)

PAGE 11 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 24, 1973

EDITORIALS

Salvation Today: Quest or Fact?

From December 29 through Jan-
uary 8 some 250 invited participants
from all over the world convened in
Bangkok under the auspices of the
World Council of Churches Com-
mission on World Mission and
Evangelism to consider the topic
"Salvation Today."

In small groups and plenary ses-
sions they wrestled with the broad
question: What is the salvation
which Jesus Christ offers men to-
day?

Evangelicals who suppose that
this kind of a topic signals for the
World Council a significant swing
from the liberal tendencies of the
past half-century may be destined to
disappointment. As Donald A. Mc-
Gavran, writing in a recent issue of
Church Growth Bulletin, wryly ob-
serves, "All the advance publications
concerning this meeting indicate
that the World Council is making
a massive effort to reinterpret the
classic meaning of salvation so that
'being saved' will come to mean
having more food, more justice,
more clothes, more freedom, more

production, less disease, more broth-
erhood, more peace, in short, more
this-worldly improvements."

Dr. McGavran has reason to mis-
trust the WCC leadership, for as he
goes on to say, other essential ex-
pressions such as mission, evangelism
and conversion have been "deval-
ued in the same direction."

"Mission" is no longer the propa-
gation of the Gospel but simply that
which God wants done by Chris-
tians and non-Christians. "Evan-
gelism" is no longer the persuasive
proclamation of Jesus Christ but
rather the restructuring of society
in the direction of justice, righteous-
ness and peace. "Conversion" is no
longer the turning from idols to
serve the living God but the turn-
ing corporately from faulty social
patterns to those emphasizing broth-
erhood.

And now, Dr. McGavran con-
cludes, " 'salvation' is apparently
going to be put through the same
rolling mill and brought out flat-
tened and focused on temporal im-
provements."

Go On! Grow Up!

We pity the man who is satisfied
to be where he is and never pushes
ahead. We recognize that the be-
ginning of any endeavor or profes-
sion should lead on to a growth in
knowledge and skill.

We quickly would agree that a
man is not a finished carpenter
when he learns to drive a nail and
that a plumber is not prepared for
his work when he has learned how
to thread a pipe.

And yet, nearly all of us are satis-
fied with only the first step in re-
ligious experience. We begin the
Christian program and then stop
right there at the beginning. We
are saved and then we sit down. We
do our Bible reading in the Gospels,
but never turn to Romans, Hebrews
or II Peter.

Most of us don't even know what
the faith of our own Church really
is! Such words as "redemption,"

"justification," "sanctification," are
pure greek to us, though they are
used dozens of times in the New
Testament.

It is vital that we take the first
step. It is equally vital that we
". . . henceforth be no more chil-
dren, tossed to and fro and carried
about with every wind of doctrine,"
but that we "grow up unto the
measure of the stature of the full-
ness of Christ!"

Any Christian content to be where
he is, is to be pitied. EE

Two Parts Only

The whole substance of the Gos-
pel is comprised in these two points:
repentance, and remission of sins. —
John Calvin.

.si

E

Evangelicals do not deny the va-
lidity of social concern. Jesus "went
about doing good" (Acts 10:38) . His
ministry was marked by healings,
the casting out of demons, the feed-
ing of the hungry.

The Scriptures admonish us who
are His followers to a similar con-
cern for the temporal needs of our
fellowmen. "Let us do good unto all
men" (Gal. 6:10). "Charge them
that are rich . . . that they do good
.... ready to distribute" (I Tim.
6:17-18) .

Evangelicals traditionally have
been in the vanguard of social con- i l!
cern. Antislavery legislation, the 1 "'
prohibition against liquor, the
founding of rescue missions, orphan-
ages and homes for unwed mothers
— all have largely been the work of
evangelical Christians.

Overseas, evangelical missionaries !J
have promoted hospitals, schools, or-
phanages. They have crusaded
against slavery, against the throw-
ing of babies into so-called holy
rivers, against the burning of widows
on their dead husbands' funeral
pyres.

But Jesus in His ministry on earth
not only went about doing good.
He also proclaimed the Good News
and called men to repentance. And
it is clear that His chief mission was
not man's temporal but his spiritual
and eternal welfare. Jesus came to
minister and to give His life a ran
som for many (Mark 10:45) .

Even a cursory reading of the
New Testament will indicate that
this same priority was also that of
Christ's followers. While not neg-
lecting temporal aid to suffering
humanity, they saw their primary
mission as spiritual. Paul talks
about the reconciling of the Colos-
sians in the body of Christ's flesh
through death, and says that it was
this good news which he was called
to minister (1:21-23) .

If salvation — to come back to
the term under study (and under
fire) at Bangkok — refers to tem-
poral betterment, the picture is
bleak. Paul Bartel, reviewing J.
Verkuyl's Message of Liberation in
Our Age, a book that purports to
bring the Bangkok issue into focus,
finds Verkuyl walking "a tightrope"
between conservatives and univer-
salists.

mi
if

1 !

"Somehow," Bartel says, "I get
the feeling that he refuses to ac-
knowledge the bankruptcy of oui '
society with its dope, sex perver-
sions, pills, bitter racism, abortions.

:

lite

PAGE 12 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 24, 1973

THE LAYMAN AND HIS CHURCH

A Faith As Big As God's Creation

vomen's lib, breakdown of the
wrae, increase of crime, adult de-
inquency.

"All of this is due to man's rejec-
ion of the salvation God has pro-
vided. God's goal has been and will
ilways be to create and re-create
nen in His own image — making
jodly men and women as opposed to
arnal, natural, human, sinning
nen."

There is the crux of the issue. So-
:ial betterment is not an end but
: by-product. Godlikeness is the
joal. Godlikeness begins with a
adical spiritual transformation of
he individual. That transforma-
ion comes when the individual
urns from his sin to God, receives
>y faith the finished work wrought
)y Christ on Calvary, and is born
igain by the Spirit of God. Apart
rom such an experience in Jesus
Hhrist there is no salvation.

To the one who has participated
n that experience, salvation is a
act — both today and tomorrow. —
in editorial in The Alliance Wit-
iess, by Robert Cowles. EE

The Faith: What Is It?

All the talk about a new confes-
ion of faith raises again the perti-
lent question: What after all, is
he Reformed Faith? Over a genera-
ion ago Dr. Charles Hodge of
*rinceton spelled out the distinctives
)f the Reformed Faith in an outline
hat is still valid:

— That the glory of God — or
he manifestation of His perfections
— is the highest and ultimate end
:>f all things.

— That for this end God pur-
>osed the creation of all things, and
he whole plan of providence and
edemption.

— That the fall brought all man-
kind, represented in and descended
rom Adam, into a state of condem-
lation, sin and misery from which
hey are unable to deliver them-
jelves.

— That from the mass of fallen
nen God elected an innumerable
ompany to eternal life, and left the
est of mankind to the just recom-
»ence of their sins.

— That the ground of this elec-
ion is not the goodness or the fore-
ight of anything good within the
:lect, but solely the good pleasure

(Continued on p. 18, col. 3)

Recently I was blest to have taken
part in a Holy Land tour. Such a
trip can be a life-changing event (if
evangelically guided) . In walking
where our Saviour trod there are ex-
periences to stir one's soul beyond
the telling.

Then our group spent several
days in Greece, where we visited
Christian orphanages, a hospital and
Greek evangelical churches. In the
experience of meeting pastors and
leaders and staying in the home of
the pastor of the largest Protestant
church in Greece (evangelical and
Presbyterian, by the way) , I ob-
served much that set me to thinking
on the nature of our faith.

There is a preaching and teaching
of the pure Gospel which seems to
limit it to concerns of personal sal-
vation and the substance of proph-
ecy. And there is a preaching and
teaching of the pure Gospel which
embraces the sovereignty of God
over all His creation and which calls
for a full obedience, in faith, to His
Law-Word in all things.

God does not rule over just this
single aspect of the personal lives
of those who are elect, but exercises
His sovereignty over all things,
which the Bible tells us were created
for Himself. Sin has flawed His hand-
iwork and the creation is groaning
in the travail of rebellion, but innate
in man is the desire for healing and
even "vessels of wrath" are subject
to God.

We have complete health and har-
mony as we follow the way intended
by God in creation, or we fail to
have such health and harmony as
in some areas we fail to do so. This
is true of all creation. A human
body is either healthy or not healthy,
depending on whether or not its
owner follows God's rules for its
handling. So too in human societal
bodies, be they the family, educa-
tional institutions, the church or

This week the layman's viewpoint
is by Robert M. Metcalf Jr., a mem-
ber of the Steering Committee for a
Continuing Church from Memphis,
Tenn.

governmental institutions.

One of our supreme tasks is to
seek God's truth in all relationships.
Through His gracious providence
we have been given the ultimate, in-
fallible guide in setting out basic
principles for those human societal
relationships — His revealed Word
in Scripture. We seriously neglect
the teaching of it when we fail to
get beyond the area of personal, in-
dividualistic commitment to our
Lord.

Christ cannot be limited to the
realm He occupies in our individ-
ual hearts and minds. We must in-
creasingly strive to bring all things
into subjection to Him and His
Law-Word. We've received His
mandate to have dominion over all
(in Christ, of course) . The insti-
tutions of society are sick in large
measure and it is because God's Law
from Scripture is not implanted in
them. The Holy Spirit can bring
that healing and He must operate
through us in the doing.

All of us who accept the Word
fully do yearn with all our hearts
for the early return of Christ. Of
course we study matters of the Last
Days in some measure; they are
prominent in the Scriptures and
they aid in seeking personal holi-
ness. Many evangelical Christians,
however, place such an emphasis on
the end that there is woeful neglect
of teaching how it is that our faith
can bear upon all realms of human
affairs.

I wrote this in my journal of the
Holy Land trip after one of the Bi-
ble lessons: "Would that there'd be
equal effort and time given to ap-
plying our Christian faith to all
things of this life as is given to
delving into matters of prophecy
which we cannot control or 'know
the times or seasons.' If we but re-
study the Gospels and Epistles,
which are the most important parts
of Scripture for us, we see that first
in importance is a personal faith
and a relationship to the Triune
God, then next is how to live that
faith. The latter is neglected griev-

(Continued on p. 19, col. 1)

PAGE 13 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 24, 1973

it

SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON

For February 11, 1973

Restoring God's House

Rev. Jack B. Scott

fl!

INTRODUCTION: In about 538
B.C. after a prolonged period of
captivity in Babylon, God stirred
the heart of King Cyrus of Persia
to permit His people to return to
their homeland and rebuild the tem-
ple which Nebuchadnezzar of Bab-
ylon had destroyed.

We are told of this at the end of
II Chronicles and the beginning of
the book of Ezra. After the edict
of Cyrus to return and build Jeru-
salem again, God stirred the hearts
of His people to go back (Ezra 1:

5) . The returnees were led by
Sheshbazzar and Zerubbabel back to
the land of Israel (Ezra 1:8, 2:2) .

About 50,000 returned in all
(Ezra 2:64-65) . The people began
to build the temple (Ezra 3:8). It
was both a joyful and a sad occa-
sion. Many of those who saw the
new foundations, which were inferi-
or to the old temple of Solomon, and
who had seen the former glory of
Solomon's temple, could not keep
from comparing the two (Ezra 3:
12-13).

At this time, enemies of the Jews
who saw the rebuilding begin made
efforts to stop it, and in the days
of Artaxerxes they were successful
in stopping the building (Ezra 4) .
Though there are difficulties with
the exact chronology of these days,
due to the uncertain identification
of the names mentioned in Ezra and
in Haggai, this lesson is not the
place for us to become involved in
the chronological difficulties. Suf-
fice it to say that the temple build-
ing was stopped and for some time
the temple lay incomplete.

In about 520 B.C. God raised up
two prophets whose writings we will
be studying in the next three les-
sons, Haggai and Zechariah. Their
primary purpose was to stir up the
people to commence again the
building of the temple.

I. THE PROBLEM (Hag. 1:1-

6) . The people had evidently been
procrastinating about taking up
again the rebuilding of the temple.
They kept saying, "It is not time"
(v. 2).

Background Scripture: Haggai
Key Verses: Haggai 1:1-8, 12-15
Devotional Reading: Hosea 5:15-
6:6

Memory Selection: Haggai 2:4-5

Instead, they were busy building
their own homes and planting their
own vineyards (v. 4) . They were
apparently using their previous sit-
uation of being forced to cease
building as a continuing excuse for
not rising to the task.

Haggai called them to a serious
appraisement of their own ways (v.
5) . Over and over in his very brief
message he called the people to
"consider" (1:7, 2:15, 17). It was
a very effective method for calling
the people to do some serious soul
searching. They were guilty of put-
ting themselves first and thereby
neglecting God's Word.

This is why their lives in their
own homeland to which they had
returned had not been blessed. Noth-
ing seemed to be going right, noth-
ing prospered (v. 6) . They had
their priorities all wrong and, there-
fore, nothing else was right.

What an important lesson this is!
When we fail to put God first in
our lives, what we may think we
gain by putting ourselves first turns
out to be no profit at all, no gain
at all. Paul declared that whatever
he had counted as gain to himself,
was now counted by him as loss for
Christ. He preferred to count all
things as loss to himself so that he
could gain Christ (Phil. 3:7-8).

The problem before Israel then
and before many Christians today
is the problem of putting self before
God. God will not allow this and
no such life can truly prosper in
God's sight or have great success.
The world can live like that and
seem to prosper for a time, though
in the end the world will lose all.

For God's children to live like
the world in putting themselves be-
fore God is a devastating thing to

The International Sunday School Lesson Outlines
are copyrighted 1972 by the Committee on the
Uniform Series ol the National Council of Churches
of Christ.

happen to a Christian. It alway
ends tragically and never glorifie
God. Christians simply cannot b<
happy and prosper without the bless
ings of God. The blessings of Got
come only when we learn to pu
Him first.

I'-

ll. THE SOLUTION (Hag. |
7-11) . Again Haggai called the peo
pie to consider their ways. The be
ginning of the return to a more de
vout life from a time of spiritual de'
cline is to look honestly at ourselves
i.e., to confess our sins. (Compan
I Samuel 7:3 and I John 1:8-10.)

But returning to the Lord is mor<
than merely acknowledging our sin
as important as that is. There mus
be a positive doing of what we cer
tainly know to be God's Word ant
His will. In this case, Israel wa;
required to begin to build again th<
house of the Lord. This would ob*
viously mean the laying aside a;
what they had been doing in ordei1
to put God's work first (v. 8)

God promised that when they dk
this, they would please Him and Hi'
name would be glorified, (v. 8
Compare last week's lesson.) God'
name was being profaned while al
of the people ran to take care o
their needs (v. 9) .

God intends that His people shal
live to His glory. When their aci
tions dishonor or profane the nami
of the Lord, God will intervene t<
bring their lives back into harmon'
with His will. This is why man;
Christians' lives seem mixed up ant
unfruitful. God is not blessinj
those lives because they are not God
honoring lives.

Therefore, God said here that fo
Israel's sake, He was withholdinf
the blessings until they learned t<
honor Him (vv. 10-11).

It is a simple solution which i
offered here: When God's peopliij
know His will they are expected t<
do it. Until they do so, they hav
no right to expect God's blessing oi
their lives.

III. THE RESPONSE (Hag. 1,

PAGE 14 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 24, 1973

IS

i
S

i;
J

il

I

12-15). When Haggai brought his
nessage to the people and their
leaders, the response was immedi-
ite. Zerubbabel and Joshua and
he other leaders of that day, togeth-
er with the whole remnant of God's
aeople, obeyed God (v. 12) . That
hey still believed in God is evi-
lenced from their willing response
o do His work.

They knew their Lord's voice and
hey followed. Their faith was ex-
pressed here, as it often is in Scrip-
ure, by the phrase, "The people
lid fear before the Lord." Here
nd in numerous texts, the phrase
'to fear" the Lord is tantamount to
'belief in the Lord."

When they showed good faith in
heir response, then again God as-
ured them of His presence with
hem (v. 13) . The words, "I am
vith you," are words which have
neant much to God's people to re-
issure them often in their history,
lemember that God first assured
closes that He was with him to en-
ble him to prosper before Pharaoh
jid in leading God's people out of
igypt (Exo. 3) .

God reassured Joshua in the same
vay, that He would be with him
nd cause his life to prosper and
ause him to have great success
Josh. 1) . Once again, God as-
ured by this promise of His pres-
nce that Israel would prosper. Then
he people, moved by God, began
gain to build the house of the Lord.

'. IV. THE RESULT (Hag. 2:1-
) . It seems from the context of
his message that some of the peo-
>le, remembering the former glory
f Solomon's temple and seeing and
omparing it with this much smaller
nd less auspicious building, were
iscouraged, thinking that it was not
nough (vv. 1-3) .

This attitude was reflected earlier
fhen they began the house of the
,ord the first time (Ezra 3:1.2).
uch attitudes, if they prevailed,
ould do much to discourage the
people and cause them to cease from
he building of the house of the
,ord.

God's children often use the wrong
f.andards for measuring their worth,
ihey are too concerned for what
leir work will look like in the eyes
i men. God Himself is never im-
pressed by bigness and by man's em-
ellishments. It is quite evident
aat the temple which Solomon
|Uilt never impressed God. It was
eautiful and awesome to behold,

inspiring people from all over the
world, like the Queen of Sheba who
traveled far to see it and to see all
of Solomon's glory.

But the temple, like Solomon, did
not last. With all of its glory of
adornment by the artifice of men,
it was to God's glory only so long
as God's people trusted in the Lord
of the temple. When they began to
trust in the temple itself, God
threatened to destroy it.

In Jeremiah's day, God warned
that if the people persisted in trust-
ing in the temple and in insisting
that God would have to protect Jeru-
salem from Babylon because the
temple was there, then God would
destroy the temple (Jer. 7:4) . The
people were living sinful lives and
still claiming to be religious because
they had the temple. God would
not tolerate this (Jer. 7:5-11).

To impress them at that time,
God had reminded them of a simi-
lar vain trust when Israel had faced
the Philistines. They had taken the
ark from Shiloh to battle with them,
trusting in the ark and not in the
God of the ark. As Jeremiah re-
minded them after that God had de-
stroyed Shiloh where the ark had
been, and He said that He would
also destroy the temple in which
they trusted (Jer. 7:12-14).

So it is. God is not impressed
with the elaborate buildings that
men build in which to worship
Him. As one observes the present
day, one sees houses of worship
which cost tremendous sums of
money, and one wonders whether
the priorities are right. Churches
get heavily in debt just to pay the
interest, and year by year the con-
gregations remember that the debt
must be paid before they can give
much to the proclamation of the
Gospel throughout the world.

As Zechariah, contemporary
prophet to Haggai, said: "Who has
despised the day of small things?"
When God's people are bold to be-
gin a work for Him, no matter how
modest the work may be, or how
despised it may be in the eyes of
the world, God will be glorified and
God will be pleased.

Many great works began modest-
ly and as a despised thing in the
eyes of men. Many other works
never got underway because those
considering them insisted that mil-
lions were needed to get them off
of the ground.

What really matters is whether
God is with you in the endeavor.

He will be, when you seek to do all
you do to His glory, no matter how
small it may seem to men (v. 4) .

In the end, the glory of God is
the important question and the real
goal. God will fill that work com-
mitted to Him with glory (v. 7) .
God promised here that the later
glory of the house would exceed the
glory of the house built by Solomon
(v. 9) .

When we consider the pains to
which Solomon went to decorate the
first house with gold and silver and
precious stones and all the skills of
men's abilities, it is amazing that
God said that this humble effort of
a handful of poor, returned prison-
ers of war would prosper, outlive
and outshine the temple of S o 1 -
omon.

It is not the beginning but the
end that really glorifies God. Sol-
omon's own life of debauchery in
his latter days did much to tarnish
the former glory of his work. It is
not the building itself, but the lives
of those who build, who worship in
the building, that really glorifies
or profanes the name of the Lord.

God is greatly concerned that His
name be glorified among men. This
requires on our part not big works
but great faith in our Lord. He
can and will prosper the work that
is built on faith. EE

$4.50
Postpaid

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Weaverville, N C. 28787

PAGE 15 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 24, 1973

YOUTH PROGRAM

Scripture: II Timothy 3:16-17
Suggested Hymns:

"Sing Them Over Again

to Me"
"Amazing Grace"
"Saviour, Like a Shepherd

Lead Us"

PROGRAM LEADER'S INTRO-
DUCTION: (Note: Have enough
copies of the chart found in this
lesson prepared for everyone in the
group.)

It is one thing to say the Bible is
the Word of God, to guide us in
what we think and do, and quite an-
other to really use it like this. For
instance, how many of us would
know where to begin looking for an

For February 11, 1973

Why Study the Bible?

Rev. Henry J. Mueller

answer from the Bible concerning
pre-marital sex?

Most of us have a very limited
knowledge of the basic structure of
the Bible. It would take us several
minutes to find the book of Heze-
kiah. (Actually there's no such
book!)

One very good way to approach
Bible study is to see if the book it-
self gives us any clues as to what we
will find when we begin searching.
One passage in the Scripture that
gives us such thoughts is II Tim-
othy 3:16-17.

Before we begin an in-depth
study of these verses we need to be
reminded of a section of the West-
minster Confession of Faith: "The
infallible rule of interpretation of

All

Scripture
is

profitable
for:

Definition

Meaning
for
you

How does
this
affect
your group
or Church?

"doctrine"

"reproof"

"correction"

"instruction
in

righteousness"

Scripture, is the Scripture itsell
and therefore, when there is a que:
tion about the true and full sens
of any Scripture (which is not man
fold, but one) , it may be search©
and known by other places t h a
speak more clearly" (Chapter 1:9)

This means that we use the Bibl
to find the meaning of a certai
passage. When you want to fin)
the meaning of a word or phras<
you use a concordance to show yo^
where to find that word in othe
parts of the Bible.

Then you write down the way o
ways it is used and see if one o
more of them give the meaning c
the word in your passage. Y o
should use those places that ar
easiest to understand to interprc
those that are difficult.

(Pass out copies of the followin
chart to each member in the grout
The study may be done individual
or in groups of three. Have d§<
tionaries and Bible concordance
available for everybody. Each pe;
son is to fill out the chart durin
this study.

Limit the study to 20 minute
After you have finished, have th
whole group share their results b
leading a discussion using questioi
similar to the following: How do<
study of the Bible thoroughly equi
a Christian to live in the light c
God's presence? What should t
your church's approach to teachin
the Bible?)

Closing Prayer.

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PAGE 16 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 24, 1973

1

AN INTRODUCTION TO CHRIS-
TIAN MISSIONS, by Harold R. Cook.
Moody Press, Chicago, 111. 287 pp.
$4.95. Reviewed by the Hon. F. Max-
well Bradshaw, barrister and procura-
tor of the Presbyterian Church of
Australia, Hawthorn, Victoria.

This 15th edition of a standard
work has undergone a thorough re-
vision without changing its charac-
ter or diminishing its worth. Out-
dated references have been removed,
and a helpful note in the nature of
a warning has been added with re-
gard to the modern usage of refer-
ring to "mission" instead of to "mis-
sions." There has also been inserted
a section which explains the chang-
ing financial basis of faith missions.

Some of the later chapters have
been extensively revised, and one has
been added on the organization of
a church's missionary program. The
work is factual and nonpolemical. It
bears the stamp of an author who
has had personal experience as a
missionary in South America.

Conservative in character, the vol-
ume would provide a most useful
guide to anyone contemplating mis-
sionary service, and equally to those
at home from the congregational
level up to a denomination's mis-
sionary administration. ffl

CHRIST AND THE MODERN
MIND, Ed. by Robert W. Smith. Inter-
Varsity Press, Downers Grove, 111.
312 pp. $3.50. Reviewed by Dan
Roberts, student, Princeton Theologi-
cal Seminary.

The mad pursuit of the intellec-
tual spirit of the times has darkened
[the picture of Christianity in this
(century. Well-intentioned and sin-
cere churchmen, in seeking to relate
the faith to a rapidly disintegrating
(civilization, have undermined his-
toric Christianity and in doing so
'have separated their hungry genera-
tion from the truth that affords solu-
tion to the problems that confront
it.

The picture of the great thinkers
[of the Church bounding from one
fad to the next whim must seem ut-
terly ridiculous to the outside ob-

•HELP US TO SERVE
'!you better.
iSEND OLD AND NEW
Zip Codes to the
[Journal 3 weeks
[before you move
to get every issue
promptly.

BOOKS

server. Rudolf Bultmann is a philol-
ogist without peer, but the affinity
that he and his followers have for
existentialist philosophy produces a
wedding of disastrous proportions.

The almost wholesale adoption of
current counseling techniques and
even the dogma that undergirds
"modern" thinking in psychiatry
(for all its penetrating insights)
makes churchmen almost indistin-
guishable from their secular coun-
terparts. We use different words, of
course, but that hardly alters the sit-
uation when the foundation is the
same, the conclusions are the same
and the results are lamentably the
same.

We are called to be the salt of the
earth but in our silly tagging along
behind the novel, we who have ac-
cess to the source of all truth and
His solutions are rendered impotent.
This is cause for much weeping and
prayer but it is also a cause for seri-
ous consideration of the options for
Christians as society crumbles
around us.

This book is a symposium of 26
essays, each dealing with a particular
academic discipline. It is directed
to the Christian undergraduate, un-
certain as to his field of concentra-
tion in college.

Arranged into three main areas,
humanities, natural sciences, and
social sciences, the chapters review
characteristics of the subject, occupa-
tional opportunities for those parti-
cipating, and the peculiar problems

faced by the committed Christian
and the non Christian who enter
that particular field. Many of the
essays are superb.

The introduction to the study of
drama is representative: "Christ's
'self-denial' statements include a
calling to a divine vocation and thus
the dramatist should not be motiva-
ted to achieve artistic recognition,
loyal disciples, or financial profit,
but rather to aid in establishing a
personal relationship between God
and man." In short, "Art is for
Christ's sake and not art for art's
sake."

Unfortunately, some authors rely
on the cliche. Some day we are going
to grow weary of characterizing men
who are skeptical of certain social
solutions as "ignoring Christ's de-
mand that they meet the physical
needs of the men around them."
There is a great deal of difference
between distrust of a means to an
end, and saying that the end is not
desirable.

Underlying the view of the entire
book there seems to be a plea on the
part of the authors for the Christian
to prayerfully consider the possibili-
ty of full participation in a secular
discipline, to deal firsthand with the
difficulties and agonies faced by
men in the several fields mentioned.

Unless we are diligent in applying
the truth of God's Word to the cur-
rent intellectual struggles (from the
inside as full participants) we have
no business wringing our hands in

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PAGE 17 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 24, 1973

dismay over the present sad state of
affairs. "You are the world's season-
ing, to make it tolerable," Jesus said.
"If you lose your flavor what will
happen to the world" (Matt. 5:13a,
The Living Bible) . SI

CAMPUS AFLAME, by J. Edwin
Orr. Regal Books, Glendale, Calif.
277 pp. $2.95. Reviewed by the Rev.
Robert T. Henderson, pastor, Canal
Street Presbyterian Church, New Or-
leans, La.

During the decade of the '60s we
witnessed campuses aflame with a re-
action to the value and false gods

which students derisively called the
"technocracy." The adult genera-
tion generally looked with despair
upon the generation of youth with
a radically different life style and
set of values. It was customary even
for evangelical Christians to look
on the outward appearance and not
investigate the roots of the prob-
lem.

Then (praise the Lord!) , the sove-
reign Saviour, having brought a gen-
eration of youth to the depths of de-
spair, led them to repentance and
faith so that campuses became the
focal point of a whole fresh "Jesus

PI

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SEE THE MANAGER NEAREST YOU FOR CHURCH CARPET, ROBES, ETC.

IJ

ii;

revolution." We have witnessed in
recent years such phenomena as
Campus Crusade's Explo '72, Inter-1
Varsity Christian Fellowship's great
Urbana Missionary Convention, and
the Christian World Liberation
Front's remarkable infiltration of1
the radical scene at the University
of California at Berkeley.

In this volume, with great thor- I
oughness, the author shows how con-
sistently university campuses have
been the matrix for awakenings and id<
revivals. Dr. Orr is not impressive
for prose or literary style, but he is ut
impressive for data and research, lot
This volume is a gold mine of infor-
mation about the way God has used
universities as launching pads for
evangelical awakenings back beyond
the Reformation into the Middle
Ages.

John Hus, Martin Luther, John it
Calvin, all of Reformation fame,
were set aflame for Christ as a re-
sult of influences around their uni-
versity experiences, as were the Wes-
leys and George Whitefield. The
awakenings in the universities in
America in the late 19th and early
20th centuries produced the impact
of the Y.M.C.A., the Student Volun-
teer Movement, and on and on.

Orr's point is that this work of
God has never stopped. The excite
ment of this book is in the data and
evidence of the movements of the
Spirit that are producing in the uni-
versity and the youth culture of this
particular day one of the great re-
vivals of Church history. Read this
book and your whole day will be
brighter. IB

Editorial— from p. 13

of God.

— That God provided salvation
for the elect in giving His own Son,
who became man, lived obediently
and suffered for His people; thus
making full satisfaction for sin,
bringing in everlasting righteous-
ness and rendering the ultimate sal-
vation of the elect absolutely cer-
tain.

— That the effective and saving
power of the Holy Spirit is exercised
only for the elect, although He is
present in His common work with-
in every man.

— That all those whom God has
chosen to life and for whom Christ
specifically gave Himself shall cer-
tainly be brought to redemption; to
the knowledge of truth, the exercise
of faith, and perseverance in holy
living unto the end. S

It

I

it
id

n

2
J!

b
b
k
A

PAGE 18 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 24, 1973

layman— from p. 13

msly these days.

We must have a balanced walk
vith the Lord of all in our lives and
•f all creation including our societal
nstitutions." I concluded with this:

"A great group of people to travel
nth .... Oh that the world might
ee that the only really satisfactory
ommunities existing — whether
mall or large — are those Biblically
•rdered. I believe that the world

> hungering to know this. We must
each it as an important part of the
iood News to the world. He
aught it, with emphasis. And the
emarkable fact of it all is that this

> a most effective way to bring peo-
>le around to a readiness for Him
o move the heart for acceptance of
Christ as personal Saviour and
.ord." BB

ntegrity—from p. 11

The last phase of the enterprise
f making Scriptural truth attractive
nd meaningful to university peo-
ple concerns specific applications to
onditions and problems peculiar to
cademic life in its instructional, re-
?arch, and service aspects. This is
lso probably the most difficult but
lso the most relevant phase of the
{'hole enterprise.

As a political scientist, I have

tried my hand at it in my book, In-
dependence and Involvement. As
an educator, I am now trying to do
the same thing in these lectures for
the university world. Clearly, this
kind of work will have to be done
by many people in many fields and
in many universities. No one per-
son can do it.

Our Board of Christian Educa-
tion and corresponding agencies in
other churches and in the National
Council of Churches are sponsoring
just such work by conferences and
institutes in all parts of the country.
These ventures are hampered by the
theological inadequacy and occupa-
tional narrowness of many of the
participants, but they are neverthe-
less the beginning of steps in the
search for relevance.

As we engage in these activities,
we must be ever mindful of the
words of the Apostle Paul: "All
Scripture is given by inspiration of
God, and is profitable for doctrine,
for reproof, for correction, for in-
struction in righteousness: That the
man of God may be perfect, thor-
oughly furnished unto all good
works" (II Tim. 3:16-17) . At this
point, ministers can make an indis-
pensable contribution as resource
persons, counselors, critics, and cat-
alysts. EE

• • •

Error in the Church is like fire in
the hayloft.— Unknown.

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PAGE 19 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 24, 1973

HAVE
YOU BEEN

CALLED BY
CHRIST?

Has the Lord called you to His Service?
Are you still considering where you will
prepare for His ministry? Are you searching
for a place that recognizes God's complete
sovereignty in every phase of life, that believes
the Holy Scriptures to be His divinely inspired
Word and seeks to expound this Truth?
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PAGE 20 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 24, 1973

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JOURNAL

to Scripture and the Reformed faith

The Answer To Communism

So frequently the Christian answer to Communism and the
world's ills is misunderstood. It is believed that the salvation
of men's souls is enough. This is not so, as worthwhile as this
may be and as Scriptural as it may sound. A life lived in ac-
cordance with what the Bible teaches is also necessary.

This includes a proper concern for others and a display of
Christian social responsibility. The Apostle James reminds us
pointedly that faith without works is dead (James 2:20) . . . .
The distinctive characteristic of the Christian approach to the
problem of Communism is that it can be based on a more solid
foundation than a mere negative anti-Communism, antima-
terialism or humanitarianism.

The foundation of our answer is love motivated by the
work of the Holy Spirit within us individually.

— T. O. Kay

The Christian Answer To Communism

VOL. XXXI, NO. 40 JANUARY 31, 1973

the

taSBYTERIAN

ildvocating continuation of a Presbyterian Church loyal

S. LESSON AND YOUTH PROGRAM FOR FEBRUARY 18

dHOO

tlSLZ OK TTIH lacteqo
TtoT^oeTtoo o 8.

MAILBAG

WHICH WAS IT?

I have a reaction to your article,
"Ministry (?) on Campus" (Jan.
10 Journal) . It had some good over-
views on how campus ministry in-
fluences a student's life directly and
indirectly and especially the "min-
istry of reconciliation" a student sees
the campus ministers involved in.

But a lot of the particulars in the
story of "Jean" seemed unrealistic.
Maybe because I became a Christian
at college and that was so much a

part of my experience there and be-
cause I have done work with campus
ministry, I find it hard to relate to
the Jean of the story. She does a
lot of learning about things; she has
causes and finds a career (doctor
seems a little farfetched for an ex-
ample of the "norm") . But she
doesn't seem to learn anything about
herself.

We don't hear of her slumps and
depressions, her doubts, or her spir-
itual growth. Nevertheless she feels

the

PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL

Rev. G. Aiken Taylor, Ph.D., Editor
Rev. Henry B. Dendy, D.D., Managing Editor

Circulation leader among independent publications in the Presbyterian-Reformed world

THIS WEEK— Vol. XXXI, No. 40, January 31, 1973

Reaction! 7

Ministers and laymen respond to the article, "The Misplaced
Issue"

Integrity and Polity 10

Congregations have reason to distrust some of the Church's
higher courts By Rene de Visme Williamson

De partments —

Editorials 1 2

The Layman and his Church 13

Sunday School Lesson, February 18 14

Youth Program, February 18 16

Book Reviews 17

THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL, a

Presbyterian weekly magazine, devoted
to the statement, defense, and propa-
gation of the Gospel, the faith which
was once for all delivered to the saints,

is published every Wednesday by the
Southern Presbyterian Journal Co.,
Inc., in Weaverville, N. C.

SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: $4 a year
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TELEPHONES: (All area 704) edi-
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business office, 645-3310, 645-3962.

love and appreciation for the min
istry on her campus and for the
"spirit of Christ" which had been
shared with her.

Mainly, I can't figure out if you
reprinted the article because you
think it pictured such a wishy-wash}
witness (and that little stress is being
made on a personal commitment tc
Jesus Christ) . Or, if you thought thf
article illustrated the sorts of pres
sures students are under which th(
campus ministry is successfully help
ing to avert.

Which was it?

— Jean Miller

Yale Divinity Schoo

We were hoping, Jean, that a percep
tive Christian would read that artich
and say, "If that is a Christian cam
pus ministry, I'll take bananas." — Ed

CORRECTION

I believe a correction is in ordei
with regard to the editorial com
ment attached to the letter of th<
Rev. Fred L. Keith ("Sign of th<
Times," Journal, Dec. 27) . Thi
minister whose letter appeared ii
the Dec. 6 Mailbag will observe thf
ninth anniversary of his ordinatioi
this month rather than the ". . . les
than three years" as printed.

— (Rev.) James A. Rohne
Charlottesville, Va.

Our apoligies to Mr. Rohne who wa
ordained before he came to the PCU
three years ago. For the matter he
talking about, see p. 7. — Ed.

BLEST ARE PEACEMAKERS

I noted in the Journal for Jan. 1
that four executives of the Presbyt<
rian Church US had called on "Pre
byterians and other persons of goo
will" to put pressure on the Pres
dent to negotiate an immediate en
to the war. What, may I ask, hi
the President been doing for a Ion
time but just this, leaning over bacl
wards to offer a just peace, whic
the Communists have thus far |
jected?

Our President is an honest an
God loving man and he knows mor
of the true issues than any of it
rest of us know. Can we imagir
that he enjoys the war? Surely e
one wants peace more than he.

What is peace, anyway? The I
ble's blessing is on peacemakers, n<
necessarily peace lovers. Men, <
nations, may let a situation devek>
and in reaction adopt as a "peact
measure, the policy of doing not
ing, refusing to face the situation <

si!

IfflSf

Jiiiti
mil
■ear

I

to take the action that the situation
demands. There is nothing in the
Bible to condone this approach.

The peace the Bible calls blessed
does not come from an evasion of
issues, it comes from facing them,
dealing with them and conquering
them if need be. This is the mati-
ng of peace, even when the way of
peace is through struggle.
In my opinion, if the Church
ould cease trying to be Caesar and
devote its full time to preaching
Christ and standing on the Scrip-
tures, as our Lord commanded, it
would be doing a vastly greater ser-
vice for peace than by leaving its
mission to condemn our nation's
just stand against tyranny.

— Pitman Sutton
Graham, N. C.

• Back on p. 19 of this issue you
will find an advertisement for an-
other executive for the Presbyterian
Church US. We hope that anyone
qualified for the position will offer
imself — the new office in the
hurch's bureaucracy is not the
fault of those seeking to fill it. But
we are constrained to note that bu-
eaucracies, according to Parkinson's
law, multiply like cancer cells. And
anyone thinks that reorganizing
he Church means "streamlining"
n the sense of fewer bureaucrats, he
s not just out of his mind, he is
ompletely out of this world. (Wit-
ess that union of three denomina-
ional offices on the chaplaincy
<vhich has resulted in a single office
n the chaplaincy with three execu-
lves whose combined salaries are in
xcess of $60,000.) The new office
or which an executive is sought in
he p. 19 ad is that of a supervisor
coordinator) of executives in the
usiness of being pastors to pastors,
'irst someone came up with the idea
hat presbyteries should have a sort
)f chaplain (sometimes called gen-

MINISTERS

Howard D. Cameron from Gads-
den, Ala., to the Ingleside church,
Scottsdale, Ga.

James Mitchell Cockerham from
Watertown, Tenn., to the First
Church, Florence, S. C, as associ-
ate pastor.

Kenneth L. Hamilton who has
been interim supply at the Wacca-
maw church, Bucksport, S. C, is
now pastor.

Albert S. Hoyer from Amelia,
Va., to the Mars Hill church, Ac-
worth, Ga.

Joe E. Stowe from Monroe, N. C,
to the First Church, Myrtle Beach,
S. C.

Jack W. Walker from Batesburg,
S. C, to the Acworth, Ga., church.

eral presbyter) to look after the spir-
itual needs of the ministers. Now
we are to have a bureaucrat to look
after those who are looking after the
needs of ministers. Somehow we are
reminded of the change reported in
the Ministers column a couple of
weeks ago, where an ordained min-
ister of the Word has accepted a
call as "administrator of buildings
and staff" of a large church.

• In Derby, England, the Rev.
Kenneth Bowler believes the social
life of a congregation is as impor-
tant as their worship. Consequently,
the Anglican rector has obtained
permission to have the fellowship
hall of his church licensed as a so-
cial club, "complete with small bar
and a buxom female bartender,"
according to Religious News Ser-
vice. The bar opens right after
church services and at various other

William Henry Todd from
Wrightsville Beach, N. C, to the
First Church, Greenville, Miss.

DEATHS

Oswald T. Allis, 92, died in
Wayne, Pa., Jan. 12. He was a
former professor of Old Testa-
ment at Princeton, who left to
help found and to teach at West-
minster Seminary.
Miss Mary L. Dodson, retired
PCUS missionary to Korea, died
Dec. 28 in Austin, Tex. She was
91.

H. Hiram Van Cleve, 72, died at
Winona Lake, Ind., Jan. 8. He
served pastorates in both the
UPUSA and PCUS and was a for-
mer president of the National As-
sociation of Evangelicals.

functions throughout the year. Said
Pastor Bowler: "If you provide peo-
ple with the opportunity to meet
socially, you can do more. I think
our social club will help to break
down the image that the church is
confined to buildings and men in
turned-around collars." So far there
hasn't been a whisper of opposition,
to the rector's knowledge.

• That bit of news probably be-
longs with this one: Down in New
Orleans, a pastor answered the phone
and a woman's voice on the other
end of the line said, "Send me six
cases of beer." The minister recog-
nized the voice and replied, "Dear
lady, do you realize you're talking
to your pastor?" To which, instead
of the apology he had expected, the
lady shot back at him: "And what
are you doing at the brewery?" SI

ACROSS THE EDITOR'S DESK

PAGE 3 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 31, 1973

NEWS OF RELIGION

Professor Objects; Athletes Are Shut Up

OMAHA, Neb. — A protest by a
philosophy professor at the Univer-
sity of Nebraska here brought about
the cancellation of personal Christian
testimonies by a team of wrestlers
from Athletes in Action during an
appearance against the university
team.

Prof. L. Duane Willard objected
in writing when he heard that a part
of the scheduled exhibition match
between AIA, the athletic division
of Campus Crusade for Christ, and
the university's wrestlers would be a
personal word in behalf of their
faith by the Christian athletes. He
maintained that such activity would
violate the United States Constitu-
tion.

As a result of his protest, the uni-
versity decided the visiting athletes
would not be permitted to speak.
They were permitted, however, to
hand out literature and to meet with
interested persons after the wrestling
matches.

Coach Mike Palmisano said the
incident marked the first time any-
where that Athletes in Action had
not been allowed to present its pro-
gram.

Oklahoma State University gradu-

MEXICO — Wycliffe Bible Trans-
lators completed four New Testa-
ment translations for tribal groups
of this country during the final
months of 1972.

Three hundred Tarahumara In-
dians were joined by guests from
Mexico City and the United States
to witness presentation of the New
Testaments in their language at
Samaschique, Chihuahua. The event
climaxed 31 years of work by two
Kansans who went to Mexico on
their honeymoon 32 years ago and
stayed to master the language of the
seminomadic Indians.

The Teutila Cuicatec New Testa-
ment for an estimated 6,000 Cuica-
tec living in the mountains of north-
ern Oaxaca began in 1953. The New
Testament is expected to be well re-
ceived, especially among the young-

ate Gene Davis, who led the AIA
team, said the wrestlers were dis-
appointed in the decision, but added,
"God is able to overcome such ob-
stacles."

On the night of the match at the
university, about 200 of the 410
fans present remained after the
match to talk to the Christian
athletes.

When Nebraska U. President D.B.
Varner was asked why the univer-
sity restricted the activities of a
group that wanted to promote Jesus
when it had permitted other groups
to promote homosexuality, lesbian-
ism, radical politics and other con-
troversial issues on campus, Dr.
Varner said the university's lawyer
had told him, "the Constitution
doesn't have a prohibition against
those views," but does against reli-
gion.

Prof. Willard, meanwhile, was
criticized by a graduate student at
another Nebraska university and by
an Omaha daily for raising his ob-
jections to the Athletes in Action
testimonies.

James Chancellor, a graduate stu-
dent at Creighton University (Rom-
an Catholic) , wrote in a letter to

people who show a high interest in
publications in their own language.
Almost half the Cuicatec are literate
in Spanish and can read Cuicatec
without difficulty. A well estab-
lished Christian community is grow-
ing in Teutila.

New Testament translations are
also available now for two neigh-
boring peoples. The Huave, num-
bering about 11,000, live on the Isth-
mus of Tehuantepec along the Pa-
cific Ocean. Churches are orga-
nized in all five of the main vil-
lages, and the Huave Scriptures are
being received well.

The nearby Isthmus Zapotec peo-
ple number more than 100,000, and
several hundred of them have come
to know Christ since Wycliffe trans-
lators began work among them in
1943. EH

the Omaha World-Herald that the
philosophy professor had told him
in a telephone conversation, he
"had made no investigation into the
constitutionality of this issue as in-
terpreted by the courts and had
done no research on the legality of
this issue."

He added, "I find it distressing
that the coordinated efforts of the
athletic department, the Athletes in
Action, and a considerable segment
of the Omaha community should
be thwarted by a philosophy teach-
er's opinion of the Constitution."

The following day, in an editorial
titled, "Sit Down, Shut Up For
Jesus," the World-Herald raised
some questions about the incident.
Among them:

"Would the university actually
have lent its support to the establish-
ment of a religion by turning on the
microphones? Did Professor Willard
foresee a pentecostal experience in
the gym, followed by a mass baptism
in the shower room?

"Is this the sort of threat the
Founding Fathers had in mind when
they wrote that 'Congress shall make
no law respecting an establishment
of religion . . .'? (Of course, there
were no public address systems
then.)

"Would the university administra-
tion get as uptight if one (1) as-
sistant professor tried to unplug the
sound system on a speaker from,
say, the Gay Liberation Front?" 33

Nine 'Prayer' Bills
Are Before Congress

WASHINGTON, D.C. (RNS) —
Nine bills calling for prayer in
public schools or public buildings
were introduced in the Senate and
House of Representatives during the
first two weeks of the 93rd Congress'
first session.

Sen. Richard S. Schweiker (R-Pa.)
introduced a joint resolution on be-
half of himself and Sen. Hugh Scott
(R-Pa.) to amend the U.S. Con-i
stitution to "provide voluntary non-
denominational prayer in public
schools and buildings."

"There is no doubt in my mind,"
he said on submitting the measure

THE CHURCH OVERSEAS

PAGE 4 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 31, 1973

4

"that public support of the school
prayer amendment is at an all-time
high."

Another member of the Senate,
Sen. William Lloyd Scott (R-Va.) ,
(who moved from the House to
the Senate as a result of the last
election) also introduced a joint res-
olution calling for a constitutional
amendment "relating to the partici-
pation in nondenominational prayers
in any building which is supported
in whole or in part through expen-
diture of public funds."

The House, during the last Con-
gress, came within 28 votes of the
i two-thirds vote required to adopt an
amendment which would have per-
mitted prayers in public schools. 33

Second Season, Reformed
Youth Conferences Told

FOREST, Miss. — Two Reformed
Youth Conferences sponsored by the
Reformed Youth Movement, Inc.,
are scheduled for the summer of
1973, it was announced here.
Patterned after the first such con-
| ference at King College, Bristol,
i Tenn., in the summer of 1972, one
Eof the events will return to the King
Jicampus, July 9-14. The Rev. John
||G. Reisinger, editor of Sword and
\Trozoell will be the featured leader,
j The other conference will be held
it John Kyle State Park, Sardis,
Miss., June 18-23. The Rev. Harvie
Conn of Westminster Theological
Seminary will be the featured leader.

Inquiries should be sent to Re-
formed Youth Movement, 407 E.
First Street, Forest, Miss. 39074. ffl

Presbyterian Alliance
Condemns U.S. President

ATLANTIC CITY, N. J. — A state-
nent accusing the President of the
Jnited States of having resorted to
(naked terror as an instrument of
liplomacy" in his pursuit of the war
n Vietnam was issued here by the
Jorth merican Area Council of
he World Presbyterian Alliance.
I It also called on Mr. Nixon to de-
ist from such policy and "to end the
var now."

' The statement was presented to

the council, representing 16 Church-
es in North America and the Carib-
bean, by Prof. James A. Wharton of
Austin (Tex.) Presbyterian Semi-
nary, on behalf of the council's
Committee on Civil and Religious
Liberty.

The council authorized its secre-
tary, the Rev. James I. McCord of
Princeton Seminary, to express to
Mr. Nixon the council's "shock and
outrage" at the unprecedented bomb-
ing of populated areas of North
Vietnam in December.

Mission Board Approves
Program; Plans Ahead

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (PN) — The
Presbyterian Church US Board of
World Missions, during its winter
session here, Jan. 15-17, gave the
green light for two new projects as
part of its program of Concerted
Witness in Latin America.

Board members approved "as an
initial step" of cooperation with the
Roman Catholic Church in El Sal-
vador, a project with the Suchitoto
Agricultural School and authorized
$10,000 a year for two years for the
cooperative undertaking.

A church extension project in
Guayaquil, Ecuador, was also okayed,
with board authorizing up to $15,-
000 a year for three years to under-
gird establishment of a new congre-
gation envisioned at Guayaquil, and
construction of a community center
for religious and community activi-
ties in that city.

After accepting an invitation of
the Committee on Cooperation of
the Presbyterian Church of Korea
for PCUS participation in a consul-
tation in Korea, the board named
its chairman, Dr. David L. Stitt of
Houston, and Dr. David W. A. Tay-
lor and the Rev. John O. Barks-
dale, both of the Nashville staff, to
be its representatives.

Purpose of the April consultation
is to map out a new "mutual" agree-

In other actions the 85 delegates
to the council's 70th annual meet-
ing elected a slate of new officers
and adopted a budget totaling
$100,475 for 1973.

Elected chairman was Samuel
Meighlal, a member of the faculty
at Naparima Teachers' College, San
Fernando, Trinidad. The Rev. De-
Courcy H. Rayner of Don Mills,
Ontario, was named vice chairman.
Dr. Rayner is the editor of the Pres-
byterian Record, magazine of the
Presbyterian Church in Canada. SI

ment for cooperative mission work
in Korea. The present "mutual
agreement" of the Presbyterian
Church of Korea, Presbyterian
Church in the US, the United Pres-
byterian Church and the Australian
Presbyterian Church will expire next
September. Along with the three
PCUS representatives from the Unit-
ed States will be three persons from
the Korea Mission, to be named la-
ter.

Last July the board agreed to en-
ter into a bilateral consultation with
the Presbyterian Church of Brazil
concerning mission relationships in
that country. Eight board represen-
tatives were named in October. At
its January meeting the board ap-
proved the following missionaries to
complete the board's representation
at the Brazil consultation: the Rev.
William B. Moseley, the Rev. Frank
E. Soules, the Rev. Robert H. Cam-
enisch and the Rev. Curtis C. Good-
son.

During its session the board also:

• approved a 1974 budget request
totaling $5,426,650, pointing out
that the amount would simply
"maintain" the present world mis-
sions program.

• approved 13 new candidates for
overseas mission work and reap-
pointed four missionaries for con-
tinuing work.

• voted to ask the 1973 General
Assembly to confirm board reelec-
tion of Dr. T. Watson Street to serve
as executive secretary until Jan. 1,

THE CHURCH AT HOME

PAGE 5 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 31, 1973

1974, at which time restructuring
under the new General Executive
Board is expected to be completed.

Dr. Street reported on his trip to
Bangkok, Thailand where he attend-
ed the World Conference on Salva-
tion Today, held just prior to the
Nashville meeting.

He predicted that the conference,
sponsored by the World Council of
Churches, will have "extensive in-
fluence" on the Christian world mis-
sion.

Quoting excerpts from a confer-
ence report, Dr. Street stated, "The
salvation which Christ brought and
in which we participate, offers a
comprehensive wholeness in this di-
vided life." The conferees said:
"Within the comprehensive notion
of salvation we see the saving work
in four social dimensions," and
pointed out that salvation "works in
the struggle for economic justice
against the exploitation of people,
by people, in the struggle for human
dignity against political oppression
by their fellowmen, in the struggle
for solidarity against the alienation
of person from person, and in the
struggle of hope against despair in
personal life." IB

Hanover Goes To Court
Against Tabb Street

PETERSBURG, Va.— Hanover Pres-
bytery has pulled off the kid gloves
and put on its mailed fist in its deal-
ings with Tabb Street Church here,
appointing a commission to take the
property away from the breakaway
congregation.

Immediate steps taken by the
commission through the law firm
of McGuire, Woods and Battle of
Richmond, include a subpoena
served on the pastor, the Rev. Lin-
wood G. Wilkes, and elders of the
church. On file in Hustings Court
was a petition for an injunction to
"assure compliance" of the commis-
sion taking over all of the church's
property.

Chairman of the commission is the
Rev. John Newton Thomas of Rich-
mond. Other members include the
Rev. Harold Reagan of Chester, the
Rev. William Jordan of Ferndale
church, plus elders from the Tabb
Street church who voted against with-
drawal.

The congregation voted 87 to 26
on August 20 of last year to with-
draw from the Presbyterian Church
US. The existing membership, as

represented by its officers and pas-
tor, will contest the takeover move
by the presbytery.

The only other PCUS property
case pending in civil court at this
time is that of the Transylvania
Union Presbytery vs. the Cynthiana,
Ky., church. Trial of this case is ex-
pected in the near future. IS

PCUS Contributions For
1972 Higher Than 1971

ATLANTA (PN) — Contributions
to the general mission budget of the
Presbyterian Church US increased
3.07 per cent during 1972.

Last year's receipts totaled $7,741,-
088, compared with $7,510,502 the
previous year.

The funds go toward the support
of 18 causes included in the denomi-
nation's benevolence budget.

While the cash money total in-
creased, the percentage given to the
denomination's benevolence budget
decreased.

The 1972 total represents 85.28
per cent of a $9,077,000 budget,
while the 1971 figure was 88.36 per
cent of $8,500,000.

Two causes received more than
the budgeted amount because of gifts
designated specifically for their use.
The Board of Annuities and Relief
received $813,510 to administer its
program of ministerial relief. This
represents 130.16 per cent of its bud-
get. Lord's Day Alliance, which is
supported interdenominationally, re-
ceived $4,563, or 465.27 per cent of
its $1,000 budget.

Biggest dollar total last year went
to the Board of World Missions for
its missionary work overseas. It re-
ceived $3,809,250, slightly more than
half the total benevolences. ffl

Montreat Conference
Schedule Announced

MONTREAT, N. C. — The sched-
ule of summer conferences at this
conference center of the Presbyte-
rian Church US has been released
by E. A. Andrews Jr., Montreat vice-
president. They are as follows:
April 29-May 5, Assembly-Wide Rec-
reation Workshop, Glenn Banner-
man, director.

May 19-20, S. C. Men's Conference,
Eugene England, director.
June 15-17, Church School Admin-
istrators Workshop, the Rev. Rob-

ert Turner, director.
June 16-17, N. C. Women's Week-
end Conference, Mrs. June P. Jones,
director.

June 18-22, N. C. Synodical Train-
ing School, Mrs. June P. Jones, di-
rector.

June 22-28, N. C. Christian Educa-
tion Conference, the Rev. Robert
Turner, director.

June 29-July 2, Presbyterian Family
Conference, E. Lee Secrest Jr., di-
rector.

July 5-6, Presbyterial and Synodical
Leaders, Miss Evelyn Green, direc-
tor.

July 7-14, Women's Conference (to
be known as The Montreat Person-
hood Conference) Miss Evelyn
Green, director.
July 15-17, Open.

July 18-25, Music Conference, Wil-
liam Whitehead, director.
July 25-31, National Ministries Con-
ference, the Rev. James T. Womack,
director.

August 1-7, World Missions Confer-
ence, the Rev. James T. Magruder,
director.

August 9-14, Presbyterian Evangelis-
tic Fellowship, the Rev. Lewis Ba-
ker, director.

August 15-18, Adult Bible Confer-
ence and Ministers Wives Forum.
August 15-19, Montreat Youth Con-
ference, the Rev. B. Clayton Bell, di
rector. G

Black Presbyterians Now
Endorse Bottoms for '74

ATLANTA (PN) — The council
of the Black Presbyterian (US)
Leadership Caucus has changed its
endorsement of the Rev. Dr. Law-
rence Bottoms of Atlanta for mod-
erator of the General Assembly from
1973 to 1974.

The council action, which amends
the endorsement by the annual
BPLC convention last September,
was taken "to help insure a success-
ful effort."

A spokesman said it was general-
ly felt that Dr. Bottoms' chances
for election would be hurt by tm
nomination of two "minority" can-i
didates. Another group is working
for the nomination of Dr. Evelyn
Green of Atlanta for moderator of
the 113th Assembly, which meets
next June in Fort Worth.

Dr. Bottoms is coordinator of So-
cial Concerns for the PCUS Board
of National Ministries, and Dr
Green is executive secretary of the
Board of Women's Work. S

PAGE 6 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 31, 1973

Citing chapter and verse, readers reject any notion that the Bible is not God's Word —

Reaction!

(Editor's note: Two articles, "The
Misplaced Issue" by a minister
whose name was withheld and
"Strata Men Vs. Scripture" by Dr.
Palmer Robertson (Journal, Nov.
15) , illustrated the liberal and con-
servative approaches to Scripture.

eaders were invited to respond to
the assertions of "The Misplaced Is-
sue," and the following articles by
oth ministers and laymen were se-
lected from those received.)

Those who disagree with the as-
sertions of "The Misplaced
Issue" have been challenged to re-
pond, and not to do so might give
in erroneous impression. I say it is
mistake, it is wrong to charge idol-
atry to those who believe the Bible
and love it. Can we love the Bible
the Word of God too much? Da-
vid shouts, "O how love I thy law!"
(Psalm 119:97, 113, 127, 163) .
Let God be the judge as to wheth-
conservatives or liberals are more
less devout, but truth is in order
goodness. As conservatives we
ccept the taunt that by the grace
God we ought to be better than
Jthers. It is not ridiculous but right
:or the Church and its ministers to
relieve what the Bible testifies con-
erning itself.

Confession Concurs

Our Confession of Faith, which is
ased on the Scriptures, devotes the
irst chapter to Scripture. It states:
. . it pleased the Lord, at sundry
mes, and in divers manner, to re-
eal Himself, and to declare that
lis will unto His Church; ... to
ommit the same wholly unto writ-
g which maketh the Holy Scrip-

The Rev. Peter de Ruiter is a re-
red Presbyterian US minister who
ves in Hattiesburg, Miss.

ture to be most necessary . . . ."
(I, 1; Heb. 1:1-2; Gal. 1:11-12;
Luke 16:29-31) .

The next paragraph specifically
names the books of the Old and
New Testaments, noting that "all
are given by inspiration of God, to be
the rule of faith and life" (II Pet 1:
21) . Paragraph 4 takes up the au-
thority of the Holy Scripture which
"dependeth wholly upon God (who
is truth itself) , the author thereof;
and therefore it is to be received,
because it is the Word of God" (I
Thess. 2:13), and paragraph 5 con-
cludes, ". . . our full persuasion
and assurance of the infallible truth
and divine authority thereof, is from
the inward work of the Holy
Spirit . . ." (I Cor. 2:10-11) .

Now note carefully the 157th
question and answer of the Larger
Catechism which asks, "How is the
Word of God to be read?," and the
answer is, "The holy Scriptures are
to be read with an high and reverent
esteem of them; with a firm persua-
sion that they are the very Word of
God . . ." (I Thess. 2:13) .

They 'Receive and Adopt*

No Presbyterian minister should
preach in contradiction to the Con-
fession of Faith. Our ministers are
received into fellowship on the basis
that they receive and adopt the Con-
fession of Faith and Catechisms and
approve the government and disci-
pline of the Church. They also prom-
ise that if, at any time, they come to
believe otherwise they will let this
be known to the presbytery.

A presbytery by majority vote can
receive a minister, no matter what
he professes to believe or not to be-
lieve, so a minister can get into the
Church through the door of Church
government. But it is basic that
government is not essential to the be-

ing of the Church. The Confession
of Faith is essential to the Church's
being, and government to its well
being. The fact that it is easier to
change the form of government
than the Confession of Faith points
up their respective importance.

I doubt that the author of that
article is a loner in his convictions.
We who disagree with those who be-
lieve as he does consider it impos-
sible to win the world to Christ our
Saviour by a fallible Bible and a
fallible witness to it. The more
reliably the Bible confronts us with
Christ, the more completely it will
accomplish its purpose. It is right
to reason that since God was the au-
thor of the Bible, the Bible is there-
fore to be believed! ". . . being im-
mediately inspired by God, and by
His singular care and providence
kept pure in all ages, are therefore
authentical . . ." (I, 8; Isa. 8:20;
Acts 15:14-18).

How Good ft Is!

If, as some hold, the original
manuscripts were fallible because
they were written by men and to
err is human, then all we now have
is fallible copies of original fallible
manuscripts. But how good it is not
to read in chapter I, paragraph 8
of the confession that the fallible
rule of interpretation of fallible
scripture is the fallible scripture it-
self.

I believe that the original manu-
scripts were infallible by virtue of
being inspired by God, and accumu-
lative evidence testifies that we have
reliable copies of the infallible orig-
inals.

Think of the authority I have
when I preach the Word and what
anticipation I have of the unction
of the Holy Spirit! Jesus did not
question the authority of the Bible;

PAGE 7 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 31, 1973

He said, "Thy Word is truth."

To say that the Church gave us
the Bible is a step away from the
truth. God gave the Church the Bi-
ble. People heard from the lips of
Jesus and His apostles what we now
read in the New Testament. They
heard about the event, and the tes-
timony to that event; they believed
and became what we call the
Church.

Now we read about the event and

Tends To Confuse

/. W. Hyde is a Presbyterian el-
der of Elberton, Ga.

The author of "The Misplaced
Issue" has me confused. He seems
to be saying that while Christ is a
real and living presence, the record
isn't altogether correct. But if part
of it is assumed to be incorrect, how
can we be sure about the rest of it?

I don't doubt the author's sin-
cerity, and perhaps I have misunder-
stood him, but I get the impression
that he preaches and teaches Christ,
not necessarily because of the Bible's
revelation but in spite of it.

I think this is precisely the reason
why ministers and denominations
find it so easy to reject the virgin
birth, the resurrection, eternal dam-
nation and the miracles of Christ;
because they have first rejected the
idea that God called and inspired
those who put His revelation into
words.

The author is wrong. We do not
have a Word from God in the Bi-
ble "because Christ confronts us
through its words." The Bible is
the authoritative, inspired Word of
God even to those who do not ac-
cept the Christ who confronts them
through its words.

Several authorities are quoted
in the author's article. However,
he does not quote Dr. J. B. Green
who says in his Harmony of the
Westminster Standards: "The Scrip-
ture is authoritative just to the ex-
tent that it is true; it is true just
to the extent that it is the Word of
God. Herein is given the warrant
for believing that the Scripture is
the very Word of God. The war-
rant is not single, but double, nay
triple: the witness of Scripture, the
witness of the Spirit and the wit-
ness of the heart of man. It is this
conjoint testimony that convinces
and satisfies." ffl

read the testimony to the event; we
believe and are added to the
Church. Surely there was authority
in that first proclamation, and there
is no less authority in its written
form for us. And the Church should
affirm what is true.

One Meaning Only

We must not confuse interpreta-
tions of the Bible with the Bible. It
was the human interpretation, and
not the Bible's authority, that Jesus
disapproved. Denominations orig-
inated in part because men took por-
tions of the Bible rather than the
whole tenor of Scripture with re-
spect to their doctrines. The mean-
ing of Scripture is not manifold, but
one.

I would feel close to committing

sin against the Holy Spirit if I de-
nied the plenary verbal inspiration
of the Bible. To deny the infal-
libility of the Scriptures because
God used sinful men — but chosen
men, prepared and made holy, and
supervised by the Holy Spirit — is,
to me, close to blasphemy. They
would never have been called holy
Scriptures if they were not written
by the Holy Spirit using good men
of faith.

This is the issue of issues in the
Presbyterian Church US. The Con-
fession of Faith holds to the plenary
inspiration of the Scriptures, but
there are ministers in the Church
who no longer believe this — if
they ever did believe it.

These are the troublemakers in
the Church and there is no question
about it. EB

Answers In Scripture

Vernon W. Patterson, Charlotte,
N. C, is a long-time elder of the
Presbyterian Church.

It is strange indeed that a min-
ister should use "the saving sover-
eignty of Jesus Christ," resulting in
"personal obedience, trust and love,"
as an argument against belief in the
"plenary, verbal inspiration of holy
Scripture." His reasoning is falla-
cious and confusing.

I challenge his arguments, item by
item, with Scriptural answers:

1. Name Withheld says that as
Israel made an idol of the bronze
serpent (II Kings 18) , so to believe
in the plenary verbal inspiration is
to make an idol of the Bible, which
is "that written record and witness"
to Christ, and place it above Him.

The only authoritative source of
knowledge of Christ is the Bible.
There is no other. It clearly pre-
sents Him as virgin born; God in-
carnate, teaching with the authority
of God with miracles (signs) con-
firming His Word; crucified as the
Lamb of God to atone for sin; risen
from the dead; ascended into heav-
en; and coming again in glory to re-
ceive His own and judge the world.

If this record is not true, but
merely a statement of man's tradi-
tions developed later, without foun-
dation in fact or God's authority,
or is denied in part, or wholly, then
the Christ one believes in is only a
figment of his imagination, a false
Christ.

2. Further, the minister states

E:

that the devout Jews, who studied
and "treasured every word and be-
lieved every statement" of the Old
Testament, rejected Jesus, who "is
(in the true, primary Biblical sense)
the 'Word of God.' " Thus they
turned "a means into an end itself."

The Jews did not believe the
Scriptures, e.g., the prophecies re-
garding the suffering Messiah such
as Isaiah 53; but putting their tra-
ditions above the Scriptures, and
"being ignorant of God's righteous-
ness, and going about to establish
their own righteousness, have not
submitted themselves to the righ-
teousness of God" (Rom. 10:3) . In
so doing they fashioned a Messiah
after their own desires, not accord-
ing to the Scriptures.

Are not those now, who reject
the verbal inspiration and authority
of the Scriptures, guilty of the sin
for which they condemn the Phari-
sees and Sadducees?

3. Then he tells us that the "prior
authority" is "the Gospel itself, or
the Christ-event," not "writings that
had some kind of apostolic author-
ity." The record was written after
"the event."

The record preceded the "event"
by thousands of years. From Gen-
esis 3:15 throughout the Old Testa- 1 .
ment, the "event" was foretold by
prophecy and type (Luke 24:26-27) .jj

Christ foretold the writing of the
New Testament, after the coming
of the Holy Spirit, and gave these | >
writings His approval and author * . ;

PAGE 8 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 31, 1973

ity. He said that the Holy Spirit
would teach His disciples all things,
and bring all things to their remem-
brance, guide them into all truth,
and show them things to come (John
14:26; 16:12-15).

Just as in the Old Testament
there were prophets who declared
the words of God which were con-
firmed by miracles, so likewise there
were prophets following the coming
of the Holy Spirit, who spoke and
wrote with the authority of God,
whose words were confirmed by
signs and miracles (Eph. 4:11; Heb.
2:3-4) . This gift of prophecy de-
clared by the Holy Spirit which
of the writings were "the Word of
God," and which were not. Thus the
canon of Scripture was determined
by the Holy Spirit, not by man.

4. "Only the Holy Spirit speak-
ing to man's inner ear," the min-
ister says, "can make the Bible au-
thoritative."

The Bible is authoritative, wheth-
er it is believed or denied. The
Holy Spirit will never speak or guide
contrary to the Scriptures, which
He inspired. It is impossible, for
He cannot deny Himself.

5. He also claims that differences
of interpretation show that the Bi-
ble is contradictory and confusing.

The root of these differences is
clear: "The natural man receiveth
not the things of the Spirit of God:
for they are foolishness unto him;

The Rev. John Jamison is pastor
\oj the Roebuck, S. C, Presbyterian
church.

The contention of "The Misplaced
Issue" is that the issue of "plenary,
-verbal inspiration of the Bible" is
but a cover for unbelief in Jesus.

The article never says that in so
many words, but time and again the
position is presented in the illustra-
tions used. For instance, there is the
illustration in which Jesus is recalled
:lias having rebuked the Jews, who had
i!the Bible and ferociously held to
iit as the Word of God, for not be-
yljlieving in Him while believing so
Vfciitrongly in the Bible. The implica-
tion of the illustration is that those
oday who hold to a high view of the
. 8ible are like the Jews in not be-
i if.ieving in Jesus.

[sjfj The final point made by the au-
thor almost equates reverence for
he Bible as the Word of God with

neither can he know them, because
they are spiritually discerned" (I
Cor. 2:14).

God is infinite; man is finite.
God's Word conforms to the nature
of God and reveals things infinite
and eternal. Man can never in this
life comprehend all Scripture; it
must be accepted by faith.

6. "The Bible is not read until
it is lived," is the man's final ar-
gument.

The Bible cannot be lived until
it is accepted as the Word of God
and its message concerning Christ is
believed. The self-righteous Nico-
demus, the teacher of the Scriptures,
was told by Jesus, "Ye must be born
again;" and this could be only by
the work of the Holy Spirit through
faith in Him, who must be lifted
up "as Moses lifted up the serpent
in the wilderness," i.e., according to
the Scriptural type of His atone-
ment for sin on the cross (John 3:
14-16, 34).

"So then faith cometh by hearing,
and hearing by the Word of God"
(Rom. 10:17); "being born again,
not of corruptible seed, but of in-
corruptible by the Word of God"
(I Pet. 1:23). Finally, Christ sanc-
tifies and cleanses His Church and
presents it to Himself "a glorious
Church, not having spot, or wrinkle,
or any such thing . . . with the wash-
ing of water by the Word" (Eph.
5:26-27) . IS

non-commitment to Jesus Christ.
This appeared in the reference to
the number of Bibles sold in Ger-
many during the height of Nazi
power.

So unbelief in Jesus Christ is the
charge leveled at those who hold to
the Reformed doctrine of the Scrip-
ture. Especially if they are inter-
ested in seeing our denomination
take an unequivocal stand for the
Reformed view.

The charge is not proved and is
not even what the article tries to
prove. In fact, one wonders exactly
what the author did try to prove.

The confusion comes from the fact
that at first the message seems
aimed at doing away with the Bi-
ble, then it turns to say that the Bi-
ble has some value, and finally it
stresses commitment to the person
of Christ. Since any call to greater
commitment to Christ is appreci-

ated by all who believe, perhaps the
charge of unbelief should be forgot-
ten?

I think not. Let's look, first, at
the charge that the Reformed doc-
trine of inspiration makes the Bible
into an object of veneration. Some-
how many people have come to be-
lieve this. Perhaps there has been
a basic misunderstanding of what
the Reformed view is, by those who
do not like it and who oppose it.
More likely, the reason for opposi-
tion comes from a more basic con-
sideration, namely the grounds of
one's whole theological system.

There are, in general, only two
ways of arriving at a theological sys-
tem. One of these is to go to the
Bible and let it inform you as to
what God has said concerning His
person and His requirements of us.

This is the method used in the de-
velopment of the Westminster Con-
fession of Faith and it is why the
chapter on the Holy Scripture is the

(Continued on next page)

A Sure Foundation

The Rev. Kenneth A. Ironside is
assistant minister of the First Pres-
byterian Church, Montgomery, Ala.

I would like to take this oppor-
tunity to go on record as a minister
who has been in the Church less
than three years and who rejects the
position taken by "Name Withheld."

Lest someone accuse me of dishon-
esty, I will admit to having sat un-
der Dr. O. Palmer Robertson at
Westminster Seminary; he also
preached my ordination sermon,
yet I am not writing in his defense.
His article stands as a fine piece of
apologetics and any reasonable per-
son will have to admit its saliency.

I can only say that in my brief
experience in the ministry, I have
found that the words of God are a
sure foundation. People need prop-
ositional truths upon which they
can base their lives. Other ministers
may invite their people to swim
with them in the Sea of Pure Con-
tingency; I much prefer to offer
them a reliable bridge over the
troubled waters.

I hold (and, I believe, intelligent-
ly) that the Bible is completely true
in its statements of fact and is com-
pletely authoritative in its com-
mands. "Name Withheld" is wel-
come to keep his version of the Scrip-
tures. I shall never trade mine
for it. El

A Cover For Unbelief

PAGE 9 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 31, 1973

first chapter. The rest of the con-
fession rests upon that first chapter
on holy Scripture. If the Scripture
is not accepted as the final, com-
pletely authoritative revelation from
God, there is no authority in the re-
mainder of the system.

No doubt someone will immedi-
ately say, "But that chapter doesn't
say, 'plenary, verbal inspiration.' "
This is true. But the idea is there
and from all indications it is the ba-
sis upon which the confession was
built. Destroy or weaken the posi-
tion given the Scripture and the
whole confession falls.

The second way of arriving at a
theological system is to begin with
man. Man looks out and sees the
world from his position at any sin-
gle moment in the process of evolu-
tion and development toward true

"humanness." What he sees becomes
his theology.

This particular starting point has
been presented in many different
forms, starting with Greek philos-
ophy and down through the ages to
much of modern so-called theology.
It is marked by such ideas as the
absolute unknowableness of God,
man becoming divine by partaking
of divinity, the basic untrustworthi-
ness of all religious documents (such
as the Bible) . It sees Jesus Christ
as the example of true humanness.
The only reason why it is not gen-
erally labeled for what it is, hu-
manistic philosophy, is that it is pro-
duced in seminaries by ordained
ministers purportedly teaching theol-
ogy-

The Reformed doctrine is anath-
ema to those who begin with man

because it hits at the very heart of
the subjectivism of the humanistic
theological system.

I do not mean to suggest that the
humanistic approach never deals
with nor finds value in the Bible. It
is rather that this approach brings
to the Bible its own pre-judgments
from which it proceeds to look for
those elements which agree. It sets
up certain preconceptions, based on
science, sociology and other human
disciplines, then judges the Bible
to be accurate or inaccurate as it
agrees or disagrees with those pre-
conceptions.

But the Reformed doctrine of
plenary, verbal inspiration is noth-
ing more than the assertion that all
of the Bible is the Word of God for

(Continued on p. 20, col. 1)

Unless the integrity of Presbyterian polity is maintained, the Church's mission will be compromised —

Integrity and Polity

Like the integrity of our lit-
urgy and doctrine, the integ-
rity of our polity is also being chal-
lenged. The challenge is serious
enough to have induced our 1966
General Assembly to adopt the re-
port of its Permanent Committee on
Christian Relations entitled, "The
Good Faith and Integrity of our
Church."

That report is so comprehensive
and adequate that I need not do
much more than comment upon it.
Quite properly, it points to a grow-

This is the third of four articles
which are a part of a series of lec-
tures, delivered by the author at Co-
lumbia Theological Seminary, en-
titled "The Meaning of the Church
in University Life." Dr. Williamson
is chairman of the department of po-
litical science at Louisiana State
University and an elder in First
Presbyterian Church, Baton Rouge.
He has long been active in the field
of Christian education, serving on
several Assembly committees and
agencies.

ing trend in our church toward Con-
gregationalism which is distrustful
of our higher courts to the point of
disobeying their legitimate direc-
tives and resorting to extra-constitu-
tional procedures.

Unfamiliar Territory

To some extent this trend is the
result of the unfamiliarity of many
of our people with the higher courts
of the church. They have not at-
tended meetings of presbytery, syn-
od and the General Assembly.

They have not served on the com-
mittees, boards, and agencies of the
church. They do not read the pub-
lications of the church, and neither
do they keep up with developments
through the medium of our Presby-
terian magazines or any other reli-
gious journals.

The whole of their church experi-
ence begins and ends with the con-
gregation. Christianity, to them, is
what it means locally, with none of
the enrichment, stimulation, and in-
spiration which wider contacts bring.

RENE de VISME WILLIAMSON

These people dominate the session,
numerically and psychologically.
This background being what it is, a
great gap separates the thinking of
the session from that of the General
Assembly.

Serious though this gap is, it is
only a contributing cause, not the
main cause, of the trend toward Con-
gregationalism. The main cause is
to be found in the pronouncements
of the General Assembly on social
and political issues, particularly on
racial tension and the related prob-
lem of civil disobedience.

ft
i ml
*(

o
]
m

Right and Duty

What the General Assembly has
done is to comply more fully with
the Great Commission by taking the
Gospel to all people, especially those
who need it most desperately, be-
ginning nearest home in our owr
Southland (our equivalent for Ju
daea and Samaria) .

In a world filled with anguish
stained by intolerance and hatred
baffled by the breakdown of mora

4a

PAGE 10 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 31, 1973

standards, dominated by the most
pressing social and political issues,
ind pockmarked by ghettos that reek
}f subhuman and inhuman condi-
;ions, it is inconceivable that the
church should remain silent and
emulate the Levite by passing by
jn the other side of the road.

When business men, newspaper
editors and columnists, politicians,
md a multitude of fanatical groups
}f every color and class speak loud-
ly and endlessly, why should the
:hurch be stricken dumb?

In raising its voice, the General
\ssembly stands in the tradition of
:he prophets who dared to denounce
iniquity in the highest places and
in the footsteps of Jesus Christ who
:ould not bear to see human suffer-
ing without being moved to compas-
sion and remedial action.

The General Assembly has the in-
alienable right and sacred duty to
hold up before men the contrast be-
tween the horror that is and the
*lory that could be.

The mission of the church to the
university is but a small part of the
larger mission to take the Gospel
to every nook and cranny of human
life here and now.

Pronouncements Risky

We all know that these involve-
ments by the General Assembly are
fraught with peril. Churchmen, or
at least the ministers, are not ex-
perts on social and political matters
and should not confuse declaration
of principle, however specific, with
the endorsement of every particular
measure that comes along.

Even those laymen in the church
who are experts in these matters
' should be humble about their con-
clusions and take care not to mistake
their possible bias for the imper-
atives of the Christian faith. The
church as a whole must resist the
temptation to become a mere pres-
sure group.

None of these dangers should de-
ter the church from doing what it
has to do. It can ward off or, at
least, minimize them by applying
what Carl F. H. Henry has so aptly
galled "Scriptural controls." Above
■all, it can rely on the Holy Spirit
and believe the words of our Lord
when He said:

It "But when they deliver you up,
take no thought how or what ye
(should speak: for it shall be given
you in the same hour what ye shall
;speak. For it is not ye that speak,

but the Spirit of your Father which
speaketh in you" (Matt. 10:19-20).

The connection between the in-
tegrity of our Presbyterian polity
and the mission of the church is
this: unless the integrity of our pol-
ity is defended and maintained, the
mission of the church in this our
generation will be compromised or
abandoned.

There is yet another attack on the
integrity of our Presbyterian polity
which the report of the General As-
sembly's Committee on Christian
Relations did not mention because
this attack is not nearly so acute,
although it is just as fundamental
not only for our church but for all
churches.

I am referring to the popular dis-
position to downgrade the institu-
tional church. Handsome church
buildings are regarded not as tem-
ples of the living God, but as vis-
ible evidence that the poor are be-
ing defrauded — the kind of a
point first made by none other than
Judas Iscariot. Congregations are
deemed to be self-centered and self-
serving mutual adoration societies
that ought to disperse rather than
congregate.

We hear so much talk about "the
scattered people of God" that one
would think that the Greek word
ecclesia meant those called out of
the church instead of those called
out of the world. Such thinking
overlooks the elementary fact that
you cannot scatter that which was
not gathered first, and that we scat-
ter for the purpose of gathering.

Pastoral Ministry

This line of attack naturally in-
cludes the pastoral ministry. It
holds that only the least talented
ministers ought to go into the pas-
torate. The bright ones should go
into the teaching ministry, the cam-
pus ministry, the "coffee-house min-
istry," in short, anything but the
parish ministry. They should be not
in the church but in offices, fac-
tories, farms, classrooms, civic clubs,
political party groups, saloons, pool-
rooms, and on the golf course.

What this line of thought over-
looks is that the parish minister is
in offices, factories, farms, class-
rooms, civic clubs, political party
groups, saloons, poolrooms, and on
the golf course when he makes his
pastoral calls.

More important still is the failure
to recognize the central significance

of the pastoral ministry in human
life. This is the one which comes
in contact with the great events of
human existence such as birth, mar-
riage and death. This is the one
to which people turn in their hour
of deepest need.

The pastoral ministry supplies
consolation and strength to the be-
reaved, stands by the victims of ad-
versity, shares and sanctifies the
summits of success. Nothing will
ever take the place of the parish
ministry or be a substitute for the
sustaining power of congregational
fellowship.

The integrity of our Presbyterian
polity demands that we defend and
maintain these fundamental sources
of Christian life which are as vitally
necessary to university people as
they are to anybody else.

A Church ly Curiosity

As I have stressed throughout
these lectures, we Presbyterian min-
isters and laymen must defend and
maintain our integrity on all fronts.
If the trends that would undermine
it were to remain unchecked, we
could become a denominational cu-
riosity with a Reformed theology, an
Episcopal liturgy, and a Baptist pol-
ity.

Such a development would impair
the clarity and definiteness of our
witness to the university. It would
also impair the ecumenical aspects
of our work on the campus and else-
where for, if we are like other Chris-
tian groups, what can we give them
that they do not already possess?

If all Christian groups were the
same or reduced to a single group,
what protection would university
people have against the loss of vi-
tality and against the acculturation
which sooner or later afflicts every
organized group?

As I observe the work of the Holy
Spirit in the course of history, it
seems to me that He has raised up
new groups (and churches) to car-
ry on for those groups that have be-
come unresponsive to His will and
too ready to surrender to the pres-
sure of the times. The Holy Spirit
has consistently refused to be bound
to any one ecclesiastical structure
and restricted to a single instrument.

It is our business to see to it that
we Presbyterians continue to be one
of the instruments at His disposal
and to make sure that this instru-
ment is sharp, clean and effective. IB

PAGE 11 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 31, 1973

EDITORIALS

Of Crime and Punishment VIII

Most people have yet to appreci-
ate the most important social fact
of our time, namely, that civiliza-
tion itself is in danger of being de-
stroyed by the dominance of good
will — the "love ethic" of the liberal.

It is sometimes the fashion to say
that unless we develop good will
among men we are doomed.

Nevertheless, it is good will that
is contributing to our doom — good
will as expressed by the policies and
practices of men who believe that
"love thy neighbor" is the key to or-
der and stability in society.

We write this on the day that a
national advisory crime commission
issued its report as prepared by a
100-member task force at a cost of $2
million. The commission proposes
that five years be the maximum fel-
ony sentence, except in murder
cases, for any offender who is not
found to be a danger to others.

Prison terms of more than five
years for any felony, the crime com-
mission says, should be imposed on-
ly when the defendant is a persistent
felony otfender, a professional crim-
inal or a dangerous offender.

The maximum sentence for any
crime except murder would be 25
years, under the commission's rec-
ommendations.

In at least seven previous editori-
als on this subject, we have made
this point: The orderly system of
punishment for crime firmly estab-
lishes the death penalty as the norm
of all punishment. When this sys-
tem is upset, the result is not an en-
hancement of human values but a
cheapening of human values.

Another editorial point we have
tried to make is that penalties for
crime should not be imposed pri-
marily for rehabilitation. The crim-
inal who sees the error of his ways,
who sincerely repents, who is sound-
ly converted, who turns into a model
citizen, still deserves the penalty ap-
propriate to his misdeed.

This is not to be vindictive. This
rather belongs to the very nature
of things under God: "The soul
that sinneth it shall die!" Mankind
violates the inexorable laws of cause
and effect to its peril. We have not

reached the point (as one irate read-
er wrote in to say) where we no long-
er should believe the "superstition"
that the spiritual climate of a na-
tion has anything to do with its eco-
nomic and political well being.
Eternal truths have everything to do
with a nation's material well being.

In the same edition of the news-
paper reporting the crime commis-
sion, there was a story out of New
Orleans in the wake of that day of
terror and death at the hands of a
sniper. The mood among black
leaders of the community was to
see the event as what happens when
a human being is driven to despera-
tion by experiences of racism at the
hands of whites.

"There are lessons to be learned,"
said the black executive assistant to
the mayor of New Orleans. He went
on to suggest that the principal les-
son to learn is that men sometimes
will behave like animals if they are
not treated like human beings.

True. But the degree of order
and stability achieved in any society
does not depend upon the social
contentment of the average citizen.
You don't have to first eliminate
racism in order to eliminate the cli-
mate which makes people imagine
they have a right to rampage, loot
and kill.

Social tranquility does not depend
upon the elimination of social prob-
lems. That viewpoint would have
you believe that you must do some-
what to declare now, what to declare
you can sleep nights in safety. That
isn't so. A climate conducive to
sleeping nights in safety can be gen-
erated in a society still afflicted with
total depravity. It follows upon a

There's a Time to Hold

The man of God who can discern
what to declare now, what to declare
later, and what to keep for all time
is the man of true spiritual under-
standing. — K. Neill Foster, in
The Alliance Witness.

pn

valid approach to the problem of on
order.

Columnist Sydney J. Harris, writ-
ing in the same edition of that
newspaper, was bemoaning the fact
that nations cannot act in sensible
mutual concern for the welfare of
all. "Just at the time when we
should be subordinating our pro-
vincial differences to our common
global plight, we are drawing away
from each other, in smaller and
more fiercely tribal units," he wrote. 1
"It is not merely evil; it is mad- *
ness."

Mr. Harris makes no evident pre-
tense at being a religious person.
Another man, more aware of the
facts of life than he, once wrote in
anguish: "The good that I would I
do not, whereas the evil that I
would not that I do . . . Who shall
deliver me from the body of this
death?" Paul knew that mankind}''
is inclined to madness as the sparks
fly upwards.

The trouble today is that people
who do not know that mankind in
evitably inclines to madness are try
ing to make over the world by so-
cial prescriptions that will not work

Because they are people of good
will, and because they are in charge,
they now propose to solve the prob-
lem of crime by eliminating pun
ishment for crime. They are con
firmed in their purpose by a host of
liberal leaders of religion who also
are people of good will and who also
misread human nature.

Thus good will becomes a dan
gerous threat to our very exis
tence. 5

If,
a

in

i:
1

To Go or Not To Go

Before this year is out every mem-
ber of the two major Presbyterian
bodies in the United States will
have made a decision concerning his
future Church connection. That's
roughly 4 million decisions.

He (or she) may not have acted
upon his decision, but there is life
tie doubt that he will have decided,
nonetheless. As in evangelism, the
decision may have been "don'1
bother me with that," but it will
count.

Some, perhaps a large majority
will opt to go with the existing
Churches, or enter enthusiastically
into the united Church that pro*
ponents hope will stave off th(
demise of Presbyterianism for a sei

jl

PAGE 12 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 31, 1973

THE LAYMAN AND HIS CHURCH

Augustine of Hippo, 354-530 A.D.

ion.

Among evangelicals there will be
iome who intentionally decide to
"ollow the existing Churches. These
<vill include ministers, elders and
Tiembers who, for theological rea-
ions, sincerely believe it is the
:hing to do. We don't understand
:heir reasoning, but we don't ques-
:ion their sincerity.

Others will decide to tread the
)road way for more human reasons,
[t is an interesting thing that many
vho boldly wear the label of con-
;ervative, or evangelical, neverthe-
ess have a very human view of the
Church and of the contest to win
:he institution for the Lord's pur-
aoses and away from the socialist
aurposes for which it is too often
rsed.

They are content to work within
he system, to rejoice in small con-
;ervative gains, and to negotiate for
;ven better advantages — much like
:he stockholders at a board meeting
if a large corporation.

That is exactly where they are
vrong. The Church is not like a
;orporation, somehow neutral in it-
ielf and only a pawn in the contest
between stockholders and officers
naneuvering for control.

The Church is not a General Mo-
ws or General Electric — a far-
:lung enterprise over which policy
decisions may vary somewhat de-
Dending on who's in control, but
■whose stock nobody in his right
i nind would sell in order to buy that
lot another.

The Church is more like a medi-
ftral society. In the American Medi-
■:al Society the officers and board
■members may have some influence
|Dn public policy and may even have
Rome very small influence on the lo-
||:al practice of medicine. But the
•practicing physician in his local of-
fice functions somewhat indepen-
ldently of the Society — in a way
; that a foreman in a department of
■General Motors could not possibly
I function.

1 No self-respecting doctor would
■see any purpose whatever in main-
taining membership in a society of
■primitive witchdoctors who lean to
■incantations and who perform op-
erations in unsanitary conditions
Iwith ordinary kitchen equipment.
1 The choice for churchmen today
Ills a choice between a responsible
jlmedical society and the company of
J Witchdoctors.

4j Only a thoughtless person would
Jigo with the witchdoctors. SI

While reading early Church his-
tory, I became amazed at the many
times Augustine is quoted or re-
ferred to. Many theologians feel he
is the "bridge" between the Apostle
Paul and Martin Luther. Others
have called him the greatest man to
have lived from Paul to John Cal-
vin. Even those who disagree with
him regard him as the real giant
among the early Church writers.

John Calvin (1509-1564) , although
born more than a thousand years
after Augustine, has to be regarded
as his contemporary. In his Insti-
tutes Calvin referred to Augustine's
thought numerous times. I feel he
did this for several reasons. He was
showing others that his basic views
were held by someone before him,
they were soundly Biblical, and he
was recognizing the genius of Au-
gustine.

Augustine was born November 13,
354 A.D., at Tagaste in North Af-
rica. His mother, Monica, a Chris-
tian, taught him the principles of
Christianity in his early childhood.
His father was a heathen, but con-
verted to Christianity late in life.

As a young man Augustine drew
away from Christianity and took an
active part in several popular cults
of the time. During his early man-
hood, before age 18, he fathered a
son by his concubine and named
the boy Adeodatus. When he was
19, he read Cicero's Hortensius and
from this point on he devoted his
life to the search for truth. Trained
as a rhetoritician (teacher and writ-
er) , he taught at Tagaste, Carthage,
Rome and Milan.

At Milan his life changed com-
pletely when he had a profound per-
sonal experience of Jesus Christ un-
der the witness of Ambrose of Mi-
lan. Augustine and his son Adeo-
datus, 16, were baptized on Easter
Sunday in April 387. From this
point on he excelled in defending

This week the column reflects a
layman's appreciation of a great man
in Christian history. The author is
Horace O. Kimbrough of Tuscum-
bia, Ala.

the Christian faith.

Look at some of Augustine's be-
liefs: He taught a clear doctrine of
predestination (double) , and the per-
severance of the saints; he felt that
we are all guilty of sin because of
Adam's fall; he believed we are
saved by the grace of God, not by
works; and that God's election is
according to grace alone. He be-
lieved the bread and wine in the
Lord's Supper presented the body
and blood of Jesus. He also be-
lieved that no one can attain per-
fection in this life, and that bish-
ops, including the bishop of Rome,
could err; and that the Matthew 16:
18 reference to the "rock" meant
Christ, not Peter.

It is easy to understand why Cal-
vin referred to him so often. You
could almost close your eyes and
say, "This is a Presbyterian." Both
of these men seem to have been
touched in their hearts by the Holy
Spirit and I think it shows in their
writings.

In 388, first Augustine's mother
died and then his son. Following the
death of these two loved ones so
close together, Augustine formed a
sort of religious retreat in his home
town. Several hundred years later
at the beginning of the monastic
movement when men began to with-
draw from the world's affairs and
form monasteries, this retreat or
school of Augustine's was looked on
as an example.

Against his will, Augustine was
ordained a presbyter at Hippo Re-
gius, the ruins of which are located
just south of the town of Bone, Al-
geria. Four years later in 395, he
was made a cobishop of this diocese
with the right of succession. The
next year the regular bishop died
and Augustine became Bishop of
Hippo, remaining in this post until
his death 34 years later. Due to his
writings and teaching, it became a
center for Christian thinking. In a
relatively short period of time, nine
years from baptism, he had become
a real power in the Church.

His writings were many. Probably

{Continued on p. 19, col. 1)

PAGE 13 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 31, 1973

SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON

For February 18, 1973

1

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GW Works Through His People

Rev. Jack B. Scott

INTRODUCTION: Zech-
ariah prophesied at about the same
time as Haggai (Hag. 1:1), and he
had a similar mission (Ezra. 5:1).
We shall have two lessons from
Zechariah: The first one looks back
to the past and draws lessons from
past experience; the second lesson
looks ahead to the future hope for
a believing people.

I. THE NEED OF ISRAEL —
RETURN TO THE LORD (Zech.
1:1-6). Zechariah plainly stated the
case which is a vivid summary of Is-
rael's past. "The Lord was sore dis-
pleased with your fathers" (1:2).
We can go back to the wilderness
accounts of Israel's history to see
God's early displeasure with Israel.
Time and again in the wilderness,
God confronted the people with
their sins and punished them.

When the new generation entered
Canaan, for a time they were obedi-
ent but later generations turned
again from God (Judg. 2:7-10) . The
result was that the period of the
Judges proved to be one of the dark-
est periods in Israel's history. The
book of Judges reveals that predom-
inantly in that period Israel was shot
through with unbelief.

God's displeasure with Israel at
that time is perhaps best described
in the incidents in Samuel's life. The
Philistines went to war with Israel
and not only beat Israel, but cap
tured the ark which had been un-
wisely brought into the battle (I
Sam. 4) . On this occasion one of
the women of Israel best described
the situation in naming her new-
born child Ichabod, meaning "the
glory is departed from Israel," lit-
erally, "no glory" (I Sam. 4:20-22) .

After these days, God raised up
Samuel to show the people the way
back to Him. Samuel said to Is-
rael: "If ye do return unto the
Lord with all your heart, then put
away the foreign gods and the Ash-
taroth from among you and direct
your hearts unto the Lord and serve
Him only; and He will deliver you
out of the hand of the Philistines"
(I Sam. 7:3) .

Background Scripture: Zechariah 1:
1-6; 4

Key Verses: Zechariah 1:1-3, 4:1-
10a

Devotional Reading: Micah 6:6-8
Memory Selection: Zechariah 4:6

In that passage we see what God
means by the word "return." It must
be with the whole heart, not half-
heartedly. God never settles for less
than all of our life; He stressed this
demand for our whole heart in our
love of Him (Deut. 6:4) .

The return must include both neg-
atives: the putting away of every-
thing that would hinder our devo-
tion to God, our "other gods" (com-
pare Psalm 1 where the psalmist de-
scribed the blessed man first in
terms of what he will not do) ; and
also positives: the serving of the
Lord only (compare Psalm 1:2 fol-
lowing where the psalmist described
the blessed man also in terms of
what he positively and daily does in
service to the Lord) . We can also
recall the very plain words of Jesus,
"Ye cannot serve God and mam-
mon" (Matt. 6:24) .

On another occasion of Israel's
spiritual debauchery, Elijah the
prophet was raised up to call the
people back from following after
Baal to serve the Lord only. He de-
scribes the spiritual state of Israel
then in terms of vacillating between
God and Baal: "How long go ye
limping between the two sides? If
the Lord be God, follow Him; but
if Baal, then follow him" (I Kings
18:21).

Over and over, God patiently,
longingly called on Israel to return.
"Yet. the Lord testified unto Israel,
and unto Judah, by every prophet,
and every seer, saying, turn ye from
your evil ways, and keep my com-
mandments and my statutes . . . not-
withstanding, they would not hear
but hardened their neck, like to
the neck of their fathers, who be-
lieved not in the Lord their God"

The International Sunday School Lessen Outlines
are copyrighted 1972 by the Committee on the
Uniform Series ot the National Council of Churches
of Christ.

it

(II Kings 17:14).

Because of this unbelief, Israel1
went into captivity as did Judah al-|on
so. Judah, as a remnant from the11-
captivity, returned to Canaan but!
not altogether to God. It is the
above context that we must under- fav
stand as we read Zechariah 1:2-6.

The past was past. Neither those?*
forefathers in Israel nor the proph-
ets whom God sent to warn them, tic
nor the false prophets who misled
the people, were any longer on the
scene. The problems were those o£l]
Israel in the days of Zechariah, and lei
Zechariah was the prophet of the i (
hour. He brought no new com-i
mand, but pointed back to the only
answer to Israel's problems: returnls
to the Lord with all your heart
(Zech. 1:3).

The lesson is obvious. Without
the Lord, God's people can do noth
ing. Haggai had already describee
the failure and frustration of those;
days when nothing seemed to go
right (Hag. 1:5-11). The people
clearly needed the Lord to prosper,
as did Moses and Joshua (Josh. 1:
5-9) .

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II. THE STRENGTH OF IS
RAEL— GOD'S HOLY SPIRIT (4
1-6) . In one of the revelations of
God to Zechariah, Zechariah saw a
vision. He was not asleep, so what
he saw was no dream but a vision
while he was awake (4:1). He de
scribed what he saw: a candlestick I
of gold and two olive trees on each1 *
side (4:2-3).

The vision's meaning, interpreted' ,J!
to Zechariah, hearkened back tcf-
what Haggai had said to Zerub
babel, the first leader of God's peo
pie after their return to Canaan5 •«
from exile (Hag. 2:4-5) . Then Godfj
had said that He would be with
Zerubbabel and that the key to Is
rael's success was the presence oi
His Holy Spirit. In summation ol ■
that earlier word to Zerubbabel §*»
Zechariah was taught this great prin
ciple for all of God's people: "Not
by might, nor by power, but by m]
spirit, saith the Lord of hosts" (Zech
4:6).

PAGE 14 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 31, 1973

*
Go
ff»<

To appreciate this verse fully, I
vould like to recall an event much
;arlier in Israel's history when Eli-
ah confronted the priests of Baal
>n Mount Carmel (I Kings 18) .
There he had challenged the priests
)f Baal to a contest in which both
he Baal prophets would call on
heir gods to answer from heaven
md he would call on the Lord to
mswer. The one who answered by
ire would be the true God. In the
:ontest, the god of the Baal prophets
inswered nothing. The God of Eli-
ah answered mightily by fire. The
'ictory was apparently Elijah's that
lay and the victory of his God. The
>eople shouted, "The Lord he is
iod."

However, the very next chapter
ecords how Elijah was put to flight
>y the wicked Queen Jezebel, an
rvid Baal worshiper. Where were
ill of the people then? Apparently
hey were only professing lip service
o God because Elijah received no
upport from them. Elijah felt to-
ally defeated, discouraged, and
eady to die (I Kings 19:4, 10) .
Nhy had all the mighty signs of
jod's power and strength not
hanged the people? Why was the
>bvious so unrecognized by Israel?

God gave Elijah the answer (I
Cings 19:11-14) . Elijah saw a great
nd mighty wind, felt an earth-
[uake, saw fire like that he had seen
ome down from heaven on top of
Carmel, but the strange thing is that
iter each of these mighty phenom-
:na, the statement was made, "But
he Lord was not in the wind, the
arthquake, the fire." Then after
ill of this, came the phrase, "a still
mall voice."

What was the Lord saying to Eli-
ah that day? I think He was say-
ng very much what Zechariah was
old. The real change in the hearts
>f God's people, i.e., real redemp-
ion, comes not by mighty demon-
trations of external power but by
he quiet working of God's Holy
pirit in the hearts of men, turning
hose hearts by the preaching of
iod's Word.

Remember, Elijah was a forerun-
fer of the writing prophets who
«>uld bear the message of salvation
nd hope for the remnant that put
heir trust in the Lord. Remember,
oo, that Ezekiel declared that God
All put His Spirit in His true peo-
ple and turn them to cause them to
•bey Him (Ezek. 36:27).
ji God's Spirit working through His
■Vord, itself given by the Holy

Spirit (II Pet. 1:21), is what truly
changes men and causes them to re-
turn to the Lord. This is what
Zechariah saw as it was interpreted
to him that day in the vision. It is
a great message and a great truth.
The sword of the Spirit, the Word
of God (Eph. 6:17) , is living, active,
sharper than any two-edged sword
piercing even to the dividing of soul
and spirit (Heb. 4:12).

God's people must learn that their
real strength is in the power of
God's Holy Spirit who works in
them. Only by that power can they
ever be successful in God's eyes or
even be the kind of witnesses God
calls them to be (Acts 1:8). It is
God who works in us to do His good
pleasure (Phil. 2:13).

III. THE MISSION OF ISRAEL
—TO GLORIFY GOD ON EARTH
(4:7-14) . The Lord first stirred the
people who returned to rebuild the
temple to His glory, and both Hag-
gai and Zechariah were sent to stir
the people to this task. God Him-
self determined to bless the endeav-
ors of His people in rebuilding,
here promising to see this work
through with them (4:9) .

When some of the people saw the
results of the efforts, that the new
temple was no match for the glory
of the former one, God rebuked
their displeasure, saying that the
glory of the latter temple would ex-
ceed that of the former (Hag. 2:9) .
It seemed small to man (Zech. 4:10) ,
but it was great in the eyes of God.
Great, not because of human effort,
but because it was being done in
faith by those who sought by the
rebuilding of the temple to glorify
and honor their Lord.

How often we act ashamed be-
cause our efforts for the Lord seem
so small and unimportant to the
world. We may even have to suffer
ridicule when we labor in love for
the Lord in something that seems in-
significant and even despised by
men. We must remember that it
is not the judgment of men but the
judgment of the Lord that counts.

God's eyes are the only true stan-
dard of our work: whether they are
small or great, whether they are
failure or success, whether they are
unacceptable or acceptable. We
should never let men be our judges
or respond to the ridicule or prom-
ises of men which are deceitful.

We must do what we do because
we serve Christ and desire to please
Him and for no other reason. What

is small and insignificant to men is
often most important in God's plan
and purpose. What glorifies God
most is our labor in His fields of
harvest, doing what He has told us
to do because we love Him.

Zechariah had asked the meaning
of the two olive trees he had seen
in his vision, and he was told that
the two olive trees were the two
anointed ones that stood by the Lord
of the whole earth (4:14). In the
context already before us, the sig-
nificance of this seems to be that
they represent those believers who
are with the Lord.

The connotation of the term
"anointed" often designates one who
is set aside for a special purpose.
These are those then who stand by
the Lord, that is, who know the
presence of the Lord with them in
their service in His kingdom.

To understand this better, we
must go to the New Testament and
to the book of Revelation where the
same vision was given to John (Rev.
11:33-4) : The two olive trees repre-
sent the two witnesses of the Lord
who shall prophesy 1,260 days.

Of course, the meaning of the 1,-
260 days is variously interpreted,
but I understand it to refer to the
period of the church's witness on
earth, the time of the Gospel, the
same as the 42 weeks. (Compare
Revelation 12:6, 13:5.)

Most important to us here, how-
ever, is that what Zechariah saw is
described in Revelation as two wit-
nesses. Actually, then, here we have
reference to the Church's witness on
earth, which Christ Himself would
commission His Church to do (Matt.
28:19-20, Acts 1:8). The two wit-
nesses (Rev. 22:17) seem to be the
Spirit and the bride (the Church) .

At any rate, Zechariah's vision as
interpreted in Revelation, points to
the great mission of God's people to
be God's witnesses in the world, to
glorify God on earth, standing by
the Lord, relying on His strength
and depending on His power.

CONCLUSION: The marvel of
God's whole plan of redemption is
that He has chosen to use those who
believe in Him to be His witnesses
to sinful men on earth and by this
witness He saves many.

We can only carry out God's pur-
pose by returning to Him from all
other concerns and by relying on
His strength, His Holy Spirit to em-
power and enable us to do His
will. El

PAGE 15 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 31, 1973

YOUTH PROGRAM

Scripture: Revelation 2:1-7

Suggested Hymns:

"Why Should He Love Me So?"
"O Love That Will Not Let

Me Go"
"Oh, How I Love Jesus"

INTRODUCTION BY PRO-
GRAM LEADER: Has your get-up-
and-go got up and left? Have you
lost your zest for finishing what you
start? When a job gets too compli-
cated do you quit? When a per-
sonal relationship gets all tangled
up, do you say, "What's the use?"
Do you ever feel like you would
just like to get away from every-
body and just sit and stare or sulk
or something?

Most of us feel this way from
time to time. We've just lost our
zip. Sometimes we are just physical-
ly tired. We may even be ill. But
some of the time this "blah" feel-
ing is a symptom of a spiritual sick-
ness. If not recognized and treated
it will damage our entire being.

This feeling doesn't just affect in-
dividuals but also groups of people.

For February 18, 1972

Losing Your Zip?

Rev. Henry J. Mueller

It can be the symptom of an entire
church. If it is not treated the
whole church will die. It may con-
tinue functioning, but it will be
dead nevertheless.

If Jesus came and sat in our
church's worship service, what would
He think? If He followed our mem-
bers around during the week, what
would He see? (He really is pres-
ent, too!)

The Bible gives us guidance in
answering questions like these. In
the book of Revelation, Jesus told
about seven churches and their prob-
lems. Today we will look at the
first one, the church at Ephesus.

(Have the group read Revelation
2:1-7 aloud, preferably out of a mod-
ern translation.)

FIRST SPEAKER: The church in
Ephesus was begun mainly through
the work of the Apostle Paul. He
found this Roman provincial cap-
ital so important that he stayed there
over two years. Being a commer-
cial and trading center, Ephesus pro-
vided Paul with an audience that
went far beyond the city's limits.

Acts 19 tells about Paul's work in

TWO

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John Reisinger, Editor of "Sword & Trowel" magazine, Main Speaker

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Ephesus and points out that the city
was also a center for pagan religion
The cry, "Great is Diana of the
Ephesians!" could be heard in all
parts of the world.

It is to the church started by Paul1
that John wrote these words of Je-,
sus, but these words were also writ-
ten for us. They will help us find
an answer to our lack of spiritual
energy.

Jesus said He walks among the
candlesticks and holds the seven
stars in His hand (v. 1) . The can-
dlesticks represent the churches and
the stars are the angels or the lead-
ers of the churches. He said that He
walks among the churches and that
He is in control of their leaders.

Our Lord is in a position to know
what is happening in each church
and judge them all accordingly. He
is like a doctor who, having exam
ined the patient, tells what he finds,
gives medicine, and predicts what
will happen if the medicine is taken
or not taken.

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SECOND SPEAKER: Jesus told
the church at Ephesus that He
found some good things at work in
them. (Read verses 2 and 3
First He said He knew of their hard
work. They were an industrious
church: They had their youth
groups, their Men of the Church
and Women of the Church organiza-
tions. They were busy helping the! Si
poor and helpless. They visited the1
sick and those in jail. From a~
the activity, the church appeared tc iS)

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PAGE 16 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 31, 1973

3e very much alive.

Secondly, He said He knew of
:heir patient endurance. They suff-
ered for their faith. When Paul
/vas in Ephesus, a riot was started
is a result of his preaching and
eaching. So many people had
urned to Christ for salvation that
he idol makers' business was cut
jack. So severe were their losses
hat they stirred the people of the
:ity up and Paul was forced to leave.

Those who stayed behind must
lave continued to suffer injustice
tnd persecution from pagan hands,
jut they did so patiently. Such an
tttitude drew many to Christ.

Thirdly, Jesus knew they kept
heir faith pure. Paul had warned
he Ephesian elders that false teach-
ts would come and try to turn the
hurch from the truth. (Read Acts
:0:29-31.)

The Ephesian elders maintained
t constant watch over their flock.
(They tested those who claimed to
Mreach the truth. They listened to
vhat they said. They compared it

0 the Scriptures and the teaching
)f Paul. And they went one step
urther. They watched the way
hese men lived (I John 3:10). If
n any way they fell short, they were
lenounced as false teachers (II
ohn 10).

These were the things that were
ight. It is possible to do all these
hings without having any real de-
ire to do them. It is possible to do
hem for the wrong reasons.

THIRD SPEAKER: Jesus told
he Ephesians that in spite of all
hese good things there was some-
hing seriously wrong with them.
They had left Him, their first love.

At one time they had a great love
or Jesus (Eph. 6:24) , but they had
tot listened to Paul's warning to
ghe Corinthians. (Read II Corin-
Ihians 11:2-3.) They no longer put
; esus first in everything. Their work
•ecame a duty and their suffering an
|'»bligation.

1 They knew the letter of the law
|>ut not the spirit, so Jesus said He
would remove their "candlestick
pom its place among the churches"
unless they returned to their first
p\e for Him.

I How were they to renew their
bve for Him? They first were to re-
Kiember the times of their first love,
he sweetness and joy of walking
|and in hand with Him. Then they

(Continued on p. 19, col. 2)

BOOKS

VISIONS AND PROPHECIES OF
ZECHARIAH, by David Baron. Kregel
Publications, Grand Rapids, Mich. 555
pp. $6.95. Reviewed by the Rev. Al-
bert J. Lindsey, pastor, First Presby-
terian Church, Tacoma, Wash.

I found this a thrilling, heart-
warming book, in fact something
very special. This book was first
printed in London in 1918. Since
then there have been five different
printings, this being the latest.

The author was born in Russia
in 1855, brought up as a strict de-
vout Jew; thoroughly trained in his
religion; and subsequently convert-
ed to Christianity. He determined
for himself a two- fold ministry: to
explain the truth of Christianity to
Jews and to educate Christians re-
garding Israel. This book was writ-
ten over an eleven years period, from
1907-1918. The author died in Eng-
land in 1926.

The book has been acclaimed by
Old Testament scholars as "the best

available book on the subject." It
is marked by a clarity of explana-
tion and thoroughness of interpreta-
tion that is not too frequently found
in such volumes. As stated, "the au-
thor's object is first of all to elu-
cidate as fully as possible the great
Messianic prophecies in this book,
and secondly, to unfold and empha-
size the great and solemn prophetic
events which center around the land
and people of Israel — events, the
rapid fulfillment of which men now
may begin to see with their own
eyes."

The book is handled in two parts:
Part One deals with "The Visions,"
chapters 1-8 of Zechariah, for a to-
tal of 12 chapters; Part Two deals
with "The Prophecies," chapters 9
to 14, in 8 chapters. In addition the
book contains a general index and
a Scriptural index, both of which
are very helpful in the cross-check-

(Continued on next page)

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PAGE 17 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 31, 1973

ing of subject and text.

A typical chapter, and this is the
procedure of all 20, would be that
of Zechariah 9, which he titles,
"The Gentile World Conqueror and
Israel's Prince of Peace." Here he
devotes 52 pages to tracing back
with great care the history of the
passage, giving a clear analysis of
the text and this in the original lan-
guages, forcefully setting forth the
spiritual application.

Every Bible student who loves his
Lord cannot help but be moved fyy
David Baron's wonderful work. As
stated on the cover of the book,

"The pastor-scholar, the theologi-
cal student and the lay-inquisitor"
alike will be enlightened, encour-
aged and greatly blessed by the study
of The Visions And Prophecies Of
Zechariah." IB

THE BIRTH, CARE AND FEED-
ING OF A LOCAL CHURCH, by Don-
ald J. MacNair. Perspective Press,
Lookout Mountain, Tenn. 175 pp.
$4.95. Reviewed by the Rev. David
C. White, pastor of New Hope Pres-
byterian Church, Gastonia, N. C.

An excellent reference book for
any person or persons concerned

*ef/c Simpson

31 stores in 8 states serving you
with this pledge ....

• To give prompt courteous service, treating our customers as you would a guest
in your home. • To give the best selection of merchandise from Top Quality
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budget needs in Stores doing credit business.

Since the opening of the first Belk-Simpson Store, it has been our
endeavor to be more in a community than just another merchant.
We have set forth a united concentrated effort, dedicated to the task
of securing superior quality merchandise, giving our customers a
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SOUTH CAROLINA

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Belk's of Pleasantburg

Greenville, S. C.

A. M. Smith, Res. Mgr.

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T. R. Martin, Res.
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SEE THE MANAGER NEAREST YOU FOR CHURCH CARPET, ROBES, ETC.

with the establishment of a new con-
gregation is provided in this manual.
Both the layman and the church ad-
ministrator will find it to be an un-
usual combination of sound theory
and proven practicality.

The author is executive director
of National Presbyterian Missions,
the church extension agency of the
Reformed Presbyterian Church,
Evangelical Synod. It is from this
experience, and earlier pastoral
work, that this volume has come.

The plan or formula which Dr.
MacNair presents is quite compre-
hensive in its continuous coverage,
from the initial locating of "seed
families" to the establishment of a
mission church and on through the
firmly founded particular church
which is itself reaching out into
new areas. The book includes: meth-
ods of locating interested families;
initial budget and finance sugges-
tions; principles for and an example
of a congregation's constitution and
by-laws; step-by-step church build-
ing program.

Whether the reader would adopt
the suggested formula in its entirety,
he will find great help in its detailed
suggestions. He will be especially
impressed with the stress upon an
organizing pastor, an outside com-
mittee on assessment, and borrowed
elders. And he will be made keenly
aware that the author suggests these
methods not as any guaranteed pro-
cedure, but as helpful when employ-
ed in constant dependence upon
God the Holy Spirit. IB

Just off the Press I

Dr. Robert Strong's

Critical evaluation of
the proposed new

Confession of Faith

A JOURNAL Reprint

$.25 each, $2.50 per doz.
$20 hundred

Order from
THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL
WEAVERVILLE, N. C. 28787

PAGE 18 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 31, 1973

Layman— from p. 13

Youth— from p. 17

his best known work was his Con-
fessions, published in 397-400, in
which he told how wicked he had
been in early life. There are some
who feel he may have exaggerated a
little, but Confessions was widely
read and today the book continues
a best-selling classic.

Augustine died at the age of 76,
on August 28, 430. Although his
mind was sharp, he was physically
weak and confined to bed during his
last few weeks. He ordered his friend
and companion, Possidius, to write
the penitential Psalms of David
(Psalms 6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130 and
143) on sheets and to hang them
around his room. Until the very
last he was studying God's Word.

There is a theory, which I feel
is justified, that this man was really
the father of the Reformation. If
he had not written as he did, Mar-
tin Luther might not have been in-
fluenced as he was and the same
holds true for John Calvin. We
could still be in the Dark Ages. IB

were to repent of their sins and turn
back to Him. They were to ac-
knowledge they did not love Him as
at first.

They were to turn away from all
that kept them from putting Jesus
first and look afresh to their Sav-
iour and Lord. Then they were to
do the work they did before: Jesus
told them to remember, repent and
do what they had done at first.

CONCLUSION BY PROGRAM
LEADER: When Jesus speaks, He
knows what He is saying. What He
says is true. We must study and
pray over His words. If they speak
to our need at this moment we must
apply them in obedience.

Some of us may not have left our
first love for Him, but we must
keep His warning in our hearts for
the danger of doing so is always
present. Many of us will have to
admit that we have grown cold, and
we must yield to Him in renewed
(Continued on next page)

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APPLICATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS REQUESTED

for

COORDINATOR OF PASTORAL CARE OF MINISTERS

The Committee on the Minister and His Work in cooperation with the Division
of Professional Development (G. E. B.) is seeking a person to coordinate pro-
grams of pastoral care and career development of ministers as authorized by
the General Assembly.

Primary functions of the Coordinator are:

A. To ascertain the resources available for counseling clergymen and their
families, for clergy career development, and for clergy support systems,
including an evaluation of the effectiveness of such resources.

B. To disseminate such information as widely as possible to all clergy,
presbyteries and their appropriate presbytery organizations through pub-
lications, personal conferences, etc.

C. To work with appropriate presbytery groups in areas where few or no
services are now available in order to initiate such services.

D. To establish and maintain a network of presbytery personnel and others
engaged in pastoral care of ministers.

E. To function as a referral resource for presbyteries and clergymen.

F. To work with appropriate personnel on the Board of Christian Education
in career development and ministerial enhancement.

G. To keep before the Church the responsibility for pastoral care of ministers.

The Qualifications for the Coordinator include:

• A. Ordained Presbyterian minister.

• B. Experience in local pastorate.

• C. Clinical experience, e.g., ACPE, AAPC, etc.

• D. Demonstrated ability to function as a pastor.

• E. Demonstrated ability to promote new ideas and projects.

• F. Demonstrated administrative and organizational competence.

Interested persons and those wishing to suggest possible candi-
dates should write:

Wm. B. Oglesby, Jr. 3401 Brook Road

Union Theological Seminary Richmond, Virginia 23227

order from
THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL
Weaverville, N. C. 28787

PAGE 19 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 31, 1973

obedience and seek His heart of love.
When we do this as individuals then
we will be able to do this as His
body — the Church.

When the Church loves Jesus
Christ as a bride her husband, then
there will be an overflow of love
and joy and peace. Many will look
in wonder and seek out the reason
and we will be able to share Jesus
with them.

Closing Prayer. SI

Reaction— from p. 10

today and should be accepted as
such. As such it has the right to
judge any and all systems of thought,
no matter how apparently reason-
able.

The secord point in the article,
"The Misplaced Issue," is that the
real concern of religion is Jesus
Christ and not a book telling about
Him. The fact is that you cannot
separate the two.

The Reformed doctrine demands
that everyone realize that Jesus
Christ must be Lord of their lives.
It does this by asserting that the Bi-
ble is the Word of God and must be
listened to, for at the very center of
the Bible's message is Jesus Christ
and His lordship.

To accept Christ as Lord is to
look upon the Bible as verbally in-
spired, for some of the strongest
statements of such a doctrine come
from Him (Matt. 22:31-32; Mark
12:36).

Something Wrong

A third point often asserted in
this debate is that the Bible's pur-
pose is to be a witness to Jesus. Some
no doubt are thinking, "There is
nothing wrong with that, is there?"
To which the answer must be yesl
For such a view severely limits the
value of the Bible in a person's life.

Such a statement is all right as
long as it is clearly indicated that
it is not intended to be understood
as the only purpose of the Bible.
But today this view is being held as
the first, last and only purpose of
the Bible.

By making the Bible a witness to
Christ (only) this view permits its
supporters to say that in matters of
conduct, of Church government, of
ethical principles and even of basic
righteousness and unrighteousness
the Bible has not spoken the last
word. This (it is argued) is because
of differences in circumstances, or

of culture, or because scholars have
pronounced this passage or that pas-
sage as not authentic. Even as a
witness to Jesus Christ there is very
little concrete in the witness that we
can accept.

A serious deficiency in the "wit-
ness" viewpoint is that it makes the
Bible to be of no value after a per-
son has come to faith in Christ. For
if the Bible merely witnesses to
Him, you need it only to come to
Him — after that there is nothing
further to be gained as absolutely
authoritative from this book.

A fourth argument advanced
against the Reformed view is that
it rests upon "circular reasoning."

But the "witness" doctrine is even
more circular because it has to use
a Biblical conception of the Person
to whom the Bible is to be used as
a witness, to interpret the witness!

The Reformed position, while
clearly proclaiming the need of a
personal relationship to the Lord
Jesus Christ in order fully to under-
stand the Scriptures, nevertheless
maintains that the Bible is also ob-
jective propositional revelation, the
heart of which can be understood
by the unregenerate even when
there are no saving results!

The saving result comes from the
exercise of faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ, which is a gift of God. EH

"WHO AM I?"

You can find your answer
in Christian learning and living at King..

Write today to

KING COLLEGE

Director of Admissions
BOX 745 BRISTOL, TENNESSEE/VIRGINIA 37620

(^sfententary and t^econcfarif

TEACHERS

Do you love our Lord Jesus Christ?

Are you committed to the Reformed Faith?
Do you love teaching children?

Are you professionally competent?

If so

WESTMINSTER ACADEMY

is interested in YOU!

Write: Rev. Harry Miller, Headmaster
5620 N.E. 22nd Ave.
Fort Lauderdale, Fla. 33308

An agency of the Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church

PAGE 20 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / JANUARY 31, 1973

VOL. XXXI, NO. 41

FEBRUARY 7, 1973

$4.00 A YEAR

the

Advocating continuation of a Presbyterian Church loyal

to Scripture and the Reformed faith

It's A Thrilling Story

One of the great accounts in missionary annals is the record
of the evangelization of the Pacific Islands through the dedica-
tion of island inhabitants who went out under great risk and
hardship in their small boats and canoes from Samoa, Fiji
and the Solomons to other island territories, until today three
fourths of the inhabitants of the South Pacific islands (apart
from New Guinea) are reportedly members of Christian
churches.

Notable among these islander missionaries who crossed
linguistic, cultural and geographic boundaries with the Gospel
are the more than a thousand members of the Melanesian
Brotherhood. Over the years they worked effectively for the
Christianization of the islands, yet they are all but unknown to
most American enthusiasts for missions.

•Warren W. Webster

(See p. 7)

. S. LESSON AND YOUTH PROGRAM FOR FEBRUARY 25

JMO0

111 OR JO G49A-r.ua
UOT4OSTT.O0 q m

MAILBAG

THEY USE BUSES

I want you to know that some
Presbyterians are involved in the bus
ministry you mentioned ("Across
the Editor's Desk," Jan. 17) .

After ten months of planning,
praying and looking for bus captains,
we put our first bus on the road on
September 17, 1972. Our second
bus was put on the road January 14,
1973.

We rent both buses for $40 and

drivers for $16 each Sunday. Once we
solve the maintenance and parking
problems we hope to begin buying
buses. Both buses have been aver-
aging about 70 children a week. We
hope to increase this to about 100
children for the two buses. Thus
far we have stayed within a one-mile
radius of our church in this Balti-
more suburb.

The bus ministry has revitalized
our Sunday school and reversed a

the

PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL

Rev. G. Aiken Taylor, Ph.D., Editor
Rev. Henry B. Dendy, D.D., Managing Editor

Circulation leader among independent publications in the Presbyterian-Reformed world

THIS WEEK— Vol. XXXI, No. 41, February 7, 1973

The True Goal of Missions 7

The great task of evangelizing the world belongs to all of the
world By Warren W. Webster

Integrity and Education 9

The Church's mission on the university campus is not being
fulfilled By Rene de Visme Williamson

Communication Miscommunicated . 11

Christian principles must be taught, just as is a foreign
language By Rita Lidstrom

De partments —

Editorials 1 2

The Layman and his Church 13

Sunday School Lesson, February 25 14

Youth Program, February 25 16

Book Reviews 17

THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL, a

Presbyterian weekly magazine, devoted
to the statement, defense, and propa-
gation of the Gospel, the faith which
was once for all delivered to the saints,

is published every Wednesday by the
Southern Presbyterian Journal Co.,
Inc., in Weaverville, N. C.

SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: $4 a year
for individuals, $3 for members of
Every Family Plan churches. All cor-
respondence regarding subscriptions,
advertising or other business matters
should be addressed to the business
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Second class postage paid at Weaver-
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POSTMASTER: Send Form 3579 to
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NEWS AND EDITORIAL correspond-
ence should be addressed to P. 0. Box
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TELEPHONES: (All area 704) edi-
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business office, 645-3310, 645-3962.

trend in attendance. It has enabled
us to go over the 400 enrollment
mark and over 300 in attendance for
the third consecutive Sunday. Our
first goal is 400 in Sunday school
(more than our church member
ship) and then . . . ?

The key to a successful venture is
the bus captains and their love for
the Lord and for children. Our cap-
tains knock on the doors every Sat-
urday and pick up the children on
Sunday.

— (Rev.) William Jones
Baltimore, Md.

THIS AND THAT

I certainly love to read the Jour-
nal. It keeps my faith in Presbyte-
rianism alive. I'm so thrilled that
others feel as I do about current lib-
eral trends and how "they" operate
quote a little Scripture and use the
name of Jesus and people think ev-
erything is o.k.

I know because I was once fooled.
I saw how pulpit committees op-
erate to get one of "their men" into
a pulpit. I was on such a pulpit
committee — so I know first hand
what happens. When I try to tell
the congregation they think I'm di-
visive — a trouble maker.

I changed churches. Am still Pres-
byterian — but this is a Bible be-
lieving Presbyterian Church and I
am being fed the true Word of God.

God bless you for your stand and
for your courage. Don't stop.
— Mary V. Tesner
Warren, Ohio

I saw my first copy of the Jo
nal this week and am astounded tha
such a publication exists in Presby
terian circles. Where have you
been all my life?

I called my pastor to ask hiir
about your publication and to m\
further surprise he knew about th(
Journal but said he did not thin
that I would get much profit fron
reading it. That led me to asl
around and I found out that son*
of the elders in my church do no
want to talk about it, others sail
they understood that the Journal i
"divisive." Why would they be St
secretive about a paper that to m
carries so many good things tha
thrill my soul?

— Lucile B. Widmark
Louisville, Ky.
Now we're embarrassed. Just keep o
reading and we think your question
will be answered. — Ed.

J "iili
la
las
m\
"con

h

i
w

•6 f

lurcl
Q the

total

BEYOND THE BOUNDS

If I read the news story on p. 6
of the Jan. 24 Journal correctly, one
of the presbyteries in Missouri has
used the excuse of the "union pres-
bytery" provision of the constitu-
tion to go beyond the bounds of
what the constitution permits.

According to the story, Northwest
Missouri presbytery (a union pres-
bytery made up of a former South-
ern presbytery and a UPUSA presby-
tery) has gone ahead and united
with another UPUSA presbytery out-
side the state of Missouri and lo-
cated in Kansas.

If this is a proper step, then
wouldn't it be proper to go ahead

• In the wake of the fragile Viet-
nam cease fire, the moderator and
the stated clerk of the UPUSA got
out a remarkably bitter letter to the
pastors of the denomination, in the
name of "reconciliation." "Will we
weep for the Indochinese lands and
peoples that lie broken by our
bombs?" the letter asks. We must
"admit our wrongs and repent of
them," the letter continues. "There
was a certain contempt in our dev-
astation," the Church's leaders say,
"contempt for the people of a differ-
ent race and the values of a culture
far older than our own." With no
recognition whatever of the evil
scourge crawling across the face of
the earth that the U. S. labored so
mightily to halt, and with no evident
intention of literally applying that
"we" in accepting blame, the letter
seemed to us a rather self-righteous
sort of document. (See p. 12.)

• A new organization has just sur-
faced within the United Presbyterian
Church, according to A.D. (the for-
mer Presbyterian Life) , "apparent-
ly intended to counter the influence
of conservative groups in the
Church." The ministers and laymen
in the new organization have decid-
ed to call themselves the Wither-
spoon Society, and have solicited
members willing to pay a $100
"founder's fee." The denomina-
tional magazine reports that some-
what over 200 responses have come

and unite with a presbytery in Ne-
braska (which also touches north-
west Missouri) or Iowa? Thus
church union could spread by os-
mosis, so to speak.

The most revolting aspect of this
unethical (if not unconstitutional,
and I think it is unconstitutional)
behavior to me is that Presbyterian
ministers and elders from Kansas
(and then from Nebraska and Iowa,
if the presbytery continues to grow)
can now be legally elected commis-
sioners to the Southern Presbyterian
Assembly where they will have a full
vote in deciding things in a Church
to which they do not really belong.
— Robert J. Ledford Jr.
Memphis, Tenn.

in from people who are "willing to
work through the Church to imple-
ment the more urgent concerns of
the General Assembly and to devel-
op a strong corporate witness," as
the new group's prospectus reads.
John E. Yost, a former chairman of
the denomination's Council on
Church and Society, says of the pro-
cedure followed in launching the
new social activist group, "We have
to find sufficient strength to keep
pressure on at various places in the
Church."

• The same issue of A.D. which
reported the above also had a ma-
jor treatment of the new policy
Churches have adopted to influence
the activities of large corporations
through their investments. An ar-
ticle suggested that many corpora-
tions already are beginning to shift
some of their activities in response
to the pressures exerted by denomi-
nations through the use of stock
proxies, boycotts, and "a blizzard of
publications now rolling off church
presses," designed to educate both
pastor and layman. If it is the
Christian thing to do to use your
money to force corporations to take

MINISTERS

Marion A. Boggs (H.R.) , from
Asheville, N. C, to First Church,
Starkville, Miss., as interim pas-
tor.

Richard A. Bodey from Jackson,
Miss., to the First Church, ARP,
Gastonia, N. C.

Percy McF. Burns from New Or-
leans, La., to the Westminster
church, Shreveport, La.
Robert U. Green from Jackson,
Miss., to the Oakland Heights
church, Meridian, Miss.
Robert L. Hare Jr., from New
Bern, N. C, to the Concord
church, Statesville, N. C.

the steps that leftist General Assem-
blies decide should be taken, then
it most certainly is the Christian
thing to do to use your money to
force the Church itself to comply
with its Christian commitments. We
have been interested to note that the
income of the PCUS continues at a
high level. Evidently, many Chris-
tians are not carrying out their
Christian responsibility.

• As long as the column this week
seems to be taken from A.D. perhaps
it isn't too late to report that dur-
ing the public notices of the 400th
anniversary of the death of John
Knox late last year, the United Pres-
byterian magazine came out against
the notion that John Knox should
be considered a Presbyterian. Be-
cause the Scottish Reformer did not
serve under a presbyterial form of
government, suggested an article in
the Nov. 1 issue, he was no Presby-
terian. Calvinist, yes, but apparent-
ly government is more important
than doctrine in defining Knox's
connections. Knox put faith be-
fore form and for that he nearly lost
his head. For that, further, we re-
spectfully tip our hat to him. IB

ACROSS THE EDITOR'S DESK

PAGE 3 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 7, 1973

NEWS OF RELIGION

Churches Blamed for Abortion Ruling

NEW YORK — A Methodist theo-
logian has laid the blame for the
Supreme Court's decision permitting
abortions until the seventh month
of pregnancy squarely at the doors
of liberal Protestant denominations.

Dr. J. Robert Nelson, dean of Bos-
ton University School of Theology,
noted that his own United Meth-
odist Church and other denomina-
tions have taken a permissive posi-
tion with respect to abortion, urg-
ing that it be made a "personal de-
cision" on the part of the woman
involved. These Church pronounce-
ments, in Dr. Nelson's view, made it
possible for Justice Harry Black-
mun, who wrote the majority opin-
ion, to note the theological divisions
on abortion.

"Had there been strong positions
of restraint taken by Protestants in
addition to Roman Catholics," Dr.
Nelson said, "I think the outcome
would have been different."

The Presbyterian Church US has
gone on record, through its General
Assembly, as favoring abortion not
only for medical but also for social
and economic reasons.

In 1972, the PCUS Assembly re-
jected a request for reconsideration
of the permissive pronouncement
and reiterated the deliverance of the
previous Assembly.

In Dallas, where the case origi-
nated that led to the court's January

22 decision, the Rev. R. Matthew
Lynn, a former moderator of the
Southern Church, told newsmen he
was pleased with the decision. "I
think this is a very good ruling," he
said.

Continued Dr. Lynn: "The deci-
sion is so worded that it will pro-
tect the best interests of the mother
and at the same time will prevent the
birth of children which would be de-
fective and would not have a normal
opportunity for the fullness of life."

The court's decision differentiat-
ed between the legal situation dur-
ing the first three months of preg-
nancy, the situation during the next
three months and during the final
three months when the infant is vi-
able. The court held that the in-
fant is not to be considered a person
until the final three months.

No legal restraints may be im-
posed against abortion during the
first three months of pregnancy, the
court held. During the next three
months the state may impose cer-
tain minimal rules.

In dissenting opinions, Justices
Rehnquist and White accused the
majority of the court of "using raw
judicial power" to "impose a con-
stitutional barrier to state efforts
to protect human life by investing
mothers and doctors with the consti-
tutionally protected right to exter-
minate it."

THE CHURCH OVERSEAS

VIETNAM — Despite the over-
whelming stresses of war, health of-
ficials have made great progress in
their efforts to control the serious
public health problem of leprosy in
this country.

This is the opinion of Oliver W.
Hassalblad, M.D., president of Amer-
ican Leprosy Missions, after return-
ing to the United States from four
weeks of service as leprosy consul-
tant to the Ministry of Health.

Since 1970 the leprosy specialist
has spent a total of six months in
varying periods of work in Vietnam
helping to develop a nationwide con-
trol program.

There are more than 25,000 reg-
istered cases of leprosy in the coun-
try, although the prevalence rate
varies widely.

One of the encouraging advances
in the Vietnam control program, Dr.
Hasselblad said in a report on his
work, is the trend toward integrat-
ing leprosy into the public health
services.

Regional health inspectors, prov-
ince medicine chiefs and hospital di-
rectors, Dr. Hasselblad noted, are
cooperating with the new leprosy
program, and a number of provin-
cial hospitals have already set up
leprosy outpatient clinics. ffl

i

i

Roman Catholic reaction to the
ruling has been unanimously critical.
Cardinal Patrick O'Boyle said it con-
stituted "a catastrophe for Amer-
ica." Cardinal John Krol of Phila-
delphia termed the decision "an un-
speakable tragedy for this nation."
Cardinal Terence Cooke called it
"shocking" and "horrifying."

Most liberal Protestant leaders re-
joiced at the decision, some declar-
ing that it did not go far enough. "I
am delighted," said the Rev. Howarc
Moody of New York, who founded
a pioneer clergy abortion counseling
service. "This is a landmark in re-
lation to women's rights."

Miss Linda Coffee, one of the Dal-
las attorneys who filed the original
suit, said she was a little disappoint-
ed the decision did not "emphasize
the rights of women more strongly."

On the other hand, some theolO'
gians generally identified with the
liberal position on other matters,
strongly disagreed with the court's
ruling.

Dr. Albert C. Outler, a professor
at Southern Methodist University,
Dallas, said, "a judicial settlement
has been made on a moral, psycho-
logical and legislative issue."

He shared the view of Dr. Nelson
that the ruling makes doctors "moral
arbitrators," saying he felt a resuftjP
would be that any woman who
wants an abortion will be able to ob
tain one, even if her own personal
physician advises against it.

"It puts us in a position now
where the Churches must try to
make some impact on the question
of tenderness for life," said Dr. Out
ler. "Unfortunately, the Churches
are in a demoralized state and 1
would not expect them to do much
in the immediate crisis." E

Council Makes New Gifts
To 'Liberation' Groups I

GENEVA — The World Council oil
Churches has made a third set oil
grants, totaling $200,000, througt
its Program to Combat Racism.

More than half the sum will g(
to black "liberation movements" ir
white-controlled areas of Africa
Five of the organizations benefitinj
are in the U. S.

Largest of the 25 allocations ar<
$25,000 to the Mozambique Insti

PAGE 4 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 7, 1973

tute of FRELIMO and $25,000 to
the African Independence Party of
Guinea and Cape Verde Islands
(PAIGC), whose leader, Dr. Amil-
car Cabral, was killed in mid-Jan-
uary. Both are aligned against Por-
tuguese rule.

The new grants, approved by the
WCC Executive Committee, meet-
ing in Bangalore, India, and an-
nounced here, bring to $600,000 the
amount distributed in the controver-
sial program.

At the same time, the internation-
al organization, which has 261 Prot-
estant and Orthodox member
Churches, said it has divested itself
of all stock holdings in U. S., Brit-
ish, Dutch and Swiss firms doing
business in white-ruled African na-
tions.

The WCC had about $1.5 million-
worth of stock in the 650 U. S., Brit-
ish, Dutch and Swiss corporations
which it described as "directly in-
volved in investments or trade" in
southern African countries.

Names of the corporations were
published, according to a WCC of-
ficial quoted in the New York
Times, in order that WCC member
Churches might have a "blacklist"
|?n which they can act.

When the first set of "anti-racism"
fcrants was announced in 1970,
(international controversy resulted,
[with some critics charging that the
I World Council supported armed rev-
olution. Several of the liberation
\ groups make no secret of their mil-
litary struggle against white re-
gimes.

I The WCC responded that its
jiiunds are for humanitarian pur-
poses and the program of grants has
roeen several times endorsed by its
Central Committee.

In addition to FRELIMO and
■PAIGC, African recipients of the
Imti-racism grants are the Lutuli Me-
■Tiorial Foundation of the African
National Council, Rhodesia ($2,-
)00) ; National Union for the Total
independence of Angola ($6,000) ;
■Pan Africanist Congress of Azania,
■Kouth Africa ($2,500); People's
■Movement for the Liberation of An-
gola ($10,000) ; South- West African
people's Organization ($20,000) ; and
■Revolutionary Government of An-
gola in Exile ($10,000) .
I) Two Latin American organiza-
tions will get $10,000 each. They

are, the Native Regional Council of
Cauca and the Colombian Founda-
tion for the Defense of Native Re-
sources and Black Workers.

North American recipients and
the amounts are: All-African News
Service ($3,000) , American Indian
Movement ($6,000), Coalition of
Concerned Black Americans ($6,-
000) , El Paso Education Research
Project ($5,000), Malcolm X Lib-
eration University ($6,000) , and A
Puerto Rican Organization Working
for Economic and Social Justice ($6,-
000) .

The money allocated comes from
a special fund to which individuals,
Churches and governments have
made contributions. The largest
contributor reported has been the
East German government.

U. S. denominations contributing
to the fund have been the Episcopal
Church, the Reformed Church in
America and the Seventh-Day Bap
tist Church. EE

City May Limit Churches
Said To Be 'Nuisances'

PHOENIX, Ariz. (RNS) — A limit
on church construction in certain
areas is part of a proposed city zon-
ing ordinance now being studied by
the Phoenix Planning Commission.

ATLANTA (PN) — Five men and
a woman have been elected to the
top management positions of the re-
organized structure of the Presbyte-
rian Church US.

The provisional General Execu-
tive Board unanimously approved
its Executive Committee's nomina-
tions here after nearly five hours
in executive session.

GEB's five divisions in the new
structure will handle the functions
presently carried on by a dozen
boards and agencies. The sweeping
plan of reorganization was voted by
the 1972 General Assembly.

The executives were elected to
staggered terms, subject to confirma-
tion by the 113th General Assembly

If endorsed by the commission
and passed by the city council, the
ordinance will require churches to
obtain a special use permit if they
wish to construct or relocate facili-
ties in residential zones. Otherwise,
all church construction would be re-
stricted to commercial areas.

The commission's thinking was
reflected in a recent report on the
proposed ordinance, in which it was
stated: "Churches and related facili-
ties are becoming more involved in
a wide range of activities and such
activities and their hours of opera-
tion in many cases tend to create
potential nuisances for neighboring
residential uses."

It added, however, that "it does
not appear that churches create any
problems when located in commer-
cial zoning districts."

Besides setting geographical lim-
its on church construction, the pro-
posed ordinance would also estab-
lish minimum site sizes of one acre
for churches having up to 400 mem-
bers, two acres for membership of
400 to 800, three acres for 800 to 1,-
200, four acres for 1,200 or more,
and eight acres for parochial schools.

Another stipulation would be that
"activities other than religious cere-
monies shall not be conducted be-
tween 10 p.m. and 6 a.m." in such
structures. EE

at its meeting June 10-15 in Fort
Worth.

Two of the executives, chosen
from some 400 nominations and ap-
plications, are top staffers of exist-
ing boards:

The Rev. John B. Evans of Rich-
mond, who will become general staff
director. Dr. Evans presently is ex-
ecutive secretary of the PCUS Board
of Christian Education.

Miss Evelyn L. Green of Atlanta,
director of the Division of National
Mission. She is executive secretary
of the PCUS Board of Women's
Work.

Other executives chosen:
The Rev. George Thompson
Brown of Seoul, Korea, director of

THE CHURCH AT HOME

p

Top Executives Elected, Jobs Described

PAGE 5 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 7, 1973

the Division of International Mis-
sion. He is field secretary for Ko-
rea for the PCUS Board of World
Missions.

The Rev. Joseph L. Roberts Jr.
of Atlanta, director of the Division
of Corporate and Social Mission. He
is director of the Corporate Social
Ministries Work Unit of the PCUS
Board of National Ministries.

The Rev. Bruce L. Robertson of
Richmond, director of the Division
of Professional Development. He is
assistant professor of Church and so-
ciety at Union Theological Seminary
in Virginia.

The Rev. William F. Henning Jr.
of Kerrville, Tex., director of the Di-
vision of Central Support Services.
He is president of Mo-Ranch Pres-
byterian Assembly and associate ex-
ecutive secretary of the PCUS Syn-
od of Texas.

Dr. Ben Lacy Rose of Richmond,
GEB chairman, explained that stag-
gered terms for the executives is be-
ing recommended to provide for
overlapping of experience.

Staff Duties

The staff directors for National
Mission and International Mission
will serve initial terms of two years
each; Professional Development and
Corporate and Social Mission, three
years; Central Support Services and
general staff director, four years.
Each is eligible for re-election.

"The General Executive Board is
striving for and is hopeful that all
executives will be on hand and op-
erating under the new structure by
March I," Dr. Rose said.

As general staff director, Dr.
Evans will be responsible for assist-
ing the Executive Committee in ini-
tiating budget preparation, coordi-
nating research, coordinating func-
tions of all divisions and supervising
personnel evaluation. He also will
assist the Communication Cabinet in
channeling ideas, evaluation and
proposals for priorities for GEB and
the General Assembly.

Miss Green will be responsible for
the organization and administration
of staff in carrying out the functions
assigned to the Division of National
Mission, including: strategy for con-
gregational resourcing through re-
gional centers; development of ed-
ucational materials; congregational
mission strategy, such as evangelism,
stewardship and community involve-
ment; rural and urban strategies for
presbyteries; national conferences;

laity facilitation, such as family,
women and youth ministries; local
and regional ecumenical strategies;
Presbyterian School of Christian Ed-
ucation.

Dr. Brown's responsibilities in-
clude organization and administra-
tion of a staff to carry out functions
assigned to the Division of Interna-
tional Mission, including: strategy
for world mission; interpretation of
overseas missions; aid to overseas na-
tional churches; relief and allevia-
tion of suffering; strategy for ec-
umenical development on the inter-
national level.

As staff director of the Division
of Corporate and Social Mission, Mr.
Roberts will organize and administer
a staff to carry out such functions
as: implementing denominational re-
lationships with the National and
World Councils of Churches and the
Consultation on Church Union;
strategies for health and welfare ser-
vices; black leadership development;
strategies in education; civil crisis
and natural disaster relief.

Mr. Robertson, with the staff of
the Division of Professional Devel-
opment, will have responsibilities
in recruitment of clergy and lay pro-
fessionals; strategies for training pro-
fessionals; placement and relocation
services in cooperation with lower
church courts; development of stan-
dards for selection and certification
of professionals.

Mr. Henning's Division of Central
Support Services will house the of-
fice of central treasurer of benev-
olences; centralized services, such as
printing, art, purchasing; fiscal ser-
vices, such as budgeting, comptrol-
ler, endowments; the Presbyterian
Foundation; communication and
interpretation services, including
TRAV, Presbyterian Survey, Presby-
terian News Service; John Knox
Press; automated data processing;
Mountain Retreat Association; Pres-
byterian Center. H

Quota System To Govern
Employment Practices

ATLANTA (PN) — New person-
nel policies adopted by the General
Executive Board of the Presbyterian
Church US call for "every reason-
able effort" to place women in at
least two fifths of the positions at
second management level and below,
and to fill similar positions with
one-fifth minority employees.

The policies will govern all em-
ployees of the five divisions and the

general staff director of the Gen
eral Executive Board.

In adopting the policy paper pre
pared by the Division of Profession
al Development, GEB also agreed:

— to advertise job openings "td
insure adequate coverage, especial
ly for women and minorities";

— to send a questionnaire to each
employee of denominational agen
cies, asking each to indicate his/her
desires for employment by GEB;

— that personnel hiring will be
coordinated by a temporary person
nel unit, with final employment de
cision resting with the Management
Team (six top executives) , subject
to GEB approval;

— that "reasonable efforts will be
made to equalize ordained and non
ordained allowances and benefits.'

The General Executive Board al
so elected a nominating committee
to bring in names for various coun
cils and advisory groups indicated
in the reorganization plan.

Committee Ups Amounts
Asked for the NCC, WCC

ATLANTA — Ecumenical and in-
terdenominational organizations will
receive sharply increased amounts if
budget allocations approved here by
the Presbyterian US Permanent
Committee on Inter-Church Rela
tions are accepted by the denomina
tion's General Council and adopted
by the 1973 General Assembly.

The proposal, which totals $106
200 instead of the $77,075 requested
last year, would more than double
the amount asked for the National
Council of Churches and substan-
tially increase the amount for the
World Council of Churches.

Increases also are requested for
the American Bible Society, the
Lord's Day Alliance and Religion
in American Life.

The committee is asking $40,000
for the NCC in contrast to the $19,'
500 requested last year. The figure
is that of the basic denominational
allocation to the general budget anc
is a fraction of the actual dollar to
tals going to NCC from boards, agen-
cies and other denominational or
ganizations.

The increase is in line with the
new "fair share" financing plar
which is a part of the NCC's reor
ganization. Under the plan, denom
inations which do not contribut<
their "fair share" could lose thl
privilege of vote in the Governing
Board. 8

a

PAGE 6 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 7, 1973

an
li

fa

Missions are not just to make converts but to make missionaries —

The True Goal of Missions

One measure of the ethnocen-
trism of American evangelicals
is the uncritical assumption fre-
quently encountered that the evan-
gelization of the world in this, or
any, generation rests primarily on
American, or at least Western,
shoulders.

It is true that the churches of
Europe and North America are re-
sponsible before God for the stew-
ardship of their very considerable
resources of men and materials.
Since World War II some 60 per
cent of world Protestant overseas
missionary personnel and nearly 80
per cent of the finances have come
'from North American churches.

Nevertheless, it must be affirmed
with a document that has come to
be known as the February Theses of
'1961, that:

"It is both physically impossible
and demonstrably un-Scriptural that
missionaries from the West are re-
sponsible to evangelize all the peo-
ple of this generation throughout
lall the world.

"The evangelization of the world
is the task of the whole Church of
Jesus Christ throughout the world.
No church attains fullness and ma-
Iturity without participating to some
degree in the missionary purpose of
God."

Even if it were possible for the
[Christians of one country to evan-
igelize the world, from a Biblical per-
spective it would work an irrepara-
ble loss on believers in other lands
who are also under the mandate to
"Go disciple the nations."

The author is general director of
{the Conservative Baptist Foreign
^Mission Society. This material first
hppeared in Church Growth Bul-
letin of the Fuller Seminary Insti-
tute of Church Growth.

Today there is a growing aware-
ness among American evangelicals at
the local church level that in the
20th century "the Church which is
His Body" has at last become a
worldwide reality and one of the
important corollaries of this is that
now the "home base" of missions is
everywhere — wherever the church
is planted.

Three 'Selfs'

Lesslie Newbigin reminds us that,
"The thinking of the older denom-
inations about foreign missions has
always been shaped by the fact that
the needs of the earth were always
'there,' not here. But from the mo-
ment that the church becomes a
worldwide fellowship, that point of
view is invalidated."

This opens up the exciting pos-
sibility of church and mission co-
operating in every nation to bring
the whole Gospel to the whole
world.

We are passing through an era in
which many missions have pursued
a pronounced objective of establish-
ing "self-propagating, self-governing
and self-supporting" churches. Peter
Wagner in a forthcoming book on
missionary strategy observes that the
three "selfs" were useful and neces-
sary concepts when mission societies
were trying to shake off an inherited
colonial and paternalistic mentality,
but the terms have now become se-
nile and need to be replaced by
something more contemporary with-
out losing what continues to be val-
id in the ideas they express.

Henry Lefever also cautions
against the use of these terms since
"the New Testament speaks of 'self
only as something to be denied, or
at least something to be discovered
only through being set aside and
forgotten."

WARREN W. WEBSTER

A church which is too self-con-
scious may be also self-centered and
selfish, and not infrequently this
has been a failing of so-called "in-
digenous" churches established as a
result of this ideology. The church
was never intended to be self-cen-
tered but Christ-centered and with
an outward, rather than inward, ori-
entation to the world for which
He died. In Archbishop Temples'
words, "The church is the only so-
ciety in the world which exists for
the benefit of those who do not be-
long to it."

Fourth World

The goal of mission is not simply
establishing indigenous churches in
the "Third World" of Africasia,
but making disciples in the "Fourth
World." In the Church Growth
Bulletin, Wagner defines this as em-
bracing "all those people who, re-
gardless of where they may be lo-
cated geographically, have yet to
come to Christ. In that sense the
Fourth World is the top priority ob-
jective of missions. This pushes the
statement of the goal of missions one
notch further than the indigenous
church."

Elsewhere he pointedly asserts
that "the goal of the Christian mis-
sion is not to establish an 'indig-
enous church' .... The true goal
of missions is making disciples. Nor-
mally, indigenous national churches
based on and functioning along New
Testament patterns should be the
most effective instruments for im-
plementing the Great Commission.

But we all know of instances
where local churches (in America
as well as abroad) are not effective,
and may actually be a hindrance, in
discipling the Fourth World. Where
they can be helped to realize and
pursue the Church's primary objec-

PAGE 7 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 7, 1973

tive — fine! But until, and unless,
they can be helped they may simply
have to be bypassed in pursuit of
our prime objective. The proper
goal of missions is not simply plant-
ing indigenous churches in the Third
World, but missionary churches
which move out in responsibility to
the Fourth World of lost men.

The Responsibility

Henry Lefever writes: "A church
which feels that its own responsibil-
ity has been discharged when the
new church is established as a self-
governing and wholly or largely self-
supporting body, has never rightly
understood its missionary responsi-
bility."

Wagner tells of a missionary from
Cameroon who reported that his
mission was so committed to "in-
digenous principles" that when they
heard of a new responsive tribe they
refused to evangelize it on the
grounds that this was not the re-
sponsibility of the younger churches.
The Cameroon Church was not pre-
pared, and the task was not carried
out. Whenever so-called "indigenous
principles" interfere with any
church's primary goal to disciple
men and nations they should be re-
thought or abandoned.

Simply establishing indigenous
churches is no longer seen as an ad-
equate goal of Biblical missions un-
less such churches become "sending"
churches in and from their own set-
ting. The New Testament knows
nothing of "receiving" churches (I
Cor. 15:3; II Tim. 2:2) .

The early group of believers in
Rome was a receiving church only
until it could marshal its resources
for sending the good news on to
Spain and central Europe. We in
the so-called sending churches of the
West need to remember that we too
were once on the receiving end of
God's message of reconciliation.

A Sending Church

The truth remains that every
church in every land ought to be
and remain a sending church. Even
in North America, the spiritual vi-
tality of any fellowship of Christians
should be measured not simply by
the number of believers it attracts
but by the number of disciples it
sends out empowered for witness and
service.

With respect to new churches, Pe-
ter Beyerhaus advocates something

similar when he says: "The ultimate
aim of missions is no longer the or-
ganizational independence of the
young church; it is rather the build-
ing up of a Church which itself has
a missionary outreach."

If we believe this to be the ulti-
mate expression of the Great Com-
mission, then we must regard "the
growing entrance into mission" of
churches on every continent as a
cause for profound gratitude and
continued encouragement in our
day.

If Western nations and institu-
tions are on the decline, God may
well use the churches of Africasia
to bridge the gap, as they increasing-
ly are accepting the missionary re-
sponsibility which of necessity lies
upon the Church in every place.

Foreign mission societies emerg-
ing in the Third World churches are
not altogether a new movement, al-
though too little known to the aver-
age Christian in the West. American
evangelicals know the exploits of
Livingstone and Moffett in opening
large areas of Africa to the Gospel,
but they have seldom heard of the
unnamed or little known local Af-
rican missionaries who were respon-
sible for much of the subsequent
Christian advance in those areas.

What We Can Do

One of the great accounts in mis-
sionary annals is the record of the
evangelization of the Pacific Islands
through the dedication of island in-
habitants who went out under great
risk and hardship in their small
boats and canoes from Samoa, Fiji
and the Solomons to other island
territories, until today three fourths
of the inhabitants of the South Pa-
cific islands (apart from New Guin-
ea) are reportedly members of Chris-
tian churches.

Notable among these islander mis-
sionaries who crossed linguistic, cul-
tural and geographic boundaries
with the Gospel are the more than
a thousand members of the Melane-
sian Brotherhood. Over the years
they worked effectively for the Chris-
tianization of the islands, yet they
are all but unknown to most Amer-
ican enthusiasts for missions.

Unfortunately, many indigenous
national missionary organiza-
tions were more active around the
turn of the century than they are to-
day. To what extent does the re-
sponsibility for this lie with our
generation of mission planners and

activists?

What can we do to aid emerging
churches overseas in developing a
missions strategy and passion?

First, as American evangelicals
and evangelical mission societies, we
must clarify, sharpen and update our
own understanding of the Biblical
mandate for mission so as to empha-
size that the command to "preach
the Gospel to every creature" and
to "make disciples of all nations"
must parallel and even supersede the
intermediate goal of planting indig-
enous churches as a means of disci
pling the nations.

In this connection I would com-
mend the recent action of the For-
eign Missions Department of the As-
semblies of God in restating their
mission objectives to include the fol-
lowing:

"The Foreign Missions Depart-
ment is dedicated primarily to the
fulfillment of the Great Commission,
'Go ye into all the world, and preach
the Gospel to every creature' (Mark
16:15). Its basic policy is to evan-
gelize the world, establish churches
after the New Testament pattern,
and to train national believers to
preach the Gospel both to their own
people and in a continuing mission
to other nations."

This statement of objectives, af-
ter affirming the importance of es-
tablishing indigenous churches as an
instrument of fulfilling the Chris-
tian mission to the world, goes on
to stress the need for missionary-
national "cooperation and unity in
the mutual God-given responsibility
for complete world evangelization.
In so doing, the missionary must not
abdicate his responsibility to world
evangelism and church planting,
either by perpetuating the mission's
authority over the national church
or by succumbing to nationalistic in-
terests that would prevent him from
fulfilling the Great Commission."

By Precept

It is also imperative that we com- ,
municate the missionary mandate by I
precept and example from the in-J .
ception of all evangelistic and]
church planting ministries.

A Chinese youth leader at the
Singapore Congress on Evangelism
commented that although he kne%
his missionary friends preach tht
missionary imperative on furlough
in their homelands, he had neve)
heard one preach a sermon on mis
sions to the new churches they hac

PAGE 8 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 7, 1973

helped bring into being in Asia.

He went on to observe the same
failure in most seminaries and Bi-
ble schools of his acquaintance
which, he said, had no courses on
missions in their curriculum. It is
little wonder if pastors trained there
have no informed and compelling
sense of missionary involvement and
outreach to communicate to their
congregations.

Missionaries responsible for pas-
toral and lay training must be pre-
pared to imbue new leaders with the
principles and practice of multiply-
ing disciples and churches, both in
their immediate environment and
across adjacent cultural and geo-
graphical boundaries.

Let new Christians everywhere be
prepared for immediate involvement
in the evangelism of their own cul-
tural "Jerusalem" with the needs of
their respective "Judea and Sa-
maria" (i.e. communication at a
slight cultural or geographical dis-
tance) regularly set before them, so
that some of those proved and ap-

proved of God through faithfulness
in nearby witness may in time be en-
trusted with even more difficult mis-
sions to totally different peoples
(the dimension at "the ends of the
earth") as men and means become
available.

Rather than simply international-
ize existing mission organizations, let
us encourage new church fellowships
to develop their own patterns and
forms of missionary expression.

We should be ready to share with
them the best of what we have
learned in a century and a half of
the modern missionary movement,
but then give these maturing church-
es full liberty under the Holy Spirit
to determine what they will adopt
and continue as applicable to their
situation and what they will modify
or leave behind as relics of another
day.

Finally, while seeking to manifest
the unity of the Spirit through fel-
lowship among like-minded partici-
pants in a world mission which tran-
scends all boundaries of color and

culture, let us not involve others
in overorganization, nor embarrass
them by insisting on ties which
might compromise their effective-
ness.

Above all, within the missionary
movement of Third World churches
we must respect the same principles
of spiritual voluntarism which
brought most of our missionary so-
cieties into being. Spontaneous re-
sponse to the Spirit's leading and
voluntary participation by believers,
passionately devoted to making
Christ known, may well produce a
greater tide of missionary advance
in the Third World than history has
seen to date.

Then in a spirit of true partner-
ship, not paternalism, we may say
with Chrysostom of old that we have:

A whole Christ for our salvation,
A whole Bible for our staff,
A whole Church for our fellow-
ship,

A whole world for our parish. SI

Most colleges and universities have slipped their Christian moorings —

Integrity and Education

We are a long way from medi-
eval times when the university
[ was considered the education arm of
[ the church, and from our own co-
ll lonial times and young nationhood
I when the main purpose of higher
I education was to prepare young men
r for the ministry.

This is the last of jour articles
which are a part of a series of lec-
tures, delivered by the author at Co-
lumbia Theological Seminary, en-
titled, "The Meaning of the Church
in University Life." Dr. Williamson
)is chairman of the department of po-
litical science at Louisiana State Uni-
versity and an elder in First Presby-
iterian Church, Baton Rouge. He
has long been active in the field of
Christian education, serving on sev-
eral Assembly committees and agen-
cies.

Colleges and universities original-
ly founded by churches have slipped
away from their Christian moorings
as the tide of secularism swelled to
higher and higher levels. Alongside
of the secularized private colleges
and universities rose the state uni-
versities and junior colleges.

All that is left of the old order
are a number of small denomination-
al institutions like our own Presby-
terian colleges, and even these have
quite a struggle keeping a distinc-
tively Christian character as they
take in secular-minded students, re-
cruit a faculty trained in secular-
minded graduate schools, and use
secular-oriented textbooks because
there is no other kind.

The church now stands at the gate
of the university, on the outside, as
is eloquently symbolized by the de-
nominational centers which are usu-
ally located on the periphery of the

RENE de VISME WILLIAMSON

campus or farther away still. It is
no longer centrally located with the
administration building and the uni-
versity library. Its place has been
taken over by the auditorium where
almost anything can be heard.

Student Work

Traditionally our Church has sup-
ported Presbyterian student centers
or Presbyterian university centers on
our campuses. These centers have
been directed by a campus minister
supervised by synod's Committee on
Christian Education and assisted by
the Department of Campus Chris-
tian Life of our Board of Christian
Education in Richmond.

In some instances, as at Louisiana
State University, the center is part
of a university church which is held
responsible by synod for campus
work and in which the campus min-

PAGE 9 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 7, 1973

ister is assistant pastor. Current
thinking about the church's univer-
sity work is critical of these centers.

It holds that the campus minis-
ter ought not to be in the church or
center but where the students are.
Just as Jesus Christ went into shops,
towns, villages, market places, the
countryside, and private homes, so
that campus minister should go in-
to dormitories, fraternities and so-
rorities, cafeterias, the athletic field,
the field house and the university
student union.

No Exception

The parallel between this think-
ing and the current attack on the lo-
cal congregation and the parish min-
istry is striking. Of course the cam-
pus minister should emulate Jesus
and go where the people are. But
let us not forget that Jesus also at-
tended the synagogue "as His cus-
tom was" (Matt. 4:16). Our Lord
went into those other places not on-
ly to transform people but to gather
them into what we now know as the
Church.

We are faced with expensive cen-
ters which are empty or nearly
empty. The problem is not to do
away with them but to fill them. It
is a fact of life that every vital move-
ment has an organization and a phys-
ical basis of operation. Political par-
ties, labor unions, business corpora-
tions, universities, clubs, lodges and
such, all have their headquarters and
physical facilities to match. Why
should campus Christian work be an
exception?

The trouble with our centers
could be that of the rich young rul-
er: they have relied unduly on the
accessories. They are in competi-
tion with fraternities and sororities
on social matters, with the univer-
sity student union for recreation,
and with honorary societies for ex-
tracurricular intellectual pursuits.

What happens when the center's
outings and picnics are no longer
appealing? When better ping-pong
tables and bowling alleys can be
found elsewhere? When other or-
ganizations take over the discussions
on sex, Marxism, race, and peace?
Will there be anything left?

If there is not, the center deserves
extinction. I am convinced that
where a burning Christian faith and
authentically Christian thinking ex-
ist, no center need suffer a dearth
of students, faculty and administra-
tors.

I believe that campus Christian
life centers ought to be located in
and be organic parts of a local
church wherever geographically fea-
sible. No synod's Christian Educa-
tion Committee or subcommittee
thereof can provide effective super-
vision of campus Christian activi-
ties. The local church is in a much
better position to supervise these ac-
tivities and keep them from mean-
dering away into esoteric cults and
ill-advised ventures.

Moreover, many university peo-
ple are church-shy and, since this
attitude is highly injurious to the
Christian growth of the individual,
it ought to be overcome. The cam-
pus Christian life program of our
Church should not have for its sole
aim the making of dedicated Chris-
tian lawyers, doctors, teachers and
business men.

It ought also to include the mak-
ing of good churchmen, i.e., min-
isters, missionaries, elders, deacons,
church school teachers and church
school superintendents, who are fit
to serve on the boards, councils,
committees and agencies of our de-
nomination.

The Proper Order

Understanding is the reward of
faith. Therefore, seek not to under-
stand that you may believe, but
rather believe that you may under-
stand. — Augustine.

In view of the widespread reli-
gious illiteracy of so many univer-
sity people, the teaching function
of the church is of primordial im-
portance. What more appropriate
place could there be for teaching
than on a university campus?

Consultations and conferences on
the Christian implications of pro-
fessional fields and educational
problems will continue to be of very
limited significance as long as uni-
versity people lack a thorough
grounding in the Christian faith and
churchmanship. Some of this teach-
ing can be done on the campus level
by the church through its church
school or campus center.

Considering that the church is
dealing with university people, the
level of instruction should be at least
as high as that of regular univer-
sity courses. If it is necessary to
set up special classes in the church
school for students, faculty and ad-

ministrators, this should be done.

The church should call university
pastors and campus pastors who pos-
sess the kind of scholarship and
teaching ability needed for such an
enterprise. In the beginning and
in many places, these ministers will
be the only ones capable of doing
this work. In the long run, however,
qualified laymen will have to be
drawn into it if it is to have a scope
commensurate with the needs of the
university.

Task of Seminaries

To produce such laymen is beyond
the resources of the local church or
center. The higher levels of the
Church will have to be called upon.
Essentially, it is the task of our
seminaries.

Possibly the scope of our Presbyte-
rian School of Christian Education
could be enlarged from its present
emphasis on the training of direc-
tors of Christian Education to in-
clude university laymen. Short sum-
mer institutes will not do the job.

A beginning might be made by
having our Board of Christian Ed-
ucation give a great deal more mon-
ey for fellowships. With these, pro-
fessors and administrators could af-
ford to take a year's leave of ab-
sence and go to seminary to follow
a curriculum tailor-made for their
benefit.

Such a curriculum would include
courses in Bible, systematic theology,
church history, Christian ethics, and
a survey of contemporary theology.
Perhaps a new master's degree could
be given in recognition of the suc-
cessful completion of this curricu-
lum.

It was the dream of Hunter Blake-
ly that someday there should be a
Presbyterian university. I feel sure
that, even if the financial resources
were forthcoming, we would not
now have the human resources to
realize this dream, and I doubt that
we could make it come true in con-
junction with other Reformed and
evangelical Churches anytime soon.

But our Church should plan for
it as a part of its long-range educa-
tional objectives. As long as all
our graduate schools are secular-ori-
ented, our scholarly output and our
faculty and administrators will con-
tinue to be secular-oriented.

Once a nucleus of knowledgeable
and trained university laymen capa-
ble of assisting our ministers is avail- i
able, the job of relating the Chris-

PAGE 10 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 7, 1973

We must say what we mean, and mean what we say —

Miscommunication

tian faith to professional fields and
educational problems will become
fruitful. Series of conferences and
study groups including selected stu-
dents, faculty and administrators
will become meaningful for the first
time and serve to heal the broken-
ness of the university.

In the case of students, for exam-
ple, the campus program could be
geared to their needs at those times
when these needs are uppermost
in their minds: Christian vocation
around registration time or when
personnel-hunting outsiders visit the
seniors; sex when it is time for big
dances and big fraternity parties;
or academic honesty when nine-week
and final examinations come around.

Special programs could be de-
signed to meet the needs and prob-
lems of faculty and administrators.
Programs dealing with such topics
as grading, teaching methods, and
university education objectives could
be arranged as joint enterprises by
students, faculty and administrators.

Cadre of Christians

The field is white unto the har-
vest, but the workers have been few
and unprepared. That is why the
education work of the church at the
[higher levels is so important. We
rhave no right to think that an un-
strained teacher of the Christian
I faith can do any better than a teach-
ler of German or mathematics who
I knows nothing about his subject.
bPedagogy is not everything — nor
i film strips, flip charts, or other vis-
lual aids.

An elite corps of Christian pro-
cessors and administrators, drawn
l from many fields, must be brought
t into being. This elite corps will
■have to be ecumenical because no
|:>ne denomination can supply per-
|>onnel large and diversified enough
■to handle the problems of relating
t:he Christian faith to university life,
■Dut our Church should be ready to
■pake its contributions to the crea-
tion and functioning of this corps.
I Students, professors and admin-
istrators are very busy people nowa-
days. They do not welcome new
■Involvements without a strong mo-
iuvation. If competence is joined
4|o consecration, however, I believe
■university people will respond and
nake room for these new involve-
Inents. It is a great and glorious
Ifhallenge, and in meeting it the
■Church will be invested with a fresh
ind new meaning for university
;ife. " ffl

There is a lot of talk about com-
munication these days, especial-
ly in connection with teaching. A
certain psychology seems to have
fastened to the word communicate,
suggesting, soft-pedaling, letting
down, or even rationalizing to the
point of letting the pupil prescribe
the methods and terms of the game.

But it is not the use of contempo-
rary slang or colloquialisms such as
"turn-on, heavy, groovy, get it all to-
gether," that really communicates
truth. These indicate only that you
have good ears. Vocabulary may
change with the times, but the meth-
od of true communication does not
change, because the pupil today still
learns through the same human fac-
ulties and senses.

People still want to talk about
themselves, their thoughts, aspira-
tions, disappointments and needs.
They still want to hear the clear
note of positive truth sounded from
the rooftops. People still will listen
with keen interest to the voice of
confidence speaking out on the is-
sues of life.

Same Message

Because we deal with Christian
principles in the church program,
we cannot fail to be positive, con-
fident and clear, making the truth
of the Bible stand out in bold print
to our pupils. Although every pu-
pil may not embrace the clear-cut
truths of God's Word, the knowl-
edge of how to come to God and
what is expected of him remains
with him.

The message we are responsible
to communicate remains the message
that Paul preached: Christ and Him

This article from the Sunday
School Counselor, published by
the National Sunday School Depart-
ment, General Council of the As-
semblies of God, is reprinted with
permission.

RITA LIDSTROM

crucified, and sinners in need of the
regenerating power of Christ. Be-
yond this our message remains
straight and clear, always admonish-
ing the believer to walk worthy of
his calling, proving his life daily
through clean and righteous living.

The real breakdown in communi-
cation has resulted from giving our
young pupils a warmed up or left-
over set of Christian principles. How
can our young people so glibly ac-
cept the loose moral standards of to-
day? How can they feel comfort-
able living so much like the unre-
generate?

Is it possible there has not been a
communication of black-and-white
truth? Can we really rest with the
assumption that our young people
"know better"?

In Plain Words

Christian principles are no more
taught by osmosis than is a foreign
language. Being around the church
is not good enough. Being in the
church is not good enough. We
must spell out the truths that are
being revealed in our lessons.

Joseph's encounter with Potiphar's
wife finds its 1973 counterpart in
a young man's struggle with the im-
moral philosophies and ideas of a
late TV movie. The young lady
who takes as her pattern Queen
Esther's example of courage walks
the halls of her high school with a
testimony that will not be compro-
mised.

Are our learners really getting the
message? In the hours of adversity
and testing, will they know which
way to turn? If they are confused,
complete communication has not
taken place or been accomplished.
Communication is the impartation
of a clear understanding of the truth
at hand. God's Word, the Bible,
has given us a standard by which
we can measure all things. Let us
make sure we communicate it to our
learners. EB

PAGE 11 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 7, 1973

m

EDITORIALS

In the Wake of the Cease Fire

The time has come for restrained
rejoicing and profound thanksgiv-
ing that the agonizing struggle in
Vietnam seems halted.

At such a time, the nation's grati-
tude is extended to those who have
made possible the potential of a
peace with honor. Among these:

• That President, who first de-
termined that the unchecked march
of Communism since World War II
— through Berlin, Czechoslovakia,
Hungary, Cuba and a host of other
places — had to be stopped some-
where. And who determined to hold
the line no matter what it did to his
popularity.

• The current President of the
United States, for never wavering
in his purpose.

• Those hundreds of thousands of
young Americans, who performed
their distasteful duty with courage,
honor and integrity, despite the dis-
couraging effects of the swelling tide
of subversion at home, where a cam-
paign of lies produced a faltering
effort and even corrupted the orig-
inal high purpose for which many
died.

At this time it is appropriate not
to forget those who corrupted, sub-
verted the war effort and thus pro-
longed the suffering, destruction and
death for a decade. Among them:

• Those dedicated enemies of
freedom who masterminded the cam-
paign to turn Americans against
this nation's thankless effort in Asia.
Their slogan: Better Red than Dead.

• That host of guillible people
who, like puppets on a string, re-
acted in campaigns, demonstrations
and riots, to turn a potentially no-
ble effort into a sordid heartache.

A new book by a prominent Men-
nonite author defines the politics of
Jesus as, "Love your enemies, do
good to those who hate you; bless
those who curse you and pray for
those who maltreat you . . . Do to
others what you would have them
do to you."

The author is mistaken. That quo-

Now that the war seems to be over,
they will turn their efforts towards
aiding those thousands still in exile.
Their campaign will be to restore
honor to men who have brought
shame — America's deserters and
draft dodgers.

We would not want to overlook
those Presbyterians who did their
best to thwart the effort on behalf
of peace with honor. Only God
knows how many lives were needless-
ly lost, how much destruction was
needlessly wrought by the well-in-
tentioned churchmen who prolonged
the agony with aid and comfort giv-
en our enemies.

We wish we could list the com-
plete roster of Presbyterians who
bear part of the responsibility for
the fact that the war did not end
long ago. At the top of the list
would be the following:

• That Louisville seminary profes-
sor who, before anyone else, was
marching and picketing government
buildings.

• The Louisville seminary presi-
dent, whose remarks before the 1972
General Assembly were probably the
most intemperate in the history of
General Assemblies.

• That ex-moderator, who led a
contingency of peaceniks to Paris for
the purpose of negotiating with the
North Vietnamese and the Vietcong.

• The Council on Church and So-
ciety, and particularly the office of
Church and society, which kept up
a steady drumfire of agitation in
support of peace-at-any-price.

• The authors of Presbyterian lit-
erature who helped divide and dis-
unite public sentiment.

• The four executives who just

tation helps define the personal eth-
ics that Jesus said constitute the
heart of the eternal Law. The prin-
ciple never has and never will serve
as the basis of a political system
among sinful human beings.

The politics of Jesus are found
elsewhere: "Render unto Caesar the
things that are Caesar's." IB

two weeks before the end issued a
condemnation of the President.

• The host of clerics who misused
their pulpits to contribute to the
difficulties of securing peace.

In the wake of it all we desire
even more fervently that the time
will hasten when there will be a
true Presbyterian and Reformed
Church with a nationally significant
witness for the health of the land. 51

Why Evangelize?

Some people question the neces-
sity for evangelism in the traditional
sense. They deplore the practice (as
it seems to them) of "forcing our
ways upon others," or of insisting
that all religions other than Chris-
tianity are false. To these friends
evangelism is a form of bigotry.

Some modern churchmen ridicule
the old idea of "saving souls" as be-
ing too individualistic, and declare
that evangelism is simply the
church's glad task of telling the
masses that they are already loved
and redeemed by God. If such a
view is true, "evangelism" in the tra-
ditional, New Testament sense, is
unnecessary.

But, Bible-believing Christians in-
sist upon evangelizing in the old-
fashioned way. They stubbornly
continue to proclaim the doctrines
of grace in the Gospel of Jesus
Christ. Why? To enlarge church
membership rolls? Because it is "the
American Way?' " Because we have
a humanitarian concern for man-
kind-in-distress?

I. We evangelize, first, because
our Lord God commands it. Believ-
ers in Jesus have been ordered to
"make disciples of all nations," to be
"fishers of men," to witness to their
Lord at home, in the community,
across the nation, and around the
world (Acts 1:8). This is enough,
is it not? We must obey Christ.

But, why does God take evan-|
gelism so seriously? What did Christ*
know that constrained Him to urge
the missionary task upon His fol-
lowers?

II. He knew that God is, and
that God is one. There is only one;
living, sovereign Creator and Rulei>
of the universe. All other gods that
men imagine are false. There is nc
other God than the God of the Bi
ble. And He reveals Himself a:
holy, and just, and as One who ha:
promised to punish all sin.

Mini Editorial

PAGE 12 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 7, 1973

III. Men are by nature sinful
and bear the guilt of their sins heav-
ily upon their shriveled souls.
Though created in the image of
God, mankind fell from an exalted
fellowship with God. All men are
born now into a condition of sin
and misery, are exposed to the wrath
of God, and are in danger of eter-
nal separation from God in hell.

IV. However, all is not lost. God
is love, and has provided a way for
sinful men to be restored to fellow-
ship with Him. God has revealed
the way for sin to be punished and
the sinner to be delivered at one
and the same time. God has re-
moved the guilt from many and yet
has not compromised His own jus-
tice. God has devised the method
by which sinners can enter into His
holy presence without fear of im-
mediate destruction.

V. One way. There is only one
way available for sinners to be rec-
onciled to God and for God to be
reconciled to sinners. Christ is the
Way. His is the only name where-
by men may be saved. He is the
only mediator. Our guilt was im-
puted to Him. He bore our sins in
His own body. His perfect obedi-
ence is declared to our account.
Christ obeyed the law. Christ died
for sins. Christ removes the curse.

VI. The benefits of Christ's work
must be applied to sinners. Dead
souls must be resurrected. Sin-bound
Wills must be freed so they can
choose Him who first chose them.
Blinded eyes must be opened to the
Saviour. Cold, lifeless hearts must
be set aflame with the love of faith
and the radical obedience of repen-
tance. All this the Holy Spirit does.
And, He normally does this work
of grace only when and where the
Gospel is proclaimed or taught out
pi love for Christ and neighbor.

So. Why evangelize? Because it
its the way, the only way, a soul may
be saved from eternal condemna-
tion and be brought into life-giving
[fellowship with a holy God, now
iind forever.

I The Holy Spirit uses only the
Gospel. The Gospel must be heard,

therefore it must be told. Evan-
gelism is the telling.

Christ did not command the an-
rcels to do this. He ordered believ-
|rs to do it. That's you and me,

irother. — Paul G. Settle. El

'< Man has enough conscience to
scare him, but not enough to save
um. — Unknown.

THE LAYMAN AND HIS CHURCH

Captains in the Storm

In our nation's present crises, in
our search for safe harbors in the
storm, a quick look back over two
centuries of our country's history
brings into focus two of our greatest
leaders and statesmen. From these
lives we may gain courage, wisdom
and inspiration "for the living of
these days." Born three quarters of
a century apart, Washington and
Lincoln served equally well: one
helped to bring a young nation in-
to being, the other helped to save a
maturing nation from destruction.

George Washington, born a Vir-
ginia gentleman by ancestry and by
heritage, became a rugged youth in
those rough pioneer days and he was
prepared to endure great hardships.
This he did as a surveyor in the
wilderness, and in the process he ac-
cumulated early in life more than
5,000 acres of land.

Later when he turned from the
life of a country gentleman, he had
managed to educate himself much
in the same manner as Lincoln did
in later years. He was thus prepared
for the career of public service to
which he was called.

First he served in the Virginia
legislature, and then as the com-
mand general of the Continental
Army. The Continental Congress
followed, then the White House.
Those were crucial years. It was said
that he found the union a theory
and welded it into a reality.

Washington's last years were spent
in retirement at Mount Vernon.
There he died at the age of 67, pri-
marily as the result of the strain
which he had borne in the service of
his country.

Three quarters of a century later,
this nation found itself in the
throes of the Civil War, with the
gaunt, somber Lincoln in the White
House, brooding over the agonizing
problems of preserving the Union
and freeing the slaves. (Washington,
who hated slavery, too, had freed his

The author of this column is Pres-
byterian elder Wilbert Edwards, Ty-
ler, Tex.

at his death.)

Abe Lincoln had come a long way,
this rugged young giant from Ken-
tucky, Indiana and Illinois. He said
once in retrospect that he could
think of no man who had fewer op
portunities for learning than he.
But with the encouragement of his
step-mother and the help of a tutor
friend, together with his passion for
learning and for a knowledge of life
beyond the wilderness, he developed
a way of thinking and a writing
style that gave us the Gettysburg
address.

In his wilderness life, Lincoln was
saddled with debts, but when he had
finally succeeded in paying them,
the hard way, he rode out of the
wilderness into law and politics —
and the White House, to which he
had been called in a stormy national
crisis.

The storm-tossed President came
out of the five-year ordeal of the
Civil War, having freed the slaves
and saved the union, "with malice
toward none." But there were those
who held malice for him and his
great heart was stilled by an assas-
sin's bullet, five days after General
Lee's surrender.

A century has passed and our na-
tion is again caught in stormy times,
involved in soul-trying decisions
forced by the carnage, confusion and
suffering of a long war which wrack
a trembling world and keep the
White House lights burning late at
night (not to mention hasty heli-
copter trips to Camp David) .

This is the day and the hour for
all Christians to brood over our be-
leaguered nation's plight, caught in
the backwash of a long war, and fear-
ful of the demons of anarchy knock-
ing at our domestic doors, then look
up and pray to Him who holds the
destiny of nations in His hands —
look up and pray for our President
and his counselors as they search for
a safe port in the storm.

Time is running out, but before
it runs out there will be a shout
from heaven. As we pray, let us not
forget to listen! El

PAGE 13 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 7, 1973

SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON

For February 18, 1973

Promise of a Better Day

Rev. Jack B. Scott

INTRODUCTION: This lesson,
last in our series on prophets of
judgment and hope, properly cen-
ters on the hope of God's people
through Jesus Christ, the King of
God's kingdom.

Judgment had come on the sins
of God's people as God had warned
through prophet after prophet.
The necessity for judgment was ex-
plained (Zech. 2:8) : The people
called God's people were exhorted
to live justly and show compassion
and kindness, but they refused to do
so. Then God revoked the prom-
ised blessings on the people in the
land of Canaan and took them off
that land.

But judgment such as this did not
mean that God had given up having
a people. As we have seen so often
before, God determined to have a
remnant to survive the judgment
and to be His people forever. The
promises of today's lesson were ad-
dressed to these people, the rem-
nant, after the purging of the Church
so that it would be rid of all un-
belief and unrighteousness.

I. THE PROMISE OF PEACE
AND PROSPERITY FOR THE
REMNANT (Zech. 8:1-13). Israel,
the people of God, had gone through
great agony in bondage and captiv-
ity in Babylon, but He had not for-
gotten them.

Although Jerusalem was left des-
olate and exposed to her enemies,
God was not willing to abandon her.
The Church of the living God ap-
peared to be a shambles. The hand-
ful of returning people, the rem-
nant out of the multitudes of her
former days of glory, seemed very
pitiful by comparison.

But God encouraged His people
to look to the future, to hope in
His promises. One of the ways in
which they were to show their hope
was in rebuilding the temple.

The meaning behind the com-
mand to rebuild was that the Lord
had returned to Zion to dwell in
Jerusalem (8:3) . God still intend-
ed that Jerusalem would be known
as the city of truth, that is, the place

Background Scripture: Zechariah

8, 13, 14:9
Key Verses: Zechariah 8:1-8, 11-

13

Devotional Reading: Micah 4:1-5
Memory Selection: Zechariah 13:9

where truth will prevail. Compare
verses 16 and 19 which speak of
truth in the people of God. Jeru-
salem was to be a city of hope, the
holy mountain (v. 3) .

The city was described in terms
of people: Old men and women were
to be at peace there (vv. 4-5) . The
scenes painted here of children play-
ing in the streets suggest a universal
concept of peace, the way all would
like to live in peace.

The reference to the holy moun-
tain in verse 3 reminds us of that
passage in Isaiah 2:1-4 which is
again found in Micah 4:1-3. The
true restoration of Jerusalem, the
city of peace as its name suggests, is
one of the great themes of the Bi-
ble.

Jerusalem first appeared as a spe-
cial city of hope in Genesis 14:18
where Melchizedek is described as
the king of Salem (Jerusalem) and
priest of God most high. Melchize-
dek was a type of Christ (Heb. 7:1)
and king of Salem (peace) as Christ
is the king (prince) of peace (Isa.
9:6).

Jerusalem appropriately fell into
the hands of God's people in the days
of David, the great Old Testament
king, and again the type of Christ
who rules God's people.

Jerusalem had a stormy career,
having within her walls both true
believers and false believers, both
true kings and false (evil) kings,
both true priests and false priests,
both true prophets and false proph-
ets. Her history was filled with tur-
moil until God finally allowed her
overthrow.

In Zechariah's day God willed her
restoration and God's people came
back, but she was far from perfect.

The International Sunday School Lesson Outlines
are copyrighted 1972 by the Committee on the
Uniform Series of the National Council of Churches
of Christ.

She still contained a mixed multi-
tude of true believers and false be-
lievers, but God would not let this
be so forever. God continued to
look to a day when Jerusalem (the
city) God's people would be all
God intended her to be.

In that day, God would bring
great prosperity to Jerusalem (vv.
9-13) . Again the sign of this sure
prosperity was in the rebuilding of
the temple (v. 9) .

God spoke in terms of the seed of
peace and of vines that will bear
fruit (v. 12) . We recall Isaiah 5
where God described Israel as a vine
that bore no good fruit. All of that
would change, for God assured that
fruit would come, the land would
prosper, and the remnant of God's
people would enjoy her prosperity
(vv. 12).

In the history of Jerusalem from
Zechariah's time on, the city con-
tinued to be full of strife. Nations
swept back and forth, capturing and
recapturing the city. By the time
of the Roman empire, the prince of
peace was born. He Himself, God
in the flesh, loved Jerusalem and
wept over her, having found her full
of sin and hate (Matt. 23:37-39) . Je-
sus predicted her final overthrow
(Matt. 24:1, 2) .

But that was not the end of Jeru-
salem, the Jerusalem God purposes
to have. The real Jerusalem is not
from the earth but from heaven. The
true Jerusalem is not built by hands
of men but by God, not on earth
but in heaven. It is the city of God
which shall be the dwelling place of
God's people forever.

In that city, the King truly dwells
with His people forever. This is the
closing message of God's revelation
to His Church (Rev. 21-22). The
earthly Jerusalem is but an imper-
fect type of the true heavenly Jeru-
salem. The true dwellingplace of
God's people is not made with hands
of men but by God. Abraham un-
derstood this and so must all of
God's people (Heb. 11:10, 13-16).

The promises of peace and pros-
perity described here have their ulti

.4

PAGE 14 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 7, 1973

01

mate fulfillment in the heavenly
city of God, yet to be seen by be-
lievers on earth, but one day to
be the heritage of all of God's chil-
dren.

II. THE PROMISE OF JUS-
TICE AND JOY FOR THE REM-
NANT (Zech. 8:14-23). From the
beginning our Lord described His
desire for the character of His peo-
ple in terms of their doing justice
and righteousness (Gen. 18:19, etc.) .
All through the history of Israel
from the call of Abraham to the
time of Zechariah, this call to jus-
tice and righteousness has not been
altered. (See again Zech. 7:9-10, a
summary of God's demands on His
people in every generation.)

In the context of the promised
peace and prosperity God said
through Zechariah that He contin-
ued to expect of His people the
same justice and righteousness (vv.
16-17) . Without these the Lord
would not bring joy to the hearts of
His people. Without obedience
that comes from loving hearts, there
can be no joy.

You may recall that when Joel,
the first of the writing prophets,
began to prophesy, his great burden
was that the people had lost their
iormer joy of service in God's king-
dom (Joel 1:12, 16). The loss of
oy was indicative of a spiritual de-
cline in the life of Israel. It great-
ly concerned the prophet who point-
ed to a day of the restoration of that
joy (Joel 2:21-23) .

This joy was reflected in the en-
thusiasm by which the believers
eagerly sought after God (Zech. 8:
21-22) .

Just as are peace and prosperity,
this joy is related to Jesus Christ,
dn the Gospels our Lord said much
about the joy which He wished to
see in His believers (John 15:11).
It is a joy none can take from the
believer (John 16:22) . After the
promise, He prayed to the Father
that this joy might be in them (John
17:13).

The joy which Jesus spoke of,
like the peace He spoke of, is not
something that comes from this
world or this world's circumstances.
It is not something dependent on
the outward circumstances of this
world and this world cannot take it
from the true believer. Jesus Him-
self clearly demonstrated this in His
own life.

Jesus spoke of "my joy" at the
time when Judas was betraying Him

and when He was foretelling that
His disciples would flee from Him
and that He must suffer and die.
He spoke of His joy at the time
when He was having to endure the
most hurt and the greatest sense of
rejection by those He loved. Even
at this time, He could speak of His

joy-
Joy is one of the fruits of the

Spirit which all of God's children

shall evidence in their lives together

with love and peace (Gal. 5:22) .

Like peace and prosperity, this joy

comes from above and it endures

forever.

III. THE MEANS TO THESE
BLESSINGS (Zech. 13:1-9).

A. The opened fountain (w. 1-
6) . These verses, much like Isaiah
chapter 53, portray the suffering of
the Saviour to come. The fountain
referred to here is like that foun-
tain of Jeremiah 2:13, the fountain
of living waters. Jesus referred to
Himself in the same terms when
talking to the Samaritan woman
(John 4:10-14) .

Here in Zechariah we learn that
the fountain washes clean from all
sins (13:1). This reminds us of
Revelation 7:14 which tells of the
believers whose robes are washed in
the blood of the Lamb. Therefore,
it is proper to think of this foun-
tain as a fountain of blood, Jesus'
blood shed on the cross for our sins.

In the context before us, two ba-
sic results come from the cleansing:
all idolatry is cut off (v. 2) , and
all false prophets will be put away
(w. 2-3) . The results of the cleans-
ing of the Christ are here in terms
of a pure religion where all false-
hood and evil, false gods and false
prophets are done away. Then the
truth shall reign and prevail.

But the fountain of blood does
not come without suffering for the
one who is the source of the blood.
Verse 6 speaks of the wounds of the
Christ suffered at the hands of those
who pretended to be His friends.
This refers both to Judas and, to a
certain extent, to all of us. (See
Isaiah 53:2-3 where we are all im-
plicated in the rejection of Christ.)
For the fountain to be opened, there
had to be the suffering of Jesus for
our sins.

B. The smitten shepherd (v. 7) .
This verse continues the picture of
the suffering of the Saviour, this
time in terms of a smitten shepherd.
Jesus applied this verse to Himself
(Matt. 26:31) . This assures us that

the passage we are dealing with is a
Messianic passage.

We have seen earlier that the pic-
ture of God as the shepherd-Sav-
iour is frequent in both the Old
and New Testaments. In Isaiah 40:
10-11, Ezekiel 34:23-24, Ezekiel 37:
24, Micah 5:2, 4, the deliverer was
called the shepherd. In the New
Testament Jesus applied the term
shepherd to Himself (John 10, etc.) ,
and Isaiah told us that the smiting
is on our behalf (Isa. 53:4-6) .

C. The surviving remnant (vv.
8-9) . God spoke of His true chil-
dren as the remnant who survive af-
ter the purging of the Church.
Many are called but few are chosen.
The perseverance of the saints is a
vital doctrine which in essence stress-
es this truth of the remnant. Isaiah
had seen this truth of the survival
of the remnant at the time of his
call (Isa. 6:13). Amos was shown
this in the conclusion of his message
(Amos 9:9-10).

Here in Zechariah also is found
the remnant doctrine. After a large
portion of the people were cut off,
what remained was to be purged
and refined until only God's chil-
dren remained. These will know the
Lord and will be truly His people.
Peter taught us to rejoice in the
trial of our faith which purges and
cleanses us. This is necessarily for
showing who are God's true chil-
dren (I Pet. 1:6-9).

CONCLUSION: This lesson, one
of the last from the Old Testament
era, clearly points to the work of
Jesus Christ; it is a Messianic pas-
sage. All of the promises here were
fulfilled and made possible only in
the person and work of Jesus Christ.
The promise found in Zechariah 14:
9 was fulfilled in the person of
Christ whom Isaiah called the heir
to the throne of David (Isa. 9:7) ,
the ruler of the kings of the earth
(Rev. 1:5). The better day for all
believers is attained only by faith
in this Lord Jesus. IB

If you are moving to an area where
there is no congregation of the
Presbyterian Church in the U. S.
you may find an Orthodox Presby-
terian Church nearby. A Directory
of Churches and Chapels of the
Orthodox Presbyterian Church
will be sent upon request. Please
address: Orthodox Presbyterian
Church Directory, 7401 Old York
Road, Philadelphia, Pa. 19126.

PAGE 15 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 7, 1973

YOUTH PROGRAM

For February 25, 1973

How Far Will You Follow Me?

Scripture: Revelation 2:8-11
Suggested Hymns:

"O Jesus, I Have Promised"
"Am I a Soldier of the Cross"
"All the Way My Saviour
Leads Me"

INTRODUCTION BY PRO-
GRAM CHAIRMAN: Many of us
have sung the familiar hymn:

"I'll go where you want me
to go, dear Lord,
O'er mountain, or plain,
or sea;

I'll say what you want me

Rev. Henry J. Mueller

to say, dear Lord,
I'll be what you want me
to be."

But how many of us have sung
them with these words of Jesus in
mind? "The people of the world
will persecute you because you be-
long to me . . . Here on earth you
will have many trials and sorrows"
(John 15:21, 16:33, The Living Bi-
ble) . How many of us would sing
with as much enthusiasm if we tru-
ly counted the cost?

Yet, it is the nature of a true dis-
ciple of Jesus to sing in adversity.
Remember Paul and Silas in the

Thy Word Is Truth

John 17:17

Committed to: The Verbally Inspired,
Infallible Bible and the Westminster
Confession of Faith and Catechisms as
Originally Adopted by the
Presbyterian Church, U.S.

Reformed Theological Seminary

5422 Clinton Boulevard, Jackson, Mississippi 39209

Philippian jail (Acts 16:22-31), and
Peter and the other apostles after
they had been beaten by the Jewish
Council (Acts 5:41) ?

Jesus says that to be His follower
we must bear a cross and He adds
the promise that if we lose our life
for Him then we shall have real life
— that which has love, joy and
peace that last for eternity (Matt.
10:38-39) .

Last week we saw that to have ful-
fillment in our Christian living we
must love Jesus with all that is with-
in us. This week we will see that
suffering has a part in living for Je-
sus. Indeed, the nature of true lovel,
includes suffering. (Read Revelation
2:8-11 to the group.)

Of

FIRST SPEAKER: The city of
Smyrna was located about 35 miles, 1(j
north of Ephesus. It was a busy sea-
port and the terminus of a valley
through which a well-traveled road
led into the interior of Asia Minor.
Smyrna was known for its beauty as
a city and also its loyalty to the Ro-
man Empire. A large temple built
there in 25 A.D. served as a center
for worshiping Rome's Caesar.

In His message to the church at
Smyrna, Jesus said He is "the first
and the last." This tells the read
ers that Jesus is the eternal one. He
is God. He added that He was "dead
and then came back to life."

These words had special meaning
to the hearers, for they were under
going persecutions and some wen
going to be martyred for their faith
in Jesus. There is comfort in know
ing that the one you suffer for ha
also tasted sorrow and come through
it victorious.

SECOND SPEAKER: The Chris
tians in Smyrna suffered in main
ways. First, they were poor. Per;
haps these people came from th<
poorer sections of the community, o:
maybe they gave away so much t<
the less fortunate that they had lit
tie left for themselves.

(Continued on p. 19, col. 2)

PAGE 16 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 7, 1973

BOOKS

EVERY DAY BIBLE READING
FOR EACH DAY OF THE YEAR,
compiled by Scripture Union. A. J.
Holman Co., New York, N. Y. $3.95.
Reviewed by the Rev. Wayne H. Da-
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byterian Parish, Weaverville, N. C.

God is the Author! The daily Bi-
ble readings are just that — Scrip-
ture, with no commentary, no ex-
position. In the introduction, the
:ompilers state, "the first aim . . .
is that the words of Scripture, with-
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This reviewer affirms, "Mission
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md this offers an excellent oppor-
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The author uses the RSV. As one
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good enough for Peter and Paul, it's
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The reader of this devotional book
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PAGE 17 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 7, 1973

i

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The author has presented in a
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and in the establishment of group
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Belk-Simpson Co.
Hendersonville, N. C.
R. E. McCormack, Res. Mgr.
Belk's Department Store
Brevard, N. C.
J. M. Felty, Res. Mgr.

KENTUCKY

Belk-Simpson Co.
Harlan, Ky.
Delmar Tolliver, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Corbin, Ky.

W. C. Ashley, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Winchester, Ky.
T. L. Beckham, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Mt. Sterling, Ky.
Willoughby Smith, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Frankfort, Ky.

J. D. Prow, Res. Mgr.

GEORGIA

Belk-Simpson Co.

Bainbridge, Ga.

M. D. Ashley, Res. Mgr.

ARKANSAS

Belk-Simpson Co.

Paragould, Ark.

W. H. Wade, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Osceola, Ark.

K. R. Cline, Res. Mgr.

La

T.

k

i

These stores are a small part of the entire Belk or-
ganization and have been in existence approximately
50 years. The Belk stores were launched in 1886-88.

SEE THE MANAGER NEAREST YOU FOR CHURCH CARPET, ROBES, ETC.

PAGE 18 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 7, 1973

MOSES AND THE GODS OF
EGYPT: Studies in the Book of Ex-
odus, by John J. Davis. Baker Book
House, Grand Rapids, Mich. Paper, 331
pp. $3.50, cloth, $4.50. Reviewed
by the Rev. Charles W. McNutt, pas-
tor, Westminster Presbyterian Church,
Roanoke, Va.

This brief commentary on Exodus
written by the associate professor of
Did Testament and Hebrew at Grace
Theological Seminary, Winona
Lake, Indiana, is easily understood
by laymen and helpful to laymen
and ministers alike. The treatment
s clear and lucid, seeming difficul-
ties are explained, and basic doc-
rines affirmed.

As the title indicates, the author
jives special attention to the Egyp-
tian superstitions and beliefs con-
:erning their gods as these relate
o the book of Exodus. The au-
hor shows knowledge both of the
Hebrew language and of recent ar-
haeological discoveries.

The introduction discusses the
probable date of the Exodus and the
nsuing chapters form a commen-
ary on the text. The Mosaic au-

thorship is affirmed.

It should be pointed out that Dr.
Davis does not have exactly the same
interpretation of the law as that
found in Reformed theology. This
is especially true in his discussion
of the Sabbath.

Nevertheless, he affirms, "The
means of salvation for men in all
ages has been faith," and "For the
believer the law is instructive. It
gives insights into the mind of God
and helps one to determine what
standards of holiness He expects of
those who follow Him."

The book is easily read, is very in-
teresting, and with some few changes
it would make a good study book in
Exodus. SI

Youth— from p. 16

Probably their poverty came be-
cause they were faithful followers of
Jesus. They were honest and fair in
their business dealings. They re-
fused to worship with the emperor
cult.

Consequently they were looked on

with suspicion and distrust. Their
neighbors refused to patronize their
businesses. Jesus added that these
Christians have heavenly riches.
They had little then, but they were
laying up treasures in heaven.

Second, they suffered slander. Lies
were told about them. Their good
reputations were falsely destroyed.
Their reaction was not bitterness
but that which Jesus displayed — He
"never answered back when insult-
ed; when He suffered He did not
threaten to get even; He left His
case in the hands of God who al-
ways judges fairly" (I Pet. 2:23) .

Third, Jesus said they were going
to be put in prison. It was the lot
of many of the early Christians to be
jailed for no other reason than be-
lieving in Jesus Christ and living a
life obedient to Him. Jesus said
they did not need to be afraid. He
knew their plight and would con-
tinue to watch over them.

Lastly, He said some of them
would die for their faith. He prom-
ised them that if they remained

(Continued on next page)

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because God is a part of the whole community and the
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We invite you to be a part of our Vision for Action.

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Dear Sir:

Please send me information about Dordt College.
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PAGE 19 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 7, 1973

faithful even to death, He would
give them the crown of life.

In Matthew 5:10-12, Jesus pro-
claimed: "Happy are those who are
persecuted because they are good,
for the kingdom of heaven is theirs.
When you are reviled and persecuted
and lied about because you are my
followers — wonderful! Be happy
about it! Be very glad! for a tre-
mendous reward awaits you up in
heaven. And remember, the ancient
prophets were persecuted too" (The
Living Bible) .

PROGRAM CHAIRMAN: (At
this point you will want to share
the story of Polycarp, a native of
Smyrna, who was martyred in 155
A.D. You may want to do research
before the program using various
Bible histories, encyclopedias and
commentaries. Your advisor or min-
ister will probably be able to help
you find the information.)

Jesus promises that "he who is vic-
torious shall not be hurt by the sec-
ond death" (The Living Bible) .
The promise of eternal life is given
to each one who remains faithful
through persecution. There is noth-
ing like suffering as a test to see if
our faith is real or phony. Jesus
warns that many will call Him
"Lord" that are not really His peo-
ple. They are counterfeits. (Read
Matthew 7:21-23.)

Each of us should stop and ex-
amine his faith. Are we trusting in
Jesus and Him alone for everything?
Are we trusting in His death for for-
giveness of our sins? Are we trust-
ing in the living Christ for our life
here and in the future? Have we
yielded ourselves to Him in complete
obedience? How far will we follow
Him? To death? His promise is,
"I will give you the crown of life."

Closing Prayer.

m

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OUTSTANDING YEAR 'ROUND RETREATS

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ATTENTION! Pastors, Christian Education Directors, Sunday School
Superintendents, Department Leaders, Teachers.

INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR LEARNING (ICL) Seminar to be held
in Columbia, S. C, March 15-17, Carolina Inn.

An ICL Seminar brings qualified leaders with proven methods and
plans for every age level to help teachers and leaders improve their
organization, planning, preparation and teaching skills.

Workshops — all age groups, pastors and leaders. Thousands have
profited from these seminars in other areas. Regardless of what litera-
ture you use, these seminars are designed to help your Sunday School
be the best possible.

For full details and free brochure contact one of the following: Don
Highlander, 504 Fon Du Lac Dr., Stone Mountain, Ga. 30083, phone
469-6060. Teddy Lockwood, Thomasboro Presbyterian Church, 110
Bradford Dr., Charlotte, N. C. 28208, phone 399-3348.

Schockley Few, Columbia Church Supply, P. O. Box 1447, Columbia,
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Mrs. Sissy Smith, 3930 Webb Court, Columbia, S. C. 29204, phone 754-
0618 or 782-2442.

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evnentary and ^Zjecondary

TEACHERS

Do you love our Lord Jesus Christ?

Are you committed to the Reformed Faith?
Do you love teaching children?

Are you professionally competent?

If so

WESTMINSTER ACADEMY

is interested in YOU!

Write: Rev. Harry Miller, Headmaster
5620 N.E. 22nd Ave.
Fort Lauderdale, Fla. 33308

An agency of the Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church

PAGE 20 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 7, 1973

VOL. XXXI, NO. 42

FEBRUARY 14, 1973

$4.00 A YEAR

the

\Advocating continuation of a Presbyterian Church loyal

to Scripture and the Reformed faith

Abortion Was Murder

The early Christian Church was powerless and had no po-
litical base or position in the Roman government, but the Chris-
tians confronted their pagan neighbors by telling them abortion
was murder and a violation of God's law. The Church did
what it could do by pronouncing a life sentence upon anyone
who practiced abortion, a life sentence of penance. The death
sentence could not be carried out under Roman rule, since the
Roman empire did not regard abortion as a crime, but any Chris-
tian in the early Church who practiced abortion was given a life
sentence of penance.

■Jack E. Noble
(See p. 7)

S. S. LESSON AND YOUTH PROGRAM FOR MARCH 4

CIRCLE BIBLE STUDY FOR MARCH

moo

tZ9l>Z OK ITJH TodBLfo

m ok jo Afs.i9A-r.un

uof^oGixoo D N

MAI LB AG-

THEY'RE TWO FACED

Hanover presbytery has said
through the public press that if the
Tabb Street Church of Petersburg,
Va., which it now has taken to court
for separating from the denomina-
tion, had requested permission of
the presbytery in the proper way,
going through proper ecclesiastical
channels, the church would have

been released.

In late December I wrote to the
chairman of the Commission on the
Minister and his Work, asking him
to convey my request to the presby-
tery that I be given a letter of trans-
fer to Vanguard presbytery. Hear-
ing nothing for two weeks, I wrote
another letter and sent it registered
mail.

the

PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL

Rev. G. Aiken Taylor, Ph.D., Editor
Rev. Henry B. Dendy, D.D., Managing Editor
Timothy Belz, Assistant Editor

Circulation leader among independent publications in the Presbyterian-Reformed world

THIS WEEK —

Vol. XXXI, No. 42, February 14, 1973

Life or Death 7

Man is forbidden to take the life of another man because man
is God's creation By Jack E. Noble

Another Look 9

Various conspicuous omissions and surprising inclusions in the
proposed confession of faith By Robert F. Boyd

The Churches are Booming 11

Protestant churches abroad are enjoying great growth in
vitality and numbers By Ralph Toliver

De partments —

Editorials 1 2

The Layman and his Church 13

Sunday School Lesson, March 4 14

Youth Program, March 4 16

Circle Bible Study, March 17

Book Reviews 21

THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL, a

Presbyterian weekly magazine, devoted
to the statement, defense, and propa-
gation of the Gospel, the faith which
was once for all delivered to the saints,

is published every Wednesday by the
Southern Presbyterian Journal Co.,
Inc., in Weaverville, N. C.

SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: $4 a year
for individuals, $3 for members of
Every Family Plan churches. All cor-
respondence regarding subscriptions,
advertising or other business matters
should be addressed to the business
office in Weaverville, N. C. 28787.
Second class postage paid at Weaver-
ville, N. C. 28787.

POSTMASTER: Send Form 3579 to
Presbyterian Journal, Box 635, Weav-
erville, N. C. 28787. Subscribers
should allow three weeks for change
of address in continental U. S. Change
of address notices should include both
old and new addresses (with zip
codes).

NEWS AND EDITORIAL correspond-
ence should be addressed to P. 0. Box
3108, Asheville, N. C. 28802. Editorial
offices located at 247 Charlotte St. in
Asheville.

TELEPHONES: (All area 704) edi-
torial office, 254-4015, 254-4016;
business office, 645-3310, 645-3962.

The second letter brought a tele-
phone call from the chairman of
the commission. I was informed that
my request had been received. Later,
a letter from the secretary of the
commission said it had been turned
over to the administrative commis-
sion of the presbytery (which has
jurisdiction over the Tabb Street
case) . I have had no word from
this commission.

Presbytery has just met. My re
quest was turned down, though it
went through proper channels

Hanover presbytery has made it
crystal clear to me that the boast
made through its officials to the pub-
lic press that if Tabb Street did it
"the right way," the request would
have been granted. I did it the
right way. My request was turned
down. This proves the hypocrisy of
the leaders of Hanover presbytery.

The Tabb Street Church knew
this from the beginning, so did not
bother to ask permission of the pres-
bytery before withdrawing. Can any-
one blame them? I certainly cannot.
— (Rev.) William E. Hill Jr.
Hopewell, Va.

In the same presbytery meeting, the
Rev. Linwood Wilkes of the Tabb
Street church was defrocked and the
request of the West Hopewell church
to be dismissed was deferred and the
matter paced in the hands of the ad
ministrative commission. — Ed.

OF LOVE AND PUNISHMENT

In your January 31 editorial, "Oi
Crime and Punishment VIII," you
state that ". . . it is good will that
is contributing to our doom — good
will as expressed by the policies anc
practices of men who believe tha;
'love thy neighbor' is the key to or
der and stability in society."

That statement needs to be clari
fied, I think. True good will or trvu
love can never be responsible in a^
way for the disorder in our society
True love militates against unjus
punishment, whether it is too shor
or too long, too severe or too leni
ent. True love, for the potentia
victims of crime and even for th
criminal himself, requires that "th
punishment fit the crime." The lib
erals you mentioned fail in that the
do not display true love or goo<
will.

I am also disturbed by what seem
to be a distorted view of "law ant
order" by many of its proponent!
and here I do not refer to your ai
ticle. It seems to me that ther

Ml

Inn

H

Hit i

»lu

Hlt(

ought to be law and order for every-
one. That means order for the un-
derprivileged, as well as law for the
privileged.

It is distressing to see in the news-
papers that a first-time burglar who
steals $20 from a local service sta-
tion can receive as stiff a punish-
ment as does a bank president in
Georgia who embezzles $4.7 million
in bank funds over a period of three
years.

— Edward R. Gillespie
New Orleans, La.

A HELPFUL THOUGHT

I congratulate you on your edi-
torial, "Both Sin Against the Spirit,"
in the Jan. 17 issue. As a conserva-
tive, I have said some of the same
things you have heard from others
you mention.

I have looked askance at the Jesus
Movement and been less than satis-
fied with the better known evan-
gelists. But I believe that the an-
swer for me is best revealed in Paul's

• A new name appears on the mast-
head this week. Timothy Belz brings
a Reformed Presbyterian Church
Evangelical Synod background to his
office, as well as a degree from Cove-
nant College in Chattanooga where,
as editor of the school paper, he won
prizes for excellence in journalism.
Having cut his eyeteeth in a print
shop he also upon occasion helped
his brother Joel edit a notable lit-
tle paper, Mandate, the official pub-
lication of RPES. Married to a
Georgia peach (Sharon) who re-
joices at the idea of winters in the
south instead of Iowa (where they've
aeen) , we anticipate some improve-
ments here when Mr. Belz applies
lis sense of humor as well as his
not inconsiderable talents to his

ob.

• One of the letters in the Mail-
jag last week (Feb. 7 Journal) took
lote of the news that Northwest Mis-
-ouri presbytery has "spread out" in-
:o Kansas by uniting with a UPUSA
anit in that state. The letter com-
mented that this could add com-
nissioners to the Southern General
\ssembly from yet another state out-
ride the South, not by way of join-

epistle to the Philippians wherein
he states that some preach Christ of
envy, contention and not sincerely.
And yet, Paul says, "Whether in
pretense, or in truth, Christ is
preached; and I therein do rejoice,
yea, and will rejoice."

I believe he surely and clearly
echoes the message from Isaiah 55:
1 1 concerning the power of God's
Word. It seems incredible to me
that so few confessing Christians ac-
cept this basic principle of faith. It
is not for us to judge the motiva-
tion but to proclaim Christ cruci-
fied and to rejoice whenever and
wherever His Gospel is preached.
— Gene O'Brien
Wilmington, N. C.

MINISTERS

James T. Anderton from Jackson-
ville, Fla., to First Church, Bossier
City, La.

Robert H. Fernandez from Or-
lando, Fla., to First Church, Pen-
sacola, Fla., as associate pastor.

ing the Presbyterian Church US but
simply by virtue of being in a pres-
bytery that has become a union pres-
bytery. Sure enough: In the list of
1973 Assembly commissioners across
the desk there are the names of a
minister and an elder from Kansas
who this time last year bore no re-
lationship to the PCUS at all. To-
day, strictly speaking, they still bear
no legal relationship to the PCUS.
(We believe this kind of union-by-
osmosis is unconstitutional.) But
they will be casting their votes in
Fort Worth same as legitimate mem-
bers of the family I

• According to the Louisville
Courier- Journal, the Kentucky col-
lege with the most permissive rules
is not one of the state universities
but a Presbyterian college, namely
Centre, in Danville, Ky. At Centre
there are now two coeducational
dormitories. That mixing of the
sexes, however, is not what makes
Centre the most permissive, in the

Richard P. Keeton, former pastor
of Valley Pike and Beidlemann
churches, Bristol, Tenn., is now
pastor of Meadowview church,
Bristol.

William H. McLean from Rich-
mond, Va., to First Church, Cov-
ington, Tenn.

Jay K. Rabuck, New Orleans, La.,
has become assistant pastor of the
Woodland church, New Orleans.
George H. Ricks from Baton
Rouge, La., to the West Baton
Rouge church, Port Allen, La.
Leroy V. Secrest from Asheville,
N. C, to the Long Beach, Miss.,
church.

Ernest T. Thompson Jr., from
Charlotte, N. C, to the Broad-
moor church, Baton Rouge, La.

DEATH

Walter King Keys, 79, died Jan.
23 at Sarasota, Fla. He held pas-
torates in Virginia, Tennessee,
North Carolina and Florida dur-
ing his ministry.

opinion of the Courier- Journal, for
other Kentucky institutions have fol-
lowed the national trend and elimi-
nated segregation by sex. It is
rather that the school rules permit
visitation in each other's rooms un-
til 11:30 p.m. on week nights and
until 2:30 a.m. on Fridays and Sat-
urdays. There was nothing in the
story mentioning Sunday nights, so
we assume the rules read "all night"
on the Lord's day.

• Another item in the Courier-
Journal captured our imagination.
A new beer has been launched in
Louisville, aimed especially at the
youth market, according to the new
company's vice-president, Jerome
Wahl. The beer, which one ad
called part of "the beat of a new
life-style where love and life and the
good earth come first," is made by
the Falls City Brewing Co. It will be
tested in cities that are particularly
good "college markets," according
to a company spokesman. IS

ACROSS THE EDITOR'S DESK

PAGE 3 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 14, 1973

NEWS OF RELIOION

Renewal Possible, Says Key '73 Leader

WACO, Tex. (RNS) — Key 73 of-
fers evangelical Christians an oppor-
tunity to lead in bringing renewal
to the nation, one of its originators
has suggested.

Dr. Carl F. H. Henry, who wrote
the 1967 Christianity Today edi-
torial that led to the continent-wide
cooperative evangelistic effort, gave
his thoughts on its potential in an
article prepared for the January
"Catalyst," a prerecorded cassette
tape produced by Word, Inc., as a
monthly resource for Christian lead-
ers.

"Without fresh awareness of the
revelation of God, and the vitalities
of spiritual regeneration," he assert-
ed, "the nation can only sink deeper
into the pursuit of affluence as the
main goal of life; into the relativi-
ties of social experimentation and
into disenchantment over political
solutions."

Evangelical Christians are in a po-
sition to lead this renewal because
they have been growing and prosper-
ing in recent years, Dr. Henry sug-
gested. They are numerically the
largest religious segment in Amer-
ican life, he said, adding, "While
Roman Catholicism is experiencing
a time of ecclesiastical turmoil

and neo-Protestant ecumenism has
churned to a standstill, the evangeli-
cal movement has been witnessing
noteworthy gains."

As evidence, Dr. Henry cited "the
widespread Jesus Movement among
many teenagers who were considered
lost to Christianity; interest in evan-
gelical books and literature at a
time when the religious book market
has a generally poor showing; the
ongoing commitment to evangelical
engagement and foreign missions;
the growth in evangelical churches
while most liberal congregations are
grateful if they can avoid serious
losses; and the expansion of conser-
vative seminaries while ecumenical
campuses are hard pressed."

This change in the fortunes of
evangelicals and liberals gives evan-
gelicals an opportunity to assume a
position of leadership, the journal-
ist-theologian commented.

"Neo-Protestant theology and so-
cial demonstration have run out of
fads," Dr. Henry said. "Were evan-
gelicals to rise out of their isolation
and competitiveness into a coopera-
tive witness, the blessings of a per-
sonal relationship to God and the
rewards of a life committed to Christ
could now be shared nationwide in

THE CHURCH OVERSEAS

VIETNAM — Lists furnished to the
U. S. State Department by Hanoi
following the Vietnam cease-fire con-
firm that two American missionaries
captured by the Viet Cong in 1968
died in captivity.

However, as of Jan. 30, no list of
captured civilians disclosed the fate
of three Christian and Missionary
Alliance workers taken prisoner in
1962, nor the whereabouts of two
Plymouth Brethren missionaries be-
lieved seized in Laos in late October
1972.

One of the first lists furnished by
Hanoi included the names of Betty
Olsen and Henry Blood as among
those who died in captivity.

Miss Olsen's death had been re-
ported to the Christian and Mission-
ary Alliance in mid- 1971. A nurse,

she had worked at a leprosarium at
Ban Me Thout in South Vietnam.

Mr. Blood, an employee of the
Wycliffe Bible Translators, was tak-
en at Ban Me Thout along with
Miss Olsen.

In 1962, also at Ban Me Thout,
three Alliance missionaries were cap
tured. They were Dr. Ardel Vietti
of Houston, the Rev. Archie Mitch-
ell of Ellensburg, Wash., and Dan-
iel Gerbert of Dalton, Ohio, a Men-
nonite assigned to the leprosarium.

An Alliance spokesman told Reli-
gious News Service that while no
list received by the State Depart-
ment contained names of persons
captured before 1964, hope for in-
formation on the three was not
abandoned. 11

a compelling way."

Relating social action to Key '73
he said, "Today, a number of de-
nominational activists commend Key
'73 because it does not restrict evan-
gelism to personal conversion, but
assertedly accommodates the chang-
ing of social structures as legitimate
evangelism. Somebody seems to be
woefully confused."

In conclusion, Dr. Henry declared:
"Evangelism is not self-propagating,
nor is social justice, and the Chris-
tian needs to count both in the
realm of grace and in the world of
woe." 51

Churchmen Differ As To
Punishment for Pushers

NEW YORK — A group of black
religious leaders and the New York
State Council of Churches have dif-
fered sharply in reaction to Gov.
Nelson Rockefeller's plan to ask for
compulsory life sentences for hard
drug pushers.

While the governor's desire to deal
severely with pushers and addicts
who commit violent crimes while un-
der the influence was condemned by
the council of churches, it was warm-
ly supported by prominent Harlem
clergymen.

"The black community is being
destroyed by drugs," the Rev. Dr.
George W. McMurray of the Mother
African Methodist Episcopal Zion
Church said as spokesman for the
Harlem group.

"It's time to stop being sentimen-
tal about the drug problem," Dr.
McMurray continued. "I would have
to sacrifice my own son to save oth-
ers," he said. "If my son is a push-
er, he'll have to go, too."

The group praised the governor's
proposal as a necessary means of
protecting their community from
"blood-thirsty, money-hungry, death-
dealing criminals."

In its biennial statement on legis-
lative principles, the church coun-
cil took a more permissive attitude.
"The continuing spread of narcotics
addiction exposes the futility of a
merely punitive program of control,"
the council said. It supported in-
stead, a program based on detoxifi-
cation, hospitalization and rehabil-
itation.

PAGE 4 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 14, 1973

The statement, which was drafted
by the Rev. Leon Adkins Jr., of
Scotia, N. Y., chairman of the coun-
cil's Committee on Legislative Con-
cerns, said, "We favor legislation
that differentiates between the ad-
dict who sells to support his own
habit and the non-addict who prof-
its from sales."

Across the country, courts contin-
ued to show restraint in sentences
imposed for both addiction and for
pushing.

In Asheville, N. C, a 3 to 5 year
sentence was handed a seller of her-
oin, caught in the act of selling to
a police officer disguised as a user.
The court further provided for early
work release for the convicted
pusher. SI

Campus Crusade Starts
New Weekly TV Series

ARROWHEAD SPRINGS, Cal. —
"Explo 73," a new weekly television
series produced by Campus Cru-
sade for Christ International, was
launched in nine major cities
throughout the United States on
Sunday, February 4.

The 30-minute program includes
music, interviews, testimonies and a
special feature each week highlight-
ing news events taking place in the
Christian community throughout the
world.

Dr. Bill Bright, host of the series
and founder and president of Cam-
pus Crusade, says he expects that in
the future the program will be car-
ried by "dozens" of stations from
coast to coast. SI

Revolt Is In God's Will
Declares NCC President

NEW YORK — The president of
the National Council of Churches
declared here that in some cases rev-
olution "is the will of God."

The Rev. W. Sterling Cary made
his comments on a local interview
program telecast over WOR-TV, in
response to a question concerning
his views on revolution.
\ "I hope the United States is not
ibeyond reformation," Dr. Cary
said, "but those who resist address-
ing themselves to meeting the needs
of the victims of society" are telling
I them there is no hope apart from

revolution.

"In South Africa I'm convinced
revolution is the will of God," he
said.

And, "If there is no reformation
(in America) there will be revolu-
tion," he added.

Dr. Cary also took issue with
President Nixon's views on "permis-
siveness."

"I agree that America is in deep
moral crisis," he said. But he saw
this in such things as the bombing
in Vietnam and a national budget
that shows "insensitivity to human
need."

He charged that the President's
conception of morality appeared to
be "little more than patriotism,"
which he defined as "loyalty to the
politicians who happen to be in of-
fice." SI

PCUS Committee Finds
No Place for 'Delegates'

ATLANTA — A special committee
studying the matter of delegates as
differentiated from commissioners to
the General Assembly and other
Church courts has unanimously de-
cided "that there is no place for
'delegates' in the Presbyterian (US)
system of Church government if
they are given the privilege of de-
termining by voting the policies of
the court."

As a result of the study, the PCUS
Committee on Assembly Operation,
to which the study committee report-
ed, will recommend through the de-
nomination's Permanent Judicial
Commission that formal action be
taken to amend the Book of Church
Order to legalize youth delegates to
the General Assembly.

The study committee called at-
tention to the fact that women and
youth delegates presently are a part
of the denomination's highest court
and participate in its decisions not
because of the "historical constitu-
tion" but because of the standing
rules by which the court governs
itself.

Wilmer Brown Chosen
For New WRC Position

VALLEY FORGE, Pa. — Dr. Wil-
mer N. Brown has been appointed
full-time Western Executive Assis-
tant for the World Relief Commis-
sion, the overseas relief arm of the
National Association of Evangeli-
cals.

Until May 3, when Brown will as-
sume his duties full-time, he will be
on loan from the NAE, where he
has served as Pacific Regional Field
Director for almost 19 years.

The WRC, which channels help
and hope to thousands of people
in lands touched by war or natural
disaster, last year assisted 5,000,000
people with goods and services val-
ued at more than $2,500,000. SI

The study was made at the re-
quest of the 1972 Assembly, which
asked for an examination of "the
entire delegate matter, seeking to
establish a sensible policy" of rep-
resentation in church courts.

Women delegates will attend the
1973 Assembly by virtue of an ac-
tion taken last year making it pos-
sible for each presbytery which does
not send a woman ruling elder as a
commissioner to elect a woman del-
egate with the same privileges as the
youth.

In other action, the Committee
on Assembly Operation voted to ask
the 1973 Assembly, as soon as it con-
venes, to suspend its rules in order
to erect a new list of standing com-
mittees to take care of business com-
ing from the new General Executive
Board and other agencies operating
under the restructuring adopted in
1972.

The committee also approved
Charlotte as the site of the 1975 As-
sembly, to be hosted jointly by the
Myers Park church and Queens Col-
lege. The 1974 Assembly is sched-
uled to meet at the same time as the
corresponding UPUSA Assembly, in
Louisville, Ky. SI

THE CHURCH AT HOME

PAGE 5 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 14, 1973

General Assembly to
Open One Day Early

MONTREAT, N. C. (PN) — An
expected crunch of business coming
before the 113th General Assembly
of the Presbyterian Church US has
caused its moderator to use emer-
gency powers to change the opening
date from June 10 to June 9.

The annual meeting of the 950,-
000-member denomination's highest
governing body will be held in Fort
Worth.

Dr. L. Nelson Bell, acting on a
recommendation from the Commit-
tee on Assembly Operation, said the
reason for this is the "transitional
nature of this particular Assembly."

The 1972 restructuring of the
PCUS boards and agencies, with the
establishment of a General Execu-
tive Board, will cause a change in
the functioning of standing commit-
tees, he said.

The five divisions of the GEB
will have to report through stand-
ing committees, along with the lame-
duck boards and agencies.

The moderator's gavel is now due
to signal the opening of business at
8:30 a.m. Saturday, June 9, with ad-
journment scheduled June 15. IB

New Christian Center
Announces Institute

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — The first sum-
mer institute of a new Christian
Studies Center will feature four sep-
arate weeks of basic Reformed study
in the heart of the Blue Ridge
Mountains of North Carolina, it was
announced here.

Sponsored by the Reformed Theo-
logical Seminary, Jackson, Miss., but
with home offices here, the Chris-
tian Studies Center will use the fa-
cilities of Warren Wilson College,
Swannanoa, N. C, for sessions of
the summer institute, scheduled for
June 11-16, June 17-23, June 24-30
and July 1-7.

Classes during the day will be on
such subjects as authority, philos-
ophy, science, God, man, salvation,
history, government and economics
— all from the Reformed point of
view.

Evening programs will feature
noted outside speakers.

Teaching courses will be Dr. Fred
Kingsley Elder of the physics de-
partment, Rochester Institute of
Technology; the Rev. Norman E.

Harper, minister, First Presbyteri-
an Church, Clarksdale, Miss.; the
Rev. Paul G. Schrotenboer, general
secretary, Reformed Ecumenical Syn-
od.

Also, Dr. C. Gregg Singer of the
history department, Catawba Col-
lege, Salisbury, N. C; the Rev. Mor-
ton H. Smith, professor of theology,
Reformed Seminary; Prof. Stacey H.
Taylor of the department of sociol-
ogy and economics, Dordt College.

Evening speakers will include Dr.
Howard E. Kerschner, Dr. Francis
Nigel Lee, Dr. Joel Nederhood, Dr.
Marion Barnes, the Rev. T. Edward
Rowe, the Rev. G. Aiken Taylor, the
Rev. John Van Dyk, and W. Jack
Williamson, and other prominent
PCUS and UPUSA ministers.

Registration may be entered for
any or all weeks of the institute. Per-
sons interested should write the
Christian Studies Center, P. O. Box
17122, Memphis, Tenn. 38117. BB

Gatlinburg Conference
Draws More Than 1,450

GATLINBURG, Tenn. — Even
though the Presbyterian US Synod
of Appalachia is slated to be dis-
solved this year, the World Missions
Conference which the synod has
sponsored will continue.

That announcement was made
here at the completion of the ninth
meeting of the conference, which
filled the Gatlinburg auditorium to
its capacity. More than 1,450 were
registered for the weekend, and
many others drove in for parts of
the program.

Organizers of the meeting dis-
closed that the facilities had been
reserved for February 1-3, 1974, and
that plans were being made to con-
tinue the annual event which at-
tracts youth from several states in
the Appalachian region.

Principal speakers this year were:
Robert P. Evans, Paris, founder and
European director of Greater Europe
Mission; Paul Long, Presbyterian
US missionary to Brazil; Paul Little,
Chicago, staff member of Inter-Var-
sity Christian Fellowship and pro-
gram director for the forthcoming
International Congress on World
Evangelization; and Matt Prince,
Knoxville, president of New Life.

A total of 36 decisions to go into
missionary service abroad were reg-
istered and there were a number of
rededications and professions of

faith.

Eleven active missionaries, as well
as a number of former missionaries,
assisted with the program. Director
of the conference was the Rev. F. C.
Fowler III of Knoxville. ffl

Daughdrill Elected As
Southwestern President

MEMPHIS — The Rev. James H.
Daughdrill Jr., of Atlanta, secretary
of stewardship for the Presbyterian
Church in the U.S., today was elect-
ed president of Southwestern At
Memphis.

The announcement was made to-
day by Robert C. McCallum, board
chairman of the college, at a special
called meeting of the board of trus-
tees.

Daughdrill will assume his duties
immediately. He becomes the 18th
president of Southwestern, succeed-
ing Dr. William L. Bowden, who re-
signed in August to become execu-
tive director of the Southern Growth
Policies Board.

Daughdrill, 38, is a native of La-
Grange, Ga. He attended Davidson
College and was graduated from Em-
ory University with a B.A. degree
in English.

From 1956 to 1964 he was presi-
dent of King-
s t o n Mills in
Cartersville, Ga.
In 1964, Daugh-
drill left h i s
business to enter
Columbia Theo-
logical Seminary
in Decatur, Ga.
He was graduated magna cum laude
in 1967 as an honor student in New
Testament studies, and winner of the
Bryan Fellowship. He served as pas-
tor of St. Andrews Presbyterian
Church, Little Rock, from 1967 to
1970 before becoming secretary of
stewardship for the PCUS General
Council. He is author of "Man
Talk," a collection of prayers for
businessmen published in 1972 by
Harper & Row.

Mrs. Daughdrill is the former
Elizabeth Anne Gay of Atlanta.
They have three children, Hal, 16,
Risha, 15, and Gay, 4. IB

Capital punishment is "cruel and
unusual." Of course it is cruel and
unusual. That's what makes it fit
and effective. — Editorial, The
Calmut Index.

PAGE 6 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 14, 1973

God's law is explicit; it is not man's choice to determine who shall live or die —

Of Life and Death

Two movements today are at-
tracting great attention: One
would abolish capital punishment,
the other would make abortion com-
pletely legal, free and easy. Both
have world-wide implications, both
have the support of the same peo-
ple — among them, church leaders;
great effort, much money and prop-
aganda have been poured into these
two causes.

Immediately we wonder, "How
can anyone in favor of abolishing
capital punishment be willing to put
to death an unborn infant? These
two movements are inconsistent."
On closer examination, however, we
see that they are consistent, inas-
much as both propose the violation
of God's law.

God's law is explicit, and that law
was fulfilled in Christ, not abol-
ished; God still has dominion over
man through His law. Today many
people, Christians included, have re-
fused to live under His law, sub-
stituting human reasoning, which is
often based on subjective opinions,
emotionally laden and sentimental.
These people view the Old Testa-
ment as fulfilled and therefore only
an appendage to which they occa-
sionally look as a reference book,
rather than as the revealed, proposi-
tional truth of God, which it is.

God created man in His own im-
age and man's life is sacred. Thus
God gave the sixth commandment,
"Thou shalt not kill." Man is not
to be killed by animal or by fellow-
man. Above all, man is to be pro-
tected because he is the highest cre-
ation, the object of God's law. There
is sanctity and sacredness in human
life.

God's law says to us that regard-
less of what we may think of an-

The author is pastor of the River-
side Independent Methodist Church,
Jackson, Miss.

other man, we are not to kill him
because this man is in the image of
God. Man is the object of redemp-
tion and his life is sacred. "Whoso
sheddeth man's blood, by man shall
his blood be shed: for in the image
of God made He man" (Gen. 9:6) .
This is the price God placed on
man and the life of man.

If a sheep were stolen, a sheep
could be repaid in kind. Other
broken laws could be paid with
service, but God did not put a price
on the life of a man. It is sacred
and its value transcends any ma-
terial possessions. A sack of dia-
monds or a bar of gold cannot make
things right if we shed the blood of
man. When we murder, the debt
can be paid only with the blood of
the murderer.

Capital punishment is a safeguard
for every man's life. No man in any
society can be safe without it. Re-
member, this is not paying a debt to
society. The State has no basis for
capital punishment. The basis for
capital punishment comes from
God's Word which is explicit: the
price that shall be paid for man's
blood shall be the blood of the man
who shed that blood. This is God's
law and this is the only basis for
death to be pronounced, morally.

Since it is written in God's Word,
there is no basis for its removal. The
executioner is not guilty of murder.
He is an instrument of God's law,
fulfilling that which God command-
ed. Those who say that capital pun-
ishment is archaic and rooted in
the past hold an evolutionary con-
cept. We do not evolve and we do
not move beyond the responsibility
of God's Word.

With all the crocodile tears that
are shed for a criminal, few if any
are shed for the man, woman, or
child who has been brutally mur-
dered. With the abolition of cap-
ital punishment life becomes cheap.
It can be paid for by a few years

JACK E. NOBLE

in the penitentiary, or if the crim-
inal is underprivileged he may not
even have to go to prison.

God has ordained that the price
of a life shall be the blood of the
man who shed it. Can we then vote
God's law out of existence? Can we
who follow God be swayed by the
opinion of a sociologist or psychi-
atrist or the opinion of the masses
rather than what God has explicitly
stated? God ordained capital pun-
ishment to preserve the sanctity and
sacredness of life. By doing this He
showed the value He placed upon it.

Legal Murder

Again the sanctity and sacredness
of life are apparent in the law's
view of abortion. Abortion is an
old enemy of the Church. From
the inception of the Christian
Church, Christians have been against
abortion.

In the Greek and Roman empires,
however, abortion was practiced at
the whim of the State. If the State
was overpopulated, abortion was
permitted, but if the State needed
births to replenish its rank of sol-
diers following a war, abortion was
a crime against the State. The State
made the decision; the State took
the place of God in deciding who
was to live and who was to die.

The early Church was powerless
and had no political base or posi-
tion in the Roman government, but
the Christians confronted their pa-
gan neighbors by telling them abor-
tion was murder, a violation of
God's law. The Church did what it
could do by pronouncing a life
sentence upon anyone who practiced
abortion, a life sentence of penance.

The Didache, an early Christian
document, called all abortion mur-
der. Christians are called to a love
of God and of life, and the Church
rightly held the view that abortion
was a violation of the sixth com-

PAGE 7 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 14, 1973

mandment. They realized, taught,
and believed that life is a gift from
God; that God in every instance is
the creator and the giver of life.

We are only human instruments
and at no time during life, whether
the first day or the ninetieth year,
is it permissible for man to kill. Life
is God's gift to man. "The Lord
giveth and the Lord taketh away."

A baby is an entity on its own, a
personality in itself, a living soul.
Modern scientists buttress this by
demonstrating the fact that the child
is always complete and separate in
its total being from that of the
mother. The mother has no right
to pronounce death on a child, re-
gardless of the stage of development.

An illustration of the high posi-
tion in which our Lord placed a
mother-to-be is found in God's law:
if two men are struggling, whether
they are fighting or wrestling, and
they accidentally cause a woman to
abort, if the mother is healthy and
the child is healthy, then there will
be a fine exacted, but if there is
loss of life to either the mother or
the unborn child, the sentence upon
the offenders is death (Exo. 21:22-
25).

No situation should ever cause a
Christian to change his mind about
the sacredness of life and the fact
that life is a gift of God. You and
I know many reasons being given in
favor of abortion, and some Chris-
tians accept these reasons.

We are told that abortion is neces-
sary because the babies are unwant-
ed, and the world is overpopulated,
anyway. A lurid picture is painted
about the unwanted child born to
improper parents, to the hippy or
poverty-stricken mother. We are
told in graphic detail what the
child's life will very likely be —
perhaps he will be predestined to a
life of dope addiction because both
his parents were addicts. Another
argument begins with the possibil-
ity of birth defects.

Some Christians are willing to
pronounce the death sentence upon
an unborn child because of this
kind of reasoning. I suppose, de-
pending upon how persuasive was
the person giving the reasons, that
any of these arguments could sound
plausible and acceptable if we ap-
proached them from our level of hu-
man reasoning.

Perhaps from our human reason-
ing we could say it would be better
for the child not to live. But this
is a privilege we do not have, the

privilege of deciding who shall live
and who shall die.

A Christian theologian who took
the position that abortion is against
the will of God in the Scripture was
asked if he could think of any ex-
tenuating circumstances under which
he believed abortion could be per-
missible.

He answered, "Yes, many. But it
makes little difference what my
opinions are or the collective opin-
ions of all of us. It is what God's
Word says. This is the standard by
which all must be measured, and
this is the standard by which we will
be judged."

What difference does it make
what you and I think? What does
God say about the matter? This is
the position in which we as Chris-
tians must always place ourselves on
any question — not social implica-
tions, not sentimentality, or the rea-
sonableness of an argument, but
what God's Word says on the matter.
Where does it place God?

If we were to accept this disre-
gard for the sacredness of life, we
can get a preview of where it will
eventually lead by looking at pre-
war Nazi Germany, where mercy
killing was instituted for the liqui-
dation of mental patients. Contrary
to the views held by most of us,
this began long before Hitler start-
ed exterminating the Jews.

Systematic Killing

Systematic killing came about
through the efforts of a group of
psychiatrists and university profes-
sors whose object was "the destruc-
tion of life devoid of value." In
1939, a group of doctors watched
four ordinary mental patients die in
a gas chamber. This was practiced
in Germany on Germans, not Jews,
until 275,000 patients were put to
death on the basis that they were
"devoid of value."

This "mercy killing" was enlarged
to include what they termed super-
fluous people, or useless eaters, peo-
ple useless to the system. Ignoring
what God says about the sacredness
of life, the State tried to fulfill the
role of God by saying, "These shall
die."

Those men began with patients
in mental institutions who they de-
cided were devoid of value, then
they moved to those in society who
were superfluous, next, to infants
who were retarded, handicapped or
deformed, then the age was increased

from infants to seventeen years.

Recently at a UNESCO meeting,
an American scientist read a paper.
He was quite excited because he
said it would now be possible in the
future to insure the world against
another Hitler. Through scientific
tests before birth, it can be deter-
mined whether a child is going to be
aggressive or nonaggressive. If a
child is going to be overaggressive,
he said abortion can be performed
and the world will be saved from
future Hitlers.

I imagine St. Paul would have
been classified as aggressive. I can-
not follow his footsteps around the
Mediterranean, his challenging the
Roman empire, challenging the
Greek philosophers, and all he did
without believing he was quite an
aggressive man. We are indebted in
many ways in every field to the ag-
gressiveness of many men, but if
this doctor has his way, the world
will be "saved" from this type of per-
sonality.

Modern Witch Doctors

We should also realize the posi-
tion in which abortion will eventual-
ly place doctors. We have known
them as the protectors of life, those
who do all that is possible to pro-
long life, to save and nurture life.
At the last account I read from New
York state, nearly 182,000 abortions
were performed during the first year
the law was in effect permitting
abortion at will.

These thousands of innocents had
no say as to whether they would
have a chance or opportunity in life.
We hear much about equal oppor-
tunity, but here is the case of the
most unequal opportunity in our
land — the murder of the helpless.

In a pagan society, the witch doc-
tor performs the abortion. He is
feared and despised, and eventually
in any society, even ours, the doc-
tor who performs an abortion will
become the object of disapproval
even from those who ask it.

With the removal of capital pun-
ishment and the promotion of abor-
tion comes the ultimate removal of
the sacredness and sanctity of life,
which is the gift of God. This will
leave decision-making to the State
to determine who shall live and who
shall die. Let us remember what is
morally wrong for one man is also
morally wrong for a State. God have
mercy on this country if we allow
man to usurp the place of God. ~"

PAGE 8 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 14, 1973

The proposed new confession is weighed and found wanting —

Take Another Look

The proposed new confession of
faith is unique in style and
content. Although it has excellent
statements here and there, in my
considered judgment there is more
on the debit side than on the credit
side. Because the draft is so brief
— and in a rather strange literary
style — it is rather difficult to give
a fair evaluation of it.

First of all, however, the draft is
far too brief for a satisfactory creedal
statement for the Church, mainly be-
cause a number of important Bibli-
cal words and doctrines are either
omitted altogether or only slightly
mentioned in passing without any
explanatory remarks.

For example, the word justifica-
tion is not found in the draft, al-
though I am sure that the commit-
tee is not allergic to this Biblical
word. The word is pregnant with
Gospel truth, and it deserves full
and specific treatment. Admitted-
ly, the committee does say, "In Christ
we are set right with God," but
much more should be said about the
essence and implications of justifi-
cation.

The Biblical doctrine of sin (its
basic thrust and its varied and pro-
found implications) deserves more
specific treatment. When one reads
the proposed confession one can
hardly escape the feeling that sin is
simply doing some wrong to one's
fellowman, but the Bible teaches
sin is first of all an offense against

The author is pastor of the Crest-
wood Presbyterian Church, Rich-
mond, Va., previously having taught
for years at Presbyterian School of
Christian Education. While the
deadline for comment on the pro-
posed new confession has passed,
this evaluation of the document now
under review is too good to pass up.

a just and holy God.

To be sure David sinned grievous-
ly against both Uriah and Bathshe-
ba, yet he recognized that his das-
tardly acts broke God's righteous
law. What a difference it would
make in the attitudes and acts of us
all if we could realize that the
wrongs we do to people are primar-
ily against a holy and loving God.

Chapter V of the proposed con-
fession, entitled, "The Spirit of
God," has some very fine statements,
but nowhere does it tell who the
Spirit is. A creedal statement about
the Holy Spirit ought to say more
about Him as a person in the Trin-
ity. If one reads the Westminster
Confession of Faith, Chapter IX, he
will readily see what I mean.

Essence of the Trinity

The basic essence of the doctrine
of the Trinity is the unity of God.
By "unity of God" I do not mean
that God is one. We should be very
careful about using the expression,
"God is one." God is not one: He
is three; but there is one God. (Cf.
John 8:16-19; 15:26; 16:5-15, 32.)

The Unitarian says, "God is one";
while the Trinitarian says, "There
is one God." (Yes, the Unitarian
can say with the Trinitarian "there
is one God," but he means it in a
pantheistic way.) To bypass Trin-
itarianism is to fall into Deism and
Pantheism. Our Church's creedal
statement about the Holy Spirit
should be clearly in keeping with
Biblical Trinitarianism.

In spite of its brevity, however,
the tentative draft includes (and ex-
patiates on at length in places) mat-
ters which have little if any rightful
place in a creedal statement.

For example: "God . . . has given
us new skills for relieving pain and

ROBERT F. BOYD

healing hurt . . . ." Or again, "God
is involved in the effort to end war.
He wills peace . . . God sends us to
end the Church's rhetoric that glori-
fies and blesses war . . . ."

I am not certain what document
the committee has in mind to sup-
port the words, "to end the Church's
rhetoric that glorifies and blesses
war . ..." I rather suspect that the
Committee refers to paragraph 2 of
Chapter XXV of the Confession of
Faith.

If this is the reference, then in my
judgment the committee has not
fairly interpreted it. After stating
that rulers (magistrates) ought "to
maintain piety, justice and peace,
according to the wholesome laws of
each commonwealth," the Confes-
sion goes on to say, "they may law-
fully, now under the New Testa-
ment, wage war upon just and neces-
sary occasions."

Facts of a Sinful World

Observation: Jesus described John
the Baptist as a very great prophet
(i.e., spokesman for God) . Yet when
the soldiers came to John to ask
what they should do, he did not say,
"Lay down your arms and quit en-
gaging in warfare," but he did say,
"Don't resort to violence or black-
mail, and be satisfied with what you
are paid" (Luke 3:14).

Indeed, some of Jesus' greatest
words of praise were addressed to
officers in the Roman army. Of
course, neither Jesus nor John tacit-
ly or otherwise "glorified" or
"blessed" war; they simply faced the
facts of life of a sinful world. And
in this sinful world often our choices
of action involve the necessity of
choosing the lesser of two evils.
Hence the truth of the matter is
that there may be occasions when it

PAGE 9 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 14, 1973

l

may be more hurtful to mankind
not to wage war than to wage war.

Certainly God is concerned about
the problems which distress and frus-
trate us, including the problem of
war. God is also most assuredly
concerned, by the way, about the
slaughter of people on the highways
of our land. Whether a person is
killed by a bullet or by someone's
careless or drunken driving, he is
just as dead.

Primary Mission

I believe that God is much more
concerned about the masses of man-
kind who do not know Jesus as Sav-
iour and Lord; and He is concerned,
I believe, that the Church get busy
about this particular matter, for this
is her primary mission. This last
is in full accord with the action of
the 1967 General Assembly:

"That, since the primary objective
of our Church is the salvation of lost
souls, the General Assembly chal-
lenge each officer of our Church ac-
tively to offer the message of salva-
tion to at least one of God's chil-
dren during the coming year" (Min-
utes of General Assembly, 1967, page
112).

The proposed confession's Chap-
ter VI, "The Word of God," is dis-
appointing and quite inadequate.

To blend statements concerning
Jesus, the living Word, and the Bi-
ble, the written Word, is not alto-
gether objectionable, and there are
a few excellent statements in this
paragraph.

To say that the Bible is a result
of the fact that "the people of Is-
rael and of the early Church set
down in writing their experiences
with God" is neither an adequate
nor a correct affirmation.

God's Word to Men

The prophets, for example, did
not suggest that they were recording
their experiences with God; over and
over again they claimed that the
"Word of the Lord came to me, say-
ing . . . ." What the prophets said
was not their word, but God's Word.

God revealed His will to these
men, and they wrote as they were
led by the Holy Spirit. Moreover it
it quite proper to say that often the
prophets wrote more than they
knew: their message was sometimes
beyond their ken.

Is the prologue of the fourth Gos-
pel a record of John's experiences

with God? He certainly did not
claim to be recording his understand-
ing of Jesus' eternityship or of His
creatorship, nor do I believe that
he got his information from an en-
cyclopedia or from the Timaeus of
Plato. Now this is not to say that
some of the Bible writers did not
draw on material known to them
when the Holy Spirit so led them.
(Paul, for example is apparently
quoting Plato almost verbatim in II
Corinthians 4:8-9) .

It is most unfortunate that the
committee wrote, "As they (i.e., the
records of their experiences with
God) were read and expounded . . .
they proved sufficient and reliable
as witnesses to Jesus Christ, the liv-
ing Word." Whatever these words
mean, they are a far cry from those
found in the Confession of Faith
(Chapter I) :

". . . therefore it pleased the Lord,
at sundry times, and in divers man-
ners, to reveal Himself, and to de-
clare that (i.e., this revelation of
Himself) His will unto His Church
. . . and afterwards for the better
preserving and propagating of the
truth ... to commit the same (i.e.,
this same revelation of His will)
wholly unto writing . . . ."

I must record my indignation over
the fact that a proposed creedal state-
ment of our Church says so little
about the Bible itself: its utter
uniqueness; its inspiration (this des-
perately needs to be spelled out
clearly) ; its authority and infallibil-
ity (wherein lies the authority of
the Bible, and in what respects is it
infallible?) , the rule of interpreta-
tion of the Scriptures, and so on.

Spread the Good News!

The burden of Chapter VIII,
"The Mission of God's Church," re-
fers to the struggle for justice; min-
istry to the poor; the problem of
war; ministry to wounded, bereaved
and homeless.

At the last of the chapter mention
is made of the good news: "He
(God) sends us to tell the good news
. . . to risk encounter with people
who are different, to seek new lan-
guage and thought forms for the
gospel, to point to Christ . . . ."

The terms "good news" and "gos-
pel" are not really defined, hence
some folk will be left with a vague
notion of what is involved in the
term, Gospel. A comparison of this
section of the draft with that excel-
lent treatment of the Gospel in the

Confession of Faith (Chapter X)
will clarify what I am trying to say.

The good news in this draft seems
to center more around improved so-
ciological, cultural, and economic
conditions than around the fact that
the good news is that God loved us
even to the uttermost while we were
yet sinners, and gave us at great
price to Himself the very best that
He had — even His only Son.

Further, the good news means that
in Jesus sinners have full forgiveness
of their sins when they put their
trust for redemption in Him; and
these forgiven sinners are free from
the bondage of sin, and are hence
properly and adequately motivated
to spend all of their God-given re-
sources (body, mind, spirit, talents,
possessions) for the redemptive
good of all men, and more especial-
ly for the glory of God.

Sketchy and Uncertain

Chapter IX, "God and the Fu-
ture" is very weak and vague. The
only actual mention of the resurrec-
tion of Jesus is the statement in para-
graph 3 — "The resurrection of
Jesus Christ was God's own victory
over death." Now it is true that the
committee alludes to Jesus' resurrec-
tion in Chapter IV, paragraph 5 in
which it expounds on the Lordship
of Christ after God raised Him from
the dead.

But the vagueness with which Je-
sus' resurrection is treated in Chap-
ter IX is hardly in keeping with a
creedal statement about the basic
doctrine of the Christian faith. Was
Jesus raised with a body? This is a
most important question; and it de-
serves some treatment in a confes-
sional statement.

The nebulosity with which the fu-
ture of the Christian is treated in
this draft is quite distressing. There
is no mention of the resurrection of
the body. Now the New Testament
places considerable emphasis on the
body. The Bible teaches that be-
fore death Christians have a psychi-
cal body (not physical — the Bible,
as far as I know, nowhere uses the
word physical with reference to the
body) .

Further, the Bible teaches that in
the resurrection Christians will have
a spiritual body — but a body. I
can find no reference in the tentative
draft to a real body. This is indeed
a shame. The Bible nowhere sug-
gests that Christians will in the res-

(Continued on p. 22, col. 1)

PAGE 10 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 14, 1973

There may be diminution of interest and numbers at home, but not on the mission fields —

The Churches Are Booming

If you want to open the eyes of
your pastor, send him for a visit
to the mission field," says Rev. Don
Patterson, pastor of the First Pres-
byterian Church, Jackson, Mississip-
pi. "God opened my eyes on the mis-
sion field — in Brazil and Korea,
in Taiwan and in the Philippines."

It is an anomaly of our day that
i while discouragement and dejection
have settled like a funeral dirge on
many churches of Europe and Amer-
ica, the music that is rolling up over
the horizon from Asia, Africa and
Latin America is of joyous beat and
1 martial measure — music of church-
les on the march. While many an
I American church is tightening its
I belt financially and counting few-
I er and fewer people in the pews, the
I churches are booming on the mis-
sion field.

Take for instance this word from
Ethiopia: "Something wonderful
and awesome is happening in this
part of Ethiopia. The walls of re-
sistance to the Good News that we
have felt over the years are crum-
Ibling before our eyes."

Phenomenal Growth

The Protestant churches of Bra-
zil have multiplied 129 times since
1900 and are currently increasing at
three times the growth rate of the
national population. In Korea one
person out of ten counts himself a
Christian; the largest Presbyterian
church in the world is in Seoul, the

The author is a former missionary
to China now connected with the
home office of the Overseas Mission-
lry Fellowship, Singapore. This ar-
ticle is reprinted from the Bryan
Blueprint, Bryan College, Dayton,
Tenn.

capital of Korea, with 10,000 mem-
bers. Christianity will be dominant
in Africa south of the Sahara by
the year 2,000 if present growth
rates continue.

In Muslim Indonesia a third of
a million people have been baptized
in the last five years. Overseas Mis-
s i o n a r y Fellowship missionaries
helped perform the baptism of 1,-
936 people on June 19, 1966, in
Tigalingga, North Sumatra. Great
blocks of aboriginal peoples, some-
times virtually whole tribes, have
turned to God in New Guinea, Min-
danao, Palawan, Burma, Southwest
China, Mexico, India.

In Chile the Protestant church
is growing at the rate of 6.5 per cent
per year, almost three times the gen-
eral population increase of 2.2 per
cent. A single year saw an average
12 per cent membership increase in
all Protestant churches in Sao Paulo,
Brazil.

Why This Great Growth?

In the U. S. A. we are in the midst
of tremendous sociological, techno-
logical and economic change. Many
of the changes are going on in the
mission lands. Take the field of
communication, for instance. Were
you amused this last summer to see
your next-door teen-ager mowing
the lawn, his portable radio slung
over the handlebars of the mower,
with the volume turned up to com-
pete with the roar?

Well, you could go to Taiwan
and see the same Sony transistor ra-
dio lashed to the horns of a water
buffalo plowing the rice fields.
Whether East or West, people in the
process of outward change are most
susceptible to inner change.

Few Brazilians have had their out-

RALPH TOLIVER

ward lives changed more than the
newly arrived frontiersmen in the
pioneer zones of the State of Mato
Grosso in the "wild west" of Brazil,
and in no part of Brazil is the Prot-
estant church growing faster than
right there in Mato Grosso.

The pioneer area of the Philip
pines is the great southern island of
Mindanao, only in this generation
opened to wholesale immigration
from overpopulated islands to the
north. Arrivals in the new lands
find their outward surroundings a
complete change. Is it any wonder
that Mindanao has perhaps the
highest conversion-per-capita rate of
any island of the Philippines?

Gifted Nationals

But no matter how good circum-
stances outside may be, no church
will grow without good leadership
within. When God has a work to
do, He calls a man. And some of
the men — and women — of the
developing churches are remarkable:

Like John Sung, the Ohio State
Ph.D. who became the apostle of
Southeast Asia. Like Evangelist
Honda of Japan (no relation to the
motorcycle!) . Like Watchman Nee
of mainland China who died June
1, 1972, after 20 years in Commu-
nist prisons. Like Ji Wang of Tai-
wan, a frail tribal woman who spear-
headed the founding of a church
which today numbers 80,000.

God is sovereign and He moves
mightily on men, even as in the days
of the Apostle Paul, John Wesley, or
Count von Zinzendorf. The church-
es would not be on the move today
if God had not first moved in the
hearts of men such as these.

It would be a mistake, however,

(Continued on p. 22, col. 2,)

PAGE 11 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 14, 1973

i

cm

EDITORIALS

There's More to Wisdom Than
Knowledge

The cover quotation on the bul-
letin of a prominent Texas church
set off another train of thought. The
quotation, taken from Margaret
Mead:

"Because of the rapidity of the so-
c i a 1 , technological, secularizing,
pluralistic world revolution, young
people know more than their elders.
They have always felt they did —
now they do."

The thrust of the quotation was
to say: "If theology can be illumi-
nated by a greater knowledge of the
world in which we live, theology
will be given a new life in our time."
Implied: Young people know more
about theology than their elders.

The friend who sent us the bul-
letin commented on it: "This re-
minds me of a discussion with a for-
mer assistant minister who was an
evolutionist — an ardent disciple of
Teilhard de Chardin. 'Jesus,' he said,
'was an uneducated man. All He
knew was what the natives told Him.
Do you think He could have built
an electric dynamo?' I replied as dis-
passionately as I could, 'His mother
might have told Him a few things.' "

What a sermon in all this! Because
young people deal with systems of
knowledge undreamed by their el-
ders, we are told they are in a po-
sition to "illuminate theology." For
a new lease on life, we are told that
theology should have "a greater
knowledge of the world in which
we live."

We readily acknowledge that there
is a wealth of knowledge held by the
younger generation which was un-
known to those who came along
thirty years ago. In chemistry they
are dealing with elements unknown
when some of us were young. In
physics the whole world of atomic
science is brand new.

But we stubbornly persevere in
believing that theology is gasping for
the breath of life, not for lack of
knowledge of the world, but for lack
of knowledge of God. The words of
the Lord Jesus who said, "What shall
it profit a man if he should gain the
whole world and lose his own soul,"
have an application here as well as

in the context in which they were
spoken.

If the quotation from Margaret
Mead was intended to suggest that
because young people know more
about the world and its ways they
therefore know more about the
things that ultimately matter, the
suggestion is all wrong.

The most ignorant savage who
never watched an Apollo launch on
television may know more about the
things that matter than the Presby-
terian cleric carrying a sign in a
street demonstration against the war
— yes, including things that matter
concerning war and peace — if the
savage knows his Saviour and the
teachings of the Word of God.

There's a difference between in-
formation and wisdom and it is the
latter that belongs in church. Back
to the Mead quotation: The young
person who knows more than his el-
ders still has no business on the ses-
sion of his church. There the cri-
teria for membership are years of
growth in the grace and knowledge
of the Lord Jesus Christ and of the
will of God which comes only from
long experience, and familiarity
with His Word. 51

Diligence in Service

"Whatsoever ye do, do it heart-
ily . . . ." Col. 3:23. ffl

Halfheartedness is un-Christian.
The Lord Jesus could say, "The
zeal of thine house hath eaten me
up"; and the same quality of whole-
hearted devotion to the Lord and
to His service is expected of all who
name His name.

There are many reasons why we
should live and serve the Lord with
zeal. The first has been given,
namely, because it was the way the
Master lived. Then upon us the last
times appear to have fallen; evil is
gaining strength and evil-doers stalk
unabashed. This means that what
may have been understandable, if
not permissible, in quieter, better
days is unthinkable now. We must
gird up our loins.

For our own sakes, we must not

look back or hesitate, but press on
with zeal; otherwise we may be over-
taken with the spirit of the age in
which we live and succumb to the
atmosphere of ungodliness. The en-
emy is subtle and may too easily
succeed in getting us into Bypath
Meadow or immobilized on the En-
chanted Ground.

This wholeheartedness is to char-
acterize us. If we cannot do a thing
well and with zeal, we should ques-
tion whether it should be done at
all. If we are employers, we should
be diligent in our attention to all
that which concerns the fair name
of the Master whom we serve and
the men and women who may, in
turn, serve us.

A Christian grocer should be the
best grocer, and a plumber who
names Christ's name must do good
plumbing. Whatever may be Our
vocation, if we are in the will of
God, good service is expected and
zeal in the appointed task is glori-
fying to God.

The Christian is in every form of
service a servant of the Lord Christ,
therefore good work, zealously and
cheerfully done, becomes a testi-
mony to men and a pleasure to God.
For such service God reserves His
own suitable reward. — Fred Mitch-
ell. II

Pro-Communism
In NGG Literature

The East Asia department of the
Division of Overseas Ministries of
the National Council of Churches
has just come out with one of the
most transparent apologies for Red
China that we have seen in print.
Anywhere.

In the Fall, 1972, issue of China
Notes, published by the department,
there is a report of the treatment of
mental disorders in Red China,
written by Leigh Kagan, the wife of
a professor of Far Eastern history
at Grinnell College in Iowa. Here
is an excerpt or two from Mrs. Ka-
gan's article in which the therapeu-
tic value of Chairman Mao's
thoughts are recommended:

"A male teacher became on good
terms with a female colleague in the
course of his work. But she was not
interested in him, for she acquired
another boyfriend. The first man
became ill over this. He thought
everyone had designs on him.

"For treatment, he was given acu-
puncture and Chinese traditional
herbal medicine. As a result of this,

PAGE 12 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 14, 1973

THE LAYMAN AND HIS CHURCH

Liberated From What?

he recovered somewhat, realizing at
times that his view of others' ac-
tions toward him was unbalanced.
But at other times not.

"He began to study Mao's essay,
'Where Do Correct Ideas Come
From?' Through repeated study
and discussion he was helped to re-
alize that his illness arose because
his ideas came not from reality but
from his own head.

"People from his school came to
participate in these discussions and
to tell him that they had no plots
against him. In these ways, he came
to realize that his ideas were meta-
physical and not materialistic, that
he had a mistaken world view. La-
ter he wrote down his own under-
standing ....

"Education thus rectifies the pa-
tient's incorrect view of reality by
confronting him/her with the results
of investigation ... by exposing the
bases of the misperceptions by study-
ing the works of Mao Tse-tung.
Cases cited were cured within two
to four months ....

"We may think of Mao as a po-
litical thinker, organizer, strategist,
dealing with questions of power on
a grand scale. But his philosophical
and epistemological writings are de-
signed to enable people to organize
their perceptions and formulate a
materialistic view of reality. Only if
we refuse to grant that Mao's writ-
ings are meant to construct an ap-
proach to reality can we dismiss their
use in the treatment of mental ill-
ness. And, after all, patients when
cured return to the society in which
they live and work."

The rest of the articles in China
Notes were written in a similar
vein.

Perhaps the most damnable aspect
of this apologetic for Communism
in the literature of the National
Council of Churches is the insinua-
tion of the author quoted above that
mental illness is derived from "ideas
that are metaphysical and not ma-
terialistic"; and that a proper ma-
terialistic view of things leads to
mental wholeness.

It is hard, when reporting on re-
ligious developments these days, to
maintain a moderately dispassionate
attitude. It would be somewhat
easier if there was evidence that in
the vast body of well intentioned
churchmen who continue thought-
lessly to support the subversion of
everything they themselves hold
precious, there was any considerable
number who cared. EE

Women's liberation? What's it all
about? What does she want to be
liberated from? Does she really
want liberation from the responsi-
bility of motherhood? Does she no
longer feel the need to be a help
meet to the one whom she has vowed
to love, honor and cherish until
death parts them? I think not!

One point which has not yet been
made in the women's liberation
movement concerns the role from
which some women wish to be lib-
erated. My comments are made
from the viewpoint of a married
woman; I understand, of course, that
some of the problems of single wom-
en are of another sort entirely.

When a woman marries, she puts
her life into that of another in a
lifetime commitment. In putting
her life into her husband's, in a
sense they become one, yet at the
same time they are two separate
personalities. Marriage is a big re-
sponsibility for a man because he is
responsible to his wife as well as to
himself.

What he becomes, she becomes.
His reputation is her reputation. If
he fails, she fails. If she is a faith-
ful wife, she is there to help him.
Instances of sickness, job or finan-
cial loss, cannot always be avoided,
but they can be remedied; two peo-
ple can face them together if they
are both mature. If the failure is
due to selfishness and an unwilling-
ness to mature, the burden becomes
intolerable for most women.

Men, how do you measure up? Do
you realize your responsibility to the
emotional as well as the material
needs of the woman to whom you
are married? Do you really under-
stand that she has committed her
life to whatever you have committed
your life? Is your attitude that
of a dogmatic authoritarian? Or
are you considerate and sensitive?

I believe the women's liberation
movement would never have begun

The author of this week's column
is Mrs. A. J. Balluff, an elect house-
wife of Delmar, N. Y.

if men would be men. Too many
of the responsibilities of child rear-
ing have been left to the mother,
while the father still plays games
with the boys — or even occasional-
ly with the girls.

I believe we need a back-to-God-
and-family movement in our nation,
otherwise we shall fall. We need
stouthearted men, men who are will-
ing to leave boyhood behind and be
done with childish things. It is not
too late to rebuild our nation if we
start in the home, man and wife
working together with God. Herein
lies the key to a perfect marriage:
the three in one which constitutes
a unity.

A woman does not need libera-
tion from the responsibilities of mar-
riage but rather liberation from self.
She, too, must realize her responsi-
bility to the children she has borne.
If the man to whom she has commit-
ted her life has let her down, she
needs to have forgiveness in her own
heart and pray he sees his need to
be a responsible male, in his own
home and in society.

Men need to be liberated from
irresponsibility; they need to see
themselves in the patriarchal role
with the Lord. In this role a man is
respected and revered and his wife is
secure, for in him she has found
fulfillment. 51

It Goes Beyond

The essential message of the Gos-
pel centers in what God, by grace,
has done for us who, despite our af-
fluence, are in hopeless poverty.
This is the heart of Christianity.
Civic clubs, political regimes and
human religious orders can supply
the temporal wants of man. There
is no distinctiveness to the Christian
Gospel if it simply adds another
avenue through which man can get
his wants supplied. Unless the Gos-
pel goes beyond what these can do
it is a failure. — Reuel Lemmons in
Firm Foundation.

PAGE 13 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 14, 1973

SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON

For March 4, 1973

INTRODUCTION: Today we
are beginning a new series of lessons
which will deal with basic affirma-
tions of our faith. The objective is
to achieve a better understanding
and experience of the Christian
faith.

The first unit of three lessons con-
cerns affirmations about the human
situation (creation and the fall) .
The next unit of lessons, which cli-
maxes at Easter time, presents Chris-
tian redemption. The final unit of
four lessons deals with affirmations
about the Christian life. This first
lesson focuses on the creation itself
and on our creator, God.

I. THE WORLD WAS CRE-
ATED BY THE WORD OF GOD
(Gen. 1) . Because this series of les-
sons deals with affirmations of our
faith, the basic outline of each les-
son will be in terms of affirmations
of faith.

Genesis 1 is primarily concerned
with the affirmation that God is the
sole creator of the world. As one
reads the series of statements about
the days of creation, he is impressed
with the great activity and interest
of God in creation. God's name ap-
pears in this brief section some 35
times. God is the only actor, the
only doer here.

From this chapter we see clearly
that God is a God of order. Each
thing created was in its order, each
preparing the way for the next.
First God made light, dispelling the
darkness, and then He brought or-
der, dispelling the chaos.

In the order, He made on the sec-
ond day a firmament or expanse
above the earth; then on the fourth
day, He made lights to appear in
the expanse. On the third day He
gathered the waters together and
the dry land which produces green
vegetation. Then on the fifth day
He made those waters to swarm with
fish, and birds to fly in the expanse.

Finally on the sixth day He made
animals to inhabit the dry land and
created man distinctly in His image
as the crown of His creation.

The best Biblical statement of this

This is God's World

Rev. Jack B. Scott

Background Scripture: Genesis 1:
1-26, 31; Psalm 24:1-2; 104:24-
30

Key Verses: Genesis 1:1, 26, 31;

Psalm 24:1-2; 104:24-30
Devotional Reading: Psalm 95:1-7
Memory Selection: Psalm 24:1

doctrine is to be found in Hebrews
11:3, "By faith we understand that
the worlds have been formed by the
Word of God, so that what is seen
hath not been made out of things
which appear."

Two basic arguments challenge
this doctrine as found in Genesis 1
and as stated in Hebrews 11:3. The
first comes from the higher critics,
who suggest that this is merely a re-
fined mythological account, similar
to so many other accounts of the
origin of the world in the Near East-
ern mythologies of that part of the
world.

This challenge seeks to show that
although the Hebrew version of the
origin of the world is more refined
and less mythological, it is built on
the well-known mythologies of such
ancient peoples as the Sumerians,
the Babylonians and the Assyrians,
who inhabited that part of the world
which is near the supposed site of
the Garden of Eden.

A comparison of these ancient
mythologies with their pictures of
gods in rivalry, cutting up one an-
other to form heaven and earth and
making men to be slaves of the gods,
will quickly reveal how very differ-
ent they are from the Biblical ac-
count.

A far better explanation of what-
ever similarities exist between the
Biblical account and those of the
ancient Mesopotamians is that in the
Bible we have God's revealed truth.
The mythologies are but the pervert-
ed thoughts of fallen men who only
dimly recall their origins as such ac-
counts were handed down from gen-
eration to generation. The mytholo-
gies actually say something about

The International Sunday School Lesson Outlines
are copyrighted 1972 by the Committee on the
Uniform Series of the National Council of Churches
of Christ.

I
1

illl

the reprobate minds of men with-
out God's revealed truth.

The second challenge has come
from the theory of evolution and
those who hold it. In this theory
there is no Creator-God but only a
world that gradually evolved over
millions upon millions of years. Evo-
lution has no place for the God of
Genesis 1. The so-called theistic
evolution has no real relationship
whatever to Biblical creation.

This theory, that the world as we
know it has gradually evolved by
what are called present-day observ-
able principles, does not take ac-
count of a God who, by His Word,
out of nothing, can bring into ex-
istence instantaneously all things
that are. Yet that is precisely the
God of whom Genesis 1 and He-
brews 11 speak.

Furthermore, as Peter observed,
men keep on refusing to believe that
the world which was first created
was destroyed by God's power in the
flood, and that the world which now
exists is different from that former
world in its structure. (See II Peter
3:5-7 where Peter spoke of the world
that then was and the heaven and
earth that now exist.)

In other words, the Bible speaks
of creation by the Word of God out
of nothing instantaneously, and the
subsequent catastrophic destruction
of that world by the flood. Evolu-
tion disregards both of these facts
and therefore posits millions, even
billions of years for the accomplish-
ment of what God did in six days

Men are inclined to speak of their
scientific proofs as the only certain
ty we have of our world. However,
one must separate their observable
facts from their very tenuous the-
ories and conclusions about the facts.
Certainly the mind of man is capa-
ble of discovering many worthwhile dudi
things. Moreover, because the mind
of man is reprobate according to
God's Word, man's explanations oi itta
what he has observed are prone tc
error. Peter calls it "willful forget-
ting." ?

As believers in God and God'i j
Word, we Christians have a certainty tj(,

IT

3c

H

IIS

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11
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lit;
li

OB t

k

PAGE 14 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 14, 1973

not based on human theories but on
faith. The common concept of faith
is that it is not certain. Faith, to
many, means that which we cannot
be sure of but only hope to be true.
But such a view of faith is certainly
not the Biblical view.

Faith, according to Hebrews 11:1,
is "assurance of things hoped for,
a conviction of things not seen." In
the definition seen here, it can
readily be ascertained that faith is
certainty which rests on God. The
Biblical word for faith reflects this
certainty.

In the Hebrew of the Old Testa-
ment, the word for faith comes from
a word meaning to cause to be cer-
tain, sure. It is the word which Je-
sus used in the New Testament
when He would stress the certainty
of a matter: "Amain, amain," or, as
translated, "verily, verily." It is the
same as the English word "amen."

So our Biblical doctrine of God's
having created all things by His
Word is not just wishful thinking,
but is based on the Christian cer-
tainty about God, faith. This is far
more sure than all the theories of
Sjmen, grounded on nothing more
Isure than the mind of man, which,
las the Bible says, is prone to error
and even shuts God out.

II. THE WORLD BELONGS
TO GOD (Psalm 24:1-2, 104:24-30).
The psalmist helps us to see the
truth that since God created all
things, therefore all things belong
to Him, the earth and its fullness,
everyone who dwells on earth. We
ire all tenants in God's earth (Psa.
24:1-2).

Of course, this means that what
God wills and tells men to do must
ae obeyed. Every man is responsible
:o God and accountable to God. We
ire all liable to God and must give
:o Him an accounting of our lives.

Men and all creation were made
:otally dependent on God. With-
jut Him we cannot exist. The psalm-
st has made this doctrine clear to us.

God provides all the needs of all
m earth. If any is shut off from
God, he perishes. If God does not
arovide, he cannot live. This in-
;ludes the beasts of earth and man
vho sails on its seas. All are de-
pendent on God whether or not they
lcknowledge Him. When God with-
Iraws His providence from any, that
me perishes, whether man or beast
(Psalm 104:24-30).

This doctrine of the providence
)f God is a two-edged doctrine. It

teaches both God's watchcare over
what He made and also man's de-
pendence on and responsibility to
God. Both are true. To say that
God owes us but we owe nothing
is presumptuous. We all must give
an account to God for all of our
lives, whether it be good or bad.

Thus the Bible is an account of
God's dealing with men in the world
in particular. God tells of the
world's beginning in Genesis 1-2,
and of its ending in Revelation 20-
22. From the beginning to the end,
God is in charge and the whole his-
tory of the world is but a record of
God's working out of His purposes.

III. GOD HAD A PURPOSE IN
CREATING THE WORLD AND
MAN IN IT. In reading Genesis 1-
2 we do see something of the pur-
pose of God in creation. We see, for
instance, that man is the crown of
creation. The world was made for
man, and God commissioned man to
care for the world which He had
made.

However, to see more clearly
God's purpose in creation, we need
to go elsewhere. Particularly helpful
in showing God's ultimate purpose
insofar as He has revealed that pur-
pose to us, is this passage: "He
chose us in Him (Christ) before
the foundation of the world, that we
should be holy and without blemish
before Him in love" (Eph. 1:4).

There are three things to be noted
here: God had a purpose before He
created the world. Therefore, the
things that happened after creation,
including man's fall and redemp-
tion, are not an afterthought of God
but part of His purpose.

God chose a people to be His peo-
ple and these people were to be:
holy (set aside for God) ; without
blemish (perfect, good, having no
faults) ; before God (in His pres-
ence, having eternal fellowship with
the eternal God) ; in love (having
with God a relation of love toward
God and toward one another) . This
is the purpose God had when He be-
gan to create the world and man
in it.

Now as we return to Genesis 1-2
we can see how God was carrying
out this purpose. Man was created
holy (set aside for God) , i.e., in
God's image (Gen. 1:26) and with-
out blemish (sinless, good) (Gen.
1:31) . He was created to be before
God (in God's presence, in commun-
ion with God) , i.e., again in God's
image, both reflecting God's glory

and God's nature.

Man was made to live in God's
presence. He was also created to
love God and one another. We see
this in the commands which God
gave to man. In a positive way,
man was to have dominion over the
world under God (Gen. 1:26, 28)
and negatively, to refuse or refrain
from eating the forbidden fruit
(Gen. 2:16-17). By his obedience
to God's revealed will, he would
thereby show his love to God. As
Jesus said, "If you love me, you will
keep my commandments." (See John
14:15, 23.)

God further created man and
woman, Adam and Eve, thus estab-
lishing a relationship of love be-
tween man and man so that men
would be full, lacking nothing, hav-
ing fellowship with God, his Crea-
tor and with his fellowmen.

Thus we see that man was cre-
ated according to the purpose of
God and placed in Eden to fulfill
that purpose. The next lesson will
develop more fully that responsibil-
ity which God gave to man.

CONCLUSION: This lesson has
shown us the fact of creation and
the purpose behind that fact. Man
was created to be a responsible be-
ing before God, accountable to God
and totally dependent on God.

Thankfully, even when men failed
to respond to God's revealed will,
as we shall see in a later lesson, God
was not thwarted in His purpose to
have a people, but continued as He
does even to this day to move to-
ward that eternal day, that eternal
sabbath when God will dwell for-
ever with His people who are holy,
without blemish, before God in
love. IS

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PAGE 15 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 14, 1973

YOUTH PROGRAM

For March 4, 1973

Right and Wrong Belief

Scripture: Revelation 2:12-17
Suggested Hymns:

"I Know Whom I Have

Believed"
" 'Tis So Sweet to Trust in

Jesus"

"How Firm a Foundation"

INTRODUCTION BY PRO-
GRAM CHAIRMAN: "It doesn't
matter what you believe as long as
you are sincere." How many of us
think that way?

Or perhaps you have heard some-
body say, "There are two things I
don't talk about with my friends —
politics and religion." Many of us
have been taught that what a per-
son believes is his own business.

But is this consistent with what
God says in the Bible? Does God
say that it doesn't matter what we
believe as long as we are sincere?
Does what God says completely
change in meaning from one person
to another?

When Jesus says, "I am the way,
the truth, and the life. No man
comes to the Father except by me,"
does He mean we can also come to
the Father through Buddha or Con-
fucius or Mohammed?

Of course not! Jesus says no man

Rev. Henry J. Mueller

comes to the Father except by Him!
This eliminates all other possibil-
ities. God does not lie. He does
not change the truth to accommo-
date us. What He says is true. The
only reason we question His Word
is that we want to understand what
He has said to us, or we don't want
to accept what He says and thus
twist or deny it to satisfy our de-
sires.

There is really no middle ground
in accepting what God has said to
us in the Bible. We either accept
it as truth or we reject it. Any
time we change its meaning we re-
ject it.

FIRST SPEAKER: Now God
doesn't force us to believe Him. We
can find all kinds of excuses to dis-
believe the Bible. We don't have to
believe God has revealed Himself
to us as He really is. We are not
forced to believe the Scriptures are
words from God to us. We are not
forced to believe that Jesus is God
— we can choose to believe a lie.

The Bible says men "instead of
believing what they knew was the
truth about God . . . deliberately
chose to believe lies." Then follows
one of the most painful verses in
Scripture: "When they gave God up

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. . . God gave them up" (Rom 1:25,
28, The Living Bible) .

(Have group read individually
Romans 1:18-32 in a modern trans
lation. Discuss questions such as
these: Why does man choose to re-
fuse to worship God as He has re-
vealed Himself? What does this
passage say about other religions?
What understanding does this give
you concerning your own sins? Does
this tell you anything about why
and how you should share Jesus with
another person?)

SECOND SPEAKER: The church
at Pergamos had a problem con-
cerning the truth of God. It was a
church that had a mixture of wrong
and right belief. The situation was
so serious that Jesus called them to
repent. If they did not, He would
come to them soon and "war against
them." (Have someone read the
Scripture lesson to the group.)

This passage depicts Jesus as one
who wields a sword. We often think
of Jesus as gentle, meek and mild.
But while His love is tender, it is
also burning. He stands ready to
watch over His loved ones. He is
the Lamb of God, but He is also the
Lion of Judah. Jesus desires that
His body, the Church, shall stand
in truth and not error.

The sword is the Word of God.
Jesus is the Word of God (John 1:
1) . The sword is pictured as com-
ing from Jesus' mouth (Rev. 1:18).
The symbolism is unmistakable. It
is that word which comes from God
that leads us to the truth about Him.

This same word enables us to dis-
cern error in the church. We are

5

The

(ill

to avail ourselves of our sword on^
else He will come and "war against"
the church that mixes truth with er
ror.

THIRD SPEAKER: All of this i!
amazing when we consider the his
tory of the church at Pergamos
They were a church that suffered foi
their faith just as that at Smyrna
"You held fast My name and did no
deny your faith in Me, even in th< ^

PAGE 16 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 14, 1973

days of Antipas, My faithful witness,
who was killed among you." One of
their members was martyred, yet
they did not deny Jesus.

Jesus said that even though this
was true, there was something wrong.
Some in the church held to the
teaching of Balaam and the Nicolai-
tans. False teachers mixed true
Christianity with pagan and world-
ly practices. Jesus said they were
to leave these false teachings and
turn to the truth of the Word.

We live in a society that is calling
us to compromise our faith. We are
told that the commandments of the
Bible are old-fashioned. Each of us

Do you know why preaching the
cross causes so many objections
among Christian people?

The Christian is God's servant in
telling all men that God sent His
Son into the world to seek and to
save the lost. God did not give this
■mission to angels. This mission is
■being done by believing, trusting
■Christian people. The message is
loot the Christian's own message, be-
cause the Christian did not conceive
Ithe plan of salvation. As this in-
volves the soul, this is something
■that God does. God calls the believ-
er to serve Him.

When the Christian is considered
lis God's servant, the whole matter
|)f his task is taken out of his hands.
ISod originated it, designed it and
gave it to him that he should do it.
■The Gospel has power because it is
■Sod's Word. The promise in it is
ftrue because God will perform His
■work, as it is promised, in any who
Ivill believe.

The Christian is called by the will
l)f God. He is commissioned by the
■Lord, guided by the Holy Spirit,
fcven the message to proclaim, and
I he results will be what God will do.

'Speak the Same Thing'

In I Corinthians 1:10-31 we see
low the Apostle Paul carried out his
ask of effective evangelism: "Now
'. beseech you, brethren, by the name
)f our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all

feels the tug to think only about
his own pleasure, but mixing world-
ly philosophy with Christian truth is
sin and leads to sinful living.

We are told to repent. We are to
turn from wrong to right belief.
Where do we find such? Only in
God's Word. Only in Jesus do we
find the truth about God. The Bi-
ble is where we find Jesus as He
really is.

CONCLUSION BY PROGRAM
CHAIRMAN: As always, Jesus gives
a promise of reward to those who
overcome. Here the promise is

Manford Geo. Gutzke, D.D., Ph.D.

I Corinthians 1:10-31

speak the same thing, and that there
be no divisions among you."

Christians should be careful to
avoid leaving the impression on the
outside that they are presenting con-
flicting or differing views or versions
of the Gospel. Now this can be
done if the message is kept simple
and true to the Bible. The first
chapter of Galatians makes it clear
that the Apostle Paul did not en-
dorse everyone who was preaching
to the Christians and claiming to
preach the Gospel.

As a matter of fact, the Apostle
Paul distinctly made it a point to
say that if anyone preached anything
different from what he was preach-
ing that person should be accursed
because the apostle knew that what
he was preaching was the truth.
Again, preaching must be true to
Scripture and plain enough to be
clearly understood.

Proper Emphasis

Paul went on to say: "For it hath
been declared unto me of you, my
brethren, by them which are of the
house of Chloe, that there are con-
tentions among you. Now this I say,
that every one of you saith, I am of
Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Ce-
phas; and I of Christ. Is Christ divid-
ed? was Paul crucified for you? or

"hidden manna" and a "white stone"
on which a secret name is written.
Manna is bread from God and rep-
resents Christ. (See John 6:31-51.)

The white stone is harder to un-
derstand. It probably refers in some
way to the benefits we receive from
Christ's death. White often sym-
bolizes purity, and the stone could
be symbolic of Jesus as the chief
corner stone of our faith. When we
believe in Christ we are given His
righteousness (II Cor. 5:12).

The greatest reward any of us have
is Jesus — "For me to live is Christ."

Closing Prayer. 3D

were ye baptized in the name of
Paul?" (I Cor. 1:11-13) .

The apostle was emphasizing that
preeminence should be given to
Christ Jesus rather than allegiance to
any popular minister. This is very,
very important. Even among ear-
nest Christians, divisions arise as one
follows one or another preacher or
teacher. Paul would frown upon
all that. He would say that is leav-
ing a wrong impression on the world
outside. It is when people start
elaborating and explaining that dif-
ferences begin to appear. It is bet-
ter in evangelism if the message is
kept simple and Scriptural.

Paul continued: "I thank God
that I baptized none of you, but
Crispus and Gaius; lest any should
say that I had baptized in mine own
name. And I baptized also the
household of Stephanas: besides, I
know not whether I baptized any
other. For Christ sent me not to
baptize, but to preach the Gospel"
(I Cor. 1:14-17).

This truth is often overlooked to-
day. Paul was pointing out that
when a person is preaching the Gos-
pel, emphasis should not be upon
the outward response of the hearers,
but upon the inward work of Christ
in the heart. Take the example of
a person being baptized. When the
hearer openly professes faith, comes
forward and takes his stand with the
Christians, then he will be baptized.
Who is the center of attention? The

WOMEN'S WORK

Supplementary Circle Bible Study

March: The Servant's Evangelism

PAGE 17 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 14, 1973

I

convert.

Paul would say, "Not that, have
them look at Christ. Have them look
at the Lord." The important thing
in evangelism is not adding mem-
bers to the church, it is bringing the
power of Christ into the heart. It
is seeing the effect of the truth of
the Gospel in the hearts of men.
Open profession of a believer's faith
is vital and valuable. However, evan-
gelistic activity that specializes on
this and leaves the emphasis there
is inadequate.

We are not going by the outward
response of the hearers, but by the

inward work of the Holy Spirit.
Paul made this very plain when he
said, "Christ sent me not to bap-
tize." My work in the community
is not primarily to bring some in-
dividual to an open profession, and
then endorse him before the world
as a believer in the Lord Jesus
Christ. This is all well in its place,
but it comes second place. The truth
of the Gospel should come into the
hearts of men in first place.

Paul also said, ". . . not with wis-
dom of words, lest the cross of Christ
should be made of none effect" (v.
17) . Here is a common snare for all

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preachers and all witnesses. The
message itself should be a simple re-
port of how Christ Jesus died for
our sins on Calvary, how He was
raised again into newness of life by
the power of God in order to make
it possible that any sinner might die
with Him in faith and be raised with
Him to the newness of life.

This is the important thing. There
are other ideas and they will enrich
and they will enhance and they will
increase but they should not be al-
lowed to blur this simple picture.

Paul continued in I Corinthians,
chapter 2 beginning at verse 1:
"And I, brethren, when I came to
you, came not with excellency of
speech or of wisdom (I didn't use
careful language, I didn't use or-
atory and I didn't use philosophy)
declaring unto you the testimony of
God. For I determined not to know
anything among you (that is not to
respect, not to esteem as highly im-i
portant anything among you) saveJ)fr
Jesus Christ, and Him crucified

"And I was with you in weakness,, j,
and in fear, and in much trembling. |,
(Why, because Paul knew that ii

For Discussion

foe

si

ffltt
pen
ii
It

1. What is the Gospel? (I Corin
thians 15:1-8).

2. Why is it necessary that thi
Gospel be preached? (Romans 10
13-17).

3. What is the Great Commi?
sion? (Matthew 28:18-20).

4. What is included in effectua
evangelism? (I Thessalonians \:Wt
2:12).

T

i

In

In

he talked simply that way he woul Tc
be accused of being ignorant. H et c
would be accused of not knowin fa
any better. But this is what he did. Hey
And my speech and my preachin! ^f
was not with enticing words of mani nph
wisdom, but in demonstration c ^ 0
the Spirit and of power. (And hi ^
tells you why) : That your faiti ^
should not stand in the wisdom <j ^
men, but in the power of God." I nj p

Your faith is a personal accep lot M
ance of the power of God that cal for;
raise the dead. This is what eva i %
gelism should be doing. Intelle* bd ,
tual explanation of the Gospel h St
no power to save. \

"For the preaching of the cro L
is to them that perish foolishned to],
but unto us which are saved it is

PAGE 18 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 14, 1973

power of God. For it is written, I
will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and will bring to nothing the under-
standing of the prudent. Where is
the wise? where is the scribe? where
is the disputer of this world? hath
not God made foolish the wisdom
of this world? For after that in the
wisdom of God the world by wisdom
knew not God, it pleased God by
the foolishness of preaching to save
them that believe" (I Cor. 1:18-21) .

Preach the Cross

When Paul said the foolishness of
preaching, he meant the foolishness
of preaching the events of the death,
the resurrection and the coming
again of the Lord Jesus Christ, that
kind of preaching which some peo-
ple count foolish will save the soul.

Preaching of the cross is most im-
portant. Why is it so significant that
Christ Jesus died on Calvary in or-
der that He should be raised from
the dead? Because in Christ Jesus
dying on Calvary and being raised
from the dead, the way is open for
me to enter into newness of life. The
first thing that comes in entering
into the newness of life is that the
person must die to self and take up
his cross. "If any man will be my
disciple, let him deny himself, take
up his cross and follow me."

The preaching of the cross is not
anly preaching the historic fact of
Christ on Calvary, it is also the
preaching of the principle that the
ndividual needs to deny himself un-
:o the death and receive Christ Je-
ius as his substitute in himself that
Christ may live in him.

To Save the Soul

i To many people this is just a mat-
li:er of words and as long as it is,
ij hey will never know the power.
They will never know what is meant
npy being saved. This is why Paul was
i':mphasizing it this way. The preach-
ong of the cross is the heart of the
h Gospel message. When Christ Jesus
it vent to the cross of Calvary, He did
oiot stay there. He was taken down
md put into the grave and He did
plot stay there. In three days He
ayas raised from the dead. The be-
liever cannot be raised from the
ledead unless he knows what it is to
hi lie.

The Gospel of the Lord Jesus
rollhrist has the power to save the
foul. It leads the individual into
ttleath that he might be raised in the

newness of life. Again let me stress
that involved intellectual argument
has no power to save the soul. The
Christian is commissioned only to
preach the meaning of what Christ
Jesus did when He died for us.

Evangelism does not deal primar-
ily with a man's head, it deals rather
with a man's heart. It is not what
the believer can explain, but what
one knows to be true about Jesus
Christ and yields to Him.

"But we preach Christ crucified,
unto the Jews a stumbling block,
and unto the Greeks foolishness; but
unto them which are called, both
Jews and Greeks, Christ the power
of God and the wisdom of God" (w.
23-24) . This is a remarkable state-
ment. It sounds like repeating one-
self.

Some Will Not Accept

Self denial unto the death of self
that the soul might be saved by God
is the cardinal theme of the Gospel.
We preach Christ crucified, buried
and raised from the dead. He as-
cended into heaven, is now inter-
ceding for us, and He is coming
again. All of that is included. "We
preach Christ crucified, unto the
Jews a stumbling block, and unto
the Greeks foolishness; but unto
them which are called, both Jews
and Greeks, Christ the power of God
and the wisdom of God."

This will not be acceptable to the
religious. Where you see the word
"Jew" you think of religious peo-
ple, people who go to church, peo-
ple who attend meetings and are
busy with the programs and activi-
ties. It is not acceptable to them
to be told that they must be born
again. When a person is actually
born again he will know it. This
will not be acceptable to the reli-
gious, the Jew, nor to the intellec-
tual, the Greek, but it will be ef-
fectual for both Jews and Greeks or
anybody who believes.

Then Paul said a very interesting
thing, and I wonder how many of
us have ever paid much attention to
this section:

"For ye see your calling brethren,
how that not many wise men after
the flesh, not many mighty, not
many noble, are called: but God
hath chosen the foolish things of the
world to confound the wise; and
God hath chosen the weak things of
the world to confound the things
which are mighty; and base things
of the world, and things which are
despised, hath God chosen yea, and
things which are not, to bring to
nought things that are: that no flesh
should glory in His presence" (I
Cor. 1:26-29).

Paul was calling them to witness
among themselves. Among the peo-
ple who respond to the Gospel many
are poor, many uneducated. Tell

<S*lementary and t^econdary

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PAGE 19 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 14, 1973

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them simply that Christ Jesus died
for them. Permit them to yield to
God and give them glorious spiritual
experiences that they become strong
in faith. Those who believe do not
have a long list of explanations even
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the joy of His fellowship. No one
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Complete Testimony

It is like that man who was told,
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person who opened your eyes, was
a bad man. He did this on the Sab-
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And this man answered, "Whether
he be a good man or no, I know not.
One thing I know, once I was blind
and now I see." And this remains
forever. The simple final complete
testimony of a soul that has been
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It is like saying to a person who
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"How do you know?"

"I put my finger in, I knowl"

This is just exactly the way it was
with those Christians in their re-
sponse to the Gospel preached in its
simple strength.

Tell the Word of God just as it
is in the Bible, that Christ Jesus
came into the world to seek and to
save the lost; that He called men to
Himself; that whosoever cometh un
to Him, He will in no wise cast out;
that whosoever believeth in Him
shall not perish but have everlasting
life, and some person simply and
humbly believed it and was savec
and his soul filled with joy. The
response to the Gospel, when it is
preached in its simple strength, can
be seen in the changed lives of the
people.

Christ Is the Answer

Also in this there is no special
privilege for men who have superioi
personal ability. There is no spe-
cial prominence given to any man
just because he happens to be smar(
or rich, or strong or famous. None J80
of these things matter. The onl}
thing that matters is that a person be
lieved in Jesus Christ, accepted Hiir
as his personal Saviour and trustee
totally in Him.

This is why you have the last twe
verses in that chapter. "But of Hin
are ye in Christ Jesus, who of Go(
is made unto us wisdom, and righ
teousness, and sanctification, and re
demption." Those are big words
but they are all in Christ Jesus

It does not matter if the persoi ~
understands their meaning — they ar
yours just the same. If you are i:
Christ Jesus these will be for yov,
It has been said in recent years tha
Christ is the answer. Paul would sa
"Christ Jesus is the sufficient ax
swer to every human need."

"That, according as it is wri
ten, He that glorieth, let him glor
in the Lord."

ml

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the set, Nos. 71, 2, 3) and $3 per cc
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The Bible for You, Box 15007, A h
lanta, Ga. 30333.

PAGE 20 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 14, 1973

T!;,

«ry h
Utioi
Jail

DELIVER US FROM EVIL, by Don
Basham. Chosen Books, Pub!., Wash-
ington Depot, Conn. 224 pp. $4.95.
Reviewed by Dick Hillis, general di-
rector of Overseas Crusades, Inc., Pa-
lo Alto, Calif.

This book is really the story of
the author's personal journey from
a pastoral ministry to a ministry of
"deliverance." He is fully behind
and involved in the charismatic re-
newal movement of the Church, and
he speaks of his own experience of
the baptism of the Spirit. He de-
scribes this baptism as a "time
when God endows His people with
power."

In a manner characteristic of
charismatic authors, the book is
filled with illustrations of deliver-
ance from demons. This author,
however, is faithful in backing what
he believes and testing what he ex-
periences with Scripture. He force-
fully reminds the reader that a
rather high percentage of the min-
istry of our Lord had to do with
delivering people from demons.

He feels strongly that believers
not only suffer defeat from "hang-
ups" in the flesh and failure to ap-
propriate the crucified life (Rom.
6:6) but also from demons. He is
convinced that many Christians
now held in the tyranny of hate,
anger, tobacco, alcohol, nervousness
and such need deliverance from de-
mon influence and obsession.

It is my opinion that this book
is not for all to read. It could, how-
ver, be helpful to preachers. The
author's honesty is both healthy and
earching. This fact would force
any preacher to ask, "Is my ministry
filled with love, concern, power and
authority?" 51

RESHAPING EVANGELICAL HIGH-
ER EDUCATION, by Marvin E. May-
ors, Lawrence O. Richards and Robert
Webber. Zondervan Publ. House,
jrand Rapids, Mich. 215 pp. $6.95.
Reviewed by the Rev. George A. An-
lerson, professor, King College and
Iraham Bible College, Bristol, Tenn.

This symposium by three Wheaton
College professors is a scholarly an-
alysis of the history, background
ind goals of higher education in
American evangelical circles, with
jroposals for the future made neces-
ary by changing cultural and ed-
xcational patterns.

Early chapters of the book trace
he development of Protestantantism
rom the Reformation, through
cholasticism and rationalism, to

BOOKS

20th century liberalism with its sub-
jectivity of truth and irrationality.

Renaissance humanism based on
the authority of man is seen as con-
tinuing in modern Christianity, ed-
ucation and culture, and Reforma-
tion theism as being continued in
evangelical Christianity, but the au-
thors lament that the Reformation
view that all of life is to be lived
for the glory of God has been lost
by the withdrawal of some funda-
mentalists and pietists from our cul-
ture and through a post-Reformation
emphasis on lectures and indoctri-
nation which may produce a faith
which is doctrinally correct but
largely unrelated to life style and
culture.

These men seem to have gleaned
carefully in Dooyeweerd's field with-
out adopting all of his philosophy;
they do not want a lessened empha-
sis on doctrine but a return to the
Biblical emphasis that faith is a
matter of the heart as well as of the
mind and that whatever a Christian
does "in word or deed" is to be done
in the name of Jesus as Lord.

The book is frankly a challenge
to educational procedures based on
"We've always done it that way and
that's the way they did it in school
when I was a student," and a plea
that Christian educators plan for
tomorrow rather than simply drift-
ing into it. The specific proposals
and suggestions may be significantly
helpful to administrators, teachers,
youth workers and pastors. El

THE KINGDOM OF GOD VISUAL-
IZED, by Ray E. Baughman. Moody
Press, Chicago, 111. 286 pp. $5.95. Re-
viewed by the Rev. Horace L. Villee,
pastor emeritus, First Presbyterian
Church, Columbus, Miss.

The author earned his B.A. and
Th.B. from Dallas College, Dallas,
Tex., where he now serves as direc-
tor of the correspondence school.
Previous works in which he com-
municates Biblical knowledge in
simplified terms understandable by
a layman include Bible History
Visualized and Life of Christ Visu-
alized.

One purpose evident in this new
book is to relate Peters' work on the
theocratic kingdom of Jesus Christ
to today's generation. He quotes
considerably from it, along with 75

other books by various authors.

However, Baughman says: "With-
out the Word of God, all answers
are guesswork — the wisdom or the
imagination of men. But God has
chosen to reveal at least the basic
outline of His plan for the ages."
Believing the Bible to be the verbal-
ly inspired Word of God, he takes
its statements about the kingdom
of God and chooses to make the
kingdom synonymous with heaven
itself, in our opinion.

Even though one may not accept
the premillennial views set forth,
this book will prove to be fasci-
nating and worthwhile reading and
help deepen one's understanding of
what lies ahead for the Christian —
whether in a literal earthly kingdom
during a thousand-year reign of
Christ, or in the "house not made
with hands, eternal in the heav-
ens." 51

HOW TO FACE YOUR FEARS, by
David Alan Hubbard. A. J. Holman
Co., New York. 140 pp. $3.95. Re-
viewed by the Rev. R. Jefferson
Coker, pastor, Royal Oak Presbyterian
Church, Marion, Va.

This book by the president of
Fuller Theological Seminary, who
has written numerous other books,
is based on the premise that the
Christian Gospel includes an anti-
dote for fear. Through careful Bib-
lical exposition the author answers
this searching question.

A very practical book, it deals
with such fears as breaking with tra-
dition, feeling insignificant, and
the fear of an unknown future. As
I read this book, a person came to
my mind who was having a number
of fears and I determined to get this
book into his hands.

On reading the book you will
agree that the author succeeded in
this effort. 51

WANTED: TWO NURSES for service at a
modern hospital in Ethiopia under the Or-
thodox Presbyterian Church. Excellent
living conditions. Salary plus travel and
other allowances. Qualifications: R.N.,
good knowledge of Scripture, commit-
ment to Christ as Saviour and Lord. For
application write to the Committee on
Foreign Missions, 7401 Old York Road,
Philadelphia, PA 19126.

PAGE 21 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 14, 1973

Look— from p. 10

urrection be spirits flitting around
in eternity naked as jaybirds ("un-
clothed" — II Cor. 5:23) .

I am not sure what the committee
means in the second paragraph of
section 4: "We take with utmost
seriousness the biblical warnings to
those who reject God's love in Christ.
We take with equal seriousness the
soaring declaration that in Christ
all mankind shall receive the gift
of life . . . ." As respectfully as I
can, I call this rank double-talk!

But Jesus Said

Jesus' words ought to settle our
position about universalism. I would
like to know how the committee in-
terprets Jesus' words in the follow-
ing passages: Matthew 13:36-43; 25:
41-46; John 3:16, 36; 5:24-29. Paul
also seemed to share Jesus' teaching
in this connection in II Thessa-
lonians 1:7-9.

I would be interested in knowing
the committee's references to sup-
port their words "the soaring dec-
laration that in Christ all mankind

shall receive the gift of life."

One question: Are we to take
quite literally the committee's state-
ment in Chapter II, paragraph 6,
"The Jews are still a distinct and
special people"? I readily agree that
they are a distinct people, but a
"special people"? Special in what
way? Romans 10:11 and Galatians
3:38, as well as other passages seem
to deny that the Jews are somehow
"special." Some folk may interpret
the heading of this paragraph as
smacking of a leaning toward dis-
pensationalism. Surely we don't
want that!

But a clear, unambiguous, Bibli-
cal statement of what Christians be-
lieve, we can use. If the committee
will give it to us. EE

Churches— from p. 1 1

to say that all young churches in the
developing countries are booming.
For instance, "Revival in Indo-
nesia!" has been headlined. But ask
many a missionary from Indonesia,
and he has never seen it in his area.

The facts are that some islands
or parts of islands have witnessed a

turning to Christ while others have
not. Take the orchid-shaped island
of Sulawesi, which was called "Cele-
bes" under the Dutch: Among the
Toradja people of the central high-
lands, 170,000 have become Chris-
tians since World War I, while their
Muslim neighbors to the south have
adamantly refused the Gospel.

Again, even in Latin America with
its phenomenal reception of the
Gospel, the picture is spotty: Chile
and Venezuela have similar popula-
tion totals, but Venezuela has only
47,000 Protestant members while
Chile has almost ten times that num-
ber.

What About Closed Doors?

"How can you talk about boom-
ing churches in Asia, Africa and
Latin America when there are so
many closed?," you might inquire.

Yes, there are closed doors —
mainland China, North Korea,
North Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, other
Arab lands. It is also true that
some countries have restricted visas
for missionaries, such as Burma and I
India. ,

My wife and I had the traumatic
experience of hearing the bamboo,
curtain clatter down behind us as
we crossed the bridge between Can-
ton and Hong Kong in 1951 after
twelve years in China. We hadi
thought China would be our life;
work, but the exit passes read, 1
"This is a permit for the holder to1
return to his own country and does
not allow him to ever return to Chi-
na again." ,

Only an ostrich would deny the;
existence of closed doors. Yet at the
same time, we do ourselves irrepara-
ble psychological harm when we
dwell on this fact and do not bal
ance it over against the nine tentha
of the countries of the world oper
to the Gospel message.

Also in our day countries whid;
have been closed to the Christian
church throughout history hav<
quietly opened. Look at Afghanis
tan, for instance — a Christian
church stands today in its capital
Kabul, for the first time in history*
And today in long-closed Nepal II
united missionary society representf
Christ and His Church for the firs
time in recorded history.

Again, who is omniscient to propfc
esy that currently closed doors wii
remain closed? The Christian
Church in China has experience'!

(Continued on p. 24)

FACTS ABOUT ECOE . . .

I. DESIGNATED (OPPORTUNITY TO GIVE TO MISSIONS WITH-
OUT EQUALIZATION DIRECTLY TO THE FIELD)

A. ECOE missionaries: the Reverend and Mrs. Joe York in Brazil;
the Reverend and Mrs. Richard Dye in Mexico; the Reverend and
Mrs. Grady Simpson preparing to go to Liberia, West Africa

B. Evangelistic work being done by our evangelical PCUS mission-
aries in many countries

C. Giving through ECOE to independent evangelical and evangelistic
missions

II. UNDESIGNATED

A. All undesignated gifts will go to needy fields around the world
as ECOE sees the need

B. Countries ECOE is sending contributions to are Brazil, Korea,
Mexico, Japan, Jamaica, Taiwan, Zaire, Puerto Rico, Ethiopia and
Liberia

III. MISSIONARIES' SUPPORT, EQUIPMENT, LITERATURE AND
TRANSPORTATION

Total needs of missionary, approximately $10,000 a year. Needed
for the work of the missionary couple, $5,000 - $10,000 a year

IV. EXTENSION SEMINARY IN BRAZIL FOR THE TRAINING OF
NATIONAL PASTORS

V. EVANGELISTIC EXTENSION WORK IN KOREA - OPERATION
LIGHTHOUSE

VI. NATIONAL LAY EVANGELISTS IN SEVERAL COUNTRIES

Total needs for a national worker yearly ranging between $600
and $1200, depending on the country in which they live and the
size of the family. Needed for the work of a national evangelist,
$1,000 - $2,000 a year

VII. MANY OTHER PROJECTS (ECOE does not erect or buy permanent

buildings.)

Write for a full projects list.

ECOE, P. 0. Box 808, Hopewell, VA 2S860

PAGE 22 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 14, 1973

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PAGE 23 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 14, 1973

four openings and four closings of
the door. Who is to say that there
will not be a fifth and vastly more
effective opening of the door to Chi-
na? If Richard Nixon could chat
in Peking with Mao Tse-tung over
a cup of Chinese tea in 1972, can we
not expect even more significant
things to happen in 1973 and suc-
ceeding years?

Native Churches

As we view the prospect of
black Africa becoming predominant-
ly Christian by A.D. 2,000, it does
not require much imagination to see
that not all those churches will be
called "Methodist" or "Baptist" or
"Bible Church" or even "United
Church." With great growth, the
church will burst the bonds of its
own chrysalis.

Indeed, this is happening already
in black Africa, where there are 6,-

000 religious movements both in-
side and outside the historical de-
nominations. On the other side of
the globe in the Philippines, 179
new religious organizations emerged
and registered with the Philippine
government between 1942 and 1967.

Many of these are nativistic; most
if not all partake of elements of Prot-
estantism and Roman Catholicism.

1 do not pass judgment here as to
their goodness or badness; I only
want to point out the mushrooming
of national groups.

Where does the missionary fit in-
to this picture? Is there a place for
him? Yes — emphatically yes. To

bring the question down to the most
elementary level, there is still even
a need for the blister-footed, sweat-
soaked pioneer in many countries.
Just ask the man who has been
there.

Yet it would be passing strange in
the fast-changing decade of the sev-
enties if there were no change in
the missionary himself. Instead of
geographical pioneering, he may be
called on to pioneer in an area of
inter-personal relationships, such as
organizing lay-training classes.

The biggest change, however,
could well revolve around the ques-
tion, "Who captains the team and
who calls the plays?" Let me illus-
trate:

When my wife and I first moved
in 1957 to Bauan, Batangas Prov-
ince, Philippines, we were the only
missionaries resident in the province.
The Gospel had not been preached
in our village in thirty years — it
was a pioneer area.

In 1972 if we were to move back
to Bauan, Batangas, we would find
a thriving church with its own pas-
tor, Bible women, Sunday school,
evangelistic outreach, and even for-
eign mission involvement. In a grow-
ing situation like that, the mission-
ary should look to the pastor of the
church to call the plays and show
him how best to fit into the team.

There is a welcome for the mis-
sionary who will do this, for in the
booming churches on the mission
field there is lots to be done, and
willing, skillful workers are welcome
to come and give a hand. EE

( \

door
opens . . .

. . . each time a missionary
doctor or nurse cares for a
non-Christian, introducing him
to a demonstration of Christian
love. These healers frequently
provide the foundation for ef-
fective witness.

Medical work is one of four
areas of emphasis for the 1973
Season of Christian Witness.
Gifts given during the special
offering will be used for

• missionary support

• evangelistic projects

• ministry to children

• medical work

Remember the 1973 Witness
Season Special Offering. By
General Assembly action, all
gifts received by April 18, 1973
will not be equalized and will
be used to support World
Missions.

BOARD OF WORLD MISSIONS
Presbyterian Church, U.S.
P. O. Box 330
Nashville, Tenn. 37202

J

ATTENTION! Pastors, Christian Education Directors, Sunday School
Superintendents, Department Leaders, Teachers.

INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR LEARNING (ICL) Seminar to be held
in Columbia, S. C, March 15-17, Carolina Inn.

An ICL Seminar brings qualified leaders with proven methods and
plans for every age level to help teachers and leaders improve their
organization, planning, preparation and teaching skills.

Workshops — all age groups, pastors and leaders. Thousands have
profited from these seminars in other areas. Regardless of what litera-
ture you use, these seminars are designed to help your Sunday School
be the best possible.

For full details and free brochure contact one of the following: Don
Highlander, 504 Fon Du Lac Dr., Stone Mountain, Ga. 30083, phone
469-6060. Teddy Lockwood, Thomasboro Presbyterian Church, 110
Bradford Dr., Charlotte, N. C. 28208, phone 399-3348.

Schockley Few, Columbia Church Supply, P. O. Box 1447, Columbia,
S. C. 29202, phone 254-7674.

Mrs. Sissy Smith, 3930 Webb Court, Columbia, S. C. 29204, phone 754-
0618 or 782-2442.

PAGE 24 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 14, 1973

VOL. XXXI, NO. 43

FEBRUARY 21, 1973

$4.00 A YEAR

the

PRESBYTERIAN

JOURNAL

Advocating continuation of a Presbyterian Church loyal

to Scripture and the Reformed faith

Redheaded Stepchild

For any principle to be valid, it must be generally appli-
cable. For instance, does the Peter Principle apply in the
church? Those who have heard, read or worked with a religibu
would readily assent that the modern institutional church is a
lighted showcase for PPBs.

Bureaucracy is firmly entrenched in the institutional
church, and instead of pushing forward or upward to spread the
Word, the church treats the Gospel like the redheaded step-
child at the family reunion — at best, neglected j at worst, ig-
nored entirely.

— Clydie
(See p. 7)

. S. LESSON AND YOUTH PROGRAM FOR MARCH 11

dHOO

<VJI OK Jo

J

MAI LB AG-

scholarships NEEDED

Our thanks go out to the mem-
bers of the Society of Friends of the
Bible Institute of the North for their
tremendous help in recent years.
Generous gifts and faithful prayers
have enabled many young men and
women to graduate, prepared for
Christian service by completing a
double work-study program.

Here in Brazil students have the

unprecedented opportunity of study-
ing in the mornings in our mission's
Fifteenth of November College for
a regular college diploma. In the af-
ternoon they complete the assigned
courses and work programs for a
diploma from the Bible Institute
and all receive practical training in
local churches and outpost Sunday
schools.

A few select young people, having

the

PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL

Rev. G. Aiken Taylor, Ph.D., Editor
Rev. Henry B. Dendy, D.D., Managing Editor
Timothy Belz, Assistant Editor

Circulation leader among independent publications in the Presbyterian-Reformed world

THIS WEEK —

Vol. XXXI, No. 43, February 21, 1973

The Religibu is a PPB Among Probus 7

In botany, augmentation has a special meaning which is also
applicable to hierarchiology By Clydie

Zeitgeist Watchers 9

Propagandists are sharpening their tools for new onslaughts
on the body politic By Bill Melden

The Man God Did Not Use 11

Lot's witness failed because he stayed in Sodom for the same
reason others did By William E. Hill Jr.

De partments —

Editorials 1 2

The Layman and his Church 7 13

Sunday School Lesson, March 1 1 1 4

Youth Program, March 1 1 1 6

Book Reviews 17

THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL, a

Presbyterian weekly magazine, devoted
to the statement, defense, and propa-
gation of the Gospel, the faith which
was once for all delivered to the saints,

is published every Wednesday by the
Southern Presbyterian Journal Co.,
Inc., in Weaverville, N. C.

SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: $4 a year
for individuals, $3 for members of
Every Family Plan churches. All cor-
respondence regarding subscriptions,
advertising or other business matters
should be addressed to the business
office in Weaverville, N. C. 28787.
Second class postage paid at Weaver-
ville, N. C. 28787.

POSTMASTER: Send Form 3579 to
Presbyterian Journal, Box 635, Weav-
erville, N. C. 28787. Subscribers
should allow three weeks for change
of address in continental U. S. Change
of address notices should include both
old and new addresses (with zip
codes) .

NEWS AND EDITORIAL correspond-
ence should be addressed to P. 0. Box
3108, Asheville, N. C. 28802. Editorial
offices located at 247 Charlotte St. in
Asheville.

TELEPHONES: (All area 704) edi-
torial office, 254-4015, 254-4016;
business office, 645-3310, 645-3962.

finished college, take an intensive
one-year course in Bible and music.
Our enthusiastic, trained graduates
go out as Sunday school teachers,
youth workers, organists, choir di-
rectors, missionaries, and leaders in
every phase of church activity.

Every year we have many more
candidates than we have scholar-
ships. Thirty young Christians have
already sent in their preliminary re-
quests and many others are on the
waiting list, to study to show them
selves "approved unto God, a work
man that needeth not to be ashamed,
rightly dividing the Word of truth'
(II Tim. 2:15).

Without your help, we are going
to have the same terribly difficult
job of choosing which students may
come when school opens on Febru-
ary 26. You can help us say yes to
all of those young people ready to
take on a double course in order to
serve God in the future.

Scholarships are only a part of
their studies. Each student is busy
at this moment raising his part of
the required tuition. All of them
make sacrifices to have this chance
to study.

Cost of board and tuition for one
school year (8 months) is $400;
monthly cost of board and tuition is
$50. If you want to know the name
of the student you are helping, we
will be happy to give it to you. You
may specify a gift as a partial schol-
arship or a general offering to be
used where needed.

Checks may be made to the Societ)
of Friends of the Bible Institute
of which I am treasurer. The ad
dress is Caixa Postal 24, Garanhuns
Pernambuco, Brazil 55.300.

Every prayer and every gift art
blessings much appreciated. W<
musn't miss the opportunity Goc
has put before us here in Brazil thi
year!

— Jean (Mrs. Olin) Coleman
Pernambuco, Brazil

MINI-LETTER

The real hang-up that you hav
in your "Mini Editorial" (Feb. 7*
is not, as you imagine, with th
"prominent M e n n o n i t e author,
whom you do not name, but witi
the Lord's Christ Himself. Obedienc
to Christ and tribute to Caesar d;
not preclude love of one's enemie
as a basis of Christian political bi
havior.

— (Rev.) Lonnie L. Richardson
Charlotte, N. C.

K.

IN RE: MISSIONS

I read with real interest the Rev.
Harvie Conn's article entitled, "Re-
formed Missions in an Ecumenical
World" (Journal, Jan. 24) .

Like the writer, I have worked
in Korea as a Presbyterian mission-
ary. I would like to commend Dr.
Conn for a most stimulating article,
then suggest the following:

Rather than disparaging Dr. Lind-
sell's statement that "the mission of
the Church is preeminently spiri-
tual," the writer ought to distin-
guish between the goal and the meth-
od of missions. "Reformed Mis-
sions" does well to affirm that the
goal of missions is "doing God's will
on earth as it is in heaven" and aims
at bringing every area of human ac-
tivity under the Kingship of Christ.
But the method of "Reformed Mis-
sions" (how God's will enters into
the hearts of men) is not the same
thing. We live in a world of sin,
and it is only by proclaiming the
Gospel that men learn God's will.
And this is a "preeminently spiri-
tual" task, as Dr. Lindsell correctly

• A rather vast amount of religious
news comes across the desk every day
in the form of mailings from various
religious press organizations, and
news releases from virtually every
existing religious organization and
Church-related agency or institu-
tion. Consequently, we get a view
of the ebb and flow of public reli-
gious sentiment that is difficult to
pass along to readers who get to see
only a small fraction of the total.
Just now we are impressed with the
rapidly growing flood of statements,
actions and resolutions on amnesty
for deserters and draft dodgers. Evi-
dently this is going to be a major
plank in the platform of the Church-
es for the foreseeable future. As the
pressure mounts and sermons are
preached on the subject, no doubt
Christians with courage will demand
equal time. But we haven't seen a
notice to that effect, yet.

• Early in February a news con-
ference was called at the Church
Center of the United Nations.
Among those calling the conference
were various leftist peace groups and

points out.

Another distinction the writer has
passed over is the difference between
what God has ordained for the
Church to do in this age and what
He has ordained for Christ at His
second coming. The Church has not
been commanded to purify the so-
cial-political-economic structures of
this world through fire. That is
rather the work of Christ at His sec-
ond coming.

— (Rev.) Robert S. Rapp
Saltillo, Pa.

THIS AND THAT

I do not want the Presbyterian
Journal under any circumstances.

I would be very grateful if you
would please not send it to me. Or
any correspondence whatsoever.
Thank you.

— (Rev.) Thomas Dunlap
Savannah, Ga.

Your editorial, "In the Wake of
the Cease Fire," (Feb. 7) said some-

the National Council of Churches.
Prominent in the meeting was the
Rev. Donald Maclnnis, director of
the NCC's China Program. Subject of
the news conference: allegations in
the New York Times that Peking
may very well be behind much of
the illicit drug shipments to the
United States. The "experts" on
China who called the news confer-
ence at the Church Center were high-
ly indignant at such a thought. Frank
Kehl, a spokesman of Concerned
Asian Scholars, called the accusa-
tion against Peking "a campaign of
slander and calumny." We hope the
NCC and its associates will make
available the valuable information
they have to the FBI.

• William Buckley, who can rise
to enviable heights of poetic prose
when he wants to, has made his con-
tribution to the hot debate in the
wake of the Supreme Court's ruling

thing that needed to be said and
could hardly have been better said.
Thank you.

— Harold P. Jones
Miami, Fla.

MINISTERS

Samuel D. Austin from Hillsville,
Va., to the North Gadsden, Ala.,
church.

James D. Brocker, received from
the UPUSA, to the Manassas, Va.,
church.

Charles E. D'Arcy from St. Joseph,
Mo., to the Waldensian church,
Monett, Mo.

Bruce E. Davis from Augusta, Ga.,
to the Thomson, Ga., church.
Benjamin L. Eller Jr., from Ab-
beville, S. C, to the First Church,
Cordelia, Ga.

Robert H. Horel from Westmin-
ster, S. C, to the Rowan church,
Lugoff, S. C.

Larry B. Jarvis from Madison,
Miss., to the First Church, Lynn-
ville, Tenn.

on abortion. Commenting on the
court's reasoning that a refusal to
permit abortion may create a "dis-
tressful condition" for the woman,
Mr. Buckley wrote: "That is, at the
very least, a good excuse to justify
infanticide. And the very best of
reasons for justifying the elimina-
tion of all adolescents as a class. God
knows they force upon most mothers
a 'distressful' life, as the judges put
it ... . One shudders at what a Su-
preme Court, in taking on the re-
sponsibility to decide such questions
as these, will feel free to rule upon
in the years to come. Woe unto
those Americans who, because of
their great age, threaten distressful-
ness upon their children."

• May we offer a suggestion? Order
copies of this issue from the business
office in quantity at $1.00 per doz.
and see that they get wide circula-
tion! El

ACROSS THE EDITOR'S DESK

PAGE 3 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 21, 1973

NEWS OF RELIGION

Committee Votes to Scrap Plan of Union

DALLAS, Tex. — In a tense meet-
ing unprecedented for strong recrim-
inations, the Joint Committee on
Union between the Presbyterian
Church US and the United Presby-
terian Church USA decided here to
scrap a plan of union which it had
published and start all over.

The only important vote taken
during the three day gathering com-
mitted the joint committee to "re-
vise the plan and present the revi-
sion to the joint meeting of the two
General Assemblies in Louisville in
1974 for study only."

The action brought open charges
by United Presbyterian Stated Clerk
William P. Thompson that Southern
members of the joint committee had
been "dishonest" in their dealing
with representatives of conservative
groups and "betrayed brethren who
trusted your integrity."

Dr. Thompson also called the com-
mittee's efforts to date "fruitless"
and "futile." He said the commit-
tee should be ashamed for having
spent all the time and money to no
purpose. He said he thought the
committee should tell the Assemblies
that it does not feel the time is
propitious for union and that it
should be discharged until a better
time.

A motion to this effect, however,
was rejected by an overwhelming

majority of the members present.

Most of the debate, in the opin-
ion of observers, indicated a desire
on the part of the PCUS half of the
committee to delay action on union
beyond the 1973 Assemblies. At the
focus of the committee's attention
was the so-called "escape clause"
which would permit congregations
of both denominations to withdraw
and keep their property.

A subcommittee had hammered
out a revised form of the withdrawal
section which originally would have
permitted congregations to remain
out of the united Church upon two-
thirds vote of those attending a reg-
ular congregational meeting.

According to the revised plan sub-
mitted to the whole committee for
approval, two congregational meet-
ings would have been necessary, held
30 days apart and with members of
the presbytery permitted to attend
but without voice or vote. In the
interim between congregational
meetings, the presbytery would have
had the privilege of consulting with
the dissident congregation.

If the first vote to withdraw was
ratified in the second meeting, the
decision of the congregation would
have been binding and effective as
of the date of the formal union of
the two Churches.

When the revised plan was pre-

THE CHURCH OVERSEAS

VIETNAM — In the wake of the
cease fire, the World Relief Com-
mission which has served in Vietnam
since 1961 will increase its assistance
to the Vietnamese.

The first recovery task is to relo-
cate and resettle war victims and
refugees who fled from Quang Tri
Province to camps around WRC's
Hoa Khanh Children's Hospital.

Food-for-work redevelopment and
land reclamation projects will be
conducted widely through Region I,
using U. S. foods-for-peace as wages.

Christian Youth Social Ser-
vice, WRC's Vietnamese counterpart
agency which has been caring for

refugees in Hoa Khanh, will con-
tinue to fulfill the Commission's
dual purpose of bringing physical
help and spiritual hope.

As a further aid to recovery, the
South Vietnamese Government has
granted WRC $40,000 for use in a
pilot project of expanded commun-
ity development in Tuyen Due
Province among the Koho Montag-
nards.

The World Relief Commission,
with headquarters in Valley Forge,
is the overseas arm of the National
Association of Evangelicals which
represents 38,000 churches. IB

sented to the committee, however,
debate focused not on the substance
of the proposal but upon the consti-
tutionality of any escape clause of
any kind.

Dr. Edward Dowey of Princeton
Seminary, who had been put on the
committee by Moderator Lois Stair
as one "unhappy" with the plan,
argued that any proposal permitting
congregations to withdraw was un-
Presbyterian. He said he would hire
civil lawyers and take the issue to
court before permitting an escape
clause to be written applicable to
United Presbyterian congregations.

Southern members of the commit-
tee suggested that perhaps the entire
plan should be revised, a sugges-
tion greeted with approval by the
chairman of the Southern group, the
Rev. John Randolph Taylor of At-
lanta.

Other Arguments

It was argued that a period should
be introduced permitting the new
General Executive Board and the
corresponding body of the UPUSA
to meet together and begin learning
how to work together, before voting
on union.

Another argument offered against
an early union vote was the alleged
urgency of the proposed new confes-
sion of faith. Plans had been made
before coming here to bring the
chairman of the confessional com
mittee, the Rev. Albert Winn, to
Dallas. Personal matters, however,
prevented Dr. Winn from attending,

In his stead, another member of
the confessional committee, Dr
James Wharton of Austin Seminary,
spoke to the union committee. In
answer to a question, Dr. Wharton
seemed to produce consternation
when he suggested that it probabl)
would be a good thing to vote on
union before voting on the confes
sion.

"There is so much to be done or
the confession that we could not pos
sibly have it ready before 1974 anc
probably 1975," he said.

W. Jack Williamson, Greenville
Ala., attorney, who as an opponen
of union, was placed on the com
mittee by the 1971 PCUS moderator
reminded the committee that it ha(
frequently been acknowledged tha

PAGE 4 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 21, 1973

"we have been negotiating all these
months in good faith. Now our peo-
ple will decide that you have been
toying with us as though we were
children."

Mr. Williamson said that as a law-
yer of 25 years' experience, he had
learned to negotiate with other at-
torneys so long as the negotiations
continued in good faith. "When I
find that another lawyer is not ne-
gotiating in good faith, I lose con-
fidence in him," he said. "Then it
is time to go to court."

On the last day of the meeting
Dr. Thompson revealed that he had
approached Mr. Williamson private-
ly and had apologized for the action
the committee took. Then he turned
to the Southerners and reminded
them of the steps taken from the
time that conservative dissidents had
been invited to appear and state
their case.

"I have always believed that poli-
tics is the art of the possible," Dr.
Thompson said. "You insisted that
an escape clause was necessary in or-
der to secure a favorable vote. You
have now betrayed brethren who
trusted your integrity. I now have
no further commitment to the escape
clause and I now declare that I will
never consent to the inclusion of
such a clause in a plan of union."

At the time of adjournment, the
next step to be taken by the com-
mittee seemed unclear. However, the
joint chairmen issued a public state-
ment committing the panel to the
continuing pursuit of union, "full
of hope." IB

Board of Women's Work
Seeks New Recognition

ATLANTA (PN) — Seeking de-
nominational encouragement and
support for the increasing number
of women entering various min-
istries of the Presbyterian Church
US, the Board of Women's Work
will send six recommendations to
the Church's General Assembly in
June.

At the board meeting here, Feb.
\ 6-7, members voted to place before
i the Assembly for approval recom-
imendations asking: that the Church
study its ordination policies as they
i relate to calls to particular min-
istries; that synods, presbyteries and

local churches consider women when
they are filling ministerial positions;
that the Committee on the Minister
and His Work, as a matter of policy,
make available to search committees
of local churches the names of avail-
able women ministers.

It also asked the boards of trustees
of the seminaries to consciously con-
sider women students in the matter
of housing arrangements and in pro-
viding counselors to meet their spe-
cial needs; and to employ women in
faculty positions. It suggested fur-
ther that session committees (in lo-
cal churches) seek out women as
pulpit supply when the need arises.

Another recommendation will ask
that there be a change in the form
used for annual statistical reports of
local churches in order that statistics
for women members and officers be
separated from those of male mem-
bers and officers. 5!

Evangelism Council
Sets Study Seminars

ATLANTA (PN) — Nine members
of the Evangelism Council of the
Presbyterian US Board of National
Ministries were selected to partici-
pate in 1973 overseas mission study
seminars when the council met here
Feb. 2-4.

Slated to join a Spring seminar
to the Orient are: Mr. Wade Huie
III of Atlanta, Ga.; Mrs. Lydia Frias
of Ft. Worth, Tex.; the Rev. E. T.
Thompson, Richmond, Va.; the Rev.
W. Marvin Randolph, Warner Rob-
bins, Ga.; the Rev. Richard B. Har-
die Jr., Little Rock, Ark.; Mr. H.
Carson Rhyne Jr., Richmond, Va.;
and the Rev. Hubert G. Wardlaw
Jr., Memphis, Tenn.

Tapped for a Fall seminar to Af-
rica are: Dr. Angie T. King of In-
stitute, W. Va.; and the Rev. Harold
Thomas, Kansas City, Mo.

Evangelism will be the emphasis
of both study seminars. Leading the
Asia trip will be the Rev. William
A. Benfield Jr., pastor of the First
Presbyterian Church, Charleston, W.
Va., and a former moderator of the
PCUS. Heading the Africa group
will be the Rev. Cecil Lawrence of
Charlotte, N. C, executive secretary
of Mecklenburg Presbytery.

In other action, the Council on
Evangelism set up four subcommit-

tees to deal with:

— world-wide evangelism, with
Mr. Jule Spach of Winston-Salem,
N. C. as chairman;

— studies and reports, including
the World Council of Churches' pa-
pers on Salvation Today and the fi-
nal summation the council will
make at the end of its three-year
General Assembly mandate in 1974,
Mrs. Anne Clarke, Point Clear, Ala.,
chairman.

— contacts with synods and pres-
byteries, Dr. Robert L. Folger, North
Augusta, S. C, chairman.

— school of evangelism to be held
at Montreat, N. C, in 1973 (during
the time slot set aside for the Na-
tional Ministries Conference in prior
years) , the Rev. Hubert G. Ward-
law Jr., chairman.

The Council on Evangelism is an
18-member body that came into be-
ing in January of 1972, on request
of the 111th General Assembly to
the Board of National Ministries
that such a group be set up as part
of the denomination's current three-
year evangelism emphasis. SI

Stillman Completes
Snedecor Renovation

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — In a con-
tinuing effort to help ease classroom
and faculty office space shortages,
Stillman College has recently com-
pleted an $80,000 renovation of 43-
year-old Snedecor Hall.

The $80,000 project is part of a
first-phase $7.7 million capital funds
campaign, and follows the comple-
tion last August of a $1.6 million
science facility. Plans for the im-
mediate future include a new fine
arts classroom-auditorium center.

Goal for completion of the $7.7
million first phase is 1976, the 100th
anniversary of the PCUS's predomi-
nantly black college.

In other Stillman news, the col-
lege has announced early results of
the "Stillman Educational Develop-
mental Program" launched last fall.
The program, which is designed to
assist students whose high school rec-
ords and college entrance examina-
tions do not indicate a likelihood of
successful college performances, al-
lows participants to receive college
credit on the same basis as other
students while taking a lighter ac-
ademic load during the first year. SI

PAGE 5 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 21, 1973

Synod Rejects Protest
Over UPUSA Ministers

NASHVILLE — A gigantic regional
synod of the Presbyterian Church
US, dubbed "C-F," voted here to re-
ject a protest from one of its presby-
teries against the seating of commis-
sioners from union presbyteries who
had not taken PCUS ordination
vows.

Union presbyteries, which in the
new synod exist only in Kentucky,
include many ministers ordained by
the United Presbyterian Church
USA, whose constitution and vows
differ from those of the PCUS.

Central Mississippi presbytery
made a formal challenge against the
seating of such ministers and elders
in a court of the Presbyterian
Church US. Only those ordained
under the PCUS constitution may
vote in a PCUS court, argued the
Rev. Morton H. Smith of the Re-
formed Seminary, Jackson, Miss.

However, the convention agreed
with its clerk, the Rev. Albert
Freundt Jr., also of Jackson, that
"General Assembly has determined
Synod C-F's membership and the
synod is powerless to question it."
However, the new synod did admit
the challenge to record.

Officers chosen by the convention
were Ralph C. Caldwell of Knox-
ville, chairman, the Rev. Albert
Freundt Jr. of Jackson, clerk, and
Mac W. Freeman of Nashville, as-
sistant clerk. IB

PEF 1973 Conference
Program Is Described

HOPEWELL, Va. — The Presbyte-
rian Evangelistic Fellowship Confer-
ence at Montreat for 1973 will fea-
ture two seminary presidents, a world
famous Baptist evangelist-author, the
former executive secretary of the
PCUS Board of World Missions and
the Sunday school lesson writer for
the Journal, among a host of speak-
ers and other leaders, it was an-
nounced here.

Dr. Robert Rayburn, president of
Covenant Seminary, St. Louis, Mo.,
will be making a return visit to a
PEF conference. Dr. Edmund Clow-
ney, president of Westminster Semi-
nary, Philadelphia, will bring one of
the main addresses, as will Dr. C.
Darby Fulton, retired missions ex-
ecutive.

Dr. Vance Havner of Greensboro,
N. C. will also be speaking and the

Bible Hour will be brought by the
Rev. Jack Scott of the Reformed
Theological Seminary, Jackson, Miss.

Some 26 different seminars on
evangelism will be offered from
which conferees may choose.

Theme of this year's conference,
to be held August 9-14, is, "The
Lord Is Coming-Evangelize." Inter-
ested persons may secure further in-
formation from the PEF office, P. O.
Box 808, Hopewell, Va. 23860. ffl

1972 Birthday Offering
Is Record for Use At Home

ATLANTA (PN) — The 1972
Birthday Offering of Presbyterian
US Women of the Church reached
an all-time high for birthday gifts
designated for use "at home."

The offering alternately goes to
overseas and homeland causes.

The 1972 offering had climbed to
$321,509.86 by Feb. 5. The major
portion is being used to endow a
professorship of business at Stillman
College, Tuscaloosa, Ala., and to cre-
ate scholarships for business students
at Stillman.

American Bible Society received
$50,000 for translating, publishing
and distributing certain sections of
Scripture.

Traditionally, "birthday objec-
tives" designated for overseas causes
have received the largest offerings.
Three overseas causes have sur-
passed the 1972 "at home" total:
in 1965 with $523,680 to the Presby-
terian Medical Center and Taejon
Presbyterian College in Korea; 1969,
$454,949 to the Medical Training
Center in Congo and Church Con-
ference Center in Portugal; and 1971,
$330,844 for Christian Family Service
Centers in Congo, Korea and Tai-
wan. 51

Conference to Explore
Church's Social Mission

RICHMOND (PN) — "Social Mis-
sion 74" will be the focus of a new
kind of Presbyterian US gathering
to be held at Montreat, N. C, April
26-29.

Called "a convocation on the role
of the Church in social affairs," it
will involve participants in explor-
ing three main concerns: the current
American scene, the responsibility
of the Church to the current scene
and the support needs of those in
the Church who wish to minister to

the pressing needs of society.

Three prominent Protestant lead-
ers actively involved in increasing
the Church's impact on society will
be the featured guests.

Dr. Roger L. Shinn, professor of
Social Ethics at Union Theological
Seminary (New York) , will address
the opening session of the convoca-
tion on "The Corporate and Social
Ministry of the Church" as it ap-
pears today. Other leaders will be
the Rev. Will D. Campbell, director
of the Committee of Southern
Churchmen, and Miss Claire Ran-
dall, associate executive director of
Church Women United.

Small groups will form to raise
questions for the three leaders and
to look in depth at social issues of
special interest.

A central element in the convoca-
tion will be worship experiences
linking the liturgy of the Church to
its challenge to social action. Dr.
Daniel B. Wessler, professor of
communication and worship at
Louisville Presbyterian Theological
Seminary, will lead the worship.

Planned by a special task force
from board staff and the church-at-
large, Social Mission '74 is sponsored
by the Board of Christian Educa-
tion, the Board of National Minis-
tries and the Board of Women's
Work.

The convocation is open to all
PCUS churchmen. Information and
registration forms may be obtained
from local pastors or from Social
Mission '74, Board of Christian Edu-
cation, Box 1176, Richmond, Va.
23209. Registration for the confer-
ence is $5 plus $12.50 per day for
room and board at the Assembly
Inn.

Meditation-Prayer Law
Wins Praise, Criticism

WASHINGTON, D. C. (RNS) —
Citizens for Public Prayer, a coali
tion of groups advocating voluntary
prayer in public schools, praised
Pennsylvania's new law that permits
voluntary prayer in public schools,
but said it does not go far enough

The Pennsylvania law, signed by
Gov. Milton Shapp in early Decem-
ber, authorizes prayer and medita-
tion in public schools at the discre-
tion of the classroom teacher or at
the direction of the school board. It
specifically provides that the session
"shall not be conducted as a reli
gious service or exercise." EE

PAGE 6 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 21, 1973

An examination of how a bureaucracy is built and, more important, why —

The Religibu is a PPB Among Probus

Recently two pieces in print
caught my eyes. The first was
a bureaucrat's handbook, When In
Doubt, Mumble, by James H. Boren,
and the second was an ad in the Pres-
byterian Journal (Jan. 31, p. 19) .
You'll understand the relation be-
tween the two when I explain about
the book.

Like any good scholar holding as
many degrees (five) as he does, Dr.
Boren defines his terms: A bureau-
crat is a person dedicated to the op
timization of the creative status quo;
a probu is a professional bureaucrat;
a polibu or acabu, the political or
academic bureaucrat. Creative bu-
reaucracy, says Dr. Boren, rewards
incompetence and is dedicated to dy-
namic inaction.

He didn't say so, but it probably
also maximizes the techniques of ad-
ministrative listening and habitiza-
tional dysfunction.

Peter Principle

The book explains that a bureau-
cracy happens in government, indus-
try or education because of the Pe-
ter Principle, which was discovered
by Hierarchiologist Laurence J. Pe-
ter. This principle holds that, given
enough time, every person inevitably
reaches his level of incompetence.

Expressed very simply, the Peter
Principle works like this: Three
young men are hired as clerks by
a large corporation. Clerk One
reaches his level of incompetence im-
mediately, and he will spend the rest
of his days as a clerk, misdirecting
orders, billing some customers twice
• ' and others not at all, and looking

I

> The author, an old Journal
it friend, illustrates her point with a
til random selection of quotes from of-

Ificial PC US records.
PAGE 7 /

for letters he has put in the wrong
file.

Clerk Two, however, is a good
clerk so very soon he is promoted to
head of the typing pool. Here he
finds his level of incompetence; al-
though he can take directions, he
cannot give them. He probably will
turn into a bully or a tyrant whose
day is not complete until he sends
at least one typist fleeing in tears
to the washroom.

Step Up to Incompetence

Clerk Three is a good clerk, too,
so very shortly he is given additional
duties as office manager, where he
proves efficient. His next step up
the ladder to his level of incom-
petence takes him to the position of
administrative assistant to one of the
junior executives. He can give and
take directions, but unfortunately he
cannot make decisions. While the
work piles up, he dithers in indeci-
sion until eventually he takes early
retirement, but only after having
outlasted any number of junior ex-
ecutives who have occupied the in-
ner office doing their work and his,
too.

An important corollary of the Pe-
ter Principle is that when a person
reaches his level of incompetence,
he will probably make a lateral move
because he is no longer able to make
a vertical move. That is, a public
relations man not competent to write
news releases may move to the lecture
circuit where he is not competent to
speak; he passed his level of compe-
tence when he was promoted from
assistant copy editor.

Any probu in any hierarchy who
has reached his level of incompe-
tence finally meets a situation he
cannot handle. At first he may try
to change the problem to meet the
existing rules. If that doesn't work,

THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUJ

CLYDIE

he may make new rules to cover the
situation, after getting the help of a
professional management consultant.

The higher up the probu is, the
more imaginative are the proposed
solutions, but all have the common
characteristic of involving more and
more and more people. At this point
he will apply one of Dr. Boren's ba-
sic rules of conduct for dynamic in-
action: When in trouble, delegate.

The probu will create a board,
agency, commission, task force, re-
view committee or study committee.
He will direct that one or all of
these groups survey, computerize, an-
alyze and publish their findings.

Then he will ask the board, agen-
cy, commission, task force, review
committee or study committee to sur-
vey, review, study and analyze these
findings and report what they un-
derstand the problem to be.

This much headway made, he will
probably form a Blue Ribbon Cit-
izens Fact-Finding Panel to look at
the problem and suggest a solution.
Thus avoidism prevails until the
crisis has passed, and winds of change

flow Chart, Time Frame

The chairman informed the Board
that one of its members, Rev. . . . ,
had prepared a chart containing
a conceptualization of the work
of the Board on which the major
tasks of the GEB had been identi-
fied, the time frames noted, and the
interrelatedness of tasks described.
Mr. . . . interpreted the flow chart
and provided each member with a
miniaturized copy. The Chairman

expressed appreciation to Mr —

Minutes of the Meeting, General Ex-
ecutive Board, Presbyterian Church
in the United States, Atlanta, Geor-
gia, September 22-24, 1972.

21, 1973

are blowing in another direction.

In conference planning, the pro-
bu reaches his apogee. The only de-
cision he reserves for himself is the
place — probably The Greenbrier
at White Sulphur Springs for the
summer months, The Camelback at
Scottsdale in the winter.

Everything else is handled by com-
mittees, and there is usually one
each for purpose, agenda, reserva-
tions, name tags, banquet tickets,
handikits for arriving delegates, and
so on. A subcommittee usually de-
cides who shall sign the letter of in-
vitation to distinguished guests.

The activities of these groups are
not necessarily coordinated, so that
the arrangements committee, charged
with lining up the speakers, may not
know the purpose of the meeting
nor its agenda, and registration may
not have been told how much the
fee is and what it covers.

Naturally, a PPB (that's a Peter
Principle Bureaucrat, the highest
level of probuistic success and the
Ph.D. of bureaucracy) has certain
accouterments of office. He has
wall-to-wall carpet, two windows
overlooking the park, original oil
paintings on the wall, and a parking
place with his name on it.

When he calls a staff meeting, he
uses audio-visual aids: graphs, plan
charts, flip charts, maps, chalk
board, newsprint paper, grease cray-
on, flannel board, chalk board, slide

'When in Power, Ponder'

As the system's mechanism for
structural self-modification, the Of-
fice of Review and Evaluation is to
provide not only for continuing re-
view and evaluation of the function-
ing of the Assembly's agentry, but
also for a more thorough examina-
tion of the appropriateness and ef-
fectiveness of the agentry's structural
forms and processes at periodic in-
tervals. Through its instrumental-
ity the Assembly will affirm what is
satisfactory in its existing organiza-
tion or create new organization to
reflect new priority goals. — Report
of Ad Interim Committee on Re-
structuring Boards and Agencies As
Amended: Part IV. Description of
the Proposed Structure; E. Office of
the General Assembly; 1. Office of
Review and Evaluation; a. Ra-
tionale.

'When in Doubt, Mumble'

The second package will be col-
lated data gathered by the GEB as
the basis for the prioritizing work to
be done by the Assembly to produce
the basic priority list for the calen-
dar year which will begin approxi-
mately eihteen [sic] months from
this Assembly .... The traditional
procedure for reporting the pro-
viding written reports shall apply
[sic],

— Report of the Ad Interim Com-
mittee on Restructuring Boards and
Agencies As Amended, Appendix F.

and movie projectors, tape recorder,
microphone, loud speaker with two
amplifiers. And, of course, a pointer
and a big box of colored pins.

The PPB has long since mastered
the nomenclature of bureaucracy.
He never tells a subordinate, "Get
to work on this right away." Cer-
tainly not. He says, "To create a
viable infrastructure and to orches-
trate multiphasic input, dialogue
with our resource persons on the his-
toro-cultural parameters."

Thus does bureaucracy proliferate
at the expense of accomplishing
whatever purpose for which the or-
ganization itself exists.

Showcase for PPBs

For any principle to be valid, it
must be generally applicable. For
instance, does the Peter Principle
apply in the church? Those who
have heard, read or worked with a
religibu would readily assent that
the modern institutional church is a
lighted showcase for PPBs.

Bureaucracy is firmly entrenched
in the institutional church, and in-
stead of pushing forward or upward
to spread the Word, the church
treats the Gospel like the redheaded
stepchild at the family reunion —
at best, neglected; at worst, ignored
entirely.

Religibus have long since found
their level of incompetence. Lateral
moves into the worlds of psychology,
politics or the arts provide second
homes for some, so in assorted con-
gregations you can find a kind of
poor man's group therapy, social
activism, or amateur ballet with
guitar accompaniment.

A level or two higher, the field of
higher education claims other reli-
gibus, and seminaries turn out grad-

uates who don't know the Bible, or
worse, don't believe it.

Tucked away into the church hier-
archy are the ecumenists. Successful
as persuaders of Presbyterians, they
have not yet found their level of
incompetence, but they will in any
conglomerate of merged denomina-
tions.

At the very top, the PP religibus
have made their lateral moves into
economics and foreign policy. That
their level of competence was passed
long before they took to dabbling in
matters better left to the real ex-
perts is self-evident.

Now back to that ad: The Presby-
terian Church US is seeking to em-
ploy a religibu as coordinator of
pastoral care of ministers. Not some-
one to give pastoral care to min-
isters, but someone to coordinate the
somebodies who are supposed to.

The church will probably find a
good man who is competent as pas-
tor, preacher, teacher, counselor and
friend, but incompetent as coordi-
nator because he may not be able
to "establish and maintain a net-
work of presbytery personnel and
others engaged in pastoral care of
ministers."

Further, he may not even want to
"function as a referral resource" or
"work with appropriate personnel
on the Board of Christian Educa-
tion in career development and min-
isterial enhancement," even though
he has "clinical experience, e.g.,
ACPE, AAPC, etc."

To some people, bureaucracy is a
religion. To this Presbyterian, reli-
gion appears to be a bureaucracy.

'When in Trouble, Delegate'

The Subcommittee on Priorities
reported their attempt to define
"priority." The principal concern
discussed had to do with page 29 of
the plan and "what happens between
now and the next General Assem-
bly." The Subcommittee recom-
mended [and the Provision General
Executive Board voted] that a task
force be formed to make immediate,
specific plans to implement the
process for data gathering, taking
into consideration the possibility of
using a consultant in this process. —
Minutes of the Meeting, Provisional
General Executive Board, Presbyte-
rian Church in the United States, At-
lanta, Georgia, July 19-20, 1972.

PAGE 8 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 21, 1973

What we may expect to see in the coming events in the propaganda war —

Zeitgeist Watchers

The week of January 27, 1973
was without a doubt one of
the most significant periods in con-
temporary American history. In the
space of seven brief days, the world
witnessed these events:

The death of President Lyndon B.
Johnson, one of the most poignant
figures ever to cross the political
stage; the second inaugural celebra-
tion of a landslide President who
only a decade earlier had been ridi-
culed as a "born loser"; the long
awaited and gratefully received end
of the war in Vietnam; the end of
the military draft; and the legaliza-
tion of abortion by a supposedly
moderate Supreme Court.

A Week to Remember

It was indeed a week to remem-
ber, both for the reporters who fran-
tically rushed from assignment to as-
signment in their attempts to cover
the tidal wave of hard news, and
for those who simply slumped in
their armchairs and tried to make
some sense of it all.

However, the week was more than
merely the sum of its parts. It was
the end of an era to an unorganized
group of people who might be called
Zeitgeist Watchers. Zeitgeist is a
German word meaning "the spirit
of the times." These people make
a living by or merely an interesting
hobby of observing the ideological
and sociological trends of the 20th
century.

For example, Charles Reich, au-
:hor of The Greening of America, is
a Zeitgeist Watcher par excellence.

The author, of Lookout Moun-
tain, Tenn., was a youth delegate
from Knoxville Presbytery to the
1972 General Assembly.

Unfortunately, however, he is an
atrocious interpreter of trends. He
regards his times with the dreamy
admiration of a tour guide shut-
tling back and forth between Shan-
gri-La and Disneyland.

Zeitgeist Watchers are watching
things very carefully right now, be-
cause the shattering events of early
1973 are obviously portents of even
greater change.

Propaganda Pros

Like many others, I am reading
the headlines with more care than
usual, although my interests are a
bit more specialized than those of
the Zeitgeist Watchers. The often
ignored area of propaganda intrigues
me, and it will be interesting to see
where the propagandists in our midst
will go from here.

By propaganda, I do not refer to
all written and spoken material
geared toward ideological indoctri-
nation, a definition which is broad
enough to include such diverse top-
ics as a political party platform and
Paul's sermon on Mars Hill. Rather,
I refer to that material which
is manufactured and distributed
by the professional propagandists.
These are the men and women of
the extreme left and extreme right
whose primary objective is the syste-
matic demoralization of the adult
population of the United States.

Looking for Facts?

The Old Testament and the New
are imperishable masterpieces of lit-
erature largely because they speak
frankly and accurately the facts of
life. — J. M. Gillis.

BILL MELDEN

Propagandists number in the mil-
lions. They include such varied
types as the fanatic at the mimeo-
graph machine, the suave urban
minister, and the city editor of a
major newspaper. They are the pro-
fessional sloganeers and demagogues
who make their living from broad-
sides, emotional speeches, and sub-
tle exploitations of the working
press.

In recent years these people have
been working very hard. We have
been inundated by a flood of what
used to be called good liberal causes:
peace in Vietnam, women's rights
(including the right to murder their
children via abortion) , and the draft.
Nearly every protest demonstration
which we have viewed on the eve-
ning news has been concerned with
these topics, or topics intimately re-
lated.

This is very well and good, of
course, because they are matters with
which we should be concerned. How-
ever, now that these matters have
been resolved, at least superficially,
what will the propagandists do?

On the basis of considerable ex-
perience in the field of "youth pol-
itics" before my conversion to Jesus
Christ, and on the basis of friend-
ship with activists and radicals of
every philosophical stripe, I would
like to venture an educated guess
that the following issues will be the
ones to watch as the propaganda
war against the United States shifts
gears.

With the end of the war and the
legalization of abortion, civil rights
is the only remaining "big" cause. It
is certainly one of immense concern
to the Christian, for there are mil-
lions of people in this nation who
can only be described as second-class
citizens.

The propagandists, of course, will

PAGE 9 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 21, 1973

exhibit only hypocritical concern;
they will continue to ruthlessly ex-
ploit this tremendously important
issue for their own benefit.

Watch for a major bid for re-
spectability by the lunatic fringe
groups — the recent vindication of
Angela Davis will prove a great
boon. Also watch for an increased
barrage of hate propaganda from
such right-wing fringe groups as the
American Nazis and the National
Youth Alliance.

'Gay' Liberation

With the abortion decision the
Women's Liberation movement
scored a major victory. We can ex-
pect the emphasis to change some-
what to the so-called Gay Libera-
tionists.

Recent trends toward making
homosexuality acceptable will in-
crease a hundredfold, and church
sanctions of homosexual behavior
will reach a new high in rhetorical
self-righteousness. In all probabil-
ity, "Gay Lib" demonstrations in
the streets will become far more
numerous.

The catchy little phrase, Freedom
From Religion, is the title of a
forthcoming book by Mrs. Madalyn
Murray O'Hair. It will almost cer-
tainly become a slogan because it is
brief, easily remembered, and even
contains a tiny bit of clumsy irony.
It will undoubtedly appear on bum-
per stickers within the year.

Mrs. O'Hair, whose recent slan-

It's a Glory

The glory of Protestantism and
the glory of Calvinism and the glory
of Puritanism was and is that an em-
phasis was placed on the incarnation
of one's beliefs in his daily round.
When people really believe this sort
of thing, it makes a difference in
what they choose to do and how
they carry it through. One does not,
for God's sake, do shoddy work.

My thesis is simple enough: That
great middle section of our society —
neither the intellectuals nor the in-
digent — must be converted or re-
converted to a whole series of be-
liefs that have to do with honesty,
integrity, hard work, the bourgeois
virtues, or we can quit complaining

ders against Dr. Billy Graham land-
ed her a great deal of attention, has
outlined her plans for the new year.
These include a massive effort of
protest against such activities as Con-
gressional prayer breakfasts and
White House worship services. Nat-
urally, Mrs. O'Hair plans to be in
the forefront of all such protests.

While her abrasive manner and
bathroom vocabulary win her few
personal converts, her American
Atheist Church is a relatively effec-
tive clearinghouse for antireligious
efforts. "Separation of church and
state" is her war cry, and this is pre-
cisely the sort of vague yet weighty
cause that the propagandists love to
support.

Watch for cooperation in these ac-
tivities on the part of the young, po-
litically conservative atheists, most
of whom style themselves "objectiv-
ists" after the manner of Ayn Rand.
The coalition of professional civil
libertarians and high-energy, right-
wing students could be formidable
— especially since they will be led
by none other than Satan himself.

Pot and Cuba

"Legalize pot" lobbyists will prob-
ably make a major assault on Con-
gress; in any event, the propagandists
will step up their efforts on behalf
of legalized marijuana. We should
also hear an increased number of
voices calling for the adoption of
the glamorous but ineffective "Brit-
ish System" of controlling heroin ad-

about dirty trains, planes that crash,
autos that go back to the factory by
the thousands, the TV man who
doesn't really fix it, the plumber
who doesn't show, the people who
steal books from the library, the
vandals, the police who take bribes,
the shakedown artists at every level.

What a man believes determines
how he acts, and it has always been
the task of the Church to circulate
and fasten down some eternal truths
toward belief and then toward ac-
tion. The excluded middle in our
society had better be included or the
whole edifice will come crashing
down. — Addison H. Leitch in
Christianity Today. EE

diction by legalizing its sale and
even making it available.

Recognition of Cuba is inevitable,
according to many observers and it
will cover not only diplomatic nice-
ties, but also trade and foreign aid.
Cuba is the propaganda center of
the Western hemisphere, and prob-
ably the closest thing to a truly
Marxist-Leninist state on earth.

These five areas will be the scenes
of the major propaganda thrusts in
the coming year. These are only
guesses, of course, and not Jeanne
Dixon-style prophecies. One Jeanne
Dixon is more than enough for any
nation!

Christian Response

What should our response as
Christians be to all of this? The
question is urgent. One reason for
its urgency is the Great Commission, "
another is the certainty that the
Presbyterian Church in the United 1
States will enthusiastically lurch in- 1
to step with the propagandists.

Christians are the salt of the earth.
It is hard to imagine the salt of the ^
earth remaining in the shaker when 10
the propagandists are poisoning the
world. I believe that we have a
pressing responsibility to beat the
professional propagandists at their
own game — not necessarily in the
defense of our political and social
traditions, but in the aggressive
spreading of the revolutionary Gos- lllt
pel of Jesus Christ.

In so doing, we must be aware of
the times in which we live. His-
torians are all but unanimous in
their belief that this time will be ;°
remembered as "the age of revolu- 1
tion," and Christians must take ad- *
vantage of revolutionary techniques "
if we are to reach a revolution-ori-
ented culture.

In addition to the Biblical prin-
ciples of evangelism, we must be-
come intimately familiar with the ^
classic techniques of propaganda and ^
agitation, remembering that these
terms are not pejorative in them-
selves. A term like "agitation" can ;,
just as easily apply to the Coral ^
Ridge evangelism program as to a rl
radical inciting a riot.

By so doing, we can wage the wai [k
defensively by recognizing and ex
posing the propagandists, and of ^
fensively, by turning the tables on j
them and showing forth the light of ft,,
Christ in bold, new ways without l
abandoning the old, proven ways.

After all, that is why we're here. EE t:„

PAGE 10 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 21, 1973

Lot stayed on in Sodom when he should have left. What would you have done? —

The Man God Did Not Use

AUPUSA minister said to me
one day just after the "Confes-
sion of '67" had been adopted, "I
don't like it, but I can live with it."

Four thousand years ago in Sod-
om, a good man by the name of Lot
also said to himself, "I don't like
what goes on here, but I can live
with it." The Bible tells us that
Lot "vexed his righteous soul" over
the sins of Sodom. But why would
Lot want to live with it when he
could just as easily be elsewhere and
not have to vex his righteous soul
with the sins of his neighbors?

No doubt Lot said to himself, "Sod-
am is a wicked city, Sodom is an un-
believing city; perhaps I can do
something to help these people of
Sodom. Perhaps I can witness to
them. Maybe I can change Sodom."

Mixed Motives

Actually, however, Lot's real rea-
sons for being in Sodom were dif-
ferent from these which he gave to
iiimself. Lot was in Sodom in order
:o make a living. He wanted to
make a good living and he saw that
le could do it in Sodom. That's the
eason he went there and that is the
eason he stayed.

Lot's purpose in being in Sodom,
Uso, was to enjoy the good things of
:ivilization. He didn't like being
.eparated from them. He had left
Jr of the Chaldees with his Uncle
\braham when he was a young man.
tie missed all of the conveniences
tnd pleasures of civilization. He had
een possibilities in being with his
Jncle Abraham and had prospered

The author is chairman of the
°resbyterian Evangelistic Fellow-
hip. This message is reprinted with
Permission from the Bulletin of
Concerned Presbyterians.

out in the wide open spaces. But
still he craved the pleasures, benefits
and social contacts of civilization.

Lot was in Sodom, too, because
he wanted not only a living, but
wealth. He was in Sodom and he
was going to have his part of it.
Just making a living wasn't satisfy-
ing to him. He wanted to make a
killing. He knew that Sodom was
the place to do it.

In the fourth place, Lot went to
Sodom because he wanted to rise on
the ladder of success, to become
prominent, to become well-known,
to become a leader. This he could
not do out in the wide open spaces.
His Uncle Abraham delighted more
in communion with God than in at-
taining success and becoming pow-
erful. Not Lot. It was all right to
communicate with God and in wick-
ed Sodom he could do that, he said
to himself.

Why not enjoy communion with
God here, since God was anywhere
and you could worship as well in the
atmosphere of Sodom as out in the
wide open spaces? So Lot chose
Sodom. Though the sins of his
neighbors vexed him greatly, he
stuck with Sodom. He was the kind
of man who said, "I don't like it,
but I can live with it." In spite of
the wickedness of his neighbors, he
went on living with it.

In the World, But Not of It

Now this is something which ev-
ery missionary has to do, but he is
doing it for a different purpose. He
is not doing it to make a living. He
is not doing it to make a killing. He
is not doing it to enjoy the benefits
of civilization, nor to rise high on
the ladder of success. He is doing
it to bring Christ to people who are
in darkness, to obey his Lord's com-
mand. So he, too, has to vex his

WILLIAM E. HILL JR.

righteous soul with the wickedness
around him. His main business,
however, is to replace that wicked-
ness with righteousness, rather than
to make money or to make a success
out of it for himself.

Today a true Christian who works
out in the world has to face a de-
gree of the same thing that Lot had
to face. Oftentimes his righteous soul
is vexed by things that are done on
the job and among his neighbors.
But if he is a dedicated Christian,
he is not there to make a living, not
there to make a killing, not there to
find success, not there to get the
gadgets and comforts of life.

A true, witnessing Christian seeks
to bring Christ to others wherever
he is and to turn wickedness into
righteousness wherever he goes. He
is there because he feels God has
placed him there to do a job.

Lot had no such motive, judging
from all the indications that are
given to us in Scripture. He main-
tained his integrity, did not join in
with the wickedness of his neighbors,
and was very much upset by what
they did, yet his witness to them, if
there was any, was not effective be-
cause they knew that his main rea-
sons for being in Sodom were the
same reasons that they had for being
in Sodom. So they were not im-
pressed by his righteousness or his
religion.

Lot Lingered

There came a time when Lot had
to leave Sodom, but he did not leave
very willingly, only reluctantly. His
wife left even more reluctantly.
When Lot left Sodom, she would
not look toward the Lord. She
looked toward Sodom, just as Lot had
led her to do in his original decision.

(Continued on p. 18, col. 3)

PAGE 11 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 21, 1973

EDITORIALS

No Chicken Like a Church Chicken

One of the most profound "mes-
sages" ever captured on film was
that of "Mr. Smith Goes to Washing-
ton."

In the film, James Stewart por-
trayed a new member of the Senate
who went to Washington naively be-
lieving that everyone elected to the
high office of senator would be com-
mitted to high moral principles.
Surely, if a clear moral choice was
offered, the men in charge of run-
ning the United States would stand
for truth and integrity.

The new senator's illusions were
rudely shattered when men he re-
spected turned out to be moral cow-
ards. Offered the opportunity to
stand for the right, they turned
chicken.

There's nothing more shattering
to a person's equanimity than the

experience of having people and
things he has counted on turn out
to be unworthy of confidence.

But moral cowards are not found
only in secular life. Some of them
can be found in church. Indeed,
there's no chicken like a church
chicken!

We had a dedicated Presbyterian
elder come by the other day with a
tale that was as sad as it was fa-
miliar: the tale of a whole session
turned chicken.

The elder is a member of a con-
gregation whose minister seems to
be a total failure in the ministry.
Never mind the details, suffice it
to say that after a long period of
unsettlement, the elders agreed pri-
vately that someone had to "bell the
cat" by telling the minister they felt
he should seek a call elsewhere. Our

The Crusade Will Now Shift to Amnesty

Now that the issue of American
withdrawal from Vietnam has been
taken away from liberal Church
leaders, we can expect attention to
shift to the "pitiful plight" of Amer-
ican deserters and draft dodgers in
Canada and Sweden, to name a cou-
ple of places to which they have
fled by the thousands.

The National Council of Church-
es, in its recent Dallas Assembly,
blamed the law for driving draft-
dodgers abroad. The draft-dodgers,
said the NCC, should be brought
home scot-free and the law should,
in effect, apologize.

Commenting on this point of view,
the Dallas Morning News editorial-
ized:

"The council is mighty hard on
the law, but consistently so: NCC
has advised young men to follow
their consciences. What it has not
advised them to do is take the con-
sequences.

"NCC is short on both moral and
legal justification for what it
preaches.

"In the council's view, the men
who fought and died by the thou-
sands in Vietnam did so to 'merely

maintain the safety and welfare of
the human community' — which is
all the NCC will allow the law to
provide for. It accuses the law of
wrongfully dividing those who
fought and those who ran into the
righteous and unrighteous.

"No, the law doesn't do that. It
merely judges between those who
break the law and those who don't.
Conscience is no defense against a
call to uniform except under stated
statutory conditions, which the fu-
gitives chose not to meet. The law
judges the deed, not the motiva-
tion.

"It is the council that is talking
about the righteous and the unrigh-
teous, and it has no praise for the
personal motivation of those who
made service instead of flight an act
of conscience.

"The 'blessed act of oblivion'
called for is an affront to both the
rule of the law and the unspoken
motivations of the veterans. The
true moral expression of conscience
is facing the consequences of exer-
cising it."

Amen. Those who fled and now
want amnesty cannot appeal to
morality in their behalf. IB

friend, being a bit like Mr. Smith,
was asked to be spokesman for the
others. Reluctantly, he accepted.

On the night of the fateful meet-
ing some of the most privately vocal
elders found it convenient to be else-
where. And in the confrontation
which took place the others, without
exception, turned chicken, leaving
our friend holding a very empty
bag.

The incident was a small one, but
the principle it illustrates is enor-
mous. Evil wins more battles by the
default of moral cowards than there
is room to tell. Vocal in private:
they are notably silent in public
Confronted with a clear moral issue,
they turn away. When some crisis
calls for men of courage, they turn
chicken.

When the time comes for a stand
up vote, they conveniently slip out'
on "pressing business."

We are persuaded that in the da1
of the Great Accounting, others be
sides flagrant evil doers will be
herded with the goats. Isn't that
what the Bible says? Those on the
left hand will be surprised, because1
they rather expected to be on the
right.

God keep any of us from such
spiritual blindness concerning out
obligations of whatever kind thai
when that Day comes, we will b
surprised.

What Sovereignty
Means

When Presbyterians confess a pri
mary interest in the "sovereignty o
God," they are not so much confess
ing a single doctrine as they are
general perspective.

That is to say, the sovereignty o
God is not an article of belief to b
placed alongside another, such
total depravity, but is rather an ovei;
all viewpoint or standpoint fror
which to see and understand ever
article of belief including total dt
pravity.

For an illustration of what w;
mean by perspective, or viewpoini
or standpoint: When Queen Eliz2|
beth of England was growing up
everything in her life was dictate"
by a central consideration, namel
that she was the heir to the thron
of England. Why did this or tha
happen to her? — one day she woul
be queen. Why must she do this am
avoid doing that? — one day sfcj
would be queen. What must be th

PAGE 12 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 21, 1973

i

:

4

THE LAYMAN AND HIS CHURCH

m

One-Shot Christians

lature of her schooling? — one day
she would be queen.

You see, the future queen's status
was not so much a single considera-
ion alongside others, but an over-
dl perspective in the light of which
everything else was to be understood.

So it is with the Calvinistic con-
:ept of the sovereignty of God. What-
ever it is that you know, understand,
io, receive — the guiding principle
s: not man, but God.

This thought controls our under-
tanding of election, predestination,
perseverance. It is the viewpoint
rom which we explain the incarna-
ion, the atonement and history it-
elf.

Take the doctrine of infant bap-
ism, for example. Why do we bap-
ize infants? For anything they have
lone or can be expected to do? Not
nan, but Godl

Christian parents bring their chil-
Iren for the sacrament, claiming
iod's covenant promises. These
promises indicate to all that in some
he Holy Spirit can be presumed
tperative. To these, baptism belongs.

Whether young or old, the ques-
ion is, "Can it be presumed that
he Holy Spirit has taken the initia-
ive in this life?" If of age, the evi-
[ence is given in the profession of
aith. If an infant, the evidence is
;iven in the obedience of the parents.

But in every case, the thing sought
s, "What hath God wrought?" for
le is sovereign. ffl

Stand Up! Put Up!

The Church really ought to rid
tself once and for all of skittish
eeling about being dogmatic over
he truths about God that holy
cripture embraces within its iner-
ant text. As Harry Blamires has
/ell pointed out, "There is no escape
rom creed and dogma except by
/ay of rebellion against God." Each
aan has his creed, and the Chris-
ian ought indeed to be much con-
erned that his is clearly and ac-
urately formulated. Secular creeds
;re forever seeking to subvert the
Christian's certainty of faith, often
nth labels like "traditionalist," "ir-
elevant," "obscurantist," and "sub-
ational," all of which are very fa-
liliar by this time.

By rights, orthodoxy, instead of
fielding the questions, ought to be
outing them. Is God untrust-
worthy? Is the Church founded up-

As a boy, one of my favorite books
was Ben Hur. Although I knew the
story, I read it again and again. I
often wondered why General Lew
Wallace did not write more books
like Ben Hur, and 13 years later he
did write another book, but it lacked
the fire and it was the only one writ-
ten after the great Ben Hur.

Later, everyone of us read Gone
With the Wind and some of us are
still reading it. Margaret Mitchell's
untimely death in a traffic accident
prevented her from writing other
books, using the great talent she had.

This is no criticism of General
Lew Wallace and certainly not of
Margaret Mitchell. Each gave to
the world a masterpiece of English
literature. The world is indebted
to both of them, but we do wish
they had produced more.

No doubt each of these gifted peo-
ple had good and sufficient reasons
for producing one great work. This
cannot be said of what we call "one-
shot Christians." We all know
them: the man or woman who ac-
cepts a job in the church or the
church school and does the job with
great ability for a year or possibly
two. Then as if they had served a
sentence, they say, "I'm through, get
someone else." Because they have
done a good job, it's hard to get
someone else to take their place and
do as well so the work may suffer.

It is true someone may come along

This week's layman's viewpoint is
brought by R. C. Cropper, an elder
and businessman of Macon, Ga.

on everlasting question marks? Is
our faith nothing but a nebulous
fog? Is the Bible reliable? The
idea that Christians take shelter be-
hind some kind of veil of incompre-
hensibility ought to be recognized
for what it is, an invention of the
devil. For Christians to act as
though they do not have the answers
to men's greatest problems of life,
when in fact their Lord has given
them, is really to abdicate from their
calling. — E. F. Klug, in Christian-
ity Today. ffl

who can do a particular work better,
in which case a Christian would
gladly step aside — but into another
work, for there is always more to be
done in the church than workers to
fill the need.

We all know church members of
great ability who seem to feel that
one year's service is all they owe to
Christ for their salvation. We cannot
pay our debt to Christ with small
change.

The words Christ spoke in John 15
should be frightening to those we
might call one-shot Christians. They
were forgiven, justified, and cleansed
when they were engrafted into
Christ, the true vine. At that time
they were given the ability to be
fruitful, and they were fruitful —
for a season. Christ's words are very
clear, "Be fruitful or be cut off."

Christ did not say be fruitful for
a year or two. We are joined up to
the true vine for the duration, for
this world and the next.

There are only two kinds of
branches engrafted into Christ, the
true vine. One is fruitful, the oth-
er is barren. The fruitful branch that
has ceased bearing has the greater
condemnation than the barren from
the beginning.

"Every branch that beareth not
fruit, he taketh away," and again,
"If a man abide not in me, he is cast
forth as a branch, and is withered
and men gather them and cast them
into the fire and they are burned."

What are the fruits of the Spirit?
As we are fruitful branches of the
true vine, the Holy Spirit will point
them out to us. There isn't a day
goes by we do not see the need, if
our eyes are open to it.

At the Passion Play in Oberam-
mergau, the cross that is carried by
the man portraying Christ is just as
heavy as the one He fell under. The
actor says, "I couldn't play the part
unless I felt the weight."

Unless Christians feel in their
heart the weight of the hungry, the
needy, the neglected and the un-
saved, we can hardly call ourselves
fruitful branches of the true vine.
And therein lies the danger of be-
ing "one-shot Christians." ffl

PAGE 13 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 21, 1973

SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON

For March 11, 1973

Man Is A Responsible Being

Rev. Jack B. Scott

INTRODUCTION: From last
week's lesson, we have seen that God
had a purpose in creating man in
this world, a purpose clearly ex-
pressed in Ephesians 1:4. Among
the things we noted was that a part
of God's purpose for man was that
man show his love for God by his
responsibility to God and to his fel-
low men.

Today we shall begin at that point
and develop the responsibility of
man. Again, the outline for the
lesson shall contain basic affirma-
tions concerning man's responsibil-
ity, keeping in mind that this quar-
ter of lessons is concerned with our
affirmations of faith.

I. MEN ARE RESPONSIBLE
BOTH TO GOD AND FOR ONE
ANOTHER (Gen. 1:27-30, 4:1-9).
When God created man in His own
image, he was created for God (to
have fellowship with God) and he
was created to reflect in his person
the glory and nature of God.

Man's love for God was required
in his carrying out the revealed will
of God in his life (Gen. 1-2) . Be-
fore the fall of man, this will was
expressed in certain positive and
negative commands:

God commissioned Adam and
Eve to be fruitful and multiply
(thus God expressed His will that
the family is part of His plan and
purpose) and to subdue and have
dominion over the earth and the
creatures on it (Gen. 1:28). By ex-
ercising his dominion over all that
God had made, Adam would there-
fore be showing his love for God by
obeying His will.

Negatively, man was to refrain
from eating of the fruit of the tree
of the knowledge of good and evil
(2:17). God did not explain this
command, but in forbidding man to
eat of it, He was showing that it was
not necessary for man's good and
that man could only live by trusting
in God, obeying God's wishes in love.
Man was to show his love for God
by obeying and keeping God's com-
mandments. This is always neces-
sary if we truly love Him (John

Background Scripture: Genesis 1:

27-30, 4:1-9; Matthew 25:31-46;

Acts 17:30-31; Romans 14:10-12
Key Verses: Genesis 1:27-30; Acts

17:30-31; Romans 14:10-12
Devotional Reading: Deuteronomy

11:10-12, 26-28
Memory Selection: Romans 14:12

14:14) .

Man is also to love his fellow
men. God showed that man alone
is not full and complete, he needs
companionship. God created wom-
an, Eve, to be a help according to
Adam's need.

Thus the family and with it the
community of God's people were
established. In that community,
God's people would show concern
for one another. The man would
leave mother and father and be
joined to his wife and another fam-
ily would be established under God
(Gen. 2:24-25).

The basic relationship in the fam-
ily, as God ordained it, is expressed
in the mutual love of husband for
wife and wife for husband and par-
ents for children and children for
parents (Eph. 5:22-31). Paul used
the very highest example of love
which is conceivable, Christ's love
for His Church as representative of
the ideal relationship between a hus-
band and wife in the home of God's
children.

In addition, man is responsible
for the world which God made, to
replenish and subdue it, having do-
minion over all the lesser creatures.
The word ecology is today heard on
every hand as though it were some
new concept. Yet in the very begin-
ning God showed man his respon-
sibility for the care of this world, to
preserve and take care of all that
God had made.

This is an entrustment from God
to man. This is God's world and
we are as tenants in it to care for it
and to be responsible to God for
how we use or misuse all that God

The International Sunday School Lesson Outlines
are copyrighted 1972 by the Committee on the
Uniform Series ot the National Council of Churches
of Christ.

has made.

)

The fall did not in any way
change man's responsibility to love
God and his fellow men, though the
fall did change man's ability tc|
obey (Gen. 4) . Man, though spirii
tually dead in sin (Eph. 2: If.), wa.'
nevertheless held accountable for hii
conduct

When God told Cain that his ofi
fering was not acceptable, he reac1 oi
ted as a sinner, angry with God, re t
bellious. His face showed what wai 0
in his heart. By nature he was i< it
son of Satan. He showed no love it
for God nor for his brother Abel.n
(See I John 3:11-12.)

Before the sin of his heart worked
out in the overt act of murder, Goc
warned Cain of his responsibility a
Cain was responsible to God not to <t
sin (Gen. 4:7). When he did murp
der his brother, immediately Go<r
confronted him with the question
"Where is Abel thy brother?" Thii
showed him and us that we are in
deed our brothers' keepers. We wi!
have to answer to God for the wa;
we have dealt with one anothe:
(Gen. 4:9) .

So we see that after the fall, man'
responsibility to God did not changi
and even though spiritually man i
now inclined by nature to sin an<
rebel, he is nonetheless accountable
to God for all of his conduct. Got
continued throughout the whol
period of His written revelation V ft
show that His purpose for man doe
not change

Man, made in God's image, was t
glorify God and bear His image ii
the world. When Moses asked
the glory of God (Exo. 33:1£

9
it
I

A
ii

r;-

see

19) , God showed him His goodne
(Exo. 34:6-7) . When Jesus cam<
the word made flesh, He bore thaftu
same image of God before the worl
(Phil. 2:6; II Cor. 4:4; Heb. 1:3).

Then Paul told us that we ai
in Christ to bear the image of Chii:
who is the image of God (Rom. i
29; II Cor. 3:18) . When asked wh<
the greatest commandment was, J'
sus, quoting from the Pentateucl
taught that love of God and of one

PAGE 14 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 21, 1973

v

as
«

is

i\
k

leighbor was and continues to be
he summation of God's will for
nan.

God never changes His will for us.
We all continue to be fully respon-
ible to God to fulfill His original
mrpose in creating man. The stan-
lards are never lowered.

II. LOVE OF GOD AND OF
1NE ANOTHER ARE INSEP-
iRABLE (Matt. 25:31-46). This is
hard lesson for us to learn but it
s continually taught throughout
cripture. We have already seen
iow clearly Cain's responsibilities to
>od and to Abel, his brother, are
ied together (Gen. 4) .

Through the prophets, God con-
inually warned Israel that when
he people failed to show concern
or one another they were not ac-
eptable to Him (Amos 2:6-8) .
Through Isaiah He showed that no
worship of Him was acceptable
/hen the worshipers brought their
acrifices in hands full of blood and
ppression (Isa. 1:10-17).
Then Jesus reiterated this truth
n a most graphic and memorable
/ay (Matt. 25:31-46) . The setting
/as the judgment of all men in the
ast day: Christ triumphant will
eign in glory. All nations are
here. In that awesome day Christ
fill finally make evident those who
elong to Him and those who are
ejected.

Here the sheep represented those
/ho are to be saved to inherit the
ingdom which God prepared for
hem from before the world was
lade (Eph. 1:4). The evidence
hat they belong to Jesus (are God's
hildren) is that they have served
:hrist well (vv. 35-36) .

When the righteous protested that
iey never saw Christ with such
eeds as He had pointed out, Jesus'
nswer was that since they min-
>tered to His brothers, they did so
3 Him, i.e., their love and kindness
nd concern for one another man-
ested their love for Christ.

Those righteous ones, the rem-
ant who are to inherit God's king-
om forever, in their life on earth
ccupied their time in doing the
lings God's children should be do-
ig. Their love for God was insep-
rable from their love for one an-
ther. Indeed, they loved God and
ne another, manifesting God's first
aving loved them.

Others there would have at that
loment gladly served Christ in any
ay He commanded, as they stood

in fear before His judgment throne.
But Jesus showed them that when
they had opportunity to serve Him
by showing love and concern for the
needs of others, because of their self-
ish and proud hearts they refused
to be concerned. Those who did not
know how to love were called cursed
and condemned to the eternal fire
of hell. Thus again we see that love
of one's neighbor and love of God
are inseparable.

This judgment scene is quite sim-
ilar to the truth taught in Psalm 1
which distinguishes between the
righteous and the unrighteous. It
should also be compared with the
judgment scene of Revelation 20. In
all of these we see that ultimately
there are just two kinds of people:
the righteous (God's children) ,
who love God and one another; and
the unrighteous (Satan's children) ,
who love self only and therefore do
not serve or please God.

The New Testament affirms the
truth that the love of God and of
one another are inseparable (I John
4:20; compare also James 2:8-9, 14-
16).

III. ALL MEN MUST AN-
SWER FINALLY TO GOD (Acts
17:30-31; Rom. 14:10-12). Preaching
a sermon to Gentiles of Athens (Acts
17:30-31), Paul faced philosophers
who enjoyed nothing more than de-
bating about everything in man's
knowledge. Not depending on elo-
quent words of men's wisdom (I
Cor. 2:1-5) but on the power of the
revealed Word, Paul preached to
them Christ and the resurrection,
matters of faith.

He told that God called all men
to repent before the awful day of
judgment by Jesus Christ, whom
God raised from the dead. Paul, as
did the prophets of old, declared
that the standard of judgment will
be righteousness, God's standard
from the time of His first dealing
with Abraham. (Compare Genesis
18:19; Isaiah 5:7, 28:16-17, 33:5,
etc.) . Paul said that in the end this
will still be God's standard. God
never lowers His standard.

Writing to Christians in Rome,
Paul still spoke in terms of the neces-
sity of all men answering to God for
lives lived in this world (Rom. 14:
10-12) . "Each one of us shall give
account of himself to God."

This is indeed a sobering thought.
It means that though before men we
may act improperly and seem to get
away with it, we will still have to

face God in the end. It means that
though our motivations for what we
do are unknown to men and they
may praise us when we do not de-
serve praise, we still have to account
for our very thoughts as well as our
deeds before God.

It means that though we may un-
fairly judge others in this world, in
the end God will fairly judge us
and all the truth will be revealed,
all of our good and all of our evil.
(Compare II Corinthians 5:10.)

CONCLUSION: This lesson is
designed to show us all that we are
responsible before God. No man
can shirk that responsibility. No
man can withdraw in unto himself
and say, "I am not my brother's
keeper." We all are debtors to God
and in the end we cannot escape the
final accounting which we must give
before Him. 51

There are many today who are
apparently seeking organic, organi-
zational unity on the premise that
effective united action is synony-
mous with "Christian." This simply
is not true. — The Defender.

PAGE 15 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 21, 1973

YOUTH PROGRAM

For March 11, 1973

The Secret of the Christian Life

Scripture: Mark 8:31-38
Suggested Hymns:

"My Faith Looks Up to Thee"
"Have Thine Own Way, Lo^d"

PROGRAM LEADER'S INTRO-
DUCTION: There came a time
when Jesus told His disciples He
was going to suffer, die, and after
three days rise from the dead. Hear-
ing this, Peter took the arm of Je-
sus and pulled Him aside and be-
gan to rebuke Him. But the Lord
Jesus shook His arm loose from Pe-
ter saying to him so all the disciples
could hear, "Get behind me Satan!
for your thoughts are not of the
things of God, but of the things
of men."

Rev. Henry J. Mueller

Those were strong words. But
they had to be. The disciples had
no future, except as their Master
suffered, died and rose from death.
And He went on to tell them, "If
any man would come after me, let
him deny himself and take up his
cross and follow me" (v. 34) .

If you want to be a follower of
Jesus Christ you must heed these
words that come from Him. There
are two things you must do: Deny
yourself and take up your cross.
These are related and both are re-
sults that come from being a true
Christian — one who has a personal
relationship with Jesus Christ. Paul
tells us that if we know Jesus then
we have been buried with Him. He
means we have died with Christ.

ChmsriAN EducArioN

In the Spring of 1973, Belhaven will
graduate 18 Christian Education majors
who will be qualified to fill positions
as Directors of Christian Education,
Youth Workers and Educational Assistants.
For information concerning these grad-
uates, contact Professor Newton Wilson.

Belhaven College

Jackson, Mississippi 39202

Belhaven College's
Department of
Christian Education
seeks to prepare
each student for an
effective ministry in
today's world.
Special emphasis is
given to the impor-
tance of quality edu-
cation and leadership
within the church.
Students graduating
in Christian Education
are equipped for ad-
ministration of edu-
cation and leadership
training in churches.
Each Christian Edu-
cation graduate is
certified by the Evan-
gelical Teacher
Training Association.

Belhaven College, a four-year co-educational
college of liberal arts and sciences, founded 1883, is related by covenant
to the Synod of Mississippi, Presbyterian Church in the United States.

(Read Romans 6:36.) Self-denia
and cross-bearing are results of hav
ing died with Christ. To deny your
self is the inward aspect and to beai
your cross is the outward act.

Today our speakers will lead u
in a discussion of self-denial. Nex
week we will talk about bearing oui
cross.

FIRST SPEAKER: Self-denial i
not a natural act. Our moral incli
nation is to affirm ourselves. W<
want people to see "me." We desin
our friends to think of us as success
ful, popular, important and intelli
gent. We are only interested ir
those things that build up our prid
and importance.

On the other hand, we are alway
watching out for anyone or anything j)J
that makes us look bad. We an
sensitive to and defensive against
suits and attacks on our personali
ties. We are more interested in our
selves than in anything else.

Yet these things must disappear
We must do away with our selfisl
attitudes. Indeed, even those thing
that make us important are to b
forgotten.

(To illustrate this, read Philip
pians 3:1-11 and ask the group ti
identify the things Paul could hav
used to make himself a great Jew
ish leader. Yet, what was his atti
tude? Have each person make u
a list of things that makes him in
portant and then ask if they ar
willing to say as Paul, "I conside
it all as mere garbage, so that
might gain Christ.")

SECOND SPEAKER: There i
not a one of us here who can den
himself unless he is a Christiar
We need to be born again. Ther
has to be a personal relationshi
with Jesus Christ. You cannot di
to yourself unless you have taste
of Christ's love for you. You wi
be unable to forget yourself unle.'
you are able to say like Paul,
am crucified with Christ: neverthi
less I live; yet not I, but Christ li'
eth in me" (Gal. 2:20) .

ft

i

lei

PAGE 16 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 21, 1973

Only as Christ lives in us do we
have the ability to deny ourselves.
(Read John 15:5.) Without Jesus
Christ we cannot do a thing. Unless
we have Him "abiding" (living) in
us, we cannot follow Him. It is nec-
essary to emphasize this so we will
not trust in our own strength. To
deny ourselves we must ask God to
give us the ability and desire to
do so.

This makes more sense when we
stop and remember God said His
children are to be "conformed to the
image of His Son" (Rom. 8:29) .
We are to live as Christ lived. Jesus
is our example of self-denial. His
life was one of denying Himself.
For example, read Luke 22:39-46.
He struggled in prayer in the Gar-
den of Gethsemane before His
death. Facing the cross before Him
meant real and agonizing effort to
deny Himself and submit to His
Father's will. Though He prayed
earnestly, and His sweat fell to the
ground like great drops of blood,
He became obedient even unto
death. This is the kind of self-de-
nial we are to have, and it can come
only through Jesus Christ. He had
the power to deny Himself in His
life and as He lives in us He gives
us the strength to do so in our lives.

(Have the group read Philippians
2:5-11 and then discuss how we are
to follow Jesus in living a life of
self-denial.)

PROGRAM LEADER: We are to
be careful in speaking of self-denial.
Self-denial does not mean that we
[deny there is sin in us. We are not
[perfect or sinless. "If we say that
jwe have no sin, we deceive ourselves,
[and the truth is not in us" (I John
[1:8). Nor does it mean we deny
our basic bodily needs such as air,
food, clothing, and exercise. Nor
other needs like friendship, and
mental and spiritual growth. We
are not to ignore these needs, but
we are not to let them become cen-
tral in our lives either.

All that we have and are is to
(be used to glorify God. Our whole
[being is to become Christlike. We
lire to be careful that when we deny
nurselves we don't leave a vacuum
In our lives. When we deny our-
lelves, a Christlike quality is to take
Its place. In this way we will be
Inore and more conformed to the
[mage of Jesus Christ. Rather than
being centered on self, Christ will
fbe central in our lives.

BOOKS

m

MILLENNIAL STUDIES, by George
L. Murray. Baker Book House, Grand
Rapids, Mich. Paper, 207 pp. $2.95.
Reviewed by the Rev. Theodore Hard,
missionary to Korea, Pusan, Korea.

This provocative and convincing
book sallies forth in its fourth print-
ing, a doughty doer. The well-
known author has held pastorates in
the United Presbyterian Church in
the Boston area and has taught his-
tory of doctrine at Gordon College.

The avalanche of books on Bible
prophecy and the last days continues,
and who can keep one's footing? But
this book is a sure foothold, and a
rare gem at the same time. It is
antidote to false hermeneutics, has
sensible rounded exegesis and re-
peatedly gives devastating rebuttal
to dispensational views.

Far from negative criticism only,
he gives positive and precise exegesis.
Some of his startling but well de-
fended interpretations: the Son of
man coming in the clouds of heaven
(Matt. 24:30) represents His wrath
on Jerusalem manifest in 70 A.D.,
and the passage (v. 31) , about send-
ing His angels, blowing of the trum-
pet, and the gathering of His elect,
refers to world missions.

Besides the treatment of various
parts of the Bible and predicted
events he also has chapters on the
interpretation of prophecy, millen-
nial theories, and the testimony of
history. Murray's amillennial posi-
tion comes through clearly but not
dogmatically, and he seems to have

clear understanding of the post and
premillennial positions.

High recommendation goes to this
straight from the shoulder book of
simple and solid worth for all read-
ers. Admirable. IS

A GUIDE TO CHILD REARING,
by Bruce Narramore. Zondervan
Publ. House, Grand Rapids, Mich. Pa-
per, 160 pp. $2.95. Reviewed by the
Rev. Richard G. Watson, pastor, Semi-
nole Presbyterian Church, Tampa,
Fla.

This is a workbook on child rear-
ing to accompany Help! I'm a Par-
ent by the same author. It is offered
for use by individuals or groups.

Exercises, tests and records pre-
sented in this book are designed to
help parents make necessary changes
by learning to do, rather than to
think. Since the author felt that
lasting change seldom comes
through reading books on child
rearing, he conducted seminars for
parents with a specific plan for
change. Exercises used successfully
are included in this book. IB

JOURNEY AWAY FROM GOD, by
Robert P. Benedict. Fleming H. Rev-
ell Co., Old Tappan, N. J. 189 pp.
$4.95. Reviewed by Richard T. Bell,
Knoxville, Tenn.

The collective fall of man along
with the advent of science is the sub-
ject of Mr. Benedict's book and it
appears that he is well qualified to
write on such a subject. The ideas

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PAGE 17 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 21, 1973

presented are well documented with
Scriptural quotations and the inter-
pretations are those of a man who
states that, "I have read and loved
the holy Scriptures from my youth."

In the area of science the author's
qualifications are impressive. He is
a graduate of Rensselaer Polytechnic
Institute and the author of many
papers in professional and technical
journals.

Until the 19th century the ma-
jority of men in Christian lands
acknowledged God as the Creator.
However, after probing, conjuring
up sophisticated dating methods,

and classifying men as animals, sci-
ence, not theology, reigned over the
minds of man.

After all, hadn't the Church said
that the earth was flat, that it doesn't
rotate or revolve, that it was the cen-
ter of the universe? All these were
proved otherwise by science. These
church-science conflicts, then, con-
tributed to man's journey away from
God.

Four distinct subjects, creation,
the flood, and time and dates, are
treated from two distinct viewpoints,
that of the Scriptures and that of
science. The presentation is such

that no scientific degree is necessary
to understand the content and to
understand that science is young and
changing — the Scriptures old and
unerring. It is refreshing to see a
book such as this come on the scene
in this day when we need to reverse
our journey away from God. II

The Man— from p. 1 1

And though she got out of Sodom,
she perished with Sodom because
her heart was there.

Most of Lot's children perished in
Sodom where they had, no doubt,
learned the wickedness of the Sod-
omites and had participated fully in
the wicked life of that wicked city,
They had no idea of leaving.

Even when they had a chance,
most of them scoffed at it, with the
exception of the two daughters. Al
though they left, they had become
so thoroughly brainwashed in the
wickedness of Sodom that they stiB
acted like Sodomites.

Such is the price that a man pay;
when he sets his heart on the wrong
things, when he sets his heart on any
thing except the righteousness o:: |t
God.

,1!

God Said, 'Go.1'

When a man finds himself in th< k
midst of a wicked, unbelieving at 1
mosphere, sometimes God comes t( ill
him and says, "The time has comi
for you to leave. This thing ha p
gotten too rotten. You no longe

Just off the Press

Dr. Robert Strong's

Critical evaluation of
the proposed new

Confession of Fait

*ef/c Simpson

31 stores in 8 states serving you
with this pledge ....

• To give prompt courteous service, treating our customers as you would a guest
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guaranteed with every purchase. • To give credit terms arranged to meet your
budget needs in Stores doing credit business.

Since the opening of the first Belk-Simpson Store, it has been our
endeavor to be more in a community than just another merchant.
We have set forth a united concentrated effort, dedicated to the task
of securing superior quality merchandise, giving our customers a
better value than any other merchant.

SOUTH CAROLINA

Belk-Simpson Co.
Greenville, S. C.
J. A. Ellison, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson-Plaza Store

Greenville, S. C.

R. Grier Robinson Jr., Res.

The Dollar Store

Greenville, S. C.

R. P. Crumpler, Res. Mgr.

Belk's of Pleasantburg

Greenville, S. C.

A. M. Smith, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store
Lancaster, S. C.

B. L. Plyler, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store

Camden, S. C.

J. A. Hagins, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store

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D. B. Smith, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.
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Paul E. Broome, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store

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David Middleton, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Abbeville, S. C

J. S. Hagins, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Hagins Co.
Kershaw, S. C

C. E. Hinson, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.
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R. J. Womack, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
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Al Wilson, Res. Mgr.
Mgr. Belk-Simpson Co.
Fountain Inn, S. C

E. J. Copeland, Res. Mgr.
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T. R. Martin, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Whitmire, S. C.

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Belk-Simpson Co.

Manning, S. C.

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OHIO

Belk-Simpson Co.

Athens, Ohio

Joe Kelly, Res. Mgr.

MISSOURI

Belk-Simpson Co.

Carthage, Mo.

Charles Wilson, Res. Mgr.

OKLAHOMA

Belk Dept. Store

Miami, Oklahoma

J. T. Holmes, Res. Mgr.

NORTH CAROLINA

Belk-Simpson Co.

Hendersonville, N. C.

R. E. McCormack, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store

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J. M. Felty, Res. Mgr.

KENTUCKY

Belk-Simpson Co.
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Belk-Simpson Co.
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GEORGIA

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ARKANSAS

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These stores are a small part ot the entire Belk or-
ganization and have been in existence approximately
50 years. The Belk stores were launched in 1886-88.

SEE THE MANAGER NEAREST YOU FOR CHURCH CARPET, ROBES, ETC.

A JOURNAL Reprint

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Order from
THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL
WEAVERVILLE, N. C. 28787

PAGE 18 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 21, 1973

have a mission here."

"But," a man says, "my invest-
ments are here, my home is here, my
friends are here."

Again God says, "Go."

The attachments, however, blind
him, and his roots run too deep, so
he rationalizes. He still clings to the
delusion that he can do some good
there. Even though God says "Go,"
he hesitates.

Increasingly today, Christians, and
particularly ministers, are faced with
such a crisis. The organized Church
is becoming more and more corrupt.
In many of our major denominations
much of the leadership is in the
hands of unbelievers. Lies of Satan
are being propagated from pulpits.
They are being taught in the col-
leges and seminaries. People of God
are being brainwashed with the prop
aganda of Satan.

There comes a time when God is
saying to a man, "Get out!" Some-
times a man's hesitancy to go arises
not out of concern for his witness
within, but out of minor concerns:
"How can I get along in my old age
without my annuity? How will I
get along in a strange denomina-
tion? Suppose I can't get a church?
All the prestige I have built up in
my ministry will be lost. Some of my
best friends will turn against me, I'll
be called a fool, a fanatic."

Finally, he reasons, maybe after
all the situation is not hopeless.

Maybe Sodom will change. Maybe
things will be better a little later. Is
this really the right time to be mak-
ing a move? So he hesitates. As
these things loom a little too largely
in his thinking, like Lot, he lingers.

It is hard to make a break. It was
hard for Abraham to pick up and
leave Ur of the Chaldees with all of
the comforts and security that he
enjoyed there to go out, "not know-
ing where he went."

It was hard for Saul of Tarsus to
leave the comforts, prestige and pow-
er of his position as a Jewish rabbi,
launch out in a despised sect, to be
persecuted from city to city, to suf-
fer all kinds of indignities and slan-
der, to be deserted by his friends.
God said, "Go," and he went.

Perhaps Lot might have even rea-
soned, "I'll stick here until they
kick me out. If they kick me out,
then I'll have to go. Until then,
I'll stay." So he stayed on and vexed
his righteous soul, made his own
witness ineffective and ruined his
family.

A man's family does not come
first, but a man ought to consider
what happens to his family if he
stays where he is. Lot vexed his
soul, but he did nothing about it.
Many good men will sit by and say,
"I don't like it but I can live with
it. It is not for us to judge. At
least we can stay."

It just could be that such men

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THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL
Weaverville, N. C. 28787

<EL/ementar\f and ^^econdary

TEACHERS

Do you love our Lord Jesus Christ?

Are you committed to the Reformed Faith?
Do you love teaching children?

Are you professionally competent?

If so

WESTMINSTER ACADEMY

is interested in YOU!

Write: Rev. Harry Miller, Headmaster
5620 N.E. 22nd Ave.
Fort Lauderdale, Fla. 33308

An agency of the Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church

PAGE 19 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 21, 1973

will wake up one day to realize the
price they have paid, in their own
families and the sheep God has given
them to tend, to say nothing of the
little lambs coming on, is too great.

When we say, "I don't like it, but
I can live with it," and we stay in
a church that is blaspheming the
name of God and continually mouth-
ing the talk of Satan, we may be do-
ing irreparable damage to our own
children, our own congregations and
to their children. The great danger
is that we get increasingly accus-
tomed to unbelief and until it no
longer stirs our righteous indigna-
tion.

Something dead smells and the
longer it stays, the worse it smells.
But if you stay around it long
enough, you can get to the place
where you don't smell it at all. We'll
"deplore." We'll "regret." We'll say
we don't like it, but still we stick
with it. This is what Lot did.

A Choice

Compare for a moment the situa-
tion of Abraham and the situation
of Lot. Abraham chose communion
with God. Lot chose money, pres-
tige, power, the comforts of civiliza-
tion and approval. Abraham stayed
in fellowship with God. The bless-
ing of God went down from genera-
tion to generation to his descendants
to bless the whole world.

Lot, indeed, vexed his righteous
soul, but he stayed with Sodom. And
in the end, his household was lost
in shame and ignominy. Most per-
ished, two girls lived to curse the
world with their bastard seed.

Today we need to take solemn
warning from this tragic example of
a good man who lived in the midst
of wickedness because it was profit-
able to him, kidding himself into
thinking he was doing some good.
He didn't even change ten souls in
Sodom. There is a lot of loose talk
about going out into the world and
being "one of them." This needs to
be qualified. Lot tried it and lost
his family without winning even ten
men in Sodom.

Let us beware that in this day
when Sodom is all about us, when
Sodom is infiltrating the church,
when Sodom is even being brought
into the church by church leaders,
when Sodom has the control of many
church organizations and even whole
denominations, we dare not make
Lot's mistake of saying, "I don't
like it, but I can live with it."

Let every minister, every dedi-
cated Christian face in his own heart
the question, "Why am I where I
am? Am I bearing effective witness
for Jesus Christ or am I here for
some other reason or purpose? Is
my Christian witness being muted
by my compromise in being where
I am?" m

PLANNING A REJRtAT? CONSIDER MONTREAT

Assembly Inn in Montreat can take your group (25 to 100) on the following
weekends:

FEBRUARY 16, 17 AND 18
MARCH 2, 3 AND 4

MARCH 9, 10 AND 11
MARCH 16, 17 AND 18

or combinations of days in between. Snow days (when school is out) may be
retreat possibilities. Adult or youth choirs, officers workshops, etc.

Off-season rates

Summer dates not filled to capacity. Full recreational facilities after June 18.

MAY 21-31 JUNE 16-22

JUNE 1-7 JULY 5-6

JUNE 11-14 JULY 15-17

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Write E. A. ANDREWS, JR., Vice President for Conferences, for details. Box
38, Montreat, N. C. 28757 or call collect 704/669-2559

door
opens . . .

. . . each time a missionary
doctor or nurse cares for a
non-Christian, introducing him
to a demonstration of Christian
love. These healers frequently
provide the foundation for ef-
fective witness.

Medical work is one of four
areas of emphasis for the 1973
Season of Christian Witness.
Gifts given during the special
offering will be used for

• missionary support

• evangelistic projects

• ministry to children

• medical work

Remember the 1973 Witness
Season Special Offering. By
General Assembly action, all
gifts received by April 18, 1973
will not be equalized and will
be used to support World
Missions.

BOARD OF WORLD MISSIONS
Presbyterian Church, U.S.
P. O. Box 330
Nashville, Tenn. 37202

PAGE 20 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 21, 1973

VOL. XXXI, NO. 44 FEBRUARY 28, 1973 $4.00 A YEAR

the

PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL

Advocating continuation of a Presbyterian Church loyal to Scripture and the Reformed faith

No More Mysterious

Perhaps the Apollo missions have raised tremendous mys-
teries for some people, but they are really no greater than the
unsolved mysteries referred to in chapters 38-41 of the book
of Job. Christians can regard these "new" moon mysteries in
the same light as we have regarded other mysteries: In the be-
ginning God created everything. It is He who sustains and up-
holds His creation through infinite wisdom, power and might.
We look at His creation in wonder and awe.

—Carl C. Riedesel
(See p. 7)

S. S. LESSON AND YOUTH PROGRAM FOR MARCH 18

JH00

H?A3 DM TTfH TQcteqo
OS. J° X^TSJQAiun

MAI LB AG-

first PRESBYTERY MEET

I want to share with you some ob-
servations of a layman's first visit to
a presbytery meeting as a visitor. It
was a meeting of North Alabama
Presbytery. I have always felt that
a Presbyterian, through ecclesiasti-
cal courts, could receive God's jus-
tice and a fair hearing. I suppose

in a childish fantasy, I've always
compared the Presbyterian system
to the highest potential of such as
the Supreme Court.

To say I was disillusioned and
let down would be putting it mild-
ly. I think every church member
should take the time and make the
effort to attend one of these meet-

the

PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL

Rev. G. Aiken Taylor, Ph.D., Editor
Rev. Henry B. Dendy, D.D., Managing Editor
Timothy Belz, Assistant Editor

Circulation leader among independent publications in the Presbyterian-Reformed world

THIS WEEK-

Vol. XXXI, No. 44, February 28, 1973

Everyday Mysteries 7

The Apollo missions did not raise any questions that Genesis
cannot answer By Carl C. Riedesel

God's Voice to Man 9

Is the Bible God's written Word to man? Or, as some claim,
is it something less? By Gordon K. Reed

Unity in Jesus 11

The essential unity of believers in Christ has little in common
with ecumenical movements

De partments —

Editorials 1 2

The Layman and his Church 13

Sunday School Lesson, March 18 14

Youth Program, March 1 8 1 6

Book Reviews 17

THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL, a

Presbyterian weekly magazine, devoted
to the statement, defense, and propa-
gation of the Gospel, the faith which
was once for all delivered to the saints,

is published every Wednesday by the
Southern Presbyterian Journal Co.,
Inc., in Weaverville, N. C.

SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: $4 a year
for individuals, $3 for members of
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TELEPHONES: (All area 704) edi-
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business office, 645-3310, 645-3962.

ings and see how churchmen really
behave.

I think the main issue of the day
was whether to accept a senior min-
isterial student as a candidate for
the ministry. This student has at-
tended a school which this presby-
tery does not recognize and that
pretty well determined the outcome.

The presbytery committee which
examined the man recommended
that he be accepted. He had an
outstanding scholastic record and
everyone was convinced of his spiri-
tual dedication. He applied prop-
erly through his home session and
his papers were in order. The pres-
bytery sidestepped the whole issue
and voted not to accept the com-
mittee's recommendations. They
won a round but they may have
lost the battle (Matt. 16:26). Ev-
eryone knew he was rejected not on
the grounds of his spiritual qualifi-
cations but only on where he went
to school.

— Horace O. Kimbrough
Tuscumbia, Ala.

We once heard a dedicated elder of
many years' standing say his disil-
lusionment with the organized Church
came at his first presbytery meeting.
Too often true! — Ed.

SUBSTITUTED FOR THE GOSPEL

Regarding the article, "Integrity
and Polity," by Dr. Rene William-
son (Jan. 31 issue), I must say that
the distrust and restlessness of con-
gregations with the higher courts of
the Church is not so much occa-
sioned by the social pronouncements
of these bodies as by the fact that
such concerns are substituted for the
Gospel.

Congregations feel more loosely
bound by the provisions of Church
law when they see it ignored by the
General Assembly itself, as in the
union presbytery issue. Congrega-
tions lose confidence in and respect
for the higher courts when they see
them tolerate and actually encour
age unbelieving ministers whose
whole "message" is in violation oi
their ordination vows.

It is not objection to social in
volvement — every true Christian ii
involved for justice and peace. It ii
revulsion from the revolution, socia
and political, often implied in th<
pronouncements of the agencies o
the Church.

And when the institutiona
church gives its people stones in
stead of bread, man-centered pro
grams of self-help instead of God

al

IK I

The ,

given redemption, is it any wonder
the people become disenchanted?

I agree with most of what Dr.
Williamson said, but he was all too
kind to the upper levels of the
Church which are themselves respon-
sible for the strains and tears in the
fabric of the body.

— James Francis Miller
Versailles, Ky.

PORNOGRAPHIC?

Copies of the Journal sometimes
are handed to me as I travel the
world's pathways, so I have not
received too many. The ones I do
receive usually refer to some back
article which I have not seen, and
this is maddening!

Therefore, please enter my name
as a subscriber; a check is enclosed.

However, it would seem to me just
like allowing my money to go for a
ticket to a pornographic movie. I
also would liken my subscription
for the next 12 months (and so

• Roman Catholics planning to
tour Great Britain may now take
the "Good Church Guide" along
with their Baedekers. Anonymous
inspectors are visiting and rating
Catholic churches like hotels and
restaurants, and those where the
mass is inaudible or where the lit-
urgy is slipshod face the prospect of
public exposure in the guide. May-
be Presbyterians could publish a sim-
ilar guide for vacationers in this
country; churches could be given
Dne to four star ratings to indicate
[he places where the Gospel is
preached always, frequently, occa-
sionally or never.

• We are always sympathetic with
inyone who has a well organized
>roup of women after them, and the
:ommittee writing the proposed new
confession of faith has ours now.
The committee may not need sym-
pathy, however. According to the
Richmond, Va., Times Dispatch,
Chairman Albert C. Winn has made
vhat sounds remarkably like a sur-
ender statement: "We are learning
hat our English language has been a
exist language — a vehicle of op-

hereby excuse such action) with
wanting to see every X-rated movie
under the pretext of "keeping up
with the times to be better acquaint-
ed with the enemy in order to bet-
ter fight him."

—Garland E. McBride
Newport News, Va.

Just keep reading the JOURNAL and,
who knows, regeneration may take
place. — Ed.

MINISTERS

Kenneth L. Barnes from Black-
stock, S. C, to the Selma church,
Blairs, S. C.

Olof H. Lyon from Decatur, Ga.,
to the First Church, Toccoa, Ga.
Archie C. Ray, (H.R.) , from Tal-
lahassee, Fla., to the First Church,
Donaldson, Ga., as interim pastor.
Louis A. Skidmore from Black-
stone, Va., to the St. Giles church,
Richmond, Va., as associate pas-
tor.

John Y. Todd III from Wilming-
ton, N. C, to the First Church,
Maxton, N. C.

Richard B. Vines from Arlington,
Va., to the Northside church,
Blacksburg, Va.

J. Howard Edington from Kil-
gore, Tex., to the Shandon church,
Columbia, S. C.

Walter H. Goodman Jr., from
Greensboro, N. C, to the Mace-
donia church, Candor, N. C.
W. Murray Page from William-
son, W. Va., to the Second
Church, Huntington, W. Va.

DEATH

M. Hayes Clark, 59, died in Mont-
gomery, Ala., Feb. 6 after a brief
illness. He was pastor of 5
churches in E. Alabama Presby-
tery at the time of his death. He
had also served churches in North
and South Carolina and Missis-
sippi during his ministry.

ACROSS THE EDITOR'S DESK

pression to . . . women. We can't use
the word 'man' in our new confes-
sion in the way that theology has al-
ways used it — as a very brief syn-
onym for the entire human race ....
You can't use 'him' or 'he' as it
stands for men and women any
more."

• Now that Bill Melden has in-
structed us in the fine art of Zeit-
geist watching (Journal Feb. 21, p.
9) , we read with special interest the
National Council of Churches' an-
nouncement of their forthcoming
TV special on the question of am-
nesty. "Duty Bound" is a fictional
courtroom trial of a young man
charged with violating the Selective
Service Act, which is a nice way of
identifying the draft dodger who
spent two years in Canada. Attorney
for the defense will cite the "uncon-
ditional and universal amnesty
granted former rebels of the Confed-
erate states who had been in armed

insurrection against their country,"
and will suggest a "bridge of recon-
ciliation." Listen for violin music in
the background!

• In a more cheerful vein, we want
to say this: Colloquy magazine has
been the subject of critical reviews
in our columns, leading to protests
and even overtures to the General
Assembly. Since we have had hard
things to say about this PCUS publi-
cation, we think it only fair to ex-
press appreciation when that is due.
Since Colloquy was featured promi-
nently in General Assembly debate,
we have been reading each issue with
special care. It still isn't a magazine
expressing our view of the Gospel,
but we can honestly say there has
been nothing offensive in any issue
we have seen in nearly a year. The
February, 1973 issue has just come
across our desk and there are a cou-
ple of articles in it that are pretty
good! SI

PAGE 3 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 28, 1973

NEWS OF RELIGION

East Germany Clamps Down on Churches

EAST BERLIN— A "cold
war" climate continues to charac-
terize the church-state relationship
in East Germany and latest develop-
ments indicate a worsening trend.

With the emergence of Erich Hon-
ecker as the new party chief of the
SED (Communist Unity Party) , it
was widely believed that a new era
of tolerance had begun. Observers
felt that Honecker's sense of prag-
matic realism and a ploy for in-
ternational recognition would in-
duce him to exercise more restraint
towards the Christian bodies.

Just the opposite has hap-
pened, however. Avoiding essential
purges or ideological confrontation,
Honecker has tightened the screws
in a series of subtle countermeasures
to insure the security of ideological-
dogmatic Marxist purity.

Many people attribute the hard
neo-Stalinistic line as a reaction to
the sudden thrust of East Germany
into worldwide prominence. The
wave of diplomatic recognitions by
countless Western countries and the
dizzying pace of respectability have
made the party leaders insecure.

They show great anxiety over the
influence that increasing numbers
of West German visitors might ex-
ercise on the discipline of East Ger-
man citizens. Fearing a contagious
spirit of liberalization, the East Ger-
man authorities are clamping down,
and nowhere more so than in reli-
gion.

The Politburo of the Central
Committee of the SED has urged
party functionaries to intensify
Marxist-Leninist ideology through
agitation and propaganda.

Even though religious freedom is
guaranteed by the German constitu-
tion, harassment of the churches has
been intensified. Practicing church
members are seldom if ever advanced
to responsible posts.

The East German state cult ser-
vices a conscious and deliberate pa-
gan and ersatz religion, including
an atheistic "Ten Commandments,"
and atheistic baptism, matrimonial
and burial rites.

An atheistic form of confirmation
(youth dedication) has also been re-
vived. In the past, a degree of tol-
erance was shown toward Christian
parents whose children refused to
participate in the youth dedication
ceremonies. Now it is virtually im-
possible for any child to go on to
high school or university unless
he has participated in the dedication
ceremony.

Church publications, sermons and
forums are more than ever under
surveillance. All church-sponsored
activities not directly identifiable
as worship services must be report-
ed to the authorities.

Meanwhile, church membership
and attendance have been shrinking
at an alarming rate. A few years
ago there were more than 15 mil-
lion Evangelical Lutherans, and to-

P

THE CHURCH OVERSEAS

COLOMBIA— The Christian Broad-
casting Network, Inc. has just an-
nounced that it has donated its ra-
dio station, Nuevo Continente, Bo-
gota, to the Pan American Mission
of Colombia.

The station is valued at 2 million
pesos, or about $100,000. An addi-
tional $5,000 was given in cash to
assist the Pan American Mission in
the transition period.

The Pan American Mission pres-
ently operates churches and other

mission work throughout this na-
tion, and it is totally controlled by
Colombian nationals.

Located 8,500 feet high in the An-
des mountains, the station broad-
casts 24 hours a day, seven days a
week. Its programs are also received
in parts of Venezuela, Ecuador and
Panama, with occasional reception
being reported in Costa Rica, Nica-
ragua, El Salvador and Peru.

Nuevo Continente, established
four years ago, is the first evangeli-
cal radio station in the nation. IS

day there are 10.7 million nominal-
ly registered Lutherans. Roman
Catholics have dwindled from 2 to
1.3 million. The number of Chris-
tian marriages, baptisms, and pupils
taking religious instruction has like-
wise taken a nosedive.

While the ultimate aim of the
East German state appears to be to
eliminate religion altogether, its im-
mediate goal is to minimize its influ-
ence by nationalizing it. The first
step in this direction was to separate
the East and West German Church-
es, not only physically but juridically
as well. In spite of everything done
by the State, the quality of the re-
maining Christians is very high. One
East German Lutheran said recently
during a visit to a small West
German church, "I just can't un-
derstand it. You may believe, but
you do not do so. We may not be-
lieve, but we believe anyhow." SB

Zulu Chief Is Skeptical
OF WCC Grants in Africa

NEW YORK (RNS) — The admin-
istrative chief of the Zulu peo
pie doubts that World Council of
Churches' grants to "liberation
movements" in southern Africa hel
the cause of blacks ruled by th
white minority in his country, Sout
Africa.

Chief M. Gatsha Buthelezi, recent
ly in New York, addressed an ecu
menical luncheon at the Inter
church Center. He is the politica
leader of 4 million Zulus and is con
sidered the most powerful tribal fig
ure there.

The chief, an Anglican layman
is a critic of the white dominate<
government and its apartheid (racia
separation) policy in his homeland
He thanked the Churches for keep
ing discrimination before the eye
of the world.

However, he cited two reasons fo
his skepticism of the WCC anti-rz
cism grants to African "liberatioi
movements."

First, he said, the southern Afr
can recipients are known as "fro
dom fighters or terrorists" in Sout
Africa and the grants have "give
the church an image of an incipier
terrorist movement." Threats again:
the Churches from the governmer

PAGE 4 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 28, 1973

Si Sr

Wsei

have resulted, he added.

It was not initially made clear,
he said, that the WCC grants, first
allocated three years ago, were for
humanitarian purposes and not for
the purchase of arms. He called
this lack of clarity unfortunate.

Second, in pragmatic political
terms, he said, the grants are not
especially helpful. "South Africa
sets aside about 300 million rand (a
rand is worth about $1.33) every fi-
nancial year for armaments. The
question here is to what extent can
Church grants compare to that? In
light of an answer to that question,
how helpful is . . . (a) grant in
light of the interpretations general-
ly given to it in South Africa?"

The chief fears that encourage-
ment to "freedom fighters" might re-
sult in holocaust against his people.

To date, the World Council has
given $600,000 to organizations op-
posing racism around the world
through the special Program to Com-
bat Racism. Many grants have gone
to southern African "liberation
movements," although small admin-
istrative sums also have been allo-
cated to groups within South Africa
where resistance organizations are
not tolerated. IS

'Living Church' Editor
Critical of NCC Leader

MILWAUKEE — The Rev. W.
Sterling Cary, president of the Na-
tional Council of Churches, has
been urged by The Living Church,
an independent Episcopal magazine
published here, to "repent" concern-
ing two statements he made on his
installation.

An editorial in the periodical's
Jan. 28 issue charged that Mr. Cary
"has totally disqualified himself for
his job as a national Christian lead-
er" by two statements he made upon
assuming the NCC post in Decem-
ber.

Mr. Cary's statement that he will
use his position "to expose myself in
areas where conservatism and racism
prevail," The Living Church said,
"is an insult to nonracist Christian
conservatives and a declaration of
war on them."

Among the National Council's
member denominations, the editorial
commented, there are more conserva-

tives than liberals. "Their new
leader has wasted no time in attack-
ing them," it held.

The second statement drawing
criticism in the editorial was Mr.
Cary's remark that he considers him-
self "a black first and a Christian
second."

"Any man of any race who puts
his race ahead of Christ is no Chris-
tian at all — first, second, or last,"
The Living Church said.

In conclusion, the editorial stated:
"We pray for his repentance, but we
cannot wish him well in his presi-
dency unless and until he repents.

"Moreover, we submit that the
Episcopal Church's continuing mem-
bership in the NCC ought, this time,
to be a very serious major issue at
the General Convention. The ques-
tion is brutally simple: Does this
Church really belong in an organi-
zation that chooses such a man to
preside over it?"

On Jan. 30 Mr. Cary denied mak-
ing either statement. ffl

Christian Community
Adds Drug Hot Lines

ANAHEIM, Calif. — The installa-
tion of toll-free WATS lines at the
Melodyland Presbyterian Center
here testifies to the effectiveness of
a 24-hour hot line service on behalf
of drug victims.

Under the direction of George

ATLANTA — Quickly responding
to last week's scrapping of the plan
of union (see Journal, Feb. 21, and
lead editorial, p. 12 this issue) , the
Steering Committee for a Continuing
Church voted here to bring the
Church into being in 1973.

The vote in the Steering Commit-
tee was unanimous. In addition, no
negative vote was cast by any mem-
ber of the joint executive commit-
tees of its four sponsoring organiza-
tions — Concerned Presbyterians,
Presbyterian Churchmen United,
Presbyterian Evangelistic Fellowship

Wakeling, an expert in the area of
drug abuse problems, the Melody-
land Hotline has become the larg-
est and most successful informal tele-
phone counseling service in North
America, handling more than 6,000
calls per month.

California Governor Ronald Rea-
gan recently took special notice of
the program, conducted by 72 volun-
teers per week using 18 telephones,
by calling it "a pacesetter in the
field of drug abuse prevention."

Wakeling feels that with the in-
stallation of the WATS lines the
center's phone call totals may soon
soar to more than 10,000 per month.
He said, "To meet the anticipated
load we expect to expand our hot-
line volunteer staff to at least 100
people per week.

Calls are taken without impli-
cating the caller in any procedure
which might embarrass him (or
her) . A referral list which includes
every state in the country permits
the center to refer a caller to an in-
dividual, a hotline/drug prevention
center, a church or other organiza-
tion in his own immediate area
where he can receive personal help.

Said Mr. Wakeling: "We want as
many people as possible to be aware
that in a time of desperation there
is a place to call for help 24 hours
a day." The numbers are, for Cal-
ifornia, (800) 422-4242; for other
states, (800) 854-3234. The local
business number is 788-1000. EE

and the Journal Board of Directors.

While steps to implement the vote
will be taken before the 1973 meet-
ings of the General Assemblies, de-
tails of the procedures to be fol-
lowed were not made public. But
members of concerned groups of
Presbyterians and congregations on
the mailing lists of the so-called co-
alition of conservatives were assured
that they would be notified as soon
as possible.

A spokesman for the group de-
scribed the committee's action as
"calling for the rebirth of the Pres-

THE CHURCH AT HOME

Continuing Church Slated for 1973

PAGE 5 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 28, 1973

byterian Church in the United States
(Southern) as it was originally con-
stituted, committed to Biblical Pres-
byterianism and a theological stance
faithful to the Westminster Confes-
sion."

The group stated its policy of as-
sisting those presbyteries and ses-
sions in the PCUS who feel they
must leave the Church immediately,
and adopted the "Reaffirmations of
1973," a document which states
the positions of the Continuing
Church as they oppose those of the

pcus. m

NPRF Plans Meetings,
Hears Dr. Schaeffer

ATLANTA — In its semi-annual
meeting here, the National Presby-
terian and Reformed Fellowship
recommended that "correspondence
or fraternal relations committees of
those Presbyterian and Reformed
Churches, existing and emerging,
that seek to maintain a pure witness
to the Word of God and the testi-
mony of Jesus Christ" meet in an
assembly to consider possibilities for
a closer relationship among Chris-
tians of those Churches.

Among those whom NPRF plans
to invite are the Steering Commit-
tee for a Continuing Presbyterian
Church (U.S.) and the four organi-
zations to which it is responsible;
the fraternal relations committee of
the Reformed Presbyterian Church,
Evangelical Synod; the committee
on ecumenicity of the Orthodox
Presbyterian Church; the committee
on inter-church relations of the Re-
formed Presbyterian Church (Cove-
nanter) ; and the inter-church rela-
tions committee of the Christian Re-
formed Church. The directors of
NPRF will also participate.

The action taken reaffirmed a res-
olution adopted by the group at its
meeting in Lansing, 111., October 27,
1972.

Dr Francis Schaeffer, leader of the
L'Abri Fellowship in Switzerland
and author of several books well
known to evangelicals, spoke to
NPRF of the dual needs in today's
Church for doctrinal purity and for
a spirit of cooperation among true
believers.

Schaeffer spoke to the group three
times, and several hundred attended
each session. Site for the entire af-
fair was College Park (Ga.) Presby-
terian Church, and over 700 attend-

ed the public rally Thursday eve-
ning.

"The bounds of Christian fellow-
ship should be defined by the
bounds of true doctrine," said Dr.
Schaeffer. "We must preach a clear
doctrinal position and couple it with
a clear position of cooperation. We
need two orthodoxies — of doctrine
and of community."

Dr. Schaeffer said that "south or
north, we no longer live in a Chris-
tian world! Do not think that the
modern theologian who states the
same creeds as you do means the
same thing you do. He is merely
looking for an existential experience
in the creeds."

Warning the group of the need
for "exhibiting the holiness of God
and the love of God simultaneously"
in dealing with liberals, Dr. Schaef-
fer said that "we made a mistake
back in the 1930s in our treatment
of the liberals in that we didn't
treat them as human beings created
in the image of God, and as a result
we didn't treat each other as we
should have in the ensuing strug-
gle." IS

Queens-Davidson Drive
Passes One Third of Goal

CHARLOTTE, N. C. — Over $2.5
million of the $6 million goal has
been given or pledged in the state-
wide campaign for Queens and Da-
vidson Colleges.

This amount represents 41 per
cent of the goal which leaders ex-
pect to reach by the end of the drive
next July.

Authorized by the PCUS Synod
of North Carolina, the appeal is for
endowment needs and new or im-
proved buildings and equipment for
both colleges.

During the first of the year the
campaign will be taken to 600
churches representing 153,000 North
Carolina Presbyterians. Activities
on the presbytery level have been
underway in recent weeks.

Pace-setting gifts of over $1 mil-
lion have been pledged by individ-
uals in the leadership gifts division,
and $343,000 toward a $1 million
goal has been reported in the cor-
porate division. Gifts and pledges
are also coming in through the foun-
dations division.

Chairman of the campaign is Da-
vidson alumnus Graeme M. Keith,
executive vice-president of First
Union National Bank. IB

Presbytery Dismisses
20 Alabama Churches

LINDEN, Ala. — Tuscaloosa Pres-
bytery of the Presbyterian Church
US has voted to dismiss 20 churches
and five ministers at their request
An action to dismiss one other
church and its minister is suspended
pending presbytery consideration of
a complaint by one of that church's
members.

The presbytery decided not to
contest the issue of church property,
and gave the withdrawing ministers
what amounted to an "honorable
discharge" by merely dropping their
names from the roll.

The dismissed churches and mm
isters met almost immediately to
form a new court which has been
named "Warrior Presbytery." The
group elected the Rev. W. C. Din-
widdie of Greensboro, Ala., as mod-
erator and the Rev. Charles L. Wil-
son of Aliceville as stated clerk.

"We consider ourselves a part of
the Continuing Church and will
join with it when the bigger group
comes out of the PCUS," said Mr,
Wilson. He explained that what
Warrior Presbytery did should be
interpreted as an "action" rather
than a "reaction."

"There was no particular immedi-
ate cause which precipitated it," he
said. "We just felt that the General
Assembly and the boards and agen-
cies had departed from the teach-
ings of Scripture and from our doc-
trinal standards. It was time for us
to stand up for Jesus."

The new group consists of slight
ly less than half of the 52 churches
formerly comprising the Tuscaloos*
Presbytery and represents about 1,-!
700 members. According to th(
stated clerk, all of the withdrawing
congregations voted to request dis
missal by clear majority votes, wit!
some unanimous votes.

Many of the churches have fewei
than 100 members, and that explain
why there are so many fewer min
isters than congregations — man]
of the churches do not have full
time ministers. Some of the large
churches in the group are First Pres
byterian Church of Aliceville, Cres
cent Hill Presbyterian Church o
Selma, and First Presbyterian Churcl
of Greensboro.

Several other congregations ar
expected to be dismissed within th
coming weeks, according to Mr. Wil
son.

PAGE 6 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 28, 1973

All of man's zuisdom has not increased or decreased the truth of God —

Everyday Mysteries

Lots of people like to solve mys-
teries, and the author of a re-
cent Reader's Digest article, "The
Moon — More of a Mystery Than
Ever" offered five new mysteries
which are said to have been uncov-
ered as a result of the Apollo moon
landings.

One might suppose that these will
i not remain mysteries very long,
once scholars the world over have
had a chance to ponder and debate
the issues. After all, hasn't human
! wisdom done a pretty good job of
disposing of most earthbound mys-
teries and some of those way out in
space?

Take, for example, the question
of the origin of life: Nearly every
school book on the subject teaches
i that the appearance of life was es-
sentially an accidental occurrence
countless millions of years ago.
What can be mysterious about any-
thing so widely taught and accepted?

A Few Million Years

Life, so we are told, came into ex-
istence because atoms and molecules
in a primordial slime bumped into
each other often enough to produce
a "simple" protein. There is noth-
ing simple about a protein, of course,
but that first one just had to be sim-
ple. Somehow, and quite accidental-
ly, this primitive protein began to
acquire the attributes essential to life
and reproduction.

1 Time went on and one day, from
the slime, a creature crawled out on-
to the dry ground, took a sun bath,
) and decided to remain. More time
■ passed, time was cheap, so why worry

The author is chairman of the
^department of pharmacology and an
Hssistant dean of the University of
the Pacific, Stockton, Calif.

about a few millions of years? The
descendants of the first protein kept
on evolving, and here in our own
time, other descendants are probing
out into space and beyond.

The whole thing is rather simple
if you don't stop to think about it.
Nor is there anything very mysteri-
ous about the appearance of the
unnumbered celestial bodies,
the galaxies, our own sun, the plan-
ets, our earth and the moon.

You see, there was all this dust
and gas floating through space; it be-
gan to condense, it bubbled and
frothed and then spit out chunks of
matter here and there. Our sun was
obviously one of those chunks.

The sun gathered its personal col-
lection of planets with their individ-
ual moons, and while we are not
told exactly how all this was ac-
complished, the fact that it occurred
at all shows how relatively simple it
must have been. Perhaps the planets
were spun off by centrifugal force.

As for earth and its moon, the
very fact that they are so close to
each other must indicate that they
were originally part of the same
lump. It has been suggested that
while they were still part of an orig-

Other Cheek?

Any extreme form of pacifism
which renounces all use of force in
every circumstance is incompatible
with the status of a citizen in a na-
tional state which is menaced by
other armed states. To think that
the Sermon on the Mount can be
directed to international relations is
misleading. It is not possible for a
nation, as such, to turn the other
cheek. — Walter Robert Mat-
thews.

CARL C. RIEDESEL

inal mass, somehow the moon sub-
stance was ejected out into space. It
found its own particular orbit at
just the critical distance away from
earth, where ever since it has helped
regulate the tides and other varia-
tions on its mother planet.

The reason for the size of the Pa-
cific ocean has even been suggested:
The ocean bed is the depression left
when the moon was ejected, and
now the hole is filled with all that
expanse of water.

So anyone can see that the origins
of the galaxies, our solar system, life
on this planet, and finally man him-
self, have been reasonably explained
and there is no longer any mystery
to it. Maybe we should add that
since nearly everyone believes this,
what further proof is needed?

ft Did or It Didn't

Of course, no one has explained
the presence of all the original dust
and gas out in space. Either it ex-
isted throughout all previous eter-
nity or it came into existence at some
time.

If it came into existence, this
either occurred spontaneously, or it
was created. Even the atheist finds
it difficult to rationalize the eter-
nity of matter, no beginning, no end.

If it did not come into existence
by itself, then it had to be created.
There is not much room for middle
ground here. If it was created, then
there had to be a creator. And since
this seems to be a logical, even ra-
tional, approach to a difficult ques-
tion, quite a few people are willing
to go that far in recognizing the pres-
ence of a creator.

From that point on, however, the
Creator is pushed out of the picture
and forgotten. Perhaps He becomes
an embarrassing issue to those who

PAGE 7 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 28, 1973

have their own thoughts on what
happened.

Human wisdom is quite willing to
accept the challenge of explaining
things without there being a need of
an omnipotent Creator. This helps
dispose of outrageous folklore and
myths which have fooled so many
people, particularly the stories of
creation in the book of Genesis.

Now the moon comes back into
the picture with some mysteries no
one had anticipated. Its composi-
tion and makeup are not identical to
earth. If they are of different com-
position, then they must have had
different origins. But where did the
moon come from and how could
earth have captured so large a prize?

'Yon Inconstant Moon'?

The article in the Reader's Digest
suggests the possibility that the
moon at one time generated strong
magnetic influence, a situation
which apparently no longer exists.
To my knowledge, no one has ever
been able to explain either gravita-
tional or magnetic forces. If there
have been any real explanations for
these phenomena, then they have
been kept as highly classified secrets,
not available to the layman.

Thus, since we really do not know
what these forces are, we have no
way of explaining their fluctuations.
Judging from the apparent con-
stancy of other things in the uni-
verse, we would have to say that the
forces of gravity and magnetism are
constant. Yet apparently, such was
not the case with magnetic forces af-
fecting the moon.

If, then, there have been fluctua-
tions of magnetic influence, does this
not suggest the possibility that other
supposed constants have not always
been constant?

Take, for example, the rates of ra-
dioactive decay. The belief that

Spellbound

How long has it been since you
gazed intently and earnestly into the
Book and found that the longer you
gazed, the more earnestly you
probed, the more was there to chal-
lenge your interest and cause you
to wonder? How long has it been
since you stood spellbound before
the Word of God? — Calvin B.
Hanson, in The Evangelical Bea-
con.

these have always been the same, al-
though there is no real proof for
this, has been the rationale for dat-
ing substances and establishing their
age. Scientists have devised very
clever techniques for determining
the ages of fossils and other artifacts
by studying the radioactive decay of
elements within the fossil.

If magnetic forces have changed
during the untold ages past, why
must we believe that radioactive de-
cay rates cannot have changed? And,
if these have varied, where does this
place the precise system of deter-
mining the ages of things by their
present radioactivity?

Perhaps the estimated age of the
moon at 4.6 billion years and some
fossils at millions and millions of
years is completely in error. What a
horrifying thought to those intrepid
souls who have spent their lifetimes
determining such things.

The Christian does not need to be
troubled about the mind-boggling
concepts of time, space and eternity.
We do not need to quarrel with
them or allow them to shake our
faith. We already have the only
logical explanation of things:

Read Genesis Again

In the beginning, God created the
heaven and the earth. God made
two great lights, one to rule the day,
the other the night. He made the
stars and provided that these serve
man for signs, for seasons, for days
and years.

If you haven't read the first chap
ter of Genesis lately, go back and
read it now. Tonight, go out and
look at the starry heavens. You can
find the North Star by using the cup
of the Big Dipper which God placed
in the heavens as a sign. You don't
need an astronomer to help you.

God did not see fit to disclose to
us all the secrets of the universe, and
when we begin to doubt His wis-
dom and might, He chides us. In
the book of Job, chapter 38, He
asks, "Where were you when I laid
the foundations of the earth; upon
what are its foundations fastened;
who laid its cornerstone?" And He
asks question after question to show
us how finite is our knowledge and
understanding.

Perhaps the Apollo missions have
raised tremendous mysteries for some
people, but they are really no greater
than the unsolved mysteries referred
to in chapters 38-41 of the book of
Job. Christians can regard these

"new" moon mysteries in the same
light as we have regarded other mys-
teries: In the beginning, God cre-
ated everything. It is He who sus-
tains and upholds His creation
through infinite wisdom, power and
might. We look at His creation in
wonder and awe.

We can marvel at the beauty of a
flower, the delicacy of a snowflake,
the incomprehensible vastnesses of
space. We can be speechless about
the wonders brought back by the
men who have explored the moon.
But all these pale beside the greater
mysteries revealed to us in God's
Word.

Depths of God's Love

Not only did God create man in
His own image, capable of com-
muning with the Creator. It was God
who provided the means of recon-
ciliation when, through the folly and
tragedy of sin, man became separated
from God. Who is there who can
fathom the depths of God's love for
us in sending Jesus Christ to pay the
penalty for our sin, restoring us
again to the bosom of God?

Who can grasp the mystery of His
promise? Even though we die and
our bodies decay, if we have accept-
ed Jesus Christ as our Saviour, then
our bodies shall be called again
from the grave to spend eternity
with God.

Job could not explain the mys-
tery of the afflictions which struck
him any more than he could pro-
vide answers to the questions God
asked of him. But his faith did
not waver. Confidently, almost ex-
ultantly, he cried that even though
he died and his body decayed, yet in
his own flesh would he see God.

Such a faith does not require ex-
planations for all the mysteries
which surround us. In Jesus Christ,
and in Him alone, do we have an-
swers to every need. ffl

Socialism Defined

Socialism will work only in two
places: In heaven, where it is not
needed, and in hell where they al-
ready have it. Capitalism is the un
equal distribution of wealth. So-
cialism is the equal distribution oi
poverty. Communism is nothing
but socialism with a gun at youi
back. — Sir Winston Churchill.

PAGE 8 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 28, 1973

I

The real issue is this: Is the Bible God's Word to man? —

God's Voice to Man

There is one great dividing is-
sue before the Church in our
day. All other divisions and debates
have their origin in this one, and
all pale into relatively unimportant
side issues compared with this one
great issue.

All matters of argument, all de-
bates, and all divisions come into
focus at the point of the place and
authority of the Bible. Is it what
the historic documents of the Church
claim for it, the Word of God writ-
ten, the infallible rule of faith and
life? Or is it something less, as so
many now claim?

The importance of this matter
cannot be overemphasized, for the
answer to the question, "What is
the Bible?" will determine the an-
swer to all other religious questions,
such as: Who is God? What has He
done? What is the Church? What am
1 to believe? How am I to live?

Many people trace the beginnings
of the decline in faith and the rapid
decline of the Church in the past
two decades to an undermining of
men's faith in the Bible as the Word
of God. There is much validity in
this contention.

In the past, there has always been
much debate in the Church over in-
terpretation of the Bible, but nearly
always in the context of faith. That
is to say, whatever the divisions, the
battles were not fought over the pre-
supposition that the Bible was in
fact the voice of God speaking to
man. This is no longer true.

The real battles of belief in our
time are joined at this point: "Is
the Bible the true and authentic
voice of God revealing Himself to
man, or is it primarily a work of
man in which we discover man's

The author is pastor of the Sec-
ond Presbyterian Church, Greenville,
S. C.

II Peter 2:13-21

ideas and thoughts about God?" Be-
tween the two positions there lies a
great gulf fixed which cannot be
crossed or harmonized except by a
capitulation to unbelief or a com-
ing to faith on the part of unbelief.

Do We or Don't We?

What is at stake is this: "Do we
have a reliable, authentic, powerful
self-revelation of God to man
(through human channels, to be
sure) or not?" If we do have such
a document, then a saving relation-
ship with the living God is possible,
man may have a proper understand-
ing of himself, and a knowledge of
his past and his destiny, and he has
a hope that is sure and unfailing.

If in the Bible we have some-
thing less than such a document,
then we can have no assurances what-
ever that we know anything about
God, or ourselves, and whatever
hope we have is purely an invention
to forestall despair.

Simon Peter, the great apostle of
the early Church, had certain things
to say to the young Church about
the Scriptures. Primarily, he was
talking about the Old Testament,
but he did favorably compare the
writings of Paul, another apostle,
with the Old Testament Scriptures.

However, the principles of truth
about the Scriptures which we dis-
cover in his writings apply even
more to the New Testament. In
this short passage of Scripture, we
discover one of the most helpful
sections in all the Bible which re-
lates to the question before us.
"What is the Bible? Is it really the
voice of God to man?"

The first thing which Peter says
about the Scriptures is that they are
not a collection of cunningly devised

GORDON K. REED

fables, or as we would say, they are
not fairy tales.

One of the major accusations
against the Bible, and it comes in
many forms, and you may find it in
many places, even Sunday school
literature and the pulpit for that
matter, is that the Bible is full of
myths and legends, and half-true
tales preserved from the past. It is
further said that the stories may con-
tain some truth or at least they sug-
gest universal truth, but the stories
themselves are not true. Those mak-
ing such charges go on to say, by
way of illustration, that Isaiah did
not really predict certain events. An
unknown prophet who lived much
later, using Isaiah's name, wrote
about things that had already hap
pened and pretended it was proph-
ecy.

Not Fairy Tales

Or you may hear something like
this: The story of Jonah is not real-
ly true, but the point of the story
is what really counts. Also you will
hear people say, "Jesus did not real-
ly rise from the dead, but He lives
in the hearts of those who love
Him."

Against this accusation of myth
and legend we have the clear words
of Peter, "We have not followed
cunningly devised fables." We do not
believe that God speaks the truth
through legends and myths, but
rather His Word is the accurate re-
port of truth as it happened in his-
tory and as it applies to us today.

Much of the Bible was written by
actual eyewitnesses to the events re-
corded and other parts were written
by those who actually were involved
in the events. Anytime you hear or
lead something which casts doubts
upon the accuracy and veracity of
the Bible, even though these things
may be spoken or written by min-

PAGE 9 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 28, 1973

isters or theologians, you may be
very sure that God is not speaking.

Another great truth about the Bi-
ble is that it all revolves about and
centers in Jesus Christ. Peter says
that it is through the study of the
Scriptures that Jesus Christ will be-
come a living, shining reality in your
own life.

Christ Is the Axis

Many young people today want
short cuts to Christianity. They
want to know and have Jesus with-
out the discipline of studying and
knowing the Word of God. This
simply cannot be done.

No experience can replace the Bi-
ble. On the contrary, all our ex-
periences must be judged by the Bi-
ble, and if they are of God, they
will also be of the Scriptures.

All the Bible from Genesis
through Malachi was in preparation
for and prophetic of Jesus Christ.
He is in Himself the fulfillment of
the law and the prophets. All the
Bible from Matthew through Rev-
elation tells about Jesus Christ, and
interprets His meaning to men, and
offers explanation of His Gospel.
It tells us that in Him all history
and all hope has its climax and its
completion.

You simply cannot separate Jesus
Christ from the Bible. He is what
the Bible is all about. In the Bi-
ble alone do we have any record of
His life and words. In the Bible
alone do we have the true, eyewit-
ness account of His death and res-
urrection. In the Bible alone do
we have the authentic plan of sal-
vation presented for men to under-
stand and receive.

The Real 'Bible Land'

How wonderful it must be for
those who may experience the thrill
of walking where Jesus walked, and
seeing the holy land of His birth
and life, but the Bible is the true
"land" of Jesus, and a walk of faith
through its pages will bring you
much closer to Jesus Christ than a
lifetime lived in Israel.

If Jesus Christ is not real to you,
it is probably because you have ne-
glected His Word. If you seem to
have lost touch with Him, it is like-
• ly you have lost touch with the Bi-
ble. If you yearn for Him to be a
living Lord and a very present and
powerful Saviour, then you must go
to the Bible. You must feed upon

His Word, and you will discover that
the written Word leads you to the
living Word.

Finally, Peter tells us that the Bi-
ble came to us from men inspired
by the Holy Spirit. The Living Bi-
ble translates this verse this way:
"No prophecy recorded in Scripture
was ever thought up by the prophet
himself, it was the Holy Spirit with-
in these godly men who gave them
true messages from God." Notice
what this says about the Bible.

Men Spoke From God

It says men spoke. No one denies
that the Bible was written by men.
It was written by many different
men who lived over a span of at
least fifteen hundred years. These
men were human beings just as you
and I are. They were fallible men,
and not perfect. How then could
sinful, fallible men write the infal-
lible Word of God?

This same verse which tells us
that men wrote the Bible also tells
us that what they wrote was prompt-
ed by the Holy Spirit. A very literal
translation of this sentence tells us
that they were borne along by the
Spirit as a ship is carried along by
the wind. In reporting what they
had seen and heard and experienced,
these men were being inspired by
God Himself to faithfully record the
timeless revelation of Himself for all
mankind.

As a result, what they said and
wrote was from God. Thus their
word became God's Word, and their
role was one of being channels and
instruments through which God re-
vealed Himself to the world.

Jesus Christ believed fully in the
full inspiration of the Scriptures of
the Old Testament. He placed His
stamp of approval on all that was
written. He said of the Old Testa-
ment, "Search the Scriptures for in
them you think you have everlasting
life, and these (Scriptures) testify
of me." Jesus and all those who
wrote of Him bore witness that the
Bible was the Word of God.

What does all this mean to you
and for you? At this point you
may be saying, "OK, but so what?"
Most of you agree with what I have
said; we have a reputation of being
a congregation that believes and pro-
claims the Bible as the Word of
God. People who do not want a
Biblical ministry just don't come to
Second Church. Again I ask, "So

what does all this mean? Why bother
to talk about it?"

If we really believe the Bible is
the Word of God, if we accept its
authority over us, and not just with
lip service, how dare we continue
to ignore and reject its teachings and
its commands? You say you accept
the Bible as God's Word over your
life. Then what are you doing about
evangelism? How excited are you
about missions?

Why are you not either teaching
or attending a Sunday school class?
Why do you continue to excuse
yourself from any active form of
Christian service or Christian living?
How can you continue to look down
on people who are not of your own
clan and race? How can you excuse
your self-righteousness and your lack
of real love for the brethren?

If We Believe

What I'm trying to say is that it is
not enough to say you believe the
Bible is the Word of God. You must
place yourself under its authority
and judge your life by it and be will-
ing to change your attitudes and
your activities.

In the declining years of the king-
dom, when the temple of God was
being repaired, an amazing thing
happened. A copy of the law of
God was discovered. The Bible had
been lost and neglected for many
years in Judah until that time. This
lost book was brought to the king
who read it, and then in turn, read
it to the people.

When the king and the people re-
alized how far astray they had gone
from God, they mourned and wept
before the Lord, and a real revival
of truth, faith and religion broke
out in the land.

Oh that God's Word would be
rediscovered in our Church, not on-
ly as a sacred and revered treasure,
but as a living, ruling power over
our lives! Oh that God would break
us before Him and bring to pass a
great outpouring of His Holy Spirit
upon us, that His Word would be-
come for each of us what it was in-
tended to be, the voice of God to
man. 51

Christianity is the only organiza-
tion in the world where the condi- I
tion of membership is that you must |
admit you are unworthy to belong
— Unknown.

x

PAGE 10 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 28, 1973

Some unity is like two cats tied by their tails and thrown across the clothes line —

Unity in Jesus

The entire significance of the
Christian faith is centered in
Jesus Christ. Most of the eloquent
tributes men pay to Him indicate
only a superficial lip service which
shows full well that they vaguely,
if at all, understand either the min-
istry or meaning of Jesus.

Jesus really is the answer — pro-
vided one understands and obeys the
teachings of Jesus. Most of those
we have heard crying, "Jesus is the
answer," could hardly be more ig-
norant of how He is the answer.

To confess Him as Saviour and
Lord means far more than merely
giving assent with the mind that He
was God-man. What God offers in
esus Christ is complete and perfect
freedom from slavery, atonement
from condemnation, freedom from
ijuilt, an advocate with the Father
before the bar of justice and an
anchor of hope that transcends the
jrave.

Return to Revelation

There is an essential unity of be-
ievers, prayed for by our Lord and
Saviour, that has little in common
vith men's ecumenical movements
-vhich can and will fall apart. Real
unity will not disintegrate. Human
lesires for fellowship, however sin-
cere and however strong, cannot
:rase the deep doctrinal cleavages
hat ravish the religious world.
1 Only a sincere return to the rev-
elation of God concerning the work
ind the office of Jesus can bring
iibout Biblical unity. Screaming
I'Jesus is the answer," when one

This editorial, from Firm Foun-
>ation, official publication of the
Churches of Christ, is reprinted with
permission.

doesn't have the faintest idea of the
teachings of Jesus in most areas, is
senseless.

A loose federation of churches is
at best but an amalgamation of dif-
ferences. Unity in diversity is not
the one Lord, one faith, one bap-
tism of the New Testament. The
cry for union despite differences
may be ever so strong, and it may
well be promoted by a sense of guilt
growing out of our agony over sense-
less divisions, but as long as the Je-
sus Christ of the Bible is lost in our
false and selfishly misshapen con-
cepts of Him, we will never have the
unity for which Jesus prayed.

This Makes Unity

While men pridefully cling to
their sectarian identities, either in-
side or outside the kingdom of heav-
en, Jesus is largely forgotten in the
tumult of our strife and division.
Nor can a yearning for together-
ness and fellowship produce unity.
Unity is in Jesus Christ alone.
When all return to the Christ of
revelation unity will be automatic.
Unity is in Christ; not in our
schemes and mechanics.

The subjective experimentalism,
which is such a fad today, cannot
unite Christendom. In fact, it is so
divisive in nature that it overruns
even the most liberal bounds of
"Christianity" and manifests itself
more often in the heathen religions
than in the denominations of Chris-
tendom.

Subjective experience completely
ignores the uniting power of the Je-
sus of revelation and substitutes an
individual response to self alone
which is as divisive as personality.
Christian unity lies in our common
response to Jesus rather than in our
response to self.

We do not hesitate to affirm that
there is one Church in the Bible
and that Jesus Christ is its only
head. When we develop non-Bibli-
cal concepts of Jesus and squeeze
Him into the mold of our own sec-
tarian thinking, we worship an idol
of our own creation, not the God of
revelation. The unity of the Church
can be realized only in Him who
is its head, and all we know of Him
we know by revelation; not by ex-
perience.

No Unity in Diversity

Crucial in our quest for unity
which would make the world believe
that God really sent Jesus into the
world is our willingness to return
to the Bible, which is the only rev-
elation of God. The spiritual pol-
lution of human tampering with di-
vine revelation has produced an en-
vironmental problem of stagnation
and death.

The need of renewal and restora-
tion is urgent. Anything less than
the Scriptures teach is not enough,
and anything more is too much. So
long as we tolerate deviations from
what the Bible teaches, and encour-
age people to believe that the only
unity there can be is unity in di-
versity, we will never have unity.
We may have togetherness but never
oneness.

We can snort and paw the ground,
and the dust we kick up may blind
a few, but those who respect God's
revelation will never be fooled by
such. Unity is in Jesus, that is, in
the teachings of Jesus. Sure, it is
in the person of Jesus, but the per-
son of Jesus separate from the
teaching of Jesus is the thing that
makes those ignorant of His teach-

(Continued on p. 20, col. 2)

PAGE 11 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 28, 1973

EDITORIALS

They Cannot Be Trusted

If the dominant liberal leadership
of the Presbyterian Church US is
anything like the Church's repre-
sentatives on the Joint Committee
on Union, an appropriate designa-
tion would be "contemptible."

They are unworthy of confidence
— dishonorable, dishonest and de-
ceitful.

In case you think we have "lost
our cool," as the younger genera-
tion would say it, that is the lan-
guage of Dr. William P. Thompson,
powerful spokesman for and stated
clerk of the United Presbyterian
Church USA.

He used words like those to state
his opinion of the PCUS members
of the union committee (see news
story, Journal, Feb. 21) , when it be-
came evident that the Southerners
intended to postpone a vote on the
plan and that they had changed
their minds about supporting a fair
"escape clause" permitting congre-
gations unwilling to enter the unit-
ed Church to stay out.

We agree with Dr. Thompson ab-

solutely. We are grateful to him
for articulating what we have long
suspected but what we could not
have stated without being accused
of bigotry. We will assume the eval-
uation is accurate until we see it
formally challenged by those to
whom it was applied in Dallas.

The liberal leadership of the
Church is two-faced and as untrust-
worthy as any people with whom a
Christian might ever find it neces-
sary to sit down and negotiate. "Rec-
onciliation" is no word to use in re-
lations between liberals and conser-
vatives in the Church for, as both
Dr. Thompson and W. Jack Wil-
liamson implied in Dallas, integrity
cannot be reconciled to dishonor.

To be sure, the UPUSA half of
the joint committee is not without
its own master practitioners of the
art of double-speak. In the heat
of the fracas at Dallas, Dr. Edward
Dowey of Princeton had the colos-
sal nerve to charge Mr. Williamson
with dishonor for having accepted
appointment to the committee as

Rejoicing And Righteousness

"To declare ... at this time His
righteousness," (Rom. 3:26) . God's
nature and character must obvious-
ly be the ground of all our thoughts
and hopes. If God be good then
ultimately the end of His plan and
work must be good; if He is wise
then ultimately all creation must
praise His wisdom and His good-
ness.

It is the fact that our knowledge
of God's character is fundamental
in our life which makes Biblical
theology so important. Many lives
are wrecked and many more distort-
ed for lack of a true knowledge of
God.

If God is truly known in His
Word, if His character be really
appreciated, then the saint can re-
joice all the day. Above the petty
disturbances of life, beyond the
noise of earth's ten thousand voices,
the child of God sees the wisdom
and the love of God and His heart
rests and rejoices.

In days when righteousness seems
so scarce and its pursuit so rare, the
righteousness of God is that to
which the troubled soul turns again
and again. Public life is corrupted,
people are oppressed, dictators rule
without mercy and there seems no
barrier to the flood of iniquity.
Then the righteousness of God is
the Christian's solid rock and ref-
uge. The judge of all the earth
will do right, even though at pres-
ent He stays His judgments.

This righteous character of God
is the subject of the Gospel. It is
available for unrighteous men, first
as a garment to fit us for judgment,
and then as a quality to fit us for
conduct. The righteousness is both
imputed and imparted. Oh! blessed
Gospel.

Therefore, we may, we must re-
joice in such a Lord. We have not
seen Him but we know Him re-
vealed in Christ and in His Word.
— Fred Mitchell. ffl

one "unhappy with the plan." He
didn't think Mr. Williamson was
unhappy with it at all, so long as
it contained an escape clause.

Dr. Dowey, of course, was twist
ing the meaning of Mr. William
son's appointment to fit his own
Evidently the acid-tongued architect
of the Confession of '67 has smarted
under the valid complaint that his
presence on the committee hardly
honors the intent of the original
suggestion that at least one conser-
vative from each side should be in
vited to participate in the commit
tee's work.

The lesson in all this is plain for
any who have eyes to see. Playing
"footsie" with the liberals, as the j
Rev. William E. Hill suggested last
week ("The Man God Did Not
Use," Feb. 21 Journal) , is like Lot
making his peace with the Sodom- .(
ites in order to live in Sodom.

Whether in an uneasy coalition
government, as in Synod C-F, or aL
trustful union in which a small
presbytery puts itself in the hands
of a much larger body, as in Synod
B, the custodians of the Gospel fool
none but themselves if they think
coexistence is possible.

It is one thing to recognize thai
your ecclesiastical home is Sodom
and to take all the time necessar)
to make your departure, while col
lecting your belongings and trying
to persuade the other members ol
the family to leave also.

It is quite another thing to sa)
that conditions have not yet reachec
that point of total depravity whicrEjf
would require your departure and
that you intend to stay until the;
get worse.

We see nothing in Scripture, o:
in experience, to suggest that tbt
latter course is of the Lord.

This Thing Galled
Existentialism

Not long ago an esteemed friem
asked us to put into a simple del
inition the philosophy called "ex
istentialism." This is something, h
wrote us, about which everybod
is talking, but which nobody seem
able to define when you get righ
down to it.

One reason why existentialist
is hard to define is that it mear
different things to different people
But we don't mind sharing what
means to us, for whatever that ma
be worth.

I

PAGE 12 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 28, 1973

THE LAYMAN AND HIS CHURCH

One Woman's Viewpoint

Existentialism seems to be the
thought — applied to all of life's
motives — which is illustrated by
the common observation: "He lives
a hand-to-mouth existence."

The proverb just quoted implies
that this life is not supported by an
accumulation from the past (no
savings in the bank) ; that there is
no higher motive for the present
than to feed one's face in the most
satisfying manner possible; and that
the future will take care of itself
("After me the deluge!") .

The illustration may not be a
complete one, but it conveys the
heart of existentialism, namely that
meaning and purpose in life are de-
termined by the immediate require-
ments and dictates of one's ex-
istence. Yesterday can't help. To-
morrow never comes. Today is all
that counts — a sort of ongoing
"moment of truth."

There is no purpose in reality
which might offer an explanation for
yesterday and a plan for tomorrow.
There is only the living present,
untaught by any lesson learned
from the past in its own bygone
"present," and under no obligation
to any force or power greater than
the needs of the moment. The only
'question to be answered is, "What
makes sense to me in this hour?"

It is easy to see how existentialism
has flourished in France's under-
ground bistros and in America's hip
pie pads.

But a philosophy of life which
! derives "meaning" mostly from the
feelings of the present rather than
the cumulative experience of the
past is not confined to the hippies.
There is a "Christian" existential-
ism growing today in influence and
jin effect.

More and more the Church is
feeling the effect of radical think-
ing which seeks purpose and au-
thority for the Church in its pres-
ent life "under God" rather than
in any past revelation. This philos-
ophy contends that past revelations
Iwere for those who lived in the past.
■ It says we must seek a new revela-
rtion for today.

"Christian" existentialism tends
|i to believe that each generation must
[(work out fresh principles of its own
■I to meet its unique needs. The theo-
logical insights of the past must be
■replaced by new ones, according to
this view, for truth is not really en-
[ during.

You see traces of the effect of ex-
listentialism in Christian education

Some time ago a member of my
family asked me, "Don't you have
something to say to the church af-
ter living in the manse for more
than forty years?"

I replied, "Perhaps I have, but
nothing that the church will want
to hear." I was thinking that my
views of the place of women in the
church may not be those of the lead-
ers of women today.

Of all the changes that have taken
place in the church of late years
nothing has been more contrary to
the plain teaching of Scripture, in
my opinion, than the feminist move-
ment, "women's lib," if you please.

An early leader in this movement,
now a teacher in one of our semi-
naries, deplored the "second-class
membership," as she expressed it,
of the women in the church. At the
time I was a minister's wife, the
mother of five, and content with
small church tasks, such as substi-
tuting for an absent Sunday school
teacher or a pianist and helping to
prepare and serve church dinners.

I had no desire for a place of lead-
ership or to have a voice in the
government of the church. I thought
that the so-called smaller duties
were important. Indeed, I did not

The layman's viewpoint this week
is brought by Marion Coe (Mrs. G.
M.) Wilcox, widow of a PCUS min-
ister, who is now living in Concord,
N. C.

curricula that make the contempo-
rary life of the Church a vital sub-
ject for study in order to determine
meaning and validity in religion.
Such an educational program may
suggest that "life itself, under the
ongoing Lordship of Christ, is a
source of religious truth."

The answer to existentialism in
the Church, of course, is a return
to the authority of revelation — the
eternal validity of the truth of God
in the Gospel once for all time de-
livered to the saints. For the truth
of God is the same, yesterday, today
and forever. IB

know that I was a second-class mem-
ber until so informed by this er-
udite lady.

Since that time she has attained
her goal of becoming ordained to
the ministry in the PCUS. There
have been others who have followed
her example.

Why do I express disapproval of
this policy? I realize that the pat-
tern is now set and the church as
we knew it has reached the point
of no return. But I have never
liked taking the middle of the road
on any question. Being a plain-
spoken woman, I feel that I must
raise my voice in protest.

I have one question to ask of
those who are better versed in Bib-
lical scholarship than I am. Just
what did Paul mean when, under
the inspiration of the Holy Spirit,
he said, "Let your women keep si-
lence in the churches: for it is not
permitted unto them to speak; but
they are commanded to be under
obedience, as also saith the law. And
if they will learn anything, let them
ask their husbands at home, for it
is a shame for women to speak in
the church" (I Cor. 14:34-35).

Can we expect conditions in the
church to be improved by a viola-
tion of Paul's admonition? I think
not. Women have invaded areas
of responsibility specifically assigned
to the men of the churches in de-
fiance of the Word of God. As a
result, I think the church has suf-
fered.

In looking back over my long life
I remember the forty-three years
that I spent as the wife of a min-
ister who served congregations in
small southern towns. My husband
and I communicated daily about
the issues that were before the
church. We discussed them togeth-
er, but I had no wish to participate
in official policy making. That was
his arena of service.

Mine was that of homemaker and
helpmate. In this way I believe that
we both served the church as the
Holy Spirit speaking through Paul
admonished. I can only wish that
women were still content with the
lesser (?) role. SI

PAGE 13 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 28, 1973

p

SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON

For March 18, 1973

Man Has Gone Astray

Rev. Jack B. Scott

INTRODUCTION: You recall
that we began this quarter of lessons
by studying the subject, "Our Hu-
man Situation," and this lesson is
the last in that series. Like the oth-
er lessons in the quarter, the outline
of this lesson will be in terms of af-
firmation of our faith.

It may seem strange that in faith
we affirm man's failure, but this is
altogether necessary in order for us
to realize the extent of man's fall
into sin and the great need we have
which can be met only by God.
When our Lord Jesus came preach-
ing the Gospel, He first called men
to repent. This immediately fo-
cused on the problem in man. He
who refuses to recognize what God's
Word says about his guilt before
God will never receive from God
what God in Christ has done to rec-
oncile men to Himself.

I. MAN FAILED TO FULFILL
THE PURPOSE OF GOD (Gen. 3:
1-4) . In the first lesson of this
quarter, we studied God's purpose
in creation. We saw how He made
man for Himself to be holy and
without blemish before Him in love
(Eph. 1:4). Now as we read Gen-
esis 3, we see how man failed to live
up to that purpose for which God
had made him. Of course, for man's
love of God to have any meaning
whatsoever, that love would have to
be tested.

The test came in the form of man's
facing Satan. Scripture tells us noth-
ing of the origin of Satan, but he
was surely a creature of God who at
some point rebelled against God.
Anything we tried to say of his ori-
gin or his rebellion would be spec-
ulative. God has not chosen to re-
veal this to us. We had better be
intent on the study of that which
God has said and be silent when God
is silent.

The serpent through whom Satan
spoke is only a creature of God, cre-
ated in the same creation as Adam
and therefore subject to Adam (Gen.
1:26) . We know, however, that the
speaker is Satan. In Revelation 12:
9, several names for Satan are given,

Background Scripture: Genesis 3:1-
19; Psalm 14:1-3; Jeremiah 10:
23, 17:9-10; Romans 1:28-2:24

Key Verses: Psalm 14:2-3; Jere-
miah 10:23, 17:9-10; Romans 1:
28-2:1

Devotional Reading: Psalm 51:1-12
Memory Selection: Isaiah 53:6

all of which fit the picture here in
Genesis 3. Among those names,
"that old serpent" clearly alludes to
the Garden of Eden incident.

Satan's entrance into the life of
Adam and Eve came in the form of
a question designed to make them
doubt God's authority in their lives.
The question, "Hath God said?",
was clearly an attack on God's au-
thority to speak and to command
Adam and Eve. In other words, it
was an attack on the very Word of
God, but Satan was subtle (3:1) and
he used a subtle creature, the ser-
pent, to approach man.

Note that he questioned God by
misquoting Him. The question gave
occasion for man in pride to debate
the issue of God's authority. At this
point, Eve ought to have given God's
Word as the only answer. This is
what our Lord Jesus did when He
was tempted (Matt. 4) ; He hurled
the Word of God right into the teeth
of Satan as the sole authority for His
own life.

Eve tried to. She began by quot-
ing God (vv. 2-3) , but she went be-
yond God's Word when she suggest-
ed that they were forbidden not only
to eat but even to touch the tree.
God had not said that. This may
seem a minor infraction, but it re-
veals that already in Eve's heart was
the thought, "God is unreasonable,
how dare He?"

Satan knew how she had conceded
and he moved in quickly. He open-
ly refuted God, saying, "Ye shall not
surely die ... ye shall be as God"
(vv. 4-5) . It was a short step from
this suggestion of man's exaltation
and pride to the overt act of eating

The International Sunday School Lesson Outlines
are copyrighted 1972 by the Committee on the
Uniform Series of the National Council of Churches
of Christ.

the fruit.

All of Eve's faculties were at work
to cause the sin. First, her senses
were distorted so that it was good
for food as she saw. This was an out-
right refutation of God's Word. We
see how sin perverts the very senses
of men once God's Word is no longer
the authority.

Next, it satisfied her aesthetic val-
ues. It delighted her. Finally, her
mind, which still knew the truth,
was so perverted that she reasoned
that to take it was good for her to
make her wise.

So Eve's totally perverted facul-
ties were apparent and she became
a servant of Satan. When she re-
jected the authority of God's Word,
the rest was inevitable. She took
and ate of the fruit. The portrait
of her sin is also described as the
way of all sin (I John 2:16; Jas. 1:
14-15) .

In terms of God's purpose, we can
see clearly the failure of man. He
showed himself not to be holy (set
aside for God) because he engaged
in fellowship with Satan.

He was certainly now not without
blemish since he had defied God and
knew evil experientially, and he
was no longer before God, in God's
presence, in peaceful fellowship. In-
deed, the very sound of God's pres- j \
ence caused him to flee and hide JL
from God (vv. 8-10) . Above all, hef,
failed to show love toward God. He -
failed to obey God's Word to exefilp
cise dominion over the creatures. L,
The serpent, one of the creatures,!,;!
was in reality subject to Adam, L:;
though Adam did not exercise that Ij
dominion. Mmh

Further, he failed to refrain from J,^
the forbidden fruit. Instead he open-
ly defied God's command. Christ
has said that we show our love to-
ward God by our obedience to His
Word. Therefore, disobeying God's
Word, failing to keep it, is surely an
incident of a lack of love.

Finally, he failed to love his fel-
low men. Eve was created to be a
help, meeting Adam's needs. Instead,
she arrogated to herself a place of
spiritual leadership and was conse-

n

PAGE 14 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 28, 1973

quently deceived by Satan.

By the same token, Adam, when
God placed him as head of the
home, stood silently by (he was evi-
dently with her, v. 6) and let his
wife be deceived. Then when they
were confronted with their sin, Ad-
am sought to blame God and then
the woman but not himself (v. 12) .
On all counts, man failed God and
did not live up to God's purpose for
him.

II. MAN IS TOTALLY COR-
RUPT.

A. All creation is now under a
curse (Gen. 3:14-19). God began to
pronounce judgment by showing
Adam and Eve the awful conse-
quences of their sin. From then on
in the history of man, the world
would never be as God had created
it. It had been pronounced "very
good" (Gen. 1:31), but would be
called so no more.

The curse of God would be a con-
stant reminder to men of the ter-
rible consequences of human sin.
Animals, the serpent more than oth-
ers because of his part, (v. 14) ,
would be cursed. The implication
is that all animals are cursed; fight-
ing and killing each other for food,
suffering from heat and cold, from
famine and natural catastrophes.

Among men there would also be a
perpetual enmity (Gen. 3:15) which
would breed murder, deception, wars
:and constant distrust of one another.
The rest of Scripture illustrates this
(consequence of Adam's sin. We shall
isay more of Genesis 3:15 in our next
jlesson, for there is hope in this verse,
[also.

Woman, made to be a blessing to
man, would forever feel great pain
[in childbearing (v. 16) . In their
•married life, they would now be sub-
ject to unregenerate man and there-
ifore suffer because of man's natural
\. (sinful) tendencies of thoughtless-
mess, cruelty, vanity and the like.
|The picture of the ideal bond of
[love in the home, which God had
determined (Eph. 5:22-6:4) , would
|not be realized in reprobate hearts.

Men from then on would find that
the creation which God had at first
Iblessed for man's sake would under
■the curse fight man and not yield
lareadily to his wishes or needs (v. 17) .
|Man from then on could maintain
rhimself on earth only by the great-
est effort and hardest labor. In the
end, all animals, women, men, would
■return to the earth. Death was the
■last and inevitable consequence of

man's sin (Rom. 6:23) .

As Paul said, "We know that the
whole creation groaneth and travail-
eth in pain together until now"
(Rom. 8:22).

B. All men are corrupt, doing no
good (Psa. 14:1-3). The verse in
this Psalm is opposed to man's every
vain notion that in man there are
some good qualities. What men
call good is not good in God's eyes.
We should never be deceived by
man's judgment of "good."

This is undoubtedly what our
Lord meant when He rebuked the
man who called Him "good master"
(Matt. 10:17-18) . Jesus was not de-
nying His own goodness but was re-
buking that man for presuming that
he was qualified to pronounce any-
one good.

The Bible plainly says that no
man does good. None seeks after
God. All are gone astray and are
filthy in God's sight. Paul quoted
these very verses in Romans 3 to es-
tablish the fact that all the world
is guilty before God (v. 11) .

The world, left to itself without
God's intervention, would quickly
destroy itself because of such evil.
We see in Genesis 6 how quickly the
world deteriorated to the point of
God's no longer being able to en-
dure it, therefore sending the flood
on mankind.

In Romans 1:28-32, Paul focused
on the reprobate man. Since men
refused God, God allowed their rep-
robate minds to lead them into all
kinds of repulsive acts. Verses 29 to
31 are a realistic portrait of natural
unregenerate men. What sins are
not apparent in overt acts are never-
theless harbored in the hearts of men.

Perhaps the most damning state-
ment against man is the fact that not
only do men do such evil but they
approve it in others. This indicates a
seared conscience which can no
longer even feel guilt or shame. This
is inevitably the end of the repro-
bate and the path on which all men
in Adam begin their life.

Paul again spelled it out most
clearly in Ephesians: We all once
walked in this path, doing Satan's
will. We all once lived in the lust of
our own flesh, being by nature chil-
dren of wrath (Satan) . It is impor-
tant for us to understand that state
from which God has saved us, to re-
alize the state all unbelievers still
remain in. The inclination to see
men as better than they are is a dan-
gerous one which leads us to an al-
together false security.

III. MAN CANNOT HELP
HIMSELF.

A. He cannot go the right way
(Jer. 10:23) . You may recall from
our study of Jeremiah that he was
the prophet of the heart. Over and
over Jeremiah mentioned the heart
of man, showing its sinfulness and
need. In conjunction with that
teaching, Jeremiah lifted up a prayer
to God in the realization that man
has no solution to his own sinful
state (10:23) . For man by his own
strength, there is no escape. Men
are lost and cannot find the way
from sin and death back to God and
life.

This concept is definitely expressed
in Proverbs. "There is a way which
seemeth right unto a man but the
end therefore are the ways of death"
(16:25) . This again underlines the
fact that man in his fallen state is
affected in all of his faculties so that
none of his senses give to him the
true picture. His judgments are per-
verted and what seems right to him
is altogether wrong in God's sight.

Thus men think that their "good
works" will gain them entrance to
God but they do not see their works
as God sees them: totally defiled and
from altogether wrong motivations
of the heart. Isaiah declared that we
have all gone astray and turned to
our own ways. We are the lost sheep
who by ourselves can never return
to God (53:6) .

B. Even his heart deceives him
(Jer. 17:9-10) . The reason why men
go astray is that sin has affected
them through and through, so that
even the very core of man, his heart,
deceives him. It is dominated by
sin and God sees it as exceedingly
corrupt.

Jesus gave us a good insight into
the heart as God sees it (Mark 7:21-
23) . Thus the way a man thinks in
his heart is the way he really is, no
matter how he may pretend to be be-
fore men. Compare Proverbs 23:
6-7. The real man underneath is of-
ten hidden from the sight of others
and sometimes even from himself.
The heart is deceitful. We must re-
ly on God's Word to show us what it
really is.

C. The law of God condemns
him (Rom. 2:1-24). When men
come to God's Word hoping to find
there reassurance that they are not
as bad as all that, they are disap-
pointed. God's Word is quite clear.
God's law, the standard of His righ-

(Continued on p. 20, col. 2)

PAGE 15 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 28, 1973

YOUTH PROGRAM

For March 18, 1973

The Secret of the Christian Life

Scripture: Matthew 16:21-27, 10:38
Suggested Hymns:

"Soldiers of Christ, Arise"
"Am I a Soldier of the Cross"
"If Thou but Suffer God to
Guide Thee"

PROGRAM LEADER'S INTRO-
DUCTION: Jesus said: "If any man
would come after me, let him deny
himself and take up his cross and
follow me" (Matt. 16:24) . If we
are to live consistent Christian lives
then we are to obey these words. If
we are to be like Christ (here read
Romans 8:29) , then we are to listen
when He says, "if any man would
come after me," for He then tells
us what we must do to follow Him.
We are to deny ourselves and take
up our cross. Last week we dis-
cussed "denying ourselves." Today
we will study the meaning of "tak-
ing up our cross."

It is important for us to remem-
ber that these two principles are
related. They go together. Self-de-
nial is inward, subjective, while
cross-bearing is outward and usually
a result of denying ourselves.

Cross-bearing will not be an easy
concept for us to grasp. It is not
something that we American young
people know by experience. Chris-
tian young people behind the Iron
Curtain are persecuted. In some
Communist countries if a teenager
openly professes faith in Christ, he
will be denied the opportunity for
a college education no matter what
his intellectual abilities. He will be
given a menial job for the rest of
his life. But we have little in com-
mon with such persecution. Today
let us examine what the Bible says
about cross-bearing.

FIRST SPEAKER: Bearing our
cross means we will suffer. If we are
to become like Christ, we will share
in His suffering. (Read Philippians
3:10.) Christ's suffering for our sal-
vation was complete and final. We
do not suffer to gain forgiveness of
our sins. Christ did that for us.

Rev. Henry J. Mueller

But in various ways, if we are truly
Christians, life will be made uncom-
fortable for us.

One way we will suffer in becom-
ing more Christlike is that we will
be persecuted. Peter said, "Beloved,
do not be surprised at the fiery or-
deal which comes upon you to prove
you, as though something strange
were happening to you. But rejoice
in so far as you share Christ's suf-
ferings" (I Pet. 4:12-13). The
"fiery ordeal" is persecution. (Note
that we have it in order to prove
our faith!) But what is persecution?
First let us ask what it is not.

We do not share in Christ's suf-
ferings the way Paul meant when
we are unlikable or unpleasant peo-
ple. If we are untactful or lack
good sense in bearing our testimony
for Christ, we must not think that
the unpleasantness that results is
the cross that we are called to bear
when we follow Christ.

Neither does it mean that we are
to become fanatical. Jesus said that
we are to be wise as serpents and
harmless as doves. We must be care-
ful that our suffering is not a result
of forgetting that. Also, suffering
for some political prejudice is not
what is meant here. (Have the group
read I Peter 4:12-17 and then discuss
verse 15.)

SECOND SPEAKER: Let us now
think about what suffering persecu-
tion as a Christian does mean.
Simply stated, it means we will be
like Christ. He tells us "If the
world hates you, know that it has
hated me before it hated you. If
you were of the world, the world
would love its own; but because
you are not of the world, but I chose
you out of the world, therefore the
world hates you. Remember the
word I said to you, A servant is not
greater than his master. If they
persecuted me, they will persecute
you" (John 15:18-20). The world
will hate us because we are not of
the world. We have been made in-
to a different kind of people because
we are Christ's.

The religious leaders of Christ's
day hated Him because He was dif-
ferent. There was something about
Him that condemned them. He
taught as one with authority and
not as they did. The same was true
about His disciples. They were
hated and persecuted by the reli-
gious leaders of Jerusalem because
they bore witness about Jesus Christ.
They said He was alive and their
words and actions testified to the
fact that this was true and that they
were being made more and more
like Him. (Suggest that each mem-
ber of the group read the third
through seventh chapters of Acts
during the following week.)

If we are being conformed to the
image of Christ, then we will be
hated for the same reason. We shall
suffer because Jesus suffered. The
eighth beatitude says, "Blessed are
they which are persecuted for righ-
teousness sake." Those who are
righteous are so because they an
hid in Christ. They know Him
by faith as their personal friend
and Saviour. If you are being made
Christlike you will be persecuted
(Read parts of Hebrews 11 and dis
cuss the place of persecution in th(
sort of world in which the younf
people live. How are Christian:
"persecuted" in school or in sod
ety?)

THIRD SPEAKER: There is mon
to cross-bearing than suffering per
secution. All the ordinary trouble
of our lives can become a part o
our sharing Christ's sufferings. Got
can turn such things as sickness an(
sorrow into means of strengtheninf
our faith. Afflictions can cause u
to be more and more dependent oi
God and less on ourselves. (Rea<
John 3:30.)

Paul tells us that we "that aii
strong ought to bear the infirm,
ties of the weak, and not to pleasi
ourselves" (Rom. 15:1). Sufferin
for others and sharing in the sui
ferings of another person are par
of bearing our cross. Christ is ou
example in this also, for He suffere

to

PAGE 16 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 28, 1973

in our place even to the death on
the cross.

In addition to these types of suf-
fering, cross-bearing involves being
disciplined by God. (Read Hebrews
12:5-11). One of the things that
happens to us as we are conformed
to the image of Christ is that we be-
come obedient to God's will even as
Christ was. To help us to this goal
God disciplines us, as a loving par-
ent corrects a disobedient child.

FOURTH SPEAKER: The nor-
mal reaction to suffering is that our
hearts become hardened, as did that
of Pharaoh (Exo. 7) . But those who
are Christ's have the Holy Spirit in
them (Rom. 8:9) and the Spirit
makes us able to deny the normal
reaction and receive cross-bearing in
such a way as to make us more and
more like Christ (Rom. 8:11-17.)

This leads us to understand that
we can endure suffering because we
suffer with Christ in order that we
may be glorified with Him. Jesus
endured the cross, despising its
shame, for the joy that was set be-
fore Him (Heb. 12:2) . We can bear
our cross because it shows that we
are being conformed to Christ.

It is a test of our faith. Gold is
refined through fire. In this way
it is made pure. So we are proved
through suffering and made obedi-
ent to God. And we can rejoice
through suffering because we know
that the future holds the promise
that we will be like Christ and will
see Him face to face (Phil. 3:20-21;
Rev. 22:4) .

PROGRAM LEADER: Peter says
we are to humble ourselves under
the hand of God, and in due time
He will exalt us. Be watchful, for
the devil is seeking to destroy our
faith. After we have suffered for a
little while, God, who has called us
!in Christ, will restore, establish, and
strengthen us. (See I Peter 5:6-

(io.)

BOOKS

Closing Prayer.

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ISSUES OF THEOLOGICAL
WARFARE: EVANGELICALS AND
LIBERALS, by Richard J. Coleman.
Wm. B. Eerdmans Publ. Co., Grand
Rapids, Mich. Paper, 206 pp. $3.45.
Reviewed by the Rev. R. L. Summers,
pastor, First Presbyterian Church,
Gulfport, Miss.

Richard J. Coleman received his
theological training at Johns Hop-
kins University and Princeton Semi-
nary. He is an ordained minister
in the United Presbyterian Church
and is serving as the executive di-
rector of the Christian Center in
Pittsfield, Massachusetts. In this
book he recognizes that "the time
has come ... to take completely
seriously the growing and deepening
division between liberal and evan-
gelical Protestants." And he attempts
to do three things. He tries to de-
fine the issues as both evangelicals
and liberals understand them and
to stimulate and encourage a dia-
logue which faces the issues square-
ly, to help ministers and laymen
identify the sources of the tensions
between evangelicals and liberals,
and to shed new light on some very
significant theological questions.

After presenting a concise but ef-
fective history of the development of
this division between liberals and
evangelicals, the author then goes
on to show the nature of these dif-
ferences, and he does so by treating
certain key questions from each
point of view.

He explains that these two groups

within all Protestant denominations
think differently about the personal
experience that the individual may
have of God and what it means to
have faith in Christ, the nature of
revelation, the inspiration and au-
thority of the Scriptures, the possi-
bility of effectual prayer and provi-
dential action within the world,
and the church and the extent of
its involvement in social action.

The heart of the matter, R. J.
Coleman believes, is to be found in
our view of the Bible and how we
think that it is to be accepted and
used. He writes: "The issue boils
down to how the words of men can
be the Word of God. The evangeli-
cal has argued the words of men
can be the Word of God only if they
are infallible, while the liberal has
argued that the words of men, by
their very human nature, can never
be God's direct Word." Thus, he
says, "It is no wonder liberals find
it difficult to preach authoritative-
ly from the Bible and why (for
them) authority tends to be located
in some unknown land of urgeschi-
chte or the inner dimension of
faith."

The evangelical claims to know
God personally through God's true
and adequate revelation of Himself
in the Bible, but the liberal, deny-
ing that we can ever know God
through any static form, insists the
Bible can never be any more than
a witness to an experience in which
{Continued on next page)

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PAGE 17 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 28, 1973

God has revealed Himself.

Coleman recognizes that it is this
difference in view concerning the
authority of the Bible which leads
to different emphases and different
courses of action. The evangelical,
he says, insists that conversion must
be the first step in the Christian life,
and that man must be reconciled to
God before he can be an agent of
reconciliation between men. The
evangelical rests upon his faith in
a personal relationship with Christ
and tries to face each problem by
asking: What is it that Christ has
told me to do?

The liberal, however, insists that
"Our relationship with God is not
a religious relationship to a supreme
being, absolute in power and good-
ness . . . but our relationship to God
is in 'being there for others,' in par-
ticipation in the being of Jesus."

He writes, "According to the lib-
eral's interpretation of the New
Testament, we can expect to experi-
ence God most poignantly by par-
ticipation in the self-giving existence
of Jesus."

This means, of course, that "with-
out malicious intent any congrega-
tion, whether Jewish, Roman Cath-

*ef/c Simpson

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olic or Protestant, could be split h
over the single issue of social in-''1
volvement. 'What kind?' 'How1'
much?' 'Direct or indirect?' 'Cor- 11
porate or individual?' are the di-1 v
viding questions." And this, the au-( e
thor tells us, is precisely what has 0
been happening, either openly or1 1
latently, with the result that Chris- 11
tians are hindered from presenting' c
a unified and vital witness.

He says: "The evangelical sees' lt
the liberal as compromising the mis- a
sion of the Church by involving it! 11
in social and political spheres where 11
it has no special authority or divine
imperative." And he writes, "From f
the liberal's vantage point the evan-
gelical must have either a shallow
or a limited social conscience which S
prevents him from envisioning the
full scope of the Gospel."

The author is to be commended
for his excellent work in presenting^ f(

both the evangelical and the liber;

positions in a fair and objective; '
manner. In this much he has ac-f
complished his self-appointed task.1

le

SI

b

:

in

Hi

Anyone wishing to understand the
reasons for the division within the
Church would do well to study this
book. Unfortunately, Mr. Coleman
has not solved the puzzle of how we }<
may resolve this division. At the
beginning of his book he seems to
think that better communication
between evangelicals and liberal:
could be the answer and that each
group can make a contribution tc
the other, but at the end of the book
he seems less certain of this for hf
writes:

"Superficially it would be easy tc
resolve the conflict by admitting thf
necessity of both verbal and non
verbal methods of communicating
the Gospel. There is ample evidena
that the evangelical is not rigidh
opposed to corporate, sociopolitica
action. The liberal on the othei
hand realizes that lasting change ii
the end must be the product of mer
who care more about others thai
themselves because they knov
Christ. But it is only superficiall;
that the issue can be so easily dis
posed, because the liberal and evan
gelical are speaking to each othe
from quite divergent perspectives.

"To summarize: The liberal i
willing to overlook any final distinc
tion between physical and spiritual
secular and sacred, while the evan
gelical is not. The liberal perceive
God as already present in the world
one has only to discover, develof
and cooperate with the divine spar

PAGE 18 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 28, 1973

1

here. Because Jesus is located in
he other person, the liberal finds
lis faith tied into society — not ac-
identally but inherently. For the
:vangelical certain priorities must
>e kept in order to insure that we
lo not lose the distinction between
latural and supernatural, worldly
.nd divine, body and soul. Redemp-
ion is a gift of God won by Jesus
Christ, not a human achievement or
he evolution of man's goodness,
•"aith in Jesus is more than faith in
he living Person who can be known
ind trusted."

This is an excellent book and
veil worth reading, not because
t offers a solution, but because it
jrovides a deep insight into a very
ignificant problem and presents it
learly and objectively in a well doc-
umented fashion. ffl

SEARCHLIGHT ON BIBLE
WORDS, compiled by James C. Hef-
ey with John Beekman. Zondervan
'ubl. House, Grand Rapids, Mich. 198
ip. $4.95. Reviewed by Miss Carolyn
Andrews, staff artist, Wycliffe Bi-
de Translators, Brasilia, Brazil.

Don't let the title, Searchlight on
%ble Words, deceive you into think-
ng this is just another study of
3reek and Hebrew meanings of
Jcriptural terms. It isn't!
, This book is an interesting collec-
ion of more than 200 true short
inecdotes of the problems, joys and

frustrations faced by Bible transla-
tors around the world as they at-
tempt to translate God's Word into
meaningful terms in other languages.
Not only does it give good insight
into the cultural, religious and lin-
guistic differences encountered, but
it also throws fresh new light and
meaning on the terms used in Eng-
lish to convey Christian meanings of
faith and salvation.

A good book for pastoral enjoy-
ment, it is also a rich sourcebook of
illustrations for sermons and other
studies and is conveniently arranged
alphabetically by topic. IB

V. RAYMOND EDMAN, by Earle
E. Cairns. Moody Press, Chicago, 111.
255 pp. $4.95. Reviewed by the Rev.
Dan H. McCown, pastor, Fifth Street
Presbyterian Church, Tyler, Tex.

The biography of a godly man is
always a thrill to read — to learn
the secret of his greatness, the char-
acteristics of his life and the per-
sonality of his heart. The author has
done a superb job of revealing each
of these things, and many more, con-
cerning Dr. V. Raymond Edman.
And he is able to do it from a per-
sonal point of view, for in his own
words he says, "My contact with V.
Raymond Edman almost daily for
twenty-four years leads me to place
him in the ranks of godly men."

Others also have said about him:
"His was a life dedicated in loving

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THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL
Weaverville, N. C. 28787

TEACHERS

Do you love our Lord Jesus Christ?

Are you committed to the Reformed Faith?
Do you love teaching children?

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PAGE 19 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 28, 1973

obedience to the Word of God and
its application to life ... he had an
authentic note of one living and
practicing the presence of God." He
was a man of prayer who rose early
for fellowship with his Lord in or-
der that he might have confidence
for the day.

Dr. Edman was the author of
many devotional books, president of
Wheaton College for many years, a
missionary, a minister, and always,
a friend to every person with whom
he had contact, whether it was Presi-
dent Nixon or one of the students
on campus. He truly demonstrated
Christ's words, "Love one another."

This book begins with his early
life in a Christian family and retells
his life of learning and service, to
that day when God called him home.

For one who knows about Whea-
ton College, is one of its alumni, or
has any knowledge of Dr. Edman,
this book will be a must on their
reading list. For others, it is also
recommended as the life of a man
who lived moment by moment in
the presence of God and who, when
he died, not only was teaching his
students about the presence of the
King, but went immediately him-
self into that presence. As it was
said of Enoch, so it can be said of
V. Raymond Edman, "He walked
with God." 11

A PLACE TO BELONG, by Robert
A. Williams. Zondervan Publ. House,
Grand Rapids, Mich. 172 pp. $3.95.
Reviewed by the Rev. James Way-
land McGlathery, pastor, Warren Park
Presbyterian Church, Cicero, 111.

Another book fits into the con-
temporary small group scene. The
author reminds us that the original
purpose of the Church was that of
"the sustaining friendship of Christ
embodied in a people." Then he
seeks to show that only as the
Church today exemplifies a r e 1 a -
tional quality in its mission will it
achieve God's purpose.

The warm feeling of reality comes
through as he describes the Church
as an affirming, forgiving, suffer-
ing fellowship of believers. His
chapter on "The Healing Force" is
especially helpful.

For those desiring a book on the
value of the Church's growth and
development through small group
experience, this will be a helpful
addition in the field. SI

• • •

Most men would rather excuse
than confess. — Unknown.

S. S. Lesson— from p. 15

teousness, is always the measuring
stick for men's lives.

Those who suppose themselves to
be better than others and therefore
condemn others while acquitting
themselves simply have not listened
to God's law (Rom. 2) . Paul ad-
dressed this particularly to the Jews
of his day who were self-righteous,
but it could apply to self-righteous
churchgoers of today as well. No
man, seeing the law of God as Jesus
taught it in the Sermon on the
Mount, could acquit himself if he
is honest (Rom. 2:21f.) .

The tragedy which Paul noted is
that God's name is blasphemed
among unbelievers who see profes-
sors of faith in Christ living not ac-
cording to God's will but contrary
to it. This causes occasions of stum-
bling which block many from ever
even hearing the Gospel (Rom. 2:
24).

CONCLUSION: A good conclu-
sion for this lesson is found in Ro-
mans 3:19-20. After making his case
against man, Paul in summary de-
clared that every mouth is shut be-
fore God and all the world is under
judgment. None can justify himself
before God because none can keep
God's law, doing His will. The law
simply underlines the sin in all of us.

The purpose of this lesson is to
convict all men of sin. Next week
we shall see what solution to man's
hopeless state God has offered. IB

Unity— from p. 11

ings shout, "Christ is the answer,"
when they really "know not what
they say."

True unity can come only when
we return to the Scriptures. A re-
turn to the Scriptures assumes that
we will allow them to speak to us as
the authority of Jesus. The validity
of a faith that can make people one
in the Lord is found only in the
Scriptures. The Jesus of Scripture
— He is the answer. II

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PAGE 20 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 28, 1973

VOL. XXXI, NO. 45

MARCH 7, 1973

$4.00 A YEAR

the

Advocating continuation of a Presbyterian Church loyal

to Scripture and the Reformed faith

Substitute for Spiritual Vitality

Protestants in recent decades have witnessed a prolifera-
tion of offices, staffs, executives, commissions, councils, denom-
inational and interdenominational fronts of one kind and an-
other.

By way of justification, it might be said that the Protes-
tant Church has needed to update its organizational structure.
With increased personnel requirements, "administration" is
now accepted as a legitimate aspiration for service by ordained
ministers in preference to the parish ministry.

A more likely explanation is that Churches have turned
to increased organization in an effort to compensate for the loss
of spiritual vitality.

— Russell L. Jaberg
(See p. 7)

>. S. LESSON AND YOUTH PROGRAM FOR MARCH 25

moo

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FROM THE OTHER SIDE

I live very well without your pa-
per. It wouldn't be so bad if you
were not so ruthless, vindictive and
arrogant. So just for the record,
let me say there are those of us who
applaud:

Albert Winn's gorgeous peace
words at the 1972 Assembly. It may

have been our only relevant mo-
ment.

William Benfield's vicarious visit
to Paris.

George Chauncey and the staff of
Church and Society who have called
us again and again to work for
peace.

The authors of Presbyterian lit-

the

PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL

Rev. G. Aiken Taylor, Ph.D., Editor
Rev. Henry B. Dendy, D.D., Managing Editor
Timothy Belz, Assistant Editor

Circulation leader among independent publications in the Presbyterian-Reformed world

THIS WEEK — Vol. XXXI, No. 45, March 7, 1973

The Institutional Church 7

Some specific suggestions for the Church concerning anti-
institutionalism By Russell L. Jaberg

Doctrinal Loyalty 9

True Presbyterianism requires an insistence that ordination
vows really mean something By R. Thomas Cheely

Unity in Jesus 11

The only unity which is not a false unity is that which is
Christian By Richard K. MacMaster

Departments

Editorials 12

The Layman and his Church 13

Sunday School Lesson, March 25 14

Youth Program, March 25 16

Book Reviews 17

THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL, a

Presbyterian weekly magazine, devoted
to the statement, defense, and propa-
gation of the Gospel, the faith which
was once for all delivered to the saints,

is published every Wednesday by the
Southern Presbyterian Journal Co.,
Inc., in Weaverville, N. C.

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erature who, through their writing
call us to be faithful stewards and
not bitter reactionaries.

The four executives who called
the President into question over his
blatant use of power.

Those heroic clergymen who
have, at the risk of job and reputa-
tion, called their congregations to
work for peace.

It seems to me that all of these
have labored as best they could after
the tradition of Another who called
for peace, challenged the religious
establishment of His day, wept over
the city, ate with sinners and called
men to put away their arrogance
and pride. A lesson worth ponder-
ing, good angel.

— (Rev.) Robert W. Tabscott
St. Louis, Mo.

ISSUE OF AMNESTY

Final decision on an act of am-
nesty regarding those who fled in-
volvement in the Indochina wars
will have a profound effect on our
discipline and integrity as a nation
for generations to come.

A variety of types are included in
this amnesty issue: Some fled with-
out any real commitment about any-
thing except to evade the discipline
and danger of fighting anywhere.
Without any convictions, they used
the war as an excuse to flee respon-
sibility in any context and will use
it again, in war or peace, if the is
sue demands an action not specifi
cally to their own self-interest.

Some called "conscientious objec
tors" fled, too, objecting to any ser
vice involved in the tragedy of war
even to staying home and going tc
prison for their beliefs.

In one way or another, all thest
groups raise not so much the issu<
of amnesty from the fine mora
standpoint, but the place these peo
pie merit in any society. It is hard
ly unjust to suspect that the coun
tries to which they fled are just a
anxious to get rid of them as the
are to be gotten rid of!

Others of the left-wing grou
have no allegiance to the Unite
States in any form now visible; the
used the war as an effective tool fc
disruption and embarrassment. The
will be back. They are a task fore
and the matter of justice, injustic
or mercy is not a factor in the coi
sideration of their status. Amnest
in any form would be a convenienc
but amnesty or not, they will I
back.

The "conscientious objector" ca

Jill! !

Ida

fen,

inilai
li n

HI

He
i«l Hi,

be considered the central problem.
Here the tears will be shed and
much do-gooding will be done, total-
ly befogging the meaning of the
struggle for what is just and what
is unjust, what is benevolent or
what is malevolent for this whole
' country, not for just a handful of
| fleeing saints. This group will be
1 joined by the others in a heart-rend-
ing cry for justice and forgiveness.

Out of this chorus will come the
theme that those who died in the
military service were actually the
sinners. Watch it happen.

At this point the organized church
will add to the confusion to the de-
light of the sinners. The church is
i not competent to make any decision
relative to this issue, either moral
or political.

For those who subscribe to the
Christian faith let us remember that
God's forgiveness was and is always
predicated upon a human act of
repentance. God has never com-
mitted Himself without a reflection
on the "bitterness of sin" before the
act of forgiving.

To the churchmen who now are
blessing amnesty and who find no
sin in fleeing to warrant anything
but political forgiveness, why not

• The big news, of course, is the
iecision to bring the Continuing
Church into being in 1973. (See
lews and editorials, Feb. 21, 28,
ind editorial on p. 12 of this issue.)
Three excellent articles in this is-
iue also speak directly to this point.

• People find a variety of ways to
)bserve the Lord's Day, none of
.hem necessarily according to the
biblical injunction to keep it holy,
mnday-shopping programs in down-
own Detroit during the Christmas
eason were so successful that other
imilar promotional events for Sun-
lay are being planned. One store
»wner remarked that in "crass and
ommercial terms" sales were excel-
ent, but that the real "reward" was
etting so many people from the
uburbs who had not been down-
own in years.

1 • Meanwhile, the Lord's Day Al-
iance is planning another consulta-

i ion with representatives of business,
*bor and the Churches to discuss

try the tolerance of "repentance"
as a measure of worth? Certainly it
will weed the cowards and the lazy
from those upright runners from
conflict and give the whole church
a chance to test its national integ-
rity.

As a Christian I do understand
the need of amnesty from heaven,
but I keep remembering Judas. He,
too, was a lover of his own causes.

— Edward A. Cotton
Winston-Salem, N. C.

MINISTERS

George M. Conn Jr., from John-
son City, Tenn., to Laurinburg,
N. C, as college pastor, St. An-
drews Presbyterian College.
Donald M. Green from Charles-
ton, W. Va., to the Calvary
church, Johnson City, Tenn.
John S. Lyles from Virginia
Beach, Va., to the First Church,
Tampa, Fla.

Julius W. Melton Jr., from David-
son, N. C, to Southwestern at
Memphis, Tenn., as director of de-
ferred giving.

Sam R. Nettles Jr., from Dublin,
Ga., to Bryce Hospital chaplain
services, Tuscaloosa, Ala.

the Sunday "problem" in contempo-
rary culture. An Alliance spokes-
man reported that in the area of
metropolitan Philadelphia, many su-
permarkets were being forced to
bankruptcy because Sunday-opening
policies had increased their operat-
ing overhead to the point of finan-
cial chaos. And this reminds us once
again that the Lord moves in mys-
terious ways.

• Almost anyone who owns a tele-
vision set knows that professional
football games are shown every Sun-
day afternoon in season. However,
viewers who did not know that 85
per cent of the Washington Red-
skins players attend voluntary pre-
game religious services were sur-

W. Richard Neelly, having com-
pleted his studies at Union Sem-
inary, Richmond, Va., to associate
pastor of First Church, Lenoir,
N. C.

Ronald E. Stevenson from Ben-
ton, Ark., to First Southern
Church, Austin, Tex., as associate
pastor.

Thomas B. Warren from Talla-
dega, Ala., to Massanetta Springs,
Va., as executive director of Sun-
nyside Home.

J. Elroy Weikel from Corpus
Christi to the Wake Village, Tex.,
church.

DEATH

H. Reid Newland, 56, died of a
heart attack in Dawson, Ga., Feb.
18. He served churches in Geor-
gia, North Carolina and Florida
during his ministry.

MEMORIAL

The Shenandoah Church, Mi-
ami, Fla., has memorialized James
C. McCrea Sr., who died Feb. 13
at age 91. He was a charter mem-
ber and ruling elder, and the fa-
ther of a Presbyterian minister.

prised when the TV cameras caught
the Redskins on their knees in their
normal postgame prayer after their
victory over the Dallas Cowboys.
The Miami Dolphins similarly stress
spiritual values. Several Miami
clergymen take turns traveling with
the team, and most of the players
attend services before the games.
While not attributing special saint-
ly virtues to football players, we do
observe that the great number of
books of Christian testimony written
by athletes indicate genuine re-
ligious convictions.

• Besides, it is refreshing to hear
of men who apply their faith to ev-
eryday living instead of leaving it
behind at the door! SI

ACROSS THE EDITOR'S DESK

PAGE 3 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 7, 1973

NEWS OF RELIGION

English Jesus People Look to Churches

LONDON (RNS) — The Jesus
People look to the established
Churches for fellowship and teach-
ing, according to the theme of a
meeting of Christian leaders and
evangelists reported by the Evan-
gelical Alliance.

About 100 persons attended the
meeting, which was organized by
the southeast-London based Out-
reach for Jesus Movement in associa-
tion with the Evangelical Alliance.

Participants included Jim Palo-
saari, one of the leaders of the Je-
sus Family, an American-originat-
ing group of 40 which recently set
up headquarters in South London,
and Geoffrey Bone of the Jesus Lib-
eration Front.

Reporting on the meeting, an
Evangelical Alliance press release
said the Jesus Movement "proved
typically difficult to define" at the
gathering, which discussed the rela-
tionship between the Jesus People
and the rest of the Church.

"But," it added, "the dominant
theme of the meeting was clear —
the Jesus People look to the estab-
lished Churches for fellowship and
teaching, and both they and tradi-
tional Christians need to respect one
another's distinctive life style."

"As at the Council of Jerusalem"
Mr. Palosaari said, "we need to
recognize the place of some tradi-
tion, but not to trammel young

Christians with unnecessary rules.
Some Churches and groups should
run in parallel, but at the same time
see where they could help and com-
plement each other."

According to the Alliance's press
release, the speakers were "at pains"
to distinguish the Jesus People
from the Children of God, who, it
said, "had developed a hard and ex-
clusive doctrine."

The Children of God is another
American sect which has its British
headquarters at Bromley in south-
east London. It has recently been
under fire as being "un-Christian"
and "devilish" and a local member
of Parliament has called for a gov-
ernment investigation into its ac-
tivities.

Throughout the meeting a need
was stressed to recognize "the gra-
cious work of the Holy Spirit in His
varied activities" and to be humble
enough to accept new developments
contrary to established and precon-
ceived ideas.

Also stressed was the importance
of recognizing one another, whether
"long haired" or traditional, for
what they were in Christ. Many
Church fellowships are far too su-
perficial and could learn from the
Jesus People, it was asserted.

The Church of England Newspa-
per reported that Mr. Palosaari had
emphasized that the Jesus People

THE CHURCH OVERSEAS

PERU — Missionary Wall Yip of
Hong Kong has been sent to Lima
by the Chinese Missionary Society
of Hong Kong. His primary as-
signment is to evangelize the Chi-
nese in the country. They number
about ten thousand.

Chinese services began in Lima
early this year with a nucleus of ten.
Special evangelistic services were
held during Holy Week.

Describing a team approach which
has been worked out with Christian
and Missionary Alliance mission-
aries in Lima, Mr. Wah told how

language difficulties are overcome.
"While I speak Chinese to those
who speak Chinese, Tom Bowden
speaks Spanish with those who speak
Spanish, and we speak to each other
in English."

Mr. Wah hopes to evangelize the
Chinese students by having Chinese
Bible studies in the Chinese High
School in Lima.

The Chinese Missionary Society
in Hong Kong is headed by the Rev.
Philip Teng, and it is supported by
the Christian and Missionary Al-
liance Church here. SI

did not want to force anything on
the Church.

"I can't make you all hippies," he
said. "You can't dress like I do. I
can't put on a tie. That's back-
ground and culture and tradition.
And what's the point of trying to
smash that? The Jesus People and
the Church must run parallel. They
must complement each other."

The Anglican publication quoted
David Hoyt as having explained
how the Church and the Jesus Peo
pie need each other. He pointed
out that "things have gone wrong
sometimes in the States because of
the Jesus People's lack of solic
grounding in Biblical truths."

Abortion Advocates
Look for 1.6 Million

NEW YORK (RNS) — Medical fa
cilities across the nation are pre-
paring to provide abortions each
year for an estimated 1.6 million
American women who will seel
them, in the wake of the recent U.S
Supreme Court decision on abor
tion.

Planned Parenthood- World Popu
lation said it will establish abortior
clinics in some of its affiliate;
around the country, and will set uj
telephone referral services.

The National Association for th«
Repeal of Abortion laws said i
would hold regional workshops oi
each coast and in the Middle Wes
to teach doctors how to set up aboi
tion facilities.

Some New York City abortioi
clinics are exploring the possibilit
of establishing similar facilities ii
other metropolitan areas. Some ho:
pitals across the nation have ar
nounced plans to expand their c<
pacity to perform abortions. Othei
say they are working on policies an
procedures to meet the expected ris
in abortions.

Meanwhile, results of a Gallu
Poll taken before the U. S. Suprem
Court decision shows that 46 p«
cent of the American public are no
in favor of legalized abortions, 4
per cent are opposed and 9 per cei
are undecided.

The Supreme Court's ruling sa:
the states could not interfere wit
a woman's right to obtain an abc

PAGE 4 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 7, 1973

lit

tion during the first 12 weeks. Dur-
ing the second trimester, the state
may regulate abortion procedures,
and in the last third period of preg-
nancy they may prohibit abortions.

Rep. Bella S. Abzug (D.-N.Y.) told
a conference called by the National
Association for the Repeal of Abor-
tion Laws that she will work to get
a bill through Congress that would
go further than the latest Court rul-
ing on abortions.

Experts on abortion said that in
addition to educating doctors, most
of whom have had little experience
with abortions, women must be
taught what is involved in an abor-
tion so they will obtain the safest
possible procedures under the best
possible circumstances. EE

White House Opposes
Mandatory Programs

WASHINGTON, D. C. — Religious
broadcasters gathered here for the
30th annual convention of the Na-
tional Religious Broadcasters were
told that the White House intends
to ask for legislation which would
remove any implication from the
law that radio stations must allow
time on the air for religious broad-
casting.

Dr. Clay T. Whitehead, director
of the White House Office of Tele-
communications Policy, said that a
"requirement" relating to religious
programming is the "kind of thing
(that) cannot be decreed from
Washington."

As presently written, the law re-
quires broadcasters to operate "in
the public interest." Although the
Federal Communications Commis-
sion, according to an FCC spokes-

i man, does not require that station
c owners in this country set aside a
id portion of their broadcasting sched-
a ule for religious programs, the FCC

ii has strongly recommended in the
past that radio stations could indi-

i cate their responsiveness to commun-
ed ity needs by including programs of

i religious nature in their schedules.

According to Dr. Whitehead,
I 'What we're trying to do is to take
a that first step to say we're willing

to give up some of the regulation on
a the faith that the people in broad-
casting will respond and exercise the
b< (responsibility voluntarily." EE

Dismissal of Pastor
Creates Stir in Hungary

NEW YORK — Some observers in
Hungary have expressed fears that
the top leadership of the important
Hungarian Reformed Church ap-
pears to be becoming more willing
to cooperate with Communist au-
thorities at the expense of believers.

Religion in Communist Domina-
ted Areas (RCDA) , published here
by the Research Center for Religion
and Human Rights in Closed Socie-
ties, cited reports from Nederlands
Dagblad, a Netherlands daily, con-
cerning heightened tensions in De-
brecan, Hungary.

The report, obtained from Hun-
garian sources, indicated that the
pastor of the Reformed church in
Debrecan has been dismissed from
his post and a suit filed against him
by Bishop Bartha Tibor of the Hun-
garian Reformed Church.

There are reportedly 1,200 Re-
formed churches in Hungary with
a total membership of 2 million. De-
brecan is a well-known Calvinistic
center in Eastern Europe with a
population of 150,000.

According to the report, the ac-
tion against Debrecan Pastor Joszef
Elias followed complaints he filed
with Bishop Tibor. The pastor said
it had been discovered that the bish-

op had sold the Debrecan church
building to the state in 1967.

"Pastor Elias' protest did not go
down very well with Dr. Bartha Ti-
bor," the report said. "In November
he dismissed the pastor from his
post, so he is deprived of preaching."
Legal action against the clergyman
was started Jan. 20.

The bishop is well known in U.S.
Presbyterian circles, having been
honored by the North American
Area Council of the World Presby-
terian Alliance on one of several
visits to this country a few years ago.

The Nederlands report noted that
the legal action did not refer to the
secret sale of the church which, it
said, "the bishop would rather not
talk about too much." Instead, it
held Pastor Elias was accused of un-
justly criticizing the leader of the
Welfare Department of the Re-
formed Church, and of creating "dif-
ficulties" in his church.

Hungarian sources say the Debre-
can incident has caused a stir
throughout the churches in the na-
tion.

"Shocked by the attitude of their
bishop, about 20 pastors considered
protesting publicly," according to
the sources. This was to have been
done by publishing a manifesto —
something which has not been done
since the Hungarian uprising in
1956. EE

THE CHURCH AT HOME

P

m

Friendship Church Is
Dismissed to Vanguard

ASHEVILLE, N. C— The Asheville
Presbytery meeting here February
20 became the first in the Presbyte-
rian Church US to dismiss a church
to Vanguard Presbytery when it
voted overwhelmingly to grant the
request of Friendship Church near
Black Mountain to do so.

The Presbytery's action also in-
cluded the dismissal to Vanguard of
Rev. J. Kemp Hobson, a recently
retired PCUS minister who has been
serving as the church's stated sup-
ply.

The voice vote followed nearly an
hour of sometimes emotional discus-
sion. The Rev. James Jackson
sought to bring attention to para-
graph 111-3 of the Book of Church
Order which refers to those who
"renounce" the communion of the
PCUS by affiliating with a schis-
matic religious body. The presby-
tery, however, appeared to take the
position of its stated clerk, the Rev.
B. Hoyt Evans, that "respectfully
requesting" dismissal is not the same
as "renouncing" the Church.

"As Presbyterians who are interest-
ed in the connectional ideal," said
Mr. Evans, "we would be wise to dis-
miss Friendship Church to Vanguard

PAGE 5 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 7, 1973

Presbytery rather than insist that all
we can do is dismiss them to inde-
pendency."

Dr. Henry B. Dendy, retired min-
ister who pastored the Weaverville
church for many years, admitted that
he had not approved of the church's
request, but insisted that it was con-
stitutional.

"The thing that disturbs me," he
said, "is that there are those who
are concerned about what this con-
gregation is doing, but have not
been concerned about the back-
ground of liberalism in the denom-
ination which has brought it
about." H

Montgomery Replaces
Evans on BCE Staff

RICHMOND, Va. — The PCUS
Board of Christian Education has
appointed J. Howard Montgomery
as executive secretary to replace
John B. Evans, who will begin new
duties as general staff director of
the General Executive Board in At-
lanta on March 5.

The appointment was of a "lame
duck" nature, since the BCE will
meet only one more time before
turning over its functions and com-
mitments to the GEB during the
summer.

Mr. Montgomery, who has been
with the BCE since 1956, served as
interim executive secretary for
three months in the spring of 1971.

In other action, the Board ap-
proved PCUS participation in a
Joint Educational Development pro-
posal to develop four curriculum
systems with the five other denom-
inations in JED, which are the Dis-
ciples of Christ, Episcopal Church,
Reformed Church in America, Unit-
ed Churches of Christ, and the
United Presbyterian Church USA. SI

New Confession Will
Be Delayed One Year

ATLANTA (PN) — A tentative
draft of a new Confession of Faith,
temporarily scheduled to go before
the 1973 General Assembly of the
Presbyterian Church US, will be de-
layed a year.

An overwhelming number of re-
sponses and suggestions from the
constituency, channeled to the ad
interim committee working on the
document, necessitates more time for
the committee to study and rewrite,
according to chairman Albert C.

Winn of Louisville, explaining the
timetable change.

The 1969 General Assembly estab-
lished the ad interim committee to
prepare a new Confession of Faith
along with a Book of Confessions
for the 950,000-member denomina-
tion.

Dr. Winn, elated over the "tre-
mendous response," sees it as a sign
that Presbyterians "take seriously"
their belief and the theology of their
Church.

Some months ago, the committee
began seeking reaction to its docu-
ment and expressed eagerness to
lend an ear to every comment and
suggestion.

The Rev. Margaret Thomas, di-
rector of the General Council's re-
search department, mailed out 60,-
000 questionnaires along with copies
of the draft. Of these, 2,231 were re-
turned, 71 per cent with concrete
suggestions. A number of other peo-
ple responded directly to the chair-
man of the committee.

The responses showed that one
fourth of the respondents were un-
favorable toward the proposed draft;
three fourths were favorable, with
one fourth of these reporting mixed
feelings. Fifty-six per cent of the
respondents said they felt there is a
need for a new confession; 73 per
cent favored the story form; 70 per
cent said they believe the draft is
"substantially true to Biblical wit-
ness."

On the question of understanda-
bility of the document, 83 per cent
replied they have no trouble in un-
derstanding it; 13 per cent regis-
tered a negative answer. Three
fourths of those answering the ques-
tionnaire said they consider the pro-
posed confession relevant to their
own lives.

With the year's deferment, a tenta-
tive draft will not reach the Gen-
eral Assembly before 1974 and a new
confession could not be adopted
before 1976. ffl

CSS Requests GEB to
Patronize Minorities

ATLANTA — A request that the
Division of Central Support Services
of the Presbyterian Church US pa-
tronize minority-owned businesses
by specific banking, investment and
purchasing policies has been made
by CSS in its meeting here.

In its request to the General Ex-
ecutive Board, CSS asks that the
GEB request the Division of Cor-

porate and Social Mission to iden
tify predominantly minority-owned
banks, suppliers and issuers which
the division deems "worthy of pa-
tronage in financial transactions in-
volving funds owned or controlled
by the Church."

Then, according to the CSS re-
quest, CSS would give "conscien-
tious consideration to implementing
actions in light of the various fac-
tors involved in the handling of the
economic power of money as good
stewards, consistent with prevailing
policies and priorities established by
the General Assembly."

The matter originated in an ear-
lier recommendation from the Di-
vision of Corporate and Social Mis-
sion which asked GEB to buy goods
and services from firms owned by
minorities or businesses which have
"satisfactorily demonstrated the ex-
istence of meaningful nondiscrim-
inatory employment practices."

A preamble to the CSS resolution
points out, however, that the Cor-
porate and Social Mission recom-
mendation "would violate the pri-
ority system of the restructure plan
and be a usurpation of the exclu-
sive power of the General Assem-
bly." IB

PCUS Budget Down to
$8,491,000 for 1974

I

ATLANTA (PN) — A tentative
transition budget totaling $8,491,-
000 has been adopted for the sup
port of the national and interna-
tional programs of the Presbyterian
Church US for 1974.

The allocations for the support
of 18 agencies were approved at the
close of a two-day meeting of the
Stewardship Department of the Gen
eral Council, together with repre
sentatives from the new provisiona;
General Executive Board (GEB) .

After action by the full Genera
Council, the recommendation wil
be forwarded to the GEB, then tc
the June meeting of the General As
sembly.

The total askings represent a de
crease from the 1973 total of $9,
345,875. This was done to brinf
them more nearly in line with actua
giving from the constituency.

In addition, the Historical Four
dation, which was in the 1973 buc
get for $98,000, has been shifted t
financing under the Office of Ger
eral Assembly and is not in the b«
nevolence budget. OGA suppoi
comes from per capita assessment. [

PAGE 6 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 7, 1973

The Church should take warning of the anti-institutional mood of society —

The Institutional Church

The Special Report on Religion,
published by Gallup Interna-
tional, provides information on the
state of religion in our time, and
reading the report is a sobering ex-
perience because it indicates that the
influence of religion in American
life shows a dramatic shift.

We may have reservations about
surveys and statistics in a discussion
of values and spiritual things. Even
so, such reports on the state of reli-
gion in general and the Church in
[particular call us to an accounting
of our stewardship.

A review of contemporary society
(discloses an identifiable factor: a
(surge of individualism. The result
of bigness in almost everything is a
[culture experiencing a personal
[identity crisis as human beings
[flounder in an impersonal lostness
bwithin a large and complex 20th cen-
Itury society.

The Establishment, however un-
derstood, has become a convenient
[scapegoat, and toward it is directed
■the suspicion that anything institu-
itional in our culture is somehow in-
limical to individuals and their prop-
ter interests.

I This suspicion of the institutional
lacquires added importance in the
lease of the religious establishment.
■Voung people, in particular, unin-
terested in and even antagonistic to-
Iward the institutional Church, are
■developing concurrently a deepening
■interest in religion and in Jesus
■Christ.

With substantial warnings to the
■Church of an anti-institutional mood
In society, it is amazing that we
.hould continue to emphasize the
institutional image of the Church.

I The author is professor of hu-
wnanities at the University of Flor-
mda, Gainesville, Fla.

Church construction for years has
amounted to about one billion dol-
lars annually. Organizational ef-
fort was required and developed to
finance construction. Once erected,
the buildings must be maintained
and serviced. The vested interest of
property and the need for operation-
al budgets heightened the institu-
tional presence.

For many, the investment of cap-
ital funds and the financing of an-
nual overhead pose a question of
priorities: How do we justify raising
and spending money in large
amounts for buildings when human
need cries out all about us? The an-
swer is awkward when we frankly
admit that a local congregation can
raise money for buildings for itself
before almost any other purpose.

How do we explain to idealistic
young people that the Christian
Church is willing to spend money on
physical property for its own use,
when it is apparently unready to
give in larger or even equal measure
for relief, education and mission?

The situation becomes stickier
when we acknowledge that many
building projects are undertaken

Same Old Man

The Church may have new synod
boundaries and a new organizational
format, but as long as the same old
man is using them, it will not have
genuine spiritual vitality. Until the
Church concentrates on the essen-
tial, which is to have its members
saturated with the spirit of Jesus
Christ, no amount of reorganization
will make it effective in today's
world. — E. G. Montag in Monday
Morning.

RUSSELL L. JABERG

simply for want of something better
to do which will engage the interest
and support of a company of Chris-
tian people. And whether we like
it or not, property and buildings
are symbols of institutionalism in a
day that is openly and increasingly
anti-institutional.

Over-organized Church

There is also an emphasis upon
institutionalism in organizational de-
velopments. Protestants in recent
decades have witnessed a prolifera-
tion of offices, staffs, executives,
commissions, councils, denomina-
tion a 1 and interdenominational
fronts of one kind and another.

By way of justification, it might
be said that the Protestant Church
has needed to update its organiza-
tional structure. With increased per-
sonnel requirements, "administra-
tion" is now accepted as a legitimate
aspiration for service by ordained
ministers in preference to the parish
ministry.

A more likely explanation might
be that Churches have turned to in-
creased organization in an effort to
compensate for the loss of spiritual
vitality.

Growth of the organizational
structure is followed by the bidding
for greater powers for the structure
itself. The one factor which bu-
reaucracy understands is power, and
the consequence of organizational
development is a power structure.

Unfortunately, the organizational
mind is also characterized by medi-
ocrity. Institutional growth dem-
onstrates that Parkinson's Law pre-
pares for Peter's Principle.

The cause of Christ thins out to
a titular facade for which the ex-
ercise of power can become an end
in itself. When St. Paul observed

PAGE 7 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 7, 1973

that the kingdom of God is not in
word, but in power, it is reasonable
to assume that he did not mean the
purely human power generated in
an organization.

A Church Conglomerate

Institutionalism is presently in-
volved in a natural function — the
enlargement of the organization. We
hear repeated assurances that
Church merger is one of the most
significant developments in our time.

There is sufficient uncertainty in
corporate conglomerates to raise
serious question concerning the use-
fulness of a religious conglomerate.
Even if Church merger seemed a
good thing to be doing, the enlarge-
ment of the institution of religion
hardly appears to be a most signifi-
cant move in a day of anti-institu-
tionalism.

Many modern efforts to exert an
influence in society emphasize the
Church as an institution. No one
would deny the depth and extent of
the problems confronting 20th cen-
tury man, and surely no one would
hold that Christianity can exist in
an "empty" world.

The problems of our society have
provided opportunity for Church
leaders to come forward to claim rel-
evance and involvement. The nature
of these endeavors has demanded a
recognizable institution as their sup-
porting base.

A Power Factor

To be "involved" is now common-
ly accepted to mean the commit-
ment of the institutional Church as
a power factor. Annual meetings
produce resolutions which are of-
fered to the media with the claim,
"the Church speaks."

Individuals with Church titles ap-
pear on television, before govern-
ment committees, or give out offi-
cial releases. The rest of the world
accepts the assumption and the pre-
sumption that these persons speak
as the united voice of their fellow-
religionists, and most of them will
take as much of this office as they
can manage.

Church groups register and sup-
port lobbyists to work in legislative
centers. Currently these people are
calling for Churches and their agen-
cies to use their investment port-
folios to apply social pressure.

Much of the present ecclesiastical
attention to social and cultural con-

cerns requires and projects an insti-
tutional image of the Church. Such
a posture increases the institutional
burden upon the Church, a load
which is increasingly difficult to
manage in an anti-institutional day.

With statistical warnings to reli-
gion in hand, the Church curiously
persists in emphasizing institutional-
ism in the midst of a mood of anti-
institutionalism. We admit that in-
stitutions are an inescapable part of
society, so what can we do with the
institution of the Church which will
diminish "institutional" character-
istics?

People Need Pastors

This is the day of the pastor, a
time for ministers to devote them-
selves to their work as shepherds.
All about us is an overwhelming,
human, lonely lostness. The work
of the minister has many functions,
but his is a special call to share in
the compassion of Christ for the
multitude who are "as sheep not hav-
ing a shepherd" (Mark 6:34b).

The role of the pastor has much
to commend it. The figure of the
shepherd is set deep in Hebrew tra-
dition, and Jesus claimed for Him-
self the office of the shepherd. The
shepherd's heart is close to the spirit
of Christian community; indeed it is
the Christian faith which produced
the person of the pastor.

This kind of ministry is an in-
tensely personal one. To a pastor,
the people of the parish and of the
community cease to be numbers,
plates for a mailing list, or "cases."

To be a shepherd demands first-
hand Christian knowledge and ex-
perience. Away from the public ad-
dress system, out from behind the
pulpit, the minister as pastor must
speak of the things which he has
seen and heard, all within an eye-
ball context.

The work of the pastor offers a
human situation in which the Gos-
pel of Christ may be communicated
by personal influence. Living among
the people of the community gives
a pastor an opportunity to let his
life, word, face, spirit, faith, love,
personality and example be a witness
to Jesus Christ. Rejoicing with those
that rejoice and weeping with those
that weep, the pastor may be found
where the business of living is go-
ing on.

The workaday job of the pastor
may not be regarded as news media
material, but it does possess the stuff

of living. An item for "shoe repair"
in the financial arrangements for the
minister might symbolize a recogni-
tion of the need of the pastor.

The Christian pastor is a ministry
in personal rather than in institu-
tional form. Doing the work of
a shepherd is and has always been
a personal and effective way to serve
people in the name of Jesus Christ.

The Role of the Laymen

For Christian faith, this is pre-
eminently the day of the layman.
The time is long overdue for us to
take seriously our common protesta-
tion that "the people are the
Church."

In the first centuries the Christian
Church grew when it was promul-
gated by people whose formal occu-
pation was not that of being a wit-
ness to Christ. They had tasted and
found that the Lord is good, and
they sustained their witness as a part
of the natural order of their daily
lives. In this day we should entrust
the cause of Christ more fully to j |
persons who are regularly occupied ^
in financial, political, industrial and Of
educational areas of contemporary ria
life.

A degree of naturalness and Tight-
ness about such an arrangement
beckons forcefully; a person may
give his word of witness without any
reservations that he is a profession-
al who is being paid for a commer-
cial message. The emphasis should
be shifted to rest upon men and
women who take up the business of
living and working in committed
hands.

I

Eliminate the Jargon

ml t

Enlargement of the layman's role ,„ t
might serve to put the institution h> ^
to proper perspective. Men and ,
women would cease being either tJ,'
people or persons and become in- ,|]
dividuals again. The language ol< ml
Christian faith could become a sig
nificant communication again, a: ^
sort of koine English. The increased ^

place for laymen would tend to elim
inate the jargon and the theologica
fads which come from seminarie:
and ministers' conferences

The language of the Christiar
message should come as close to lift
as the parables were to the lives o
the people whom Jesus was teaching
Possibly, theological seminarie
could be summoned to assume th'

PAGE 8 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 7, 1973

«tlo

task of preparing students to serve
people in Christ's name.

The worship of the local congre-
gation might admit responsible lay-
men to share in ways other than by
reading printed prayers of confes-
sion. We might even insist on hymns
with singable tunes which are set
in a key suitable for people other
than professional sopranos!

To commit the cause of Christ to
fall squarely upon the shoulders of

laymen is to open up exciting possi-
bilities. A large reservoir of learn-
ing, talent, strength and ingenuity
resides in Christian congregations.

Any hesitancy in giving the
Church to laymen would now seem
to be swept aside by the recent his-
tory of the Church under profes-
sional leadership — the development
of institutional religion.

We could do worse than surrender
the cause of Christ to laymen; that

"worse" would be to continue al-
lowing professionals to foster an in-
stitutional Christianity. We should
be grateful for warnings which call
for a reformation and renewal with-
in the Church.

We must diminish the institution-
al posture of the Church. I suggest
that the alternatives are the renewal
of the office of the pastor, and in-
creased presence and responsibility
for laymen in the cause of Christ. EE

Obviously, some commissioners did not feel bound by the Constitution of our Church-

Doctrinal Loyalty

One of the most important is-
sues to come before the last
General Assembly of the Presbyte-
rian Church US was that of doc-
trinal loyalty, particularly as applied
to universalism and the authority of
jScripture.

, Two statements adopted by the
General Assembly do not reflect the
listoric Reformed position of the
(Presbyterian Church. Indeed, they
ire in direct opposition to the Stan-
dards of our Church, to which all
:hose voting on the position papers
jefore the Assembly had previously
oledged their acceptance.

Universalism

The first statement was adopted
In response to a resolution which

:alled the Assembly to declare that
■'the doctrine of universalism is con-
trary to the Word of God," and that
Fall men are lost apart from faith
In Jesus Christ." Further, it called
Christians to present Christ, lest un-

•elievers "suffer the consequences of
( ternal condemnation."
I After much debate, some of it
Acrimonious, the Assembly adopted
jjhis controversial statement on uni-
lersalism: "Recognizing that all men
ire lost apart from the grace of God
m Jesus Christ ... we call upon

The author is pastor of the Locust
resbyterian Church, Locust, N. C.

every minister ... to present Jesus
Christ . . . calling persons to repent
and believe in Him, lest they suf-
fer the consequences of being
lost . . ."

As one thinks about the statement
on universalism which was adopted
and of the comments made in de-
bate, the words of the Westminster
Larger Catechism, the official po-
sition of the Church, come to mind:

Q. 60. Can they who have never
heard the Gospel, and so know not
Jesus Christ, nor believe in Him, be
saved by their living according to
the light of nature?

A. They who having never heard
the Gospel, know not Jesus Christ,
and believe not in Him, cannot be
saved, be they never so diligent to
frame their lives according to the
light of nature, or the laws of that
religion which they profess; neither
is there salvation in any other, but in
Christ alone, who is the Saviour on-
ly of his body the Church.

Faith Requires Response

With a statement like this as part
of the Constitution, how can a Gen-
eral Assembly or any other court or
any Presbyterian even think the
question is still open? Is it possible
that the Assembly adopted the state-
ment (1972 Minutes, p. 142) be-
cause those voting did not really ac-
cept the Constitution under which
they took their ordination vows?

R. THOMAS CHEELY

Concerning the paper adopted by
the Assembly, the Rev. Paul G. Set-
tle wrote, "Liberals quickly substi-
tuted 'the grace of God' for 'faith.'
Faith, you see, implies a response
on man's part and thus indicates
that one who does not have faith in
Christ is lost."

Those who adopted the statement
seem to have forgotten that the
Catechism says, "Justification is an
act of God's free grace unto sinners,
in which he pardoneth all their sin,
accepteth and accounteth their per-
sons righteous in His sight; not for
anything wrought in them, or done
by them, but only for the perfect
obedience and full satisfaction of
Christ, by God imputed to them,
and received by faith alone."

Conformed to What?

Question and answer 71 continue
to say that justification is an act of
God's free grace and that He re-
quires nothing of sinners but faith.

Maybe we need to read again the
Catechism question and answer 61:

Q. Are all they saved who hear
the Gospel and live in the Church?

A. All that hear the Gospel, and
live in the visible church, are not
saved; but only they who are true
members of the Church invisible.

The problem of the Presbyterian
Church in the United States seems
not only to be that there are non-
believers on the church rolls as mem-

1

PAGE 9 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 7, 1973

bers but that there are also non-
believers on the roll of ministers as
well.

It is no wonder that God has
raised up a group of ministers and
elders who have pledged themselves
to the hand of God to work for a
continuing Presbyterian Church
loyal to the Reformed faith as
found in the Scriptures, rather than
"in conformity with past actions of
this Assembly" as a professor of
theology said in defense of his po-
sition on ordination vows at the As-
sembly. Is it conformity to the As-
sembly or conformity to the Scrip-
tures that is the mark of a Reformed
Presbyterian?

But then, of course, what are the
Scriptures that we should conform
to them? According to the General
Assembly, the Bible is not accurate
in every detail, the Bible's authority
does not require belief in its iner-
rancy. But the Confession of Faith
in Chapter I says:

Inerrant, Infallible

"All which are given by inspira-
tion of God, to be the rule of faith
and life" (2) .

"The authority of the Holy Scrip-
ture, for which it ought to be be-
lieved and obeyed, dependeth not
upon the testimony of any man or
church, but wholly upon God (who
is truth itself) , the author thereof;
and therefore it is to be received,
because it is the Word of God."

(4) .

"We may be moved and induced
by the testimony of the Church to
an high and reverent esteem for the
Holy Scripture; and the heavenliness
of the matter, the efficacy of the
doctrine, and majesty of the style,
the consent of all the parts, the
scope of the whole (which is to give
all glory to God) , the full discov-
ery it makes of the only way of
man's salvation, the many other in-
comparable excellencies, and the en-
tire perfection thereof, are argu-
ments whereby it doth abundantly
evidence itself to be the Word of
God; yet, notwithstanding, our full
persuasion and assurance of the in-
fallible truth and divine authority
thereof, is from the inward work of
the Holy Spirit, bearing witness by
and with the Word in our hearts"

(5) .

". . . in all controversies of reli-
gion the church is finally to appeal
unto (the Scriptures) " (8) . "The

infallible rule of interpretation of
Scripture, is the Scripture itself; . . ."
(9) .

The full and complete summary
of these words of Chapter I provides
the substance of the question asked
in the ordination vow: "Do you be-
lieve the Scriptures of the Old and
New Testaments to be the Word of
God, the only infallible rule of faith
and practice?"

Does not infallibility require in-
errancy? For the Bible to be the
final authority which speaks the ulti-
mate truth, it must be the whole,
complete, free-from-error revelation
from God.

Ordination Vows

Truly indeed, the Presbyterian
Church US has now disassociated it-
self from the king and head of the
Church — Jesus Christ. For "He has
ordained therein his system of doc-
trine, government, discipline, and
worship. These are either expressly
set down in Scripture, or may by
good and necessary inference be de-
duced therefrom" (Preface of the
Book of Church Order) .

When ministers of the Church of
Jesus Christ begin to rewrite the
doctrine that He had ordained, they
have ceased to be ambassadors of
that king; worse, they are in danger
of thinking they can replace Him
with themselves.

I would remind the minister and
the elders of the Church of two
vows we took when we answered af-

Not Home Yet

A missionary was returning home
after many years of service overseas.
On the same ship with him was a
famous man. As the ship pulled in-
to New York harbor, there were hun-
dreds of people cheering, waving and
waiting for the famous man's ar-
rival. A band was playing. Ban-
ners were flying. The sight of it all
made the missionary ponder in self-
pity: Here I am, coming back after
years of service to humanity. There
is no crowd to welcome me. No
bands are playing. Very few people
even know my name. In the midst
of his self-pity, it seemed to the mis-
sionary as if he heard a voice whis-
per, "Son, you're not home yet." —
Selected.

firmatively these questions: "Do you
sincerely receive and adopt the Con
fession of Faith and the Catechism
of this Church, as containing the sys
tern of doctrine taught in the Holy
Scriptures? Do you promise that if
at any time you find yourself out of
accord with any of the fundamentals
of this system of doctrine you will
on your own initiative make known
to your Presbytery the change
which has taken place in your views
since the assumption of this ordina-
tion vow?" (Italics mine)

Still Our Standard

Long ago the General Assembly
declared that it regards "the ac-
ceptance of the infallible truth and
divine authority of the Scriptures,
and of Christ as very and eternal
God who became man by being
born of a virgin, who offered Him-
self a sacrifice to satisfy divine jus-
tice and reconcile us to God, who
rose from the dead with the same
body with which He suffered, and
who will return again to judge the
world, as being involved in the or-
dination vows to which we sub-
scribe" (1939 Minutes, pp. 37, 71).

Conservatives are always being
chided for not going through the
official Presbyterian channels as out-
lined in the Book of Church Order,
while the liberals must evidently use
the BCO only when it suits them.
The new confession of faith has not
yet been officially adopted. There
fore, the Westminster Confession is
our Standard.

The ordination vows are still a pan
of the Book of Church Order. It ap
pears that some did not sincere!)
receive and adopt the Confession a:
containing the system of doctrine
taught in Holy Scriptures or theii
views have changed since assump
tion of that ordination vow. Ye
no one bothers to make this knowi
to his presbytery. Is this some kin<
of game we are playing or is then
an eternal, godly side of life?

May God help us to stand for th
right and remember: "It is require<
of those that hear the Won
preached, that they attend upon i
with diligence, preparation an>
prayer; examine what they hear b
the Scriptures; receive the trut
with faith, love, meekness, and read
ness of mind as the Word of Goc
meditate and confer of it; hide it i
their hearts, and bring forth tt
fruit of it in their lives" (Westmii
ster Larger Catechism 160) .

Ihi

0C!

PAGE 10 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 7, 1973

i

N

Our differences pale into insignificance when we are united in Christ —

Unity in Jesus

A Methodist church in California
added a distinguished Jewish
rabbi to its staff recently as a full-
time counselor. When reporters
asked him if it wasn't difficult for
him to work in obviously Christian
surroundings, Rabbi Abraham L.
Feinberg replied that it was not at
all difficult for him because in this
church Christ was never emphasized.

In announcing the appointment,
the pastor of Glide Memorial Unit-
ed Methodist Church in San Fran-
cisco hailed it as "a giant step for-
ward into the ecumenical move-
ment." I wonder about that.

Religious Roots

We can all recognize the value of
a deeper understanding of the Jew-
ish religious tradition and the con-
tributions of Jewish scholarship to
the study of the Hebrew Old Testa-
ment. In our little church we an-
nually experienced a seder service
with Jewish friends. The Last Sup
per took place at a Passover seder
and the whole Christian tradition of
worship is rooted in the synagogue.

How could it be otherwise, when
the first Christian communities in
Rome and across the whole Hel-
lenistic world were as much Jewish
communities as the church in Je-
rusalem? The need for understand-
ing and mutual sharing is very real
on the local church level as well as
in our denominational colleges and
seminaries, where Jewish scholars
have worked side by side with Chris-
tian colleagues for many years.

Our Moslem friends will accept
Jesus as a great prophet sent by

The author is a professor of his-
tory now engaged in free-lance writ-
ing. He lives in Bridgewater, Va.

God. Islam is rooted in Christian-
ity, as Christianity is rooted in Ju-
daism. The Koran contains sub-
stantial segments of the Gospels.
Many of our common ideas about
Islamic religion are quite wrong,
and both Christians and Moslems
could learn much from a dialogue.
Since there are many Islamic stu-
dents in this country, there is an
opportunity here for many local
churches.

But we must each be true to our
own deepest commitment. What sort
of ecumenical movement are we try-
ing to advance by agreeing not to
emphasize Christ?

I was associated for a while with
a prayer and encounter group. On
our first meeting, we found that no
one wanted to pray aloud, so we
agreed to a time of silent prayer. At
the next meeting, several people
complained that this period of si-
lence was oppressive. We agreed then
not to pray.

The Unmentionables

Since we came from different
churches and somewhat different
backgrounds, the leader suggested
that we might want to share with
each other what Jesus Christ meant
in our lives. Several people found
this threatening, and we agreed not
to mention Christ either.

We were not a notoriously avant-
garde church group, but some rather
ordinary church members in a small
college town. The group members
were fine people and we had a good
deal of mutual respect and feeling
for one another as human beings.
Is this the level on which we search
for church unity?

When the leaders of the ecumeni-
cal movement came together at Am-
sterdam in 1948, they proclaimed

RICHARD K. MacMASTER

to the world: "In seeking Him we
find one another." We can make
no clearer statement of the ecumeni-
cal ideal. It is only possible to
achieve unity when we are seriously
seeking to be united with Jesus
Christ.

The modern theologian John
Knox has questioned the supposed
unity of the Church in the age of
the apostles as the result of an or-
derly missionary program. "There
is no evidence that the evangeliza-
tion of the Greco-Roman world
went according to any 'plan,' " he
wrote, "unless it was God's plan."

Unity in Commitment

Individual Christians shared the
good news with their neighbors,
much as the woman at Jacob's well
did. They were the carriers of a
living Spirit. It is clear from Acts
and the Epistles of Paul that not
all Christian communities were apos-
tolic in origin. Their unity did not
come as the natural result of mis-
sionary teams in contact with the
church leaders at Jerusalem. It
came from their unity in a com-
mon commitment to a living Christ.

There is really no other basis for
Christian union. We can negotiate
about liturgy and polity, and investi-
gate the historical basis of our di-
visions, but, unless we come togeth-
er in a living Christ, we are only
grafting dead tissue on dead tissue.

Sometimes it seems as if the great-
est difficulty for the church is its
unwillingness to let God be God.
We draw up our committee reports,
and our dissenting minority reports,
and wrangle about them in our de-
nominational meetings. We act, in
short, as if it were our church, and

(Continued on p. 21, col. 2)

PAGE 11 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 7, 1973

^1

EDITORIALS

The Time Has Come for Love

Now that the die has been cast for
a Presbyterian Church loyal to Scrip-
ture and to the Reformed faith (see
news story, Feb. 28 Journal) , there
is a sense of profound relief. The
dominant feeling, however, is one
of sadness.

As Dr. Francis Schaeffer told some
800 people attending the rally of
the National Presbyterian and Re-
formed Fellowship in Atlanta last
month, one does not take such a
step as this with bands playing and
flags flying, but with tears.

The final recognition that an in-
stitution can no longer qualify as
a spiritual home for those who
would serve the Lord Jesus Christ
is a rather dreadful thing.

How many gatherings, or conven-
tions, will be necessary before the
first General Assembly can be held
of the Church that will replace the
PCUS in fidelity to the Gospel re-
mains to be seen. The first is sched-
uled to take place before May.

As the movement becomes one for
Church organization, rather than
planning and projecting, attention
focuses upon congregations and pres-
byteries rather than the Steering
Committee for a Continuing
Church. The committee has no au-
thority to bring an institution into
being. That is for those who intend
to be a part of the institution it-
self.

The committee can only offer its

services to interested church courts,
beginning at the level of the ses-
sion, in the preparation of the his-
toric invitation which will bring or-
dained representatives together to
consider future steps.

It is anticipated that a number
of committed church sessions will
take the responsibility for issuing
the necessary invitation. In the
meeting that follows, those present
will determine the steps next to be
taken.

What triggered the determination
(expressed in a unanimous vote
within the Steering Committee) to
begin to move now? For the record,
the perfidy displayed (and described
so colorfully by UPUSA Stated
Clerk William P. Thompson) in
Dallas by the Southerners on the
Joint Committee on Union must be
mentioned.

When it becomes clear that the
people with whom you have to deal
are without honor, it then becomes
useless to try to anticipate what
they will do, when they will do it,
or whether negotiations with them
are likely to bear fruit.

Historically, this has been a time
for mounting recriminations among
brethren, bitter language between
antagonists, and broken relation-
ships between some who should be
working together. God willing, we
must avoid the hard feelings that
have accompanied other Church di-

His Word Endures Forever

Greatness is sometimes the ability
to follow as well as to lead. Not al-
ways is the newest idea the best, or
the freshest approach the wisest.

A man who is humble enough to
plan for the future in the light of
the great lessons from the past is
much more likely to succeed than
one who is determined to be "dif-
ferent" and walk alone, accepting
guidance and counsel from no one.

A well-digger will search for wa-
ter in places where water has been
found in the past, and so it is with
seekers of wealth of whatever na-
ture, whether material or spiritual.

Many of our generation are tempt-
ed to despise the faith of the fathers
simply because it is rooted deep in
the past. But we will successfully
meet this life, and the next, only as
we turn with eagerness to the testi-
mony of those who have already
"trod these rocky paths" and find
power in the testimony of those who
speak from a vital experience of the
Lord from the Word of God.

"Be new," "be modern," "be dif-
ferent," never apply to the basic
issues of human experience or the
never changing basic needs of
man. 33

visions.

Brethren who do not believe the
time has come are still brethren.
Others who cannot summon the
necessary courage to take the fate-
ful step must be followed by our
love and sympathy into the time
following the formal separation.

Even those whose unbelief and
dishonor have so changed the Pres-
byterian Church US that it is no
longer recognizable by faithful
Christians must be retained in our
concern and affection as men who
need to be reached for Jesus Christ.

While it is necessary to close some
doors firmly, other doors must be
kept open — yes, with the welcome
mat out even for those who have
made life difficult for others and
who can now be expected to try to
thwart the purpose toward which
God is most surely leading.

In the ancient world it was said,
among the pagans, "Behold how
they love one another!" Let it now
be a source of amazement that those
about to be mistreated and maligned
do not falter in their love for their
antagonists. EB

The Week That Was

The last week of January was one
calculated to leave one emotionally
exhausted. On the final Saturday
night, January 27, the President of
the United States was asking for a
national day of thanksgiving for
peace.

Exactly one week earlier, he had
attended seven or so balls given in
his honor and danced at every one
of them. Between the two weekends
he was in church again due to the
sudden death and last rites of for-
mer President Lyndon Johnson.
And there was the nationally tele-
vised worship service at Key Bis-
cayne, as the chief executive sought
to lead the nation in expressing
gratitude to God for the treaties
ending the Indo-China involvement.

The TV cameras brought it all in
front of everyone, the dancing, the
mourning, the public worship.

During that week, a challenger
won a surprising victory in a cham-
pionship heavyweight boxing match.

There may be a parallel in the i
way little North Vietnam prevented
the big USA from winning a clear
victory but, be that as it may, one
can be sure that sports and othei
leisure-time activities will claim
more and more interest in the co:

PAGE 12 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 7. 1973

om

J

THE LAYMAN AND HIS CHURCH

When Man Seeks Meaning

ing months of developing peace.

Entertainment, good and bad, in-
augural balls to boxing matches, I
thought. As the celebrating in Wash-
ington suddenly, unexpectedly gave
way once again to the sound of a
funeral march and the dance bands'
brass was hushed for the lonely
sound of taps from a single horn, I
thought that just so will all the
world's pursuits some day cease and
a single trumpet will be heard. Jesus
will cornel

Some relaxation of the right sort
is essential and the Lord provides
helpful avocation. But too much at-
tention to such may bring sorrow
later, even sudden grief, for "when
the Son of Man cometh, shall He
find faith on the earth?" (Luke 18:
8) . — George S. Lauderdale. SI

How to Tell
The Difference

Unbelief within the household of
faith is not always easy to detect.
Most often, however, it can be iden-
tified by its tendency to understand
religion as an "idea'' instead of a
relationship between persons — or,
better, between persons and a Per-
son.

In a typical phrase, the unbeliev-
er is likely to say: "Life, to be com-
plete, must have purpose." The
Christian, on the other hand, would
better understand, "Life, to be com-
plete, must have the Lord Jesus
Christ."

This week we read of a theologian
jwho described Christianity as a re-
jligion based on "esteem for an idea
which transcends the individual and
which gives one's life purpose."

An evangelical Christian would
(likely have said that Christianity is
[based on "esteem for the Lord Jesus
Iwho transcends the individual and
■gives one's life purpose."
I When we read that we were re-
[ minded of another statement we saw
[not long ago: "If man could only
[release into the world the force of
Ilove, all his problems would be
■solved. Love is not just a senti-
Iwient, it is a power, a dynamic driv-
ing energy. We must learn how to
"urn it loose, how to direct it for
our own good and for the better-
"nent of others."

Here was unbelief, trying to un-
derstand the power of the Holy
llipirit in the world, concluding only

|t (Continued on p. 21, col. 2)

How does man find meaning for
the living of these days? Around
about us are struggles for meaning
and inner peace among our fellow
human beings.

Many are trying self-improvement.
Generally, however, this has result-
ed in failure. Vast empires and civi-
lizations have seen their wealth and
wisdom dwindle to nought. By self-
improvement some even try to
achieve God-consciousness. Hindu-
ism, Islam, Confucianism and other
religions of the world, except Chris-
tianity, primarily focus on self-im-
provement as a means of knowing
God.

What makes Christianity differ-
ent? In Christianity, we find that
God has revealed Himself to us. In
His love and mercy, God revealed
Himself and made known to us the
hidden purpose of His will. Through
faith in Jesus Christ, the Word
made flesh, man has access to the
Father in the Holy Spirit and comes
to possess eternal life (John 1:14,
3:16; Eph. 1:9, 2:18; II Pet. 1:4) .

What happens through this revela-
tion? The invisible God out of the
abundance of His grace speaks
uniquely to us and lives in us, in or-
der that He may adopt us into fel-
lowship with Himself (Exo. 33:11;
John 15:14-15; I Cor. 6:19-20; Col.
1:15) .

The evidence of this plan is the
inner unity of the deeds and the
Word of God made clear to us by
the Holy Spirit. The deeds of God
wrought throughout history confirm
the teachings and realities contained
in His Word, the Bible, while His
Word proclaims the deeds and clari-
fies the truth contained in them.

Thus, by this revelation, the deep-
est truth about God and the salva-
tion of His elect is made clear to us
in Christ Jesus, our mediator and
the fullness of all revelation.

As Christians, we are commis-
sioned to present the Gospel
throughout the world, yet we stifle

The author of the layman column
this week is W. Eugene Wat kins Jr.,
Greenville, S. C, a young man just
out of his teens.

our witness by unsuccessfully at-
tempting to align our faith with the
philosophies of our day. The Chris-
tian message lies outside the craft
of philosophical speculation, for it
is God, not man, who has made this
message possible (I Cor. 1:17-25).

God's acceptance of the foolish,
weak, lowborn, and despised among
us to bestow by faith the gift of
eternal life in Christ, while shaming
the wise and strong of this world
and reducing to nothing those who
thought they were something, is a
sign that the Gospel should be not
restricted to any particular group
in our witnessing.

In our presentation of the Gospel,
regardless of whom we tell it to,
however, it is essential that we pro-
claim the risen Christ as God's mes-
sage of salvation. This is not to de-
ny that we should employ human
eloquence, but rather that we pre-
sent ourselves as one commissioned
by God. Thus, people will believe
in the Gospel message on God's au-
thority rather than man's authority
(I Cor. 2:1-5; Gal. 4:14) .

For us, as Christians, to know
that God has revealed Himself to
us, that God indwells us as the Holy
Spirit, and that Christ is coming
again for us should be enough to
verify that Christ came that we
might have a fuller and more mean-
ingful life.

Human as we are, however, we
shout and cry to God that all is not
right, for we are still suffering. Al-
though the glory that awaits us is
far greater than our present suffer-
ing, we need to remember the words
of Paul:

"We are saved by trusting. And
trusting means looking forward to
getting something we don't yet have

— for a man who already has some-
thing doesn't need to hope and trust
that he will get it. But if we keep
trusting God for something that
hasn't happened yet, it teaches us
to wait patiently and confidently.
And in the same way — by our faith

— the Holy Spirit helps us in our
daily problems and in our praying"
(Rom. 8:24-26, The Living Bi-
ble) . El

PAGE 13 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 7, 1973

SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON

For March 25, 1973

INTRODUCTION: This lesson
moves us into a new unit of the
quarter. This unit embracing six
lessons has as its general heading
"Christian Redemption" and deals
with God's answer to man's prob-
lem. Last week we saw something
of man's situation. Man has gone
astray from God and is spiritually
lost. He is in the world without
hope. He is helpless to save him-
self from this predicament. Today's
lesson is the first in a series dealing
with God's answer to man's predica-
ment.

I. GOD'S GOODNESS TRI-
UMPHS OVER OUR EVIL (Gen.
3:15; Psa. 103:8-14. In Eden after
man's sin and fall from fellowship
with God, God promised that the
seed of the woman would yet tri-
umph over the seed of the serpent
(Gen. 3:15).

In this promise lies the first clear
indication of the Gospel. It shows
immediately after the fall of man
into sin that God nevertheless cared;
He will not be frustrated in His pur-
pose to have a holy and sinless peo-
ple who love Him and live before
Him forever.

Later, after He had set His love
on Israel and promised to be their
God and that they would be His
people, in the wilderness He re-
vealed further His nature and His
way of dealing with those He had
called to Himself.

One particular occasion is record-
ed for us in Exodus 33-34. Moses
asked to see the glory of God. God
responded by saying that He would
show Moses His goodness (Exo. 33:
18-19). The next chapter records
the actual truth which was revealed
to Moses. God passed by before Mo-
ses (Exo. 34:6-7) . What is significant
is not what Moses saw but what he
heard.

Moses heard God declaring Him-
self to be a merciful God and gra-
cious, slow to anger and abundant
in lovingkindness and truth; keeping
lovingkindness for thousands, for-
giving iniquity and transgression of
sin (and that will by no means clear

God Cares

Rev. Jack B. Scott

Background Scripture: Psalm 103:
8-14; Hosea 11:1-9; John 3:16-
17; Ephesians 1:3-10

Key Verses: Psalm 103:8-14; John
3:16-17

Devotional Reading: Lamentations
3:22-26

Memory Selection: Psalm 103:8

the guilty) ; visiting the iniquity of
the fathers upon the children and
upon the children's children unto
the third and fourth generations.

This revelation of God to Moses
that day became the basis of Israel's
knowing God. Throughout Israel's
history, time and again the people
recalled this revelation of God's
goodness which was shown to Moses.
It was the basis of the faith of God's
true children.

When God was angry with Israel
in the wilderness, Moses pled for
His mercy to be shown toward Is-
rael on the basis of this revelation
(Num. 14:18). When Jonah was
reluctant to go to the Ninevites to
warn them of God's judgment, he
confessed that he knew God was this
kind of God and he did not want
these pagans to be saved (Jon. 4:2) .

When the Prophet Joel called Is-
rael to repent, he based his appeal
on this revelation of God (Joel 2:
13) . Even after the Babylonian cap
tivity and return of the remnant of
Israel to Palestine, the Levites called
the people back to faith in God,
using this revelation to Moses as the
ground for their call (Neh. 9:17).
Over and over the psalmist recalled
this manifestation of God's good-
ness and made it his ground for
hope of salvation.

Specifically now we look at one
psalm which records this truth about
God and builds faith and hope up-
on it. In Psalm 103:8-14 we have
such an incident. Verse 8 is a par-
tial quotation from Exodus 34:6-7.
Then the psalmist applied this fur-
ther to his own spiritual predica-
ment (v. 9) : God has not dealt with

The International Sunday School Lesson Outlines
are copyrighted 1972 by the Committee on the
Uniform Series of the National Council of Churches
of Christ.

us according to our sins, i.e., accord-
ing to what we deserved. He has
not shut us up to death which is
the punishment for sin pronounced
from Genesis to Revelation (v. 10) .
When God reveals His lovingkind-
ness, we must recall that it is bound-
less toward those who fear Him (be-
lieve in Him — this is the Biblical
sense of "fear of God" in those who
are His children) (v. 11).

What we could not do, namely, be
rid of our sin and sinful nature, God
has done for us (v. 12) . From any
point on earth one may go north to
a point and then he begins to go
south. One could say, therefore,
that north and south meet and are
adjacent to one another. But one
cannot go east to a point and then
begin suddenly to be going west.
East and west never meet. God chose
this concept to show how very far
He removes our sin from us.

Again, God's mercy toward those
who fear Him is described as the
pity of a father for his own children
(v. 13) . Here again we understand
that God has a people, His own, to-
ward whom He shows pity and com-
passion. Not all men are so saved.
Throughout this psalm and God's
Word the condition, "those who
fear Him," is constantly stressed.
This means those who believe and
trust in Him.

Verse 14 refers to our initial state-
ment. Man is helpless. He is bui
dust and condemned to return tc
dust unless God intervenes. (Set
Genesis 3:19.) This psalm, basec
on the revelation which God madt
to Moses, clearly affirms that Goc
did intervene and rid us of the sir
that so easily besets us.

II. GOD'S LOVE IS NOl
BASED ON OUR WORTHINES.
(Hos. 11:1-9). God recognizes ou(
frame. He knows we are but dust
that is, helpless to help ourselves.

In the wilderness God made i
plain to Israel, after He had callei
His people from Egypt and redeeme
them from their enemies, that HI
did not choose or save them bd
cause of any merit or goodness i

PAGE 14 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 7, 1973

J

them. He taught them that He
chose them because He loved them
CDeut. 4:37, 10:15). The reason for
God's election of some to eternal life
with all of its benefits is never ex-
| plained in any terms but the inex-
plicable love of God.

God denied that Israel was chosen
[l because she was more numerous than
others (Deut. 7:6-8) or that she was
better than others (Deut. 9:4-6) .
{ Clearly, Israel was not righteous but
; stiff necked (vain, proud and dis-
I pleasing by her nature to God) .

The Prophet Hosea developed
Is this truth: The message begins with
I God's love when Israel was a child,
I not based on what she had done,
t God found Israel in bondage in
f, Egypt. He loved her then and
\, called her out of Egypt. Similarly,
K God finds us in the bondage of sin
and loves us, then He calls us out
f, of the state of sin and death to fel-
I lowship with Him.
[i Nothing lovely is shown here
I about Israel. She was disobedient
fiand slow to hear people (11:2).
k: God nevertheless was patient and
| longsuffering in all His dealing with
[Israel, as He had taught Moses He
I would be (11:3-4). Still Israel did
l not respond to God. Still she was
linot lovely (11:5-7). Thus even af-
Iter being shown God's love, Israel
I was not lovely herself. This gives
iisome indication of what she was be-

If ore God called her.
In spite of her continued rebel-
lion, stubbornness and refusal to
I- submit, God would not give her
i up. She deserved the fate of Sodom
»' and Gomorrah (Admah and Zeboim
I were the two lesser-known cities of

I the plain, Gen. 14:8) (11:8). God's

II compassion won and prevailed over
I Israel's sinfulness (11:8-9).

The kind of persevering love of
[God shown here in His dealing with

■ Israel is applicable equally to His

■ dealings with all sinners who are
I saved. From the beginning, we all
fwere not lovely but rebellious and
i unwilling to seek God. Even after
\ God had called us to Himself, we
ji have followed sin too often and stub-
\ bornly resisted His love. That we
rare God's children is not due to any
i merit in ourselves but due solely
I ;to His persevering love that would
| not let us go (Rom. 5:7-8) .

III. GOD'S LOVE REACHES
WTO THE END OF THE EARTH
[I (John 3:16-17) . Very early in God's
|| revelation of His salvation plan, He
I made clear that salvation would em-

brace more than one people, more
than one family of men. In Genesis
3:15 there is no reference to anyone
line of descent; only in a general
way He described His children as
the seed of the woman.

Later, when He showed that His
choice centered on one family, the
Shemites, He even there indicated
that His love was not exclusively
limited to that family, but that there
is room in the tents of Shem for the
Japhethites (Gen. 9:26-27) . By this
I understand the promise that sal-
vation should embrace men from
one end of the earth to the other.

In calling Abraham and dealing
specially with him in grace and love,
God promised that through him all
the families of the earth would be
blessed (Gen. 12:3).

Throughout the period when Is-
rael was the special recipient of
God's saving grace, Gentiles were
brought into the family of God's
people. We see, for instance, the
servant of Abraham in Genesis 24;
Tamar, the daughter-in-law of Ju-
dah (Gen. 38:24-30) ; Rahab the har-
lot; Ruth, the Moabite, and doubt-
less numerous others unmentioned
in Scripture. (Compare Matthew's
genealogy of Christ, particularly 1:3,
5-6) .

But though the prophets contin-
ued to point to the time of the in-
clusion of the Gentile nations (Isa.
2:2-4, etc.) , a waiting period oc-
curred until Jesus Christ came and
accomplished redemption before the
general command to preach the Gos-
pel to the nations was given (Matt.
28:19-20).

Here in our text, John 3:16-17,
we are shown that God's love em-
braces the whole world. That love
which centered on Israel in the Old
Testament is shown to include peo-
ples of all nations of earth, just as
God indicated earlier when He
called Abraham.

This does not mean that all men
are saved. John 3:16 has a very clear
condition, "whosoever believeth on
Him." Believers in God are those
who, as the psalmist declared, fear
God. Only believers are saved, not
all men, and our very faith is itself
a gift of God, not generated by rep-
robate hearts but worked in us
who are reborn of the Holy Spirit.

Therefore, John 3:16 cannot be
made to teach universal salvation.
By implication, those who do not
believe shall perish. He that does
not believe is judged already (John
3:18f.). But John 3:16 does teach

that the Gospel embraces men of all
nations throughout the world, so the
promise of Genesis 3:15 has made
full circuit. It does include men
everywhere who believe in the Gos-
pel of God.

IV. GOD'S ORIGINAL PUR-
POSE IS ACCOMPLISHED IN
CHRIST (Eph. 1:3-10). This pas-
sage is so full and rich that we can
touch on only one or two points.
First, God's original purpose, de-
scribed before, was to have a people
holy and without blemish before
Him in love forever. This passage
teaches that God does realize this
purpose through His Son Jesus
Christ.

God chose us in Christ (v. 4) ;
foreordained us to be His sons
through Christ (v. 5) ; redeemed us
in Christ's blood (v. 7) ; revealed the
Gospel to us by Christ (vv. 8-9) ; and
sealed us in Christ (vv. 13-14) .

Very clear then is that the person
Jesus Christ, truly God and yet truly
man, accomplished for us what men
could not do for themselves. He per-
fectly obeyed the Father which
Adam, our first parent, failed to do.
Our Lord was holy (set aside for
God in all of his life) , without blem-
ish (having no sin in Himself) ; in
God's presence (both on earth and
in the resurrection and ascension to
God's right hand) ; and in a relation-
ship of love (loving the Father, loved
by the Father and loving us) .

In all things, therefore, our needs
and God's purpose are met in Christ.
So, as we believe in Him, all of the
benefits and privileges of Jesus
Christ's redemption on our behalf
accrue unto us. This is the good
news which God has revealed to us.
It declares that God does care and
has done something about man's pre-
dicament.

CONCLUSION: From here we
shall next move to a further con-
sideration of the substitutionary
atonement of Jesus Christ. Our
further lessons in this series shall in-
clude the work of redemption which
is accomplished in the person and
work of Jesus Christ. II

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PAGE 15 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 7, 1973

YOUTH PROGRAM

For March 25, 1973

The Testimony of Two Churches

Scripture: Revelation 2:18-3:6
Suggested Hymns:

"Trust and Obey"

"Jesus, I My Cross Have Taken"

"Moment by Moment"

INTRODUCTION BY PRO-
GRAM CHAIRMAN: We are told
that faith without works is dead.
The example is given that if we tell
a destitute person, "God bless you,"
but don't help him, then our faith is
dead.

We are also warned that whatso-
ever we do, we are to do it in godly
love. "And though I bestow all my
goods to feed the poor, and though
I give my body to be burned, and
have not love, it profits me nothing"
(I Cor. 13:3).

True faith in Jesus Christ results

Rev. Henry J. Mueller

in Christ-like living, and the founda-
tion of the Christ-like living is the
same love that motivated Him to
come to earth to live and die for us.

There are those who seem to imi-
tate Christ in the kinds of works
they perform, but their motivation
is wrong. The only basis for Chris-
tian works is a deep love for God
that overflows to our neighbor. This
love exists only in those who have
accepted Christ as their Saviour and
have turned over their lives to Him.

Christians don't try to imitate
Christ; they let Him live His life
through them. Now we must con-
stantly be testing ourselves to see if
our actions are Christ-like. This we
do by searching the Scriptures.

If we fail to measure up to what
we find there, then we realize there
are some areas of our life we need

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to turn over to Him. We repent. We
confess our sin and turn from it to
Christ, and let Him become opera-
tive in this area of our lives.

As you can see, this makes the
Christian's life one of constant
growth. We are encouraged to
"grow in grace and the knowledge
of our Lord and Saviour Jesus
Christ" (II Pet. 3:18).

FIRST SPEAKER: Sometimes this
process of growth slows or stops. For
our program we want to look at two
reasons why growth in Christ can
stop. There are many other reasons,
but today we want to examine these
two and see if they fit us.

(Have someone read Revelation
2:18-29.)

The church at Thyatira was main-
taining a Christian witness in good
deeds. The people ministered to the
poor and were growing in love for
each other. They had faith in the
promises of God and were patient
through all their experiences. It
sounds like an unusually lively
church.

But Jesus, describing Himself as
one whose eyes penetrate like burn-
ing fire, issued a warning. Their
testimony was not consistent. They
allowed a false teacher in their midst.
She was teaching that certain kinds
of immorality were not sin, and
many people in the church were fol-
lowing her into these sins. Jesus
called those people to repent and
turn again to Him. If they did not,
they were to suffer intense affliction.

Jesus desires His body, the
Church, to be pure. No church is
to allow false teaching and sinful
living to go unnoticed. Such church
must exercise discipline along Scrip
tural lines.

We must apply this to ourselves
as individuals also. Jesus searches
deep into our hearts and minds. As
we become more like Him, we must
purge out that sin which exists with-
in us. Sometimes it is hidden, but
God will reveal it to us if we ask
This business of an inconsistent tes-
timony is serious. Thyatira had

Co,
ki
live

Don

atdi

PAGE 16 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 7, 1973

many pood things right about it, but
because they allowed false teaching
and its results in their church, Jesus
had stern words for them.

SECOND SPEAKER: The testi-
mony of the church at Sardis ap-
peared to be firm. From the outside
this seemed to be a lively church,
but there was something seriously
wrong.

(Have someone read Revelation
3:1-5 to the group.)

Their problem was that although
it appeared to be an active church,
it was dead. Remember that Jesus
had already described Himself as one
whose eyes penetrate to the heart.
He knew what was inside most of
the church members at Sardis. In
God's sight even their deeds were
wrong. (Read Isaiah 64:6.)

They had left the truth of Jesus
Christ. They had forgotten that
their salvation lay completely in
Him. "Go back to what you heard
and believed at first; hold to it
firmly and turn to me again" (Rev.
!3:3, The Living Bible) .
! Our good works will never get us
to heaven. It is by grace that we
are saved; it is never by works. Our
salvation is a gift from God. Those
who have experienced this new life
ifrom God through Jesus Christ re-
joice that they are now able to do
sthings that bring praise to Him.

Good works are done to glorify
'God. They issue from a heart that
iloves God deeply. We live godly
[lives not for men to praise us or for
Ipersonal gratification, but solely and
Icompletely because we love Him.

CONCLUSION BY PROGRAM
^CHAIRMAN: We must ask our-
Iselves this: Is our Christian test-
imony compromised by sin? If so,
ithen we must repent and turn to
Sjesus. God's promise to us is, "If
we confess our sins to Him, He can
ibe depended on to forgive us and
ito cleanse us from every wrong" (I
Ijohn 1:9) .

Then some of us may need to ask
purselves if we really know Jesus
■Christ. Have we invited Him into
pur lives? Are we trusting only in
His death and resurrection for our
salvation? If we are trusting in our
! works to get us to heaven, then we
! lire dead. If this fits you, will you
■bow your head now and give your
Iieart to Jesus?

BOOKS

Closing Prayer.

m

THE EXPANDED LIFE, by Myron
S. Augsburger. Abingdon Press, Nash-
ville, Tenn. 125 pp. $3.25. Reviewed
by the Rev. John R. Richardson, min-
ister emeritus, Westminster Presbyte-
rian Church, Atlanta, Ga.

The author has given us another
work on Christ's Sermon on the
Mount for which the Beatitudes fur-
nish the outline. He holds that
Christ's words are for all Christians
in all times.

In giving this volume the title of
The Expanded Life, the author
would convey the thought that the
true nature of discipleship is empha-
sized. In each chapter he insists that
the life set forth in the Sermon on
the Mount is an enriched and broad-
ened life, relating the principles of
Christ to our total life pattern.

As a Mennonite, the author is a
literalist in his interpretation of the
question of nonresistance as held by
the so-called peace Churches. On this
subject we disagree with his conten-
tions. Furthermore, there are a few
sentences that indicate fuzzy think-
ing:

For instance, Dr. Augsburger
writes, "Both Communism and cap-
italism regard the individual as quite
worthless in the achievement of
their different goals." While this is
true of Communism, it is fallacious
when applied to capitalism. It is
an unpardonable misrepresentation.

Many fine paragraphs are found
in each chapter. The author's ap-
preciation of the Bible is commend-
able. He points out "the first test
of discipleship is whether our basic
frame of reference is the Word of
God. When this is clear other is-
sues can be answered in order."

From the first chapter to the last
there are two motifs — didactic and
devotional. Both are developed
with the skill of a competent crafts-
man. EE

RIVER OF LIFE, by James S. Stew-
art. Abingdon Press, Nashville, Tenn.
160 pp. $3.50. Reviewed by the Rev.
John R. Richardson, minister emeritus,
Westminster Presbyterian Church, At-
lanta, Ga.

Dr. Stewart is recognized as one
of Scotland's foremost homiletes, as
well as a noted professor of New
Testament. The seventeen sermons
in this volume maintain the high

standards established in his other
books.

Each homily is expository and is
communicated with warmth and an
evangelical flavor. In all of these
messages Dr. Stewart stresses the
thought: "The one thing needful
is to possess Christ." Confirming
this with his own Christian experi-
ence he testifies, "After a lifetime
of preaching I am more conscious
of that than ever."

Proclamation with doctrinal con-
tent is the essence of New Testa-
ment preaching. According to Paul,
faith comes out of this proclamation.
The proclamation found in these
messages will strengthen faith, deep-
en knowledge, and clarify the Chris-
tian message. The mature Christian
will get new glimpses of the glory
of God as he reflects on these pages
of gripping truth. EE

THE QUEST FOR NOAH'S ARK,
by John Warwick Montgomery. Beth-
any Fellowship, Inc. Minneapolis,
Minn. 335 pp. $6.95. Reviewed by A.
Kenneth Austin, professor, Covenant
College, Lookout Mountain, Tenn.

The prolific pen of J. W. Mont-
gomery has produced a rather inter-
esting book on a little-known sub-
ject. The title page effectively de-
scribes the work as "A Treasury of
Documented Accounts from Ancient
Times to the Present Day of Sight-
ings of the Ark & Explorations of
Mount Ararat with a Narration of
the Author's Successful Ascent to
the Summit of Noah's Mountain."

Although the author — who serves
as professor of Church history and
Christian thought at Trinity Evan-
gelical Divinity School — does not
specifically state that Noah's Ark
still resides beneath the ice atop
Mount Ararat, he believes that there
is sufficient evidence (which is es-
sentially what the book is all about)
to make it a very likely possibility.
An ample bibliography is included
for those who desire to pursue the
evidence further.

The author has been smitten with
what he describes as "ark fever."
He has ascended Mount Ararat at
least twice (1970 and 1971) and
according to a flier inserted in the
book he plans to lead a tour group
to the mountain in mid-April, 1973,
at the rate of $1,649 per adult. IB

PAGE 17 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 7, 1973

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A MINISTER'S OBSTACLES, by
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G. McClure, H.R., Pompano Beach,
Fla.

This reprint of a book issued in
1964 is primarily for ministers, but
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The 20 chapters deal with ob-
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Dr. Turnbull urges ministers and
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SEXUAL UNDERSTANDING BE- [

FORE MARRIAGE, by Herbert J. j

Miles. Zondervan Publ. House, Grand [
Rapids, Mich. 222 pp. $4.95. Reviewed

by the Rev. E. Crowell Cooley, pastor, ^
Calvary Presbyterian Church, Nor-
folk, Va.

It is exciting to see a book about ,

the relationship between the sexes r,

which is wholesome in a day when so „

much filth is being disseminated. „
This book falls into the category of

the kind that can be recommended p|

to teenagers to give them direct and [f
specific guidance that is Biblically

sound and socially relevant in a day ^

when much of the material available jj
is suggestive, if not subversive.

Dr. Miles now serves as professor j
of sociology at Carson-Newman Col-

lege. He is a member of the Ameri- *

° m

■r'

— —i sit

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PAGE 18 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 7, 1973

can Association of Marriage Coun-
selors, but even more importantly
has served as a pastor and youth
minister in Baptist churches for
twenty years. He has done much
work in the realm of the relation-
ship of men and women, both in
marriage and, as this book indicates,
before marriage. He is well versed in
his subject both from the clinical
point of view and from Biblical con-
cepts.

This is a book which should be in
the library of every concerned
church. It presents the relationship
between the sexes as something
wholesome, something created by
God and good. It boldly touches
upon the questions that young peo-
ple are asking and gives answers
' which are Biblically sound as well as
: practical for our day. It avoids the
temptation to hide the subject under
evasive language, while at the same
time presenting the material with
(dignity and in a straight forward
i manner.

It is an exciting book because it
I deals with a subject that is receiving
[much bad coverage in our day, in a
I way that is solid and most helpful. I
'strongly recommend its reading by
parents of teenagers and teenagers
I themselves before they embark on
i the great American mystery of dat-
jing and courtship. EE

RESOURCEFUL SCOUTS IN AC-
ITION, by Walter G. Mac Peek. Abing-
don Press, Nashville, Tenn. 144 pp.
$1.50. Reviewed by the Rev. John R.
I Richardson, minister emeritus, West-
minster Presbyterian Church, Atlanta,
IGa.

This little paperback book dis-
cusses "The Promises of Youth,"
I'Groups In Action," "Leaders at
jWork," and "Growth Through Ev-
Iferyday Experiences." All of the chap-
iters are designed to recognize and
Imcourage resourcefulness in boys.

While so many people are con-
cerned about delinquency among
Ipoys, it is a pleasure to find one per-
lion who stresses the need for show-
ing boys the need for physical fit-
Iiess, self-reliance, personal responsi-
bility, skill in helping people, and
liow to fit into God's plan and work
|md to live in harmony with their
illreator.

i With these things the boy can be-
come more of a promise than a prob-
lem. Mac Peek's ideas could be used
lidvantageously by all who work
Ivith boys in camps or in schools. SI

JOSHUA, EPISTLES OF JOHN &
JUDE, I CORINTHIANS, Self-Study
Guides, by Irving L. Jensen. Ea. paper
and approx. 105 pp. $1.50. Moody
Press, Chicago, HI. STUDIES IN
ISAIAH & JEREMIAH, Bib!e Self-
Study Series, by Irving L. Jensen.
Moody Press, Chicago, 111. Paper, 112
pp. $.95. HAGGAI, ZECHARIAH,
MALACHI, by Joyce Ba!d win. Inter-
Varsity Press, Downers Grove, 111.
253 pp. $5.95. Reviewed by the Rev.
G. Coleman Luck, chairman of Bible
Dept., Moody Bible Institute, Chicago,
III.

Three more useful "self-study"
booklets from the prolific pen of Irv-
ing Jensen contain suggestions for
study, brief but helpful comments
on each passage, pertinent ques-
tions with spaces provided for the
answers, charts to be filled in, and
maps where needed. A young Chris-

tian using these tools should cer-
tainly soon become "a workman
that needeth not to be ashamed."

Even those with a good bit of
Bible training should still find
these guides of value. The Bible
books are rather thoroughly cov-
ered, except that Joshua 13-21 is
touched on quite lightly.

The book on Isaiah and Jeremiah
(which seems to be in a different
series) is more general in nature and
takes up only a few chapters of each
writing in any detail. One study in
Lamentations is also included.

The volume by Baldwin is a
small-sized, cloth-bound book which
follows the usual commentary style.
An introduction to each Bible book
discusses authorship and general
message, then verse-by-verse com-
ments follow. The writer is dean
of women and tutor in Old Testa-

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PAGE 19 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 7, 1973

GOOD GIFTS

The Living Bible $9.95

The Children's Living Bible 4.95

The Child's Story Bible

by Catherine Vos 6.50

Egermeier's Bible Story Book 6.95

Marian's Big Book of Bible Stories 4.95

Marian's Favorite Bible Stories 2.95

The Living Story of Jesus 4.95

Stories For The Children's Hour

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Hurlbut's Story of the Bible 6.95

The Kingdom Of The Cults

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Convictions To Live By

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Lighthouse

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THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL

Weaverville, NC 28787

ment at Trinity College, Bristol,
England. While she takes a gen-
erally conservative position and
there are a good many profitable
things said, nevertheless her treat-
ment rather left me cold.

The stated purpose of this series
of commentaries is to "avoid undue
technicalities," yet it seemed to me
there were a good many included.
On a number of points various
views are quoted without any very
clear statement of the author's own
conclusion. There seems to be a
hesitation to identify even familiar
Messianic passages as such.

One example is this: Of Zechariah
13:7 she writes: "Who is the shep-
herd? The prophet is not explicit.
Had he wished he could have drawn
together the Davidic theme with that
of the shepherd, but he did not do
so. Nor did he identify the shep-
herd with the Servant of Isaiah 53,
though it is likely that he had that
passage in mind. The very fact that
the passage is to a degree enigmatic
is an invitation to meditate on it,
and there are indications that it in-
fluenced the thinking of Jesus more
than any other shepherd passage in
the Old Testament." [

ve(k Simpson

31 stores in 8 states serving you
with this pledge ....

• To give prompt courteous service, treating our customers as you would a guest
in your home. • To give the best selection of merchandise from Top Quality
Fashions to basement bargains, meeting everyone's need. • To give satisfaction
guaranteed with every purchase. • To give credit terms arranged to meet your
budget needs in Stores doing credit business.

Since the opening of the first Belk-Simpson Store, it has been our
endeavor to be more in a community than just another merchant.
We have set forth a united consecrated effort, dedicated to the task
of securing superior quality merchandise, giving our customers a
better value than any other merchant.

SOUTH CAROLINA

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Greenville, S. C.

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Greenville, S. C.

R. P. Crumpler, Res. Mgr.

Belk's of Pleasantburg

Greenville, S. C.

A. M. Smith, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store
Lancaster, S. C.

B. L. Plyler, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store
Camden, S. C.
J. A. Hagins, Res.

Belk's Department
Clinton, S. C.
D. B. Smith, Res.

Mgr.
Store

Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.
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Paul E. Broome, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store

Laurens, S. C.

David Middleton, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Abbeville, S. C.

J. S. Hagins, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Hagins Co.
Kershaw, S. C.
C. E. Hinson, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.
Easley, S. C.
R. J. Womack, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Beaufort, S. C.
Al Wilson, Res. Mgr.
Mar- Belk-Simpson Co.
Fountain Inn, S. C.

E. J. Copeland, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Woodruff, S. C.

F. B. Hagins, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
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T. R. Martin, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Whitmire, S. C.

Clyde Smith, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Manning, S. C.

W. M. Gettys, Res. Mgr.

OHIO

Belk-Simpson Co.

Athens, Ohio

Joe Kelly, Res. Mgr.

MISSOURI

Belk-Simpson Co.

Carthage, Mo.

Charles Wilson, Res. Mgr.

OKLAHOMA

Belk Dept. Store
Miami, Oklahoma
J. T. Holmes, Res. Mgr.

NORTH CAROLINA

Belk-Simpson Co.

Hendersonville, N. C.

R. E. McCormack, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store

Brevard, N, C.

J. M. Felty, Res. Mgr.

KENTUCKY

Belk-Simpson Co.
Harlan, Ky.

Delmar Tolliver, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Corbin, Ky.

W. C. Ashley, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Winchester, Ky.

T. L. Beckham, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Mt. Sterling, Ky.

Willoughby Smith, Res. Mgr

Belk-Simpson Co.

Frankfort, Ky.

J. D. Prow, Res. Mgr.

GEORGIA

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ARKANSAS

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SO years. The Belk stores were launched in 1886-88.

SEE THE MANAGER NEAREST YOU FOR CHURCH CARPET, ROBES, ETC.

PAGE 20 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 7, 1973

MAN TALK, Prayers for the Man
ai Work, by Jim Daughdrill Jr. Har-
per & Row, New York, N. Y. 120 pp.
$3.95. Reviewed by the Rev. Fred
Thompson, pastor, First Presbyterian
Church, Woodruff, S. C.

This neat little collection of
meaningful prayers was written for
business people and office workers
by the secretary for stewardship in
the Presbyterian Church US.

The author, a former president of
a multimillion dollar carpet mill,
left his position to follow the Lord's
call to the ministry. His familiarity
with the pressures and temptations
of the business world, coupled with
a genuine concern for the spiritual
welfare of those caught up in them,
has resulted in this devotional book-
let, i

YOU AND YOURS, by Ellen Mc-
Kay Trimmer. Moody Press, Chicago,
III. 224 pp. $3.95. Reviewed by the
Rev. Schum, evangelist, Uncle Hank
Evangelistic Association, Inc., Chat-
tanooga, Tenn.

The author examines the Chris-
tian faith where it undergoes its
greatest tests, in interpersonal rela-
tionships. She successfully answers
such questions as these: What moves
me to action? How can I cope with
myself? How can I change? What
should I expect from marriage?
Should I be an influence on society?

Mrs. Trimmer is well qualified to
write this book. She has had 15
years of informal study in psychol-
ogy and counseling, 31 years of
marriage to a minister, and 9 years
of service in probation work. She
graduated from the Ontarion Bible
College and has also taken courses
in criminology at the University of
Toronto. EE

Editorial— from p. 13

(that "ideas have consequences," that
principles somehow contain within
themselves a kind of "energy."

But the Christian knows there is
in eternity of difference between
he "power of love," as a principle,
ind the "power of God," as a Per-
,on.

The same distinction is likely to
ie involved when you hear a call to
:ommitment to the "principles ex-
;mplified in the life and teachings
)f Jesus." But my relation to the
Lord Jesus is not a relation to cer-
ain ideas of which He was the

source and chief exponent. It is a
personal encounter in which I come
to know whom I have believed and
experience the fact that He is able
to keep me against that day. The
call to commitment must be to the
Lord Jesus Himself.

The power of Christianity is not
the power of any idea whatever. It
is the power of the Holy Spirit, a
Person. SI

Which Way?-from p. 1 1

assent only in some sort of intellec-
tual way to the notion that it is
God's church.

Paul counseled the church at
Philippi to unity. He urged them
to be of one mind, united in love,
doing nothing from strife or vanity,
looking out for each other's interests.
Rather, he told them, "Let this mind
be in you, which was also in Christ
Jesus." He reminded them that
they were not left to fall back on
their strength or ability, "For it is

(Continued on next page)

FCR SALE: 1937 Austin pipe organ: 16
ranks, 3 manual, console and chests in
good condition. $5,000 plus removal.
Available spring 1973. Contact Stephen
J. Ortlip, organist-choirmaster, Decatur
Presbyterian Church, 205 Sycamore
Street, Decatur, Ga. 30030

WANTED: A man of God to pastor a
church and preach the old time Word
of God. Evangelistic abilities certainly
welcomed. This church in Wilmington,
N. C. Contact B. B. Potter, 1905 Lingo
Ave., Wilmington, N. C. 28401

If you are moving to an area where
there is no congregation of the
Presbyterian Church in the U. S.
you may find an Orthodox Presby-
terian Church nearby. A Directory
of Churches and Chapels of the
Orthodox Presbyterian Church
will be sent upon request. Please
address: Orthodox Presbyterian
Church Directory, 7401 Old York
Road, Philadelphia, Pa. 19126.

REPRINT AVAILABLE

Modern Religious liberalism

by John Horsch

Hardbound, 316 pages
Price $4.95

Order from:
The Sword and Trumpet

P. O. Box 575
Harrisonburg, Va. 22801

Books on Science
And the Bible

The Creation Vs Evolution Problem
By Thomas F. Heinze $1.50

Symposium on Creation I

By Henry M. Morris and others 1.95

Symposium on Creation II

By Donald W. Patten and others 1.95

Symposium on Creation III

By Donald W. Patten and others 2.95

Evolution and the Modern Christian
By Henry M. Morris 1.00

In The Beginning
By Rita Rhodes Ward 1.25

Science, Scripture and Salvation
By Henry M. Morris

.95

Science Speaks

By Peter W. Stoner .50

Conflict and Harmony in Science

By Jack W. Sears 1.95

Creation, Evolution and God's Word
Ed. by P. A. Zimmerman Paper 2.50

Biblical Revelation

By Clark Pinnock 4.95

The Bible and Modern Science

By Henry M. Morris Paper .50

The Twilight of Evolution

By Henry M. Morris Paper 1.50

The Bible Has The Answer

By Henry M. Morris Paper 4.50

Biblical Cosmology and Modern
Science By Henry M. Morris 2.50

The Genesis Flood — The Biblical
Record and Its Scientific Impli-
cations By John C. Whitcomb,
Jr. & Henry M. Morris Paper 3.95

Studies in The Bible and Science

By Henry M. Morris Paper 1.95

The Theory of Evolution and the Facts
of Science By Harry Rimmer
Paper 2.50

The Creation Vs Evolution Hand-
book By Thomas F. Heinze
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Order From

THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL
Weaverville, NC 28787

PAGE 21 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 7, 1973

God which worketh in you both to
will and to do of His good pleasure."

The Christian Church is not a
body organized to preserve the
heritage of the past, like the United
Daughters of the Confederacy or the
National Trust. We are not com-
mitted to the memory of a dead hero
or the study of writings from the
ancient world. Our loyalty is to a
living Christ. It is a living God
who is working in us now.

Young Christians are pounding on
the doors to tell us this good news.
They burst into the gloom of our
churches and our seminaries shout-
ing that He is alive. Our churches
are heavily laden with the burden-
some task of finding some humanis-
tic concern to fill the void of a lost
faith in God. Our studies are "full
of tangled things, of texts and aching
eyes." These fresh young converts

radiate an experience with the liv-
ing Christ that we need so much.

We seem to be stalled in our ecu-
menical efforts at the moment and
that may well be a great blessing
from God. For the past few years,
we have debated proposals for unit-
ing many of our great historic de-
nominations and we have reached
an impasse. We cannot simply en-
gineer a union of the churches on
the basis of conferences and conven-
tions and assemblies.

In England, the reunion of the
Methodist Church and the Church
of England finally broke down on
the issue of the ceremony by which
men now in the ministry would be
commissioned to serve in the newly
united church. Men of good will
could not find a workable compro-
mise.

Perhaps the ecumenical movement

has been on the wrong track since
Amsterdam. When we are united
in a living Christ, our historic dif-
ferences pale into insignificance. A
minister whose life is a great living
Christian witness sometimes bap-
tized by immersion in a river, al-
though the Anglican tradition is to
pour water on the head of the per-
son baptized. If we are baptizing
in Christ Jesus, what matter if we
follow one tradition or another?

Our young people are the carriers
of a living Spirit. I have seen Bap-
tists and Episcopalians, Lutherans
and Pentecostals and Presbyterians
witnessing together to a common ex-
perience of a living God and confess-
ing together that Jesus Christ is
Lord. They know that in seeking
Him, we find each other.

ft Begins With Christ

The ecumenical movement needs
these glowing young Christians.
Here is its greatest hope. Perhaps
the Lord has stayed its progress to
enable this new wine to break open
our old wineskins.

At the Edinburgh Conference in i
1937, one of the last great ecumeni-
cal meetings before World War II,
the delegates affirmed that the unity
they were seeking could not be
found in the agreement of minds or
consent of wills:

"It is founded in Jesus Christ
Himself, who lived, died and rose
again to bring us to the Father, and
who through the Holy Spirit dwells
in His Church. We are one because
we are all the objects of the love and
grace of God, and called by Him to
witness in all the world to His glori-
ous Gospel."

Any effort at Christian unity be-
gins with Christ. If we are willing
to begin in some point of human
contact, even to exclude Christ from
our conversations, we can enter into
ecumenical dialogue, if we choose
to call it that, with anyone. But we
are playing them false, if we do so.
We cannot make a pre-condition for
Jews or Moslems that they must de- i
ny Judaism or Islam, and we show
them no respect if we are unwilling
to meet them as Christians.

In our contact with one another,
if we meet as Presbyterians and Ro-
man Catholics, we find much to di-i
vide us. We cannot seek unity for
itself by human means. It is Christ
alone who unites us as Christians.
We must first seek Him to find each
other. This is the lesson young
people are teaching us today. If

"Equipping the Saints for the

Work of the Ministry"

— A Conference for Reformed Christian Education —

APRIL 5, 6, 7, 1973

Using the facilities of Trinity Presbyterian Church
1728 South Hull Street Montgomery, Ala. 36104

FEATURED SPEAKER:
DR. EDMUND P. CLOWNEY

President, Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

40 WORKSHOPS 25 EXHIBITS

CHRISTIAN DRAMA GREAT FELLOWSHIP

BOOK STORE

For laymen, ministers, DCE's, Sunday School teachers, elders, deacons, youth
— anyone who is interested in Biblical education in the local church.

For information write:
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3436 Wellington Rd.
Montgomery, Ala. 36106.

PAGE 22 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 7, 1973

all-new 1973
STANDARD
Vacation Bible
School Course

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WE LOOK TO JESUS

As children turn more and more to other sources,
it becomes imperative that we reach them with the
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WE LOOK TO JESUS will help you reach these
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with a 1973 VBS Introductory Kit

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PAGE 23 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 7, 1973

An Intriguing
Assortment With Keen
Contemporary Appeal.

An array of titles covering themes vital
to the church of today — and imperative
for the direction of the church of
tomorrow —

Can we have sound theological bases for
vibrant and exciting spiritual experiences?
Or is contact with God only a kind of
optimistic leap into the unknown?
ENCOUNTER WITH GOD. by Morton
Kelsey offers as thorough an answer as
has ever been compiled Larry
Christehson was so impressed with the
manuscript that he fairly shouted. "It
points people to a discoverable reality!"
This volume is so complete, so massive,
so alive that it will command your entire
attention Hardbound, 300 pages. $5.95

Is the so-called 'charismatic movement'
wrenching the church from its historic
moorings? Larry Christenson comes to
grips with the issue in A MESSAGE TO
THE CHARISMATIC MOVEMENT.
Paperback 95c

WHY CHURCHES DIE offers an
explicit analysis of a complex problem

which weighs constantly upon concerned
Christians — the demise of entire
congregations. But the author goes
beyond analysis to antidote. He "proposes
remedial action," as Donald McGavran
put it — and therein lies the distinctive
value of this guide to evangelism and
church growth. Written by Hollis Green.
Paperback $1.95

Is it really true that demons still function
in our modern western world? Thousands
have been haunted by the question. They
will be both awed and thrilled by the
answerwhich MY NAME IS
LEGION supplies. Written by a woman
who experienced every word, Glenna
Henderson, it is a gripping real-life tale
which is almost impossible to put down.
Hardbound $3.95

Is Noah's Ark still resting somewhere
on Ararat's icy peak? THE QUEST
FOR NOAH'S ARK. by John Warwick
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Complete with photos and illustrations.
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What will really happen before God blasts
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easily understood, and biblicly-based
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Paperback $1.95

What is the place the Holy Spirit should
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From Your Bookstore

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PAGE 24 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 7, 1973

f

VOL XXXI, NO. 46

MARCH 14, 1973

$4.00 A YEAR

the

Advocating continuation of a Presbyterian Church loyal

to Scripture and the Reformed faith

Another Look at Youth

The reason why adults have been ready at times to con-
demn youth is that adults have not always been willing to lis-
ten to and understand the ideas, feelings, dreams and fears of
the young. Adults have been guilty of being unable to look
beyond the jeans, long hair, noise and experimental behavior
of the young.

Young people have often tried to establish communication
with parents, school and church only to be shut off by well-
meaning but overly defensive adults who fear for the stability
of their establishment.

Also, we must recognize that many young people are not
necessarily guilty of the charges against them. They are ac-
tive and they make very important and positive contributions
to church, home, school and community.

Many have served as youth leaders, tutors, big brothers
and sisters, responsible employees, student council members,
and behind-the-scenes members of organized and unorganized
groups (such as future teachers) to develop and improve them-
selves and their world.

— Lewis Vander Meer

(See p. 7)

S. LESSON AND YOUTH PROGRAM FOR APRIL 1

IRCLE BIBLE STUDY FOR APRIL

5KO0

tT9Z«S ON TT7H I@4^Q

<m oh jo Xi?i«tAjrai

MAILBAG

LAST STRAW?

I had already written my disap-
proval of the action of the four ex-
ecutives who called on the Church
to bring pressure on the President
to stop bombing Hanoi. I was glad
to see your support of such disap-
proval.

Whether they could be impeached
or not, this sort of action is of the
nature that our executives have been
taking over a long period of time
and thus they have lost their spiri-
tual usefulness among us. I would
not like to see them out of a job,
but I would like to see leadership

the

PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL

Rev. G. Aiken Taylor, Ph.D., Editor
Rev. Henry B. Dendy, D.D., Managing Editor
Timothy Belz, Assistant Editor

Circulation leader among independent publications in the Presbyterian-Reformed world

THIS WEEK— Vol. XXXI, No. 46, March 14, 1973

A Question of Youth 7

Adults must understand the young before they can set good
examples for them By Lewis Vander Meer

Sovereignty or Synergism 8

By James I. Packer

Take Time to Teach Them 9

Parents need to use a variety of methods in teaching their
children By Arthur G. Hunsberger

Year of the Evangelist 11

This year others may watch as the evangelist steals the show
from them By Reuel Lemmons

Departments

Editorials 12

The Layman and his Church 13

Sunday School Lesson, April 1 14

Youth Program, April 1 16

Circle Bible Study, April 17

THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL, a

Presbyterian weekly magazine, devoted
to the statement, defense, and propa-
gation of the Gospel, the faith which
was once for all delivered to the saints,

is published every Wednesday by the
Southern Presbyterian Journal Co.,
Inc., in Weaverville, N. C.

SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: $4 a year
for individuals, $3 for members of
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TELEPHONES: (All area 704) edi-
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business office, 645-3310, 645-3962.

that put evangelism and missions
first and a return to committee
structure on the Assembly level in-
stead of the boards.

I am hoping that this last straw
might have so disgusted enough of
us that there will be a strong enough
demand for a change back to Christ,
that our Church, Christ's Church,
will get back on course. Let us hope
and pray that at the upcoming As-
sembly in Texas definite steps will
be taken to turn the tide forward
by going back to Christ.

— (Rev.) W. J. B. Livingston
Yorktown, Va.

OPEN LETTER TO COTA

Women of the Church have been
asked to write [the synod contact
person of the Committee on Thera-
peutic Abortion] our views on abor-
tion. What can we say? What right
have we to decide or to sit in judg-
ment on a matter which pertains to
the almighty God who alone holds
the rightful answer to life and death?
Who are we mere mortals to tamper
with the things of God? Who are we
to play the role of social planners
and make attempts to usurp the au-
thority of God?

The Lord God made humanity to
be male and female for family pur-
poses: family stability, family sanc-
tity, family love and spiritual nour-
ishment, family purity in human
relations. To preserve the sanctity
of the family God has forbidden
adultery. God holds life sacred.
Why should we mortals defy and
despise God's law?

God alone is the Creator, the eter-
nal Creator who controls the pro-
cesses of life-bearing. Why should
we destroy the life that God has
created? God alone requires death
at His own hands. Do people want
abortions because they have taken
the source of life so lightly that they
make a plaything of it?

Do you think the Lord God al-
mighty is pleased with our toying
with ideas of abortion? Personally,
I think it is an affront to our God
The condition under which procrea
tion occurs is not a light matter. The
seventh commandment clearly re-
flects this point of view. Let us
inquire of God who reveals Him-
self openly to us through His holy
Word which is truth. What about
the commandment which asserts that
God alone is the only authority for
our lives: "Thou shalt have no oth-
er gods before me"?

So long as we profess the name of
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, let us
honor Him by showing our love for
Him by obeying His commandments.
I believe in God and all His estab-
lished order, and I do not think that
any form of euthanasia fits into it. It
thus becomes a conflict of God-ori-
ented authority versus humanist-ori-
ented authority.

Abortion? Have the elders of our
Church succumbed also to the hu-
manist idea of creating one's own
pattern of life? Have they also suc-
cumbed to the social planners, some
of whom have never known our
God?

We have been asked to respond to
a poll of opinion and this I am do-
ing. Does the Church derive its

mandates from public opinion or
from the Word of God? Does the
Word of God proceed from public
opinion? When shall the Church
return to God for its mandates?

Man's natural instinct for mating
is strong, and unless it is tempered
with God's guidance, it goes awry,
and new life may arise from a union
which did not result from "what-
soever God hath joined together."

Let the Church inquire of and
follow God; Satan has his own fol-
lowers with whom we have no part.
—Mrs. C. M. Riddle
Troy, Ala.

Mrs. Riddle is president of the Wom-
en of the Church of her congregation
and her letter carried several other
signatures. — Ed.

MINISTERS

George D. Heath from Ahoskie,
N. C, to the First Church, Suf-
folk, Va.

Charles N. Neder from Colum-
bia, S. C, to the faculty of Flag-
ler College, St. Augustine, Fla.

James H. Quillin, received from
Assemblies of God, Georgia Dis-
trict, to the Indiantown church,
Hemingway, S. C.

Charles E. Sutton Jr., from Kings-
port, Tenn., to the Madison, Va.,
church.

R. Zach Thomas III from Hel-
ena, Ark., to the Steele Creek
church, Charlotte, N. C, as asso-
ciate pastor.

ACROSS THE EDITOR'S DESK

•If the mail across the desk these
days tells us anything, it is that peo-
ple are reading the Journal more
avidly than ever before, and for that
we are grateful. Momentous things
are happening, of course, and that
is a part of the public's interest no
doubt. But the material has also
ibeen exceptionally thoughtful of
date and that is particularly true,
in this issue, of an editorial which
[is not on the editorial page but on
[p. 11. Taken from the official pa-
per of the Churches of Christ,
"Year of Evangelism" says some
[ things we have tried to echo in the
regular editorial columns.

• Everyone is anxious to hear
further news from the so-called Con-
servative Coalition concerning the
announcement that 1973 is the year
the Continuing Church will give re-
birth to the Presbyterian Church
US. We will publish new develop-
ments as these occur, or are made
available. Meanwhile, a mailing is
|in preparation to all members of
(Presbyterian Churchmen United as
well as churches that have signed

the earlier Declaration of Commit-
ment and the more recent Declara-
tion of Intent. In this matter, ev-
eryone concerned seems to be deep-
ly committed to a determination
that "all things be done decently
and in order."

• Princeton University was orig-
inally founded by William Tennent
in 1728 for the purpose of training
young men for the Presbyterian
ministry. In March 1973, the
Princeton Institute for Advanced
Study has been hit by intense inter-
nal dissension over the appointment
to the faculty of a sociologist who
professes to be a religious person.
Some 14 of the 26 faculty members
are calling for an "outside commis-
sion to evaluate the [institute] direc-
tor's stewardship" in naming Dr.
Robert Bellah as 1973 guest scholar.
Explaining the uproar, Dr. Free-

man Dyson, a physicist at the insti-
tute, which concentrates on the
"natural" sciences, said: "There are
a lot of scientists who. consider re-
ligion as a childhood disease from
which one is recovering." And at
Princeton.

• Everyone has been talking about
the Supreme Court's ruling in sup-
port of abortion, but few newspa-
pers reported that the court has had
a chance to reconsider its ruling and
it not only reaffirmed the ruling,
it has ordered lower courts in nine
states to act in conformity with it.
A new hearing had been asked by
Georgia, Texas and Virginia. The
court rejected the appeals. Then it
returned abortion cases from nine
states ordering settlements in line
with its decision that the fetus is not
to be considered a person until af-
ter the sixth month of pregnancy. IB

PAGE 3 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 14, 1973

NEWS OF RELIGION

^^^^

Jewish Leaders Are Upset By Key '73

NEW YORK — Top level Jewish
leaders have taken extraordinary
steps lately to ward off potential ef-
forts to convert Jews to Christian-
ity. This has led some observers to
believe that the incidence of conver-
sions is greater than has been re-
ported.

In an address to the New York
Board of Rabbis, board president
Rabbi William Berkowitz said Jew-
ish young people "must be protect-
ed against a conversion onslaught."

"It is not enough," he said, "to
say that if our young people have
sincere Jewish convictions they can
resist the attempts of proselytizers.
We know better."

According to Rabbi Berkowitz,
one area of Key 73 that demands
"direct attention on our part" is the
fact that "propaganda for the pro-
gram and efforts at conversion can
and most probably will appear in
places where traditionally there
should be no such activity."

He mentioned public schools,
public universities, and the armed
forces.

In an effort to dispute Christian
claims concerning the book of Isaiah,
the Commission on Interfaith Activi-
ties of the Union of American He-

brew Congregations has prepared a
special kit for study by Reform
Jews.

Specifically, the kit discusses pas-
sages in Isaiah which refer to "the
suffering servant." It claims that
"the suffering servant" refers to the
Jewish people, who as God's servants
are responsible for bringing justice
into the world. Christians have his-
torically taken "the suffering ser-
vant" passage to be a prediction of
Christ.

Rabbi Balfour Brickner, who di-
rects the commission which prepared
the materials, said the kit was neces-
sary in order to help Jews respond
to "evangelical Christians." The kit
is being distributed to the entire
constituency of Reform Judaism.

Two groups which have come un-
der special attack by Jews are the
Children of God and Jews for
Jesus. Children of God is a fac-
tion of the modern Jesus Move-
ment, and has been criticized by
many evangelicals and Jesus Peo-
ple who find a number of its pol-
icies and doctrines to be un-Biblical.

On the Protestant side, Dr. Billy
Graham denied that Key 73 aims
special efforts at Jews. "As an evan-
gelist," he said, "I am interested in

THE CHURCH OVERSEAS

SUDAN — The Sudan Interior
Mission has reported the withdraw-
al of all but three of its mission-
aries from Somalia. An SIM publica-
tion said that this move was forced
upon the mission by the complete
nationalization of all its ministries.

A military government known as
the Supreme Revolutionary Council
has been in power for three years
and has imposed increasing restric-
tions upon Christian witness, lead-
ing up to the complete nationaliza-
tion of all mission programs and
facilities.

Missionaries were not expelled
from the country, but were ordered
to leave their stations and proceed
to the capital, Mogadishu.

A recent report from Somalia is

that three SIM missionaries are stay-
ing on in rented quarters to main-
tain the mission presence in the
country and to continue fellowship
with the local believers.

Although this would seem to indi-
cate the termination of foreign mis-
sionary work within Somalia itself,
evangelistic work among the Somali
people continues across the border
in the Ogaden section of Ethiopia
and in the northern region of Ken-
ya. SIM personnel who have left
Somalia are awaiting visas to con-
tinue their work in the Ogaden.

SIM anticipates distribution of
New Testaments, the first ever print-
ed in the Somali language, among
the Somali-speaking people in Ethi-
opia and northern Kenya. El

establishing contact with all men
concerning personal faith in Jesus
Christ." But Dr. Graham was quick
to explain that "just as Judaism
frowns on proselytizing that is coer-
cive, or that seeks to commit men
against their will, so do I.

"Gimmicks, coercion and intimi-
dation have had no place in my
evangelistic efforts, and certainly
not in historic Biblical evangelism."

Explaining that he did not speak
officially for Key 73, but rather as
one who had "from the beginning
publicly supported its concept," Dr.
Graham said it was his understand-
ing that the purpose of Key 73 is to
call all men to Christ "without sin-
gling out any specific religious or
ethnic group."

The Graham statement was de-
scribed by Rabbi Marc H. Tanen-
baum, national interreligious af-,
fairs director of the American Jew-
ish Commission, as "an important,
and constructive contribution to
helping overcome the misunder-
standing and stress" that have arisen
concerning Key 73.

Rabbi Tanenbaum said that if
the planners of Key 73 had clarified
their position on Jewish evangelism
when the evangelistic campaign was
first announced, there would prob-
ably not have been a response of
alarm and concern from the Jewish
community.

In St. Louis, Dr. Theodore Rae-
deke, executive director of Key 73,
said that some members of the Key
73 committee had suggested that
such a statement be issued. He em-
phasized, however, "that there is no|
one individual who can speak for
all the Key 73 participants" and so
the statement was not signed

Ilii

urer

Ulster Will Get Gospels
Courtesy Bible Society

DUBLIN (RNS) — The Britisr
and Foreign Bible Society plans t(
deliver free of charge a special edi
tion of Luke's Gospel to every hom<
in Northern Ireland.

The book entitled "Good New
from Ireland Told by Luke" will bi
distributed during Lent. The societ
said the title was specially chosei
"because good news is a commodit
sorely need in Northern Ireland." B

PAGE 4 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 14, 1973

Aci

fthf

'Birthright' Claims It
Saved 100,000 Babies

TORONTO (RNS)— The Interna-
tional Birthright organization, which
provides a "positive alternative" to
abortion through counseling, was
credited by its founder-president
here with saving the lives of 100,-
000 babies during 1972.

Birthright, which encourages preg-
nant women to bring their babies
to term and helps them do it through
telephone calls and personal ap-
pointments, has about 200 chapters
in the U. S., 37 in Canada, and two
in England.

In a recent telegram to President
Nixon requesting his intervention
in reversing the Jan. 22 Supreme
Court decision legalizing abortion
during the first six months of preg-
nancy, the organization stated that
"it is an incongruous situation
wherein, on the same day the kill-
ing of American soldiers in Viet-
nam was ended, a decision was made
[which will mean the killing of mil-
lions of American unborn babies." IB

Mrs. O'Hair Sues Nixon,
Wants Services to Stop

WASHINGTON, D. C. (RNS) —
Madalyn (Murray) O'Hair, the
atheist who brought about the Su-
preme Court decision on school
prayer, has filed suit in federal court
against President Nixon, the treas-
urer of the U. S., the Senate and
[House chaplains and other Congres-
sional officials for allowing reli-
gious services in the White House
and the Capitol.

Acting as her own attorney, she
•accused Mr. Nixon of being the
"central figure" in an effort to
"make Christianity the official 'civil
religion' of the United States." Spe-
cifically, she charged the President
with holding religious services in the
White House in violation of the
jFirst Amendment.

In the suit, she asked the court
ito enjoin Mr. Nixon from allowing
such services and to declare uncon-
stitutional the practices of "devot-
ing the property and premises of the
executive mansion" to such religious
services.

She also brought suit against the
Rev. Edward L. R. Elson, former
pastor of National Presbyterian
Church, Washington, D. C, the Sen-
ate chaplain, and the Rev. Edward
G. Latch, a former United Meth-
odist pastor who is the House chap-
lain, for "reading passages from the
'Holy Bible.' "

Mrs. O'Hair then asked that the
court enjoin the chaplains and the
sergeants-at-arms of the Congress
from using the "property and for-
um" of the two Houses to "read pas-
sages from the 'Holy Bible.' "

Mrs. O'Hair said she found it
necessary to file the suit in Wash-
ington, D. C, "because of the bias
and hostility of the federal district
court in Austin, Texas" where she
resides. El

UPUSA General Mission
Giving Down $2 Million

NEW YORK — Receipts from con-
gregations for the national-interna-
tional work of the United Presbyte-
rian Church USA totaled $22,597,-
272 last year, a decline of 8.23 per
cent from 1971. The figure repre-
sents a dollar drop of $2,027,629.
Money given for the denomina-

Synod G Elects Richards,
Will Study Boundaries

COLUMBIA, S. C— Commissioners
attending a convention of Synod G
elected the Rev. J. McDowell Rich-
ards the first moderator of what will
be known as the Synod of the South-
east, selected Augusta as its head-
quarters area and appointed a com-
mittee to make recommendations
concerning presbytery boundaries.

The boundary committee was ap-
pointed after an ad interim com-
mittee's report recommending the
immediate reduction of presbyteries
from 14 to nine was voted down.

During the debate, efforts to leave
presbyteries as they are, or postpone
restructuring for five years, also
were voted down.

In other actions, the convention

tion's mission work at national and
international levels, officially known
as General Assembly general mis-
sion, has been in a downward trend
since 1967, but the receipts for 1972
reflected a smaller dollar and per-
centage decline than those of the
previous year.

Total church giving in 1971 re-
flected a slight increase over 1970.
Comparable figures for 1972 are not
expected to be available for several
months. 51

Federals Crackdown On
Pornographic Theaters

MEMPHIS — A federal grand jury
here has indicted 15 persons and 10
motion picture distributors and
theater chains in connection with
allegedly pornographic films.

Among the films involved were
several which feature a variety of
explicitly portrayed sexual activities
and perversions.

It is thought that the Memphis
indictments are the first of several
anticipated in a federal crackdown
on obscene or pornographic movies.

In the past, local or state initia-
tive has been required for such legal
action. IB

elected the Rev. James F. Dickin-
son of Athens, Ga., its executive co-
ordinator, and the Rev. Robert D.
Earnest of Macon its stated clerk
until the new synod is fully consti-
tuted in July.

The synod covers South Carolina
and most of Georgia. ffl

Liberals Must Share
Blame, Dr, Bell Says

MONTREAT, N. C. (PN) — The
moderator of the Presbyterian
Church US said that a small group
of "liberals" must share the blame
for conditions that led to the with-
drawal of some churches from the
denomination.

Dr. L. Nelson Bell said drastic
changes brought about by "a small,
well-organized minority" have left

THE CHURCH AT HOME

PAGE 5 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 14, 1973

li

many Presbyterians in "shell shock."

He said the state of unrest in the
denomination is due to uncertain-
ties having to do with union with
the United Presbyterian Church, a
new confession, the redistricting of
presbyteries, the realignment of syn-
ods, and the restructuring of the
boards and agencies.

His "statement and plea" sent to
Presbyterian publications came one
week after a group of PCUS con-
servative leaders announced plans to
form a new denomination and two
weeks after 20 churches were dis-
missed at their request from Tusca-
loosa (Ala.) Presbytery.

"There has been a failure to rec-
ognize that 'conservatives' often have
legitimate complaints," the denom-
inational leader said. "Commis-
sions on The Minister and his Work
have often sought successfully to
block congregations from calling a
'conservative' [pastor], despite the
fact that the commission's powers
are advisory only."

He said the only hope lies in a
work of the Holy Spirit through
both "moderate liberals and mod-
erate conservatives" which will co-
ordinate their efforts to make effec-
tive the witness of the Church. 51

Drama, Dance, Puppetry
To Be Taught at Montreat

RICHMOND, Va. (PN) — The use
of drama, interpretative dancing
and puppetry in church programs
will be taught at the 20th annual
Recreation Workshop of the Pres-
byterian Church US, scheduled
April 30-May 5 at Montreat, N. C.

The course will be conducted by
the Rev. Robert E. Burns, pastor
of Howard Memorial Presbyterian
Church, Tarboro, N. C.

Last summer Burns directed the
youth of his church in their presen-
tation at the Montreat Women's
Conference of "Get Me to the World
on Time," an adaptation of the
"My Fair Lady" theme to local
church life. The group has pre-
sented the musical in a tour across
North Carolina at local churches,
youth rallies and presbyterial meet-
ings.

"Recreation with Older Adults"
has also been added to the list of
courses offered annually for church
persons who work with youth min-
istry, church school, scouting, camp-
ing, songleading and general recrea-
tion. The list includes basic and
advanced courses in recreation, crafts

and puppetry; dulcimer making and
playing; folk dancing; out-of-door
activities; and using music in recrea-
tion.

Workshop activities will include
a picnic/carnival, planned by par-
ticipants with members of the Mon-
treat Presbyterian Church; evenings
of recreation accompanied by the
Stoney Creek Boys, an Asheville
mountain string band; and an N. C.
clogging dance team. 11

Annuities Board Will
Offer Larger Benefits

ATLANTA (PN) — The Board of
Annuities and Relief will recom-
mend to the 1973 General Assem-
bly a number of proposals calling
for liberalized benefits for members
of the Ministers' and Employees'
Annuity Fund.

The Assembly will be asked to
endorse a BAR action for another
"good experience" credit of 13 per
cent to be added to accounts of
active members of the Ministers'
Annuity Fund (MAF) , increasing
checks to retired ministers and wid-
ows, effective Jan. 1, 1974.

This becomes the eighth such
credit since 1964 and, for some
members, will compound their pen-
sion to an increase of more than
100 per cent since that time.

In another similar action, the
board approved a good experience
credit of seven per cent for the Em-
ployees' Annuity Fund (EAF) , the
seventh one since 1964 for people
in that category.

Board members, meeting here,
supported a recommendation for a
change in EAF dues from the cur-
rent eight per cent (four per cent
each paid by the employer and the
employee) to 10 per cent of em-
ployees' salary basis or five per cent
paid by each.

Another recommendation adopt-
ed asks that the active group life
major medical policy be amended to
provide maternity benefits in em-
ployees' coverage as well as depen-
dents' coverage. The policy will pay
increased cost of the two new ben-
efits for 1973-74 and the changes
will become effective on July 1.

The board also authorized an 11
per cent experience discount on
group life major medical policies.

In a "first," full-time seminary
students will be eligible for group
life and major medical, and the op
donal term policies.

The board will also recommend

to the General Assembly that the
MAF plan be redrafted to provide
for: 1) early age retirement at 55
with more attractive actuarially ad-
justed benefits; 2) increase of total
disability benefits providing 60 per
cent of salary (maximum $12,000
salary) at time of disability and be-
ginning on the 91st day after dis-
ability occurs; 3) a graduated scale
of death benefits based on age and
salary basis; 4) increase in minor
orphans' benefits; and 5) provision
for $1,000 annually for each child
of a deceased member for each year
of the first four years of full-time
scholastic studies beyond high
school.

An annual increase of MAF dues
from 10 per cent to 12 per cent will
be necessary to add these improved
benefits.

The board will ask the Assembly
to urge presbyteries to require that
calls to ministers include full pay-
ment of the ministers' MAF dues.

A resolution passed by the board
will permit retired ministers, under
the U. S. Internal Revenue Code, to
designate up to 35 per cent of the
annuity they receive from MAF as
non-taxable housing allowance if
the amount is used for housing. Re-
tired ministers will receive details
on this matter directly from the
board later.

Board members heard in the re-
port of the Ministerial Relief Com-
mittee that approximately $934,000
was disbursed in 1972 for benefits to
eligible retirees and their depen-
dents, m

Clergywomen Organize?'
New Caucus in PCUS

dec

ATLANTA (RNS) — A clergywom
an's caucus has been organized with
in the Presbyterian Church US oper;
to all ordained women and all worn
en students under the care of a pres
bytery in the denomination. Th(
first meeting has been set for Junf
8 in Fort Worth, Tex.

Five aims of the women's caucu:
will be discussed at the meeting
mutual support, assistance in jot
placement for Church professiona
women (clergy and lay) , promotioi
of scholarship aid for black anc
Mexican-American women seeking tt
enter the ministry, implementatioi
of the goals outlined in the 112tl
General Assembly's paper on Worn
en in Church and Society, and er.
listment of women in Church pre
fessional roles. E

ft;

PAGE 6 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 14, 1973

A

A thoughtful and encouraging comment on a perennial question —

A Question of Youth

Discussing young people is a pop-
ular activity, asking whether the
youth of today is rejecting the estab-
lishment and the traditions. And if
youth is rejecting, what do we adults
do about it? Such discussion prob-
ably results from the unique differ-
ences existing between teen-agers
and adults in matters of dress, hair
[(styles, language, and public be-
havior. Many adults complain be-
icause they feel a loss of power over
|their teen-age children, and because
jithey see in the teen-ager a spirit of
rebellion and irresponsibility.
! Is there a drift from the things
which are "proper"; a rejection of
•traditional values; an acceptance of
the modern trends of thought —
against God, against the church,
against the home? Or is the unique-
ness and rebellion of youth merely
•the same problem each generation
^must face, a problem of the unset-
tled and overactive teen-ager? (Re-
I member that in the early part of
[this century church balconies often
(became very unruly. Complaints
[against young people were often
bitter.)

Giving simple "yes" or "no" an-
Uwers to the above questions would
Ibe naive. Each young person is
(unique. To define the young per-
[ion is just as difficult as trying to
liefine the adult. In the same class-
f room you will find a neatly and con-
servatively dressed person next to
[iomeone in old jeans, his hair shag-
hy. One group in high school may
pomplain about the lack of disci-

. The author is pastor of the Sun-
shine Christian Reformed Church
~>f Grand Rapids, Mich., and teaches
Bible at Grand Rapids Christian
High School. This material first
appeared in Christian Home and
>chool and is reprinted with per-
nission.

pline in their high school while oth-
ers complain of the prisonlike atmos-
phere.

On a Monday morning one person
may report to the class that ser-
vices the day before were the "same
old junk." Another student proud-
ly tells about his or her exciting pro-
fession of faith service. Some high
school people spend Friday night
drinking, some spend the night at
prayer meeting, and others sit home
watching television.

Keep one thing in mind. Most
young people from the Christian
tradition do not see themselves or
want to see themselves as weird and
on the far outer edge of "accept-
able" society. Most young people
express interests typical to a teen-
age group: things such as part-time
jobs, having fun on weekends, dat-
ing, pop music, and freedom in
clothing styles.

Typical Interests

I have seen nothing which comes
close to a desire to discard tradition-
al Christianity, the Church of Jesus
Christ, the traditional values of self-
improvement, and advancement of
the school, home and community of
which they are a part.

The reason why adults have been
ready at times to condemn youth is
that adults have not always been
willing to listen to and understand
the ideas, feelings, dreams, and fears
of the young. Adults have been
guilty of being unable to look be-
yond the jeans, long hair, noise, and
experimental behavior of the young.

Young people have often tried to
establish communication with par-
ents, school and church only to be
shut off by well-meaning but overly
defensive adults who fear for the
stability of their establishment. Al-
so, we must recognize that many

LEWIS VANDER MEER

young people are not necessarily
guilty of the charges against them.
They are active and they make very
important and positive contribu-
tions to church, home, school, and
community.

Many have served as youth lead-
ers, tutors, big brothers and sisters,
responsible employees, student coun-
cil members, and behind-the-scenes
members of organized and unorga-
nized groups (such as future teach-
ers) to develop and improve them-
selves and their world.

All Kinds

Yet, to speak of "many" or "most"
is not to speak of all. There are
many troubled and unproductive
youth. Even among those who are
promising and constructive in their
living there is often an undercur-
rent of unrest and confusion. Re-
cently, in a class of seniors in high
school, 75 per cent indicated they
would probably stay in the same de-
nominations, but these same people
also showed disagreement and bit-
terness towards the church. Although
you will find among many a willing-
ness to be serious about Christ and
the Bible there is also the tendency
to adjust to the relativism and frus-
tration of modern thought and life-
styles.

Few are willing to discard Amer-
ica, the church, and the home, yet
many are confused as to how they
fit into the home, the church and
the nation. Often, among many,
there is a dichotomy between the
faith commitment and the person's
deeds. Here are some suggested
reasons:

1. The needs of the world
change over a period of time. For a
time stress was on the sciences, so
the young person became a scientist.
Then the cry came for school teach-

PAGE 7 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 14, 1973

ers and social workers. Now such
graduates may be pumping gas.
Girls could always be sure of being
nurses. Now even those ranks are
filling up.

Such changes cause confusion
about the future. And not only do
conditions change, but there is some
question whether the young person
will be needed no matter what he
does.

2. Everyone wants to be some-
body, even if his importance goes
out to but one or two people. So-
ciety, however, is massive and com-
petitive. To go to a church of one
thousand and a school of two thou-
sand leaves reduced opportunity for
being recognized.

3. Nobody needs a "kid." A
young person feels that his existence
in this world right now is not that
important to anyone's existence and
happiness.

4. People need to feel they can ex-

cel. But to do well in our society
seems impossible when those close to
us, such as parents, have come close
to the top financially, socially, and
educationally.

There is such a distance to go
just to catch up with parents, to
say nothing about going beyond
their level, that some young people
find it more acceptable to set up
different standards of success and
reject the standards and accomplish-
ments of the parents.

It is very frustrating to parents
when a son or daughter is not inter-
ested in the family money and busi-
ness and friends, but only in sim-
plicity, peace and love.

5. There is little history for teen-
agers to feed on. Adults build their
lives on 20 to 40 years of concen-
trated living. The young person
suddenly finds himself at age 15
with new physiological and psycho-
logical pressures and no personal

Are we saved by God's grace? Or can man help himself? —

Sovereignty or Synergism

Justification by faith only is a
truth that needs interpreta-
tion. The principle of sola fide is
not rightly understood till it is as
anchored in the broader principle
of sola gratia. What are the source
and status of faith?

Is it the God-given means where-
by the God-given justification is re-
ceived, or is it a condition of justi-
fication which it is left to man to
fulfill?

Is it a part of God's gift of sal-
vation, or is it man's own contribu-
tion to salvation?

Is our salvation wholly of God, or
does it ultimately depend on some-
thing that we do for ourselves?

Much modern Presbyterianism
would be neither owned nor even
recognized by the pioneer Reformers.
Have we not grown used to an Eras-
tian brand of teaching from the
pulpits — a message that rests on the

The author is principal of Tyn-
dale Hall, Bristol, England, an evan-
gelical Anglican theological college.
This is an excerpt from Dr. Packer's
historical introduction to Martin
Luther's Bondage of the Will.

JAMES I. PACKER

same shallow synergistic conceptions
which Luther refuted, picturing God
and man approaching each other al-
most on equal terms, each having his
own contribution to make to man's
salvation and each depending on the
dutiful cooperation of the other for
the attainment of that end — as if
God exists for man's convenience,
rather than man for God's glory?

Is it not true, conversely, that it
is rare today to hear proclaimed the
diagnosis of our predicament which
Luther — and Scripture — put for-
ward: that man is hopeless and help-
less in sin, fast bound in Satan's
slavery, at enmity with God, blind
and dead to the things of the Spirit.
How rarely do we hear faith spoken
of as Scripture depicts it — as it is
expressed in the cry of self-commit-
tal with which the contrite heart,
humbled to see its need and made
conscious of its own utter helpless-
ness even to trust, casts itself in the
God-given confidence of self-despair
upon the mercy of Jesus Christ:
"Lord, I believe: help Thou my un-
belief!"

Sola fide, sola gratia, soli Deo
gloria! ffl

history on how to use and cope with
the new. Adults seem too distant
to give advice, and older teen-agers
are often little help.

As the teen-ager gets older he re-
alizes he is moving into a new phase
of life. The frustrations and wor-
ries of himself as a 15-year-old are
forgotten, and he enjoys the feeling
of power in passing down to the
younger teen glamorous stories of
his own riotous youth. This gives
little or no direction to the search-
ing teen-ager.

6. There is great social pres-
sure to play the role of one who is
not too fond of the establishment.
Appearing to be on the outside may
be as important as, or more so than,
actually being on the outside.

7. Contemporary philoso-
phies have influenced young think-
ing. The emphasis in contemporary
thought is doing and believing what
seems best for the individual now,
in this moment of existence.

To modern man, allegiance to past
morality and religion, dependence
on God or "gods," and concentra-
tion on future hopes are all to be
avoided. These ideas discourage
young people from willingly accept-
ing traditional methods of using
and expressing faith and sometimes
even discourage the willing accep-
tance of the faith.

8. Adults are often not being an
audience, listening to the kids and
responding to their ideas. Also,
sometimes no clear adult model or
realistic model is there to be fol-
lowed. Adults are inconsistent, for-
bidding drugs yet using tablets and
alcohol freely.

Guide By Example

Young people are told that it is
naughty to follow the crowd, but
they observe that gossip, price fix
ing, and accepted church behavior
is the result of adults giving in tc
the adult crowd.

Without being oppressive anc
overbearing, adults must present 2
pattern and example for Christiar
living. Young people want guide
lines very much. Adults should nev
er be fooled into thinking that th<
sometimes carefree and experimen
tal living of the young person indi
cates a lack of interest in and neec
for adult models.

God is blessing the youth of to
day. Many are loving Him ver
much. This is not a cure-all, bu
such loving is giving added strengtl
to many.

PAGE 8 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 14, 1973

Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old he will not depart from it —

Take Time to Teach Them

Teaching one's children the Word
of God is not optional, it is
mandatory. God has placed this
responsibility upon Christian par-
ents in explicit terms: "And these
words, which I command thee this
day, shall be upon thy heart; and
thou shalt teach them diligently un-
to thy children ..." (Deut. 6:6-7
ASV) .

To neglect teaching one's children
the Word o£ God is quite serious.
It is, in fact, direct disobedience to
the Word of God. God did not give
the primary responsibility of teach-
ing children to the priests or proph-
ets, the religious leaders during Mo-
ses' day; that responsibility fell up-
on the parents of children.

Doctrine and Deeds

So it is today. Parents bear the
primary responsibility for teaching
the Word of God to their children
— not the pastor or elders or teach-
ers. Deuteronomy 6 leaves the im-
pression that this teaching is not
just a ten minute daily devotional.
Rather, it is a continuing process
throughout the day and throughout
the child's growing years.

Here's where Christian parents
bog down. How should they con-
tinually teach their children? Since
some find it difficult to teach their
children by words, they say that they
will substitute life, for really deeds
are more important than doctrine.
And they fly in the face of an ex-
plicit command of God, who says
that teaching is to be done by words.

Deeds are very important, and so
is doctrine; they go hand in hand.

The author is a free-lance writer
and member of the Covenant Ortho-
dox Presbyterian Church, Grove
City, Pa.

The Westminster divines understood
this point when they said that Scrip-
ture teaches us what we are to be-
lieve concerning God (doctrine)
and what duty God requires of us
(deeds) . We cannot separate deeds
from doctrine and remain Biblical.

Perplexed Parents

Unfortunately, most parents are
not pioneers when it comes to teach-
ing their children. They might en-
ter strange territory if someone else
has previously explored it, and my
purpose is to encourage Christian
parents to enter the unfamiliar ter-
ritory of diligently teaching their
children the Word of God.

My wife and I were forced to en-
ter this unfamiliar territory. Frank-
ly, we made feeble attempts and ex-
perienced grand flops. We even had
our excuses for the miserable fail-
ures. First, we had so much to do
that we couldn't possibly give too
much time to devotional periods.
Second, we didn't want to become
legalistic and have devotions just to
have devotions. And so, initially,
our teaching efforts failed.

At the same time, we noticed that
our two sons (then both pre-school-
ers) were being taught the ways of
the world by their playmates. We
had to do something; we had to take
time to teach them.

Taking time to teach our children
was no easy matter because it in-

Why Not 'Verbal'?

If the words of the Bible are true,
whether or not they are believed,
why cannot we speak of verbal in-
spiration? — Gordon Clark.

ARTHUR G. HUNSBERGER

volved much more than ten minutes
every day. It involved preparation
time on our part, as well as actual
direct teaching time and our being
available to answer their questions.
Normally, it involved at least one
hour daily for every member of the
family during the school year and at
least an hour and a half daily for
our sons during the summer.

That's time. And would you be-
lieve me if I told you we are no
longer pressed by time? We have
settled it in our mind that we have
to take time to teach our children.
That's the first principle — take
time.

More Than Stories

The second principle involves
teaching them. Teaching is a lot
more than telling Bible stories. But
what shall we teach? Exactly what
the Scriptures teach: the whole coun-
sel of God.

Involved with this teaching was
the memorization of both Scripture
and the Shorter Catechism. Our sons,
now eight and nine, have mem-
orized, along with my wife and me,
many portions of Scripture such as
the Ten Commandments, Psalms 1,
23, 100, parts of the Sermon on the
Mount, and verses related to the at-
tributes of God, the sinfulness of
man, and salvation through Jesus
Christ.

To date, the four of us know
about 40 answers in the Shorter
Catechism word perfect and an ad-
ditional 50 answers sort of hap-
hazardly, but we're still learning.
Also, we will admit that our Scrip
ture memorization program has hit
a snag, but we do review those por-
tions that we have previously
learned. Don't let anybody kid you,
memorizing is hard work!

PAGE 9 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 14, 1973

Involved with this teaching is a
two-fold exposition. First, in the
morning, an exposition of Scrip-
ture is given. To date we have cov-
ered Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesi-
astes, Genesis, Exodus, and now
we are on Hebrews. When my wife
and I need help on particular pas-
sages, we usually consult works by
the reformers, for example, Calvin,
and the Puritans, Dickson, Bridges,
Owen, and the better later theologi-
cal and practical commentators such
as Hengstenberg and Pink. Those au-
thors have written works on the
Scripture listed above.

Questions and Answers

Our procedure during the morn-
ing is to give a short exposition on
several verses and then to ask our
sons a question which they are re-
quired to answer the next morning.
For example, when we covered Gen-
esis 3:7-8, the question the first
morning was: "What three things
had happened as a result of the sin
of Adam and Eve?"

The next morning our sons said,
"They were evil," "they lost com-
munion with each other," "they lost
communion with God." Both the
questions and answers are recorded
in a note book.

Second, in the evening, an exposi-
tion of a catechism question is given.
Generally we cover the Shorter Cate-
chism, using Dorothy Anderson's
Bible Doctrine, published by Great
Commission Publications. We have
also used Isaac Watts' catechism for
children and have briefly touched
on certain points of the Heidelberg
Catechism.

Training a Child

During the summer, our sons have
a study hour which really is closer
to 30 minutes of actual study time.
Last summer our younger son, who
had just finished first grade, was re-
quired to study The Boy Who Was
Different by Velmer Kiefer, which
is based on stories about Christ.
Then he read all related Scripture
from the King James II Bible, pub-
lished by Associated Press and Au-
thors, and wrote the questions and
answers on paper. I corrected his
answers and helped him to under-
stand the ones that he didn't answer
correctly.

Our older son, who had just com-
pleted third grade, was required to
study With All My Heart by Thea

B. Van Halsema, to read all related
Scripture and to answer all ques-
tions in writing. With All My Heart
is basically a book on essential Chris-
tian doctrine. A graded series of
doctrinal books is available from the
Christian Reformed Publishing
House.

All of this teaching is in addition
to the teaching that our sons get
in Sunday school and the Christian
school they attend. They are also
required to listen to the sermons
preached by the minister. Many
times after the service we discuss
the content of the sermons with our
sons.

My wife and I are trusting God
that we will have two "Timothys"
as a result of this teaching. Tim-
othy, you know, had been taught
the Word since he was a babe by his
mother and grandmother, and he
grew up faithful to that Word.

Variety of Methods

There are many ways to teach
your children the Word of God.
When our sons were pre-schoolers
we used flannelgraphs to teach
them the historical portions of the
Old Testament, the life of Christ
and the journeys of Paul. We also
constructed Noah's Ark with them,
as well as a model of the tabernacle,
as they grew older. They also drew
pictures of the Levitical priests in
their priestly garments.

A Bible atlas, Bible dictionary,
Bible concordance and a textbook
on Bible archaeology are all very
helpful tools to locate places or pas-
sages, find out what words mean,
and see pictures of the Bible things
and places.

Field trips to a zoo, an aviary, or
a conservatory will also help them
to appreciate certain Bible passages.
For example, we have found that see-
ing a live camel, a Mediterranean
olive tree, or a crane was much more
meaningful to our children than
just hearing about it.

Trips, Music and Games

One time when we had visited an
observatory, our older son came
home and drew a picture of Galileo's
scanning the skies. The caption?
"The heavens declare the glory of
God."

Don't forget music. When we were
covering the Exodus, we listened to
Handel's "The Exodus" to get the
feel of things.

We make a game of learning the
Shorter Catechism. Those answers
that we are supposed to know fairly
well (the number increases weekly) ,
we use in our games. One person
starts by asking another person one
of the catechism questions. If the
other person answers without a mis-
take, he then may ask the next ques-
tion to anyone remaining in the
game.

If the other person, however, does
not answer the question properly,
he is eliminated. This questioning
continues until only one person is
left — the champ for the night.

By Any and All Means

There are other things that you
can do. Tell the children stories
about the great saints of old, such
as Calvin, Luther and Whitefield.
We encouraged our older son to
read Dr. Livingstone, I Presume?,
and one book we have gone through
twice with our sons is Pilgrim's
Progress by John Bunyan. They
were quite attentive both times.

We ran into a snag with Bunyan's
The Holy War. Our sons just
couldn't conceptualize the details
of Mansoul and looked upon it as a
real city rather than as a soul that
had been taken captive by Satan
and regained by Christ.

We also read missionary letters
to our sons in order to acquaint
them with the work of God in oth-
er parts of the world. During our
evening prayers our sons pray for
these missionaries. One time we told
them of a specific request and asked
if they would like to help financial-
ly. They thought about the situa-
tion and then decided that they
would give some of their own money
to help.

I could continue to give other ex-
amples, but these illustrations should
drive home the point: Attempt to
teach your children by as many
ways as you can. Let them see the
inter-relationship between Scripture
and all of life; let them see the in-
ter-relationship between doctrine
and deeds.

But, remember, you cannot a*>
sume that they understand what you
are saying. Repeat, repeat, repeat
... in different ways and different
words.

These are the three principles
that we have used: Take time, teach
them, use a lot of ways. But these
three principles can fall under one
heading. Take time, take plenty
of time to teach them. m

PAGE 10 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 14, 1973

Opportunities to evangelize are here for those ready to take advantage of them —

Year of the Evangelist

During the past decade techno-
logical progress has had the bit
in its teeth, spurred on by a science
that was bred in war and born in
[the stable of its cruel aftermath. The
harth's population has been reaching
[for the moon of material bliss and
physical gratification, with no room
in the inn for the virgin of spiritual
Selfhood.

But things are changing. No more
[[lights to the moon. Space science
lis shutting down. The Cape is to
; become a ghost town. Technology
[ which has caused so many social, ec-
onomic and environmental problems
is about to become the villain of our
pecade.

Resources are further depleted,
and we have more polluted streams
ind foul air than we ever had. We
also have more immodesty, immoral-
ity, drunkenness and illegitimacy
than ever. We have not found the
[answer in technology.

Having gone through all that
[technology has to offer, without satis-
faction, the human soul is once
[more turning to the spiritual values.

This may just be the year of the
bvangelist.

Many straws in the wind indicate
that the pendulum is swinging back
toward a spiritual approach to life.
[There isn't as much confidence in
evolution as there once was. There
[is more concern for the ultimate be-
ginnings, and the ultimate end, of
people and things than there once
was. People seem to realize more
fully the fact that you have to clean
up the heart before you can clean
up the environment.

This material first appeared as an
editorial in Firm Foundation of the
Churches of Christ, of which the au-
thor is editor.

We want our world to be pleasant
and it cannot be pleasant if it is
not first pure. Our moral impurity
of the past decade is nauseating. Sin
has had a field day. Maybe our hang-
over is forcing some sober reflections.
It's time to give God a chance.

Reach Up to God

Liberal religion has been weighed
in the balances and found wanting.
Man needs an eternal verity to which
he can cling and we take comfort in
the thought of the God of Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob. Nothing else has
proven so durable. Prophecies have
failed. Tongues have ceased. Knowl-
edge has vanished away. And man
is still without any insurance against
the ravages of time or the inhuman-
ity of man. Maybe from the bot-
tom of our pit we can now be con-
strained to reach up to God.

Great preparation has been made
to make 1973 a year of evangelism.
We are planning to do our share.
Many of those who evangelize will
have the wrong credentials — or no
credentials at all. We will have to
be careful that we do have.

The truth makes men free. Error
never will. A gullible public will
be willing to grant the seal of ex-
pertise to almost anyone who claims
to speak in the name of God. It is
strange that in the field of religion
any one may be an expert, regard-
less of how little or how much he

If Thou Art Lukewarm . . .

The hottest places in hell are re-
served for those who, in a period of
moral crisis, maintain their neu-
trality. — Dante.

REUEL LEMMONS

knows about either God or the Bi-
ble, but that's the way it is.

The greatest ignoramus has the
same degree as the expert. And the
public will give attention in the
next year — and decade — to any
man who can make a religious
speech, write a column, or get be-
fore a microphone.

This is all the more reason why
Gospel preachers should be especial-
ly careful of their own preparation.
This is the year of the evangelist,
but as he stands before the people
he must take care lest he fall before
God. Radical and unlearned teach-
ers have been so thoroughly discredit-
ed— after they have done their work
— that the average person has lost
confidence in the establishment.

We must be careful lest we make
the same shallow and unreal ap-
proaches, the same shoddy arguments
that others make. A sectarian brand
of Gospel is sectarian, regardless of
who preaches it. The Lord's evan-
gelist needs wisdom commensurate
with his opportunity.

Seize the Opportunity!

Those who are ready for it take
advantage of an opportunity and
they are not afraid to hold it. With
all the national attention given to
evangelism in 1973, together with
the coverage the mass media will
give it, we need an army of positive-
thinking, creative-thinking, aggres-
sive-thinking evangelists who have
the ability to mix aright the ingredi-
ents of truth, love, boldness and ag-
gressiveness into a campaign of spiri-
tual advancement that can lift our
nation.

This year, the scientist may sit out
the game on the bench. It is the
evangelist that is quarterbacking this
year. SI

PAGE 11 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 14, 1973

EDITORIALS

We Support Key 73

More than five years ago, Dr.
Billy Graham asked a group of men
to meet in Washington, D. C. at the
Key Bridge Marriott to talk about
the joint future of evangelical Chris-
tians in America. The Journal edi-
tor was one of that group.

At that time, Lutherans, Pente-
costals, Baptists, Methodists and
Presbyterians were too new to one
another to plunge seriously into dis-
cussions of their differences. How-
ever, it was agreed that the one thing
upon which we all could unite was
the Great Commission.

Even evangelism, however, is hard
for Christians who have been poles
apart to rally around suddenly. And
thus Key 73 has been more than
five years coming.

In the process of time there were
others who showed an interest in a
year-long emphasis on evangelism
and the list of inquiring Churches

There's an old saw that South-
ern Baptists love to tell on them-
selves, to the effect that any time
you have two Baptists together on
a desert island, the one thing you
can be certain of is two Baptist
churches.

We smile when we hear jokes like
that, not always comprehending the
profound truth they reflect, name-
ly, that human associations based
on conviction (beliefs) have a way
of being very loosely knit.

We're hearing a great deal from
the liberal camp about divisions
among conservatives. "Why," chor-
tles the leading radical religious pa-
per, "they cannot agree among
themselves!"

Liberal religious establishments,
being founded upon social objec-
tives and majoring on organization,
tend to cohere very well indeed.
"We don't care what you believe,
there's strength in numbers" works
wonders for unity. The only thing
that really matters is who's in
charge.

Conservative associations, on the

soon came to include groups as di-
verse as the Assemblies of God and
the Roman Catholic.

At no time has Key 73 become a
vehicle for programs or propaganda
by any group or agency wishing to
use the opportunity for something
more sinister than evangelism. To
be sure, the sight of Churches of
every stripe joined together in an
affirmation that they intended to
make 1973 a year in which to reach
out was more than some groups,
chiefly conservative, could stomach.

As the year has begun to unfold,
the nation is treated to the inter-
esting spectacle of liberal denomina-
tions enthusiastically girding them-
selves to practice what they conceive
evangelism to be, and a few con-
servative denominations announcing
they don't intend to have anything
to do with evangelism because they
disagree with what the others stand

other hand, being founded upon
common convictions and majoring
on beliefs, constantly find them-
selves wrestling with the implica-
tions of the fact that two people
very seldom think altogether alike.

For some, to have a particular
gift of the Spirit is essential to unity.
For others, to be explicitly Reformed
is mandatory. For still others, to be
baptized a certain way is necessary.
Some believe only the pure should
constitute the Church. Others see no
problem in belonging to a Church
in which they are under the disci-
pline of pagans.

So to chortle that conservatives
have a hard time sticking together
is really a compliment. It also re-
reveals where the chortler stands.

We want to say this additional
word as emphatically as we can:
Whether in company, or regretfully
apart, those who love the Lord Je-
sus Christ and who long for a
Church faithful to His Word will
not lose their love for one another.

We intend to work against all
recriminations among brethren, no
matter where the road forks. IS

for.

Meanwhile, the chairman of the
overall effort is Dr. Tom Zimmer
man of the Assemblies of God and
head of the World Pentecostal Coun
cil (hardly a liberal group) , and tht
executive secretary is Dr. Ted
Raedeke of the Lutheran Church
Missouri Synod, the most conserva
tive of Lutheran groups.

We support any call to evange
lism and thus we support Key 73
We realize that many brethren hole
a different view and we are pre
pared to respect their viewpoint
This we will ask: If they will shar<
with us exactly what they are doinj
personally and aggressively in evan
gelism, we'll listen to their objec
tions to Key 73. 3

The New Barbarians

The new barbarians have hae
their way. The very foundation:
of Judaeo-Christian civilization arc
under attack. The modern Gree'
poet C. P. Cavafy wrote. "Wher
the barbarians come, they will writ)
the laws."

And they have come and the laws
of barbarism are being written —
in relation to pornography, family
and in the Supreme Court decisioi
on abortion, in relation to humai
life.

Do not imagine that this is ai
end to the aims of the new bai
barians. The seven justices, Pilate '
like, washed their hands of the ques
tion of when human life began
then said certainly it did not begii
in the first three months, offered
recognition of it at any time durin
the days before birth and, in mal
ing convenience the guide, left i
open-ended in a way that will serv
the purposes of those whose inter
tions are an even more insidiou
attack upon human life.

Time magazine gives a hint c
what is to come, reporting: "Mo;
behavioral scientists do not believ
that viability marks the beginnin;
of humanity. In their view, a feti ":
is not a person but a coherent sy: f'
tern of unrealized capacities, an
humanity is an achievement, not a ™
endowment. Anthropologist Ashlej 1
Montagu concurs, arguing that th 1
embryo, fetus and newborn do ne "l
become truly human until molde 8f
by social and cultural influences a; lr
ter birth."

Hear these new barbarians we 1
because they warn you of the futur t;
Humanity, they say, is an achiev

We Pledge Love Towards the Brethren

PAGE 12 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 14, 1973

ment, not an endowment. Montagu
openly moves the nonexistence of
humanity beyond the newborn in-
fant.

The rationale for the destruction
of physically and mentally imperfect
newborn children is being firmly es-
tablished. A society that accepts
the idea it is perfectly all right to
kill an unborn infant because it
might be born defective would have
no difficulty in accepting that its
destruction would be justified after
the child has been determined to be
defective.

If man is not endowed with hu-
manity and the rights of humanity
but must achieve them, then what
about those who by age and illness
no longer are fully achieving? Once
again the rationale has been offered
for destruction of human life at an-
other stage.

The horror of the decision of the
Supreme Court is enough when you
consider that millions of unborn
children will be killed because of it,
but the horror is even greater when
you understand this is just the open-
ing wedge into an attack upon the
whole concept of human life.

We are facing a new barbarianism
and we must realize it and we must
use every resource at our command
to combat it. — From an editorial
in the National Catholic Regis-
ter. El

Recover Reformation
By Return to Rome?

Not long ago we saw an article
in which an ecumenical leader, in
the name of the Reformation,
found the Roman Church, from
which the Reformation fled, an ob-
ject of admiration.

In Rome, the author wrote, we
find what the Protestant Church
needs: unity, the fear of God and
respect for the Ten Commandments.
To recover the strength of the Ref-
ormation we must recover the unity
of the Church, he says.

Now we yield to no one in our
thanksgiving for the winds of . change
blowing through the Roman Church.
The Lord is working there indeed.
But our author did not have this
new development in mind. He was
trying to diagnose the ills of the
Church and prescribe a cure with-
out reference to those classic doc-
trines of the Church (the old-time

{Continued on p. 20, col. 1)

THE LAYMAN AND HIS CHURCH

The Undisciplined Church

m

As permissive parents eventually
suffer heartbreak over undisciplined
children, the Church today is reap-
ing the harvest of neglect and apathy
toward the God-given responsibility
of disciplining its members.

Recently a presbytery in Georgia
examined a candidate for the min-
istry, heard him say openly that he
could not profess to believe in the
virgin birth of Christ, and then re-
ceived him into the presbytery to
minister to a congregation. This
sort of thing has happened over and
over in the Presbyterian Church US.

We accept ministers who do not
believe the Bible and do not preach
it from their pulpits as the Word of
God. We accept elders who are
guilty of having more than one wife.
We accept deacons who are given
to strong drink. And we have
church members in "good standing"
who live carnal and worldly lives
during the week and who feel that
they are doing God a big favor if
they appear at the worship service
on Sunday.

No wonder the Church is in trou-
ble!

If you mention this matter to the
average member of the Church, you
will be admonished to "judge not
that ye be not judged." I believe it
is time to define our terms. There
is a marked difference between
judgment and discipline.

A gardener, looking over his
shrubs, might conclude that one is
inferior and unworthy of the time
and effort required to make it grow.
He may uproot this shrub, throw
it onto the trash heap, and give its
space to a plant he likes better.
This is judgment.

This same gardener spends hours
of every day in pruning his plants,
training some to trellises and con-
fining others to certain shapes and
sizes, cutting out weak spots and

This week the layman's viewpoint
is brought by Sylvia S. Hope (Mrs.
Henry M.) , an elect lady of Atlanta,
Ga., who has a son in the PCUS
ministry and a daughter married to
a PCUS minister.

feeding for strength. If he did not
discipline his plants, he would be
no gardener at all.

I suspect that the reason for the
Church's reluctance to discipline,
in many cases, is a feeling of un-
worthiness on the part of the ruling
elders. Because they know that they
are not living exemplary lives, they
feel they have to overlook the sins
of their members. Some parents
feel this way. I have heard them
say, "I've made such a mess of my
life, I certainly can't tell my chil-
dren what to do." What a tragedy!

Parents and elders have a respon-
sibility to set a good example. But
if they are so occupied with their
own failures, so bound by their own
guilt that they cannot perform their
duties as disciplinarians, they should
step down and give the job to some-
one who is capable of doing it.

The Dale Carnegie influence in
society has not been all good. It
is true that sugar catches more flies
than vinegar, and "A merry heart
doeth good like a medicine," but
read a little farther into Proverbs,
chapter 24, verses 24 and 25. We
should never, for the sake of preserv-
ing our own popularity, shrink from
recognizing evil and dealing with it.

If the elders in my congregation
decide to apply discipline to the
members, as God's Word instructs
them to do, I may be among the
first to be called before the session.
So be it. When all of us are re-
quired to "shape up or ship out,"
the Church will be a healthier
body. II

We Must Hate It

Men who only believe their de-
pravity, but do not hate it, are no
further than the devil on the road
to heaven. It is not my being cor-
rupt that proves me a Christian, nor
knowing I am corrupt, but that I
hate corruption. It is my agonizing
death struggle with my corruption
that proves me to be a living child
of God. — C. H. Spurgeon.

PAGE 13 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 14, 1973

SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON

For April 1, 1973

God Speaks Through Christ

Rev. Jack B. Scott

INTRODUCTION: This lesson
is designed to show the plan of God
for the revelation of the truth about
Himself. As the fourth Shorter
Catechism question and answer say:
"What do the Scriptures principal-
ly teach? The Scriptures principal-
ly teach what man is to believe con-
cerning God and what duty God re-
quires of man."

This is an excellent summary of
the content of Scripture. Our fo-
cus of attention for today will be
particularly on the first part of this
answer, what man is to believe con-
cerning God.

I. THE WORD OF GOD WRIT-
TEN. The Scriptural view of it-
self is the very highest view. The
term "Scripture" means what is writ-
ten, particularly it means God's writ-
ten Word. In the New Testament
it refers both to the Old Testament
and the New Testament.

Paul taught Timothy that "all
Scripture is given by inspiration of
God . . ." (II Tim. 3:16). This
says literally that all Scripture is
God-breathed, i.e., coming directly
from God.

Peter declared that the word of
prophecy (synonymous here for
Scripture) is more sure even than
what we see with our eyes. (Com-
pare II Peter 1:16-19.) Peter went
on to say that no prophecy of Scrip-
ture is of private interpretation,
that is, the opinion of one man, "for
no prophecy ever came by the will
of man: but men spoke from God,
being moved by the Holy Spirit"
(II Pet. 1:21). Clearly the New
Testament saints understood the
Scripture to be God-given, not what
man thinks about God but what
God has revealed of Himself.

Furthermore, Peter in using the
term "Scripture" did not confine
that meaning to the Old Testament
only. In II Peter 3:15-16 he spoke
of Paul's writing and then referred
to "the other Scriptures," showing
that what Paul wrote is also to be
regarded as God-given Scripture.

The Old Testament writers un-
derstood Scripture in this same way.

Background Scripture: John 1:1-
8, 14-18; Acts 10:34-43; He-
brews 1:1-4

Key Verses: Hebrews 1:1-4; John
1:1-8, 14-18

Devotional Reading: Isaiah 42:5-9

Memory Selection: John 1:18

They had a sense of God speaking
through them. Moses told of the
commands of God to be written
(Exo. 34:27) , referring to all that
God was revealing to him about
Himself. David, the sweet psalm-
ist of Israel, said of his psalms, "The
Spirit of the Lord spake by me, and
His Word was upon my tongue"
(II Sam. 23:2).

The prophets, too, constantly in-
troduced their prophecies by such
phrases as: "The words of Jeremiah
... to whom the word of the Lord
came . . ." (Jer. 1:1-2, 4, 11, 2:1,
etc.) ; "the word of the Lord
came expressly unto Ezekiel the
priest . . ." (Ezek. 1:3); "the word
of the Lord that came unto Hosea"
(Hos. 1:1); "when the Lord spoke
at the first by Hosea . . ." (Hos. 1:
2) ; "the word of the Lord that came
to Joel . . ." (Joel 1:1); etc. (Com-
pare Amos 1:3, 2:1; Obadiah 1; Mi-
cah 1:1; Zephaniah 1:1; Haggai 1:
1; Zechariah 1:1; and Malachi 1:1.)

Writers of all parts of the Old
Testament, Pentateuch, prophecy
and poetry, understood that what
they wrote was not their private
opinion about God but was indeed
God's Word.

When God began to reveal the
truth about Himself, He did so by
revealing that truth to men whom
He chose and prepared to be the
writers of His Word, His revelation
to His Church.

We noted in earlier lessons that
God so revealed His truth to Mo-
ses. When Moses desired to see the
glory of God, God declared to him
His goodness (Exo. 33:18-19, 34:6-
7) . That revelation of God was

The International Sunday School Lesson Outlines
are copyrighted 1972 by the Committee on the
Uniform Series of the National Council of Churches
of Christ.

carried through the whole Old Tes-
tament period in the hearts of God's
people. It was what God's people
were to believe concerning God and
it was frequently referred to (Num.
14:18; Joel 2:13; Jon. 4:2; Psa. 103:
8; Neh. 9:17, etc.) .

This is why God did not allow
men to make any graven image of
Himself (Exo. 20:4-6) . Any human
effort to express from corrupt hearts
what God is like would be perverted
and could never express the truth
revealed in those words of Exodus
34:6-7. Thus God's revelation of
Himself throughout the Old Testa-
ment was a verbal revelation. When
man desired to know what God is
like, he went to this word which
God had given long before.

II. THE WORD OF GOB
MADE FLESH (Heb. 1:1-4; John
1:1-8, 14-18). In the Old Testa-
ment, the concept of God which
was given to Moses and through
him to all of God's people was ver-
bal. But in the fullness of time,
God, who had spoken before by
various ways by the prophets of the
Old Testament, appeared in the
flesh in a visible way (Heb. 1:1-2).

His Son Jesus Christ is described
as the effulgence or appearance of
the glory of God (Heb. 1:3). Thus
when Moses asked to see God's glory
(goodness) , he received his answer
in verbal revelation. Later, men
would behold God's very glory and
goodness in the visible revelation of
the person of Jesus Christ.

Again, Jesus was called the very
image of His substance. We see
now clearly why men could not be
allowed to make images or represen
tations of the glory of God. In the
minds of sinful men their defiled
hands can only corrupt the true con
cept of God. God purposed to pre-
sent to men a visible, living image
of Himself in the person of Jesus
Christ, who is the very essence oi
God in the visible flesh.

Truly then Jesus could say, "Hel
that hath seen me hath seen the
Father" (John 14:9) . John most
fully elucidated this great truth tc

PAGE 14 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 14, 1973

us. He first declared the eternity
of the Word. Here the Word clearly
means Jesus Christ in His eternal ex-
istence with God the Father.

The choice of the term "Word," I
believe, has nothing to do with cer-
tain philosophical concepts popular
in John's day. It is a reference to
the verbal revelation of God which
had been given to the Old Testa-
ment saints, particularly through
Moses but also through the other
prophets. This verbal revelation,
as we studied it in Exodus 34, was
God's revealing His eternal self to
His Church. It represented what
God is eternally like and what He
always has been.

The God of the Old Testament
whom we know through that verbal
revelation is the same as the New
Testament Lord Jesus Christ. All
that is said of the Lord in the Old
Testament is said of Jesus in the
New. He is Creator, Redeemer
and Saviour. Thus the Word was
God (John 1:1).

What we know of God is this
iWord of Himself which He has re-
:'vealed in the Old Testament. It is
an infallible, unerring Word. It is
,the only reliable truth about God
I which we have. Therefore, said
Paul, if you confess with your mouth
Jesus is Lord and believe in your
i heart that God raised Him from
i the dead, you shall be saved (Rom.
10:9).

I Here the word Lord means the
Old Testament Lord, Yahweh or Je-
i hovah, as certain translations have
lit. Paul quoted Joel 2:32: "Whoso-
ever shall call on the name of the
I Lord shall be saved," where Lord
lis the name by which God in the
Old Testament is known to His be-
li lievers.

As the God of the Old Testament
lis creator of all things, so is this
| Word of whom John spoke (Heb.
1:3). As the God of the Old Tes-
tament is the source of life in man,
-having breathed into him to make
him a living soul (Gen. 2:7) , so this
Word is the very source of life (John
1:4). As in the beginning, God is
the source of light in the world of
darkness (Gen. 1:1-3), so this Word
is the light in men that dispels the
darkness (John 1:4-5).

It is this Word, this God made
known to His Church in the Old
Testament period, who became
flesh and dwelt among men, with a
true human nature and body like
our own. All that God revealed
about Himself was seen and manifest

before the eyes of men. God, known
before only in this verbal revelation
of Himself in His dealings with His
Church, was revealed visibly through
the person and work of His Son Je-
sus Christ. Jesus is the only true
image of God (John 1:18).

Now when we would lay hold of
the concept of the mercy of God, we
read in the Gospels of the mercy of
the Lord Jesus Christ who dwelt
among sinners and loved them, not
ashamed to call them His friends.

When we think of God's gracious-
ness we see the very person of Jesus
Christ, in grace freely giving to men
healing, bread, comfort and, above
all, salvation if they believe in Him.
Never ceasing even when tired, Je-
sus continued to meet the needs of
undeserving men.

We see Jesus — slow to anger
when His disciples failed Him time
and again, when His enemies sought
over and over to entrap Him.

We see Jesus abundant in loving-
kindness, tenderly stopping by the
side of the blind and crippled,
reaching out to help the leper, peo-
ple whom others passed by. We see
Him abundant in truth, teaching
His disciples and us all the truth
about God and ourselves, teaching
us what God has done for us and
our need for Him.

We see Jesus forgiving iniquity,
transgression and sin, as He not only
heals bodies but also hearts, minds
and souls.

But we also see Jesus stand against
sinners and hypocrites who refused
to believe Him, with a zeal for the
house of God, ready to rebuke and
condemn the self-righteous Phari-
sees. We see Jesus, in other words,
not clearing the guilty.

In short, we see Jesus, the very
manifestation of the Old Testament
God in the flesh (Exo. 34:6-7) . He
is the Word made flesh and dwell-
ing among us (John 1:14). We
therefore behold His glory and in
Him God's glory (Exo. 33:18; John
1:14).

III. THE WORD OF GOD
PROCLAIMED (Acts 10:34-43) .
Now when men will declare God to
the world, they preach Jesus Christ.
The Word sent to Israel is preached
in terms of the good news of peace
by Jesus Christ (Acts 10:36) . Note
here too that Jesus was declared to
be the Lord.

Peter was declaring the truth
about God, speaking in terms of the

life and ministry of Jesus Christ
(vv. 37-38) . He showed how Jesus
by His earthly ministry revealed the
goodness of God (v. 38) and then
paid the penalty for the sins of those
who believe on Him (vv. 39-43) .

This Jesus, this Word made flesh,
commissioned His disciples first and
then those called by God after them,
to preach to the people that He is
the Saviour of all who believe and
the judge of the living and the dead.
Jesus is all that God manifested
Himself to be in the Old Testament
revelation. Therefore, Paul could
declare that all the prophets bear
witness to Him. He is the very sub-
ject of the Old Testament revela-
tion.

CONCLUSION: From God's
Word we know that God who made
Himself known to the Israelites in
the Old Testament period as Sav-
iour, Redeemer and Creator is the
same Lord Jesus who in the flesh
has walked and lived among men
on earth. He is the Saviour whom
we proclaim to the world.

(Continued on p. 20, col. 3)

PAGE 15 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 14, 1973

p

YOUTH PROGRAM

For April 1, 1973

A Key, A Door and A Pillar

Scripture: Revelation 3:7-13
Suggested Hymns:

"O Zion, Haste"
"To All the World"
"Till the Whole World
Knows"

INTRODUCTION BY PRO-
GRAM CHAIRMAN:

"Far, far away, in heathen dark-
ness dwelling,

Millions of souls forever may
be lost;

Who, who will go, salvation's
story telling,

Looking to Jesus, minding not
the cost?

See o'er the world wide-open
doors inviting,

Soldiers of Christ, arise and en-
ter in!

Christians awake! Yon forces all
uniting,

Send forth the Gospel, break
the chains of sin."

We send men to the moon and
bring them safely back home, but

Rev. Henry J. Mueller

fewer and fewer churches are send-
ing their members anywhere except
home after the morning services. We
are able to drive on great highways
at high rates of speed, but we see lit-
tle of people and talk to few.

We can fly anywhere in the
world as long as it's for pleasure or
making money. We have communi-
cations media that enable us to talk
with any place in the world in a
matter of minutes. The only rea-
son we might have to wait is if the
line is busy.

Yet we in the church are the last
to see the significance of modern
technology in sending out the glori-
ous good news of Jesus Christ. We
are not only accustomed to waiting
for some one else to do it; we would
rather wait.

FIRST SPEAKER: The first cen-
tury church in Philadelphia was
given a unique opportunity to
spread the Gospel, and it was urged
not to wait. If any church had
reasons to put off till later the work
of evangelism, that one at Philadel-
phia did.

TWO

REFORMED YOUTH CONFERENCES

THIS SUMMER

1. John Kyle State Park, Sardis, Mississippi — June 18-23

Harvie Conn, Professor at Westminster Theological Seminary, Main Speaker

2. King College, Bristol, Tennessee — July 9-14

John Reisinger, Editor of "Sword & Trowel" magazine, Main Speaker

Serious Study New Games Favorite Sports

CLASSES AND MESSAGES:

— Faithful to the Westminster standards

— Geared to challenge young people with
God's word without compromise.

Write for information and application blanks to
RYM, INC.

407 East First Street, Forest, Mississippi, 39074

First, the church was weak. Jesus
said He knew the people had little
power. This could mean it was a
small church, or perhaps the mem-
bership was composed only of the
poorer people in the city. The peo-
ple had little influence in the city,
yet this would not stop them.

Secondly, they were opposed by
those whom Jesus called "the syna-
gogue of Satan . . . that say they are
Jews, and they are not, but do lie."
As in almost all of the first churches,
there was fanatical Jewish resistance
to the teaching that Jesus was the
Messiah. However, Jesus promised
that if His people were faithful in
their witnessing, then even some of
these Jews would be converted.

Thirdly, they were going to face
future persecution. This was ex-
pected to come from the Roman
authorities. Other churches were
experiencing similar trials. Jesus
promised them that He would watch
over them in this hour of tribula
don.

Why could the people in the
church at Philadelphia witness in
the face of such odds? Because ol
Jesus. He is the one "who is hoi)
and true." He is God. "If God be
for us, who can be against us?" He
is also the one who has the key ol
David. This is a reference to an
Old Testament prophecy which
Christ fulfilled:

"And it shall come to pass in thai
day, that I will call my servant Elia
kim the son of Hilkiah: and I wif
clothe him with thy robe, anc
strengthen him with thy girdle, anc
I will commit thy government intc
his hand; and he shall be a fathei
to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, anc
to the house of Judah. And the kei
of the house of David will I lay upor
his shoulder; and he shall open, anc
none shall shut; and he shall shu
and none shall open" (Isa. 22:20-2i
ASV; II Kings 18:17-18).

In our Scripture Jesus said tha
this prophecy was fulfilled in Him
self. Eliakim was a man whose lif«
at this point was a type of Christ
The authority he held was a fore

a

PAGE 16 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 14, 1973

shadowing of that which Christ
would have. Jesus said, "All au-
thority in heaven and earth has
been given to me" (Matt. 28:18) . It
is because of this that we can wit-
ness faithfully and without fear.

SECOND SPEAKER: The second
symbol in the Revelation text is the
open door. In the Bible a door can
represent several things, and two of
these fit this passage. It can be the
door to salvation. Jesus is this door.
(Read John 10:6-10.)

Secondly, this could be a door
that leads to Christian service. In
I Corinthians 16:9 Paul said that he
was staying in Ephesus because there

i Did you realize that a Christian's
attitude toward other Christians af-
fects his service?

i How can a Christian's service be
useful and fruitful? A Christian's
manner of life among people is an
actual part of his witness as a ser-
vant. It makes a difference. Chris-
tians in their witness not only tell
what is in the Gospel, they demon-
strate it in their own living. As a
servant, the way the Christian acts
i often teaches more than his words.

The Whole Truth

This whole truth was demonstrat-
ed by Jesus of Nazareth: "Now be-
fore the feast of the passover, when
Jesus knew that His hour was come
that He should depart out of this
world unto the Father, having loved
>His own which were in the world,
He loved them unto the end.

"And supper being ended, the
devil having now put into the heart
of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to be-
tray Him; Jesus knowing that the
Father had given all things into His
j hands, and that He was come from
•God, and went to God; He riseth
ifrom supper, and laid aside His gar-
ments; and took a towel, and girded
■Himself" (John 13:1-4) .

In this we see the beginning of
the servant's conduct. We are going
to be studying the Lord Jesus Christ
Himself. It is to be remembered

was an open door there for the
preaching and teaching of the Gos-
pel. (Read Colossians 4:3-4.) The
open door is the opportunity that
Christ unlocks for us to go and tell
others about Himself. It may be
in our community or it may be in
another country.

THIRD SPEAKER: The third
symbol in this letter represents the
reward Christ gives to those who
respond. We must notice that the
open door is set before the whole
church and not just the professional
leaders. We all have our part to as-
sume in witnessing and missions. To
all who are faithful, Jesus will make

Manford Geo. Gutzke, D.D., Ph.D.

John 13:1-20

that He said, "I am among you as
he that serveth." Thus it is as we
watch Him that we learn what a
servant will do. The servant acts
when the time is ripe, therefore he
must be ready. This means that he
is always ready to act. The servant
is prepared in his heart and spirit
to act according to the will of God.

The servant is under control,
does not act impulsively, but waits
for guidance. "Having loved his
own, he loved them to the end." He
was ready to help His own, those
who were entrusted to Him, despite
the tension. As it was close to the
end of His ministry here on earth,
He waited for the time to come. He
waited for the right moment. "And
supper being ended, the devil hav-
ing now put into the heart of Judas
Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray
Him."

Two Conditions

Here we see two conditions. Sup-
per was ended; "the devil having put
into the heart of Judas Iscariot to
betray Him" was an unseen spiritual
condition. It was known to the Lord,
and the time was right. "Jesus
knowing that the Father had given
all things into His hands, and that
He was come from God, and went

a pillar in the house of God. We
will be safe and secure through this
life and into eternity. Jesus prom-
ises this and none can make Him
break His word.

CONCLUSION BY PROGRAM
CHAIRMAN: One man has said,
"Be a pilgrim in this life and be-
come a pillar in the next." Why?
because of Christ who says, "All
power is given unto me in heaven
and in earth. . . . Go ye into all
the world and preach the Gospel.
. . . And lo, I am with you alway."

Closing Prayer. El

to God." The Servant acted, aware
of His relation to God.

And so it is with the Christian.
Whatever the Christian does, he is
doing in the name of the Lord. In
this connection it may seem easier
to preach or teach or witness in the
name of the Lord than it would be
to speak a word at home or at the
office. It is harder to see when it is
a matter of being honest in business
when your competitor is not honest.
One does things because he belongs
to God.

"Jesus knowing that the Father
had given all things into His hands,
and that He was come from God,
and went to God" was a spiritual
situation that He understood. When
these two things blended, this Ser-
vant acted. "He riseth from supper,
and laid aside His garments." He
rose from supper and took the ini-
tiative. He laid aside His garments.
He made preparation for His ac-
tions.

Then we read: "And took a towel,
and girded Himself." We know
what He was going to do, He was
going to wash and dry the disciples'
feet, so He made preparation for
this. We can be helped by remem-
bering that washing the feet of your
guest was normal in that day and
time. It is a good deal like serving
a person a glass of cold water when
he comes to visit. This would be a
gesture of politeness, consideration

WOMEN'S WORK

Supplementary Circle Bible Study

April: The Servant's Manner of Life

PAGE 17 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 14, 1973

and graciousness on the part of the
host.

Back in those days the people
wore sandals and walked on dusty
roads. Naturally their feet would
get dusty, and on a hot day it would
be quite uncomfortable. Imagine
how cooling it would be to go into
someone's home and the host would
send a servant around with a basin
and water to rinse off your feet and
dry them with a towel. This is what
was done.

When the Lord Jesus did this,
what really bothered the disciples
was that He, the Lord and Master,

would do it. Peter objected to what
was done because he just could not
understand it. The Lord explained
it to him. Here we see the servant
is faithful to instruct the one who
objects to his service. Christ Jesus
did not scold Peter. Peter was go-
ing to have to let this happen from
Jesus of Nazareth as an example.

In verse 11 we read: "For He
knew who should betray Him."
Even though the Servant knew His
tragic fate, and Jesus of Nazareth
knew that He was going to be be-
trayed, He continued and did not
falter in His particular ministry.

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He knew all things were in God'
hands, and He did not need to tak<
any steps to overcome it. He obeyec
His Father. He carried on just th<
way God wanted Him to and ir
that He set an example for the ser
vant.

A servant may know that the par
ticular conduct he is following ou
is going to lead him into embarrass
ing situations and may actually ex
pose him to being mistreated. H<
may know that this kind of conduc
will be misunderstood. He may knov
that it will open him up to receivt
mistreatment from such people, bu
if it is the thing that he should do
he will go ahead and do it regardlesi
because everything is in God's hands

When God Controls

it

The servant leaves the ultimaK
outcome in the master's hands
Christ Jesus was not afraid t h a|
things would get out of hand. Goc
is in control. The servant is showr
that his manner of life should b<!
as it was seen in the conduct of Hi
Lord. The Christian is shown thai
the way he is to live is the way ir
which Jesus of Nazareth lived whilt
He was here upon earth.

"Ye call me Master and Lord: anc
ye say well; for so I am. If I then
your Lord and Master, have washec
your feet; ye also ought to wash om
another's feet. For I have given yoi
an example, that ye should do as
have done to you" (John 13:13-15)

The Christian must recognize tha
Christ Jesus is his Master and Lord
even so He acted as a servant. Hi
set an example. For He gives yoi
His Word, "I have given you an ex
ample, that ye should do as I havi

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PAGE 18 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 14, 1973

done to you." The primary respon-
sibility of a Christian, as a servant,
is to maintain a spiritual attitude
in godly conduct.

It is not so much of vital impor-
tance what the specific deed may be.
That is not what makes a Christian.
I will illustrate that for you in a
moment. Just now I want to say
again that the Christian as a ser-
vant is to maintain a spiritual at-
titude in godly conduct.

For example, we would agree a
Christian is to show humility. Hu-
mility cannot be grasped, measured
or weighed. One cannot bottle it and
sprinkle it as needed. Humility is a
quality of conduct. As a citizen be-
ing humble a man will have respect
for the law of the land. That takes
humility. There is not someone there
to watch you all the time. As a
Christian and a good citizen in the
community, one will respect the
speed law and be careful in traffic
situations.

What would humility as a neigh-
bor resemble? A person would try

For Discussion

1. What can a Christian learn
Erom the fact that Jesus of Nazareth
mew Judas would betray Him, but
;aid nothing to expose him?

2. How does Peter's objection to
etting Jesus of Nazareth wash his
:eet reveal the pride in his heart?

5. How would the fact that he
reeded washing promote Peter's hu-
nility?

4. What is the difference in say-
ng (a) Jesus of Nazareth was a ser-
/ant and (b) Jesus of Nazareth was
he Son of God who acted like a ser-
vant?

o live peaceably with all men, giv-
ng none offense. Perhaps you
yould like to keep chickens in your
>ackyard. However, if you keep
hickens you are going to offend
lomeone. A Christian will not insist
|>n anything that will cause someone
;lse to feel bad. In this he is show-
ing humility.

! Or, consider a husband. How
j/ould one show humility as a hus-
band? It would be shown by being

onsiderate of your wife, making
It easier for her to perform her work.

f she made some unreasonable de-
mands of you, go ahead and get it

lone. You could have fussed, but
lou were humble. That is the way

humility would show.

Similarly the wife would show hu-
mility. Perhaps the husband gets
loud in his speech and even harsh
in his attitude. She is patient, takes
no offense. She helps him because
she is humble. Each would "esteem
others better than themselves."

Practical Problems

Take, for instance, a parent. If
you are a parent, practical problems
arise. It means that the parent has
to direct the child, has to correct the
child, has to pick up after the child,
has to show the child what to do.
Altogether it is a demanding experi-
ence. For this a parent has to be
faithful. This can be done if the
parent is humble, taking no offense.

Suppose you are a Christian child
and wanted to show humility. You
would show it by being obedient.
Parents are not always right, but you
would be as obedient as you could
be.

To be a witness for Christ at home
or in the community the person
would be gracious. The believer's
speech will be gentle. He will be
gracious, kind and tenderhearted.
People will actually see and feel the

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humility that belongs to a person
who is a Christian. This is done for
His name's sake.

Now being a Christian does not
mean that this is the reason a per-
son pays his debts. A person pays his
debts because it is honest. He will
pay them promptly and humbly. The
Christian will do things in such a
way that he gives the other person el-
(Continued on next page)

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PAGE 19 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 14, 1973

bow room for his feelings. He thus
shows consideration.

How can a Christian show char-
ity? Charity, like humility, is a
quality of conduct. It is only seen
in behavior. A Christian exercises
himself for those who are poor or
in some way disadvantaged. This
again is done for His name's sake.

In teaching in seminary, often I
asked the students, "What would
be the signs of an apostle?" They
would have in mind great preaching,
one who had powerful arguments.
Paul could have done those things
if anyone could, but he said: "Truly
the signs of an apostle were wrought
among you in all patience, in signs,
and wonders, and mighty deeds" (II
Cor. 12:12).

Patience is the most important
thing. Patience as a witness for
Christ. Keep in mind other peo-
ple cannot help themselves. One
does not blame the blind man for be-
ing blind nor the lame man for
limping. As the Christian has the
Spirit of Christ in his heart and
is kind to people, he is thoughtful
of people; this is the Christian man-
ner of life.

The Christian as a servant seeks
to honor his Lord. As the Apostle
Paul says, "I am crucified with
Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I
but Christ liveth in me." That's ex-
actly what happens when Christ
lives in the Christian. Then when
he is a servant, this becomes his man-
ner of life. SI

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Editorial— from p. 13

religion) which once made her great
and the loss of which has reduced
her to a form, without Godliness.

The genius of the Reformation
was called its "concern for the peo-
ple"; its great insight was described
as "a sense of mission"; its greatest
strength was defined as "preoccupa-
tion with the total life of man"; its
greatest contribution was its "unity."
All wrong.

We need to recover the vitality of
the Reformation, indeed: an awe
before the supernatural presence of
God and His Son, Jesus Christ our
Lord; a conviction that without
Christ men are sinners condemned
to everlasting punishment; the jus-
tification of those sinners from the
guilt and penalty of sin by faith
(only) in Jesus Christ (alone) ; the
sanctification of born again chil-
dren of God by the inward working
of the Holy Spirit; growth and evan-
gelism by the use of the means of
grace, the Word of God and the
sacraments.

Reformed (Calvinistic) theology
goes on to even greater strength with
further doctrines based on the sover-
eignty of God. EH

S. S. Lesson— from p. 15

This is not to say that verbal rev
elation is now not vital. It is. Je-
sus has ascended to the Father. The
verbal revelation of God both in the
Old and New Testaments is our on-
ly infallible authority of what we
are to believe about God and our
duty to God.

We have this verbal revelation
preserved more clearly since Jesus
has come. Now we can know more
clearly in the person of Jesus Christ
the God, who from the beginning,
has revealed Himself to His people.

In subsequent lessons we shall
study further what God has said
through Jesus Christ concerning
Himself and our salvation.

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PAGE 20 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 14, 1973

SUP

VOL. XXXI, NO. 47

MARCH 21, 1973

$4.00 A YEAR

the

Advocating continuation of a Presbyterian Church loyal

to Scripture and the Reformed faith

Witchcraft Revived

Witchcraft covens, circles of thirteen practicing witches,
have sprung up in numerous American cities and college cam-
puses. Nearly four million witches are registered in America,
but the actual number of practicing witches may be more than
twice that number.

In the field of education, the upsurge of interest in the
occult is phenomenal. Credit courses in the occult are now of-
fered in many universities, and the courses are usually overen-
rolled. According to one source, nearly fifty percent of all
school districts in the state of California offer some type of oc-
cult courses.

L S. LESSON AND YOUTH PROGRAM FOR APRIL 8

1

moo

ra^S ON II TH IQdBqo

UOfq.OGIIO0 0 &

MAI LB AG

HOW TO OPPOSE COMMUNISM

I am thrilled with your quote,
"The Answer to Communism" (Jan.
31 Journal). With Communism
gaining ground, we as Christians
must afford an answer. To rule it
out as a heresy will not check its
progress. To meet it with indiffer-
ence as a self-destructive system is

to fool ourselves. A real answer, a
satisfactory alternative must be pre-
sented.

The alternative lies in a deep com-
mitment to Christ and His kingdom.
This commitment must involve us
— you and me — in loving God
with all our heart and loving our
neighbor as ourselves. Where the

the

PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL

Rev. G. Aiken Taylor, Ph.D., Editor
Rev. Henry B. Dendy, D.D., Managing Editor
Timothy Belz, Assistant Editor

Circulation leader among independent publications in the Presbyterian-Reformed world

THIS WEEK-

Vol. XXXI, No. 47, March 21, 1973

They Deal With the Occult 7

A call to join the battle follows a description of the spirit
world By John J. Opmeer

Believe in the Devil? 9

Christians will win their fight with the devil, because Jesus
died and rose again By Luder G. Whitlock Jr.

More to It Than Love 11

Our stress on love must be constantly tempered by a true
Biblical discernment By Clyde Narramore

Departments —

Editorials 1 2

The Layman and his Church 13

Sunday School Lesson, April 8 14

Youth Program, April 8 1 6

Book Reviews 17

THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL, a

Presbyterian weekly magazine, devoted
to the statement, defense, and propa-
gation of the Gospel, the faith which
was once for all delivered to the saints,

is published every Wednesday by the
Southern Presbyterian Journal Co.,
Inc., in Weaverville, N. C.

SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: $4 a year
for individuals, $3 for members of
Every Family Plan churches. All cor-
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advertising or other business matters
should be addressed to the business
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Second class postage paid at Weaver-
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POSTMASTER: Send Form 3579 to
Presbyterian Journal, Box 635, Weav-
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should allow three weeks for change
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old and new addresses (with zip
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NEWS AND EDITORIAL correspond-
ence should be addressed to P. 0. Box
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TELEPHONES: (All area 704) edi-
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business office, 645-3310, 645-3962.

Church has failed in this commit-
ment, Communism has taken over.
We, the body o£ Christ, the Church,
possess all the blessings promised
by Communism, minus its curses of
ruthless despotism, minus its coer-
cive blunders, denial of freedom, and
materialistic atheism. "What a rev-
olutionary example," writes Phillip
Murphy, "our churches would give
today were we to practice 'Christian
Communism!' "

The Church possesses the satisfac-
tory answer to Communism in the
core of its message. The full Gos-
pel of Jesus Christ gives more than
the Utopia Communism promises de-
ceitfully to give. It satisfies the to-
tal needs of the whole man — body,
mind and spirit. Christ promised
heaven, but He never forgot the
hungry, the poor, the sick and the
needy here and now. We must fol-
low Him seriously, if we are to save
the world from Communism. We
must offer His Gospel by demon-
stration as well as by proclamation.

The fellowship of the Holy Spirit
in the Church is a far better alter-
native to Communism. It makes the
sharing personal and voluntary. It
springs simultaneously from the love
of Christ dwelling in the heart. It
shares with joy. It throbs with life.
It gives self with the gift. Commu-
nism cannot give this because this
is the fruit of the Holy Spirit.
— (Rev.) Tamios Zakhary
Newark, Ohio

For a related thought, see "They are
Racists?", p. 12. — Ed.

THIS AND THAT

My hat is off to Dr. William P.
Thompson. With all that may be
wrong with his theology, his view
of the Church's mission, etc., he has
displayed one quality which has fast
been disappearing from the leader-
ship of our Church. He has shown
himself to be a man concerned with
the homely principle of integrity
He deserves to be applauded.

Perhaps Journal readers would be
interested in knowing how other
church papers treated the story of I
the meeting in Dallas. According to
Presbyterian Outlook, the only
charges of betrayal and dishonesty
made at the meeting were made by
W. Jack Williamson. Dr. Thompson
was only mentioned in their article
as having been in support of the es
cape clause for political purposes.
— (Rev.) Kenneth A. Ironside
Montgomery, Ala.

DON'T BLAME US!

My Journal has now started com-
ing one week later than the date on
each issue. The issue I received
this week, for example, should have
come last week. It is always a week
late in date. Will you please do
something about that?

— (Rev.) William A. Bodiford
Gulf Shores, Ala.

This complaint, now universal, points
to the postal service, not to us. Despite
many denials, mail can now be count-
ed on to take twice as long as five
years ago in many cases. If everyone
expressed himself, in time the post
office department would have to rec-
ognize the mud on its face. — Ed.

MINISTERS

Wyatt Aiken Jr., from Black
Mountain, N. C, to First Church,
Danville, Va., as associate pastor.
C. Charles Benz Jr., from Jackson-
ville, Fla., to the Morningside
church, Atlanta, Ga.

John L. Akers from graduate study
to the Twin Lakes, Ga., church.
He will also be pastor of West
End church, Valdosta, Ga.
Clarence P. Bennett Jr., from At-
lanta, Ga., to Georgia State Prison,
Reidsville, Ga., as clinical chap-
lain.

Walter C. Kennicutt from Ward,
Ark., to the Central church, Shaw-
nee, Okla.

Edward C. Langham Jr., from Co-
lumbia, S. C, to St. Andrews
church, Tucker, Ga., as associate
pastor.

Gordon A. MacPherson from
Bardstown, Ky., to the Hampton
and Harmony churches, Hampton,
S. C.

James E. Tuckett from Franklin,
Pa., to the First Church, Monett,
Mo.

Tommie G. Malone from Spartan-
burg, S. C, to the Fellowship
church, Charleston Heights, S. C.

Hal E. McNeely from Union,
Miss., to the Granada church, Cor-
al Gables, Fla., as assistant pastor.
Fielding D. Russell Jr., from
Johns Island, S. C, to the Metter,
Ga., church.

Eldon C. Stanton from Forsyth,
Ga., to the Destin, Fla., church.
David L. Waters from Sweetwater,
Tenn., to the Bishopville, S. C,
church.

DEATH

William H. Dendy, retired PCUS
minister and brother of the Rev.
Henry B. Dendy, died Jan. 16,
aged 73. He was buried in the cem-
etery of the historic Nazareth
church of Enoree, S. C, presby-
tery, a church he had served as
pastor.

The Seagle Memorial Church,
Pulaski, Va., has memorialized
Harry Hunter Painter Sr., who
died Feb. 16 at age 85.

• Aside from refusing to be housed
on the thirteenth floor, or walking
under a ladder, most adults quit be-
lieving in witches, haunts and gob-
lins about the time they gave up
"trick or treat" at Hallowe'en. The
machinations of the devil are some-
thing to take seriously, however, as
two articles in this issue (pp. 7, 9)

: testify. The resurging interest in
, the occult ought to remind Chris-
i tians that spiritual nature abhors a
! vacuum, also, and Satan is ever busy
[in his efforts to usurp the Lord's
i place.

• From a small, lonely, conserva-
tive congregation in a largely liberal
presbytery, we have learned that ef-
forts to build a new sanctuary are
about to be jeopardized by a sort of

t "statute of limitations." If these
,good people (we know the pastor
[■well) can't get their hands on $2,500
^more than they already have, and
r'by the first week in April, the con-
tractor has served notice that he will
Iwithdraw the bid because of the rise
;in building costs. The congregation
[jhas been told by the presbytery that

ACROSS THE EDITOR'S DESK

m

it has no funds for church construc-
tion (the Board of National Min-
istries is too busy supporting radical
activist movements and experimen-
tal ministries) . This is the sort of
thing we haven't done before, but
if anyone has $2,500 he'd like to
see go to a worthy cause, we'll put
them in touch.

• A large, influential church in
the Houston area (once strongly
conservative but now gone the way
of many others) is educating its
membership in preparation for adop-
tion of the unicameral system of
government. That's government by
the session only, rather than by a
session and a board of deacons. One
of the members sent us a piece of
attractive educational material in
which testimonies of others living
under the unicameral system appear.
Said another pastor: "Since we

adopted the unicameral system,
more lay people are now involved
in the operations of the church."
Get that! By eliminating the dea-
cons and centralizing everything in
the session, "more people are now
involved in the operations of the
church." We have no doubt that
in many situations a single officer
body would be necessary. And it's
efficient! Just imagine how much
more efficiently the Congress of the
U. S. (originally patterned after the
Presbyterian Church) would func-
tion without two houses — if the
Representatives were all sent home
and the Senate left to run everything.
That may be what a congregation
wants. Eliminate the "nuisance" of
a separate board of deacons. But
don't sit there and let them feed you
a line of malarkey that any six-year-
old could see through! EE

PAGE 3 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 21, 1973

NEWS OF RELIGION

Secular Concerns Loom Larger for NCC

PITTSBURGH — A wide range of
controversial issues surfaced during
the recent four-day business meet-
ing here of the Governing Board of
the National Council of Churches,
including abortion, church invest-
ment practices, federal revenue
sharing, aid to Indo-China, mari-
juana, advertising in the legitimate
drug industry, the United Farm
Workers' controversy with the Team-
sters, the Key '73-Jewish controversy,
and relationships with Roman Cath-
olics.

It was the first full-fledged busi-
ness meeting of the new governing
group since it was established last
December in a sweeping reorganiza-
tion voted for the NCC by its Gen-
eral Assembly. The Governing
Board replaces both the former
General Assembly and the former
General Board.

Only 150, or less than half, of the
347 members of the new board at-
tended the meeting.

The board stopped short of adopt-
ing a position on the abortion issue,
but decided to distribute for study
by the churches a paper which
claims abortion is never desirable
but often necessary.

The paper explains that "with the
introduction of modern technology,
the possibility of complete separa-
tion of sexual life from reproduc-

tive goals requires a rethinking of
the role of sex in human relation-
ships." The rights and desires of
women, it says, need consideration.

The NCC adopted guidelines de-
signed to help churches keep invest-
ment practices in line with social
policies. A comprehensive docu-
ment on "Mission Investment" de-
votes many pages to the options and
methods church groups have for us-
ing their investments on behalf of
justice, equality, ecology, consumer
protection and peace.

The National Council endorsed
a spring "Convocation of Con-
science" in Washington, D. C,
which had been proposed by some
of the Council's black constituents
as a protest to a "national abandon-
ment of high goals" on the domestic
front. Revenue sharing to local
municipalities came under special at-
tack: The churchmen claimed that
under local option, which the Ad-
ministration favors, the poor have
not fared as well as under federal
programs.

In urging support by both its own
churches and the federal government
for reconstruction in Indo-China, the
NCC suggested that relief originating
in America should avoid a "made
in the USA" label by using multi-
lateral international channels, such
as the United Nations.

P

THE CHURCH OVERSEAS

ECUADOR — A strong national
church has been established among
the Quichua Indians, descendants
of the ancient Incas, according to a
report from the field office of Gos-
pel Missionary Union in Quito.

For over 70 years missionaries have
worked among these Indians with
little or no response. However, in
1967 the first breakthrough was
made and 116 Indians professed faith
in Christ and were baptized. Now
baptized believers number 1,600 and
it is estimated that at least that many
are awaiting baptism.

Missionary work among the Qui-
chuas is centered in Mt. Chimborazo
province at Colta. Located there

are a radio station, clinic, boarding
school and translation center; also
short term Bible institutes and con-
ferences are held at Colta.

At this time seven ordained Qui-
chuas serve as pastors of 16 orga-
nized churches and 19 unorganized
groups. New leaders are being
trained in extension seminary pro-
grams with over 200 enrolled. Twen-
ty-four Quichuas serve as regional
leaders.

The American Bible Society is
printing a new translation of the
Quichua New Testament, prepared
by a GMU translation team consist-
ing of Indians and missionaries. EE

The board passed a resolution dis-
couraging what it called "recreation-
al" use of marijuana, but encouraged
efforts to remove from the criminal
code penalties for possession and use
of small amounts of the drug.

"Considering the range of social
concerns in contemporary America,
marijuana does not in our consid-
ered judgment, rank very high," said
the board.

The NCC called for a regulatory
system to monitor and review ad-
vertising used in the $6 billion legiti-
mate drug industry in the U. S. The
adopted report contends that drug
advertising presents a "pain-pill-
pleasure" model which functions to
"validate and reinforce values, atti-
tudes and behavior that encourage
the misuse and abuse of drugs."

The board further resolved to es-
tablish a special task force appoint-
ed by its president to seek out facts
concerning the controversy involv-
ing the Teamsters and the United
Farm Workers. It reaffirmed its
support of the U.F.W. in its efforts
to gain contracts with iceberg let-
tuce growers of California and Ari-
zona.

In other action, the NCC directed
that careful attention be given to the
Key '73 controversy involving Jews.
Among important aspects of Key 73,
said the board, are "the opportunity
it affords for increased inclusiveness"
and "the necessity it presents for a
Christian dialogue with the Jewish
community."

The Rev. W. Sterling Cary, presi-
dent of the NCC, said he believes
that by the end of his three-year
term "some kind of relationship"
will exist between the NCC and the
U. S. Catholic Conference. EE

ol

Baptist-Reformed Talks
Possible at World Level

GENEVA — A suggestion by the
executive committee of the World
Alliance of Reformed Churches to:
explore the possibility of bilateral
conversations with the B a p t i s I
World Alliance led to an initial
meeting of representatives of the
two world confessional organizations
The green light for the explora
tory meeting, which was held at the
Ruschlikon Baptist seminary (Swit

PAGE 4 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 21, 1973

k

zerland) , had been given by the
BWA executive committee at its Ja-
maica meeting last July.

Discussions at Ruschlikon were
based on a working paper drafted
by the Rev. Richmond Smith, secre-
tary of the Department of Theology,
WARC. Definite proposals for a
dialogue agenda are to be submitted
to the BWA executive committee
meeting at Einsiedeln, Switzerland,
next July and to the WARC execu-
tive committee scheduled for Kings-
ton, Jamaica, January 1974. SI

Churchmen Were Active
En Wounded Knee Fracas

WOUNDED KNEE, S. D. — The
National Council of Churches was
instrumental here in arranging a de
facto cease-fire that forestalled a pos-
sible armed showdown between mili-
tant Indians holding Wounded Knee
and U. S. forces on March 8, accord-
ing to Religious News Service.

After leaders of the American In-
dian Movement (AIM) accepted the
offer of the NCC to mediate the
dispute, the government did not en-
force an ultimatum that the Indians
inside the fortified town must sur-
render by sundown.

Negotiations were reopened, with
observers saying both sides had given
in on some points, as a result of the
intervention by churchmen.

In the early afternoon of March
9, the Justice Department in Wash-
ington announced that an "agree-
ment in principle" had been reached
between the government and the In-
dians. No details were immediately
announced. Left open at that point
were certain "critical" issues, such
as when and how the Indians would
leave Wounded Knee.

By agreeing to the cease-fire pro-
posal, put forth by the National
Council and handled on the spot by
I United Methodist Bishop James
I Armstrong of Aberdeen and other
I regional and national church of fi-
I cials, the Indians apparently backed
I; off from a demand that the tribal
| government of the Oglala Sioux on
J i the Pine Ridge Reservation be sus-
.1 pended.

rlj It was that demand, which the Bu-
reau of Indian Affairs feared would
disrupt the entire reservation sys-

tern, which led the Justice Depart-
ment to set the March 8 sundown
deadline for surrender.

In addition to the National Coun-
cil of Churches, the Southern Chris-
tian Leadership Conference, in the
person of the Rev. David Abernathy,
was prominent in negotiations with
the government.

United Presbyterian leaders, in-
cluding the moderator and stated
clerk, sent telegrams to Washington,
urging the U. S. government to yield
its demands.

The president of the United
Church of Christ, Dr. Robert Moss,
urged that federal marshals be with-
drawn.

(Editor's note: As of this writing, it
remains to be seen whether the in-
terference of churchmen has had a
constructive effect in securing the
militants' demands.) SI

Witches Are Married
In a Public Ceremony

MINNEAPOLIS (RNS) — Under
a full moon, two witches bound
their wrists together with cord and
became man and wife.

It was claimed to be the first pub-
lic witch wedding in modern his-
tory.

Married were Carl Weschke, 42,
St. Paul publisher of occult books,
and Sandra Heggum, 32, general
manager for Llewellyn Publishing
Co.

Both are followers of a cult known
as "The Old Religion," which Mr.
Weschke calls "The Wiccan" (seek-
ers after wisdom) .

The ritual used consisted of "cast-
ing of magic circles," cutting the
circle with a sword, binding the
hands of the couple lightly with
cord, and verbal exchange of vows
and ritual words.

It concluded with a celebration
in which guests and participants
sipped "fruited and flowered" wine
from a large cauldron. The cou-
ple wore matching hooded violet
robes.

Mr. Weschke and his bride are
members of a local coven of witches,
becoming active in the ritualistic
practice of it about two years
ago. EI

Hubbard Explains Vote
Against Creationism

PASADENA, Calif. — Science text-
books in California public schools
have been revised to teach evolu-
tion as theory, not fact, but the State
Board of Education which last week
approved the changes stopped short
of granting demands that creation-
ism be given equal time.

The recent revisions are the cul-
mination of a battle begun by crea-
tionists a decade ago to have Bib-
lical creationism taught alongside
theories of evolution. Although their
goals have not been completely re-
alized, the fact that evolution will
be taught as theory rather than dog-
ma represents a major victory for
them.

Dr. David A. Hubbard, president
of Fuller Seminary in Pasadena, was
one of several involved who voted
against actual inclusion of creation-
ism in the science texts. That has
precipitated a mild controversy in
Christian circles, and the Journal
asked Dr. Hubbard to explain.

"First," he said, "we must remem-
ber that science as such deals
with what can be measured or test-
ed in the laboratory. Since no theory
of ultimate origins (of matter and
energy) can be so measured, it fol-
lows that creation, as such a theory,
does not belong in a science text."

Dr. Hubbard joined three other
Christians (one medical doctor and
two scientists from California uni-
versities) to form the special com-
mittee appointed by the state board
to make the actual revisions.

"We believe all theories of ulti-
mate origin belong to man's thought,
philosophy and theology," said Dr.
Hubbard. "Therefore, we have al-
ready taken action to include repre-
sentative theories of origin in our
future social science textbooks,
where they belong as part of man's
thought.

"I want to point out, however,
that just because such theories or be-
liefs are not scientific in nature does
not mean we consider them unim-
portant."

There are also compelling stra-
tegic and pragmatic reasons for ex-
cluding creationism from the science
texts, according to Dr. Hubbard. "If

PAGE 5 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 21, 1973

creationism were taught in Califor-
nia science textbooks," he asserted,
"every other theory, including those
of various pagan religions, would
have to be included on a represen-
tative basis.

"We also considered what would
be the effect of our putting sev-
eral sentences presenting creation-
ism, which was the best we could do,
beside several yards of material pre-
senting evolution. That would be
inviting antagonistic teachers to
scorn those few sentences, and that
could be very harmful to vulnerable
students."

The Baptist minister and former
college professor urged that "it is
the job of families and churches to
do a better job in giving their chil-
dren a grounding in creationism. It
is a matter of faith, and public
schools cannot be expected to be de-
fenders of the faith."

The actions by the school board
were passed despite the persistent ob-
jections of 19 California Nobel
Laureate scientists who argued
against demoting evolution from
fact to theory. Many observers see
the action as precedent setting, since
California has 10 per cent of all pub-
lic school students in the U. S., a
statistic few textbook publishers can
afford to ignore. IB

Abortion Report Says
Later Children Pay

LONDON — Induced abortions, es-
pecially during the first month of
pregnancy, increase the chances in
subsequent pregnancies of still-
births, birth defects and serious dis-
orders for the mothers. That is the
finding of a research foundation re-
port published here.

The report by the Foundation for
Education and Research in Child-
Bearing, a registered charitable trust,
looks at the entire abortion issue
from a medical viewpoint and not a
religious one.

The summary of the report said
that the authors reviewed some 75
publications from 12 countries. It
noted evidence showing a doubling
of perinatal mortality rates (deaths
during the first week after birth and
still births) following liberalized
abortion laws; a 40 per cent increase
in premature births; a 100 to 150
per cent increase in extra-uterine
pregnancies; a four-fold increase in
pelvic inflammatory conditions, men-

strual and other disorders, and an
increase in sterility.

The increase in premature births
and stillborn births "is normally ac-
companied by increased numbers of
children born handicapped," said
the report. SI

Worried Parents 'Kidnap'
Children Who Join Sects

NEW YORK — Concerned parents
are resorting to what many have
called kidnapping in an effort to
reclaim children who have joined
radical religious groups, among them
the controversial Children of God.

A central figure in the nationwide
phenomenon is Ted Patrick, a
church-going Methodist and former
community relations consultant to
California's Gov. Ronald Reagan.
Through what he calls a "depro-
gramming" operation, he heads a
group which assists parents who
want their children back.

Deprogramming involves confin-
ing a youth, sometimes for several
days, in a place where he is drilled
intensively by a deprogrammer who
uses a variety of techniques, mostly
verbal, to complete a sort of reverse
indoctrination in the subject.

A typical deprogramming session
involved an 18-year-old girl who had
been spirited away from a Los An-
geles commune to a San Diego mo-
tel where she was confronted by Mr.
Patrick, her father and several oth-
ers.

Mr. Patrick forced her into a de-
fensive position concerning her be-
liefs, and then told her she had
been "deceived by the forces of Sa-
tan, brainwashed and hypnotized
and [you are] no longer able to
think for yourself or to understand
God's teachings."

After 13 hours, the girl asked
God's forgiveness for being deceived,
according to Mr. Patrick.

Not everyone agrees that such
rough tactics are necessary to pull
youths away from the Children of
God, who teach an extreme antisys-
tem theology. One Atlanta col-
lege student who is a member of
the Christian Missionary Alliance
Church says he has found Scripture
and prayer to be useful in helping
members of the Children of God.

"It takes time, though," he said.
"I have been working with one cou-
ple for almost a year, and they are
still in the process of readjustment.
The Children of God use distortions

of the 'fear of God' and 'will of
God' concepts very effectively to
turn youths against their parents
and anything else that reminds them
of the 'system.' "

Mr. Patrick is presently facing
criminal charges of kidnapping in
a New York City court in a case in-
volving a Yale University student.
The student's attorney says Mr. Pat-
rick's methods are, among other
things, a violation of religious free-
dom, but deprogrammers insist they
are only restoring to the youths the
religious freedom the radical sects
took away from them. II

Silent Prayer Sessions
Win Board Approval

ROTTERDAM, N. Y. (RNS) — A
group of Mohonasen High School
students here have started voluntary
morning prayer meetings, sanctioned
by the public school board, in the
guidance department library before
school hours.

Despite an opinion from the
school board attorney that the action
would be struck down if it went to
court, the Mohonasen Board of Ed-
ucation, by a vote of 4 to 2, en-
dorsed the silent prayer sessions.

"I was inclined to take the risk
when I thought about the declining
morals of youth today when crime is
rising so rapidly," said board presi-
dent George Belden, who described
himself as a devout Catholic. "I
certainly can't deny these kids who
want to pray."

Mohonasen High School Principal
Victor Mikovich said it was discov-
ered that about 15 students had
been meeting clandestinely for morn-
ing prayers since fall, unknown to
school officials. The first prayer
meeting sanctioned by the school
board was held Feb. 26.

Mr. Mikovich said a group of stu-
dents had approached school offi-
cials last fall, requesting permission
to hold voluntary prayers before
school. "We told them we thought
it was illegal, but that we would
pursue it for them through the prop-
er channels — the school board, dis-
trict attorney, superintendent of
schools," he said.

While the request was being pro-
cessed, the students, unknown to of-
ficials, had started clandestine prayei
meetings.

Mr. Mikovich described the group
as "fairly conservative, sincere, and
apparently religious."

PAGE 6 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 21, 1973

Sometimes the spirit world is more real to unbelievers than to believers —

They Deal With the Occult

Anew shadow is being cast across
America and around the globe.
We are in the midst of a revival of
the occult such as the modern world
has never seen. Occultism, which
literally means, "what is hidden," has
invaded every medium of our life:
advertising, books, television, press,
theater, movies and education.

As recently as ten years ago, most
Americans were only vaguely aware
of the occult. Perhaps their only
direct contact with this world had
been through a fortune cookie, or
the offhand knowledge, tucked away
in some corner of the mind, that
they were a Pisces.

Now all of this has changed. The
seemingly dead false cults, such as
witchcraft, astrology, spiritism and
even outright Satanism are rapidly
gaining popularity with a broad
cross section of society. Why? What
is responsible for this growth and
what is its significance?

Before dealing with these ques-
tions, let's first have a look at the
present occult revival. How wide-
! spread is it? What forms does it
take? What are some of the re-
sults?

Evidence of the occult explosion
is so overwhelming that Time mag-
azine dedicated a lead article to this
subject not long ago. The new fas-
cination with the occult became ap-
parent several years ago in the as-
itrology boom. Today interest is
no longer confined to horoscopes; it
runs the gamut from occult toys to
•Satan worship. There are at least
if 100,000 active worshipers of Satan
lin North America. The San Fran-
Icisco "Church of Satan," under the
^leadership of priest Anton La Vey,
astopped publishing membership fig-

The author is pastor of the Hope

(Reformed Church, Vancouver, B.C.
This article is reprinted from The
Church Herald with permission.
PAGE 7

ures when it reached the 10,000
mark.

Millions of Americans are addict-
ed to astrology and various forms
of fortune-telling. Some 1,220 of
the 1,750 daily newspapers in Amer-
ica carry horoscopes. More than sixty
million people had seen the musical
"Hail" as of last year. This musi-
cal introduced the song "Aquarius"
which popularizes the current fasci-
nation with astrology. The produc-
tion even has its own astrologer who
keeps busy charting opening perfor-
mances by the stars.

Witchcraft covens, circles of thir-
teen practicing witches, have sprung
up in numerous American cities and
college campuses. Nearly four mil-
lion witches are registered in Amer-
ica, but the actual number of prac-
ticing witches may be more than
twice that number.

For College Credit

In the field of education, the up-
surge of interest in the occult is
phenomenal. Credit courses in the
occult are now offered in many uni-
versities, and the courses are usually
overenrolled. According to one
source, nearly fifty per cent of all
school districts in the state of Cali-
fornia offer some type of occult
course.

Since occultism has emerged as a
major industry, business has been
eager to tap the new market. The
Ouija board is the most popular
occult game sold today. It is often
the game that introduces teen-agers
to deeper occult practices. Some
twelve million sets have been sold
in the United States and Canada
alone since 1967.

Occult books have been such a
financial boon that several respect-
able publishers have started new di-
visions under different names. The
Universe Book Club, which special-

THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARC

JOHN J. OPMEER

izes in occult books, has in a short
time attracted over 100,000 members.
In the paperback field, the occult is
outselling pornography!

On some college campuses, the
Satanic Bible, by Anton La Vey, out-
sells the Bible 100 to one. More
than a quarter-million copies of this
blasphemous book have been sold
to date. Jeanne Dixon's book, A
Gift of Prophecy, has sold over three
million copies.

Psychic Tours

Even the airlines have been able
to cash in on the current hunger for
mystery and magic. According to
the Time article, Pan Am offers a
$G29 "psychic tour" of Great Britain.
The trip includes a visit to a psychic
healing center, a seance, and a day
at Stonehenge with the chief of
Britain's Most Ancient Order of
Druids.

What forms do the fascination
and flirtation with the occult take,
and what are some of the results?
Dr. Kurt Koch, a German theologian
and one of the world's leading au-
thorities on occultism, has written
several popular books in this field
which may open the eyes of Chris-
tians who still doubt the reality of
evil spirits. Dr. Koch divides the be-
wildering variety of occult phenom-
ena (from amulets to yoga) into
three main groups: fortune-telling,
magic and spiritism.

The most important areas of for-
tune-telling are astrology, card read-
ing, palmistry, and rod and pen-
dulum. Astrology is the prediction
of human character and destiny
from the stars and their constella-
tions. It is probably the favorite su-
perstition today. Fortune-telling
by cards (chiefly the tarot deck)
and from the lines of the hand is
also widespread. A rod and pen-
dulum are used to diagnose diseases,

21, 1973

locate lost persons, and for dozens
of other purposes, including deter-
mining the sex of your next baby.

Perhaps 90 per cent of fortune-
telling is faked. However, some of
it is based on genuine psychic abil-
ities. Dramatic predictions have
been made by such psychics as
Jeanne Dixon, Sybil Leek, and the
late Edgar Cayce. These abilities,
says Dr. Koch, must never be regard-
ed as gifts of the spirit or even as
natural gifts.

Magic is the attempt to know and
control the spirit, human, animal
and plant worlds through extrasen-
sory means. Magic includes witch-
craft, Satanism charms, spells and
curses. Dr. Koch rejects the usual
distinction between white and black
magic by maintaining that the for-
mer is really the latter under a hu-
manitarian guise.

Burning witches for practicing
their art is a thing of the past. To-
day, witches are "in" and can make
a good living. America's most fa-
mous witch, Sybil Leek, lives com-
fortably in Florida, practically a mil-
lionaire from sales of her books.

Satan's Congregations

Today's Satanic churches for the
most part do not worship Satan lit-
erally as a supernatural being. The
devil, I am sure, could not care less
because the same purpose is achieved
through the Satanic Bible, which
offers a complete negation of the
Gospel. It preaches self-gratifica-
tion and total commitment to man's
animal nature. It is no surprise,
then, to learn that sex and drug par-
ties are the order of the day among
most Satanic cults.

In spiritism man seeks to com-
municate with the spirit world. The
best known forms of spiritism are
contact with the dead, table lifting,
glass moving, speaking in trance and
healing. Other forms include "ex-
cursion of the soul," automatic writ-
ing, and apports (the appearance
and disappearance of objects in
closed rooms) . Apparitions and
ghosts may also be included in the
list.

The religious form of spiritism
is called spiritualism. During se-
ances, Christian expressions are of-
ten used, and hymns (such as "Open
My Eyes That I May See") are sung.
Thus, many sincere Christians are
deceived by Satan, who presents him-
self as an angel of light.

Anyone still inclined to believe

that Christians should be free to ex-
plore the "other world" through
these means should read the book /
Talked With Spirits, by the Rev.
Victor H. Ernest, a one-time me-
dium. The book gives an extraordi-
narily moving account of the writer's
own narrow escape from the bond-
age of spiritism.

The Wages of Sin

According to Dr. Koch, all forms
of dabbling with the occult, whether
in ignorance, for fun, or deliberate-
ly, may lead to tragic results. From
a lifetime of research, he proves con-
clusively that occult practitioners
open themselves up to neuroses,
emotional disturbances, criminal ten-
dencies, and possible self-destruc-
tion.

Christians, and to some extent
Jews, find that exposure to occult
influences invariably makes them
sluggish in their faith, with a loss
of interest in prayer and Bible read-
ing. Remarkably enough, says Dr.
Koch, this is not so with other reli-
gious faiths of the world. He warns
most earnestly against delving into
any form of the occult, no matter
how innocent it may look to the
uninformed.

Finally, occult involvement may
lead to the development of psychic
abilities. Such abilities may also be
acquired through inheritance and
through involuntary contact with a
strong medium.

In all these cases, says Dr. Koch,
no true deliverance can be found
through medicine or psychology. Je-
sus Christ alone is able to deliver
from the powers of darkness, and
deliverance can be found only
through repentance and faith in
Him.

What Does Scripture Say?

To the surprise (and chagrin) of
some Christians, the Bible takes the
powers of darkness very literally and
is most explicit in its warnings
against any contact with them. The
bizarre world of the occult is off
limits to the Christian, no matter
how innocently or "spiritually" it
sometimes presents itself.

Scripture tells us that the created
world includes intelligent spirit be-
ings, some of whom are rebelling
against God, following their leader,
Satan. Sin entered the world of
man when he was deceived by Sa-
tan into rebelling against depen-
dence on God. Satan and his legions

are continuing their work of decep-
tion, masking as angels of light when
necessary, and operating as angels
of darkness when possible.

Repeatedly the Bible warns against
occult practices because they invari-
ably destroy man's dependence on
God's grace. "You shall not prac-
tice augury (fortune-telling) or
witchcraft," God told the Jews
through Moses. "Do not turn to
mediums or wizards ... to be de-
filed by them" (Lev. 19:26b) . The
Jews were warned of God's severe
penalties for participation in the oc-
cult. A medium or witch was to be
put to death without pardon (Lev.
20:6, 27).

The New Testament presents
overwhelming evidence for the lit-
eral existence of demons. Satan and
lesser demons violently opposed Je-
sus' Messianic mission, knowing well
that, if successful, it would lead to
their own undoing. Our Lord ex-
pelled demons and gave His disciples
authority to do likewise.

The New Testament speaks of
demons, describes their nature (Luke
4:33, 6:18), their activity (Rev. 16:
14) , their opposition to the believer,
and their eternal doom. Anyone de-
siring to study this subject more
closely will find an excellent guide
in Merrill F. Unger's book, Demons
in the World Today.

Why the Dam Broke

When we survey the sad panorama
of today's flood tide of occultism,
we cannot help but wonder what
caused the dam to break, and what,
if any, significance it has in God's
history with mankind. Many causes
come to mind.

— Secularism. The secularism
of the sixties has led to a new quest
for the supernatural, both true and
false, in the seventies.

— Rationalism. In theology, ra-
tionalism has reduced everything
divine to the human level. In terms
of science and evolution, it has paint-
ed an optimistic picture of man. To-
day, we witness the death of ra-
tionalism and revolt against the
failure of science and reason to make
the world better.

— Escape from anxiety. Under
the double threat of death through
nuclear or ecological disaster, and
life filled with emptiness, modern
man looks for escape in the super-
natural.

— Failure of the Church. Chris-
tians share guilt for the present oc

PAGE 8 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 21, 1973

cult revival. Traditional Christian-
ity has failed to meet the deep spiri-
tual needs of modern man. The
worldliness of the Church has given
Satan great freedom to operate.

Religious Void

Today's occult flood tide is proof
that a religious void exists in the
modern world. Satan tries to fill
this void through a perverted and
twisted encounter with the supernat-
ural.

But we must look beyond the
causes of today's occultism. Are we
simply witnessing a swing of the pen-
dulum back to the Dark Ages? Or
are the events of today an indication
that we are reaching the final chap-
ter of world history before Jesus' re-
turn?

Scripture foretells a revival of the
occult shortly before the second com-
ing of Jesus Christ, just as occurred
at the time of His first coming.
Apart from I Timothy 4:1, we read
in Matthew 24 that Jesus warned
His disciples of great deception pre-
ceding His coming again. Signs and
wonders will be performed so as to
lead astray even the elect. Since
these signs will not be the work of
the Holy Spirit, obviously we are
dealing here with occult powers. The
culmination of this process will be
the revelation of "the lawless one"
(II Thess. 2) .

\/| ike Newell was a 20-year-old
It A wierdo who lived in the lazy,
sprawling city of Vineland, New
Jersey, a town of about fifty thou-
sand people. One Sunday morning
about eight or nine years ago I
preached in Vineland.

Little did I realize at the time
that on a hot summer afternoon a
few years later this young man,

The author is pastor of the West
Hills Presbyterian Church, Harri-
man, Tenn.

If indeed we are witnessing today
the pouring out of evil spirits by Sa-
tan, as well as the pouring out of the
Holy Spirit by Jesus, then there is
reason to believe that the powers of
darkness have realized that their
time is running out. With this per-
spective on today's resurrection of
the occult, there is a crying need for
the Church to be aware of what is
happening.

Unfortunately, as a result of de-
cades of secularism, many Christians
have been lured into regarding this
whole matter as superstition. They
are so ignorant of what the Bible
teaches regarding demonic activities
that they deny the reality of super-
natural events achieved through the
occult. As a result of spiritual weak-
ness and intellectual pride, much of
the Church is caught napping while
the flood tide of occultism runs
over the country. In regarding su-
pernatural realities as mere super-
stitions, the Church questions the
authority and reliability of God's
own Word.

Church Caught Napping?

In his foreword to Kurt Koch's
Between Christ and Satan, the Rev.
Raymond Edman puts it well:
"There are many Christians born
again of the Spirit, who are unfa-
miliar with spiritual realities, wheth-
er good or evil. . . . The Holy Spirit

I Peter 5:1-11

Mike Newell, would shock the na-
tion. Mike became interested in
Satanism and frequented the public
library, reading everything he could
about the occult, witchcraft, incan-
tations, and the devil.

He soon shocked some of his
friends at school by practicing the
strange rituals of Satanism. He
would invite his friends, lay out a
triangle on the floor, placing an ar-

is not a living personality to them
nor are demonic personalities a re-
ality. ..." I have found myself that
a growing awareness of the person
and work of the Holy Spirit makes
one increasingly sensitive to the ex-
istence of unholy spirits.

There's A War Going On

We live in days in which apostasy
from the living God is proceeding
at an accelerating speed. Occultism
is one of the sure signs of this apos-
tasy. What should our role be, as
followers of Jesus Christ? About
that, let there be no confusion. The
Bible makes us aware of and warns
us against the dangers of the occult.

It also assigns us our place in the
great spiritual warfare which is tak-
ing place. We may not be observers.
We are to ruin Satan's work of de-
ception, resist him where we can,
and even in the name of Christ in-
vade enemy territory and claim the
victory of Christ over Satan.

If we listen to the words of Paul,
we realize that we are not at the
mercy of occult powers and events,
but that we are on the winning side:
"For we are not contending against
flesh and blood, but against . . . the
spiritual host of wickedness in the
heavenly places. Therefore take the
whole armor of God, that you may
be able to withstand in the evil
day . . ." (Eph. 6:12-13) . ffl

Devil?

LUDER G. WHITLOCK JR.

tificial human skull in each corner
of the triangle. Then, with candles
burning and a hamster in each hand,
he would intone incantations to the
devil.

Finishing his incantations, he
would scream at the top of his voice
and smash the hamsters in his hands,
smear the blood all over his arms,
then solemnly voice a closing incan-
tation to the devil.

But Mike's final ritual not long
ago was the one to top them all off.
He became convinced through the

Satan is real, he is evil, he is busy at work among us right now —

Believe in the

PAGE 9 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 21, 1973

reading of various Satanism ma-
terials that if a person were mur-
dered by his friends, he would be
reborn as an ally of the devil and
a commander of demons. Not only
that, through his own personal cal-
culations he had determined that
through his own death in a certain
way, at a certain time and a certain
place, he could be reborn as a cap-
tain of forty legions of Satan's de-
mons.

Kids at school heard him say to
his friends, Richard Williams and
Wayne Sweikert, "Why don't you
kill me? Then I can join the
devil."

So, on that hot, humid summer
afternoon, Mike and two of his
friends drove out into an area pop
ulated only by scrub oak. Soon they
approached the bank of a small,
stagnant pond. After an incanta-
tion and a worship service to the
devil, they bound his hands and his
feet with tape.

Mike looked out over the pond,
then he turned to his two friends
and he said, "Proceed, as friends."
They taped his mouth and eyes and
then they shoved him into the pond
and watched him sink. Three days
later his body was discovered.

Demon Possessed

Last summer in Miami, Florida,
an unusual 22-year-old girl named
Kim Brown, who claimed to be un-
der the influence of Satan, stabbed
a 62-year-old man to death.

When she came before the judge
for her trial she said, "I really en-
joyed killing him." She received a
remarkably light sentence, seven
years, and said she attributed such
a light sentence to the influence of
the devil.

Recently, in Los Angeles, Cali-
fornia, a teacher was murdered. Af-
ter the burial the grave was raided,
and her heart, her lungs, and other
parts of her body, were removed and
used in a Satan worship service.

These are only a few examples of
what is happening currently. Some
of it is near us. There is activity
on the campus at the University of
Tennessee. Students from some
prominent families in the state have
been involved.

Several years ago while I was a
student at the University of Florida,
a teacher surveyed our English class
and asked, "No people believe in
the devil anymore, do they? Is there
anyone here who is foolish enough
to believe something like that?" On-

ly one person in the room raised a
hand.

Scarcely twelve years later Dr.
Faustus, the devil, and witch hunts
have become strangely, ironically
contemporary. Who would have
thought it 15 years ago? Hundreds,
thousands of people are involved and
openly serving the devil. It is bi-
zarre!

His Name Is Evil

One thing should be clear to ev-
eryone. The devil is real. As one
person remarked, "If you don't be-
lieve in the devil, then he sure is
doing a lot of damage not to be
real." The Bible makes it plain
that the devil is real and is busy
trying to accomplish evil.

It was the devil in the beginning,
you remember, who deceived Eve
and who brought about all our trou-
ble in this world. Anything bad,
when traced back to its root, can be
attributed to the devil and his in-
fluence on the human race. It was
the devil who afflicted Job. It was
the devil who tempted jesus.

John writes in his Gospel that it
was the devil who entered into the
heart of Judas and influenced him
to betray Jesus Christ, the Saviour
(John 13:2) . The message of the
Scriptures is very plain.

Just as God is real, just as Jesus
is real, just as the angels are real —
although we see none of them —
even so evil forces are real, includ-
ing Satan and his demons. Conse-
quently, we are involved in a strug-
gle against evil forces and a real
devil in this world (Eph. 6:12).

He Is Real

People are quite ready to acknowl-
edge that these days. The devil is
no figment of the imagination who
was spawned in the ignorant mind
of superstition; nor as Time mag-
azine claimed, "Out of ancient lore
and the minds of medieval church-
men came the devil." Not at all.
The devil is real. He has been ac-
tive in deceiving and destroying and
would attempt to destroy even God's
own if he were allowed.

So Peter warns, "Be on the alert
because your adversary, the devil,
prowls about like a roaring lion
seeking someone to devour" (I Pet.
5:8) . In our own age he has found
a number to devour, as the news in-
dicates. There is no doubt about
it; he is real and he is active.

The real question is this: What
can be done about it? The lengthy
article which appeared in Time mag-
azine and various articles in the
newspapers report what is happen-
ing. "We wonder, what are we to
do about all of these things?"

Again, the message of the Scrip-
tures is plain. Peter urges, "Resist
the devil." Be firm in the faith and
resist him! James says, "Resist the
devil and he will flee from you"
(4:7) . God expects us to do that.

We are supposed to oppose him,
not quit or give in, not be over-
come or shaken by the things that
are happening. We have always
known the devil was around and
that he was busy. One of the first
things I heard when I became a
Christian is that "wherever God
builds a church, the devil erects his
chapel." That is true. God says,
"Resist the devil." That is what
we must do.

God Is on Our Side

We must not be discouraged, dis-
mayed or disillusioned by the things
that are happening in the world.
God may be bringing judgment on
our own nation, on our own culture,
for deserting the faith that was once
delivered to our ancestors here in
America. However, it is never too
late to turn around, never too late
for people to see the error of their
ways.

Primarily we are not to be dis-
couraged because we know that if
God is on our side, then we shall
prevail. Paul says in Romans, "If
God, who gave up His own Son so
willingly, is on our side, aren't you
convinced that with Jesus He will
also give you everything?" Of coursel
And that is precisely the point here.

God is on our side and just as the
devil is active in the world, so God
is active, so Jesus is busy, so the
Holy Spirit is working. Perhaps the
devil is accomplishing some things,
but God is busy working, too.

There is as much of a spiritual
awakening today as there has been
in the last thirty years. There is a
spiritual ferment in this period. The
Spirit of God is at work. We see it
among our own, we see it in some
of our young people, we see it also
in those who are old. There is a,
promise in the Scriptures. John re-
cords it this way: "Greater is He
who is in you than he who is in the
world."

(Continued on p. 20, col. 1)

PAGE 10 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 21, 1973

The story is love, but that's not the whole story —

More to It Than Love

Love, love, love. Nowhere can
one escape hearing about love.
\ rash of singers blare or bleat
ibout it; a myriad of small groups
rap about it; many preachers and
lecturers major on it.

The air is saturated with sounds
extolling love. It is almost as
;hough we have never heard about
ove before, as though it were a
orand new commodity and the Chris-
:ian world better wake up and get
with it — for love is where it's at!

And of course there is a great need
for love. The Bible stresses that
:here is faith, hope and love, and
:he greatest of these is love (it is
lot, however, the only thing to be
iesired) .

Indeed, people need to love each
Dther and be patient and kind and
.houghtful of one another. This
s true in the home: Husbands and
vives need to love each other more;
aarents and children need to relate
:o each other better. It is true in
he church: The pastor needs to love
lis parishioners more, and the man
n the pew needs to honestly under-
hand and love the man in the pul-
oit more. Love is a universal need.

But all one needs to do is look
tround at the organizations that for
he past fifty years or so have been
oeddling a pure diet of love and
;ee where they are now. When we
jet on an immoderate diet of any
me thing we are bound to become
.opsided, whether the area be food,
ntellectual interests, exercise or any-
thing else. Effective living calls for
ft balanced "diet."

Concurrent with our due empha-

, This material, which constituted
in editorial in Psychology . . . for
giving, of which the author is editor,
s reprinted by permission.

sis on love there needs to be stress
on plain Bible teaching.

One of the finest compliments
that can be paid a Christian is that
"he has the mind of Christ;" that he
has wisdom and discernment; that he
knows the Word of God. It's fine
to be known for our loving atti-
tudes, but we can never have the
mind of Christ until we know what
the Bible teaches and become Bible-
taught Christians.

As we study God's Word we find
that all is not as lovely as we might
imagine from listening to the mod-
ern lyrics and rhetoric of "love."
The Bible portrays an unlovely as-
pect: Satan going about like a roar-
ing lion ready to devour people. (And
Satan belongs to no union. He's on
the job 24 hours of every day.) So
we need to be not only loving but
also discerning — alert lest Satan be
at work in our own lives.

Dealing With Evil

Then, in addition to having dis-
cernment, there are times when we
need to take action. Our example
in this is Christ Himself.

The source of all love, He never-
theless dealt with evil. I can im-
agine the Lord Jesus, with eyes
flashing and muscles flexed, descend-
ing on those merchants in the tem-
ple. He did not hesitate to wield

The 'Right' to Happiness

No one but a selfish child thinks
he has the right to happiness. Adults
know it has to be deserved, earned;
and the only way to earn it is to
contribute more than you take. —
The American Citizen.

CLYDE NARRAMORE

a whip and expose the men for
what they were doing: "making His
Father's house a den of thieves."

The Apostle Paul, the writer of
the "love chapter" (I Cor. 13) in
the Bible, did not mince words in
pointing out to these same Corin-
thians the sin in their churches. He
was most specific in citing instances.
People of Paul's day would not al-
ways think of him as acting in love
as he fearlessly denounced error and
false doctrine, sin and the lack of
Biblical separation. He was not
about to condone such things, in
the name of love.

We need to be very sure, of course,
that in taking issue with certain
people or causes, we are not merely
acting out our own hostilities. So
we should ask ourselves what
prompts us to take this course. As
we examine our own motives and we
come to a prayerful decision that a
condition in an organization, or in
our own lives, is not right, then call
it sin, deal with it, and the Lord
will bless us.

It takes a lot of fortitude to
stand up against some situations and
people. Nevertheless, the teaching
of both Old and New Testaments is
that God honors separation from all
that is contrary to His Word. We
should take a stand against what
the Bible is against.

By all means, then, let us have
love, but let us not be caught in a
love trap whereby we are blinded
into the belief that everything is
wonderful, everything is good, and
everything goes. Let us be discern-
ing. Let us be willing to take our
stand for or against, when the sit-
uation demands. Then as we look
back over the years we will find that
it has not all been love, but that we
have been in the will of God and
He has blessed! 51

PAGE 11 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 21, 1973

EDITORIALS

They Are Racists?

After the chairman of the South-
ern half of the PCUS-UPUSA joint
union committee was quoted in the
Sw~vey as dismissing proponents of
a Continuing Church with the epi-
thet, racists, we began to hear from
people.

"What could he possibly mean?"
they mostly asked. Committed to
the Continuing Church, they also
knew the designation didn't apply
to them.

It is natural for people deeply
committed to an objective to feel
that anyone with whom they have
basic disagreements is therefore op-
posed to the objective itself.

Thus, if one is deeply involved in
Boy Scouts and a close friendship
with a neighbor doesn't seem to be
as close as it once was, it is natural
to wonder, "What does he have
against Scouting?"

Or, if a woman becomes deeply
involved in women's lib and sudden-
ly she realizes that it has been sev-

eral weeks since she last talked to
Sally, with whom she used to spend
hours on the telephone, it is natural
to wonder, "What does she have
against women's lib?"

So, if a man's total religion is
what he can do for the poor, and he
begins to notice that he and other
religious people of his acquaintance
don't seem to have much in com-
mon, he will begin to wonder, "What
do they have against the poor?"

If a churchman's spirituality is
what he can do in the area of race
and another churchman indicates
they have very little in common
spiritually, it is quite natural to
jump to the conclusion that the dis-
senting brother is a racist.

When the distinguished chairman
of the Assembly's committee on
union dismisses advocates of the Con-
tinuing Church as racists, he simply
is revealing that his priorities and
their priorities do not coincide. And
in this respect, he is absolutely

From What Do We Learn?

We were enjoying an animated
discussion with a person who shares
with us a deep concern for young
people and the often false "religion"
they are being taught today.

The subject was: "From what do
we learn?"

Our friend argued that we learn
from every experience in life, from
mother love, from accidents and mis-
takes, from friendship. When we
simply bump into someone going
down a hall we learn something.

True. And spiritual values
come through learning.

But it does not follow that be-
cause we learn about unselfishness
from mother love, we learn about
God from mother love.

Some of the strongest mother love
in the world is exhibited in the at-
titude of a mother fox tending her
cubs. But that doesn't give a fox's
cubs religion.

God is everywhere in every experi-

ence in life, for He is "above all,
and through all and in you all."

But it does not follow that we
learn of God in as many different
ways as we learn that a stove is hot,
that flowers have fragrance, that
birds sing sweetly, that a sunset is
beautiful.

Spiritual knowledge, as John Cal-
vin accurately observed, is of a dif-
ferent order from other knowledge.
It comes to man by one way only:
by the Holy Spirit teaching us
through the means of grace He has
appointed, namely the Word of God
and the testimony of Spirit-filled
men. You must teach the Word it-
self to give birth to Christians.

The hand of God is in the rose.
But if all you have to do to learn
of God is study the rose, then we
must assume that the whole world
has ample opportunity to become
Christian, for roses flower every-
where. EH

9!

i

right, although the designation he
uses is absolutely wrong.

It must be observed that the prin
ciple here discussed applies to con
servatives as well as liberals. Upon
occasion we have been tempted tc
characterize the radical ecumenists
as unbelievers because we have seer
no evidence that they give priority ^
to belief over practice. Some have
remonstrated with us sharply for sc j
doing. They do believe (they say)
although their beliefs flow frorc
their practice of the Christian faith

Supporters of the Continuing
Church give top priority to beliefs
They would cheerfully reject the no
tion that faith flows from practice
rather insisting that without accurate
beliefs based on wholly trustworthy
revelation, the practice of religior
is not likely to conform to the wil
of God.

They are not only willing, the}
believe it is required of them, t<
establish the fellowship of believer:
on such a basis. S

Ecumenism: Its Cause
And Its Cure

Within the next few weeks th<
annual meeting of the Consulta
tion on Church Union (COCU)
will take place. We've been think
ing about this religion on the Amer
ican scene called ecumenism.

Ecumenicity is a true religion t(
its devotees. Its summum bonum
or highest good, is unity. Accordini
to its theology, the only mortal sii
is disunity. Regeneration consist
of union. The kingdom of God i
ushered in where people have ovei
come the differences keeping then
apart. In order to hasten the core
ing of the kingdom, the suprem
task of the Church (meaning even
body, but especially those in missio:
to unity) is to search for a commo:
denominator upon which everyon
can agree.

Like Lancelot after the Hoi
Grail, ecumenism (a denominatio
like Presbyterian) seeks after ths
basic idea common to us all. Ther
by reducing religion to this basi
idea, they expect to bring all of t
together.

Ecumenists (a few of whom g
so far as to become devotees of th
Religion of the Lowest Commo
Denominator) today believe the
have found the basic idea commo
to us all: "Love." (In practice th
often turns out to be "from each a

pi

PAGE 12 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 21, 1973

;ording to his ability, to each accord-
ng to his need with all things com-
mon," the Marxist creed.)

Ecumenists also have a different
concept of God: "the God who acts
xistentially in history." This deity
has a prophet. He was the son of
a carpenter who decided, as He grew
^ip, that God was much more per-
sonal and friendly than most people
thought and He made it His life's
work to tell others about this father-
mage that He had of God.

They also have a Great Commis-
sion: Everybody is in mission (which
means, "All together, now, every-
body love!") . And they even look
forward to a millennium: The lion,
the leopard, the black bear and the
kunk will all lie down together and
they will all smell the same.

In the Day of Fulfillment, no
hurch will compete with another.
Churches will serve sectors of a com-
munity and everybody living within
that sector will constitute the Whole
Church. No one will dream of
choosing the congregation serving
all the people of another sector, say
across town, in preference to his own.

Quite obviously the cult of ecu-
menicity is characterized by nothing
more pronounced than a vast shal-
lowness. It is caused by disbelief;
here the "form of godliness" with-
out the power thereof is carried to
the nth degree. A good thing (the
oneness of all Christians in Christ)
has become a religion in its own
right, providing for many a religious
land social substitute for justifica-
tion, sanctification and adoption in
the Lord Jesus Christ.

The cure for this shallowness is
the simplest possible, although the
words of the Lord about the broad
way and the narrow way preclude
any avalanche of conversions from
ecumenism to true Christianity. A
devoted and stubborn respect for the
'Bible as the Word of God written,
and a faithful proclaiming of Jesus
Christ as the incarnate Son of God
and Saviour from death and hell,
are the best testimonies that an evan-
gelical Christian can bear.

Above all, make no compromise
br concession, in any matter, how-
ever small or seemingly insignificant,
pertaining to the faith of the
Church. The Church is not in dan-
ger so long as men are willing to
stand by their convictions, rejecting
the blandishments of novelty which
appear attractive but whose Scrip-
tural foundations are uncertain at
best. IB

THE LAYMAN AND HIS CHURCH

Christian Service

m

We were on an overnight camp-
out with a group of energetic junior
and senior high boys. About half
of them were the children of mem-
bers of our congregation, while the
other half came from non-Christian
homes and themselves had not re-
ceived Christ.

The format we followed was typi-
cal of our camp-outs. After supper
there were games, then a campfire
with campfire recreation, followed
by a devotional. Everything seemed
normal. Then those of us who were
leaders on that camp-out were in for
a surprise.

The Lord was working that night.
After the devotional when the boys
normally would be expected to have
cabin devotions and, hopefully, get
some sleep, they lingered around the
fire. The older senior high boys who
were members of our church began
individually and very personally to
talk to those who were not Chris-
tians about the Gospel of Jesus
Christ.

For almost four hours, until two
o'clock in the morning, boys sat
around and talked about the Lord.
What an exciting experience to see
young people going through the
Scriptures, searching them together,
and explaining the way of salvation!
That night many professed to re-
ceiving Christ as Saviour.

This campout was unrelated to
our Christian education program.
It was sponsored by an organization
in our church called the Christian
Service Brigade. The programs of
the brigade and its sister organiza-
tion, Pioneer Girls, are similar: Each
seeks to relate Christ to all experi-
ences in the lives of children and
young people. They are weekday
programs where youth are guided
to develop complete Christ-centered
lives by participation in weekly
meetings and by involvement in out-
door living.

This week's column was written by
Burt D. Braunius, director of Chris-
tian education, Mcllwain Memorial
Presbyterian Church, Pensacola, Fla.

During weekly meetings young
people are given the various respon-
sibilities of leading opening exer-
cises, planning and presenting devo-
tionals, developing crafts and activi-
ties. Through assignments and work
projects they are guided toward de-
veloping the needed qualities of
Christian leadership.

A typical meeting includes an ac-
tivity period for working on crafts
and achievement badges, or partici-
pation in recreational activities, plus
a time of Bible exploration for dig-
ging into God's Word to discover
what God has to say to us in today's
world.

Achievement badges, certificates
and other awards are used to stim-
ulate interest. These are a part of
the curriculum materials and are
awarded when prescribed require-
ments are met at home, during the
weekly meetings, or on special ac-
tivities. Girls can specialize in
things like sewing, cooking, com-
munity service and handcrafts, while
boys have the opportunity to develop
their talents in areas such as camp-
craft, nature craft, water sports, elec-
tronics, aviation and physical fitness.

These programs provide an excel-
lent opportunity to learn new skills
and put them to use for the Lord.
Young people soon learn to relate
each skill to their Christian growth
and experience.

Outdoor living is emphasized by
participation in cook-outs, nature
lore and camping excursions. Boys
and girls are encouraged to view na-
ture as having been created and sus-
tained by God Almighty — the same
God who has a personal interest in
their lives.

Pioneer Girls and Christian Ser-
vice Brigade programs are for chil-
dren and young people in grades
three through twelve. The ministry
is a unique one. It is geared toward
the local congregation; it is Christ-
centered, evangelical, interdenomi-
national, practical; and it relates
children and young people to those
they need to know the most, Chris-

(Continued on p. 20, col. 3)

PAGE 13 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 21, 1973

SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON

For April 8, 1973

Christ Suffers For Us

Rev. Jack. B. Scott

INTRODUCTION: From the
very beginning, the necessity of the
death of Christ for the redemption
of men has been taught through the
Church. In Genesis 3:15, the first
Gospel message, we are told that Sa-
tan will bruise the heel of the seed
of the woman. This certainly im-
plies suffering.

Again, Abraham's prophecy on Mt.
Moriah through Isaac teaches that
ultimately it is God who will pro-
vide the offering for our sin (Gen.
22:8) . But nowhere in the Old Tes-
tament are the suffering and death
of Christ more vividly portrayed
than in Isaiah's prophecy, the fifty-
third chapter. It is here we begin
our lesson today.

I. THE PROPHECY OF
CHRIST'S DEATH (Isa. 52:13-53:
12) . As the verbal revelation of
God given to Moses and the people
of Israel was ultimately rejected by
most of the people, so also the Word
made flesh, Jesus Christ, was re-
jected.

In vivid detail Isaiah told of this
event as though he were standing at
the foot of the cross as he wrote it.
Five elements of His suffering and
death were foretold here. These
become the keystones of the New
Testament Gospel message.

A. Triumph over death (52:13-
15) . First the prophet assured us
that the mission of the Christ, the
servant of God, will be successful.
Some translations in verse 13 read,
"My servant shall deal wisely," but
a better translation is ". . . shall
prosper." That prosperity is de-
scribed in terms of His resurrection:
He shall be exalted and lifted up.

As far as God is concerned the
issue is never in doubt; Christ shall
accomplish His mission. This is
stressed first so that we may under-
stand that our only hope is in the
Christ. The Christ's mission must
not be judged by appearances. He
seemed to fail in the eyes of most
of the Jews of His day, but He must
be judged in terms of the promises
of God about Him.

Moreover, the Christ will cleanse

Background Scripture: Isaiah 52:
13 53:12; Matthew 26:1-5, 26-
29; I Peter 2:21-25

Key Verses: Isaiah 53:49; I Peter
2:24-25

Devotional Reading: Psalm 22:1-8
Memory Selection: Isaiah 53:5

men from their sins (v. 15) . The
words here, "He shall sprinkle many
nations," are a better translation
than those versions which read: "He
shall startle many nations." The
sprinkling of the blood of the lamb
for the cleansing of God's people is
taught throughout the Old Testa-
ment (Num. 19:18-21; Ezek. 36:25).

Thus the mission of Christ to
cleanse us from our sins and by His
resurrection give us eternal life shall
succeed. Isaiah put this first be-
cause men would not be disposed to
believe this when Christ actually
came. He did not come as a tri-
umphant king, but as a suffering
servant, born into a humble family,
laid in a calf's stall, and showing no
promise at all by outward circum-
stances.

B. Rejected by men (53:1-3).
The message of Isaiah could hardly
be believed, that such a one as he
described could actually succeed.
Only those who could see in His
suffering and death the arm of God's
redemption would believe (v. 1) .
We must remember that as Jesus
walked on earth, most who saw Him
in the end rejected Him. He did
not look like a redeemer.

Isaiah said He would grow up
like a feeble plant with little root
(v. 2) . He did grow up in Galilee,
from which nothing great was ex-
pected (John 1:46, 7:41, 52). He
was also regarded as an unattractive
man (v. 2) . This does not mean
that He was ugly, but simply that
as one looked upon Him he saw
nothing more than an ordinary man.
He did not attract men to Himself
because of His good looks. He

The International Sunday School Lesson Outlines
are copyrighted 1972 by the Committee on the
Uniform Series of the National Council of Churches
of Christ.

looked, no doubt, the way a car-
penter's son would be expected to
look.

It was only when He began to
speak that His uniqueness began to
come into focus. (See for example
John 1:43-51, His meeting with Na-
thanael, and John 4:1-19, His meet-
ing with the Samaritan woman.)

The Christ would be rejected, de-
spised by men (v. 3) . The majority
would not like to be long associated
with Him. He did attract large mul-
titudes, but this only means that in
the end large multitudes rejected
Him. Even His disciples fled from
Him the night He was betrayed.

C. Vicarious suffering (53:4-6).')
What men did not see, though, lJl
Isaiah clearly foretold: This one lfl
whom they despised came in such a
humble way in order to bear our
sins and our punishment. As the
friends of Job thought Job was be-
ing punished by God because of his
sins, so in Jesus' day the vain and
blind Pharisees assumed that Jesus
was a sinner and blasphemer who
deserved to be punished (v. 4) .

Isaiah made it clear that all the ID;
suffering that Christ would endure
was for us (v. 5) . This is called vi-
carious suffering, i.e., one suffering
for another. What comes through sci
clearly in this passage is that it was l|!
our transgressions, our injustices in a
that brought Jesus low. »n
The only reason that Jesus had "Go

by

to suffer so is because of our sins.
We were disobedient to God. We
stubbornly went our own way which
led to death and hell. To save us;
God sent His Son to suffer the pun
ishment we deserved (v. 6) .

D. Death as God's Lamb (53:
7-9) . For a long time God had
been showing His people that one
must die for their sins. He hac
taught this first by the experience
of Abraham and Isaac on Mt. Mo
riah (Gen. 22) . There He plainh
showed Abraham that Isaac mus
die; then, in love, He gave the ran
as a substitute for Isaac

Abraham ended up offering tht
ram for Isaac; this is as plain as car
be. God taught here that He wouk

PAGE 14 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 21, 1973

provide the lamb for the burnt of-
fering. Thus, God gave to the act
of the sacrificial offering its real
meaning. Later God ordained that
lambs should be offered continually
on His altar to remind the people
over and over that another should
die for their sins (Lev. 1) .

Therefore, in the New Testament
when John the Baptist began to
prepare the way for Jesus' coming,
he pointed to Jesus and said, "Be-
hold the Lamb of God that taketh
away the sin of the world" (John
1:29). In this word, John was link-
ing all of the past sacrifices ever of-
fered by the people of God to the
very person of Jesus Christ.

In Isaiah, the Christ was described
as God's Lamb. Like the innocent
lamb described in Leviticus 1, the
Christ, sinless, without blemish,
would nevertheless be offered up
for the sins of God's people (vv. 7-
8) . He would die though He Him-
self had done nothing deserving of
death, either in the eyes of men or
in the eyes of God. Death comes be-
cause of sin. The Christ was inno-
cent (v. 9) .

Important to see here is that His
death was not just another death,
but was the death of God's Lamb.
It was the death of one who ought
not to have died. It was therefore
a substitutionary death.

E. Substitutionary atonement (53:
10-12). God made the death of
Christ an offering for sins, an offer-
ing that would once and for all pay
the full penalty for the sin of all
who believe on Him.

It is startling to read here that it
pleased the Lord to bruise Him (v.
10) . This sounds brutal at first, but
in actuality it is the greatest expres-
sion of God's love. As John says,
'God so loved the world that He
E*ave His only begotten Son" (John
3:16) . Paul adds, "God commend-
ed His own love toward us, in that,
while we were yet sinners, Christ
iied for us" (Rom. 5:8) .

God could not be pleased with
sinners' efforts (Isa. 1:11), but He
was pleased with Christ's work on
our behalf (53:10). It does not
teach that God was pleased that
Christ had to die, but He was most
3leased with Christ and with the
nission He fulfilled. God's pleasure
n Christ's death is wholly explained
n that God made His soul an offer-
ng for our sins (v. 10) .

God looked on His suffering death
md was pleased to forgive our sins
through Him (v. 11) . He was satis-

fied with the sacrificial love of Je-
sus Christ. Chist's love covered a
multitude of sins. Abraham was
reckoned righteous and justified in
God's sight not by his works, but
by his faith in God. This faith in
God is a faith that God will do what
is necessary for our salvation. God
did what is necessary when His Son
died for us. Therefore, by His
death He justified or made righ-
teous those who did put their trust
in Him.

This vivid prophecy of Christ's
death is a climax to the Old Testa-
ment teachings concerning the wages
of sin and the saving mercy of God.
Now we turn to the New Testament
to see how the promises were ful-
filled in the person of Jesus Christ.

II. THE ACCOUNT OF
CHRIST'S DEATH (Matt. 26:1-5,
26-29) . The night of Jesus' betrayal
and arrest two things swiftly devel-
oped. First, Jesus moved towards
the Passover feast with His disciples
to change the Old Testament sacra-
ment into a New Testament symbol
of His own death for His disciples
(26:2) . Secondly, the enemies of
Christ moved rapidly to climax their
hate of Him by arrest and execu-
tion (26:3-4).

Jesus' intent was to teach them
before the crucifixion how He was
that passover lamb whose death Is-
rael had been celebrating since the
Exodus. He was showing them that
He was actually to fulfill all that
Isaiah had before said about Him.

When He and His disciples did
actually sit down to that last Pass-
over, Jesus took the elements of the
Passover supper, the bread and the

cup, and showed that they in reality
pointed to His Body, broken and of-
fered up for their sins, and His
blood, shed to wash away their sins
(Matt. 26:26-29).

Thus, here very vividly Jesus
turned the Old Testament sacrament
into the New Testament sacrament
of the Lord's Supper! How mar-
velously He brought together in one
act the promise of the Old and the
fulfillment of the New Testaments.

In the meantime, the Pharisees,
living up to Isaiah's prediction con-
cerning them, totally rejected the
Christ of God and plotted success-
fully to carry out the death of Christ.
The 27th chapter of Matthew de-
scribes in terms ever so familiar to
us from Isaiah 53 how He was de-
spised, rejected and killed by sinful
men. Men could hardly believe that
this one was their Saviour. Yet as
Isaiah had foretold, He would suc-
ceed, He would be exalted, lifted
up. Matthew 28 tells that good
news.

With great boldness Peter grasped
this truth and declared how the one
so sinfully treated by the wicked
hands of wicked men was indeed or-
dained by God to die for our sins
(Acts 2:23) . Peter showed how both
the evil of evil men and the infinite
love of God are brought together in
the one account of the death of Je-
sus Christ. The plan of God's sal-
vation was accomplished.

III. THE MEANING OF
CHRIST'S DEATH (I Pet. 2:21-
25) . Because we have often heard
the liberals in the Church say the
primary purpose of Christ's death is
as an example for us, we are in dan-

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PAGE 15 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 21, 1973

ger of rejecting altogether the les-
son that He is indeed an example in
His life and death for us.

Certainly the primary purpose of
Christ's death, as Isaiah so vividly
brought out, was to redeem us from
sin and death. Peter knew this. In
fact, he went on to say in almost
the same words as Isaiah how Christ
died for our sins. Surely Peter must
have had Isaiah 53 before him as
he penned these words (vv. 22-25) .

But Peter also stressed that in His
suffering Jesus left us an example
of the love He expects to be shown
in our own lives. We are to walk

in Jesus' steps (v. 21) . After all,
Jesus died to make it possible for us
to live lives to God's glory. Unless
He died in vain, we should live, as
believers in Him, lives that are like
Christ's life. Of course we cannot be
perfect, but we must ever be striving
to love as He first loved us.

We may have to suffer though in-
nocent. We may have to be reviled
by men, and yet not revile back. We
may be mistreated and have to turn
the other cheek as He did. We can-
not bear the sins of others and pay
for their sins, but we can in this life
live lives that will point men to

YOUTH PROGRAM

Scripture: Revelation 3:14-22
Suggested Hymns:

"Give of Your Best to the
Master"

"True-Hearted, Whole- Hearted"
"Living for Jesus"

INTRODUCTION BY PRO-
GRAM CHAIRMAN: We are all
familiar with the promises in to-
day's advertising: Girls, if you use
our shampoo your hair will look
like the movie stars'. Men, do you
want to be irresistible to the opposite
sex? Then use our after-shave lo-
tion.

NEW for PHASE TWO
of KEY 73

Here is a 140 page Layman's
Guide to the Study of Luke

MESSAGE TO THEOPHILUS
Studies in Luke's Gospel

by Rev. Elbert M. Williamson

"This is one of the best commen-
taries on the Gospel of Luke that I
have ever read . . ." L. Nelson Bell

Order from:
FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
BROWNSVILLE, TENNESSEE
38012

$1.95 each; 5 copies or more,
$1.50 each

For April 8, 1973

Only Skin-Deep

Rev. Henry J. Mueller

The promises are empty. Oh, your
looks might improve, but usually
because you started taking better
care of yourself. There was noth-
ing magic in what you bought.

More important, these things will
not cause tremendous changes in
your personality. It is your person-
ality that determines your interrela-
tionships. The products you buy
may change your outward looks but
not what you are inside.

Christianity can also be only skin-
deep. Perhaps you know people
who come to church with an out-
ward show of piety, but inside are
empty of any love for God. Now
we are not talking about those cor-
rupt people who come to church
just to look religious, those who use
the image of a church attender to
improve their public image.

Rather, we are speaking of those
good people who think their church
attendance will put them right with
God. These are the ones who real-
ly believe the performance of reli-
gious duties will get them to heaven.
They wear their so-called Christian-
ity like a skintight disguise. The peo-
ple they fool the most are them-
selves.

FIRST SPEAKER: To this kind
of people Jesus sent the letter to
Laodicea. Jesus said, "I know you
well. You think you are model
Christians. But you are only fool-
ing yourselves. You are not an out-

Christ, who can save them. If Chris
tians will truly love one another anc
even their enemies, God will be glo
rified, and many through such ex
ample will come to believe in Jesu
Christ.

First and foremost Christ sufferec
and died for our sins to redeem usi
but by His whole life He also lef:
us a great example of how God':
child ought to walk and how hii
should love those who do not de
serve love but who need it. As Johi
said in his first epistle, "We love be
cause He first loved us" (I John 4
19). Q

and-out evil people. Neither are yoi
on fire for me. Because you ar>
neither hot nor cold, I will spew yoi
out of my mouth."

The word here for cold in th
Greek means icy cold. The wor<j
for hot means boiling hot. The
were lukewarm. Their brand o
Christianity brought only some typ
of outward morality. Their heart
were not touched.

The people in the Laodicea)
church thought everything was fin
They thought they were rich ant
didn't need a thing. They forge
that Jesus came to heal the sicl
They thought their self-righteou:
ness was sufficient to get them t
heaven. They were like the Phar
sees of Jesus' time on earth. Outsid
they appeared perfect. Inside the
were dead.

la

SECOND SPEAKER: Jesus sai
they were wretched, miserable, pooi
blind and naked. What a contras
this must have been to what the
thought! Laodicea was a city
great wealth. It was a banking cer
ter. Many of the people undoub
edly had plenty of this world
goods and money to buy more.

They had a famous medical scho(
where a medicine was produced t
cure an eye disease. The city ws
also the center for a clothing indu
try. Jesus said that in spite of the*
things, they were poor, blind an
naked. Truly they must have ui

PAGE 16 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 21, 1973

I

derstood these piercing words.

Jesus gave them this advice: "Buy
pure gold from me, gold purified
by fire — only then will you truly
be rich. And to purchase from me
white garments, clean and pure, so
you won't be naked and ashamed;
and to get medicine from me to heal
your eyes and give you back your
sight" (Rev. 3:18, The Living Bi-
ble.)

They thought they were rich, but
Jesus advised them to buy from
Him. The words from Isaiah seem
to be in mind here. "Ho, every one
that thirsteth, come ye to the wa-
ters, and he that hath no money;
come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come,
buy wine and milk without money
and without price . . . Thus saith
the Lord ... I the Lord have called
thee (referring to Jesus) . . . and
give thee for a covenant of the peo-
ple, for a light of the Gentiles; to
open the blind eyes . . . Come now,
and let us reason together, saith the
Lord: though your sins be as scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow;
though they be red like crimson,
they shall be as wool" (Isa. 55:1, 42:
5-7, 1:18).

Jesus is the one who gives riches
fthat moth and rust do not destroy.
He is the one who gives us spiritual
:yesight. It is His righteousness
that clothes us as a white robe in
God's sight.

THIRD SPEAKER: How do we
get all this? The same way the
Laodiceans did: by repentance and
faith. We are to turn from our in-
difference and become enthusiastic
about God. We are to turn away
from self and set our eyes on Jesus
Christ.

"Nothing in my hand I bring;
Simply to Thy cross I'll cling."
When we turn to Jesus in faith, we
nust do so with more than our in-
ellect. We are to invite Him into
jur lives. He wants to live in our
learts, in that part which is the
:enter of our lives. The cure for
kin-deep only Christianity is Christ
iving within us.

CONCLUSION BY PROGRAM
CHAIRMAN: (Close the meeting
jy having the group read aloud to-
gether the hymn "Just As I Am."
\s you finish ask if they would like
o invite Christ into their hearts.
Counsel and pray with those who do
ifter the meeting.)

BOOKS

IS THIS REALLY THE END? by
George C. Miladin. Mack Publ. Co.,
Cherry Hiil, N. J. Paper, 55 pp. $1.25.
Reviewed by the Rev. Dominic Aquila,
pastor, Stony Point Reformed Pres-
byterian Church, Richmond, Va.

This age is not only an age of
experience but one of speculation.
Hence, prophecy is very much "in"
with most Christians today. Evi-
dence the popularity of Hal Lind-
sey's The Late Great Planet Earth,
with over one million copies in
print. For the most part those
writing in the area of prophecy have
been dispensational in their out-
look.

George Miladin has done an ex-
cellent job of evaluating this trend.
Approaching his task with a con-
cern to correct, he has stayed away
from any personal defamation of
character. He has done those of us
who are not in the historic dispen-
sational school of thought a great
service in writing this book.

Basically, Miladin uses as his start-
ing point The Late Great Planet
Earth. In Part One he analyzes
Lindsey's method and message, dem-
onstrating their weaknesses. He
notes that dispensationalists make a
big point of being "literal," yet when
a test of literalness is applied uni-
formly to all the texts to which they
refer dispensationalism falls apart.

Miladin also shows how the view
of the great tribulation and a rap-
ture coupled with a time scheme of
seven years is invalid. He states,
"Instead of seven years of tribula-
tion the Word promises continuing
tribulation as a corollary of our
faith."

But Miladin does not only tear
down, he also builds up. In Part
Two he offers a positive reconstruc-

tion of "end time" truth. "The writ-
er is confident that there are glo-
rious eschatological certainties which
we will place at the very center of
our positive construction."

What are these certainties? The
fact that Jesus is coming again; that
since the time of Christ, we have
been living in the last days; that re-
vival and reformation on one hand
and decadence and decline on the
other are the two great characteris-
tics of this age; and that the attitude
of believers should be that of watch-
ing and working. Miladin then ends
with some mild speculation.

Because of the concise nature of
this book and its non-technical lan-
guage, it would be a good one to
place in the hand of a layman strug-
gling with the question of prophecy.
University students have been con-
fronted with — and in some cases
very much influenced by — Lind-
sey's book; they too would profit
from reading this book. By all means
you should get it.

George Miladin is a Reformed
Presbyterian minister from Canoga
Park, California. 51

FEED MY SHEEP, compiled and
edited by John H. Schaal. Baker Book
House, Grand Rapids, Mich. Paper,
162 pp. $1.95. Reviewed by Burt D.
Braunius, DCE, Mcllwain Memorial
Presbyterian Church, Pensacola, Fla.

This manual aims to "give guid-
ance and instruction in organizing
and conducting a successful Sunday
school." It is a book for Sunday
school teachers, superintendents and
leaders, and it is one of the few
written from a Reformed perspec-
tive.

Many aspects of Sunday school
work are dealt with. Among the

Closing Prayer.

m

FUNDAMENTALS OF THE FAITH

Edited by Carl F. H. Henry
$5.95 Postpaid

In an age when many are wondering just what Christianity signifies, these
expositions with their Scriptural fidelity will be welcomed by laymen and stu-
dents and will serve a high purpose.

Sharing in the effort of bringing together these essays, evangelical leaders
of distinction in a wide variety of vocational callings are represented. Philos-
ophers, theologians and authors unite their energies in a common witness to
crucial turning points of Christian faith.

Order from
THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL

Weaverville, N. C. 28787

PAGE 17 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 21, 1973

subjects covered are creative teach-
ing, understanding children, Sun-
day school evangelism, the Sunday
school superintendent, the Sunday
school teacher, the church library,
music in the Sunday school, and
visual aids.

The compiler of the book, John
H. Schaal, is dean and Bible teacher
at the Reformed Bible College and
past editor of Sunday school cur-
riculum materials for the Christian
Reformed Church. The chapters
were written by individuals with
specific interests and proficiency in
the subjects they treated. SI

A MESSAGE TO THE CHARIS-
MATIC MOVEMENT, by Larry Chris-
tenson. Bethany Fellowship, Inc.,
Minneapolis, Minn. Paper, 119 pp.
$.95. Reviewed by the Rev. Matthew
McGowan, pastor, Central Presbyte-
rian Church, Chattanooga, Tenn.

The author, a Lutheran minister,
did much of the work for this book
while he was spending a year of
study at the institute for Ecumenical
and Cultural Research, headed by
Dr. Kilian McDonnell, at College-
ville, Minnesota. The ecumenical
influence certainly shows in this
book as Mr. Christenson uses the ex-

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Since the opening of the first Belk-Simpson Store, it has been our
endeavor to be more in a community than just another merchant.
We have set forth a united consecrated effort, dedicated to the task
of securing superior quality merchandise, giving our customers a
better value than any other merchant.

SOUTH CAROLINA

Belk-Simpson Co.

Greenville, S. C.

J. A. Ellison, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson-Plaza Store

Greenville, S. C.

R. Grier Robinson Jr., Res.

The Dollar Store

Greenville, S. C.

R. P. Crumpler, Res. Mgr.

Belk's of Pleasantburg

Greenville, S. C.

A. M. Smith, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store
Lancaster, S. C.

B. L. Plyler, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store

Camden, S. C.

J. A. Hagins, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store

Clinton, S. C.

D. B. Smith, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.
Darlington, S. C.
Paul E. Broome, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store

Laurens, S. C.

David Middleton, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Abbeville, S. C.

J. S. Hagins, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Hagins Co.
Kershaw, S. C.

C. E. Hinson, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.
Easley, S. C.
R. J. Womack, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Beaufort, S. C.
Al Wilson, Res. Mgr.
Mar- Belk-Simpson Co.
Fountain Inn, S. C.

E. J. Copeland, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Woodruff, S. C.

F. B. Hagins, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Honea Path, S. C.

T. R. Martin, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Whitmire, S. C.

Clyde Smith, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Manning, S. C.

W. M. Gettys, Res. Mgr.

OHIO

Belk-Simpson Co.

Athens, Ohio

Joe Kelly, Res. Mgr.

MISSOURI

Belk-Simpson Co.

Carthage, Mo.

Charles Wilson, Res. Mgr.

OKLAHOMA

Belk Dept. Store
Miami, Oklahoma
J. T. Holmes, Res. Mgr.

NORTH CAROLINA

Belk-Simpson Co.

Hendersonville, N. C.

R. E. McCormack, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store

Brevard, N, C.

J. M. Felty, Res. Mgr.

KENTUCKY

Belk-Simpson Co.
Harlan, Ky.

Delmar Tolliver. Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.
Corbin, Ky.

W. C. Ashley, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Winchester, Ky.
T. L. Beckham, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

.11. Sterling, Ky.
Willoughby Smith, Res

Belk-Simpson Co.

Frankfort, Ky.

J. D. Prow, Res. Mgr.

GEORGIA

Belk-Simpson Co.

Bainbridge, Ga.

M. D. Ashley, Res. Mgr

ARKANSAS

Belk-Simpson Co.

Paragould, Ark.

W. H. Wade, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Osceola, Ark.

K. R. Cline, Res. Mgr.

Mt

Mgr

These stores are a small part of the entire Belk or-
ganization and have been in existence approximately
50 years. The Belk stores were launched in 1886-88.

SEE THE MANAGER NEAREST YOU FOR CHURCH CARPET, ROBES, ETC.

ample of the 19th-century Catholi
Apostolic Church (the Irvingites)
to draw lessons for today's charis
matic renewal. This interesting bi
of historical insight will be a nev
revelation to many.

The message in this book is basi
cally simple, yet important. The au
thor is concerned to point out tha
charismatic power and the institu
tional Church are not incompatible
but rather necessary for one anoth
er's full health and place in God'
plan.

Mr. Christenson applies his mes
sage to those involved in the charis
matic renewal as well as those in po
sitions of Church authority who an
not yet involved. To the first grouj
he counsels a respect for structurt
and authority, to the second 9
counsels the need for strong, positive
spiritual leadership, so that th<
charismatic renewal can bear frui
for the whole Church. He warn
the one against the divisiveness tha
comes from enthusiasm and the oth
er of the divisiveness that flow
from pastoral fear or neglect.

Many sections of this book an
worthy to be quoted, but the fol
lowing is one that meant a great dea
to me. "When a person's religious ex
perience is at best tolerated, or a
worst outlawed, one can hardly ex
pect to see healthy spiritual growtl
and development. Church official

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PAGE 18 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 21, 1973

must recognize their own measure
of responsibility for some of the un-
wholesome developments of the
charismatic movement, for they have
in too many cases abdicated respon-
sible and caring leadership ....

"Church leaders who try to sweep
the charismatic movement under the
I rug with one hand cannot in good
■ conscience point with the other
hand at the divisiveness which it
seems to cause ... By failing to ex-
| ercise effective leadership, which
could lead to a wholesome integra-
tion of the charismatic movement
into the life of the Church, they have
allowed their people to come 'disor-
dered by default.' "

He cites from his own parish in
California many examples which
would be helpful for any ruling or
teaching elders to read. This book is
brief and is easily read by laymen
and ministers alike. It is a very wor-
thy piece of material to be added
to the rapidly growing amount of
material which is being written
about this exciting and growing
movement of spiritual renewal. EE

THE NEW GENETICS AND THE
FUTURE OF MAN, Michael Hamil-
ton, editor. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publ.
Co., Grand Rapids, Mich. 242 pp.
$3.95. Reviewed by Richard T. Bell,
Knoxville, Tenn.

Quite often a book comes on the
market that should be read and
studied by all Christians. This is
not such a book. However, if one
wishes to obtain a view of where the
gods of science are taking us, this
work offers such a vista.

If one is unfamiliar with concepts
if test-tube babies, gene therapy,
ibortion, genetic engineering, clon-
ng, etc., this book will provide in-
ight into these areas. Many of the
echnical, legal, moral and ethical
ispects of the subject are covered
ay outstanding men in their fields.
(Unfortunately, none seem to be out-
tanding in the subject of Christian
heology, for what is missing is, of

course, God's perspective on the sub-
ject.

The nearest acknowledgment that
the Christian viewpoint should be
considered in coming decisions seems
to be the following: "Perhaps the
Christian doctrine of creation . . .
does make the Church especially
concerned about the value of hu-
man life." To this quote the re-
viewer would say "Amen." El

COMMUNION MEDITA-
TION AND PRAYERS, by J. Harold
Gwynne, Zondervan Publ. House,
Grand Rapids, Mich. 103 pp. $2.95.
Reviewed by the Rev. E. Crowell
Cooley, pastor, Calvary Presbyterian
Church, Norfolk, Va.

This little volume can serve well
as a stimulator of thoughts for mes-
sages for communion service. The
author has given us 25 very brief
messages and has included some
beautiful prayers, all of which can
fertilize our thinking and prepara-
tion for Bible studies in connection
with these special worship services.
The messages are thoughtful and
thought provoking and will be
found helpful to any reader. El

WANTED: TWO NURSES for service at a
modern hospital in Ethiopia under the Or-
thodox Presbyterian Church. Excellent
living conditions. Salary plus travel and
other allowances. Qualifications: R.N.,
good knowledge of Scripture, commit-
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application write to the Committee on
Foreign Missions, 7401 Old York Road,
Philadelphia, PA 19126.

Qradijatipn
Gift Bookg

REPRINT AVAILABLE

Modern Religious Liberalism

by John Horsch

Hardbound, 316 pages
Price $4.95

Order from:
The Sword and Trumpet

P. O. Box 575
Harrisonburg, Va. 22801

CANADIAN MINISTER

Would like to serve a conservative congregation in the South for 4 weeks during
the month of July or August, either by exchanging parsonage and pulpit with
another minister, or by serving a vacant congregation in preaching.

For name, theological education, convictions, family information and references, write to:

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Box 271, St. Thomas, Ontario, Canada

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Order from:
THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL
Weaverville, N. C. 28787

PAGE 19 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 21, 1973

The Devil— from p. 10

It is a great comfort to a Chris-
tian. So what if the devil is real
and busy? God has promised that
Jesus is much more powerful, that
He can accomplish even more, and
greater by far is Jesus than the devil.
In fact, Jesus came into the world
for this reason — to destroy the
works of the devil (I John 3:8) .

Satan caused all of our trouble by
bringing sin into the world, by re-
belling against the powers of heav-
en. He would love to corrupt ev-
eryone and he would, except for one
thing.

Jesus Christ, the Son of God, en-
tered into the mainstream of history,
clothing Himself in human flesh He
lived without sin, dying on the cross
so that you might be forgiven, so

that He might break the chains of
sin that enslave us, so that He might
crush the power of Satan.

When Jesus rose from the grave
the devil was a beaten enemy. "Oh,
death, where is thy sting? O, grave,
where is thy victory?" Gone! Gone!
Gone! Because of what Jesus has
done. That is the great Chris-
tian message. God has conquered
through Jesus Christ, the Son, who
died but now forever lives to make
intercession for us.

One day the devil and those who
are his helpers shall be punished
forever, but if we believe in Jesus,
we will be more than a conqueror.
If we believe in Jesus, we can look
our own times straight in the eye
and not fear, because the power of
God is with us and the influence of
Christ is stronger in us and in the

world than that of the devil him-
self.

Trust in Jesus. Walk His way
and know that God will make you
more than a conqueror now and
forever. SI

Layman— from p. 13

tian men and women.

These programs fill a definite
need. They are a vitally important
aspect of a church's Christian educa-
tion ministry. I speak on behalf of
a congregation which has been
blessed because of them. For more
information please write to: Chris-
tian Service Brigade, 380 Schmale
Road, Box 150, Wheaton, 111. 60187;
or Pioneer Girls, Box 788, Wheaton,
111. 60187. IB

The Lord Is Coming — Evangelize Acts 1:11

EVANGELISM CONFERENCE

sponsored by Presbyterian Evangelistic Fellowship
ADDRESSES

Montreat, North Carolina August 9-14, 1973

THE BIBLE HOUR

DR. EDMUND CLOWNEY
President, Westminster
Theological Seminary
Philadelphia, Pa.

DR. ROBERT RAYBURN
President, Covenant
Theological Seminary
St. Louis, Mo.

REV. FRANK BARKER
Pastor, Briarwood
Presbyterian Church
Birmingham, Ala.

REV. DONALD DUNKERLY
Pastor, Mcllwain
Presbyterian Church
Pensacola, Fla.

Subsequent ads In the Journal will present the Youth Program and the leaders.
In this ad we wish to list for you the MAIN ADDRESS speakers, THE BIBLE
HOUR leader and THE MUSIC PROGRAM

DR. C. DARBY FULTON
Former Exec. Sec,
Board of World
Missions, PCUS
Nashville, Tenn.

DR. VANCE HAVNER

Baptist Pastor,
Author & Evangelist
Greensboro, N. C.

REV. ONESIMUS J. RUNDUS
Pastor, Olivet
Presbyterian Church
Evansville, Ind.

For Evangelism Conference brochures clip this coupon and mail to

PRESBYTERIAN EVANGELISTIC FELLOWSHIP
P. O. Box 808
Hopewell, Virginia 23860

Name

Address

City and state

-Zip-

Please send me-

-Evangelism Conference brochures.

REV. JACK SCOTT
Reformed Theological
Seminary
Jackson, Miss.

MUSIC PROGRAM

REV. INER BASINGER
International
Gospel Singer and

Song Leader
Parkersburg, W. Va.

MRS. INER BASINGER
Parkersburg, W. Va.

MRS. REUBEN WALLACE
Laurens, S. C.

PAGE 20 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 21, 1973

VOL. XXXI, NO. 48

MARCH 28, 1973

$4.00 A YEAR

the

Advocating continuation of a Presbyterian Church loyal

to Scripture and the Reformed faith

A Mistaken Notion

One of the greatest misconceptions of our times is the no-
tion that verbal inspiration was the invention of 17th century
orthodox theologians. It was a doctrine held in highest reverence
by the early Church, taught by apostolic authority. The 17th
century theologians earned the name "orthodox" because they
believed that this was so, that holy Scripture was the proper
and only base for doctrine, that it was Scriptural to contend for
the true faith against all false teachings, and that Scripture was
its own best interpreter, a principle Luther supported against
all opponents of the Reformation.

The charge that these men held to a mechanical theory of
inspiration is wholly without support and rises from superfi-
cial knowledge of their writings or, worse still, deliberate falsi-
fication. The fact is that they were much deeper, more bal-
anced, more consistent, more loyal to Scripture itself than any
of the modern reductionists who rip Scripture apart. Moreover,
it has never been shown that faith in Scripture's own doctrine
of inspiration is somehow inhibiting or Spirit-defeating.

— E. F. Klug

in Christianity Today

S. S. LESSON AND YOUTH PROGRAM FOR APRIL 15

5H0D

VI^.LZ OK IITH ladteup
OK jo Xq-ISti © a "fun

p

MAI LB AG-

THIS IS THE QUESTION

The same week you ran the ar-
ticle by William E. Hill Jr., "The
Man God Did Not Use," concerning
Lot's unwillingness to leave Sodom,
I heard Dr. Gutzke preach in Dallas,
persuasively, that if one is on a sink-
ing ship, he should get off.

Mr. Hill did not compare PCUS
with Sodom and Dr. Gutzke did not

say that PCUS was a sinking ship.

Yet, after reading Mr. Hill's ar-
ticle and after hearing Dr. Gutzke
preach, I found myself wondering
whether or not it is right for faith-
ful members of PCUS to remain as-
sociated with it.

While pondering this, I received,
belatedly, the January issue of The
Open Letter, a publication of the

the

PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL

Rev. G. Aiken Taylor, Ph.D., Editor
Rev. Henry B. Dandy, D.D., Managing Editor
Timothy Belz, Assistant Editor

Circulation leader among independent publications in the Presbyterian-Reformed world

THIS WEEK— Vol. XXXI, No. 48, March 28, 1973

The Pueblo Bible 7

Bible portions written on toilet paper were instrumental in
sustaining the Pueblo crew By Harold Heifer

The All-Seeing One 8

We often act as though our God is like the heathen gods who
cannot see or hear By Cecil E. Burridge

Stripped, Wounded, Left Half Dead 10

A testimony of God's working in the inner city of New
Orleans By Ben Wilkinson

De partments —

Editorials 1 2

The Layman and his Church 13

Sunday School Lesson, April 15 14

Youth Program, April 15 16

Book Reviews 17

THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL, a

Presbyterian weekly magazine, devoted
to the statement, defense, and propa-
gation of the Gospel, the faith which
was once for all delivered to the saints,

is published every Wednesday by the
Southern Presbyterian Journal Co.,
Inc., in Weaverville, N. C.

SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: $4 a year
for individuals, $3 for members of
Every Family Plan churches. All cor-
respondence regarding subscriptions,
advertising or other business matters
should be addressed to the business
office in Weaverville, N. C. 28787.
Second class postage paid at Weaver-
ville, N. C. 28787. "

POSTMASTER: Send Form 3579 to
Presbyterian Journal, Box 635, Weav-
erville, N. C. 28787. Subscribers
should allow three weeks for change
of address in continental U. S. Change
of address notices should include both
old and new addresses (with zip
codes) .

NEWS AND EDITORIAL correspond-
ence should be addressed to P. 0. Box
3108, Asheville, N. C. 28802. Editorial
offices located at 247 Charlotte St. in
Asheville.

TELEPHONES: (All area 704) edi-
torial office, 254-4015, 254-4016;
business office, 645-3310, 645-3962.

Covenant Fellowship of Presbyte
rians. It contained a reprint of the
article, "The Debacle of Liberalism,"
which suggests that liberalism in
churches is about to die out, because
people are wise to the fact that the
liberal theologian offers not hope,
but despair.

I then quit pondering. PCUS is
not at all like Sodom. Most PCUS
members I know are sincere believ-
ers. Those in positions of control
are not speaking for them. I am
not personally acquainted with many
of those in strategic leadership posi-
tions, and I do not want to doubt
their sincerity. However, it seems
that in their frantic efforts to make
it appear that PCUS is a sinking
ship, so that all who will not follow
them blindly will jump off, they
have busted the plumbing in the
ship and are pouring water into the
ship through the fire hoses. Plumb-
ing can be repaired and the fire
hoses can be turned off.

PCUS has not yet abandoned the
belief in the Bible as the inspired
Word of God; it has not yet cast
aside the Westminster Confession of
Faith; it has not yet merged with an-
other organization which would re-
sult in unacceptable changes in its
form of government.

Don't get me wrong. I would not
hesitate to leave a Sodom. I would
quickly abandon a ship which is
sinking. However, I cannot help
but wonder whether or not there
may be appearing an answer to the
prayers of so many who have been
praying that PCUS may be purified;
that the liberal, divisive forces would
be quieted, and that the effective
witness of PCUS would be preserved.

Can it be that the liberals have
just about had their day and that
the day is approaching when PCUS
can get on with its proper business
of preaching the Gospel and baptiz-
ing in the name of the Father, the
Son and the Holy Spirit?

— Jonathan H. Allen
Lancaster, Tex.

This is indeed the question. For one
answer, see p. 12, this issue. — Ed.

TIME TO DROP OUT?

Honor and propriety require that
anyone who is planning to leave the
Presbyterian Church in the U. S.
shall immediately demit his com-
mission to the 113th General Assem-
bly.

Men committed to high standards
of personal life and church govern-
ment will realize that it would be

K

It

tip:

fill

neither honest nor decorous to un-
dertake to influence by voice and
vote the decisions of an Assembly
which they do not intend to support
with cooperation and cash.

— Averill Gouldy
Fort Worth, Tex.

We agree heartily with the silver-
tongued "Miss Commissioner" of two
Assemblies that it would be incongru-
ous for supporters of the Continuing
Church to attend an Assembly in the
hope of influencing its decisions. For
several years most have done their
duty not expecting to accomplish that,
but ralher, in the spirit of Him who
said, "Occupy til I come," in order to
bear a testimony to the Gospel until
the separation inevitably comes. — Ed.

MINISTERS

Joseph F. Condro from Charlotte,
N. C, to the Adelphi, Md.,
church.

Allen H. Craft from Houston,
Tex., to the First Church, Sugar-
land, Tex., as associate pastor.
John B. Danhof from graduate
study to the Northridge church,
Dallas, Tex.

James F. Dickenson, Athens, Ga.,
is now coordinator of the new
Synod "G" (South Carolina and
Georgia) .

James A. Marrow Jr., from Arling-
ton, Tex., to the Ridglea church,
Fort Worth, Tex., as associate pas-
tor.

James E. Foster, former assistant
pastor of the Northridge church,
Dallas, Tex., is engaged in a spe-
cial ministry to juveniles through
the division of special ministries
of the Presbytery of the Covenant.
Charles William McNatt, received
from the Southern Baptist Con-
vention, to the First Church,
Gladewater, Tex. He is also direc-
tor of Sabine Valley Larger Par-
ish.

John C. Robertson, Oklahoma
City, Okla., is serving as temporary
supply of the Eastminster church,
Del City, Okla.

Ronald W. Smith from Baytown,
Tex., to the First Church, Joliet,
111.

ACROSS THE EDITOR'S DESK

• One of the more successful inno-
vations in the Journal has been
"The Layman and his Church" on
the editorial pages of each issue.
Not only have laymen with outstand-
ing writing talent come forward,
there have been so many contribu-
tions that it has been no problem
keeping the column going — and in-
teresting. As the situation in the
Church enters a new phase, there
must be lots of you valued readers
(J eager to say something. So let's have
jlit. Anything you want to get off
S your mind. The message should be
is typed, double-spaced and in about
!-|650 words.

tj • From The Standard of the Bap-
jtist General Conference, we learn
: that Evangelist Jack Wyrtzen has
urged the Rev. Dale Lind of St. Pe-
ter's Lutheran Church, New York
City, to repent of blasphemous re-
marks Lind made on a TV talk
show. On the show, the minister
invited comic Henny Youngman to
] visit a pub where Lind is a barten-
,: Jer. Youngman reportedly replied,
"Do you have some special drink
which will let me see the light?" Lind
is said to have retorted, "How about
some Scotch on the Rock of Ages?"
Wyrtzen wrote to the cleric: "May
I remind you, sir, that God com-
mands, 'Thou shalt not take the

name of the Lord thy God in vain.' "
He added a warning from Habak-
kuk 2:15: "Woe to him that giveth
his neighbor drink, that puttest thy
bottle to him and makest him
drunken."

• Maybe that kind of respect for
the Almighty has something to do
with the phenomenal growth among
Baptists when some Churches are di-
minishing in strength and numbers.
Last year the Southern Baptist Con-
vention passed the 12 million mem-
ber mark and contributions went
over $1 billion. (Twelve years ago
there wasn't a single Southern Bap-
tist congregation in California. To-
day there are over 800 churches and
more than a quarter million mem-
bers in California.) Southern Bap-
tists also reported a quarter million
more baptisms than were reported
a year ago.

• Presbyterians who meditate up-
on such figures as those above need
to ask the Lord for special humility
to make whatever application may
be necessary. This week we heard
from an esteemed brother who was

taking us severely to task for indi-
cating support of Key 73. "That
isn't the kind of Biblical evan-
gelism that honors the Lord," he pro-
tested. We looked up his record as
a pastor in the Assembly's Minutes.
For two years, no professions of
faith, not one received into the
church by transfer, and an overall
loss of four. But he says he doesn't
intend to have anything to do with
Key 73 because it isn't Biblical. We
look at it this way: We remember
world missions during the World
Missions Season, though we have lit-
tle respect for the Board of World
Missions. We celebrate the rising of
the Lord at Easter, though the day
means something else for others.
And we promote a day of prayer
at the time of the World Day of
Prayer, though we reject the ma-
terial offered by the National
Council of Churches. So we intend
to emphasize evangelism this year.
And if all the debate should prompt
the brother who wrote us to go out
and win one soul to the Lord, he
will be supporting Key 73 too. IB

PAGE 3 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 28, 1973

NEWS OF RELIGION

p

WCC Meeting Attacks U.S. "Domination'

AGUAS BUENAS, P.R.— Puerto Ri-
co should be supported in its "long
struggle for independence" from ec-
onomic and cultural domination by
the U. S. That was the opinion of
a group of 70 theologians, political
scientists, educators, social scientists
and economists called here by the
World Council of Churches.

"Power and Development" was the
theme of the meeting, which also
pledged support for the United Farm
Workers of Cesar Chavez and prom-
ised not to buy iceberg lettuce which
had not been picked by members of
the U. F. W. The gathering was
sponsored by the WCC's Commis-
sion on the Churches' Participation
in Development.

A presentation on the case for
Puerto Rican independence was
made by a team led by Prof. Antonio
Lauria and Prof. Alberto Morales
of the University of Puerto Rico.
They were assisted by Catholic Bish-
op Antulio Parrilla-Bonilla, a for-
mer auxiliary in Caguas who has no
current assignment, a Methodist pas-
tor and an Episcopal priest.

Puerto Rico was chosen for study
as a "perfect example" of growth
without development in the context
of what Prof. Lauria called an al-
most total economic and cultural de-
pendence on the U. S.

Frenchman Jacques Beaumont,
vice-chairman of the World Council

commission on development and co-
chairman of the consultation, said
the meeting sought "ways and means
of political action for social change."
He said Church action to change so-
ciety is "essential if the Christian
message is to have any meaning in
the world today."

He warned that advocates of
change will continue to pressure the
power structures and "raise the
awareness of the Christian commun-
ity concerning, for example, opera-
tions of giant multi-national cor-
porations and the complicity of the
established Churches in their exploi-
tation of the Third World."

'Unscrupulous Elements'

Mr. Beaumont also accused "un-
scrupulous elements in the establish-
ment, including the Church estab-
lishment, of trying to sabotage the
consultation and ecumenical move-
ment which threatened their vested
interests."

A staff member of the National
Council of Churches' Corporate In-
formation Center presented an an-
alysis of General Electric as an "ex-
ample" of a multi-national corpora-
tion which acts "against the concept
of development" and practices a "de-
humanizing philosophy."

GE was accused of undermining
collective bargaining in the U. S.

THE CHURCH OVERSEAS

HONG KONG — The Christian
and Missionary Alliance has a stra-
tegic work among students and
young people in this gateway to Red
China through a year round camp-
ing program.

In this strategic area of the world,
the Year of the Ox was heralded in
the usual Lion dances and the shoot-
ing of fire crackers. The popula-
tion has been exceptionally happy
due to the years of peace and the
fact that Big Brother China has
been smiling in this direction.

In this jovial setting, the latest

camping experience has been espe-
cially exciting. About 56 young
people registered for a three-day
evangelism training seminar. In the
practical sessions the conferees went
out witnessing into the local area.

Some 293 people were contacted
during the three days; of these, 132
decisions were handed in to the
camp office.

God be praised. As a result of this
experience, the Easter season has
been taken to schedule another semi-
nar effort. — A letter from the Rev.
John H. Bechtel. IB

and Puerto Rico, strengthening apar-
theid (racial separation) in South
Africa, exploiting cheap labor in
Mexico and Singapore, extracting
high profits, and trying to evade na-
tional and international laws. EE

Evangelicals Hit
Delegate Selection

AGUAS BUENAS, P.R.— The Evan-
gelical Council of Puerto Rico says
delegates for the World Council of
Churches meeting here were chosen
arbitrarily, and included "leftists"
not representative of the denomina-
tions in the Evangelical Council

The Rev. Antonio Rivera Rodri-
guez, executive secretary of the evan-
gelical group, criticized the WCC
sponsored resolution support-
ing Puerto Rican independence. II
the conference saw the Puerto Ri-
can commonwealth arrangement
with the U. S. as "political imperial
ism," said he, then the WCC meet
ing represented "religious imperial
ism."

The Evangelical Council has eighl
denominational members: Presbyte
rian, United Methodist, Baptist
Mennonite, Disciples of Christ, Sal
vation Army, Brethren and United
Evangelical. E

World Church Leaders
Issue Congress Call

LAUSANNE, Switzerland (MNS)
— Organizers of the 1974 Interna
tional Congress on World Evangeli
zation have released the official Con
gress Call and declared their pur
pose. The call, signed by 14!
Church leaders from many parts o
the world, declares that among it
purposes the Congress is "to pre
claim the Biblical basis of evan
gelism in a day of theological con
fusion."

As another of its ten items of pui
pose the Congress is committed "t<
pray together for world evangeliz;
tion in this century, asking that th
Congress may contribute significan
ly to this end."

Bishop Jack Dain of Sydney, Au:
tralia, executive chairman of th
Congress planning committee, sai
in releasing the call: "We war
Churches in every country to appn

PAGE 4 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 28, 1973

date the widespread consultation
and reasoning behind the decision
to hold a congress on reaching the
world for Jesus Christ."

"In bringing 3,500 participants to
an international congress we are
anxious that they should each ob-
tain the maximum benefit from it,"
Dain said. "This Congress will em-
phasize 'a servant Church proclaim-
ing a sovereign Lord to all men, by
all means, in our time!' We believe
this is the task God has called us to
fulfill until He comes again."

"It has become unpopular to em-
phasize the proclamation of the
Gospel and we want to clarify God's
unique message to the world in Je-
sus Christ in such a way that Chris-
tians everywhere will be encouraged
to take fresh initiatives in evan-
gelism," Dain added.

Staff appointments for the Con-
gress have been announced by Bish-
op Dain. The following have been
designated as senior staff to join the
Congress director, Dr. Donald Hoke,
in Congress planning; Mr. Paul E.
Little, associate director for pro-
gram; Dr. Victor Nelson, associate
director for participants; and Mr.
Warwick Olson, director of com-
munications. (Persons interested in
additional information or a copy of
the Congress Call may write: Inter-
national Congress on World Evan-
gelization, Box 225, Lausanne 1001,
Switzerland.) IB

Former Anglican Head
Attacks WCC 'Salvation'

TORONTO — Conservative church-
es will withdraw their support of
the World Council of Churches un-
less it moves away from policies
which equate salvation with social
justice, says a former executive of-
ficer of the World Anglican Com-
munion.

Archbishop Ralph Dean of Brit-
ish Columbia issued his warning to
the National Executive Council of
the Anglican Church of Canada. He
was making a report on the WCC-
sponsored "Salvation Today" con-
ference held in Bangkok the end of
last year.

The archbishop said he found the
Bangkok conference "frustrating,"
and complained that when Dr. Phil-

ip Potter, head of the WCC, speaks
of salvation, "he leaves the Bible be-
hind after 10 minutes. . . ."

Among his reflections upon Bang-
kok, he said, were that a church
seems to grow best in an un-
structured situation and that growth
is related to study of the Scriptures.

It is startling, he noted, that so
often a church begins to grow when
foreign support is cut off. That is
the case in Burma, where the church
is strong and healthy despite re-
ceiving no missionary aid, he said.

The archbishop said such situa-
tions made him wonder whether
"we've been giving money and men
in the right way." SI

Portland Will Host
31st NAE Convention

WHEATON, 111. — "Loved, We
Will Love" is the theme of the 31st
Annual Convention of the National
Association of Evangelicals which
will convene at the Portland Hilton,
Portland, Ore., May 1-3.

Representatives of some 36,000
churches from 33 denominations, in-
dependent bodies and numerous
evangelical organizations will meet
in devotional, workshop and busi-
ness sessions. The 1973 theme calls
attention to Christ's sacrificial love
as the motivation for Christians to
demonstrate a ministry of love to a
deprived world.

Variations of the theme will be
the focus of major addresses during
the three-day convention. Speakers
include Dr. Lloyd T. Anderson, pas-
tor of Bethany Baptist Church, West
Covina, Cal., Dr. Myron F. Boyd,
bishop of the Free Methodist Church
and president of NAE; Dr. Dave
Breese, president of Christian Des-
tiny, Inc.

Also, the Rev. Stuart Briscoe, pas-
tor of Elmbrook Church, Brooks-
field, Wis.; the Rev. Bob Harrison,
evangelist, San Francisco; the Rev.
Ray Smith, general superintendent
of the Open Bible Standard Church-
es; and Dr. Clyde W. Taylor, gen-
eral director of NAE and interna-
tional secretary of the World Evan-
gelical Fellowship.

In seminar and workshop sessions,
NAE's commissions and affiliates
will provide practical help from rec-

ognized authorities in the areas of
evangelism, higher education, mis-
sions, church extension, evangelical
action, laymen's work, social con-
cern, radio and television, chap-
laincy, world relief and youth.

Eighty-two exhibitors from all
phases of Christian ministry and
service will be on hand to give dele-
gates a firsthand look at new ma-
terials and developments. IB

School Board Does Not
Want Free Scriptures

TOWSON, Md. — An offer by the
Gideons to hand out Bibles to school
children here has been turned down
by the county's school board.

The board concurred with su-
perintendent Joshua R. Wheeler,
who said it would be inappropriate
for the county to participate in the
distribution of Bibles offered by the
Gideons. He cited various Supreme
Court decisions.

A spokesman for the Gideons said
that his group has distributed ap-
proximately two million Bibles to
school children since 1946.

"We really feel that this is a de-
terrent to juvenile crime, to delin-
quency, and to drugs," he said. IB

Kesler Is Chosen As
YFC's Sixth President

WHEATON, 111. — Jay Kesler was
elected the sixth president of Youth
for Christ International at the or-
ganization's annual convention in
Portland, Ore. He is 37 years old.

He succeeds Dr. Sam Wolgemuth,
58, who after holding the office for
eight years was named the first full-
time chairman of YFC's board.

"I'm the first person to serve as
president who is a product of this
ministry," claims Kesler. He adds
he "might be . . . blowing a saxa-
phone in the . . . dance band right
now," had it not been for a group
of YFC students who prayed for
him when he was in high school.

Four YFC board members who
were returned to office were Evan-
gelist Billy Graham; Congressman
John B. Anderson (R.-Ill.) ; Ken
Gunderson, Des Plaines, 111.; and
Fred Smith, Dallas, Tex.

PAGE 5 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 28, 1973

New board members are William
Shipley, a Philadelphia business-
man; Prof. Richard Osborne of
Case Western Reserve University,
Cleveland; Richard Benware, a mo-
tel-hotel developer and travel agen-
cy owner from Wheaton, 111.; and
Ken Hopper, a Fresno, Calif., real
estate businessman. IB

Korean Choir Tour To
Help Other Children

VALLEY FORGE, Pa. — In an un-
usual gesture of international Chris-
tian solidarity, a Korean singing
group will tour the U. S. on behalf
of children in Vietnam and Bang-
ladesh.

The Moo Goong Hwa Korean Or-
phan Girls' Chorale will tour the
U. S. during the month of May to
assist the World Relief Commission
in fund raising for children at the
Hoa Khanh Children's Hospital in
Vietnam and the under-age-five nu-
tritional clinics in Bangladesh.

The 30-day, 15-state tour will start
at the annual convention of the Na-
tional Association of Evangelicals in
Portland, Ore., on May I. (WRC
is the overseas relief arm of NAE.)
They will make appearances at many
churches, the Pentagon, the White
House and some historic shrines.

The girls, who sing in both Eng-
lish and Korean, come from the
Kwang Tan Orphanage located a
few miles south of the Korean DMZ.
The home cares for 70 children, and
it has been supported by several
American agencies, including the
U. S. military, Oriental Missionary
Society, World Vision, and WRC. IS

West to Be Inaugurated
At Arkansas College

BATESVILLE, Ark. — Dr. Dan C.
West, the youngest college president
in Arkansas at age 33, will be in-
augurated as the 14th president of
Arkansas College Thursday, April
12, in ceremonies which are a part
of the college's centennial celebra-
tion.

Dr. West assumed duties as presi-
dent Aug. 1, 1972, after serving as
Coordinator of Research and Devel-
opment at Austin College in Sher-
man, Texas. He replaced Dr. R. W.
Wygle who resigned in July 1972,
to become president of Northwest-
ern State College in Alva, Okla.

Dr. West was born in Galveston,
Texas and attended public schools

in Dallas. A 1962 graduate of Aus-
tin College, he attended the U. S.
Naval Academy for three years.

He received the Bachelor of Di-
vinity degree from Union Theologi-

cal Seminary in Richmond, Va. and
was awarded the Doctor of Divinity
degree by Vanderbilt University in
1969. He has held a pastorate in
Smyrna, Tenn. II

THE CHURCH AT HOME

PCUS Benevolences Are
Down By 27 Per Cent

ATLANTA — Benevolence giving
to the General Assembly of the Pres-
byterian Church US is dribbling in
at a significantly lower rate than it
was a year ago.

By March 10 of last year, almost
17 per cent of the $9 million plus
budget had been received by the As-
sembly's agencies. By the same time
this year, only about 12 per cent of
the slightly larger budget for 1973
had been received.

In terms of actual dollars and
cents, receipts through March 10,
1973 were $413,978.22 less than for
the same period in 1972. That rep-
resents a decrease, despite higher al-
locations in the 1973 budget, of al-
most 27 per cent.

The pinch is felt, of course,
among General Assembly agencies.
The Board of World Missions, for
instance, is suffering a $200,000 de-
crease in its allocation from the Cen-
tral Treasurer. Projected over the
entire year, that could amount to
more than $1,000,000. I!

Joint Meeting Agrees On
Mission Relations, Work

BRASILIA — Representatives from
the PCUS and from the Presbyterian
Church of Brazil have recommend-
ed a new plan for regulating mis-
sionary cooperation between the two
Churches. The recommendation con-
cluded a consultation held here in
February.

The proposed plan will be sub-
mitted to the Executive Committee
of the Brazilian Church and to the
Board of World Missions of the
PCUS for final approval. It calls
for the creation of a permanent com-
mission composed of six representa-
tives from each Church to direct
missionary activities in Brazil.

General guidelines for the co-
operative work between the two
Churches are included in the plan.

According to the proposed timeta-
ble, the organizational meeting of
the permanent commission would
be held before June 1.

While governing the missionary
activities undertaken jointly by the
two Churches, the plan recognizes
that each Church shall have the free-
dom to cooperate with other Chris-
tian groups and agencies not includ-
ed in the plan.

The PCUS was represented at the
consultation by 12 persons: three
members of the Board of World
Missions, three BWM staff persons,
and six Brazil missionaries.

The Rev. G. Thompson Brown of
Korea, director-elect of the Division
of International Mission of the Gen-
eral Executive Board, attended the
consultation as an observer.

The PCUS currently has 130 mis-
sionaries serving in Brazil. IB

Atlanta School Uses
Five Area Churches

ATLANTA — The Atlanta School
of Biblical Studies does not have its
own building, but meets during the
week in five Atlanta-area Presbyte-
rian churches, and offers education-
al opportunities to Christian laymen
who want to become better quali
fied lay workers.

The school, which began its
spring quarter March 19, offers 14
courses in Bible, Christian educa
tion, evangelism, missions and theol-
ogy. Anyone completing all 14
courses and passing all the exami
nations is awarded a certificate as a
day worker.

Most of the two-hour classes are
held on Monday and Thursday eve-
nings, but several are taught on
weekday mornings.

The school's professors are Atlan
ta-area ministers. In its second yeai
of operation, the school has an en
rollment of over 100.

Headquarters for the school art
at the Smyrna Presbyterian Church
740 Bank Street, Smyrna, Ga. m

PAGE 6 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 28, 1973

I

A side of the Pueblo story that is not generally known —

The Pueblo Bible

The Bible undoubtedly is print-
ed in more forms than any
other book. It has come out in all
sorts of typographies and styles and
in a multitude of languages and dia-
lects, but it remained for the U. S.
Navy men to produce the most un-
usual Bible of all.

It was done on toilet paper.
Desecration was not at all intend-
ed. In fact, a lieutenant commander
says that more than anything else it
"salvaged" 82 Navy men and kept
them from going to pieces.

'Umbo and Hell'

The Bible is a little known facet
of the Pueblo incident, but five
years afterwards Lt. Cmdr. Stephen
R. Harris best remembers that Pue-
blo Bible during all of those eleven
months of "limbo and hell" as a
prisoner of the North Koreans.

"It sustained us," he says, "when
things looked darkest."

And there were times when things
looked mighty dark indeed.

There was the day, for instance,
when the U. S. men were summarily
brought before a military court and,
as the presiding general screamed at
them, an interpreter matter-of-factly
translated:

"All 82 of you of the USS Pueblo
are charged with having intruded
deep into the territorial waters of
the Democratic Peoples' Republic of
Korea and having committed hostile
acts. All members of the USS Pueb-
lo, the armed spy ship of the U. S.
imperialists, are guilty as charged
and will be executed today at sun-
down, one by one, the youngest man
first, while the commanding officer

1 This material which constituted
an article in The Navy Times, semi-
official weekly of the U. S. Navy,
[Marine Corps and Coast Guard, is
reprinted with permission.

will watch and be the last to be ex-
ecuted."

This occurred shortly after the
men had been captured. And, it is
quite possible, there were moments
during their eleven months of con-
finement when some of the men al-
most wished the execution had taken
place.

Being a prisoner of the North Ko-
reans was simply real tough, excruci-
atingly so. The meals were always
the same, morning, noon and night,
day in and day out, seven days a
week. Turnips, greasy sauce, some
cold rice, foul smelling fish, and
coarse bread. A big, strapping fel-
low, Harris (he was a lieutenant
then) weighed 210 at the time the
Pueblo was captured and was down
to 160 pounds when he was freed.

Brutal Beatings

Then there were those brutal beat-
ings that the men had to endure
regularly — often seemingly for no
reason other than for these guards
to display their "superiority" over
the Americans and give vent to their
hatred toward America. "We were
beaten with everything," Harris says,
"from their bare-knuckle fists to
boots and boards and machine gun
butts."

Worst of all, though, says the na-
val officer, was the uncertainty of it
all, being cut off from the rest of
the world, swallowed up by a con-
finement that seemed to be in per-
petuity.

For some weeks there was a re-
spite from the beatings, but then in
September — some eight months af-
ter their capture — they started all
over again and, if anything, were
more consistent and brutal than ev-
er. "We called it hell month," says
Harris.

But through the thick and thin
of it all, he says, it was the secreted
Pueblo Bible that kept them going.

HAROLD HELFER

As chief intelligence officer aboard
the Pueblo, Harris made a desperate
effort to destroy all the Navy docu-
ments he could when it became clear
that the North Koreans meant to
seize the U. S. Navy ship. When the
North Koreans were actually coming
aboard, the lieutenant ran to his
room, reached under his bunk and
got the Bible he kept there.

Psalm 23

It was not an easy thing to con-
ceal, but he took a calculated risk
and hid it underneath his leather
jacket. As soon as he came on deck,
though, a North Korean spotted the
bulge and immediately took it from
him at bayonet point.

When the prison guards would
come to take the young lieutenant
away for a beating, he would find
himself saying under his breath,
"Yea, though I walk through the
valley of the shadow of death, I will
fear no evil, for Thou art with me,
Thy rod and Thy staff they com-
fort me." He found this helped him
enormously to endure what he had
to endure, and it came to him that
the 23rd Psalm would be a comfort
to other men.

The North Koreans had posted for
their American prisoners, "Rules of
Life," regulations they meant for
their captives to obey. They includ-
ed such pronouncements as: "You
must not talk loudly or sing in your
room," and "You must not sit or
lie on the floor or bed except on
Sundays and during prescribed hours,
but should sit on the chair." But
there were some "offenses" they con-
sidered even more important and
for which it was prescribed, "You
will be punished severely and un-
conditionally." One of these was "to
make unauthorized writings."

Nevertheless, Harris had secreted
some pencil stubs and a couple or
so sheets of paper. Almost literally

PAGE 7 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 28, 1973

taking his life in his hands, he be-
gan to commit, from memory, the
23rd Psalm to paper. He also wrote
down whatever other snatches of
hymns, elements of worship services,
and pieces of Scripture he could re-
member.

Scripture Portions

He wrote down things like:

"I can do all things through Christ
which strengthened! me."

"And this is the testimony, that
God gave us eternal life, and this
life is His Son. He who has the
Son has life."

"Casting all your care upon Him;
for He careth for you."

The lieutenant would pass these
jottings of his to the other Pueblo
men. In turn, they would jot down
snatches from hymns or the Scrip-
tures or religious services that they
remembered.

When they ran out of the regular
paper, they began using toilet pa-
per, the gray Korean variety. There's
a bright side to everything, it would
seem, even toilet paper. Far from
the refined tissuey stuff we use in
this country, the Korean type, at
least the kind issued to the Pueblo
men, was gross and coarse. Not at
all the best sort of thing for its in-
tended use, but you could write

on it.

The Pueblo Bible wound up con-
sisting of something like a dozen and
a half Scriptural passages. They in-
cluded Exodus 20:3-17, Psalm 23,
Psalm 91, Psalm 119:11, Isaiah 26:
3, Lamentations 3:22-23, Matthew
18:20, John 3:16, Romans 3:23-24;
Romans 6:23, I Corinthians 10:13,
Philippians 4:13, Hebrews 12:5-7, I
Peter 1:7-8, I Peter 5:7, I John 1:9,
I John 5:11-12. Most of this was on
toilet paper. "But," says Harris, "it
meant the world to us."

Forbidden to Say Grace

The men had to be exceedingly
careful as they passed "The Good
Book" around. It was not only that
they'd been doing something very
definitely against the rules — writ-
ing — but the North Koreans had
gone out of their way to show their
contempt for religion. "We're athe-
ists," they'd proudly proclaim, and
they forbade any manifestation of
religion on the part of the Amer-
icans.

The rosaries found among Navy
men were taken away from them.
The North Koreans would not per-
mit any form of religious services at
all, including grace at meals. In
the mess hall the men would incline
their heads very slightly so that their

Korean "masters" would not be
aware that they were praying. When
a guard would catch an American
saying grace, he would scream at
him. "This is not a church! This
food is a gift from the Democratic
People's Republic of Korea!"

So the men were as secretive as
they could be with their Pueblo Bi-
ble. Eventually, the North Koreans
found it. Harris returned to his
cell one day to find it gone from its
hiding place. His captors never
said a word about it. They didn't
have to. A little later he had a new
set of bruises.

"But it was well worth it," says
Harris. It seems that the men had
come to know much of the Pueblo
Bible by heart. "And no amount
of torture," he says, "could take that
away from them."

Harris, who is from Melrose, Miss.,
and a Harvard graduate, wasn't par-
ticularly religious when he joined
the Navy. But at Newport, R.I., he
ran into a chaplain who stirred his
interest in religion. The father of
three small children — his wife
Esther is an attractive blonde — the
lieutenant commander, who is in-
volved with Naval security work on
his present assignment in the Wash-
ington, D. C, area, now calls him-
self a "fundamentalist" and attends
an Episcopalian church regularly.

God is not blind; He looks into our hearts and sees what is there —

The All-Seeing One

Whenever we see pictures of
heathen tribes bowing be-
fore their gods of wood and stone
and worshiping them, we have to
gods cannot see or hear, such peo-
ple. We think that because their
gods cannot see or hear, such peo-
ple border on mental deficiency.

Yet, we are not much different.
We often act as though our God,
the true God, cannot see or hear. In

The author is lay catechist of St.
Andrew's Presbyterian Church,
Three Hills, Alberta, Canada.

the great majority of cases, the doc-
trine of divine omniscience has prac-
tically no effect upon our lives at
all.

Whole nations who know of God's
existence and believe that He sees
and knows everything live as though
there were no eye observing them, no
ear listening to their conversation,
no eternal mind registering their ev-
ery deed.

We need to turn our thoughts to
the all-seeing One and acknowledge
Him in all our ways. We need to
stop acting like heathen whose gods
are blind, and start acting like Chris-

CECIL E. BURRIDGE

tians whose God sees the works ol
men and knows the thoughts of men

God searches the human heart
looking into every nook and cranny
and every secret part of it. Thai
truth should cause every man tc
quake with fear. God knows ever
sin, every obstinate word, every wick
ed thought, every sinful deed.

He knows how much the hear
holds of hypocrisy, how much o
truth, how much of sham, hov
much of ignorance, how much o
knowledge, how much of devotion
how much of blasphemy and hate
God knows whether we have grac

i- 1

10'j;

PAGE 8 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 28, 1973

I

in the heart and whether that heart
loves Him.

We need to consider now that
when we stand before the Lord He
knows all about us. God keeps the
records and He makes no mistakes.
Neither the wall of the room nor the
darkness of the night can hide the
schemes of men or the cunning trans-
gressor from the eyes of God.

This reality, along with the cer-
tain prospect of judgment and even-
tual consignment to the lake of fire
for the unsaved should strike terror
to the heart. "Can any hide him-
self in secret places that 1 shall not
see Him? saith the Lord" (Jer. 23:
24) . We stand fully observed by
God and guilty and defenseless be-
fore His all-piercing eyes.

For All the World to See

What man would want his sins
flashed upon a screen for all the
world to see? Not one! But in ef-
fect that is what will happen to those
who have not been forgiven. An
inescapable appointment must be
kept with the God of glory. There
can be no "doctoring" of the rec-
ords, no misrepresentation of the
facts. The Lord has seen and knows
all about us.

But something has been done
about our transgressions. The price
for our sins has been paid. Jesus
Christ, the spotless lamb, has been
made "sin for us, that we might be
made the righteousness of God in
Him." No man in his sins dares
think about the dreaded conse-
quences of facing a holy God who
knows his heart, keeps the records,
and must righteously judge all men.

Seeing our sin and knowing our
need, God has provided in the death
and resurrection of His Son all that
is required to make us acceptable
before Him. By receiving the Sav-
iour, we can stand before God
cleansed of our sin, justified in His
sight, and accepted in Christ. Har-
ken to God's promise, "There is
therefore now no condemnation to
them which are in Christ Jesus"
(Rom. 8:1) .

Already Accomplished

I A Christian magazine once related
the story of a young fellow who went
forward in an evangelistic meeting.
He asked, "What can I do to be
saved?"

Knowing that he thought he had
to accomplish something by his own

efforts, his counselor said, "You're
too late!"

"Oh, don't say that," exclaimed
the distressed seeker. "I really want
salvation. I'd do anything or go
anywhere to get it."

But the counselor said, "You're
too late for that. Your salvation
was completed many hundreds of
years ago at Calvary. It's a finished
work. All you have to do is simply
receive Christ. Then the blessed
gift of salvation He offers will be-
come yours through His merits. We
are saved, not by our attainment,
but by Christ's atonement."

God knows all the resolves we
have made, the times we have re-
solved and re-resolved to repent and
do better, and then continued on
the same way. He knows those who,
when they were terribly sick, have
resolved to seek Him and then de-
spised the resolution when good
health was restored.

Our resolves have been filed in
heaven along with the broken prom-
ises and vows. These things will be
displayed as witnesses to our con-
demnation unless we are justified in
Jesus Christ.

In that last day when the books
are opened, God will pronounce His
sentence on every man. Then it will
be seen how exact, how careful, how
personal was God's knowledge of the
heart of every man. If this is true,
and it is, it's useless to wear the mask
of religion. We are hypocrites when
we pretend to be what we are not.

Our Only Hope

We cannot be Christians if we do
not belong to Christ. Neither can
we be saved. How changed we will
be when at the door of eternity we
stand before God fully revealed —
hypocrites, unclean, vile, hideous and
lost forever.

It makes no difference who we are
or what are our positions in the
church. Unless we rest our hope in
Jesus Christ, we will tremble before
the all-seeing One. From the door-
man to the preacher, the only safe
position is in the Saviour.

If the pastor has not been born
again he will suffer along with those
members of his congregation who
are not saved. How he will trem-
ble! He will not be sermonizing
then; he will be preached to from
the text, "Depart from me, ye
cursed, into everlasting fire" (Matt.
25:41) .

A preacher once asked an actor

why it was that he could act out a
part and move an audience to tears,
and the preacher could preach the
Bible truth and people remained un-
moved. The actor very wisely re-
plied, "It is because I act fiction as
if it were truth. You preach truth
as if it were fiction."

No pastor should preach like the
unstable man who said, "Repent! —
as it were; and believe the Gospel!
— so to speak; or you will perish! —
more or less." The fact is this: "Re-
pent and believe the Gospel or you
will perish." We cannot enter the
kingdom of God unless we have
been born again. To use that mod-
ern expression, "no way."

Known All Too Well

A rather pious-looking Church
deacon was teaching a class of boys.
Wanting to impress them with the
need of living a consistent life under
the watchful eye of God, he asked,
"When others see me, why do you
suppose they think of me as a Chris-
tian?"

One little fellow was well aware
of the fact that this man owed his
father a large sum of money which
he refused to pay. He also knew
from his father that this man made
much money by unethical means,
within the law but not honor-
ably. He looked up at his teach-
er and said, "Sir, could it be that
they don't know you?"

The all-seeing God looks into the
hearts of men and knows their
thoughts. We can say with our lips
that we know and love the Lord
Jesus Christ, but God knows when
we say it with our hearts. He knows
exactly what we are. More impor-
tant than the critical eyes of men is
the fact that God knows our every
move.

It behooves us then to move in
the right direction. God wants us
to move into a saving relationship
with His Son. He has done every-
thing in His power to save us
through Christ, but when we refuse
His way of salvation we have only
ourselves to blame.

If we ever doubt God's love for
us, all we need do is look at the
cross. Christ came and died on that
cross for the purpose of relieving
us of the burden of sin. That is the
full proof of His love, and His great
sacrifice at Calvary is complete and
sufficient satisfaction for all our
sins when we accept it as our very
own.

PAGE 9 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 28, 1973

Let us not be like the rich man
lying on his deathbed. He called
his chauffeur, who had been in his
service for years, to his bedside and
said, "Ah, Sykes, I am going on a
long and very rugged journey, worse
than any you ever drove me on."

"Well, sir," consoled the chauf-
feur, "There's one comfort. It's all
down hill."

One of the greatest sources of men-
tal anguish for those who go into
eternity in a state of unbelief will
be the knowledge that they heard
the Gospel, and therefore had an op-
portunity to receive Christ, but that
because of stubbornness they waited
too long. Their self-will caused
them to make the wrong decision,
and they must then pay the conse-

quences.

All this can be avoided so easily.
Christ is the sure way to be set free
from the fatal consequences of our
sin. When we look to the Lord and
definitely trust Him as Saviour, He
is the sure way into heaven. Unlike
the heathen gods, our God is not
blind. He knows whether or not
our reception of Christ is genuine. 51

There should be more ministers like these for the millions in the inner cities —

Stripped, Wounded, Left Half Dead

I was with Bill Brown and his
staff at the Trinity Christian
Community of New Orleans, hand-
ing out invitations to the New Life
meetings. In this inner city of a
large southern city, racial and ethnic
groups are multiple; a bar is on
nearly every corner; an available
female or male is not hard to find.
The squalor of deterioration and of
rot shocks the senses of a visitor.

We worked in teams of two. We
would meet a person, hand him an
invitation. Pointing to it, we would
say something like this:

An Invitation

"We want to invite you to the New
Life meetings at the Upper Room.
They begin at 7:30 and go to about
9:00. Afterward we will have a time
of fellowship and refreshments. The
Upper Room is two blocks down
the street here, take a left on Erato
Street, go half a block and it's on
the right behind the red door —
upstairs. There is a sign over the
door. Do you follow me? Good!

"Let me add that the new life we
speak about is the life Jesus Christ
brings when He comes into a per-
son's life. He brings peace and joy
in spite of troubles. He prepares
the person to die content — without
dread and fear. And He takes them
to heaven instead of sending them
to hell. We found this new life

The author, an evangelist of the
Presbyterian Evangelistic Fellow-
ship, lives in Decatur, Ga.

when we were born again and want
you to know it as well. What do
you think?"

The next move was theirs. Some
said, "Thank you" and went on.
Some said, "I'll come over one night"
and did not. Some said, "I'll try to
make it" and did. Some talked
further and a fuller witness was
given. No one was openly hostile.

And to this unlikely place they
came, as few as 25 on Halloween
night, as many as 80 another time.

We sang. A Christian gave testi-
mony of the meaning of the Lord
Jesus in his life. There was a va-
riety of special music. An offering
was received. The ones nine years
old and younger went to a children's
service. I spoke to the ten-year-olds
and over — simple, straight, Bibli-
cal, analyzing life as it is and em-
phasizing the new life Jesus Christ
brings.

All Kinds Come

They listened. Drunks, straight
whites, straight blacks, prostitutes,
dope addicts, young, old, church
folk, non-church folk, a large group
of teen-age boys and girls predomi-
nantly black. Occasionally some
got disturbingly loud. One might
leave. Most listened well.

At the end we gave an invitation
to yield to Christ in faith, enabled
by the Holy Spirit, and to signify
this by standing or raising the hand.
Afterward we would counsel with
them.

In the fellowship time the staff

BEN WILKINSON

of the Upper Room, along with oth-
er Christians, moved from person
to person greeting, fellowshiping,
and sharing our Lord Jesus. This
is where most of the final reaping
was done.

The Holy Spirit had done His
work through witnesses over the
years; the brief witness in the
streets, the preached word in the ser-
vices, and then the personal workers
were used to draw the net. Over
many we believe the angels of heav-
en rejoiced. God is using this place.

'Pop' and His Boys

It was Wednesday night in this
concentrated eight-day thrust. Two
black teen-age boys were with me as
we went along, inviting and giving
a capsule witness. We were stand-
ing in front of a bar on Magazine
Street talking to those who went in,
out, and passed.

Curt said, "Hey, yonder's Pop.
Let's invite him to come." We called
him over. He came carrying his
broom handle. Tall, neat, clean-cut
with a low afro. The boys invited
him to come. I explained briefly
what we were doing and what Christ
could mean to him. They urged
him to come and bring some of "his
boys." He said that he would.

That night he did — Pop and
about eight or ten of his boys. The
Lord was especially at work in the
service. Some gave open response
that night. I asked a boy about Pop
and how many were in his gang.
"Well, this is about a tenth of them

PAGE 10 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 28, 1973

i

tonight." Pop is seventeen. All
the activities of Pop and his boys I
do not know.

I determined then I had to find
Pop and lay the claims of Christ on
his life personally before I left town.
I could not find him on Thursday.
Friday as we were in the streets God
providentially guided me to him.
He was talking to two friends. I
could tell they saw me.

The two ran. He tried to hold
them until we got there. One got
away but we talked to the other. A
wrecking crew across the narrow
street was pulling down an old build-
ing. Years of dust suddenly en-
gulfed us as it collapsed. When it
cleared Pop was gone.

Listening, Doubting

I saw him rounding a corner and
found him sitting in a pool-room-
bar. I told him I wanted to talk
to him alone a few minutes. Cour-
teously he followed me around the
corner of the building.

Very frankly I shared my concern
for him and his knowing Christ in
a personal way. He listened intent-
ly. Very frankly he told me he be-
lieved that when a person died, they
just rotted. I told him that the
body does, but the real personality
lives on eternally. And one day the
body will be resurrected and glori-
fied and the soul restored and we
shall forever be with the Lord.

Well, he understood what I was
saying. He didn't want to offend
me, but nobody had ever died and
come back so we really don't know,
he reasoned. I shared with him that
our Lord Jesus had and gave him
the proofs of His resurrection, as
provable as the existence of Na-
poleon or George Washington. He
had never heard that. The Lord
used it.

Pop was thoughtful. I again went
over the Gospel in brief, expressed
our concern, gave him a brochure
containing the Gospel message and
asked him to read it. He agreed.
Then before we left I told him:
I "I'm leaving Sunday night. The
staff of the Upper Room will con-
tinue to be here. If after you have

ead this and thought about it, you
want to talk more about it, get in
touch. I'll be at the Upper Room,
\t the House of the Risen Son where
ihe guys live, or in the streets."

He agreed. He apologized for the
ooys who had heckled him at a dis-

ance because he talked to "the Rev."

We parted mutually respecting each
other. Would he contact me or was
that all?

That was Friday. He didn't show
on Friday or Saturday. My heart
wanted to look for him again. God
seemed to say to let him make the
next step in our contact if any was
to be made. The last service in this
series was Sunday evening. No sign
of Pop. I was closing my sermon
on the "Woman at the Well." The
back door opened. Pop and some
of his boys slipped quietly in and
stood reverently in the back while
the service closed.

Love or Hate?

I talked with various ones when
the service was over. After a time,
Ralph came up quietly, "Pop wants
to talk." We went into the prayer
room. There were six of his boys
there. The conversation started
with them laughing nervously about
pictures of marijuana on the table.
Seriousness soon came.

Pop asked us if we would be will-
ing to die for Christ if it came right
to it. I told him as best I knew my
heart I would. For an hour and a
half we talked back and forth about
the Gospel.

The Way To Idolatry

If we cannot find explanation of
all things which require investiga-
tion in the Scriptures, that does not
mean we may seek a second god be-
yond the One who is. — Irenaeus.

The pressure of the Holy Spirit's
work made him stop often to get a
deep breath. It was too much for
his boys. All but one left. He told
of life in the streets and didn't know
whether he could be different —
fighting, promiscuous sex, dope,
stealing, the whole miserable bit.

Finally he said, "Well, let me just
be honest. These Black Muslims
ride around the streets, you see, and
they will come up to us black dudes
and get us to go with them to a
meeting. They teach us to hate ev-
erybody of every race except us
blacks. Now you are telling me that
Jesus Christ is the way. And that
if I join with you all of the Upper
Room, that is right. How can I
know what's right?"

I told him, "Our concern is that
you come to know God's love

through Christ, not join the Upper
Room. God's way to His children
is love. When Jesus comes into your
life as Saviour and Lord, you will
love. Now you tell me which is the
better way. Hate? or love?"

He was thoughtful. "Love is the
better way. I wouldn't want any
dude whipping up on me for noth-
ing."

Now I asked if God had made
him ready to receive Jesus as Sav-
iour, yield to Him as his only Lord
and turn away from sin. He was
breathing very deep. "Something
inside says 'No' and something says
'Yes.' My mind is just a blank."
I waited, prayed silently and quiet-
ly urged him.

"My mind is just blank. I can not
decide now. You see all this is new
to me. I wasn't taught this as a boy
like some of you. Let me think
about this. I've got to hear more
before I can decide."

Pray and Wait

We gave him a Bible and an ad-
ditional brochure. He did not own
one. He agreed to come by the Up
per Room and talk more with the
guys. I told him I would pray for
him everyday until he is saved. I
will. As he went out the door he
looked back, smiled, and gave a
slight wave. I smiled and waved
back. "God reach this boy," my
soul cries. "A key to every teen-
ager in the channel. A miserable
life that your power alone can
change."

I wish I could say at this point
that he has been born again. I
can't. I've written him. Trinity
Christian Community will continue
to follow up with their witness. A
sovereign God is in control. I pray
and wait to hear.

This has retaught me a reality. I
realize that this is just one of teem-
ing millions in our inner cities.
These are exploited by many groups
for their purposes. Hate and rev-
olution seethe just barely beneath
the surface, waiting their time to
erupt. More important, millions
like Pop and his boys live guilty and
miserable, die fearful, and go to hell
ignorant of the new life that is in
our Lord Jesus.

I plead with you, fellow Chris-
tians, for God's glory, for the "Pops
and his boys" of our land, and for
your very own sake, let us not con-
tinue passing by on the other side
(Luke 10:25-37; Ezek. 3:17-21). ffl

PAGE 11 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 28, 1973

p

EDITORIALS

Will Revival Resolve the Issue?

The letter on p. 2 of this issue,
from an esteemed Texas friend, ef-
fectively asks the question that ev-
ery member of the Presbyterian
Church US must answer for himself
before this year is out.

The question: Has the PCUS in-
deed become, without reasonable
expectation of recovery, an institu-
tion in which I can no longer, in
conscience, stand before God and
serve Him?

Mr. Allen speaks in the figure of
a sinking ship and he wonders if it
isn't, after all, possible to keep the
ship from sinking. He suggests that
current signs of revival are an indi-
cation that this might be possible.

The question must be answered
because if the fatal disease infecting
the PCUS has, indeed, been arrest-
ed, the decision of supporters of the
Continuing Church to give rebirth
to the PCUS in 1973 should be re-
considered.

We believe the apparent inevita-
bility of separation, mentioned in
the Journal Day resolution of the
so-called coalition of conservatives
in 1971, has since become the abso-
lute inevitability of separation. This
is because the indications which led
to the resolution have not, in the
interim, lessened, but rather have
aggravated.

It is one thing to recognize signs
of revival among people. It is quite
another thing to say there is reason
to expect the Church's literature to
improve. No longer prepared by
and for the PCUS but under a
COCU-style consortium of several
Churches, it is not likely to become
usable by those who have been re-
vived and are hungrily looking for
spiritual food.

In other words, to use the figure
of the sinking ship, no amount of
revival among the passengers will
avert disaster if the crew has already

What Do They Mean, 'Jesus Is Coming Soon?'

You have seen the little signs along
the highway, "Jesus Is Coming
Soon." Perhaps they have jarred
a bit and perhaps you have even
thought them corny. But is there
a vital truth being witnessed to by
those who go to the trouble of put-
ting up the signs?

Let the New Testament answer.
When the Lord Jesus was taken up
into heaven after His resurrection,
two men in white spoke to the dis-
ciples who stood gaping on the
mountain: "This same Jesus, which
is taken up from you into heaven,
shall so come in like manner as ye
have seen Him go into heaven"
(Acts 1:11).

People who have trouble believ-
ing in a visible second coming of
the Lord Jesus Christ either deny
that word of promise or explain it
away, perhaps by saying that the
Lord did return on the day of Pen-
tecost, when the Holy Spirit was
given.

But the further word of the Scrip-
tures, written after Pentecost, is

identical with that word written be-
fore Pentecost.

After the Holy Spirit was given,
we find the Apostle Paul saying
that the Lord will return again (I
Thess. 4:16; Phil. 3:20; Col. 3:4).

After the Holy Spirit was given,
we find the Apostle Peter saying
that the Lord will return again (I
Pet. 5:4) . We also find Peter warn-
ing against the notion that the sec-
ond coming means that the Lord
has already come in some way (II
Pet. 3:3-13) .

After the Holy Spirit was given,
we find the Apostle John saying that
the Lord will return (I John 3:2) .

And from the Lord Himself we
have a final word that He will sure-
ly come again (Rev. 16:15; 22:20).

The blessed hope of the Christian
is that the Lord will return. We
do not know that it will be today,
but we do know that it may be to-
day. "Watch, therefore, for ye
know neither the day nor the hour"
(Luke 12:40). ffl

stopped the engines, pulled the
plugs, and stands guard against re-
medial action by the passengers.

Our friend in Texas belongs to a
local congregation. Hopefully, it is
a congregation in which the Gospel
is faithfully proclaimed and Christ's
work is supported. The difficulties
in the PCUS do not point in accusa-
tion to his congregation. Nor (pre-
sumably) to any other one a few
blocks away. Should a mighty spiri-
tual revival sweep over local congre-
gations, it would not necessarily al-
ter the situation in the PCUS at all.

What might begin to alter thef
situation would be for the Pres
bytery of the Covenant (to which
our friend's congregation belongs) to
suspend the ordination of some of
its most influential ministers, to re>
ject the next few ministers who seek
admission, to rescind its objection to
graduates of the Reformed Seminary,
and to begin electing conservative
commissioners to the General As-
sembly.

Then, if enough presbyteries fol
lowed suit, the General Assembly
might rescind some of its recent ac-
tions, abolish the concentration of
power in the General Executive
Board, reconsider the gerrymander-
ing of synods and presbyteries, and
fire 90 per cent of its executives.
Next, it might reestablish an interest
in, for example, home missions in-
stead of majoring on poverty and
on boycotting American firms doing
business in South Africa.

How much time would be needed
for this experiment? Ten years"
Twenty? Thirty?

It was thirty years ago that the
Committee for a Continuing Churcl
was first formed. Has there beer
much progress in the past thirty
years? Would another thirty brinj
more improvement?

Every member of the Church mus
answer such questions for him
self. This much we have observed
Among all the major denomination
in America, in not one are the sign
of revival observable in the office
and programs of the establishment

God is working today, indeed
But He is working outside tfo
framework of the existing denomina
tions: in independent groups, in la
witness groups, in businessmen
groups, in high school groups. W
do not know of a single notabl
spiritual development flowing fror
the official channels of a denomim
tional bureaucracy. Any existin
denomination.

in

PAGE 12 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 28, 1973

THE LAYMAN AND HIS CHURCH

I Know

The problem of our time, in oth-
er words, is not a PCUS problem
exclusively. Or even primarily. It
will not be solved by expecting the
existing shattered hulk to remain
afloat. Or hoping it will right it-
self and patch its own wounds.

God willing, the new thing He is
doing today will include one or
more fresh testimonies to His grace
in the form of organized and effec-
tive witnesses to Him through re-
born Churches standing firmly on
His Word and bearing testimony to
the true faith. IB

'Liberal' . . .
A One-Way Street?

From a minister we hear that an
incoming brother was being ex-
amined before presbytery before
having a call placed in his hands. A
member of presbytery asked if he
was a dispensationalist. The pres-
bytery heard a sigh of relief when
the brother said, "No."

Then came our correspondent's
turn. His questions concerned the
brother s views of neo-orthodoxy.

For this another minister later
eluded him: "The General Assembly
has declared itself against dispensa-
tionalism. It has never indicated it-
self opposed to neo-orthodoxy. Your
questions were out of order."

Now in our opinion if a too strict
regard for the literal interpretation
of the Bible, as the interpreter sees
it, constitutes heresy, then a fast and
loose approach to the Bible via the
route of "symbol" and "myth" con-
stitutes heresy ten times over, As-
sembly or no Assembly deliverance.

We think it is high time for Pres-
byterians who adhere to a faithful
interpretation of the Gospel accord-
ing to the Reformed faith to speak
up with as much conviction and ef-
fect as the aggressive liberal who is
tolerant of error but notably in-
tolerant of truth.

The evangelical Presbyterian, with
his desire to "live and let live," too
often lets the liberal, whose preju-
dices are subtle but adamant, place
him on the defensive. The time has
come to meet such camouflaged
prejudices, however and whenever
they appear. El

• • •

Faith has no power except as it is
a passion for the Person of the Lord
Jesus Christ. — Unknown.

One of my earliest childhood
memories is of hearing my mother
sing Job's great confession, "I know
that my Redeemer liveth, and on
the earth again shall stand." A few
days ago something called it to mind
and started a train of thought con-
cerning those two words, "I know,"
as found in the New Testament.

Job learned of this by revelation,
but faith constrained him to believe
it and proclaim it.

We know through the indis-
putable facts of history that Jesus
Christ died, rose again, and did
stand on the earth.

We' know also because we have
"a more sure word of prophecy"
spoken and written by "holy men
of God, moved by the Holy Spirit"
that He will stand once again upon
this earth.

Martha's statement to Christ con-
cerning Lazarus (John 11) , "I know
that he shall rise again in the resur-
rection of the last day" is confirma-
tion for believers today; Christ did
not deny or contradict what she had
said.

A young woman, blind from birth,
dried the dishes for her family ev-
ery evening. She had been told that
the dishes were white, so to her the
surface of a mirror, a polished table
— anything slick — was white. No
comprehension of the azure of the
sky, the green of grass and shrub-
bery, the riot of autumnal colors or
the glory of a sunset was possible
for her.

So it must have been for the man
whose story is recorded in the ninth
chapter of John. Suddenly he could
see the brilliance of the desert sun,
the golden sand, the swaying palm
trees, the colored garments of passers
by. He could see; and no amount
of pressure or persuasion could
make him retract his statement.
"One thing I know, that whereas I
was blind, now I see."

A short time later he not only saw

The layman's viewpoint is con-
tributed this xueek by Mrs. Harry
Rimmer, Glendale, Calif. She is the
widow of the well-known Bible
teacher and evangelist.

the Lord with his physical eyes, but
with the eyes of his soul, and wor-
shiped Him.

Luke recalled (chapter 4) that
during one of Christ's many appear-
ances in the synagogue at Caper-
naum to teach on the Sabbath day,
a man possessed of an evil spirit con-
fronted Him. The spirit was evi-
dently in complete control, for he
did the talking for both of them
when he asked Jesus, "Art thou
come to destroy us?"

He was frightened, and rightly so,
for he knew who faced him, and the
awesome power which was His. "I
know thee who thou art," he cried,
"the holy one of God." Can we
make this same declaration?

In his second letter to Timothy,
Paul made a marvelous confession,
almost unequaled in its scope. "I
know whom I have believed, and
am persuaded that He is able to
keep that which I have committed
unto Him against that day."

Paul committed all he had to
Christ with absolute assurance that
they would be kept: each convert he
gained and each church he founded
by the Spirit's power; the confidence
he had that Christ's promise made
to him on the Damascus road would
be fulfilled.

"He is a chosen vessel unto me,"
the Lord had said, "to bear my name
before the Gentiles and kings, and
the children of Israel." There was
a postscript too! "I will show him
how great things he must suffer for
my name's sake."

Years later Paul wrote to the Co-
lossians, "I, Paul, am made a min-
ister who now rejoices in my suf-
ferings for you, and fill up that
which is behind (what he had al-
ready suffered) of the afflictions
of Christ in my flesh, for His body's
sake, which is the Church."

Paul knew he was forgiven for
sins of the past, even those which
Christ's words encompassed in,
"Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou
me?" Climaxing all else, in Paul's
commitment to Christ, was his com-
pletely full faith in his own salva-
tion for the present and the future.

Paul knew. I know. Do you? El

PAGE 13 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 28, 1973

SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON

For April 15, 1973

INTRODUCTION: The writer
to the Hebrews declared a truth
about Jesus which we must never
forget. "Jesus Christ, the same yes-
terday and today, and forever" (Heb.
13:8). He is and always has been
and always shall be king. He did
not begin to be at the resurrection
or at any other time.

When we speak of Jesus Christ we
must consider His manifestation of
Himself before His incarnation as
well as His coming in the flesh. In
the Old Testament, before God came
in the flesh, He was declared to be
the king of God's people.

The first such passage dealing
with this is on the occasion of Is-
rael's crossing the Red Sea. At that
time, after the Lord marvelously de-
livered the Israelites from the army
of Pharaoh, Moses sang a song which
is recorded in Exodus 15.

At the conclusion of that song,
Moses declared, "The Lord shall
reign forever and ever" (Exo. 15:
18) . This may better be translated
"The Lord is king forever and ever."
It means clearly that the Lord is the
only king. There is no other. In
particular, he is the king of His peo-
ple.

The psalmist reaffirmed this over
and over (Psa. 10:16, 29:10, etc.).
The Israelites, from the beginning
of their consciousness of being the
special people of God, knew that
God was king. This knowledge in
part made them the unique people
they were in the earth.

Later, in the time of Samuel, the
people became restless under the
kingship of the Lord and cried for a
human king who would lead them
and make them like other people (I
Sam. 8:5) . In other words, by this
act they despised their own unique-
ness as the peculiar people of God.
God had forewarned them through
Moses that this would happen. He
foretold that the day would come
when they would ask for another
king (Deut. 17:14-17). He even
warned what dangers were involved
in such a human king.

When Samuel protested the peo-
ple's request for a king, God remind-

Jesus Christ Is King

Rev. Jack B. Scott

Background Scripture: Zechariah
9:9-10; John 18:33-37; Philip-
pians 2:5-11; Revelation 19:11-
16

Key Verses: Zechariah 9:9-10; Phi-

lippians 2:5b-ll
Devotional Reading: Psalm 93
Memory Selection: Acts 2:36

ed him that it was not a rejection
of Samuel but of God to be their
king (I Sam. 8:7) . At this time God
told Samuel to acquiesce in their re-
quest, but this by no means meant
that God was abdicating the throne.
He would choose whom they should
have.

The earthly king would be but a
human representative to remind the
people of the true kingship of God.
Indeed, by the failure of the human
king, the people would time and
again be forced to acknowledge their
need of God as king. In the end,
God used this sinful request of men
to further glorify His name.

I. AN IMPERFECT HUMAN
REPRESENTATIVE. In many ways
the earthly representative of God's
kingship in His Church by his very
failure would stress the greatness of
Israel's true king. Before giving Is-
rael the king the people begged for,
God told them through Samuel what
such a human king would be like
(I Sam. 8:11-18) .

He would take their children and
use them for his purposes. He would
take their fields and produce and
servants and even their bodies into
his service. He would get so oppres-
sive that finally they would cry out
to God for help. Such a prediction
was very discomforting, yet the peo-
ple were stubborn and refused to
hear the warnings (I Sam. 8:19).

It is interesting to contrast what
the human king would be and do
with the Lord as king. The Lord
had given them sons and daughters.
He had given them fields and vine-
yards. He had given them a fruit-

The International Sunday School Lesson Outlines
are copyrighted 1972 by the Committee on the
Uniform Series of the National Council of Churches
of Christ.

ful harvest and blessed them in the
past.

All of this the earthly king would
now take away. Yet they persisted
in their foolish desire to have an
earthly king instead of being unique-
ly led by the eternal and invisible
God of glory.

The Lord first chose Saul to be
king. He was the best human candi-
date for the position. He had great
promise, humanly speaking. He was
humble (I Sam. 9:21) , wise (I Sam.
10:27), brave (I Sam. 11:6-7) and
he had many other attributes com-
mending him as king. No doubt he
was the best human to lead Israel
This is why God chose Saul.

Yet Saul was not good enough to
lead God's people. His failures, re
corded in I Samuel 13-15, show us
that in spite of all his good points,
Saul was not spiritually sensitive to
God at all. He was not himself lec
by God, therefore he could not leac
God's people. This certainly stressed
a lesson which God intended His
people to learn: The best of men
is not good enough. No man can in
reality be the sovereign of God's peo-
ple.

Thus the Lord chose another who,
unlike Saul, had a heart that sought
after God, a heart that looked to
God in faith (I Sam. 13:14). That
heart belonged to David, whom God
made king and whose throne God es
tablished forever. David was a suit
able leader of the people because he
himself was submissive to God.

The heart of David is clearly seen
in his fight against Goliath. He
showed in that incident that he hac
complete trust in God. He was there-
fore well qualified on earth to lead
God's people (I Sam. 17:37, 45-47)
His only desire was to glorify God.

David was by no means perfect
and never was intended to be tht
substitute for the kingship of God
He was guilty of some very great
sins (II Sam. 11), yet as we stud)
Psalm 51, we see how sincerely
he repented and looked to God ir
full trust. This is what made Da
vid a king after God's own heart
This is also why God chose to b<

PAGE 14 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 28, 1973

I!

ilr!

lest

id]

T

4

born into the world in the family
of David. David was merely the
channel by which the true king of
God's people would come. David
was yielded to the Lord and the
Lord chose to be glorified through
t David.

Not all the kings in the line of
David were so humble and contrite
of heart as David. Some were very
wicked and rebellious against God,
such as Solomon in his latter days,
Rehoboam his son, Ahaz, much later,
Manasseh. But there were others
who were much like David and
through whom God was glorified,
such as Hezekiah and Josiah, men
whose lives showed the same humil-
ity and contrition of heart that Da-
vid had shown.

Over and over the lesson was clear.
Mere humans could not be the kings
of God's people. Only the man who
trusted God wholly could even be-
gin to lead His people. God must
always be the real king.

To this end, God did two things
in the latter history of Israel. First,
He terminated the earthly kingships
in Israel and Judah. In 586 B.C.
Jerusalem fell and with it the king-
dom which the Israelites had called
for in the days of Samuel. But God
also promised them that their king
would return, next time God Him-
self would come and be their king.

II. A HUMBLE MANIFESTA-
TION. The coming manifestation of
God as king is seen in the Old Tes-
tament portrayed in two ways: He
is foretold in terms of His humility
and in terms of His exaltation and
glory. Isaiah 53 describes Christ in
His servant role, suffering and dy-
ing for our sins. Psalm 22 similarly
describes the suffering and death of
Christ for us. Indeed, the whole
sacrificial system was designed to
teach this necessity.

The exaltation of the Saviour and
the glorious rule of the king is quite
clearly seen in such prophecies as
ilsaiah 9 and Psalm 2. In such pas-
sages as Zechariah 9:9-10 we see
!the two concepts brought together.
There the king of Zion is described
las humble and riding on a donkey.
He is king, but His work as Saviour
and His attitude of humility are
.tressed here.

It was exceedingly difficult for
die Jews to comprehend their king
'n such terms. For them, the king
could only appear exalted. They
could not conceive of the necessity
] oi the Christ's first coming in hu-
| mility because they could not accept

their own sinfulness and the need
for dealing with their own sin.

Therefore, when Jesus Christ
came, God in the flesh, the Jews
were not ready or willing to accept
Him in this humility. As Isaiah had
predicted (53) , they rejected and de-
spised the Christ and treated Him
as though He were a sinner (John
1:9-13).

Pilate seems to have had a better
realization of who Jesus was than
the Jewish leaders themselves. He
was the one who insisted that the
cross of Jesus contain the words,
"the king of the Jews." Of course,
he was in part jesting and in part
ridiculing the whole Jewish people.
Nevertheless, he did show some in-
sight into the true identity of Jesus.
Unlike the Jews, he at least found
no fault in Jesus.

Before Pilate Jesus took occasion
to say something about His king-
dom. He made clear that His king-
dom was not a worldly product
(John 18:36). The world is often
described in terms of the domain of
Satan. Satan is called the god of
this world and its king. Jesus made
clear that neither His kingship nor
His glory comes from the sinfulness
of this world. He was in reality pro-
claiming the superiority of His king-
dom to this world.

God was, is and shall forever be
the only real king. All the king-
doms of this world have a begin-
ning and an ending, even Satan's
kingdom, but God's kingdom is for-
ever. Its beginning and ending are
not evident. It always is.

Jesus seemed to be subject to man,
but such was not the case. He hum-
bled Himself to bear our sin, but He

INTEREST

never abdicated His throne. The
Lord was not judged that day, men
were judged. That day the Saviour
God was working out His own pur-
pose as Christ, by the hand of sin-
ful men, was crucified.

It is incomprehensible to us that
God covdd so love us to go through
such humiliation and suffering at the
hands of sinful men. We cannot ex-
plain such love, only point to Ephe-
sians 1:4. This shows us that God,
from before the world was created,
determined to have us as His people,
and that He determined that we
should share eternity in His king-
dom and glory with Him. He knew
the cost when He determined to have
us. This is God's love.

III. THE EXALTED SAVIOUR.
All true believers know the truth
of what we have been saying. We
all know that Jesus is king and glori-
ous, even though men do not ac-
knowledge Him so. We know that
while the Gospel is still despised and
ridiculed by men, the name of Jesus
is exalted. We also know that in the
end, every knee shall bow and every
tongue shall confess that Jesus is
Lord.

This is what it means to live as
the sons of the kingdom in the hos-
tile world. We live today sharing
in the dishonor which the world
heaps on Jesus Christ. The more
we are faithful to Him, the more
subject to the world's ridicule we be-
come. Therefore, it is important
that we not take our eyes off the ex-
alted Lord as He appears to the true
believer today, and as the whole
world shall one day see Him.

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PAGE 15 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 28, 1973

both the humility and the exalta-
tion of Christ, just as the Old Tes-
tament had predicted it must be
(Phil. 2:5-11). Christ's glory pre-
ceded His humility, and He volun-
tarily stepped down to humility in
order to save us. His present exal-
tation is known to all believers. Ev-
ery child of God, every member of
God's kingdom, now knows the ex-
altation of Jesus to God's right hand.

We understand His rule as king
right now (Phil. 2:9). We know,
too, that in the end every eye shall
see Him in His exalted state; every
knee shall then bow before Him.
Every tongue shall then confess that
Jesus is Lord. As Christians, we
know this and must remember it. It

is important to do so as we endure
in the present time the same kind
of humiliation which was once
poured out on our Lord Christ.

Unless we keep our eye on the ex-
alted Christ, our king in glory, we
can lose our perspective and, out of
fear of the world and Satan, begin
to compromise with the hostile pow-
ers of this world to our own defeat
and to the dishonor of our Lord.

One day Jesus will come and be
manifest before the world in His
full authority and power. Then it
will be a frightful revelation for all
sinners. The book of Revelation
gives us just such a picture of the
end of time (19:11-16). In that day,
the king will come as judge and de-

YOUTH PROGRAM

Scripture: Isaiah 57:15-21
Suggested Hymns:

"Revive Us Again"

"Spirit of God, Descend Upon

My Heart"
"Not I, But Christ"

INTRODUCTION BY PRO-
GRAM CHAIRMAN: What is re-
vival? When some people hear the
word revival they think of a meet-
ing, usually in a church, where there
is singing, preaching, and a long in-
vitation.

To some this type of meeting is
dull, so there are usually only a few
in attendance. To others it brings
a sense of excitement and expec-
tancy. But is revival a meeting? It
may take place in a church gather-
ing, but the answer is no.

The basic meaning of revival is
to "renew life." It has the sense

For April 15, 1973

Revival

Rev. Henry J. Mueller

of bringing a person to a new in-
terest in life. There are times when
we in the church need to be re-
newed. We need to be reawakened
to the things of God.

The grace of God is needed to re-
fresh our love for Him and each
other. Our faith in the promises
of God needs to be restored. Jesus
calls us to return to our first love.
We need to recover the spiritual
principles of the Bible and put them
to work in our lives. Our communi-
cation with God must be reestab-
lished by vital and persevering
prayer.

Revival comes when there is clear
and uncompromising preaching and
teaching of God's Word. The whole
of the Christian faith is to be
preached. This is what informs us
as to what we believe and how we
are to live. Nothing can be substi-

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stroy all the sinful kingdoms of men
and above all the kingdom of Satan.
Then all who have denied Christ on
earth will be destroyed, together
with Satan.

This is why we must presently en-
dure whatever suffering is necessary,
whatever inconvenience is demand-
ed to be witnesses of Christ among
men. It will be a frightful thing to
fall into the hands of an angry God.
Before that final day, the Lord has
put us here to call men to repen-
tance.

Therefore we who know Christ's
glory must be busy in His kingdom
as strangers in the kingdom of men
but as ambassadors of Christ among
men (II Cor. 5:20-21) .

tuted for the Bible. Preaching and
teaching are not ends in themselves,
however, they are instruments ol
the Spirit of God to bring changes
in the lives of people.

Revival is not dependent on feel-
ing, but no person changes his be
havior without feeling something
No person confesses and repents ol
his sin without feeling shame anci
sorrow for the way his sin has of
fended God. No person who hai
tasted the grace of God can lool
back on Calvary without emotion

When Jesus comes He touches ou:
minds, our wills, our spirits and ou-
emotions. (Read Matthew 22:36
39.) Now love is more than jus
feelings, but you cannot love with
out emotion. (Read Revelation 2
1-7 and discuss what Jesus said thosi
people needed and compare that t(
the meaning of revival.)

FIRST SPEAKER: How do w
know when revival comes? Ho\
do we get revived? First, it hap
pens to Christians. It comes throug
their seeking to be obedient to Jesu
Christ. To be obedient we mus
turn to the Bible. As we read an*
study and test ourselves, we becom
more and more aware of our depenc
ence on God. We then are led t
a new awareness of who He is. Ou
God is "The high and lofty one wh
inhabits eternity, the Holy One
(Isa. 57:15, The Living Bible).

PAGE 16 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 28, 1973

The Bible constantly tells us of
God's holiness. He is completely
pure. There is no fault or sin in
Him. He is perfect in every way.
At the same time He is a God of
love and mercy. Too often we skim
through those passages that tell us
that God loves us.

As we come to a new awareness
of God, then something happens
within us. (If it doesn't, then there
is no revival.) We become humble
and contrite. Why? We see our-
selves as sinful people. We throw
ourselves on the mercy of God be-
cause we are convicted of our sins.
We then confess our sins (I John
1:8-10); turn from them to Christ
(Isa. 55:7) ; and receive forgiveness
(Isa. 1:18) . What is amazing is that
our Scripture tells us all this is from
God. (Read verses 17-19.)

SECOND SPEAKER: When this
happens our faith is renewed. God
says, "I live in that high and holy
place where those with contrite,
humble spirits dwell; and I refresh
(revive) the humble and give new
courage to (revive) those with re-
pentant hearts."

God gives a new zest for life when
we return to Him. As we turn our
'eyes to Jesus the warmth in our
heart for Him grows. We begin put-
ting Him first in every area of our
lives. We yield ourselves to the pres-
ence of the Holy Spirit. We ask
'Him to lead and go forward in His
power.

The Bible becomes a vital part of
[our everyday living. We will find
ourselves praying constantly. We will
want to share Jesus with our family
and friends. Our lives will be
changed.

CONCLUSION BY PROGRAM
CHAIRMAN: When this takes place
in the church then we can expect
great things to happen outside the
church. The unsaved will begin to
respond to the preaching of the Gos-
pel. Great numbers will begin to
repent of their sins and turn to Je-
sus Christ. The ranks of the church
will swell as it did in the days fol-
lowing Pentecost.

(Close this program by discussing
revival. Do you need renewing?
Does your church? What can you as
the youth of the church do? You
may want several of the youth to
dose the meeting with sentence
prayers asking God to send revival.)

BOOKS

IN PLACE OF SACRAMENTS, by
Vernard Eller. Wm. B. Eerdmans
Publ. Co., Grand Rapids, Mich. Pa-
per, 144 pp. $2.95. Reviewed by the
Rev. Bernard Brunsting, pastor, Scars-
dale, New York, N. Y.

The author is best known for his
book, The Mad Morality. His oth-
er books are His End Up and The
Sex Manual for Puritans. Both ti-
tles show his effort to be "hip." His
writing is like that, too.

Dr. Eller is professor of religion
at LaVerne College in California.
Underneath his attempts to be
"with it," he has some sensible and
serious things to say. His style is
not to my taste, but I found myself
thinking carefully about what he
says. I do not agree with him, but
I appreciate his work.

His point in this book is that bap
tism and the Lord's Supper are not
sacraments. He objects to this be-
cause sacrament means mystery.
Since Christ came to expose and
present the sacred, it is no longer
a mystery, and therefore sacraments
are inappropriate.

He would still have baptism and
the Lord's Supper, but he would
call them ordinances (a word from
his Brethren affiliation) , and they
would not be to express the sacred
and hidden but the common and ex-
posed. Infant baptism is declined,
however, on the basis of standard
arguments related more closely to
the nature of the Church.

All of this leads Dr. Eller to make

some provocative remarks about the
Church. He has keenly observed
Church life, you can tell, and he
deeply loves the community of
God's people, but he feels that it
has deserted much of its original
character, selling its birthright for a
formal and authoritarian institu-
tion. He is dead right about many
things, but I prefer Calvin's expo-
sition of the Church and the sacra-
ments. IS

THE CITY: A MATTER OF CON-
SCIENCE, by George Sweeting.
Moody Press, Chicago, III. 128 pp.
$2.95. Reviewed by the Rev. Robert
E. Weinman, pastor, First Presbyte-
rian Church, Columbiana, Ohio.

Beyond Chicago's glorious and ma-
jestic skyline and only a few blocks
from the super affluent "Gold
Coast" lies "Old Town," and the
seamy stretch of skid row. Here
dope addicts, homosexuals, winos,
prostitutes and human derelicts hit
bottom and are written off by so-
ciety but not by God.

REPRINT AVAILABLE

Modern Religious Liberalism

by John Horsch

Hardbound, 316 pages
Price $4.95

Order from:
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P. O. Box 575
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Closing Prayer.

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CHRISTIAN
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Write: Rev. Harry Miller. Headmaster
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5620 N. E. 22 Avenue
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An agency of the Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church

PAGE 17 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 28, 1973

1

While others have long ignored
the needs of the city and its teem-
ing millions, Moody Bible Institute
has continued for more than a cen-
tury to reach the city with the mes-
sage of Christ's love and concern.
Now, from the pen of Moody's sixth
president, comes a challenging series
of messages regarding the crucial
issues facing the Christian Church
today.

The city is here to stay, says Dr.
Sweeting; we cannot ignore, deplore,
or flee it forever. The city congre-
gation must carve out new patterns
of ministry in the slums, among the

hippies, in the arenas of commerce,
in the seclusion of a high-rise apart-
ment. The Church of Jesus Christ
must reach behind the walls of steel
and concrete to bring the touch of
Jesus. We must go, he declares, and
we must go humbly, ready to learn
as well as to teach, ready if neces-
sary to lay down our lives.

The reader will be grateful to dis-
cover that Dr. Sweeting's thought-
ful reflections cover a number of
subjects of broader scope than just
the city. He will likewise be im-
pressed not only with the author's
ability to speak with significance

and concern regarding the truth
which is in Christ, but with his call
to renewed dedication to the task
of evangelism. El

SATAN IS ALIVE AND WELL ON
PLANET EARTH, by Hal Lindsey
with C. C. Carlson. Zondervan Publ.
House, Grand Rapids, Mich. 255 pp.
$4.95. Reviewed by the Rev. William
Jones, pastor, Inverness Presbyterian
Church, Baltimore, Md.

The author of the best selling
book, The Late Great Planet Earth,
takes us through the world of the
occult. A contemporary analysis
of the occult is given, and the dan-
gers of playing with forces in the
spirit world are exposed. The book
is sprinkled with reports of Lind-
sey's own personal encounters with
those involved in the occult.

The upsurge of interest in the
occult craze in America prompted
the writing of this book. The au-
thor's purpose is to "define the per-'
sonal enemy who rules the world
system." Lindsey makes the point
that Satan "influences every life to
some degree," and he warns that!
Satan is "using art, music, philos-
ophy, economics and the mass me-
dia" to draw people away from
God's way of life.

In his analysis, a brief survey of
modern intellectual history is un-
dertaken. In the chapter on.
"thought bombs," Lindsey charges
the philosophies of such men asi
Kant and Freud were instruments
of Satan because they led men away
from the truths of God. He holds
that the philosophies of Kant and
Hegel gave a "philosophical frame-,
work for the doctrine of demons." '

In addition to a summary of thei
Scriptural teachings of fallen angels,
the author includes a brief discus-)
sion on false prophets and con-
cludes that the prophetic ability of
Jeanne Dixon "is not from God."i

He sounds the alarm in regards'
to the present interest in spiritual
gifts. Lindsey states, "There is a
genuine gift of tongues (actual lan-
guages) which God is giving to-
day," but cautions against seeking
"instant maturity" by going over,
board with the spiritual gifts. Oi
all the gifts, he believes tongues are
more "susceptible to Satanic couni
terfeit and confusion" than the oth
er spiritual gifts.

This handbook on Satan's activity
brings to light that believers are ir

(Continued on p. 20, col. 1)

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Belk-Simpson Co.
Honea Path, S. C.

T. R. Martin, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Whitmire, S. C.

Clyde Smith, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Manning, S. C.

W. M. Gettys, Res. Mgr.

OHIO

Belk-Simpson Co.

Athens, Ohio

Joe Kelly, Res. Mgr.

MISSOURI

Belk-Simpson Co.
Carthage, Mo.
Charles Wilson, Res.

OKLAHOMA

Belk Dept. Store
Miami, Oklahoma
J. T. Holmes, Res.

Mgr.

Mgr.

NORTH CAROLINA

Belk-Simpson Co.

Hendersonville, N. C.

R. E. McCormack, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store

Brevard, N, C.

J. M. Felty, Res. Mgr.

KENTUCKY

Belk-Simpson Co.
Harlan, Ky.

Delmar Tolliver, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Corbin, Ky.

W. C. Ashley, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Winchester, Ky.

T. L. Beckham, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Mt. Sterling, Ky.

Willoughby Smith, Res. Mgr

Belk-Simpson Co.
Frankfort, Ky.
J. D. Prow, Res.

Mgr.

GEORGIA

Belk-Simpson Co.

Bainbridge, Ga.

M. D. Ashley, Res. Mgr.

ARKANSAS

Belk-Simpson Co.

Paragould, Ark.

W. H. Wade, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Osceola, Ark.

K. R. Cline, Res. Mgr.

These stores are a small part of the entire Belk or-
ganization and have been in existence approximately
50 years. The Belk stores were launched in 1886-88.

SEE THE MANAGER NEAREST YOU FOR CHURCH CARPET, ROBES, ETC.

PAGE 18 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 28, 1973

REGAL PAPERBACKS and SPIRE PAPERBACKS

Body Life $ .95

Campus Aflame 2.95

China: The Puzzle .95

Church Alive! 1.95
Christianity, Communism and

Survival .95

Climbing up the Mountain .95

Dare to Discipline 1-95

Division, Despair and Hope .95

Don't Look Now .95

The Early Church Speaks to Us .95

Faith and Courage for Today .95

Fortune Sellers 1.95

Funtastics 1.25

Genesis in Space and Time 1.95

The Go Gospel .95

Handbook of Bible Lands 1.65

Heavy Questions 1.25

Help! I'm a Camp Counselor .95
Henrietta Mears and How She Did

It

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Holy War (Ethel Barret's)
Hope for Your Church
How to be a Christian in an

Unchristian World
How to be a Christian without

Being Religious
How to Succeed in Family Living
I'm a Good Man, But
Inside Jerusalem, City of Destiny
Is it Real?

Is Life Really Worth Living?
Israeli/ Arab Conflict 1.25
It All Depends (The Other Side of

Morality)
It's Your Move
James: Faith That Works
Jesus People

Jesus Person Maturity Manual
Jesus Person Pocket Promises
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Jesus the Revolutionay
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A Life, A Cross, An Empty Tomb .95
The Listener .95
Live, Christian, Live! .95
A Look at the New Testament 1.50
A Look at the Old Testament 1.50
The Man Jesus 1.45
Men Who Knew Christ .95
Men Who Knew God .95
My Love Affair with Charles 1 .95
Night of the Long Knives 1.25
Once Bitten 1.25
The Other Side of Morality 1.25
The Parent Affair 1.95
Power for Christian Living .95
Pursued 1.25
Refuge in the Secret Place 1.25
The Reproducers 1.95
Sayings: Mao and Jesus 1.25
Sometimes I Feel Like a Blob .95
So, What's the Difference? .95
So You're in the Service .95

Studies in Genesis and the

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Take Your Choice -95

Tell it Like it Is .95

There I Stood in all my Splendor 1.25

Understanding the Bible 1.95

Wanderers, Slaves and Kings .95
What on Earth's Going to

Happen? .95

What the Bible is all About 2.95
What's a Nice Jewish Boy Like

You Doing in the First

Baptist Church? 1.25
What's God Been Doing All This

Time? .95

Who Says? .95
Will the Real Phony Please Stand

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Words to Live By 1.25

Would You Believe 1.95

You Can Know the Future 1.25

You Eat Bananas 1.25

Your Marriage Can Be Exciting 1.95
13 Men Who Changed the World .95

100 Questions About God .95

158 Things to Make 1.25

202 Things to Do 1.25
431 Quotes from the notes of

Henrietta C. Mears 1.25

Acres of Diamonds .75
All Things Poss. Through Prayer .95

Angel At Her Shoulder .95

Angel Unaware .60

Beyond Ourselves .95

Bobby Richardson Story .75

The Burden is Light .75

Chaplain of Bourbon St. .95
Christian's Secret of a Happy

Life .75

Christian Workers' Comm. 1.25

Christy 1.25

Crisis-America .95

Cross and Switchblade .75

Movie Edition .95

Cruden's Concordance 1.25

The Dayuma Story .95

Dearest Debbie .60

Design for Christian Marriage .95

Every Wall Shall Fall .95

Family Living in the Bible .95
Farming & Gardening in the Bible .95

4000 Questions & Answers .60

Foxe's Book of Martyrs 1.25

God Calling (New) 1.25

God's Psychiatry .75

God's Smuggler .75

Order from :
THE PRESBYTERIAN

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Weaverville, N. C. 28787

Greatest Thing in the World .50

Handful of Dominoes .75

Happiness Hill (New) .75

Head of the House .75

Hey, Preach .75

Homing .75

How to Pray .75

Hurlbut's Story of the Bible 1.25

I'm Not Mad at God .75

In His Steps .75

In the Twinkling of An Eye .75

In Tune with Wedding Bells .75

I've Got to Talk to Somebody 1.25

Last Years of the Church .75

The Late Liz .95

Letters to Karen .75

Letters to Philip .95

The Little People .95

A Man Called Peter 1.25

Marigold .75

Matched Pearls .75

Mr. Jones, Meet the Master .75

New Moon Rising .95

None of These Diseases .75

On Call .95

One Divine Moment .95

Operation Brother's Brother .95

Parents on Trial .75

The Patch of Blue (New) .75

The Pilgrim's Progress .95

Please Give a Devotion .75

Power of Positive Thinking .95

Practice of Presence of God .60

Prayer, Mightiest Force .75

Precious Bible Promises .95

Roads to Radiant Living .75

Robert's Rules of Order .95

Smith's Bible Dictionary 1.25

Strange Proposal .75

The Substitute Guest .75

Test Your Bible Knowledge .95

Then Sings My Soul .75
They Speak With Other Tongues .75

This is My Story .95

Through Gates of Splendor .95

Time Out, Ladies! .75

To Live Again 1.25
Touch of the Master's Hand

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Tough Love .75

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Voices From Edge of Eternity .95

White Orchids .75

With Christ in School of Prayer .75

Woman at the Well .95

Your Marriage — Duel/Duet .95

REGAL VENTURE SERIES

The People Who Couldn't Be

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The Secret Sign .69
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Which Way to Nineveh .69

PAGE 19 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 28, 1973

Books— from p. 18

"a war where they can't be neutral."
Our only line of defense is to "put
on the whole armour of God" as we
fight our strongest enemy, Satan,
who is alive and well on planet
earth. EE

PROPHECY IN THE MAKING, ed.
by Carl F. H. Henry. Creation House,
Inc., Carol Stream, 111. 394 pp. $5.95.
Reviewed by the Rev. Archie L. Mc-
Nair, pastor, Westminster Presbyte-
rian Church, Asheville, N. C.

In a day when Biblical prophecy
has again become popular inside
and outside of the organized Church,
there has at last appeared a scholar-
ly tool as a help in informing young
Christians and restraining those
whose zeal could lead to brash in-

terpretations and excessive specula-
tion relative to the second coming
of Jesus Christ to earth.

This symposium on eschatology
was written by many outstanding
scholars and churchmen like Cris-
well, Clowney, Henry, Ockenga,
Wilbur M. Smith, Stott and Ten-
ney. The messages were prepared
for and given at the Jerusalem Con-
ference on Biblical Prophecy in
1971.

The messages reflect the varied
millennial views that are held today
in the evangelical circles. For ex-
ample there are contrasting views
on the temple at the end of the age.
In the chapter entitled, "The Final
Temple," Edmund P. Clowney
writes:

"In the New Testament much is
said about the new temple. But

true to the actualization of Jesus
Christ, that temple is not of stone
but living men. Because Christians
are one with Christ, the true temple,
in His death and resurrection, their
bodies too are temples, and they
are joined together as one temple
in Christ."

From another view holding to a
literal interpretation, Charles L.
Feinberg in the chapter entitled,
"The Rebuilding of the Temple,
writes:

"With charity toward all and not
one whit of malice toward any, we
hold unswervingly to the literal in-
terpretation of Ezekiel 40:48: The
temple will be rebuilt."

According to one's own taste and
interpretation any one of the chap-
ters is worth the price of the
book. "

i

EVANGELISM CONFERENCE

Sponsored by Presbyterian Evangelistic Fellowship Montreat, North Carolina August 9-14, 1973

Director Missionary

Other ads in the Journal feature the MAIN ADDRESS speakers, MUSIC PRO- Speaker
GRAM and the SEMINAR LEADERS. This ad emphasizes the

YOUTH PROGRAM

Youth please note: In place of vespers this
year there will be a "Youth Happening"
each evening following the worship service.
This will be just for the college age and
senior high youth.

REV. TOM HUGHES
Pastor, Independent
Presbyterian Church
Brandon, Fla.

REV. JOHN E. KYLE
Wycliffe Bible Translator!
Jackson, Miss.

College Age

Senior High

Junior High

REV. TOM ELLIS
Pastor, Eastside
Presbyterian Church
Gadsden, Ala.

Juniors

REV. JIMMY TURNER
Associate Pastor,
First Presbyterian Church
Columbus, Miss.

REV. SIDNEY ANDERSON
Pastor, Jewell Ridge
Presbyterian Church
Jewell Ridge, Va.

REV. ROBERT LaMAY
Pastor, Fleming Memorial
United Presbyterian Church
Fairmont, W. Va.

MR. BILLY TYSON
Student, Reformed
Theological Seminary
Jackson, Miss.

REV. DAVID WILLIAMS
Pastor, St. Paul's
Presbyterian Church
Hemingway, S. C.

Kindergarten

During the morning sessions there will be special and spearate programs, activities
and seminars for all kindergarten, primary, junior, junior high, senior high and
colleges ages. Nursery provided at all services for children under 4 years of age.

For Evangelism Conference brochures clip this coupon and mail to

PRESBYTERIAN EVANGELISTIC FELLOWSHIP
P. O. Box 808
Hopewell, Virginia 23860

Primary

MRS. FLOYD POWERS
Hopewell, Va.

Name

Address

City and state

.Zip-

Please send me_

-Evangelism Conference brochures.

MRS J. P. JENKINS
Charleston, W. Va.

Nursery

MRS. GEORGE SMITH
Hopewell, Va.

PAGE 20 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / MARCH 28, 1973

J

VOL. XXXI, NO. 49

APRIL 4, 1973

$4.00 A YEAR

the

PRESBYTERIAN

JOURNAL

Advocating continuation of a Presbyterian Church loyal

to Scripture and the Reformed faith

Name of the Game

The name of the liberal game is "winner take all." If no-
body else realizes it, our liberal brethren are convinced that
they have won their battle. Any observant person should see
that they have our denomination firmly under control.

One can predict what will now occur. Many good men
will believe or pretend to believe that they can still turn the
Church around. They will stay with the sinking ship and heap
scorn on those who leave. As the ship continues to go down,
they will keep on saying that they could have saved it if those
other conservatives had stayed aboard. They will also com-
plain that those schismatic conservatives were so unloving when
they left!

-Richard G. Watson

(See p. 7)

S. S. LESSON AND YOUTH PROGRAM FOR APRIL 22

JM00

n$LZ DM TTIH ledhrqg
notq.091100 Q M

MAILBAG

THE EASTER OFFERING

Greetings from India, a warm
spot on the globe in many ways. We
have had many conferences with key
church and government leaders here,
seeking further openings for relief
operations.

Our programs in Bangladesh are

meeting a critical need. Some 2,000
acres of land reclamation and sur-
plus rice are helping 10,000 people.
We have started five nutritional clin-
ics and at the moment are giving
life and hope to 6,000 children.

In Vietnam, the needs of many
children continue to be met physical-

the

PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL

Rev. G. Aiken Taylor, Ph.D., Editor
Rev. Henry B. Dendy, D.D., Managing Editor
Timothy Belz, Assistant Editor

Circulation leader among independent publications in the Presbyterian-Reformed world

THIS WEEK-

Vol. XXXI, No. 49, April 4, 1973

For These Reasons 7

The time of testing for the Presbyterian Church US is past;
now is the time for action By Richard G. Watson

De Facto Union 8

The PCUS and the UPUSA are spiritually united, although
not all their members are By Ben Wilkinson

What's With the NCC? 9

The NCC seems to have lost the confidence of even its most
enthusiastic supporters By the Editor

Inside the Steering Committee 11

A look at the group guiding the first steps of the Continuing
Church By Robert M. Metcalf Jr.

Departments —

Editorials 1 2

The Layman and his Church 13

Sunday School Lesson, April 22 14

Youth Program, April 22 16

Book Reviews 17

THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL, a

Presbyterian weekly magazine, devoted
to the statement, defense, and propa-
gation of the Gospel, the faith which
was once for all delivered to the saints,

is published every Wednesday by the
Southern Presbyterian Journal Co.,
Inc., in Weaverville, N. C.

SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: $4 a year
for individuals, $3 for members of
Every Family Plan churches. All cor-
respondence regarding subscriptions,
advertising or other business matters
should be addressed to the business
office in Weaverville, N. C. 28787.
Second class postage paid at Weaver-
ville, N. C. 28787.

POSTMASTER: Send Form 3579 to
Presbyterian Journal, Box 635, Weav-
erville, N. C. 28787. Subscribers
should allow three weeks for change
of address in continental U. S. Change
of address notices should include both
old and new addresses (with zip
codes).

NEWS AND EDITORIAL correspond-
ence should be addressed to P. 0. Box
3108, Asheville, N. C. 28802. Editorial
offices located at 247 Charlotte St. in
Asheville.

TELEPHONES: (All area 704) edi-
torial office, 254-4015, 254-4016;
business office, 645-3310, 645-3962.

ly and spiritually. In the past nine
months the chaplain at the Hoa
Khanh Children's Hospital has re-
ported 100 decisions for Christ from
among the young patients.

Many other projects are a part
(but not the full) answer as we con-
tinue to serve as the overseas relief
agency of the National Association
of Evangelicals.

—Everett W. Graffam

NAE World Relief Commission

Churches looking for an evangelical
outlet for their overseas relief offer-
ing may want to contact the World
Relief Commission, Box 44, Valley
Forge, Pa., 19481, for details of their
operations. — Ed.

TO INFLUENCE PEOPLE

You put some good, soundly Bib-
lical material in the Journal. For
that reason I have been reading it.

But along with the good seed that
you sow, I see other things that
you scatter as tares across the visible
body of Christ for the purpose
of producing tears, and more tears
(a pun of no fun) .

The issue of Feb. 7 carries an
editorial slander such as I had not
supposed you were yet ready to hurl
at your brethren in the Lord's vine-
yard:

"We have been interested to note
that the income of the PCUS con-
tinues at a high level. Evidently,
many Christians are not carrying out
their Christian responsibility."

The rebuttal to such a broad and
blind swipe at the performance of
the Holy Spirit can be long and
devastating: "for with what judg
ment you judge you shall be
judged."

— (Rev.) Alex McCutchen
Stockton, Ala.

If we didn't get letters such as this
one we wouldn't legitimately have
reason to believe the editorial ma-
terial in the JOURNAL is related to
real people. — Ed.

I have been a ruling elder for
some years and have previously sub
scribed to your Journal under the
guise of "knowing the enemy of the
Church better." After some time 1
concluded you did not represent a
force significant enough to be con-
cerned about.

Our session voted down the Con-
cerned Presbyterians and other re-
lated parachurch organizations ovei
five years ago. I still see your cause;
at the zero level in our congregatior
as well as within St. Johns presby

i

tery.

As a commissioner to the General
Assembly I feel it irresponsible to
receive your Journal. Obviously I
feel it is a complete waste of time
to read your version of the Presby-
terian Church US.

— Kermit E. Gay
Orlando, Fla.

From its inception the JOURNAL has
been sent to all commissioners each
year. Invariably a handful, or so, in-
dicate their minds are closed tight be-
fore they go to the Assembly. — Ed.

As long as you can keep your
comments free of bitterness, and com-
passionate, understanding the moti-
vations of the liberals, the immov-
ables, the indifferent and the af-

firmatively hopeful, you will grow
in influence with the faithful.
— Paul A. Newell
Haynesville, La.

See across the Editor's Desk, this is-
sue.— Ed.

MINISTERS

John F. Anderson Jr., from Atlan-
ta, Ga., to the First Church, Dal-
las, Tex., eff. June 15.
James Forrester from Newport
News, Va., to Hampton, Va., as
director of the Peninsula Pastoral
Center.

John C. Hinchcliff from the fac-
ulty of Hampden-Sydney College
(Va.) to the University of Auck-
land, New Zealand, as chaplain,
eff. in June.

Ernest H. Mellor from German-
town, Tenn., to Memphis, Tenn.,
as director of Memphis Institute
of Group and Family Counseling.
E. Otis Moore Jr., from the Bel-
laire, Tex., church to Mo-Ranch
Texas Camp and Conference Cen-
ter, as president.

John B. Stanley from Lexington,
Va., to the Tinkling Spring
church, Fisherville, Va.
Thomas K. Spence Jr. from White-
ville, N. C, to the Peace church,
Fayetteville, N. C.
Richard E. Stone, Belton, Tex.,
is serving as stated supply of the
First Church, Bartlett, Tex.
Robert L. Trett from the mili-
tary chaplaincy to the Lynnhaven
church, Virginia Beach, Va.

ACROSS THE EDITOR'S DESK

In an extraordinary called meet-
ing, the Board of Directors of the
Journal has approved an explicit
editorial policy in relation to the
emerging Church. The Journal will
"defend, encourage, interpret and
report on" the Church scheduled to
be reborn, while "encouraging" and
"continuing to show respect, good
will and sincere appreciation" for
those who either elect, or are forced,
to remain with the PCUS.

The actual language of the resolu-
tion adopted is as follows:

"Resolved, that the Presbyterian
Journal, as an independent publica-
tion in the Presbyterian and Re-
formed world, in its editorial policy
in the present crisis, seek: 1) to de-
fend, encourage, interpret and re-
port developments in the Church
'that will be reborn in 1973, as long
as it is truly Reformed; and, 2) to
report conservative efforts in the
Presbyterian Church US, to encour-
age Reformed conservatives in the
PCUS in their witness, and to con-
tinue to show them respect, good
will and sincere appreciation."

The board recognized that with-

in the Church (and within itself)
there are different opinions as to
timing and even as to the propriety
of the steps soon to be taken. It
further recognized that if existing
conservative publications, such as
the Journal, do not seek to represent
all who love the Lord Jesus Christ
in sincerity, there will be many who
will feel they do not have a publica-
tion to which they can turn and
through which they can continue to
express themselves.

The board expressed a determina-
tion to maintain fellowship with
those who go with the PCUS as well
as those who remain in the Contin-
uing Church. In this respect, a new
testimony may, d.v., be possible in
the history of the Christian Church.

Heretofore, when brethren sepa-
rated, lines of communication were
severed and fellowship too often ter-
minated. Walls of protection were
built and the impression created that

only those who dwelt within the
walls belonged to the Kingdom.

This time we are determined it
shall be different. If it is possible
to enjoy cordial fellowship with Re-
formed and evangelical brethren in
the United Presbyterian Church, the
Reformed Church in America, the
Associate Reformed Presbyterian
Church, and others through such as-
sociations as the National Presbyte-
r i a n and Reformed Fellowship
(which will loom ever more signifi-
cant and deserving of support) , it
will be essential for brethren of the
Continuing Church and brethren in
the PCUS to continue holding
hands.

To this end, we intend to open
the columns of the Journal not only
to expressions of support for the
Continuing Church, as in this issue,
but also to any reasonably compati-
ble, however contrasting, view-
point. El

PAGE 3 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 4, 1973

NEWS OF RELIOION

GEB Still Organizing, Beginning to Act

ATLANTA — The General Execu-
tive Board of the Presbyterian
Church US was able last week to
reach beyond its self-conscious preoc-
cupation with organizational struc-
ture and begin to exercise its author-
ity in other areas.

Significant actions included the
establishment of tentative 1975 pri-
orities for the General Assembly,
policies for GEB investment prac-
tices, and a detailed job description
for a denominational representative
in Washington, D. C.

Task Not Complete

That is not to say that the GEB
has completed its task of restructur-
ing the boards and agencies of the
Church under its control. A motion
by leaders in the Division of Central
Support Services that the GEB im-
mediately issue the required six
months notices of termination to all
employees currently serving the
boards and agencies of the General
Assembly was defeated.

The GEB's management team
claimed there were many functions
it was unready to take over within
the next six months.

A CSS spokesman had said it was
"irresponsible" use of donated mon-
ey to simultaneously continue the
work of two structures when one is
meant to replace the other.

The GEB adopted a list of 19 ten-
tative priority statements for 1975 to

P

KOREA — An amazing number of
happenings in this country testify
to the mighty work of the Holy
Spirit in our time. These have oc-
curred among missionary personnel
as well as Koreans.

Recently there have been mass Ko-
rean Army baptisms. A planned
Campus Crusade effort entitled Ex-
plo '74 is expected to attract 300,-
000 from 5,000 colleges and universi-
ties all over the world. Billy Gra-
ham is coming in May and prelimi-
nary meetings are already produc-

be presented to the General Assem-
bly. Included in one statement was
the phrase "salvation as liberation,"
which brought a response by Dr. L.
Nelson Bell, Moderator of the Gen-
eral Assembly and member of the
board, that the phrase was neither
Scriptural nor historically Reformed
unless it meant "liberation from sin
and guilt."

An overwhelming majority, how-
ever, agreed with proponents of the
statement that it was "time for Re-
formed theology to change." They
also argued that it would be wrong
to disregard the fact that "Salvation
as Liberation" is already the name
given to the ecumenical theme for
1976 sponsored by the World Coun-
cil of Churches.

Alan in Washington

The GEB's Executive Committee
completed a job description of the
new Washington Communication
Executive whose assignment will be,
among other things, to "communi-
cate" to the federal government the
positions and actions of the PCUS
and "assist GEB in building, main-
taining and managing an integrated
network which permits GEB, judica-
tories and individuals to join in ef-
fective communication of denomina-
tional social policy."

Original wording called the new
executive an "advocate" rather than
a "communicator," but most mem-

ing unusual spiritual results.

Groups of 1,500 people are going
to Seoul in rotation from each of
the nine provinces of South Korea
for evangelism seminars in prepara-
tion for future events.

I see patients, ordinary people, all
excited about what is taking place
in this country and what it will
mean in their small country church-
es and across denominational bound-
aries. The Lord surely is at work in
this land. — From a letter from Dr.
Herbert Codington. ffl

bers of the committee agreed with
the Rev. Ben L. Rose of Richmond
who argued that "advocacy" smelled
too much of "maneuvering." Said
Dr. Rose: "After all, we have to sell
this."

There was no determination by
the committee as to what extent the
new office would represent a lobby-
ing function.

The GEB granted a division re-
quest that the board deposit extra
funds in minority-owned banks and
depositories or in institutions which
have "satisfactorily demonstrated
banking and lending policies and
practices that encourage and foster
minority economic development."

In addition, GEB agreed to pur-
chase its supplies and services from
vendors, firms and businesses which
can demonstrate "meaningful" non-
discriminatory hiring practices or
which are owned by minorities.

New Synod Office

The Division of National Mis-
sion presented a plan to implement
a new Regional Resourcing System
which places in each synod an office
designed to help local churches meet
their material and personnel needs.
According to the plan, each office
will stay in close touch with every
other office and with a central office
in Atlanta.

The Division of Central Support
Services, which already faces a 27
per cent decline in denominational
giving this year, was less than en
thusiastic concerning the $250,00C
cost tag of the project, and the GEI ,.
took no action to allocate an amount j.

Throughout the meeting here, th< ^
$200 per day "process consultant' jri
hired last year warned the GEB o 11(
the growing "absenteeism" araonf
board members (during the finai lf
hour of business there was n<
quorum, although the meeting fini
ished on schedule) and of the conj
tinuing need for establishing "trust' l
relationships with others, includin; JJj
still existing boards and agencies o j
the PCUS. 4

To combat such problems and t ^
sell itself to the PCUS, the GEB ha ]
already spent or allocated hundred j| ^
of man-hours and thousands of do
lars. It has hired a public relatior j.

THE CHURCH OVERSEAS

PAGE 4 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 4, 1973

Tentative Text of New Vows Is Released

firm in Jackson, Miss., to send reg-
ular promotional news releases on
its work to every daily newspaper in
the South and to develop a sound-
slide presentation for use at the
General Assembly and in local
churches. 51

Howard Blake Appointed
To Texas Renewal Center

CORPUS CHRISTI, Tex. — How-
ard C. Blake, a Presbyterian US min-
ister who directed the 1972 national
Congress on Evangelism, has been
named church relations coordinator
for the Laity Lodge Renewal Center
with offices in Kerrville, Tex.

The center is supported by the
Howard E. Butt Foundation. Mr.
Butt, a layman prominent in evan-
gelical circles who announced the
appointment and directs several
Christian renewal ministries, said
that the veteran churchman will al-
so be part of a team developing new
concepts for Christian learning and
leadership which will originate at
the Laity Lodge Center.

For years Mr. Blake was on the
staff of the Oxford Group which
became the international Moral Re-
Armament movement. From 1966
until he became the executive direc-
tor for the 1972 Congress on Evan-
gelism, he was General Pastor and
Stated Clerk of the South Texas
Presbytery. 51

Marvin Perry Is Elected
President of Agnes Scott

ATLANTA — Dr. Marvin Banks
Perry Jr., 54, has been elected presi-
dent of Agnes Scott College here,
and will succeed Dr. Wallace M. Al-
ston who is retiring.

Dr. Perry, who will assume the
new post on July 1, is currently
president of Goucher College for
women at Towson, Md.

Announcement of the election of
Agnes Scott's fourth president in its
84-year history was made by Hal L.
Smith, Atlanta businessman and
chairman of the college board of
trustees.

Dr. Perry is a Presbyterian elder
and active in church, civic and cul-
tural affairs in the Baltimore
area. 51

ATLANTA — A thorough revision
of ordination vows is under consid-
eration by the ad interim committee
preparing a new confession of faith
for the Presbyterian Church US and
the first, tentative draft of the re-
vised questions will be sent to the
1973 General Assembly for informa-
tion only, it was revealed here.

In addition to a new confession
of faith and a "book of confessions,"
the committee, chaired by the Rev.
Albert C. Winn of Louisville Semi-
nary, will propose new questions to
be asked of officers and ministers at
the time of their ordination.

The five suggested questions, each
of which substantially changes the
vows traditionally taken by ordained
Presbyterians, are: 1) Do you trust
in God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
and do you acknowledge Jesus Christ
as Lord of the world and Head of
the Church?

2) Do you believe the Scriptures
of the Old and New Testaments to
be the Word of God, the unique and
authoritative witness to Jesus Christ
in the Church universal, and there-
fore the authoritative standard by
which your faith and life are to be
tested?

3) Do you accept and adopt the
confessions of this Church as reliable
helps in understanding what Scrip-
ture leads us to believe and do?

4) Will you fulfill your office in
obedience to Jesus Christ, under the
authority of Scripture and contin-
ually guided by our confessions?

5) Do you promise that if at any
time you find yourself unable so to
fulfill your office you will on your
own initiative make known to your
presbytery (or session, in the case
of elders and deacons) the change
which has taken place in your con-
victions since the assumption of this
ordination vow?

Changes in the text of the pro-
posed new confession itself were al-
so announced by the committee,
which has taken under advisement
suggestions from throughout the
Church. The changes already de-
termined to be made include, ac-
cording to the committee:

• To add a doxological statement
on the Trinity in Chapter I.

• To sharpen the doctrine of man

and the doctrine of sin, paying at-
tention to sin as apathy as well as
proud rebellion.

• To make sure that in avoiding
17th century jargon, the present
writers do not introduce 20th cen-
tury jargon.

• To introduce a thematic state-
ment on the Trinity (Chapter V) ;
to strengthen and clarify the para-
graph on preaching (Chapter VI) ;
to rewrite Chapters VII and IX.

• To include a paragraph on the
ethics of sexuality.

• To reduce the over-masculinity
of the language.

• To strive for "more theological
precision, clearer statements regard-
ing who God is, who Christ is, who
the Holy Spirit is, and what the
Church is."

A new projected timetable would
be for the Assembly to examine and
send down the report for study in
June, 1974; study by presbyteries
and additional revision, 1974-1975;
first Assembly vote, 1975; vote by
presbyteries, 1975-1976; and second
Assembly vote, 1976.

Ten confessional documents, in a
Book of Confessions, will be print-
ed for the 1974 Assembly. These will
include the Nicene Creed, the Apos-
tles' Creed, the Geneva Catechism of
1541, the Scots Confession of 1560,
the Heidelberg Catechism of 1563,
the Westminster Confession of 1647,
the Westminster Larger Catechism
of 1648, the Westminster Shorter
Catechism of 1648, the Declaration
of Barmen of 1934, and the proposed
new confession yet to be named. 51

Grants Approved by Task
Force on World Hunger

ATLANTA — Grants approved by
the Presbyterian US Task Force on
World Hunger from funds to be ob-
tained from the 1973 Easter Offer-
ing for the alleviation of world hun-
ger and human need will include
social activist organizations as well
as the direct relief of hunger.

A total of $31,650 in grants was
approved by the task force in a meet-
ing here, in response to requests for-
warded by separate presbyteries.
These include:

PAGE 5 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 4, 1973

A $5,000 grant for a summer feed-
ing/recreation program in seven ru-
ral counties in North Carolina.

A $5,000 grant to develop local
Economic Development Corpora-
tions in an area in Texas where the
Mexican population is large.

A $2,500 grant for a summer train-
ing program for poor Appalachian
youth in West Virginia.

A $2,500 grant to help develop
joint programs between affluent
urban churches and rural churches
in areas of need in Mecklenburg
Presbytery.

A $3,550 grant to sustain a nutri-
tion program for the elderly in Mis-
souri.

A $5,000 grant to help finance a
cooperative grocery store in Ozarks
Union Presbytery.

A $5,000 grant to assist in the de-
velopment of a "self-help program"
in Louisiana.

A $600 grant of "emergency funds
for the poor" in the Warner Rob-
ins, Ga., area.

Last year's General Assembly de-
termined that 30 per cent of the
1973 Easter offering would be ad-
ministered by the Task Force on
World Hunger and 70 per cent
would be administered by the Board
of World Missions.

Other grants approved here in-
clude a family planning program
in Ghana; the publication in Clin-
ton, Mo., of a "white paper" on Ef-
fects of Changes in Public Assis-
tance to the Aged, Blind and Dis-
abled; the Grass Roots Economic
Development Corporation of Jack-
son, Ky.; the Planned Parenthood/
World Population organization; and
a "meals on wheels" emergency fund
in Middle Tennessee Presbytery, ffl

UPUSA-PCUS Committee
Begins Revision of Plan

PHILADELPHIA — A subcommit-
tee charged with redrafting A Plan
for Union for the Presbyterian
Church US and the United Presby-
terian Church in the USA began by
committing itself to writing a new
Book of Government.

A revision of the plan should be
ready for consideration by the two
denominations' top governing bod-
ies in 1974.

The new Book of Government
will reflect the Churches' theologi-
cal stance and will be contemporary
in expression, according to a sub-
committee spokesman.

The committee also agreed to stay
in close touch with the PCUS com-
mittee charged with drafting a new
confession of faith in order to clari-
fy the specific content of a proposed
book of confessions which would
serve as part of the constitu-
tional base for union of the two
Churches. SI

'Living Bible' Is
Best Seller in 7972

NEW YORK (RNS) — The Living
Bible, a paraphrased edition by Dr.
Kenneth Taylor, was America's best-
selling book in 1972.

It tops the nonfiction list issued
by Publishers Weekly on the basis
of sales by one distributor, Double-
day, over only the last four months
of the year.

When the sales of Tyndale House,
a firm headed by Dr. Taylor, are
added, The Living Bible outstripped
all other books, including Jonathan
Livingston Seagull, the best-selling
fiction work.

Doubleday sold 757,216 copies of
the paraphrase in the trade book
category from September 1972 to
the end of the year. Tyndale House
sold five million copies, in several
editions, over the year. IB

Graham Draws Crowd of
45,000 in South Africa

DURBAN, South Africa — More
than 45,000 gathered at a rugby sta-
dium here to listen as Evangelist
Billy Graham told them that "only
Jesus Christ can solve the problems
of individual South Africans, of
their nation and the world."

It was the first appearance for
Graham in South Africa. In a na-
tion known for its strict separation
of the races, organizers of the meet-
ing had met the world famed evan-
gelist's conditions for preaching in
any country — that all persons of
all races be welcomed and allowed
to sit where they chose.

More than 3,300 left their places
to stand before the platform to in-
dicate their intention to follow
Christ, one of the largest responses,
proportionately, in any meeting ever
conducted by Graham.

The evangelistic rally was a fea-
tured event on the program of a
multiracial South African Congress
on Evangelism and Mission, one of
several such congresses that have
been held throughout the world. IB

Report Europe Backlash
Against Pornography

NEW YORK (RNS) — A backlash
against the pornography and sexual
exploitations growing out of the
permissive sixties is apparently
spreading throughout Europe

A New York Times survey of the
European "sex market" revealed that
officials in "free-wheeling" Copen
hagen, which has long held the
reputation as the "capital of per
missiveness," has closed clubs fea-
turing live sex shows.

The study revealed that tighter
reins are also visible in West Ger
many, Britain, Italy, France and
Yugoslavia. The government of
Sweden has announced a parliamen
tary inquiry that could lead to curbs
on live shows.

The European reaction against
pornography is seen, in part, as aris-
ing from fears of criminality and
drug peddling, which are often as-
sociated with the sex business. It is
also tied to concern for public mo-
rality.

Many alarmed authorities in
Europe, as in the U. S., have em-
barked on intensive campaigns to re-
verse, or at least curb, the recent ex-
pansion of sexual exploitation.

In Britain, police have carried out
new raids on shops selling pornog-
raphy, "sweeping up tons" of books
and magazines valued at over $1
million.

Reaction against pornography is
also growing in Yugoslavia, which is
said to be the "most permissive coun-
try in eastern Europe." The govern-
ment recently denounced liberalism,
including permissiveness, in all areas
of life. Reform is under way to
refashion sex journals into instru-
ments of "ideological influence."

In West Germany, authorities
have intensified their campaign
against pornography and have closed
down some publications. They have
also announced action against mas
sage parlors.

What do the promoters of the
sex market feel about the current
trends? Paul Raymond, who is
known as the "strip king" in Lon-
don, told the Times:

"I've been running nude shows
for 20 years and the cycle turn:
about every five years. Right no\v
the trend is obvious, but there is
still too much confusion over whal
the law allows. The authorities are
clearly trying to keep things from
getting out of hand."

i

PAGE 6 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 4, 1973

Why some feel it is necessary to leave the Presbyterian Church US —

For These Reasons

King David wept for his child
while the child was dying,
but when death came, he said the
time for weeping was over. The
Open Letter of the Covenant Fel-
lowship of Presbyterians has de-
clared this to be "a time of sadness
and testing" for the Church. The
question is this: Where were these
mourners during the past twenty or
more years while the Church was
being beaten to death?

Did they weep the day the Gen-
eral Assembly defied its Judicial
Commission and approved union
presbyteries by a simple majority,
contrary to the constitution? Did
they shed any tears when the As-
sembly time after time refused to
check the publication of heretical,
subversive and morally questionable
literature? And where were they
the day that our highest court of
the Church decreed that it is right
to murder unborn children?

During all those miserable years
which should have been a time of
sadness, the only sound of sobbing
we heard came through the pages
of the Presbyterian Journal. Sup-
porters of the Journal were not ap-
plauded for their expressions of con-
cern for the Church; they were
badgered at every opportunity by
ministers and courts of the Church.
Are we now supposed to be greatly
moved by the tears of those mod-
erate conservatives who have just
discovered that there is something
in the Church to be sad about?

Notice that while the suddenly vo-
cal moderate conservatives are ob-
jecting to the Steering Committee
for a Continuing Church, the lib-

The author is pastor of the Semi-
nole Presbyterian Church, Tampa,
Fla.

eral power structure is amazingly
quiet. They are making no promises
or concessions to promote reconcilia-
tion.

Try to name one significant is-
sue on which the liberals have or
will ever reverse themselves for the
sake of truth or the Word of God.
They have not agreed to a concilia-
tory act for so long that they would
not know where to begin.

The name of the liberal game is
"winner take all." If nobody else
realizes it, our liberal brethren are
convinced that they have won their
battle. Any sensible person should
see that they have our denomination
firmly in control.

Like the Titanic

One can predict what will now
occur. Many good men will believe
or pretend that they can still turn
the Church around. They will stay
with the sinking ship and heap
scorn on those who leave. As the
ship continues to go down, they will
keep on saying that they could have
saved it if those other conservatives
had stayed aboard. They will also
complain that those schismatic con-
servatives were so unloving when
they left!

It happened to J. Gresham
Machen like that. Some moderate
conservatives have already said that
the Continuing Church group will

He Is Mistaken

He is mistaken, who gives to
Scripture any meaning, however
truthful or however edifying, which
was not intended by the sacred au-
thor. — Augustine.

RICHARD G. WATSON

end up no better than the Machen
group. May we pray to do as well?
Where would the Reformed witness
in this country be today without the
influence of those who left the Pres-
byterian Church USA with Machen?

Through the years many have ac-
cused the Puritans of error in break-
ing away from the Church of Eng-
land. It is said that their influence
for good was lost through their sep-
aration. Yet it has properly been
pointed out that it was the prayers
of these Puritans that laid the foun-
dation of the Great Awakening.

Many of them died in prison pray-
ing for the revival that the Lord
sent through men like Whitefield,
Wesley and Edwards. The Puri-
tans were right in accepting perse-
cution, prison and exile rather than
doctrinal and moral impurity in the
Church.

Moral Issue

Louis de Tillet, a good man, was
sincere in offering John Calvin mon-
ey if he would return to the Church
of Rome. Calvin refused the mon-
ey, saying the rate of interest was too
high. Louis de Tillet then began
to accuse Calvin of being too rash
and schismatic in his stand against
Rome.

Calvin replied, "When we come
thither, it will be known on which
side the rashness and desertion have
been. It is thither that I appeal
from the judgment of all worldly
wise sages who think their simple
word has weight enough for our con-
demnation. There the angels of God
will bear witness who are schisma-
tic."

Over and over we hear it said
that there is no constitutional issue
in the Presbyterian Church US.
When will they realize that the is-

PAGE 7 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 4, 1973

sue is moral? Moral issues are much
more important to Christians than
constitutional issues.

The Presbyterian Church US is
sponsoring abortion counseling cen-
ters. Every member is involved.
Who knows how many hundreds of
babies have been killed by the direct

aid and encouragement of our
Church? This is a terrible and
grievous sin! How in good con-
science can we voluntarily continue
to support an organization of Chris-
tians whose hands are dripping with
blood? What does it take for a
Church to become apostate?

They say that this is a time of
testing for the Church, but it is not
a time of testing. The Church has
already been tested and the results
are clear. The Church is found
wanting! "How long will ye halt
between two opinions?" (I Kings 18:
21) . IS

The PC US and the UPUSA are already united operationally and organically —

De Facto Union

Soneone said the other day, "I
just don't believe that now is
the time for a Continuing Presbyte-
rian Church. But if there ever was
a union between our Church and
the UPUSA, I would have to be-
come an active participant in the
Continuing Presbyterian C h u r ch
movement."

I have some bad news for him and
all like him. We are already unit-
ed with the UPUSA. The sooner
there is a Continuing Presbyterian
Church, loyal to Scripture, adhering
to the historic Reformed faith, and
obedient to the Great Commission,
the better off we will be. What do
I mean? Look at what has hap-
pened already:

We are one operationally. At least
one of our boards, the Board of
Christian Education, voted years
ago, and the action was confirmed
by the General Assembly, to have an
interchanged information forms
about ministers willing to serve
Christian Education. The General
Assembly's Committee on the Min-
ister and his Work has for years
interchanged information forms
about ministers willing to serve
in either the UPUSA or the PCUS.

Many presbyteries will approve a
candidate's request to go to a UPUSA
seminary while rejecting his request
to go to Reformed Theological
Seminary. The Boards of World
Missions of both denominations

The author is an evangelist with
the Presbyterian Evangelistic Fel-
lowship. He lives in Decatur, Ga.

have sent out missionaries belong-
ing to the missions board of the
other denomination. In these and
other ways the PCUS is one opera-
tionally with the UPUSA.

In addition, we are one organi-
cally. The PCUS has nine pres-
byteries that are already organical-
ly in union (they are one) with nine
UPUSA presbyteries. PCUS benevo-
lence money goes to support UPUSA
causes and vice versa. Ministers
and communicants are members of
both denominations. They are in
union, they are one organically
with all members of both denomi-
nations. The PCUS and the UPUSA
are thus one organically because of
these unions.

Now this organic union is grow-
ing. Through restructuring, these
nine union presbyteries are joining
with other presbyteries into mam-
moth synods. Any UPUSA or
PCUS minister or member of one
of these union presbyteries will be
a member of that synod united with
the other denomination. The area
of union occupation grows.

Like Siamese Twins

Because of this operational and
organic union, all persons in both
the PCUS and the UPUSA are unit-
ed with each other. It reminds me
of Siamese twins. They are united,
grown together, at certain points of
their bodies. When one is sick, the
other is soon sick. When one dies,
the other soon dies. The reason?
Though they have separate heads,
they are at a point one and the same.

BEN WILKINSON

The blood system that carries life
is one and the same in each twin.
Whatever sickness and death one ex-
periences, the other experiences.

The PCUS and UPUSA Church-
es are in many areas operationally,
and in nine areas organically, one
and the same. And more, in 1973,
through the synods, half of the
PCUS will be geographically one
and the same with the UPUSA.
Brothers, you say, "I am not ever
going to be a part of a union be-
tween the PCUS and the UPUSA."
We already are. The sooner there is
a Continuing Presbyterian Church,
the better — else those who remain
faithful will die with that spiritually
dead body.

A special note to faithful brothers
of the historic Reformed faith in
the UPUSA: Join with us in the
Continuing Presbyterian Church
movement. This is not a sectional
battle. We know of your faithful-
ness. We are one with each of you
of like mind and faith.

For hours after a body dies, reflex
actions can be mistaken for life, but
the body is dead. The relatively
small number of faithful ministers
and members in the UPUSA de-
nomination does not signify life in
that spiritually dead body.

The relatively small number of
the faithful shows graphically how
bad things can get in a denomina-
tion that was once loyal to Scrip-
ture, adhering to the historic Re-
formed faith, and obedient to the
Great Commission. Join with us in
reforming this ever continuing Pres-
byterian Church. IS

PAGE 8 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 4, 1973

Is the NCC on its death bed, or has it taken a new lease on life? —

What's With the NCC?

Long-time observers of the Na-
tional Council of Churches
came away from the ninth, and last,
General Assembly in Dallas, Decem-
ber 1972, with mixed reactions.

One denominational officer, long
prominent in NCC affairs said, "We
have witnessed an event which
marks the death of the council."

On the other hand, the new vice-
president, Mrs. Victor Baltzell of the
Christian Church (Disciples) , felt
the total reorganization accom-
plished in Dallas represented a new
potential for "united strength in
mission among churches of all faiths
and denominations." She pointed
especially to remarks by Dr. W. A.
Criswell, pastor of Dallas' First Bap-
tist Church, as indicating a hope-
ful sign of cooperation with and par-
ticipation by conservatives in the ec-
umenical movement.

Which of these evaluations is ac-
curate? In other words, what's with
the NCC?

Without a doubt, the Dallas As-
sembly was the most radical in the
history of the ecumenical organiza-
tion. The NCC paid black revolu-
tionary LeRoy Jones, whom it duti-
fully addressed as Imamu Amiri Ba-
jraka, $1,500 to come and tell admir-
ing delegates that if the Church
idoesn't become more revolutionary,
it will disappear.

; And in a step equally radical by
iNCC standards, it invited Dr. Da-
vid Hubbard of Fuller Seminary to
participate in a program on evan-
gelism.

It adopted the usual plethora of

What has happened to the Na-
tional Council of Churches, and
what is its place in the welter of
confusion among the Churches to-
day? This article is intended to
bring things up to date.

pronouncements, among which were
condemnations of various aspects of
U. S. policy and a resolution not to
meet again in any hotel serving ice-
berg lettuce which had not been
picked by the United Farm Workers.

It elected for a three year term as
its first black president an outspoken
advocate and signer of the notorious
Black Manifesto.

And as part of a general reorgani-
zation, it legislated out of existence
its triennial showcase, the General
Assembly itself.

Critics Aplenty

Critics aplenty the NCC has, but
never has the public press treated it
as coolly as in Dallas. From careful
objectivity to strongly opinionated
subjectivity, the mood of reporters
and editorial writers was uniformly
less enthusiastic than ever before.

Few commentaries, however,
reached the acid level of William
Murchison's evaluation in the Dal-
las Times-Herald. Wrote Mr. Murch-
ison about the Assembly: "Every-
one curious about modern Christian-
ity's worst ailment — acute inflam-
mation of the social-activism gland

— should drop by for a look."
Continued Mr. Murchison: "On

all the notable questions of the day

— from amnesty to Zulu rights in
South Africa — you find the ecclesi-
astics of the National Council
massed solidly inside the liberal
phalanx. With NCC, it is always
the liberals who wear white hats."

He concluded with a quote from
Malcolm Muggeridge: "They are
capable of every folly and misjudg-
ment, mistake their enemies for
friends, and, of course, vice versa,
and feel bound to go out of their
way to encourage whatever and who-
ever seek their destruction."

THE EDITOR

Some of the member denomina-
tions have become less than enthu-
siastic with the NCC's ever broad-
ening range of social pronounce-
ments. The Orthodox Churches,
for example, drew the line when a
liberal abortion position seemed im-
minent.

Orthodox representatives were
conspicuously absent for the organi-
zational meeting of the new Govern-
ing Board following the Dallas As-
sembly, and the lone Orthodox
member present took explicit note
of their absence:

"I don't know why the other Or-
thodox representatives are not
here," said the Rev. Nersess Jebejian
of the Armenian Orthodox Church
of America, "but perhaps you should
be concerned and aware they are
not."

Another Orthodox clergyman who
had been an assembly delegate but
who did not attend the subsequent
board meeting was more specific.
Withdrawal of Orthodox Churches
from the council is "possible,"
warned the Rev. Photius Donahue
of the Russian Orthodox Church in
the USA, if the controversial abor-
tion statement is approved.

More Flexibility

The restructuring accomplished
in Dallas was to assure, in the words
of its architects, "a more flexible
and inclusive life." At the heart
of it was transfer of top power from
the unwieldy General Assembly to
a 347-member Governing Board.

The council already functioned
with a General Board authorized to
do almost anything it wished be-
tween meetings of the General As-
sembly. However, under the old
structure there also existed relatively
autonomous divisions (Overseas

PAGE 9 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 4, 1973

Ministries, for example) . These
divisions conducted far-flung opera-
tions, held their own policy-making
meetings, and set their own budgets
to which member denominations,
which might belong to the division
without being members of the par-
ent NCC, contributed directly and
without supervision by the General
Board.

The new structure corrects the
broader diffusion of power and re-
sponsibility by concentrating vir-
tually all authority in the Govern-
ing Board. The new board has
power to pass on budget items and
the right to both deny program
plans and to initiate program sug-
gestions or expand the program pro-
posals of the divisions.

Membership on the new board al-
so embodies a fixed quota system.
At least one fourth of the board
must be women, at least half must
be laymen and at least one eighth
must be youth under 28. Further,
it is mandatory that the racial and
ethnic make-up of each denomina-
tion be faithfully reflected among
that denomination's representatives.

Actually, the overhaul of the
council comes at a time when the
divisions have less and less to do.
Income has fallen spectacularly
while prestige and influence have
plummeted commensurately.

It is not so much that the coun-
cil has lost the confidence of its
member denominations as it is that
the major denominations of Amer-
ica are unanimously wracked with
severe internal cramps. The reli-
gious scene matches the political
scene for dissension, disunity and
confusion.

Ecumenical cooperation has been
the first to suffer as denominations
have learned they no longer stand
united or enjoy internal harmony
on the home front.

A New Situation

From another perspective, the
council stands at the point of a new
beginning in the life of religion in
America. Previously, its major role
was to introduce the denominations
to one another and propose ways
they could work together indepen-
dently or through the good offices of
the council.

Today the council acts for all the
world like a consultant fresh out
of suggestions. Its major role now
would seem to be to exhibit within
itself the pattern of its principles

PAGE 10

in various public testimonials show-
ing that these principles work: Wit-
ness a black activist president and a
laywoman first vice-president.

Time was when the council's con-
stituent Churches derived most of
their new ideas from council services
or council-sponsored conglomerates.
A council consultation on Christian
education decided the wave of the
future in Christian education and
all the participating denominations
hurried to publish identically ori-
ented curricula, sometimes with
identical titles.

Time was when a council confer-
ence on missions determined the fu-
ture of Christian missions overseas
and all the participating denomina-
tions dutifully set up similar pat-
terns of ecumenical mission at home
as well as abroad.

Today, however, all the new sug-
gestions have been suggested, all the
new programs have been pro-
grammed, all the cooperative proj-
ects have been projected. As one
commentator said, "All the conceiv-
able pronouncements have been
pronounced!"

There's now the problem of mak-
ing it all work, and that isn't ac-
complished in plush New York of-
fices or in efficient Assembly ple-
naries. It is accomplished (if at
all) in the local churches, in the
Sunday schools, and on location in
the missionary communities over-
seas.

Leaders Sense Reaction

If it turns out that much of the
cooperative, ecumenical, unified pre-
scription simply produces a bad case
of ecclesiastical indigestion — that
the vast and gaudy schemes are un-
realistic and the programs unwork-
able — something of a backlash in-
evitably follows.

The top leaders seem to sense a
backlash. Following his election as
president, the Rev. W. Sterling Cary
said, "The day of pronouncements
and resolutions is pretty well ended.
We can now look for less platform
rapping and more empowering of
groups to deal with real problems
of people."

He continued: "It is time we be-
gin to sit around a common table
and respond to heartbeat rather
than to words.''

The essence of the message was,
"Let's quit talking and get down to
business," but it could have been
interpreted, "Let's see if every-

/ THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL

thing that has preceded this day has
validity, after all, or not."

In practical effect, the immediate
future of the council is likely to be
more time implementing and con-
solidating the giant steps taken in
the past decade, and less time plan-
ning and promoting new steps in ec-
umenical cooperation or practice.

What does it all mean to the evan-
gelical Christian, who believes as
earnestly as anyone in the unity of
Christ's body?

It means, first of all, that the ecu-
menical movement is in trouble.
While liberal religion finds itself
more and more compatible with
pure secularism and the political
aims of anti-Christ (Rev. 13) , or-
ganized ecumenism seems to be
struggling to catch its second wind.

It means something else even
more important, in my personal
opinion. The world and that large
community which calls itself Chris-
tian need a visible, convincing dem-
onstration of what true unity in
Christ is, how it is achieved, and
what it means in terms of specific
fruit in the world.

Could If They Would

Liberal religion has demonstrated
for all to see that it cannot give
such a demonstration. Can evangeli-
cal Christianity? That is the ques-
tion of the hour and evangelical
Christians could supply the answer.
If they would.

These are days calling for great-
ness among true believers. Great-
ness of faith, greatness of commit-
ment, greatness of Spirit-filled gifts,
greatness in preaching, greatness in
soul winning, greatness in demon-
strations of the unity of the Spirit in
the bond of peace.

This is no time to major on our
individual distinctives to the exclu-
sion of others who we know in our
heart of hearts love the Lord Jesus
Christ as much as we and serve Him
as faithfully (perhaps more!) .

This is a time to come together
to make visible our unity in Him,
that the world might believe (John
17).

The world now sees, as it never
saw before, that the claims of lib-
ral religion, claims of a united voice
speaking for millions of church
members, are meaningless.

Is it not time for the world to see
that the hollow pretensions of lib
eralism do not mean all Christiar
unity is only pretense? 5

4, 1973

What it's like to be on the inside of that much maligned, much praised Steering Committee —

Inside the Steering Committee

As a member of the group that
has labored diligently toward
preserving a Continuing Presbyte-
rian Church, I have observed criti-
cism, misunderstanding and curi-
osity directed our way. Quite a
storm has swirled over the heads of
the Steering Committee for a Con-
tinuing Church, but information
about the purpose and activities of
this group of a dozen men will no
doubt dispel the clouds.

When I came to the Presbyterian
Journal board meeting in August
1971, I was frankly skeptical of the
Tightness of any move toward sepa-
ration in the Presbyterian Church
US. I had seen what division had
done in my own congregation back
home. Unhappy, un-Christian re-
sults came when twelve per cent of
the membership left, chiefly on ac-
count of one emotional issue. Our
young people, for instance, were
badly hurt.

However, at the Journal board
meeting I listened carefully and
thoughtfully to the discussions
which lasted several hours. From
this group of men who love our
Lord, His Word that is truth, and
His Church, I became unalterably
convinced of these plain facts:

Plain Facts

• In our denomination are two
entirely distinct bodies of people;
one accepts the Scriptures fully for
what they say they are; the oth-
er group does not take that high
view of the Bible.
[ • The leadership of the PCUS

The author, a ruling elder in the
Second Presbyterian Church, Mem-
phis, Tenn., is a member of the
Journal Board of Directors and of
fhe Steering Committee for a Con-
tinuing Church.

has shifted steadily through the
years into the hands of the second
group, and, humanly speaking, there
simply is no realistic way to see
that changed. This is especially true
because the seminaries are pouring
out an ever increasing proportion
of those denying an inerrant Word.

• While we would pray that the
Holy Spirit would bring a revival
in our Church, history has shown
that God has almost never so turned
around a denominational slide once
it has started; He almost never has
chosen a revived denomination as
the means of nurturing His own.

• Many in the first group, who
accept an infallible Scripture, were
not willing to walk together indefi-
nitely with those who were carrying
the PCUS ever further down the
road of infidelity to Him and His
Word.

• If there was to be a wholesale
departure on the part of our people
(and we've seen all too much of
this across the years as individuals
departed) , it would be far better
to keep the form of the Continuing
Church truly Presbyterian in doc-
trine and polity.

I voted in that meeting to join
the other organizations, Presbyterian
Churchmen United, Concerned Pres-
byterians, together with the Presby-
terian Evangelistic Fellowship, in
establishing a Steering Commit-
tee to plan this imperatively needed
Presbyterian Church, faithful to
Scripture and the Reformed faith.
The vote of Journal board members
present to take this step was unani-
mous.

Accordingly, the Steering Commit-
tee was organized and has been hard
at work ever since, meeting month-
ly. The decisions already made
and to be made by the committee
are not only interesting but exceed-
ingly important for this year and
many years to come.

ROBERT M. METCALF JR.

It would take a book to tell every-
thing about the committee, and none
who could write it has the time.
When I reflect upon these many
months of the life of the committee,
however, six words strike me: sub-
mission, seeking, humility, love, sad-
ness and humor.

Never have I been, nor do I ex-
pect to be in the future, among men
who give themselves more complete-
ly in prayer in utter submission to
God's will. Human inabilities un-
ashamedly recognized, they keep al-
ways in mind the awesome nature
of the decisions facing them. They
search intensely for His guiding
hand, seeking the right in His sight
with profound humility at what is
faced.

Prayer for Guidance

A strong body of Christian affec-
tion is engendered and nourished
when such humble men, given to
their Lord, go through much to-
gether. More important, of course,
is the continual return to prayer
and to the Word for the guidance
which brings fuller measure of that
love of Christ which constrains, con-
trols and impels us. This love leads
us to greater and greater love for
others as He and the New Testa-
ment writers taught so urgently.

In our meetings, pleadings are ut-
tered over and over again in our
prayers, pleadings for love, under-
standing and patience in dealing
with others, conscious in the ex-
treme of the inevitable harm that
results from a Church splitting.
The Steering Committee members
constantly weigh possibly damaging
effects against God's call through
His Word for purity in the Church
and churches. That distinction be-
tween the true body of Christ, His

(Continued on p. 22, col. 3)

PAGE 11 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 4, 1973

EDITORIALS

With the Coming of Summer

Summer is just around the corner
and for Presbyterians it will be a
time of momentous decision. For
just around the corner looms a
Church which, supporters say, will
give rebirth to the Presbyterian
Church US as it was founded to be.

The first meeting to accomplish
this purpose is scheduled before the
Fort Worth General Assembly.

Supporters of the Continuing
Church now say: No more "maybe,"
or "if things don't improve."

No more, "if there is a further con-
stitutional union" or "if there is an
un-Biblical confession of faith
adopted" or "if the Church is re-
structured" or "if the property laws
are formally changed."

No longer will there be a waiting
until the program material becomes
even more intolerable; or until the
boards and agencies depart even
further from the implications of the
Gospel; or until ministerial rela-
tions committees further tighten the
screws on conservatives; or until the
supply of evangelical missionaries
dries up and the last vestige of evan-
gelical missions policy evaporates.

No more of ministerial candidates
ordained who don't know the Gos-
pel from the sayings of Buddha,
while evangelical ministers are re-
jected because they graduated from
the "wrong" seminary.

No further waiting until all mas-
culine references to God are re-
moved from the confession of faith,
as promised; or until the drinking
parties at the General Assembly turn
into drunken orgies; or until the
"experimental" patterns of worship
exceed the bounds of decency.

Inevitably, many are uncertain, or
fainthearted, or torn between loyal-
ties. For many, the PCUS has been
a lifetime precious home. There are
friends who will be missed, or the
savings of years will be lost. Sincere,
prayerful consideration may dictate
a negative response. That decision
must be respected by others who
find it not so hard to decide.

Some willing to separate will hesi-
tate beyond the day of decision, per-
haps uncertain about the first step
until they can see they are in good
company. Although Christ is our

Head, nevertheless we do make com-
mon cause with other human beings.
So be it. This time in the history
of Churches re-born there must be
no recriminations, no hard feelings,
no harsh language among brethren.

After the hesitating ones have had
time to reflect, they must find the
welcome mat is still out.

Already in numerous instances,
sessions of churches have taken the
initiative to encourage hesitating
ministers in their determination to
stand. And that is as it should be.
In a New Testament pattern of the
Church, elders are strong leaders.

The date to put on the calendar
is, May 18. The place, Atlanta. After
this first general meeting it is an-
ticipated that a constitutional con-
vention of formal representatives
will follow.

The invitations are going out and
all those who have expressed an in-
terest, particularly those congrega-
tions that have signed the Declara-
tion of Intent, are being included in
the mailing. If your congregation
wishes to be represented in the first
meeting (which will be more "gen-
eral" than a formal constitutional
convention) , write to Dr. John E.
Richards, P. O. Drawer 1024, Perry,
Ga., 31069, for information and a
list of available motels and hotels.
You will have to make your own ar-
rangements in view of the large
number expected. IB

What Fidelity Requires

During the next several months,
ministers and elders of the Presby-
terian Church US will be searching
their own hearts and consciences as
perhaps never before and never
again.

The pressing question: What does
fidelity to my ordination obligations
require of me?

From the liberal side the trum-
peting has already reached a crescen-
do: To advocate separation from
unbelief and apostasy is to violate
one's ordination vows.

Not unexpectedly, we have a dif-
ferent viewpoint. When we were or-

dained we did not simply promise
to help preserve the vigor of the es-
tablishment, regardless. We also
promised to support the purity of
the Church, to stand for the Word
of God, to promote the will of God.

Who is in violation of his ordina-
tion vows? It seems incontrovertible
that among these are:

• the board member who agrees
to a financial grant to a cause which
dishonors Christ when there isn't
enough to support home missions;

• that seminary professor who
approves a student he knows is not
fit to stand behind the sacred desk;

• the moderator who appoints a
political hack to an important com-
mittee;

• the board chairman who tacitly
endorses a failure in the ministry to
an administrative position in order
to give him something to do;

• the trustee who keeps silent in
the face of a policy decision which
is not in the best interest of the in-
stitution of which he was elected a
trustee;

• the pastor who lets a bad situa- i
tion develop in the Sunday school ;
because he doesn't want to create 1
controversy; i

• the member of a pulpit com- j
mittee who approves calling a min- \
ister he doesn't really know any- s
thing about;

• the session member who votes 1
"Aye" because the matter is what i
the preacher wants, when he really i
doesn't know what's going on;

• the minister or officer who c
takes the easy way out when a hard
decision is demanded;

• any minister or officer who
"walks in the counsel of the ungod- •
ly, or stands in the way of sinners
or sits in the seat of the scornful.'* Jic

Let's have done with cringing un- a
der the hypocrisy of the charge that <
it is a violation of one's ordination \\
vows to stand for a Church true tc ii;
the Gospel and the Reformed faith !ii

Especially when the charge is »i
made by people in violation of then
ordination vows! I

of

|j of

Win People . . . How? (

It still seems to be taken for grant
ed, in many circles, that the witnes:
of a Christian is borne by demon
stration rather than by proclama iei
tion: that one must live the Gospe pn
instead of preaching the Gospel ii on
order to win others to Jesus Christ l»

In Church literature the chief el

PAGE 12 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 4, 1973

THE LAYMAN AND HIS CHURCH

m

Organization or Organism?

feet of this bit of distortion is the
emphasis on "non-verbal communi-
cation." We are urged to demon-
strate love, to practice forgiveness,
to offer acceptance. We are told
that it is not what we say, but what
we do that "preaches" Christ. We
are reminded that children learn of
the love of God by experiencing love
and not by being told of love.

On the missionary fields of the
world this bit of distortion is felt
in the almost hysterical crusade to
get the missionary totally identified
with the people he ministers to. Mis-
sionaries are told that they "fall
down badly" in their responsibility
to "relate themselves" to the people.
Christians are told that they will
never have an effect on pagan cul-
tures until they demonstrate the ef-
fect of their faith in their own lives.

Without going into detail suffice
it to say that this distortion of the
Gospel is essentially a replacement
of faith with works; of the message
of salvation with the effects of sal-
vation. Everyone knows that a
Christian must live out his faith and
any student of James knows that
faith without works is dead. But
there is nothing in the Bible to sug-
gest that we win by means of good
works any more than there is the
suggestion that we are saved by good
works. It is not what we do that
leads to salvation, it is what we say.
And what we say saves because the
message of the Gospel is the power
of God unto salvation. "Non-verbal
communication" — horn the stand-
point of saving effect — is pure
hokum.

Meanwhile, we wonder if those
who elevate good works, not as an
effect of regeneration but in order
to regenerate (to save by demon-
strating) realize how that hypothe-
sis runs headon into another, name-
ly, that we must not identify Chris-
tianity with any particular way of
life? How can you demonstrate,
without lifting up your way of life?

Peter had the final word on this
subject: " (Ye are) born again . . .
of incorruptible seed, by the Word
of God" (I Pet. 1:23) . ffl

How To Treat the Bible

The office of the interpreter is to
set forth not what he himself would
prefer but what the author says and
only what the author says. — Je-
rome.

The word "church" has so many
applications that confusion results
if the intended meaning is not plain-
ly stated. The word is used various-
ly to mean the building, the local
congregation, the denomination, the
Christian community in general, the
organization, or the organism. The
greatest cause of confusion, however,
is the failure to distinguish between
the organization and the organism.

When the Pharisees rejected the
Lord and began to plot His death,
He revealed in seven parables "the
mysteries of the kingdom of heaven,"
things which had "been kept secret
from the foundation of the world"
(Matt. 13:11, 35).

Summarizing the course of events
between His first and second com-
ings, these parables showed that "the
kingdom of heaven," composed of
those who professed allegiance to
the rule of heaven, would contain
both good and bad, e.g., the wheat
and tares growing together and the
drag net with good and bad fish.

Here is a picture of the church as
an organization, though the word
"church" is not used. This is what
is commonly called "Christendom."

Later when Peter made his great
confession, "Thou art the Christ,
the Son of the living God" (Matt.
16:16), Jesus blessed him, and said,
"Thou art Peter, and upon this rock
I will build my Church; and the
gates of hell shall not prevail against
it" (Matt. 16:18).

Here is the organism, His Church,
the branches vitally united to the
true vine (John 15:1, 5) , those born
again (John 3:3, 7) , and indwelt by
the Holy Spirit (John 14:16) ; kept,
sanctified, commissioned, glorified,
and made perfect in one with the
Father and Son (John 17) . Here
is the "called out" assembly, elect of
God from all nations, against which
all of Satan's power cannot prevail.

This true, invisible Church is pic-
tured in the epistles as "an holy
temple in the Lord," built of "liv-

Vernon W. Patterson, a long-
time elder of Charlotte, N. C, brings
the layman's view this week.

ing stones" on "the foundation of
the apostles and prophets, Jesus
Christ Himself being the chief cor-
nerstone" (Eph. 2:20-21; I Pet. 2:
5) ; and His "body," of which He
is the head (Col. 1:18), "the head
over all things to the Church" (Eph.
1:22) ; and as His bride (I Cor. 11:
2) , which He will present to Him-
self "a glorious Church" (Eph. 5:
27) .

The seven churches of Revelation
2-3 give a picture of the history of
the professing Church. They com-
bine the organization and the or-
ganism, because for the most part
the organism is found within the
organization. To the church at
Ephesus our Lord said, notwith-
standing its many good works,
"Thou hast left thy first love . . .
repent, ... or else I will come unto
thee quickly, and will remove thy
lampstand" (Rev. 2:4-5) .

He gave warning also to each of
the other six churches. The lamp-
stand of Ephesus was removed and
all of the other churches have dis-
appeared centuries ago. In each
case, the organization failed; but the
organism spread to others and grew
until now it encircles the world.
Against this true Church "the gates
of hell" did not and will never pre-
vail.

There can be no loyalty to the
true Church without first of all loy-
alty to Christ, the head of the
Church. Personal advantages, senti-
mental ties, all the honors of men
and riches of the world, even life it-
self, if need be, must be surren-
dered and laid at the foot of His
cross "that in all things He might
have the preeminence" (Col. 1:
18).

How our heartstrings are entwined
around the church organization!
Fond memories flood our midst:
loved ones now gone, dear friends,
happy associations, blessings and
honors received. But in church or-
ganizations all about us we now see
Christ dishonored, His Word denied.
What shall we do?

A still, small voice stirs in our

(Continued on p. 22, col. 2,)

PAGE 13 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 4, 1973

SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON

For April 22, 1973

Christ Conquers Sin and Death

Rev. Jack B. Scott

INTRODUCTION: On this Eas-
ter Sunday we particularly focus on
the resurrection of Jesus Christ, but
from the earliest history of the
Church it seems evident that Chris-
tians have celebrated each Lord's
Day, every Sunday, as the day of Je-
sus' resurrection.

There can be no question of the
central importance of this doctrine
in the Church. If you read the book
of Acts, you see that this good news
of His resurrection was the central
message of the first century Church.
It continues to be so.

Paul observed, "If Christ hath not
been raised, then is our preaching
in vain, faith also is vain . . . you
are yet in your sins. Then they also
that have fallen asleep in Christ
have perished ... we are of all men
most pitiful" (I Cor. 15:14-19).

The resurrection of Christ is the
heart of the Gospel, it is essential to
any hope of the fulfillment of all
of the promises of God to His peo-
ple, and it accomplished all that
God had purposed for us from the
beginning.

i. THE RESURRECTION
HOPE (John 11:25-26). From the
earliest experiences of man in the
world, some concept of life after
death and the hope of resurrection
surely is implied. In the first Gos-
pel promise in Genesis 3:15, there
is certainly a promise of victory over
the enemy for the seed of woman.
Since man was already dead spiri-
tually when this promise was given,
in some sense for Adam and Eve it
must have meant a hope of new life.

When righteous Abel was slain,
his blood cried up to God (Gen. 4:
10) . Similarly in the book of Rev-
elation, the souls of believers slain
for their testimony cried out to God
from the altar, calling for the ful-
fillment of God's promises (Rev. 6:
9-11).

The writer to the Hebrews told
that the Old Testament believers all
died in faith, not having yet received
the promises, but having seen them
from afar. They expected, there-
fore, a life of blessings beyond the

Background Scripture: John 11:
17-44; I Corinthians 15:20-28,
51-57

Key Verses: I Corinthians 15:20-

28, 51-57
Devotional Reading: Psalm 118:15-

24

Memory Selection: John 11:25-26

grave. They understood that the
promises of God were ultimately to
be fulfilled beyond what they had
received while on earth. They looked
for that better resurrection (Heb.
11:13, 35) .

When Jesus was questioned about
the resurrection, He, too, pointed
back to the Old Testament. He re-
minded them of God's words to Mo-
ses at the bush when God had said,
"I am the God of their fathers, the
God of Abraham, the God of Isaac,
and the God of Jacob" (Exo. 3:6) .
Jesus' comment on this verse was,
"God is not the God of the dead but
of the living" (Matt. 22:31-32).

Always central to the hope of
God's people, even in the Old Tes-
tament time from Adam and Eve
on, was the doctrine of the resurrec-
tion from the dead, that is, life after
death.

At various times in the Old Testa-
ment period this hope was expressed.
I mention a few. Job spoke of his
living Redeemer before whom he
shall stand and whom he shall see
(19:25-27) . This was a strong af-
firmation of faith in God in the face
of the sharp criticism and hopeless-
ness expressed by his so-called
friends.

Again, Psalm 16:10 expressed hope
for the resurrection, and this pas-
sage is specifically applied to Jesus
in the New Testament (Acts 2:27,
29-31, 13:35-37) . The same hope, ex-
pressed in Psalm 49:15, is applicable
to all of God's children.

Isaiah specifically spoke of the
bodily resurrection (26:19), and it
seems to be similarly taught in
Ezekiel 37. We cannot overlook the

The International Sunday School Lesson Outlines
are copyrighted 1972 by the Committee on the
Uniform Series of the National Council of
Churches of Christ.

clarity with which this truth is
taught in Daniel 12:2, and Paul ap-
plied Hosea 13:14 to the resurrec-
tion, the "hope of all Christians"
(I Cor. 15:55-57) .

These and other Old Testament
passages suffice to show that from
the beginning God's people have
maintained the hope of life beyond
the grave. It was a hope based on
God's promise of victory for His
children.

When Jesus walked among His
believers and talked to them, He
used the context of the death of one
whom He and His friends loved. He
taught that all of the promises to
which God's people had looked were
ultimately to be fulfilled in Him-
self.

He reminded them first of all
that although Lazarus had died, the
proper expectation for believers was
that he would rise again. Martha's
response shows that she held in
common with all of God's people
this hope of the resurrection. Then
Jesus focused that whole hope on
Himself: "I am the resurrection
and the life. He that believeth on
me though he die, yet shall he live;
and whosoever liveth and believeth
on me shall never die" (John 11:23) .

Here clearly Jesus was teaching
her and us all that the hope of the
fulfillment of the promises of eter-
nal life rest solely on faith in Jesus
Christ. All depends on Him and
what He does for us.

II. THE VICTORY OVER EN-
EMIES (I Cor. 15:20-28). The Shorter
Catechism question and answer No.
26 speaks of Christ's "restraining
and conquering all His and our en-
emies." As we have frequently
pointed out, God has promised this
victory from the very beginning:
The seed of the woman will crush
the head of the serpent (Gen. 3:15) .
Paul directly applied this promise
to the victory we have in Jesus
Christ (Rom. 16:20).

All through the Old Testament
the Lord showed how He had the
power to defeat all of Israel's en-
emies. Time and again He defend-

PAGE 14 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 4, 1973

ed His people and delivered them
out of the hands of earthly enemies
when they trusted in Him. Thereby,
He showed them that God can and
does deliver them out of defeat to
victory. Also, Paul wrote in terms
of the resurrection of Christ and the
defeat of all of His and our enemies
(I Cor. 15) .

The resurrection of Christ is first
the guarantee that all who have died
in faith shall be resurrected (v. 20) .
From Adam on, man has always
known death; death is the real ex-
perience of both believers and non-
believers alike. Death is a formida-
ble enemy.

Death entered into the world
through sin. Sin itself was caused
by submission to the temptations of
Satan. Therefore, man's great en-
emies are death and Satan. Christ
was resurrected first, never to die
again. When Jesus comes again,
every believer will share in that
same experience of resurrection of
the body which our Lord had (v.
23).

Temporary victory over death has
been known to God's children from
the beginning. When Abel was
killed, God gave Seth to Adam and
Eve in his place. It was a type of
victory over death, but Abel was not
restored. Once when God had
promised that Isaac must die, in-
stead, a ram died in his place (Gen.
22) . The writer to the Hebrews
tells us that this, too, was a type of
resurrection (Heb. 11:19).

Several times in the Old Testa-
ment one had actually died and was
raised again by a miracle of God.
This happened in the case of a
widow's child in the days of Elijah
(I Kings 17:21-22), and later in
Elisha's day (II Kings 4:20-37. See
also II Kings 13:21). Yet all of
these died again, it was not a per-
manent victory.

Similarly in the New Testament,
many were raised from the dead, as
even Lazarus was, but they all died
again. It was no victory over death
by such a resurrection.

However, Paul told us that Jesus
Christ, by His resurrection, has
made it possible for us to have fi-
nal victory over death. The last
enemy, death, shall be abolished (v.
26) . In another place Paul wrote
of this victory as already accom-
plished in what Christ has done (II
Tim. 1:10).

In the final book of the Bible,
Revelation, this victory over all of
our enemies is most expressly stated.

In Revelation 20 one by one the en-
emies of Jesus Christ and His
Church are reviewed and destroyed:
First, our earthly enemies, repre-
sented by the beast (worldly power
and influence) and the false proph-
et (false religion, false doctrine and
false teachers in the Church) , are
cast into the lake of fire, hell (20:
10).

Then, the devil himself, the
great deceiver, who from Genesis 3
has plagued the Church, being the
perpetual enemy of God's people,
is cast into the lake of fire (20:10) .
He is called (20:2) the old serpent,
thus pointing back to that early ap-
pearance of Satan in the Garden of
Eden. (Compare also Revelation
12:9.)

Finally, death itself and the grave
are cast into the lake of fire (20:
13-14). This teaches us what we
have already seen in I Corinthians
15:26, namely that the last enemy
to be destroyed is death. It means
that when Jesus returns from heav-
en and the dead in Christ are raised,
they will not die again, because the
very principle of death will be abol-
ished. The curse placed on Adam
and his descendants, bringing them
death in trespasses and sins, will be
forever abolished for every believer.

III. THE REALIZATION OF
GOD'S PURPOSE (I Cor. 15:51-
57) . In an earlier lesson we looked
at the very purpose of God in crea-
ting man on earth. The passage, "He
chose us in Him before the very
foundation of the world, that we
should be holy and without blemish
before Him in love" (Eph. 1:4),
sums up this purpose of God.

Before God began anything on
earth, He had in mind a people that
could share eternally with Him the
glory of His kingdom. They would
be a holy (set aside) people, with-
out blemish (faultless) , and bound
to the Lord by love. It is a beauti-
ful picture of what heaven shall be.

The implied expectation for God's
people is beyond our comprehen-
sion, a beautiful anticipation which
we have in Christ. The brief few
years we are here in this world are
but an instant, a fraction of a sec-
ond, in terms of that eternity with
God which we look forward to. We
cannot tell now what it shall be
like, but it will be far more wonder-
ful than anything we have ever ex-
perienced on earth.

Paul was vividly excited about it
as he wrote of this mystery (I Cor.

15:51) : We will be changed from
corruptible to incorruptible (vv. 52-
53) . This means not only that we
will not die again, but that we will
be flawless, sinless, perfect in every
respect. We will then be, to the
fullest, holy and without blemish
before Him in love.

Such a hope as Paul mentioned
here ought to affect our lives right
now (v. 50) . We will face death,
but death is not able to conquer us.
It has no victory over us. Beyond
death and the grave is eternal life
with God, just as He has always pur-
posed for His own children.

In this hope v/e can be assured,
therefore, that everything we do now
for the Lord, any work for His king-
dom, any labor of love is not in
vain. It has eternal implications.
How important it is then, to be do-
ing the Lord's work and will now!
How sad for those who do not spend
their present lives for the Lord, for
they will see what they have done
go up in smoke in the end.

We serve the Lord while we are
away from Him, but one day we
will all stand in His presence and
hear Him say, "Well done, thou
good and faithful servant." How
foolish if we have spent our days in
the vain pursuit of this world which
has no lasting value.

How sad if we envy the treasures
of the wicked who heap up for them-
selves riches now. They have no
hope, and their fleeting "joys" will
quickly pass away. In contrast, we
are the truly rich and truly blessed
if we keep our eyes on Christ and
the purpose of God for us for all
eternity.

CONCLUSION: This lesson has
shown us what Christ has done to
bring to reality all that God has be-
fore creation purposed for His chil-
dren. Next week we shall see how
we are included in that purpose of
God for a people in His presence
forever. IE

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PAGE 15 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 4, 1973

YOUTH PROGRAM

For April 22, 1973

Foot-Washing and the Cross

Scripture: John 13
Suggested Hymns:

"The Old Rugged Cross"
"Beneath the Cross of Jesus"

INTRODUCTION BY PRO-
GRAM CHAIRMAN: Foot-wash-
ing is a strange scene for us, but it
was common in New Testament
times. Most people wore sandals
and one did not have to walk far
to accumulate a covering of dust on
one's feet. When you visited an-
other's home it was a form of polite-
ness for them to wash your feet up-
on entering the home. If servants
were available, the task would be
theirs.

That the scene we see in our pas-
sage is different from the normal
custom of foot-washing is evident for

Rev. Henry J. Mueller

two reasons. Jesus, the master and
Lord (vv. 13-14) , washed the dis-
ciple's feet. Normal protocol would
seem to indicate that one of the dis-
ciples would perform the task. Sec-
ondly, the foot-washing took place af-
ter supper (vv. 2-4) and not before.

It is evident from His words that
Jesus was teaching something to
His disciples by this action (v. 7) .
The deeds of Jesus demonstrated
His teachings, and His words inter-
preted His actions. When Jesus
said, "What I do you do not under-
stand now, but you will later," He
was indicating that there was more
involved here than washing another
person's feet. We can learn at least
two things from this passage.

FIRST SPEAKER: First, it tells
us about the cross. Jesus, who has

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been made heir of all things by the
Father, humbled Himself to take the
task of a servant (vv. 3-4) . The
Son of God washed the feet of His
followers, and this is symbolic of a
greater servant role He assumed. He
is the suffering servant of Isaiah 53.
(Read this passage, pointing out
how Jesus was to suffer and for
whom.)

Washing another's feet is hum-
bling. You have to get down on
your hands and knees and wash the
dirt from another person's feet. To
most of us this would be unpleasant
at the very least. Peter seemed to
think this kind of action was not
fitting for his master, but Jesus was
teaching them the necessity of His
dying on the cross. His humbling
Himself before them was symbolic
of His humbling Himself to die on
the cross. Philippians 2:5-8 brings
this out very clearly: "Let this
mind be in you, which was also in
Christ Jesus: who, being in the form
of God, thought it not robbery to
be equal with God: but made Him-
self of no reputation, and took up-
on Him the form of a servant, and
was made in the likeness of men:
and being found in fashion as a
man, He humbled Himself, and be-
came obedient unto death, even the
death of the cross."

When Jesus said to Peter, "If I
do not wash you, you have no part
with me," He was pointing to the
fact that He must die on the cross.
This was the only way man could
have forgiveness of sin and fellow-
ship with God.

SECOND SPEAKER: All of us
remember singing: "What can wash
away my sins? Nothing but the
blood of Jesus." This action of Je-
sus not only teaches us that Jesus
humbled Himself to die on the cross,
but also that by His death we are
washed clean of our sins. We are
"clean every whit."

But not all. Judas Iscariot was
not. We are reminded that not all
who call Jesus "Lord," are really
His (Matt. 7:21). To belong to

PAGE 16 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 4, 1973

Jesus we must humble ourselves to
receive His washing away of our
sins. We must acknowledge He
did so on the cross and that we are
lost unless He cleanses us.

THIRD SPEAKER: (Read verses
12-15 and 34-35.) The second les-
son we learn from this chapter is
that as Jesus humbled Himself and
became a servant for us, so should
we be the same to each other. Re-
member that the action of foot-
washing points to an attitude and it
is this attitude we are to have in us.

We are to have a mind to serve.
As Jesus was a servant, so are we to
be. Every Christian is called to
minister. The word "minister" in
the Greek means serve. The work
of the Church is not for a few who
are paid to preach, teach, evangelize
and care for the congregation. This
is a distorted view of what the New
Testament teaches. We are all to
serve.

Secondly, we are to love each oth-
er. This is the way other people
can tell if we are followers of
Christ. We are to love eath other
as Christ loved us. How much did
Christ love us? Look at Calvaryl
His love had no selfishness, and we
are to become selfless in serving oth-
ers. "Let this mind be in you that
was in Christ Jesus . . ."

CONCLUSION BY PROGRAM
CHAIRMAN: The foot-washing
points to the cross. Jesus tells us
that He had to die that we might
be forgiven. He also says that once
we have become His disciples, we
are to follow His example of hu-
mility. We are to become selfless
in our love and devote our life to
[serving Christ through His body, the
Church.

BOOKS

Closing Prayer.

A JOURNAL Reprint

Dr. Robert Strong's

Critical evaluation of the proposed
new Confession of Faith
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REVOLUTION IN ROME, by Da-
vid F. Wells. InterVarsity Press,
Downers Grove, 111. 149 pp. $4.95.
Reviewed by the Rev. William H. Bell,
associate pastor, Covenant Presbyte-
rian Church, Columbia, S. C.

In this study of the documents
of the Second Vatican Council,
which was held between 1962 and
1965, the author deals with the sub-
ject of Rome in broad themes rather
than in detailed doctrines. He
points out that today Roman Ca-
tholicism has a divided mind: con-
servative (traditional) and progres-
sive thought, but he believes that
"the significance of Vatican II can
best be discerned if the progressives'
thinking is kept in mind."

"Who will be the Moses of the
New Catholicism?" he asks, "Mi-
chael Novak or Hans Kung, Karl
Rahner or Jacques Maritain? That
the future will see a progressive
Catholic theology is not really in
debate; what is undecided is only
how progressive it will be."

There is an area of agreement,
however, between the two groups,
that of "profound concern with sub-
jective experience, a concern which
is pursued at the expense of exter-
nal authority." This is evidenced
in the fact that charismatic and lib-
eral Catholics stress inner realities
over outward authority. Experience
is the criterion for truth.

Religious Marxism has been mov-
ing rapidly from Protestant circles
into the thinking of Rome, Wells

asserts. "God's saving plan for the
earth is being effected through sec-
ular institutions. ..." A clear uni-
versalism characterizes progressive
belief: "Some theologians, building
on the Council's teaching, have ar-
gued that one day the people of
God will become coexistive with the
human race."

Wells concludes the book by ask-
ing what the Church will be like
in 1980. Summarizing his predic-
tions he says that "the pivot on
which the future turns would seem
to be the shift towards subjective
religious experience and away from
objective Church allegiance."

This book is fair and enlighten-
ing. Dr. Wells has reached an im-
partial understanding of contempo-
rary movements in the Roman
Catholic Church. The book is to be
commended.

Dr. Wells is associate professor of
church history and the history of
Christian thought at Trinity Evan-
gelical Divinity School, Deerfield,
Illinois. EH

COUNSELING, by Lars I. Gran-
berg and others. Baker Book House,
Grand Rapids, Mich. Paper, 162 pp.
$1.65. Reviewed by the Rev. Albert
J. Lindsey, pastor, First Presbyterian
Church, Tacoma, Wash.

This is another in the Practical
Theology Series, the contents of
which originally appeared as Sec-
tion 5 of Baker's Dictionary of Prac-
tical Theology, edited by Ralph G.

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PAGE 17 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 4, 1973

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Turnbull and published in 1967 by
Baker. The book contains 15 chap-
ters written by different authors in
their respective fields. These in-
clude not only heads of institutions,
but professors of psychiatry, psychol-
ogy and a chaplain in a Christian
hospital. Thus the contents come
from a variety of sources.

The chapters deal with such prob-
lems as emotional involvement; pas-
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seling, using groups in counseling;
the hymns in counseling, family ten-
sions, divorce and remarriage. It
deals also with such varied problems
as addiction, bereavement, illegiti-
macy, mental difficulties, and sexual
deviation. Each chapter closes with
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small book which covers such a va-
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detail and clinical aspects would
have to be omitted. The book as
a whole strikes me as being very
worthwhile and something that
could be of great help to many in-
dividuals. It seems to be a sound
and realistic approach to these mat
ters.

A KNIGHT IN THE CONGO, by
Hezekiah M. Washburn. Bassett Print-
ing Corp., Bassett, Va. 240 pp. $5.30.
Reviewed by the Rev. Vernon A. An-
derson, H.R., Dallas, Tex.

The late author served in the
Congo (now Zaire) for 37 years as
a missionary of the Presbyterian
Church US. He was called to his
reward shortly before his book
came off the press.

It was my privilege to be a fel-
low worker of Dr. Washburn and
to labor among the Baluba people,
who occupied a territory adjoining
that of the Bakuba tribe which he
knew and describes so well.

I suggest that during this witness
season, as part of your study of
world missions, you read this book.

The vignettes of this author's la-
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will give you an illuminating ac-
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It is a captivating record of whal
dedication to the Lord and th(
timely use of a little American in
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did accomplish.

Available through Mrs. H. M
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If you are moving to an area where
there is no congregation of the
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you may find an Orthodox Presby-
terian Church nearby. A Directory
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address: Orthodox Presbyterian
Church Directory, 7401 Old York
Road, Philadelphia, Pa. 19126.

PAGE 18 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 4, 1973

i

AN INTRODUCTION TO CON-
TEMPORARY PREACHING, by J.
Daniel Baumann. Baker Book House,
Grand Rapids, Mich. 302 pp. $6.95.
Reviewed by the Rev. John W. Ken-
nedy, pastor, First United Methodist
Church, Vero Beach, Fla.

I am troubled about reviewing
this book, for the reason of its ap-
parent structural shortcomings, in-
termingled with its excellences.

An acceptable stand on faith in
the Scriptures and the Holy Spirit
are somewhat obscured by an ex-
tended discussion about theories of
communication. The considerable
differences between what is purely
homiletical and the theoretical as-
pects of communication are not well
related.

The book is exhaustive, but un-
fortunately overdrawn. The author,
being a teacher, tries to write for
the approval of scholars. He docu-
ments voluminously. On the other
hand, his subject is appropriate to
beginners in seminary. The whole
does not jell, in my opinion. It is
a book written by a teacher of
preaching that has an effect on the
reader like the sermons he deplores.
I am sorry.

However, the next time he writes
I'll wager he will be successful. He's
too bright not to see that his books
should be kept to an appropriate
level and to one specific subject. II

THE CITY AND THE SIGN, by
Geoffrey T. Bull. Baker Book House,
Grand Rapids, Mich. 157 pp. $3.95.
Reviewed by the Rev. Herman Dam,
pastor, Northminster Presbyterian
Church, Murfreesboro, Tenn.

I began to read this book with a
deep sense of suspicion. This was
due to the fact that any book on
Jonah — at least those I have read
for the most part — leaves me cold.
Or in the words of my teenage
daughter: They turn me off.

However, this one is different.
Most interpretations scoff at the
historical value of the book of Jo-
Inah, but here we find a most re-
i freshing wind blowing. This au-
thor accepts the book of Jonah as
I being truly historical. The inci-
Ident of the whale, for example, did
actually occur. As a matter of fact,
according to the author, this inci-
dent was important in teaching Jo-
nah humility and obedience.

Perhaps most important is the
comparison the author makes be-
tween the actual account of the book
of Jonah and Jesus' various refer-

ences to the historical Jonah. All
through the interpretation is the
thread of comparison between Jo-
nah and Jesus.

In this comparison the author
does two things: He establishes with-
out a shadow of doubt the histo-
ricity of Jonah, and our need, if we
are to understand the life and work
of our Lord, especially His cruci-
fixion and death, to go back to the
book of Jonah. According to the
author, a great deal of mystery sur-
rounding the life and work of our
Lord comes to light in a thorough
study of Jonah.

The book is worth reading for a
number of reasons. In the first place,
the author accepts as fact what al-
most seems a minority thought —
that Jonah is all part and parcel of
the overall planning of God. In the
second place, the author writes this

interpretation in the first person.
That is to say, he places himself
in the life and work of Jonah. This
fact makes the book fascinating
reading and study. In the third
place Mr. Bull can visualize the
various happenings in the book be-
cause he himself was a prisoner for
three years in China; he compares
his captivity with Jonah's captivity
in the belly of the whale.

For many years a missionary in
China, the author suffered the in-
dignities of being a prisoner for his
faith. He incorporates these experi-
ences in his interpretation of the
book of Jonah.

Indeed, Geoffrey T. Bull is a mas-
ter storyteller and puts all his ex-
pertise in storytelling to work in this
fascinating book, which is worth its
price and worth the study time of
any sincere minister of the Word. IB

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PAGE 19 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 4, 1973

A vital primer
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Contents

This Man was the Son of God
It is God who Justifies
The Eternal Purpose
God's Firm Foundation Stands
A Faith for the World
Jesus Christ the Teacher
Unchanging and Onward Moving
This is the Victory
The Church in the World
The Word Became Flesh

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R. P. Crumpler, Res. Mgr.

Belk's of Pleasantburg
Greenville, S. C.

A. M. Smith, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store
Lancaster, S. C.

B. L. Plyler, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store
Camden, S. C.
J. A. Hagins, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store
Clinton, S. C.
D. B. Smith, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.
Darlington, S. C.
Paul E. Broome, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store
Laurens, S. C.
David Middleton, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.
Abbeville, S. C.
J. S. Hagins, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Hagins Co.
Kershaw, S. C.

C. E. Hinson, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.
Easley, S. C.
R. J. Womack, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Beaufort, S. C.
Al Wilson, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Fountain Inn, S. C.

E. J. Copeland, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Woodruff, S. C.

F. B. Hagins, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Honea Path, S. C.
T. R. Martin, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Whitmire, S. C.
Clyde Smith, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Manning, S. C.
W. M. Gettys, Res. Mgr.

OHIO

Belk-Simpson Co.
Athens, Ohio
Joe Kelly, Res. Mgr.

MISSOURI

Belk-Simpson Co.
Carthage, Mo.
Charles Wilson, Res.

Mgr.

OKLAHOMA

Belk Dept. Store
Miami, Oklahoma
J. T. Holmes, Res. Mgr.

NORTH CAROLINA

Belk-Simpson Co.

Hendersonville, N. C.

R. E. McCormack, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store

Brevard, N, C.

J. M. Felty, Res. Mgr.

KENTUCKY

Belk-Simpson Co.
Harlan, Ky.

Delmar Tolliver, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Corbin, Ky.

W. C. Ashley, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Winchester, Ky.

T. L. Beckham, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Mt. Sterling, Ky.

Willoughby Smith, Res. Mgr

Belk-Simpson Co.

Frankfort, Ky.

J. D. Prow, Res. Mgr.

GEORGIA

Belk-Simpson Co.

Bainbridge, Ga.

M. D. Ashley, Res. Mgr.

ARKANSAS

Belk-Simpson Co.

Paragould, Ark.

W. H. Wade, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Osceola, Ark.

K. R. Cline, Res. Mgr.

These stores are a small part ol the entire Belk or-
ganization and have been in existence approximately
50 years. The Belk stores were launched in 1886-88.

ko

SEE THE MANAGER NEAREST YOU FOR CHURCH CARPET, ROBES, ETC.

PAGE 20 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 4, 1973

J

Born in 1899, she lived through
the political upheaval of changes in
government from the Manchu dy-
nasty through the Nationalist reign
and finally the Communists. She
came to the States during her last
years and died in 1968 just as she
finished this autobiography.

Available through Puritan Publi-
cations, Inc., Carlisle, Pa. 17013. ffi

THE REAL CHRISTMAS, by Pat
Boone, Fleming H. Revell Co., Old
Tappan, N. J. 63 pp. $2.95. Reviewed
by the Rev. Archie Davis, pastor, St.
Andrew's Presbyterian Church, Holly-
wood, Fla.

The old Christmas truths related
and made relevant for our time is
what this book is all about. The
author makes the simple truths
about the incarnation real and dy-
namic for every home, as he has
found them true in his family.

Pat Boone, movie and television
star and recording artist, makes one
of his finest contributions for youth

land adults. Something old and
something new make it excellent

I for devotional reading.

The author summarized the in-
tent of the book beautifully in the

[opening and closing sentences, "It

t takes two to make Christmas, Christ
and you." EE

EXPOSITORY SERMONS ON THE
/BOOK OF DANIEL (Vol. 3 and 4),
Uby W. A. Criswell. Zondervan Publ.
House, Grand Rapids, Mich. Vol. 3
and 4 each, approx. 190 pp. $3.50.
Reviewed by the Rev. William H. Mar-
i quis, pastor, First Presbyterian
I Church, Soddy Daisy, Tenn.

These are the two final volumes
[in a series of sermon books on Dan-
liel. Volume 3 covers chapters 4-6
f and Volume 4 covers chapters 7-12.

In this great apocalyptic book of
k the Old Testament, Dr. Criswell
I: finds meaning for modern man. He

is definitely a premillenialist in his
j understanding and teaching of this

book.

His view of the Church does not
| square with Reformed and Biblical
I teaching concerning the Church. He
I writes: "In order to understand the
I Bible, one must not take the prom-
i ises and the prophecies that are
given to Israel and apply them to
the Church. The Church is never
I to be found in the Old Testament."
The sermons recorded in these

lenging but the theological view-
points concerning the Church and
eschatology leave much to be de-
sired. These two volumes are rec-
ommended as inspirational reading
but not for Reformed Biblical
teaching or theological content.

The author is pastor of the First
Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas and
is well recognized as one of the na-
tions outstanding expository preach-
ers. He is a graduate of Southern
Baptist Theological Seminary. EE

GIVE US A CHANCE
to give you good service
on your subscription by
notifying the Weaver-
ville office at least
three weeks before a
change of address is to
take effect. Send both
old and new addresses.
And zip codes, please!

CAUTION

YOU MAY NOT
BE ABLE TO
READ THIS BOOK!

DEALING WITH THE
DEVIL is an expose of
Satan's working in
these last days. HE
HATES IT! Some
Christians just can't
read it. Others get so
upset they publish
tracts against it. In
byC.S. Lovett spite of Satan's
attacks, the Holy
Spirit is using it to fortify those willing
to stand up for Jesus and resist the
devil's dirty work in their lives.

Over 30 million Americans firmly
believe in astrology. The occult sciences
are surfacing fast. We will soon see
believers trying to contact Peter and
Paul via the known laws of witchcraft,
calling it "deeper Christianity" (2 Cor.
11:13-15). Satan is already deceiving
many believers.

Can godly Christians afford to
remain defenseless against the ingenious
moves of the evil one? The Bible sets
forth a terrific anti-satan defense
system. Stated simply it reads, "resist
the devil and he will flee from you"
(Ja. 4:7).

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20 years equipping Christians for action

PAGE 21 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 4, 1973

Were Seeking A Minister

We are looking for a minister who
believes that the primary concern
in the world today is to proclaim
the Gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ.

We are a small congregation and
a new church. We are Presbyte-
rian in doctrine but completely in-
dependent of any other organiza-
tion and we will remain independ-
ent. We have no "power struc-
tre" nor privileged leadership. We
are located in a small county with
a population of 90 - 100,000 and
are the only independent Presby-
terian congregation in this area.

We are seeking a minister whose
only duties will be to preach,
teach and visit. He will have no
administrative duties.

We are not in competition with,
nor in opposition to any other
group. We are evangelical, seek-
ing only to present Christ to as
many as possible, confident that
God's Word contains power unto
salvation in those He calls.

Our financial resources are not
extensive but we are prepared to
make a sacrificial effort both fi-
nancially and spiritually to meet
the needs of a minister.

We would welcome a response
from any minister committed to
an evangelical calling.

EMMANUEL PRESBYTERIAN
CHURCH, INDEPENDENT

P. O. Box 1885
Wilmington, North Carolina 28401

SUCCESSFUL CHALK TALKING,
A Complete Guide, by Robert Leonard
Smith. Baker Book House, Grand Rap-
ids, Mich. 103 pp. $3.95. Reviewed by
the Rev. Henry Schum, evangelist,
Uncle Hank Evangelistic Association,
Inc., Chattanooga, Tenn.

The author's purpose is to pre-
sent in one volume the way to use
visual presentations to aid in pre-
senting Bible truth. He succeeds be-
cause of his generous illustrations
based on his background as a com-
mercial artist. Any interested per-
son, with or without natural talent,
could become an acceptable chalk
artist through careful study and ap-
plication of this guide. IB

Layman— from p. 13

hearts, asking, "Lovest thou me
more than these?" (John 21:15).
The risen Lord asked Peter this
question on the shore of Galilee.
Fresh in Peter's mind was the mem-
ory of how he had denied Christ
three times just before His cruci-
fixion. Whom did he love — real-
ly? Or what? Christ or the world?
It could not be both.

What is our answer today? "Look
full in His wonderful face," see His
love, His grace, His glory. And
answer:

"When I survey the wondrous
cross,

On which the Prince of Glory
died,

My richest gain I count but
loss,

And pour contempt on all my
pride." EE

Committee— from p. 1 1

Church, spiritual and universal, and
earthly organizations partially man-
ifesting it must always be kept in
mind.

Many in the PCUS have felt com-
manded to withdraw because of ba-
sic errors in their Church, and com-
mittee members are aware that many
Presbyterians have arrived at this
position. It is a time of great sad-
ness because naturally we hold a
deep affection for the Presbyterian
Church US.

Although it is a time of sadness,
it is also a time of high resolve.
In their particular situations, obedi- £
ence calls many to separate from ^
what their consciences tell them is ; ^
wrongdoing that has gone too far. ,.
Such a time has not arrived for ev-
eryone, not even for all Steering ^
Committee members at this point j{
in their own situations, but the com-
mittee feels duty bound to help
those who are arriving at the point ^
of separation.

Therefore, the committee mem- J
bers feel they must help such people '

TAKE A BREAK
Montreal's Springtime In The Mountains Weekend

MAY 4-5-6
(Friday night supper to Sunday lunch)

A weekend for adults

A weekend of refreshment, mentally, physically and spiritually
A weekend of relaxing, choosing your activities:

SIGHTSEEING FISHING

HIKING PHOTOGRAPHY

SHOPPING PICNICKING

BOATING READING

GYM SPORTS RESTING

GOLF TENNIS

An opportunity to enjoy old friends and make new ones

An experience of beauty, seeing mountain azalea and rhododendron in bloom
An unusual, non-programmed fun time at the National Conference Center of
the Presbyterian Church, Assembly Inn in Montreat

For full details, costs, etc. write to E. A. ANDREWS,
Box 38, Montreat, N. C. 28757

PAGE 22 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 4, 1973

A

stay with a Church loyal to Scrip-
ture and the Westminster Standards,
and adhering to Presbyterian polity.
Unfortunately, far too many have
already gone to non-Reformed faith
churches.

In the Continuing Church the
Steering Committee extends the
same love they strive to maintain
among themselves. The unity be-
tween Christ's ones reaches across
man-made lines, denominational or
otherwise. That unity must issue
in warmth of love, understanding
and patience. The door to the emerg-
ing Church must always be open
with a host on the inside never fail-
ing to offer the open hand of wel-
come.

Sense of Balance

And, yes, there has been much
great, good humor in the Steering
Committee meetings: On one occa-
sion the always most colorfully
dressed member came in an hour
late, greeted by many uncomplimen-
tary remarks about his tardiness and
his attire.

The only person to arise for hand-
shaking was the committee's es-
steemed senior member, the courtly
judge. Asked why anyone would
rise for such a late arriving show-
jloff, the judge replied, "Why, I
thought that was the American flag
going by!"

Perhaps such incidents evidence
a sense of balance on the part of
the men engaged in making pro-
ifoundly serious decisions. Breaks
fare needed after threshing out count-
[less issues and problems.

The Steering Committee is made
up of very human human beings.
[Their frailties show in such ways as
p. confession now and then to the
[group. Recently one man spoke
of regret in being sharp in written
■response to an unjust accusation lev-
leled at committee action.

In addition to the plain facts I
(mentioned earlier, other ones have
struck home. There can be a hap-
jpily accomplished separation among
those who feel so obviously differ-
ently about the very basics of our
taith; it can be successfully done if
We all follow our Lord's will that
jwe keep love and charity foremost.
| It will be done, certainly, if the
almost pure example of love and
fcharity I have witnessed on the
Jteering Committee is now carried
bver everywhere that separation is
considered. It will be done if the

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PAGE 23 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 4, 1973

separation in the Presbyterian
Church US is viewed as a necessary
matter to preserve any kind of peace-
ful settling of issues and settling
down of positions. In this I speak
to all sides of the controversies,
fervently pleading for gentleness and
tolerance out of simple justice.

Somehow being placed with such
obviously devoted men of God makes
me feel that the honor of a lifetime
has been accorded me. Such an ex-
perience imposes a duty to be dis-

charged with all conscientiousness
under God's order for life, sum-
moned by prayer, study and seeking
His Spirit's guidance.

Other members of the Steering
Committee feel the same conscien-
tiousness as they seek God's wisdom
through statesmanlike action in the
awesome decisions facing all of us.
May it come to be that throughout
the Church people will understand
and respect that feeling which is so
strongly evident to me. ffl

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David Wilkerson said it was
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Mrs. Billy Graham was so
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BAPTISM

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by G. R. Beasley-Murray

A critical defense of the doctrine of be-
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Testament evidence is presented in this
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R. Beasley-Murray — one of the leading
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himself a Baptist; but his discussion
transcends denominational lines. He
focuses attention on the necessity of bap-
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the Spirit, the church, ethics, and hope.
A careful examination of the rise and
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a selected bibliography and several in-
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"... a work of first class scholarship."

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434 pages. Paper, $4.95
Also from Eerdmans:

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Grand Rapids, Michigan 49502

PAGE 24 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 4, 1973

i

£ iff

VOL. XXXI, NO. 50

APRIL 11, 1973

'I

$4.00 A YEAR

the

Advocating continuation of a Presbyterian Church loyal

to Scripture and the Reformed faith

Only One Was Saved

This account has a sobering aspect, too. One thief was
saved. The other was lost for all eternity. Both thieves had ac-
cess to Jesus. Only one was willing to acknowledge his sin and
seek God's forgiveness through His Son.

The implications for us in the crucifixion account are ob-
vious. We are condemned and dying. We have no hope and
no salvation unless we confess our sin to Jesus and ask the Holy
Spirit to give us new life.

Each thief made a choice. We have the same option.

— Harold B. Probes

(See p. 7)

3. S. LESSON AND YOUTH PROGRAM FOR APRIL 29
CIRCLE BIBLE STUDY FOR MAY

dWOD

OK TTJH tadteqo

'in ok jo i^saeAiuji

uofioenoQ o m

MAILBAG

OTHER VIEWS OF KEY '73

Your editorial in the March 14
issue ("We Support Key 73") is a
far cry from your usual discerning
and Scripturally based statements.
After rereading the editorial sev-
eral times it appears to me that the
root of your lamentable support

for this Spirit-grieving, synergistic
effort centers around the statement:
"We support any call to evange-
lism. ..." In context of the entire
statement, it seems implicit that the
validity of any activity termed
"evangelism" is accepted without
further inquiry, e.g., "one thing up-

the

PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL

Rev. G. Aiken Taylor, Ph.D., Editor
Rev. Henry B. Dendy, D.D., Managing Editor
Timothy Belz, Assistant Editor

Circulation leader among independent publications in the Presbyterian-Reformed world

THIS WEEK —

Vol. XXXI, No. 50, April 11, 1973

In the Footsteps of a Thief 7

"Jesus, remember me when You come in your kingdom"
should be the prayer of everyone By Harold B. Probes

Getting Ready To Move 8

Opportunity Unlimited 9

A missionary to Brazil challenges us to help meet the material
and spiritual needs of Brazilians By Bill Moseley

Cup of Blessing 10

A Passion Week and Easter meditation based on the analogy
of a cup By Margaret McLester

De partments —

Editorials 1 2

The Layman and his Church 13

Sunday School Lesson, April 29 14

Youth Program, April 29 16

Circle Bible Study, May 1 8

Book Reviews 20

THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL, a

Presbyterian weekly magazine, devoted
to the statement, defense, and propa-
gation of the Gospel, the faith which
was once for all delivered to the saints,

is published every Wednesday by the
Southern Presbyterian Journal Co.,
Inc., in Weaverville, N. C.

SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: $4 a year
for individuals, $3 for members of
Every Family Plan churches. All cor-
respondence regarding subscriptions,
advertising or other business matters
should be addressed to the business
office in Weaverville, N. C. 28787.
Second class postage paid at Weaver-
ville, N. C. 28787.

POSTMASTER: Send Form 3579 to
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should allow three weeks for change
of address in continental U. S. Change
of address notices should include both
old and new addresses (with zip
codes) .

NEWS AND EDITORIAL correspond-
ence should be addressed to P. 0. Box
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TELEPHONES: (All area 704) edi-
torial office, 254-4015, 254-4016;
business office, 645-3310, 645-3962.

on which we could unite was the
Great Commission."

How is "evangelism" defined? Dr.
J. I. Packer says that "evangelism
is just preaching the Gospel, the
evangel ... a work of communica-
tion in which Christians make them-
selves mouthpieces for God's mercy
to sinners." But is the meaning
of "Gospel" susceptible to various
interpretations? A Key 73 oriented
Paul would have called the Galatian
heretics to join with him in a great
evangelistic thrust. But he didn't.
Instead, he pronounced God's anath-
ema upon a so-called gospel laden
with un-Biblical accretions.

We all must shamefacedly admit
that we have done too little in evan-
gelism. But this does not, however,
somehow entitle us to abandon
Scriptural principle to unite with
those whose errors have equaled or
perhaps exceeded in seriousness those
of the above mentioned Galatian
teachers.

— John H. Van Voorhis
Charlotte, N. C.

It saddens me to see a man who
fights so consistently for Biblical
Christianity as you are doing in the
PCUS compromise his stand by sup-
porting Key 73, an ecumenical ef-
fort in the name of evangelism which
brings together not only conserva-
tives who hold precious the true
Evangel, but also liberal denomina-
tions, Pentecostals, and Roman Ca-
tholicism with its "other gospel"
of salvation by sacramental grace,
plus works, plus penance, plus self-
atonement through purgatorial suf-
ferings, plus the supererogatory
works of the saints.

I don't know of any conservative
denomination which has announced
it will have nothing to do with evan-
gelism because of its disagree-
ment with others. I do, however,
know of some who have announced
they will have nothing to do with
the Key 73 brand of evangelism,
which is an entirely different issue

In his address before the 1966
World Congress on Evangelism, Dr.
Francis Schaeffer said: "I can visu-
alize times when the only way to
make plain the seriousness of what
is involved in regard to a campaign
where the Gospel is going to be
preached, but where men whose doc-
trine is known to be an enemy are
going to be invited to pray or take
part in some way, is with tears not
to accept an official part in that

i

campaign. Evangelism which does
not lead to purity of life and purity
of doctrine is just as faulty and in-
complete as an orthodoxy which
does not lead to a concern for, and
communication with, the lost."
— (Rev.) Robert L. Reymond
St. Louis, Mo.

I am against Key 73 and I'll tell
you why. . . . How can the blind
lead the blind? Zero plus zero
equals zero. And the Bible strictly
forbids fellowship with those who
replace truth with opinion.

Those of us who are defending
the faith once delivered to the saints
— redeemed by the precious blood
of our Lord Jesus Christ, believing
in His virgin birth, His bodily resur-
rection, His miracles and the Bible
as the inspired Word of God — are
left out, criticized, badgered,
smeared. Our children are told
they aren't welcome at apostate
homes.

1 took my girl out of confirma-
tion class when they dropped Lu-
ther's catechism and used a booklet
that teaches socialism and half truths
as well as downright lies. I put her
in the Missouri Synod Church and
before two years were up she had
become astonished at the error there.
So she's joining a fine, fundamental
church if she can get permission
from her liberal Lutheran father
who can't see the difference.

I personally believe Key 73 is
God's way of having us choose sides.
— Mrs. Marvin Swendsen
Aniva, Wis.

See "The Lesson of Key '73," p. 12.
—Ed.

MINISTERS

John L. Alexander from Tar Heel,
N. C, to the Edgewood church,
Sanford, N. C.

R. Yale Gunn from Virginia
Beach, Va., to the Presbyterian
Conference Center, Lake Placid,
Fla., as administrative assistant.

John R. Hendiick from Beau-
mont, Tex., to Houston, Tex., as
executive presbyter of Brazos Pres-
bytery.

Jan G. Owen from Onancock, Va.,
to graduate study.
Cleve C. Wheelus from San An-
tonio, Tex., to the Preston Hollow
church, Dallas, Tex., as associate
pastor.

Robert L. Trett from the military
chaplaincy to the Lynn haven
church, Virginia Beach, Va.

DEATHS

Mrs. Anna W. Korn, who has
made her home with her son, Rev.
Robert Korn, pastor of the First
Church of Cheraw, S. C, died on
March 16 at the age of 65, after
an extended illness.
Mrs. Ella Gates Ward Allison, re-
tired Presbyterian Church US mis-
sionary who served 40 years in
China, died March 19 in Atlanta,
Ga.

• Last week (April 4) we carried
a news story about the latest antics
of the huge General Executive
Board which has taken over total op-
eration of the Presbyterian Church
US boards and agencies. This week
there's an editorial comment on p.
12. Very few knowledgeable people
still harbor the hope that conserva-
tives, or even moderates, will have
much influence on the way the GEB
is steering the ecclesiastical ship of
state. Our reporter in Atlanta says
he was quite frankly amazed at the
ease and dispatch with which the
liberal juggernaut operated. Said
he, with a thoughtful shake of the
head, "But for the moderator and
GEB member, Dr. L. Nelson Bell,
those hard headed conservatives and
reconciling moderates you hear so
jmuch about were either silent or ab-
sent."

J • We believe the letters in this is-
sue and the accompanying editorial,
'The Lesson of Key 73," constitute
mportant food for thought. Dif-
ferences we have and always will
lave. When spiritual differences be-
:ome irreconcilable within the area
jf the fundamentals (that's a good

ACROSS THE EDITOR'S DESK

word and don't be ashamed of it)
of the faith, fellowship becomes im-
possible. Traditionally, however, fel-
lowship also has suffered when dif-
ferences about peripheral issues be-
came irreconcilable: musical instru-
ments in worship, methods of evan-
gelism, what the Lord Jesus will do
after He returns — whether to stay
or to go with an apostate Church.
In these, and related matters (i.e.
Key 73) , we're going to respect the
brother with a different opinion and
we're going to let him have his say
in these columns. The kind of dif-
ference we can all stand united
against is represented by the next
item:

• Greenwich Village has its How-
ard Moody of Judson Memorial
Church; San Francisco has its Cecil
Williams of Glide Memorial Meth-
odist; and Charlottesville, Va., has
its Howard Gordon and Westmin-
ster Presbyterian. People write us

in utter frustration about such blem-
ishes upon the good name of the
Church. Because protesters can't
get a hearing anywhere else, we're
willing to share their concern here.
The Cavalier Daily of the Univer-
sity of Virginia reported a porno-
graphic movie at Westminster Pres-
byterian in such language that
we cannot print it. The minister
responsible, who is the students'
"spiritual" adviser, has a large fol-
lowing, according to the paper, as
he "wages a personal fight against
the concepts of the traditional
church." Christians don't give invo-
cations at City Hall meetings, says
"Flash" Gordon. "The real Chris-
tians will be the ones shaking their
fists at City Hall saying, 'You better
damn well share your revenue with
the poor!' " Christians are also those,
says the minister, in the vanguard
of such movements as abortion lib-
eralization. Ill

PAGE 3 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 11, 1973

NEWS OF RELIGION

Robinson Attacks View of Jesus as God

RICHMOND, Va.— Anglican Bish-
op John A. T. Robinson has chal-
lenged traditional views of Jesus
which he feels damage the Christian
belief that the man from Nazareth
is a real human being.

He spoke here on the 10th anni-
versary of Honest To God, his best-
selling book which took issue with
images of God as "up there" or "out
there."

The former Bishop of Woolwich,
who now is a dean at Cambridge
University, gave a series of lectures
on "The Human Face of God" at
the University of Richmond, an in-
stitution with Southern Baptist af-
filiation.

He said that many persons, believ-
ing they are following the Church's
teachings, see Christ as an "inser-
tion" from outside of history and as
an "immaculate paragon" who was
God in human form. He vigorously
disagreed with these concepts.

The bishop was presented with a
leather-bound copy of Honest To
God which was originally issued as
a paperback and, according to West-
minster Press, the publisher, has sold
1,250,000 copies and has been trans-
lated into 16 languages.

A new book called The Human
Face of God will be issued by West-
minster, a Presbyterian publishing
house, on May 7.

The lectures at Richmond, plus a
summary appearing in the March 21

issue of Christian Century, drew
heavily on the new book.

Bishop Robinson feels it is essen-
tial for modern Christians to see Je-
sus as a complete human being. Je-
sus was, he summarized in the Cen-
tury, "genuinely and completely a
product of the evolutionary process
like everyone else."

In terms of human nature, he
stated, "a Christ who can only be
an exception to rather than the su-
preme exemplification of what is
true of every other human being can
scarcely be the man for us."

In arguing for an end to views of
Jesus as an "immaculate paragon,"
Bishop Robinson said that Jesus is
unique because He is "normal," not
"abnormal." He opposed images of
Jesus as a "static, sexless perfection
of flawless porcelain."

Concerning Jesus as God in "hu-
man disguise," Bishop Robinson
noted pictures which, he said, make
Him appear as "a sort of Batman —
a god-man with two natures which
He could switch on and off at any
moment."

"What the early Christians be-
came convinced of, and what Chris-
tians have wanted to say ever since,
is that in Jesus they saw God at
work, God in action, yes, God in
person," the bishop said.

Bishop Robinson said the issue is
not where Christ comes from and
what He is made of. "He is not a

P

THE CHURCH OVERSEAS

NICARAGUA— Victims of the De-
cember earthquake in Managua are
still being aided by the World Re-
lief Commission, overseas relief arm
of the National Association of Evan-
gelicals.

Within hours of the first report,
WRC sent S7.000 by plane with a
Baptist Internal Mission representa-
tive. To date §17,000 has been sent
to this country.

In keeping with the Commission's
policy of providing both physical
and spiritual assistance, WRC has
secured special funds for 25,000

Spanish-language Bibles, New Testa-
ment and Scripture portions, using
American Bible Society materials.

Scripture portions will be distrib-
uted along with the physical aids
and will also be presented at eve-
ning evangelistic services.

WRC's counterpart agency in
Nicaragua during the emergency is
composed of missionaries of Assem-
blies of God, Baptist International
Mission, and Central American Mis-
sion (CAM) , whose field director,
the Rev. Ward Johnson, is chair-
IE

supernatural figure from the other
side," the prelate maintained. "He
is a human figure born and raised
from among His brothers to be the
instrument of God's decisive work
and to stand in a relationship to
Him to which no other man is
called."

He said that Christians can see in
Jesus "the human face of God" with-
out tying the expressions of that
conviction to an "image of super-
natural intervention which may have
once helped imaginations and may
still be superb imagery but can, if
taken too literally, be destructive of
the very reality it seeks to illumine."
(Editor's note: When you start out
by doubting the existence of God,
you naturally have trouble with the
significance of Jesus. No doubt the
bishop's new book, published by
Presbyterians, will again be a best
seller among Presbyterians.)

Chicago Presbytery
Appeals in Illinois

If

man.

CHICAGO, 111. — The Presbyte
of Chicago has decided to take its
case against the tiny Bible Church
of Forest Park (formerly the Forest
Park Presbyterian Church) to the
Supreme Court of Illinois.

As reported previously (Journal,
Jan. 10) , the Appellate Court of Il-
linois, on December 13, 1972, re-
versed a lower court decision which
had awarded the property of the for-
mer United Presbyterian congrega-
tion to the presbytery.

The appellate court found that in
1958 the presbytery had presented
the little congregation a quitclaim
deed through which the property
had been "transferred outright" to
the local church.

The presbytery now goes to the
state Supreme Court with a petition
for reversal of the appellate court's
decision, claiming that it "creates ai
cloud on the title to the properties
of all Presbyterian churches located
in the state of Illinois."

The presbytery argues that the ap
pellate court erred when it "reached
the conclusion that . . . the corpora-
tion (local church) has a status in-'b.
dependent of, and free from the j
Presbytery of Chicago as an agenq
of the United Presbyterian Churctjattj

Si

f

PAGE 4 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 11, 1973

USA."

It argues further that the quit-
claim deed given the congregation
| in no wise voided the claim of the
denomination to the property.

"The decision of the appellate
court," continues the presbytery's
brief, "destroys ecclesiastical author-
ity of the Presbyterian Church. It
I says that the government of the
[Presbyterian Church is congregation-
al with reference to property. This
is contrary to the First and Four-
■teenth Amendments to the Constitu-
tion."

The congregation of less than 100
jis largely composed of elderly and
(retired people.

\ (Editor's note: Anyone in the
\UPUSA who is interested in making
\a contribution to help a small group
Jo/ people in rather desperate need
\may contact the Rev. Frank Peters,
WO Phillips Ave., Glen Ellyn, III.
160137. ffl

Two Dying Missionaries
Led Prisoner to Christ

BETHESDA, Md. — A civilian who
was recently released by the North
[Vietnamese says he became a Chris-
tian with "very strong" faith after
spending months chained to two dy-
iing missionaries.

According to Michael F. Benge,
■who was an employee of the U. S.
|\gency for International Develop-
Inent (AID) in South Vietnam, the
two missionaries "never had any
Imimosity against their captors."
Irhe two were Miss Betty Olsen, a
■nurse with the Christian and Mis-
sionary Alliance, and Henry F.
■Blood, a worker for the Wycliffe Bi-
Iile Translators.

All three were captured at Ban
IVIe Thout by North Vietnamese sol-
lliers during the Tet offensive. Ban
■Vie Thout was the base of a Chris-
tian and Missionary Alliance lepro-
D arium.

I Mr. Benge said Mr. Blood died of
(pneumonia and malnutrition and
ivfiss Olsen died of dysentery. He
laid he had malaria, was delirious
lor 35 days, and suffered from tem-
■>orary blindness.

■ "I believe the only reason I sur-
vived is because of Betty's care,
Strength and encouragement," he

said of his bout with malaria.

The AID advisor said the North
Vietnamese troops dug a grave for
Mr. Blood and that he and Miss Ol-
sen had buried their friend. Miss
Olsen spoke words of Scripture at
the burial.

Mr. Benge described the mission-
aries as martyrs.

"We can already see the rewards
of their faith," said he. "The
Church among the Montagnards was
in imminent danger of destruction,
but when they saw the quality of the
missionaries' faith . . . and how the
missionaries were prepared to die for
their faith, they (the Montagnards)
turned to the Lord in large num-
bers." ffl

Legal Steps Are Taken
To Prepare for Rapture

NORTH HOLLYWOOD, Calif.
(RNS) — Members of the First As-
semblies of God church here take
their theology seriously. So much so,
in fact, that they are taking legal
steps to prepare for the Rapture.

The Rev. D. Leroy Sanders, pas-
tor of the 2,000-member congrega-

ATLANTA — Thirty sessions have
signed a call to various churches in
the Presbyterian Church US to come
to a "Convocation of Sessions" at
Westminster Presbyterian Church,
Atlanta, beginning at 1:00 P.M. on
May 18. The meeting is expected
to continue into May 19.

The call declares the need for a
formal ecclesiastical entity to be
formed in 1973 which is "faithful
to the Scriptures and the Reformed
faith," and invites "responsible
church courts" to come together to
discuss future steps that should be
taken.

The call stresses the fact that com-
ing to the convocation does not
place persons or sessions under any
obligation. "We are simply asking
that you send representatives on the
same basis as you do to presbytery,"

tion, recently began to think in prac-
tical terms after "reading signs
that the event could occur in this
generation."

On the assumption that all the
corporate officers and experienced
leaders of his congregation would
disappear at that time, the clergy-
man began to wonder how the re-
maining members could keep the
§1.5 million property going.

As a result, the congregation voted
to change its bylaws to provide that
those left behind could elect a tem-
porary chairman, who would in
turn call a church council to elect
new corporate officials. These
changes have been approved by the
Southern California District of the
Assemblies of God and are believed
to be a first for any church.

In addition, Pastor Sanders has
been consulting with executives of
the Mutual of New York insurance
firm to determine a procedure for
claims payments without having to
wait the usual seven-year period for
missing persons. He told Religious
News Service that plans for a "con-
ditional clause" were being studied,
under which payments would be
made if the rapture occurred. (±1

it said.

The sessions who signed are not
to be considered all of the churches
who will participate, but rather a
representative sampling of churches
according to synods, said a convo-
cation spokesman.

The host church for the convoca-
tion, for example, was not requested
to join in the invitation.

Following are the churches which
signed the invitation:

Briarwood Presbyterian Church,
Birmingham, Ala.

First Presbyterian Church, Mont-
gomery, Ala.

Oak Park Presbyterian Church,
Montgomery, Ala.

First Presbyterian Church, Gads-
den, Ala.

First Presbyterian Church, Hen-
dersonville, N. C.

THE CHURCH AT HOME

Convocation Is Called By 30 Churches

PAGE 5 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 11, 1973

First Presbyterian Church, Weav-
erville, N. C.

First Presbyterian Church, Swan-
nanoa, N. C.

West Hills Presbyterian Church,
Knoxville, Tenn.

Westminster Presbyterian Church,
Chattanooga, Tenn.

Granada Presbyterian Church,
Coral Gables, Fla.

Shenandoah Presbyterian Church,
Miami, Fla.

First Presbyterian Church, Se-
bring, Fla.

Seminole Presbyterian Church,
Tampa, Fla.

Mcllwain Memorial Presbyterian
Church, Pensacola, Fla.

First Presbyterian Church, Macon,
Ga.

Smyrna Presbyterian Church,
Smyrna, Ga.

Cynthiana Presbyterian Church,
Cynthiana, Ky.

First Presbyterian Church, Louis-
ville, Ky.

Jackson Street Presbyterian
Church, Alexandria, La.

First Presbyterian Church, Jack-
son, Miss.

First Presbyterian Church, Colum-
bus, Miss.

First Presbyterian Church, Brook-
haven, Miss.

First Presbyterian Church, Rock
Hill, S. C.

Covenant Presbyterian Church,
Columbia, S. C.

Eau Claire Presbyterian Church,
Columbia, S. C.

Fifth Street Presbyterian Church,
Tyler, Tex.

West End Presbyterian Church,
Hopewell, Va.

Calvary Presbyterian Church, Nor-
folk, Va.

Second Presbyterian Church,
Greenville, S. C.

Johnson Memorial Presbyterian
Church, Jackson, Tenn. SI

Presbytery Refuses to
Receive Conservative

LAKE CHARLES, La. — The new-
ly organized South Louisiana Presby-
tery has voted not to receive the Rev.
Larry Mills, a conservative who was
called from South Mississippi Pres-
bytery to the pastorate of the Sli-
dell (La.) Presbyterian Church.

Mr. Mills is presently pastor of
Thomson Memorial Presbyterian
Church in Centreville, Miss., and
serves also as stated clerk of South
Mississippi Presbytery.

The presbytery gave no specific

reasons for its refusal to receive Mr.
Mills, and many observers, includ-
ing presbyters, considered that to be
in violation of Chapter 16-5 of the
Book of Church Order. The section
states that "should the Presbytery
fail to sustain the examination of a
Minister seeking admission from an-
other Presbytery, the Presbytery to
which he seeks admission shall, be-
fore adjournment of that meeting,
enter a statement in its minutes of
the reasons for such refusal. ..."

The presbytery said that no such
list of reasons was required because
the three and one half hour exami-
nation was "informal." Not every-
one agreed, and the Rev. Samuel S.
Cappel of New Orleans observed
that "there was nothing at all infor-
mal about the vote not to receive
Mr. Mills."

The 62-56 vote against Mr. Mills
was preceded by an extended exami-
nation which focused on his under-
standing of theology, church govern-
ment and the sacraments. His view
that women should not be ordained
either as teaching or ruling elders
and his unwillingness to swear what
he called a "blind" allegiance to all
the boards and agencies of the
Church came under heavy attack.

The young minister was also at-
tacked for his view that the Bible is
the infallible Word of God, a view
which Mr. Cappel noted was "ex-
plicitly required by the Book of
Church Order."

Mr. Cappel said that when Mr.
Mills stated one is saved by "believ-
ing in the Lord Jesus Christ," he
was accused of being a Pentecostal
rather than a Presbyterian.

A number of years ago the (then)
New Orleans Presbytery met the
problem of a conservative minister
seeking admission by calling an ex-
ecutive session (which barred the
minister in question from attend-
ing) and voting not to examine him.

This action was in effect reversed
by the Synod of Louisiana and a
subsequent Assembly clarification
now makes mandatory that the pres-
bytery at least go through the for-
mality of an examination before re-
jecting a minister it doesn't want.

In other action, the presbytery ap-
pointed an administrative commis-
sion to meet with the session of
Alexandria's Jackson Street Presby-
terian Church, which has requested
dismissal to Southwest Presbytery of
the Reformed Presbyterian Church
(Evangelical Synod) . No presby-
tery action is expected until June. IB

Dr. Ben Lacy Rose Leaves
Richmond for Pastorate

RICHMOND — Dr. Ben L. Rose,
professor for 17 years at Union
Theological Seminary in Richmond,
Va., will become pastor of the Lit-
tle Chapel on the Boardwalk in
Wrightsville Beach, N. C, Aug. 1.

Dr. Rose, who served as modera-
tor of the General Assembly of the
Presbyterian Church US a year ago,
will continue to teach one course
per academic year at the seminary.

In addition to serving the 210-
member congregation, Dr. Rose will
be a "pastor to pastors" for Wil- ^
mington Presbytery and will super-
vise Seminary intern students in east-
ern North Carolina. He also plans "
to offer several correspondence "
courses and occasional seminars to "
ministers.

The 58-year-old professor said he
feels strongly that "in the Christian ^
ministry today the pastor of the lo- V
cal church is where the action is.f
Ever since I joined the seminary fac- tt
ulty seventeen years ago I said I'0'
would return. Now I am doing it." ffl *'

Hugh Eichelberger To
Be Pastor To Pastors

ATLANTA — A North Carolina
minister has been called by the Gen-
eral Executive Board to a new posi-
tion as coordinator of pastoral care
and career development for the *i
Presbyterian Church US.

He is the Rev. Hugh Lee Eichel-
berger Jr., 38, pastor of Trinity Pres-
byterian Church of Hendersonville.
He will assume his responsibilities
the first of May, but will be at-
tached to the General Assembly's
Committee on the Minister and His
Work for the balance of 1973 and
will move to the GEB's permanent
staff Jan. 1.

Eichelberger will be responsible fin
for making available resources foi
counseling ministers and their fam
ilies, for clergy career development
and for clergy support systems.

He also is expected to establish re-
gional networks of personnel en
gaged in pastoral care and will func
tion as a referral resource for pres
bytery Commissions on the Ministei
and His Work and for individual
ministers.

He has been pastor of Trinity
church since 1965. He was pastoi
at Rock Presbyterian Church, Green
wood, S. C, 1962-64.

]

nti

PAGE 6 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 11, 1973

Each of us, like the thieves, must make the choice —

In the Footsteps of a Thief

What an ugly place Calvary
must have been; Luke called
it "the skull." The crucifixion site
was located in rocky terrain and
from a distance the ugly appearance
of a human skull could be perceived.

This ugliness was amplified by
the three crosses erected at Calvary.
The eternal Son of God suffered and
idied in the company of two convict-
ed criminals. Thus, the prophecy
[of Isaiah 53:12, that the Messiah
iwould be "numbered with the trans-
gressors" was fulfilled.

The Scriptures do not tell us
much about these transgressors, re-
ferring to them only as malefactors
or thieves. The Gospels do show us
ithat, initially, both men had hearts
of stone, and Matthew and Mark, in
(reporting the event of crucifixion,
[mentioned that these two men joined
Ivvith the chief priests, scribes, cen-
Iturions and common people in re-
proaching Jesus and in hurling the
Ivilest abuse at Him. During their
[first hours on the cross neither man
lihowed remorse for what he had
done.

The Greatest Crime

Whatever the natures of their
:rimes may have been, the blas-
ihemy of Jesus was their greatest
:rime. They had been condemned
o death by society, and it appeared
hat they had sealed their judgments
bf eternal death as well. They were
ough individuals.

I It was the practice of the Romans
lo hang a sign on each cross, in-
cribed with the nature of the crime

The author, an attorney and a
[aember of the Coral Ridge Presby-
terian Church, Fort Lauderdale, Fla.,
\s studying at the Reformed Theo-
logical Seminary, Jackson, Miss.

for which the criminal was being ex-
ecuted. The sign over Jesus' head
read, "This is the King of the Jews."
What kind of crime was this? And
what attitude did our Lord show?
Could an ordinary man pray for his
enemies, "Father, forgive them, they
know not what they do"?

There was something very differ-
ent about Jesus. One could sense
His righteousness. Somehow, you
knew that this Jesus had done noth-
ing out of place. He had the bear-
ing of a king, not a criminal.

Taunt of a Thief

The penitent thief remained si-
lent, perhaps aware of his own sin-
fulness. Several hours elapsed in si-
lence after Jesus and the two thieves
had been nailed to their crosses.
Then the impenitent criminal broke
the silence: "Are you not the Christ,
save yourself and us" (Luke 23:39) .

We do not know if this thief had
followed Jesus' ministry and the ac-
counts of His miracles. That is un-
important, for among the taunts the
crowd had been shouting at Jesus
that day was the statement: "He
saved others; let Him save Himself
if this is the Christ of God, His
chosen one."

The unrepentant thief could not
miss hearing that phrase. He be-
came impressed by the fact that who-
ever this Jesus was, He had saved
others from death. That was pre-
cisely what this man wanted. He
wanted to be spared further pain
and suffering; he wanted to be
spared from death. He wanted,
somehow, to get down from his cross.

By his words, "save yourself and
us," the impenitent thief reviled
the man the Romans had nailed to
the cross earlier that morning.
There was no change in him. He
had been thinking of how to make

HAROLD B. PROBES

a break from his captors, and he
thought that he had the answer. He
called upon Jesus to perform just
one more miracle. What was one
more miracle in the chain of mir-
acles the crowd below claimed He
had performed?

His words to Jesus were not in the
form of a prayer. They were a com-
mand, an imperative: "Save your-
self and us." As a result, Jesus did
not even bother to reply to him, but
the words did engender a response
from the other thief.

The contrite thief rebuked his
compatriot and called for him to
cease the insults directed at Christ.
He admonished the unrepentant
thief to turn his thoughts toward
God. The penitent thief realized
that it was senseless for this man to
think that He would escape death.

In the Presence of God

The penitent thief followed this
rebuke and admonition with a con-
fession of his sins. Was he turning
yellow at that moment? No, he con-
fessed his sins because he had been
observing Jesus' demeanor for three
hours; he had heard Jesus' words of
forgiveness for His enemies and he
knew that he was in the very pres-
ence of God in the person of our
Lord.

After confessing his sins, the pen-
itent thief uttered this amazing
prayer from the depths of his trou-
bled soul: "Jesus, remember me
when You come in Your kingdom."
This prayer was a reverent one.
How different is this petition from
the brash words, "Art thou not the
Christ?"

The penitent thief made this
prayer fearfully. He too employed
an imperative: "Remember me." He
recalled how the other criminal had
commanded Jesus to save the three

PAGE 7 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 11, 1973

4

1

of them. He remembered that Jesus
had not replied to the other man.
He wondered if he had been too
bold. He wondered if Jesus would
answer him.

This prayer was spoken hopeful-
ly. The penitent thief, with child-
like faith, placed his trust in Jesus
as Saviour. His hope was to be re-
membered by Jesus when He came
in His kingdom.

Key Word

The key word in this prayer is
the verb "remember." To under-
stand this word and its use we must
understand that the penitent thief
was a Jew, and "remember" was a
word central to the Jews' Biblical
view of God. The Jews believed
that God remembered certain indi-
viduals with grace and mercy. God
remembered Noah and caused the
floodwaters to abate; He overthrew
the cities in which Lot lived; He
remembered Rachel and enabled her

to bear Joseph; and when Hannah
vowed that she would dedicate her
son to God, He enabled her to bear
Samuel.

The Jews believed that God was
gracious and merciful to the chil-
dren of Israel because He especial-
ly remembered the covenants He had
made with the patriarchs Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob. In turn, the Jews
felt obliged to remember God's past
grace toward them. Judaism may be
characterized as a theology of re-
membrance. With this as back-
ground, the penitent thief's prayer
takes on added meaning.

The penitent thief confessed his
sins and asked Jesus to remember
him. Although he was a criminal and
probably had not spent much time
praying during his lifetime, he man-
aged to speak this amazing prayer.
How could this be? Paul gave the an-
swer:

"The Spirit also helps our weak-
ness for we do not know how to pray
as we should, but the Spirit Himself

I'm not going to need this house much longer —

Getting Ready To Move

The owner of the tenement which
I have occupied for many years
has given notice that he will furnish
but little or nothing more for re-
pairs. So I am advised to be ready to
move.

At first this was not a very wel-
come notice. The surroundings
here are in many respects very pleas-
ant and were it not for the evidence
of decay, I should consider the old
house good enough. But even a
slight wind causes it to tremble and
totter and all the braces are not suf-
ficient to make it secure. So I am
getting ready to move.

It is strange how quickly one's in-
terest is transferred to the prospec-
tive home. I have been consulting
maps of the new country and read-
ing descriptions of its inhabitants.
One who visited it has returned and
from him I learn that it is beautiful
beyond description — language
breaks down in attempting to tell
of what he heard while there. He
says that in order to make an invest-

ment there, he has suffered the loss
of all things he owned here, and
even rejoices in what others would
call making a sacrifice.

Another, whose love to me has
been proven by the greatest possible
test, is now there. He has sent me
several clusters of the most deli-
cious fruit. After tasting them, all
food here seems insipid.

Two or three times I have been
down by the border of the river that
forms the boundary and have wished
myself among the company of those
who were singing praises to the
King on the other side.

Many of my friends have moved
there. Before leaving, they spoke
of my coming later. I have seen the
smile upon their faces as they passed
out of sight.

Often I am asked to make some
new investments here, but my an-
swer in every case is, "I am getting
ready to move." — Author Un-
known, ffl

intercedes for us with groanings too
deep for words; and He who search-
es the hearts knows what the mind
of the Spirit is, because He inter-
cedes for the saints according to the
will of God" (Rom. 8:26-27) .

How thrilling it is to see how the
grace of God worked in the life of
the penitent thief to draw him to
Jesus!

Luke recorded Jesus' reply to the
penitent thief's prayer: "Truly I
say to you, today you shall be with
me in paradise." The character of
this promise was indeed unique, as
was the terminology used by Christ.
"Paradise" is found three times in
the Old Testament, where it means
a forest or an orchard. Its three
usages in the New Testament refer
to the state of the souls of believers
after death, or heaven.

What a Promise!

When He spoke to a Jew, it would
seem logical for Jesus to use the
term, "Abraham's bosom," in refer-
ring to heaven. That is the word He
used in teaching His disciples the
parable of the rich man and Lazarus
(Luke 16:19-31). It is significant
that He used the word "paradise"
which was common in the contempo-
rary Jewish literature and would
have relevance for the penitent thief.

What a promise this was! It was
far beyond anything the penitent
thief could have imagined. He had
asked Jesus to remember him ai
some indeterminate date in the fu
ture. Instead he had received thi
promise of paradise. He was to leave
that very day. He would not b<
traveling alone, either. He woulc
be with Jesus.

The popular belief in that da}
was that the gates to paradise wer<
wide enough to admit two peopli
at the same time. Just imagine en
tering the kingdom with the Kinj
Himself! How gracious the Lord is

This account has a sobering as
pect, too. Only one thief was saved
The other was lost for all eternity
Both thieves had access to Jesus. On
ly one was willing to acknowledg
his sin and seek God's forgivenes
through His Son.

The implications for us in th
crucifixion account are obvious. W
are condemned and dying. We hav
no hope and no salvation unless w
confess our sin to Jesus and ask th
Holy Spirit to give us new life.

Each thief made a choice. "W
have the same option. I

PAGE 8 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 11, 1973

i

A report on the 1973 Birthday Objective of the Women of the Church —

Opportunity Unlimited

Greetings from Brazil! The most
exciting thing happening in
Brazil at the moment is developing
around the new Trans-Amazon
Highway, which stretches 3,400
miles from the Atlantic Coast to
Peru.

The government is building a
new village every 7 miles and a
town every 30 miles along the high-
way. Our first missionary couple
is already living in Porto Velho, one
of the most remote places in this
great land. Here civilization is be-
ing brought by the government.

The federal government has al-
ready completed more than 50 new
villages in the Altamira section of
the highway which is located in the
center of Brazil between the coast
and Peru. In just 86 days a new
town was built, complete with stores,
beauty parlor, jail and court house
— they even have a mayor. Every-
thing including the bus line was
sold to individuals.

Land for the Landless

Another town is under construc-
tion about 30 miles from an old river
town called Altamira on the River
Xingu. Officials told me that 30,-
000 inhabitants will be in the new
town within a short time.

Hunger in Brazil is on the in-
crease. The large drought areas of

The author, a veteran Presbyte-
rian Church US missionary, is noted
[for making things happen. Right
\noxv he is personally involved in
combatting hunger among the des-
iperate people in Brazil and in help-
Xing to develop Church support for
[colonists on the Trans- -Amazonas
,highivay. This "birthday story" is
ibased on excerpts from his letters

Irontained in his journal.
PAGE 9

the Northeast are the greatest cause.
Industry is not meeting the need
to employ the untrained and most-
ly illiterate interior people.

The visit last November of Mr.
Clayton Arnold and Dr. James
Cogswell, representing World Mis-
sions, resulted in an effort to do
something for the landless people
in an area of good soil and adequate
rainfall, and a decision was made to
purchase tracts of land near and
around where the Belem-Brasilia
and the Trans-Amazon highways
cross, commonly referred to as the
Estreito area. Mr. Arnold pur-
chased the first property.

We have a Brazilian organization
composed of lawyers, agronomists
and cattlemen. Milton Cavalcante,
a rancher, is the executive secretary.
Everyone has given his time and tal-
ents to help meet the great need of
humanity. We have 5,150 acres to
be divided and purchased by the
landless families.

Fifty-two head of cattle have been
purchased so far. We have devel-
oped a method of raising cattle and
growing rice as a means of helping
the landless people pay for their
homes and land. Trained agrono-
mists make the plans for each fam-
ily and give technical aid. A ledger
is kept on each family as to the ex-
penditures, and bills are paid ac-
cording to size of crops made
through their efforts. Every family
keeps some cows. Fruit and veg-
etables are grown so that a balanced
diet may be available.

For a while I thought that the peo-
ple were lazy, then I found that
they were ill. So the first thing we
do is to try to straighten out their
health problems. Then we provide
the way for them to stand on their
own feet and get their own land.

Nothing is given away except op-

THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL

BILL MOSELEY

portunity. We give them cattle,
milk cows, and help them grow
rice. We get other seeds which will
grow on their land. After the first
year, we process the deed to the
land; they then have a mortgage.

How will they pay? They have
never seen money. They pay with
the fruits of their labor, the cows
and the rice. It will take them an
average of seven years to pay off the
debt and begin to be able to educate
their children.

A 'Wealthy' Man

We had one man who was living
under a tree with a family of seven
children. I stopped to talk with
him and had coffee. I asked him
if he would like to have land of his
own. (He had a beautiful corn
crop on someone else's land.) He
said yes, so we got him a piece of
land.

He had real talent. In seven
years he has become a wealthy man.
His whole family has become Chris-
tian because he was curious about
what made me "tick." He and his
family came a long way to our ser-
vices and they listened. Then they
invited us to come to his home for
services. He now supports lay peo-
ple and a school.

About Hungry People

A few years ago, about a million
people lived as we do — that is, we
have a choice of menus in our food.
Today there are only 700,000 of
these people. Before long the tail
will be wagging the dog, and it will
be the underdeveloped areas of this
world that will be in control.

We had better wake up! For self-
preservation we must find ways of
helping people without tearing

11, 1973

down individual dignity. We must
not just provide handouts but make
it possible for these desperate peo-
ple to have a normal life.

The hopeless ones have given up.
Why? How have they gotten in this
situation? Most of them don't eat
as much in a week as I eat at one
meal. The reasons are the lack of
good soil and not enough rain. I
don't know why the United States
is so blessed! Humanity in some
places simply does not have the
same opportunity as in other places.

In the northeast of Brazil there
may be a few inches of rainfall a
year, but not in the right place at
the right time. Sometimes the corn
might be just right for harvest if on-
ly there would be one more rain.
This is true in the area of Brazil
where 50 million people live con-
stantly with drought. On the aver-
age of every ten years, the drought
condition is general. Imagine the
problems of caring for that many
people!

We have the largest church in the

We cannot have Easter without the heartbreak that precedes it —

Gup of Blessing

whole area with a membership of
more than 300 people. Pastor Tarciso
Santos is deluged by new responsi-
bilities — ten new congregations be-
came his responsibility overnight! A
number of the people brought in by
the federal government were Presby-
terians from nearly every other state
in Brazil.

Where else would the Church find
people coming to them by the hun-
dreds, daily looking for a new life
and a new opportunity? We are in
this open door. 51

MARGARET McLESTER

On a Good Friday evening, I
stood beneath the starry dome
of heaven. As I meditated on the
suffering of the Lord Jesus Christ,
I observed in a preoccupied way
that the Big Dipper, Ursa Major,
hung upside down in its giant swing
around the North Star, drained and
empty, as it were. It seemed almost
to be trying to speak, but I was too
cast down in mind and heart to heed
what it might be saying.

Sad thoughts of Passion Week
overwhelmed me. Oh, if only one
might go straight from the hosannas
of Palm Sunday to the hallelujahs
of Easter without the heartbreak of
the week between. The sufferings
of my Saviour seemed all the more
poignant when reviewed in the love-
liness of that soft April evening.

Snatches of Handel's "Messiah,"
to which I had been listening, kept
bringing back the words of Isaiah:
"He was despised and rejected of
men, a man of sorrows and acquaint-
ed with grief . . . wounded for our
transgressions . . . bruised for our
iniquities. . . . All we like sheep
have gone astray; we have turned

The author is an elect lady of
Richmond, Va. This meditation
first appeared in Christianity To-
day, and it is reprinted loith permis-
sion.

every one to his own way; and the
Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity
of us all."

Again I glanced upward at the
Dipper. Once more I recalled the
Passion Week: our Lord's foretell-
ing His death, His agony in Geth-
semane, the betrayal by Judas, the
trial, the spitting, scourging, mock-
ing, Pilate's craven surrender of his
prisoner at the insistence of the in-
flamed mob with its cries, "Crucify
Him! Crucify Him!" And then
the cross itself.

Why did it have to be that way?
Could not God have done it dif-
ferently?

Heaven// Symbol

As if in answer to the unhappy
questions, the stern words in He-
brews came to mind: "Without shed-
ding of blood is no remission (of
sins) ." Without quite realizing it,
I looked hard at the upsidedown
Dipper. Suddenly its message
reached me. "Behold in heavenly
symbol," it seemed to say, "behold,
the cup of wrath which the Son of
God thrice besought the Father
might pass from His lips but which
He drained to its bitterest dregs to
redeem His lost creation."

Yet another event of Passion Week
flashed to mind — our Lord's insti-
tution of the Holy Communion. "He

took the cup, and gave thanks, and
gave it to them saying, Drink ye all
of it; for this is my blood of the
New Testament, which is shed for
many for the remission of sins."

This was the cost of my redemp-
tion, the precious blood of God's
own Son. What an incredible price
God had to pay to ransom me! As
I dwelt upon the sacrament and its
vicariously sacrificial meaning, lo,
the cup of wrath and desolation
which the Lord Jesus Christ had
drunk on that Good Friday long ago
became a veritable cup of blessing,
and indeed a sign of His boundless
love. Heavenly chalice. Gone now
all heaviness from my heart, as soar-
ing it sang in Easter triumph:

Jesus, Thy blood and righteous-
ness

My beauty are, my glorious
dress;

'Midst flaming worlds, in these

arrayed,
With joy shall I lift up my
head.

This spotless robe the same
appears

When ruined nature sings in
years;

No age can change its glorious
hue,

The robe of Christ is ever
new. IB

PAGE 10 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 11, 1973

J

SEMINARS

Crusade Preparation

and Follow up

REV. REUBEN WALLACE

The Evangelistic Church
REV. PAUL SETTLE
Montgomery, Ala.

I

1 9 73

SEMINARS

Evangelism to Alcoholics
REV. JIM CLAFFEE
Lenoir, N. C

Evangelism to the
inner city
REV. BILL BROWN
New Orleans, La.

Evangelism through the
Sunday School
REV. THOMAS CROSS
Greenville, S. C.

m mi

Evangelism to
Troubled Youth
MR. & MRS.
GLENN BONDURANT
Pompano Beach, Fla.

Missions

REV. ARNIE MAVES
Pensacola, Fla.

C0H

Evangelism to the Negro
REV. MICHAEL FLOWERS
Savannah, Ga.

Seminar for Youth
Workers

REV. JIMMY TURNER
Columbus, Miss.

Evangelistic Music
MRS. INER BASINGER
Parkersburg, W. Va.

Evangelism and the

Continuing Church

DR. JOHN RICHARDS
Perry, Ga.

Authority, Integrity and
Infallibility of Scripture
REV. ONESIMUS J. RUNDUS
Evansville, Ind.

Candidates for the
Ministry

DR. ROBERT RAYBURN
St. Louis, Mo.

The Preaching Clinic
DR. EDMUND CLOWNEY
Philadelphia, Pa.

Studies in the
Christian Life
DR. G. ALLEN FLEECE
Holmes Beach, Fla.

Sponsored by:
Presbyterian Evangelistic Fellowship, Inc.

MONTREAT, NORTH CAROLINA

AUGUST 9-14, 1973

Previous ads in the Journal have featured the Main
Address Speakers, Bible Hour Leader, Music Program
and Youth Leaders. In this issue we wish to list for
you the Evangelism Seminar Leaders.

How to Face and Solve
Life's Problems
DR. ROBERT REYMOND
St. Louis, Mo.

Wives in Evangelism
MRS. MATSU CRAWFORD
Greer, S. C.

Christian Witness in the

Public School System
MRS. E. P. ELLIOTT, SR.
Manassas, Va.

Evangelism through
Home Bible Studies
REV. FRANK BARKER
Birmingham, Ala.

For Evangelism Conference brochures
clip this coupon and mail to
PRESBYTERIAN EVANGELISTIC FELLOWSHIP

P. O. Box 808
Hopewell, Virginia 23860

Name

Address
City

State

-Zip

Please send me
chures.

Evangelism Conference bro-

Evangellsm to the Jews
MR. JACK HEINTZ
West Palm Beach, Fla.

Personal Evangelism
REV. ARCHIE PARRISH
Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.

Personal Evangelism
Institutes
MR. HENRY THIGPEN
Florence, Ala.

Weekend Lay Witness
Schools
MR. CHIP HOWELL
Smyrna, Ga.

Evangelism and the
Reformed Faith
REV. JOHN SARTELLE
Cedar Bluff, Va.

Revivals and Evangelism
in Presbyterian History
DR. GREGG SINGER
Salisbury N. C.

REV.

Proofs of the
Christian Faith
DEWEY MURPHY
Denver, N. C.

PAGE 11 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 11, 1973

EDITORIALS

The Lesson of Key '73

Quite intentionally, we published
the editorial supporting Key 73
(Journal, March 14) for two rea-
sons. First, we deliberately sought
to raise an issue around which evan-
gelical Presbyterians can develop a
new approach to the problem of dif-
fering opinions over important is-
sues.

Second, of course, we do support
Key 73.

It is no secret that evangelical
Christians disagree sharply over Key
73. On account of such disagree-
ment, the National Association of
Evangelicals a year ago decided not
to press the issue of formal endorse-
ment. Some of the reasons why
some Christians feel this way ap-
pear in the Mailbag of this issue of
the Journal.

We were expecting a reaction to
the editorial. Frankly, we did not
expect so much reaction, nor so
sharp. But in what happens now,
we believe a pattern may be estab-

lished to help us all face the issue
of disagreement itself.

In years past, sharp differences of
opinion have led to separation. In
the early days of the Presbyterian
Church in the tiny country of Scot-
land there were, at one time, over
40 separate Churches each claiming
to be the only true Presbyterian
Church. It is a historical fact that
much less than disagreement over
Key 73 has been enough to produce
a separation.

If God should be doing something
new in our time, hopefully granting
a final renewal of the Church before
Christ returns, surely it will include
a new attitude among brethren who
share a common precious faith in
Jesus Christ towards accompanying
issues of ecclesiology and evangelism.

If history repeats, the emerging
disagreements over Key 73 would
lead to recriminations. Charges and
countercharges would fly. Who is
doing what in evangelism and

'Liberation' and the GEB

The General Executive Board of
the Presbyterian Church US con-
tinues to be a sad showcase of spiri-
tual, intellectual and ecclesiastical
irresponsibility.

Consider, for instance, the inclu-
sion of "salvation as liberation"
among Assembly priorities approved
almost unanimously in the recent
GEB meeting (see neivs story, April
4 issue) .

Now what in the world does the
GEB mean by "salvation as libera-
tion"?

Do they mean liberation from
guilt and the power of sin? A sug-
gestion that the statement be modi-
fied to say so was rejected outright
by the board.

Do they mean liberation from po-
litical oppression? The early
Church would have found that in-
teresting.

Do they mean liberation from ec-
onomic oppression? We know some
Christian laborers who might ques-
tion their salvation.

Do they mean women's liberation,

as horn prohibitions against the or-
dained ministry? Then the Apostle
Paul should have known better.

Will the liberals who so thorough-
ly dominate the GEB tell us what
they mean?

The context of the board's action
was its anticipation of the 200th
anniversary of these United States.
This country was founded as a land
where liberation would prevail.
That's what religion is about, the
board seems anxious to say.

In this it follows the findings of
the recent World Council of Church-
es' conference in Bangkok on the
theme of "Salvation Today."

If that was the board's intent,
then by defining salvation as lib-
eration, from a worldly perspective,
the GEB may have liberated itself
— from ecclesiastical responsibility,
spiritual discernment and even legis-
lative precision.

Maybe it's time for responsible
members of the Presbyterian Church
US to liberate themselves from that
kind of leadership. 2)

whether one should express an opin-
ion if he is doing nothing in evan-
gelism would be laced with generous
doses of Scripture and appeals to
"the Reformed faith," or to Scrip
tural injunctions against making
common cause with unbelief.

We presented our arguments in
"Across the Editor's Desk" of the
March 28 Journal. There we said:

"We remember world missions
during the World Missions Season,
though we have little respect for the
Board of World Missions. We cele-
brate the rising of the Lord at Eas-
ter, though the day means some-
thing else to others. And we pro-
mote a day of prayer at the time of
the World Day of Prayer, though
we reject the material offered by the
National Council of Churches. So
we intend to emphasize evangelism
this year, designated Key 73."

The next question: What of our
relations with Christian brethren
who feel we have abandoned our
principles?

In our understanding of the Gos-
pel, we are one. In our relation-
ship to Christ, we are one. In the
hope of our calling, we are one. In
the seriousness with which we take
the Great Commission, we are one.
No disagreement over how to culti-
vate the vineyard of the Lord is go-
ing to tempt us to try to start an-
other vineyard.

We'll gladly give those who wish
to practice spiritual horticulture an-
other way equal time in our col-
umns.

And we'll keep in loving touch,
for Christ has broken down the wall
of partition between us. IB

Soul Food

Someone who makes us laugh as
much as any clown is the menta
patient who thinks he is God. We
laugh because the idea is absurd.
We pity him because his delusion
is great.

But who will pity us? Far too of-
ten we worship not the God who
created the heavens and the earth
but ourselves.

We may not boast, "I am God,'
and we usually think of God as some
one, or something, apart from our
selves. We may even believe there
is a God to whom we owe respect ii
not allegiance, belief if not respect.

But like the hypocrites, whom we
don't respect, what we profess quite

PAGE 12 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 11, 1973

1

THE LAYMAN AND HIS CHURCH

The Thinking Christian

often differs from what we practice.
Our theology may blatantly re-
place God with man. Or we may
more subtly acknowledge God but
make Him over into our own image.

A character in Inherit the Wind
aptly says, "God created man in His
own image, and man, being a gen-
tleman, returned the compliment."
The Bible is more blunt. Although
the first of ten commandments given
to Moses was, "You shall have no
other gods before me," Paul writes
that man "exchanged the truth
about God for a lie and worshiped
and served the creature rather than
the Creator."

And we do. Our idols are not
gold and silver, but our own ego
and self-sufficiency. No matter what
gods we use to replace God, the re-
sult is to make man the center and
supreme being of his own universe.

Faith in humanism, science or pol-
itics is ultimately only faith in the
humanist, the scientist or the pol-
itician. To worship the ideal is to
deify the idealist. We can also wor-
ship money, drugs, sex, careers, even
grades. But these have no value ex-
cept to serve our desires. To wor-
ship them is to worship ourselves.

We can claim to be good Chris-
tians, but use God as some kind of
power to satisfy our needs and grant
all our desires. But to use God in-
stead of following Him as Lord is
to worship our demands, and our-
selves, more than God.

And what power does man have?
He does not create his world but
finds himself in it. He is bound by
its resources and limited by his phys-
ical and social infirmities. He is
born with the knowledge he will
live and die in a world that will
scarcely note his passing. If this
enslaved and finite creature is God,
then there is no hope. Only delu-
sions of grandeur.

It isn't always easy to worship
God, but we have at least a choice.
We can look at the God of the Bi-
ble, much larger than man, or we
can persist in following the many
small gods we have chosen in our
pursuit of self-centeredness.

To look at God Himself may be
humbling. But to see ourselves as
God is more than arrogant folly — it
is pitiable. — Ken Ripley in The
Branch of Inter-Varsity. SI

• • •

The bulwark of the Church is that
man who is well grounded in Scrip-
ture. — Jerome.

One day a man went to the car
showroom to buy a car. He didn't
really think he needed the car, but
his parents and most of his friends
had one so he decided to get one
too. When he entered the show-
room, a salesman came up to him
and asked, "What kind of car do you
want?"

"Oh, any kind, you went to school
to learn about cars — why don't you
pick one out for me?" So the sales-
man went to an economical, prac-
tical car and asked if it would do.
"No, I want something with a lot
of creature comforts. Something that
has looks and would amaze people.
Something like that big, expensive
car over there."

"OK, how is this one?"

"That's good!"

"Would you like to see the en-
gine?"

"That's OK, I'll probably only
use it once a week anyway. Does
it have white walls?"

"Yes, do you want the instruc-
tion manual?"

"I guess I might as well. Do you
have it in German?"

"Yes, do you speak German?"

"Oh, no, I just like the way Ger-
man sounds. It's kind of neat sound-
ing, don't you think? Besides, if the
car breaks down, I'll just bring it
back here."

That's crazy you say? Nobody
buys a car like that! No, I guess not.
But people do get some things like
that. Some people get their religion
that way. Think of it: The peo-
ple who want religion because dad
had it, the wife or friend had it. But
not because they thought they really
needed it.

So they go to the local church and
let the minister tell them what kind
of faith to have. Their only request
is that they get a religion that looks
good and has creature comforts.

Although a very young man, au-
thor Edward Richmond Jr. is ob-
viously a person of considerable dis-
cernment. He is a member of the
Warren Park Presbyterian Church,
Cicero, III.

They're not really interested in what
makes their faith work, just what
it looks like. And when it comes to
the instruction manual, the Bible,
they choose a translation that
"sounds nice," not one that they
necessarily understand. And besides,
they wouldn't read it anyway. If
something happens to their faith,
they'll just go back to church and
"have it fixed."

This is the trouble with some
Christians (called "churchians") to-
day. In short, they just don't think
about their faith. It is time that
Christians stop thinking of Chris-
tianity as a club. It is not a social
gathering, or a sentimental little
soiree held once a week. It is an
army! An army with all the power
of God, and its recruits are not lit-
tle "ticky-tacky," programmed, au-
tomatons.

It was God's intention when He
created us that we be free thinkers,
making all decisions by ourselves.
Time and time again God has al-
lowed men to use their own minds
to decide what to do. In the Gar-
den of Eden man was given a choice.
Even when it comes to salvation it-
self, it is man's choice to make.

The person who goes about, not
searching or thinking for himself
but rather taking things here and
there out of sermons, little Biblical
anecdotes about Christianity, and
storing them away for next Sunday,
is the person who will find his faith
crumbling at the very foundation,
for he has not bothered to make a
good house upon that foundation.

It is time we, the only hope of
the witnessing Church, start to use
the minds that God has given us.
Read the Bible in a translation that
you understand; interpret it. Use
other commentaries, of course; ask
opinions of other Christians, of
course; but think it out for yourself.
Don't accept an opinion merely be-
cause others hold it; think it out,
and if your thinking and research
have led you to believe differently,
let the Word say so to you.

It is better to know your faith

(Continued on p. 19, col. 3)

PAGE 13 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 11, 1973

SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON

For April 29, 1973

Man Responds Through Faith

Rev. Jack B. Scott

INTRODUCTION: We have been
considering Christian redemption
by the work of God through Jesus
Christ. Scripture teaches that what
men cannot do God has done for us
by the work of Christ. Yet in the
marvelous plan of salvation, God
has designed that we who receive
the benefits through Christ's work
do respond to God, do have a par-
ticipation in the whole work of re-
demption. In this lesson we shall
study the response which we must
make.

I. A RESPONSE IS ESSENTIAL
(Matt. 16:13-16). This passage
comes at the beginning of Jesus'
work but after He had spent quite
a while with His disciples. They
had already heard His teachings
such as the Sermon on the Mount
(Matt. 5-7) . They had also seen
His mighty works recorded for us
in the chapters following the Ser-
mon on the Mount. These included
miraculous healings, making blind
men see, casting out demons, and
calming the stormy sea.

The disciples had had many oppor-
tunities to observe and learn from
Jesus both by what He said and
what He did. Then Jesus took them
away from the crowds to a more re-
mote area of the land. At Caesarea
Philippi He asked a question de-
signed to get them to thinking of
responses. First, He asked, "What
do others say about me?," then,
"Who do you say I am?"

This latter question gets right to
the heart of the matter. It shows
that Jesus not only was interested in
the general response of men to Him
but also specifically interested in
each individual's response. That
is, it is not sufficient for the hearers
to respond in a general way; each
individual must respond in a clear-
cut way to Jesus Christ.

The question beautifully centers
on the individual responsibility of
everyone to have an opinion about
Jesus Christ. It is not enough to
go along with the crowd. What do
you think of Christ?

I have had the privilege of do-

Background Scripture: Matthew
16:13-16; John 20:24-31; Acts
16:25-34; Romans 10:5-13

Key Verses: John 20:26-29; Ro-
mans 10:6-11

Devotional Reading: Psalm 46

Memory Selection: Acts 16:31

ing some home-to-home evangelism
with students at Reformed Theologi-
cal Seminary in recent months. We
have visited in various neighbor-
hoods of our city, seeking oppor-
tunity to talk with families in the
homes of the community. In our
visits we have found many who
would open their door to us, giving
us opportunity to share our faith
with them.

We have found that one very ef-
fective means of getting to the heart
of the purpose of our visit is to ask
them a question very similar to the
one Jesus had asked His disciples,
"What do you think about Jesus
Christ?" It is a good question be-
cause it centers on the individual
and helps to determine where he is
spiritually. We have found many
who belong to the church who have
no idea at all about Christ. Many
say they never really thought of Him
before. Others have had wonderful
responses much like that of Peter:
"He is my Saviour, I love Him. He
is God's Son, my Lord."

In each context we have been able
to go on and share our own testi-
mony with them, having asked them
the question. I commend this pro-
cedure as an excellent method of
evangelism and a real means of en-
countering many who never, or at
least seldom, go to church or who
have given their religion very little
serious thought.

In summary, we see that the Lord
does indeed expect a response from
each person (Matt. 16:13-16). It
is not enough merely to come to
church and hear the Word preached.
God expects us to respond as did
Peter and the others. Now let us

The International Sunday School Lesson Outlines
are copyrighted 1972 by the Committee on the
Uniform Series of the National Council of
Churches of Christ.

consider what is the right response
to the person and work of Jesus
Christ.

II. THE RIGHT RESPONSE,
REPENTANCE AND BELIEF
(John 20:24-31; Acts 16:25-34). When
Jesus first came preaching the Gos-
pel, He proclaimed exactly what
God expected of those who heard
the Gospel. Repent and believe
(Mark 1:15) .

There has been much effort on
the part of some to distinguish care-
fully between repentance and belief.
Theologically there are distinctions
to be made, but essentially the two
stand together. True repentance
leads to true faith and true faith de-
mands true repentance.

In a way, they are two sides of the
same thing. Therefore, at times we
find the call to respond to Christ
in terms of repentance only (Matt.
4:17). At other times the response
is expressed in terms of faith only
(Acts 16:31) . Jesus was not say-
ing that faith is unnecessary nor
was Paul saying that repentance is
unimportant. In each case the oth-
er is understood. Mark has shown
us that the two go together (1:15).

When we turn back to the Old
Testament we find also that the two
went together. God called Abra-
ham to belief in Him (Gen. 15:6).
God called the Israelites to repen-
tance. The sacrificial system itself
was designed to teach them that they
were sinners in need of God and
what God could do for them.

In essence, then, both in the Old
and New Testaments repentance is
that recognition of our insufficiency
to cope with our sins and a realiza-
tion that we are guilty before God
and unable to help ourselves. Faith
is a recognition that God through
His own power has done for us what
we cannot do and has dealt with our
sin, thus removing our guilt. He
is worthy of our putting our whole
trust in Him.

In the concluding part of John's
Gospel, John said that the book was
written so that those who read it
may believe that Jesus is the Christ.

PAGE 14 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 11, 1973

He then explained that by "the
Christ" he meant the Son of God.
Jn other words, John's Gospel is in
some sense like a tract, designed to
introduce persons to Jesus Christ
and to call them to faith in Him.

We remember the Philippian jail-
er, frightened for his own life when
he feared that Paul and Silas had es-
caped, overcome with amazement
when he realized that they had not
left the jail (Acts 16:31). He re-
sponded by asking what he must do
to be saved. The question itself is
notable. He must have heard them
speaking or singing of salvation, else
it is hardly possible that he could
have asked such an important ques-
tion.

Probably the question itself indi-
cates that he had already come to
some sense of a need of salvation,
that God had already been at work
in his heart. Perhaps his heart had
been pricked by the testimony of
these Christians in jail, much as the
hearts of the hearers had been
pricked by what Peter had said at
Pentecost (Acts 2:37) .

Paul's answer to the jailer was,
"Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and
thou shalt be saved, and thy house."

In one place John's Gospel says
believe that Jesus is the Christ, in
another, believe on the Lord Jesus.
It is not a matter of either/or, of
one concept opposed to the other.
When John said believe that, he
meant also believe on or in Jesus.
When Paul said believe on, he pre-
supposed a belief that Jesus is the
Christ, the Son of God. It is signifi-
cant to note that the Scripture goes
on to say that the jailer believed in
God, i.e., he believed that Jesus was
God.

It is important to realize that the
Bible calls us in faith to believe
what Scripture proclaims about Je-
sus. He is God's Son; He is God,
the only Saviour of men; we are to
believe in Jesus, putting our whole
trust in Him.

To believe that Jesus is God is
not enough. The devils believe
many truths about God and trem-
jble (Jas. 2:19). Satan fully be-
lieved that Jesus was God's Son.
This is evident from the tempta-
tions in the wilderness (Matt. 4) .
The demons knew who Jesus was
(Matt. 8:29) . They believed about
Jesus but not in Him. They did
not put their trust in Him or com-
mit themselves to Him.

In the world today many actual-
ly believe much about Jesus Christ.

They can recite many facts about
Him and they believe these to be
true, but they have never entrusted
themselves to Him. They are not
saved.

By the same token, it is not
enough to believe in Jesus without
knowledge of who He is. When the
man born blind had to give testi-
mony about Jesus to the Pharisees
who were seeking to accuse Him, he
defended Jesus and called Him a
true worshiper of God. He believed
in Jesus. However, there is no evi-
dence that he knew that Jesus was
the Christ, God's Son. Therefore,
when Jesus found him, He taught
him so that the man could truly be-
lieve (John 9:24-38).

Today also many believe in Jesus
as a great man, a good man, a great
reformer, a religious leader, a cru-
sader, a social redeemer, etc., but they
do not know or do not believe that
He is God.

Biblical belief always involves
both belief about Jesus and belief
or entrustment in Jesus. This and
only this is the right response to Je-
sus.

III. BELIEF, ITS HISTORY
AND FUTURE (Rom. 10:3-5;
Matt. 16:17; John 1:12-13). By
the history and future of belief, I
mean belief as it relates to any indi-
vidual believer. Whence came our
faith which is so important in our
response to God? To where does
our belief lead? Do we believe for
belief's sake? What does faith de-
mand?

In the Bible the concept of faith
first occurs in that passage to which
we have already referred (Gen. 15:
6) , but from where did Abraham's
faith come?

Paul pointed out that righteous-
ness which saves comes from God,
it comes to us by faith (Rom. 10:
3-4) . Our faith itself comes by the
hearing of God's Word (Rom. 10:
14-15, 17) , it is generated in our
hearts as we hear the Word of God.
In His providence, God has ordained
that He will work the work of faith
in our hearts as we hear the Word
preached.

So Paul said when we believe in
Jesus as Lord and believe that God
raised Him from the dead, we are
saved. As we hear about Jesus, God
works the work of faith in our
hearts. Abraham heard God's prom-
ises and after having heard that
word, God worked faith in his heart
(Gen. 15:1). Compare Genesis 12:
1 where Abraham responded in

faith to the call of God; see also
Hebrews 11:8.

When Peter responded to Jesus'
question, "Whom do you say that I
am?", by saying, "Thou art the
Christ, the Son of the living God,"
Jesus responded, "Flesh and blood
hath not revealed it unto thee, but
my Father who is in heaven." Jesus
was teaching that the faith Peter ex-
pressed in his response was not from
his natural ability but was evidence
that God was working in him.

Or take the words of John 1:12-
13, which teach us that we become
God's children (believe on His
name) because we have been born
again, not of blood or flesh (i.e. of
human ability) but by God.

The point of all this is that our
faith, our professing Jesus as our
Saviour and Lord is not something
that suddenly occurs in us. It has
a history. God has already worked
in our hearts bringing us to life
from spiritual death, then the hear-
ing of the Word generates faith in
us by which we confess, "I believe."
The cry, "I believe," is itself the cry
of the newborn babe in Christ.

Paul reminded us that by grace
we are saved through faith and that
even that faith is not from us (not
by our natural ability) but is a gift
of God (Eph. 2:8-9) .

Finally, our faith also has a fu-
ture. We do not believe for belief's
sake alone. We believe unto good
works (Eph. 2:10). God has given
us faith not only that we may be
saved from our sins and have His
righteousness, but also that we may
live lives to His glory. If faith has
no works it is dead (James 2:17-26) .
All of God's children show their
faith is real by the life they live and
the deeds they do. This is not the
same as saying they are saved by
their works. It says that their faith
is shown to be real faith by the fact
that they are doing God's will. It
is the nature of God's child to hear
His will and to desire to do it for
God's glory.

CONCLUSION: The expected
response to the revelation of the
Gospel to each man is basically in
terms of faith. Faith itself must
clearly be understood to involve
both an acceptance of the truth of
the revelation from God and also a
commitment of one's self wholly in-
to the hands of God to be our Sav-
iour. The genuineness of faith is
manifest in the fact that true faith
works, true faith produces a changed
life that glorifies God. Ill

PAGE 15 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 11, 1973

YOUTH PROGRAM

Scripture: James 5:13-18
Suggested Hymns:

"What a Friend We Have In
Jesus"

"More Love to Thee, O Christ"
"How Firm a Foundation"

PROGRAM LEADER'S INTRO-
DUCTION: The main exercise we
have to do as Christians is to pray.
In this way our faith is confirmed.
If we have faith in Jesus Christ, then
prayer will be inevitable. It is the
natural and spontaneous result of
faith. When we know Jesus Christ
personally we will want to talk to

For April 29, 1973

The Power of Prayer

Rev. Henry J. Mueller

Him. The Holy Spirit who leads
us into faith also constrains us to
pray and helps us to pray rightly
(Rom. 8:26-27) . Constant prayer
keeps our faith from becoming lazy
or dead. Prayer, which is commun-
ion with God, stimulates our faith
and helps us to be spiritually
healthy.

Today we want to ask: "What
makes us powerful in prayer?" James
said, "The prayer of a righteous man
has great power in its effects" (5:
16b) . Let us examine this passage
of Scripture.

FIRST SPEAKER: (Read James

5:16). What kind of prayer is
spoken of here? The commentaries
tell us that the Greek word used for
prayer in this verse in the original
suggests asking from a sense of need.
It is a request that arises out o£
need. The example of need in this
passage is that of a sick person.
(Read verses 14-15.) The psalm-
ist says that "the Lord is nigh un-
to all them that call upon Him in
truth. He will fulfill the desire of
them that fear Him: He also will
hear their cry, and will save them"
(Psa. 145:18-19). God will hear
the cry of those who fear Him and
are in trouble and will save them.
Whatever need we may have is to
"come boldly unto the throne of
grace, that we may obtain mercy,
and find grace to help in time of
need" (Heb. 4:16) .

(Have group read I John 5:14-15
and then discuss what constitutes a
need. Point out we are to ask ac-
cording to God's will. What part
does self-denial play? What about
the Bible? The Holy Spirit? See
John 15:7 and John 16:13).

SECOND SPEAKER: Powerful
prayer comes from a righteous per-
son. Who is a righteous person?
James uses the example of Elijah,
and says about him that he was the
same kind of person that we are
(v. 17) . Yet look at the power in
prayer that he had. "He prayed
earnestly that there would be no rain,
and no rain fell on the land for
three and a half years. Once again
he prayed, and the sky poured out
its rain and the earth produced its
crops" (vv. 17-18) .

Elijah's power in prayer did not
come because he was some sort of
super person. It came because he
trusted God. Abraham trusted God
and God counted it to him for righ-
teousness. (Read Gen. 15:6. Read
also chapter 18:23-33 for an example
of the power of Abraham's prayers.)
Abel's sacrifice was acceptable tc
God because he had faith in Him
and this faith, says the author of He

Thy Word Is Truth

John 17:17

/■ Committed to: The Verbally Inspired,
Infallible Bible and the Westminster
Confession of Faith and Catechisms as
' . Originally ^Adopted by the
Presbyterian Church, U.S.

Reformed Theological Seminary

5422 Clinton Boulevard, Jackson, Mississippi 39209

PAGE 16 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 11, 1973

brews, caused him to obtain the wit-
ness that he was righteous (Heb.
11:4).

' These were men like us whom God
called righteous. They were righ-
teous because God declared they
were and not because oE their ac-
tions. There was no way for these
men to approach God unless God
provided the way for them to do so.
There is no way for us to come to
God unless He provides the way.

We must remember that we are
people with unclean lips and dwell
among people with unclean lips, and
that God is so pure and holy that
He is of purer eyes than to behold
iniquity. Our unrighteousness would
keep us from entering into the
throne room of God (Isa. 6:1-7.)

But God has provided a way in
which we can actually approach
Him. We can be so bold as to ap-
proach the living God because we
come in the righteousness of Jesus.
Instead of seeing our sins, the Fa-
ther sees the perfection of His Son
whom He so freely gave that we
might have salvation.

We are declared righteous only
through Christ. God's way of giv-
ing men right standing with Him-
self is through faith in Jesus Christ
and this is given to all who believe
in Him (Rom. 3:22) .

The righteous man is the one
who has been saved by grace through
faith in Jesus Christ. (Read Ephe-
sians 2:4-9.) This is the man who
has power in prayer. His power
comes because he believes God and
trusts in His power for the answer.

THIRD SPEAKER: The prayer
of power must also be the prayer of
faith. To be strong in prayer we
are to have faith. Jesus said that
if we had faith as big as a mustard
seed we could tell a tree to pull it-
self up by the roots and plant it-
self in the sea and it would obey
us (see Luke 17:5-6) .

James said that prayer made in
faith will save a sick man (5:15).
We must have faith that God will
answer our prayers. "And all things
whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer,
believing, ye shall receive" (Matt.
(21:22).

Many of us have at times become
[despondent and doubting because
I the Lord waits so long to answer our
prayers. We must realize and be-
lieve that He will answer, but He
[does so in His own time and for His
purposes.
God often waits to test our faith.

Sometimes the answer is long in com-
ing because we need to be humbled.
We take God for granted. We take
prayer for granted. It is only
through Christ that we can ap-
proach the throne of God. In our
prayers we are to glorify Him. We
are not to take prayer lightly. (Dis-
cuss our responsibility in seeking to
pray intelligently and reverently) .

FOURTH SPEAKER: Have you
prayed for something earnestly and
with faith, only not to receive it the
next day? Did you stop praying
for it then? Jesus tells us that God
wants us to be persistent in our
prayers. (Read Luke 11:5-8.) We
are to continue to ask God to answer
our prayer.

Jesus seemed to put the Syro-
phoenician woman away almost with
rudeness, but she would not be put
away (Matt. 15:27) . Jesus said be-
cause of her shameless persistence,
"Oh woman, great is thy faith: be it
unto thee even as thou wilt." We
are expressing a bold and great faith
when we will not take no for an an-
swer.

If we quit praying for something
after a couple of days, we show that
we do not want it or that we have
little faith. There is no greater
training in prayer than to have to
pray for years before an answer is
obtained. George Mueller prayed for
the conversion of two men for al-
most sixty years. One came to know
Christ two months before Mr. Muel-
ler's death and the other a short
time after.

Many people would have given
up and said, "Well, perhaps it is not
God's will." This is not submission

to the will of God, but mere spir-
itual laziness. The strong man keeps
hammering away until he accom-
plishes what he starts. The strong
man of prayer does not quit. We
should be careful about what we
pray for, but when we begin to pray
for a thing we should never give up
praying for it until we get it or
until God makes it clear and defi-
nite that it is not His will to
give it.

PROGRAM LEADER: The pow-
er of prayer is great because it is
God's power. He works through
prayers to shape and mold the
world. Let us seek to conform our-
selves and our prayers to the form
God gives us in His Word.

Closing Prayer.

m

THE MISSIONARY PLANTATION
BIBLE CAMP

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There are also many types of recreation:
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Write for information and brochures:

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PAGE 17 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 11, 1973

p

WOMEN'S WORK

Supplementary Circle Bible Study

May: The Servant's Service

Manford Geo. Gutzke, D.D., Ph.D.

Can you understand that serving
God as a Christian means that the
body must be entirely surrendered
to God? The Christian lives in the
newness of life because Christ Jesus
lives in him. Anyone can become a
Christian. By recognizing himself
as a sinner, by believing that Christ
Jesus died for his sins, he will be
born again as a child of God by the
Spirit of God.

He will be given the Holy Spirit
into his heart. The Holy Spirit will
activate the will of Jesus Christ the
Lord, moving him to obey God in
all that he does. This is the Chris-
tian, living in the Lord by the Holy
Spirit. When Christ dwells in the
heart by faith, it is God that is work-
ing in you to will and to do as He
pleases.

The Christian can say, "Christ liv-
eth in me." We can remember how
the Lord Jesus said, "I can of mine
own self do nothing: as I hear, I
judge: and my judgment is just; be-
cause I seek not mine own will, but
the will of the Father which hath
sent me" (John 5:30) . When Jesus
Christ is in the believer, this frame
of mind will be in the believer's
heart to guide him.

When Christ Jesus was in the
wilderness being tempted by Satan
at the very beginning of His public
ministry, He said, "Thou shalt wor-
ship the Lord thy God, and Him
only shalt thou serve" (Matt. 4:10) .
This was the life of the Lord Jesus
Christ while He was in this world.
He looked up to His Father to see
what His Father wanted Him to do.

In serving God, the Christian is
not always given some specific task
beyond his daily routine. We are
inclined to think that in serving
God the task must be special, out-
standing. Look around, we have an
assignment. As the believer trusts
in God, he has a full time task. His
whole life is His. "Whatsoever thy
hand findeth to do, do it with thy
might" (Eccl. 9:10). "Whatever ye
do in word or deed, do all in the
name of the Lord Jesus" (Col. 3:
17) . Do all in His will.

Romans 12:1-20

In Romans 12:1 we read: "I be-
seech you therefore, brethren, by the
mercies of God, that ye present your
bodies a living sacrifice, holy, ac-
ceptable unto God, which is your
reasonable service." Since the Chris-
tian is born again as a child of God,
Paul pointed the way to dispose of
the contrary pull of the flesh.

Pulling Two Ways

When a person becomes a Chris-
tian, he has the Spirit moving him
to do the will of God. Yet because
of human nature, children of Adam,
the flesh pulls. The Christian is in-
volved in two contrary influences.
The Spirit leads him into the will
of God and the flesh leads him to
do as he pleases.

Paul could say, "And they that are
Christ's have crucified the flesh with
the affections and lusts" (Gal. 5:
24) . This is the way in which to
get rid of this contrary pull of the
flesh. Dedicate, commit oneself to
the Lord; deny oneself and take up
the cross and follow Him. This may
involve a critical struggle within the
heart of the Christian. He will have
in his own small way some aspect of
Gethsemane.

There will be some place in there
where he will have the feeling, "Fa-
ther, if Thou be willing, remove this
cup from me: nevertheless not my
will, but Thine, be done." There
will be times when to do the will of
God would mean denying ourselves
of something that is very real and
very desirable.

Deny Self Daily

Presenting your body as a living
sacrifice is based upon the Old Tes-
tament procedure of bringing in the
animals to sacrifice. Having grown
up on a farm, I am very much aware
that there were many times those
animals resisted being sacrificed. All
of which is to say that if a person

finds himself unwilling to yield, un-
willing to do the will of God, that
is natural.

One must deny himself again and
again, daily. That requires the grace
of God. As long as Christ Jesus
lived He never failed to yield Him-
self repeatedly to the will of the Fa-
ther. This is included when He
said, "I beseech you therefore,
brethren, by the mercies of God,
that ye present your bodies a living
sacrifice."

Far harder to do than to die, it
would be easier to be martyred, to
walk in and be killed, than to yield
over and over again. Yet this is
what the Christian is called to. So
the Apostle Paul went on to say, i
"And be not conformed to this i
world: but be ye transformed by the <
renewing of your mind, that ye may r
prove what is that good, and ac- Is
ceptable, and perfect will of God"
(v. 2) .

This is the key to the whole mat-
ter of living in the Lord, of serving
God daily. You see, a person lives
in this world. This world will push
and pull and squeeze the person in-
to a certain shape that fits its own
situation. These are the pressures
that will conform the person.

Paul said, we must not let that
happen. "But be ye transformed by
the renewing of your mind, that ye
may prove what is that good, and ac-
ceptable, and perfect, will of God,"
transformed from the inside out

It is an interesting thing when
one compares a tree and a table
They are both made of wood. The
table is made of wood and it is con-
formed to a pattern. The table will
not change as long as it lasts. The
tree is made of wood also, but if
grows from the inside out and has,
its own shape and form. They are
all different. If you had two tree.1
they would be different.

Paul was saying, "Don't let thi;
world press you into the shape iij
wants you to be in. Instead, by rea
son of the life within you, let it de
velop in a way to do the will of Goe
and grow into the likeness of th<

Tl,

PAGE 18 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 11, 1973

Lord Jesus Christ.

Thus the Christian will not give
in to the pressures to follow a cer-
tain standard pattern but will un-
fold from within. Because of the in-
dwelling Holy Spirit he will become
something acceptable to God as led
by the Spirit.

We are talking about the servant
serving. Everything that is done is
done in His name. "For I say,
through the grace given unto me, to
every man that is among you, not to
think of himself more highly than
he ought to think; but to think
soberly, according as God hath dealt
to every man the measure of faith"
(Rom. 12:3).

So far as man is concerned, he
should be very careful not to over-
estimate himself, not to think of
himself more highly than he ought.
He must recognize himself as he is.
"Think soberly, according as God
hath dealt to every man the measure
of faith."

As Fingers Make a Hand

Paul continued: "For as we have
many members in one body, and all
members have not the same office:
so we, being many, are one body in
Christ, and every one members one
of another" (Rom. 12:4-5) .

Christians are different. People
are different as we have many mem-
bers in one body. Many different
people belong to Christ. All mem-
bers have not the same office. Every-
one does not do the same thing. "So
we, being many, are one body in
Christ, and every one members one
iof another."

Look at the fingers of your hand.
They are different in size and shape,
and they are set at different points.
They operate in different ways, one
lis not as strong as the other, but to-
gether they make a hand.

Share, Serve, Work

This is what one is to have in
nind: that so far as the Christian is
oncerned, he is one of the members
)f the body. Almighty God has fixed
it so that Christ Jesus is the head of
he body. Each member will do as
he Lord wishes him to do and to-
gether perform the will of God.

The Christian will have his tasks
o perform. Pastor, missionary,
eacher, worker, housewife, do it all
lis unto the Lord. Whatever calling
I hat you have will have to do with
l our daily living. The Holy Spirit

will be working in your heart and
these things will come to your mind.

According to the measure of faith
the Christian is led to serve. "Hav-
ing then gifts differing according to
the grace that is given to us, whether
prophecy, let us prophesy according
to the proportion of faith." (Proph-
ecy is a matter of interpreting Scrip-
ture, telling what the Bible means.
Share it.)

"Or ministry" (ordinary service) ,
"Let us wait on our ministering."
(It will be right there at your hand,
that is your task.) "Or he that
teacheth, on teaching." (The teach-

For Discussion

1. What are "the mercies of God"
in Romans 12:1?

2. Contrast being transformed to
being conformed, by thinking of the
wood "in a tree" as over against "in
a table."

3. Show how thinking soberly (v.
31) will include an appreciation of
personal capacity to serve.

4. What enables a Christian to
refrain from hostile response to such
as may seem inclined to do him
harm?

er will not have all people or teach
everything, but teach what is at
hand.)

"Or he that exhorteth, on exhor-
tation." (Exhorting is encouraging
other people, strengthening them,
encouraging them to do what they
ought to do and some of us are given
that function of encouraging oth-
er people.) "He that giveth, let
him do it with simplicity." (That
seems to say let him do it cheerful-
ly. Let him do it simply. Do not
make any big thing out of it when
you give.) "He that ruleth, with
diligence." (Be faithful. If you are
in a responsible position watch how
you act and what you say.)

"He that showeth mercy with
cheerfulness." (We have some peo-
ple who are merciful, but they make
such a show one wishes they would
not bother.) "Let love be without
dissimulation." (Do not pretend,
be genuine. If one has the grace of
God in his heart, this is what he will
be led to.)

"Abhor that which is evil; cleave
to that which is good. Be kindly
affectioned one to another with
brotherly love; in honor preferring

one another; not slothful in busi-
ness," (it is not easy) "fervent in
spirit" (actually zealous, put your-
self into it) . "Serving the Lord"
(in everything that you do) . "Re-
joicing in hope; patient in tribula-
tion; continuing instant in prayer;
distributing to the necessity of
saints" (Give to other people, es-
pecially the needy Christians, help
them out.)

"Given to hospitality. Bless them
which persecute you: bless, and curse
not. Rejoice with them that do re-
joice, and weep with them that
weep. Be of the same mind one to-
ward another. Mind not high things,
but condescend to men of low estate.
Be not wise in your own conceits.
Recompense to no man evil for evil.
Provide things honest in the sight of
all men."

This is the way a Christian will
be inwardly led. 51

# * # #

Dr. Gutzke is professor emeritus
of Biblical exposition, Columbia
Seminary, and broadcaster of "The
Bible for You." This study is avail-
able on tape recording, $3 per reg-
ular tape containing 4 lessons ($9
the set, Nos. 71, 2, 3) and $3 per cas-
sette containing 3 lessons ($12 the
set, Nos. 71-A, B, C, D) . Order from
the Bible for You, Box 15007, Atlan-
ta, Ga. 30333.

Layman— from p. 13

well than somebody else's better. For
when we go before God to be judged,
He will ask what we believe, not
what somebody else thought. So
think, Christian, and don't be caught
holding somebody else's bag.

"Do not stifle inspiration, and do
not despise prophetic utterances, but
bring them all to the test and then
keep what is good in them and avoid
the bad of whatever kind" (I Thess.
5:19-22). ffl

HELP US TO SERVE you better. SEND
OLD AND NEW Zip Codes to the Journal
3 weeks before you move to get every
issue promptly.

THE SCRAMBLE, 11 6B Montreat Road,
Black Mountain, N. C. Vacations, confer-
ences. Picnic area, creek for wading;
cottages and big house, sleep 2-20. Meals
can be arranged. Phone (305) 443-8896 or
(704) 669-8524. After June 1, (704) 669-
2697. 2145 S. W. 19 Ter., Miami, Fla. Car-
oline Walbek, owner.

PAGE 19 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 11, 1973

BOOKS

UNDERSTANDING AND COUN-
SELING THE SUICIDAL PERSON,
by Paul W. Pretzel. Abingdon Press,
Nashville, Tenn. 250 pp. $5.95. Re-
viewed by the Rev. John R. Richard-
son, minister emeritus, Westminster
Presbyterian Church, Atlanta, Ga.

For about two decades something
called suicidology has flourished in
America. Many studies have result-
ed. Since 1957 over 1,200 books

on suicide have been published.
Most of them have been written by
sociologists and psychologists. Sui-
cide is an old practice but today
it is increasing alarmingly.

Dr. Pretzel explores the main as-
pects of the problem, including mo-
tives, recognition, prevention, and
the counselor's personal feelings.
One section is helpful to ministers
as they deal with the survivors in

}ef/c Simpson

31 stores in 8 states serving you
with this pledge ....

• To give prompt courteous service, treating our customers as you would a guest
in your home. • To give the best selection of merchandise from Top Quality
Fashions to basement bargains, meeting everyone's need. • To give satisfaction
guaranteed with every purchase. • To give credit terms arranged to meet your
budget needs in Stores doing credit business.

Since the opening of the first Belk-Simpson Store, it has been our
endeavor to be more in a community than just another merchant.
We have set forth a united consecrated effort, dedicated to the task
of securing superior quality merchandise, giving our customers a
better value than any other merchant.

SOUTH CAROLINA

Belk-Simpson Co.

Greenville, S. C.

J. A. Ellison, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson-Plaza .Store

Greenville, S. C.

R. Grier Robinson Jr., Res.

The Dollar Store

Greenville, S. C.

R. P. Crumpler, Res. Mgr.

Belk's of Pleasantburg

Greenville, S. C.

A. M. Smith, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store
Lancaster, S. C.

B. L. Plyler, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store

Camden, S. C.

J. A. Hagins, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store

Clinton, S. C.

D. B. Smith, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.
Darlington, S. C.
Paul E. Broome, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store

Laurens, S. C.

David Middleton, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Abbeville, S. C.

J. S. Hagins, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Hagins Co.
Kershaw, S. C.

C. E. Hinson, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.
Easley, S. C.
R. J. Womack, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Beaufort, S. C.
Al Wilson, Res. Mgr.
M9r- Belk-Simpson Co.
Fountain Inn, S. C.

E. J. Copeland, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Woodruff, S. C.

F. B. Hagins, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Honea Path, S. C.

T. R. Martin, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Whitmire, S. C.

Clyde Smith, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Manning, S. C.

W. M. Gettys, Res. Mgr.

OHIO

Belk-Simpson Co.

Athens, Ohio

Joe Kelly, Res. Mgr.

MISSOURI

Belk-Simpson Co.

Carthage, Mo.

Charles Wilson, Res. Mgr.

OKLAHOMA

Belk Dept. Store
Miami, Oklahoma
J. T. Holmes, Res. Mgr.

NORTH CAROLINA

Belk-Simpson Co.

Hendersonville, N. C.

R. E. McCormack, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store

Brevard, N, C.

J. M. Felty, Res. Mgr.

KENTUCKY

Belk-Simpson Co.
Harlan, Ky.

Delmar Tolliver, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Corbin, Ky.

W. C. Ashley, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Winchester, Ky.

T. L. Beckham, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Mt. Sterling, Ky.

Willoughby Smith, Res. Mgr

Belk-Simpson Co.

Frankfort, Ky.

J. D. Prow, Res. Mgr.

GEORGIA

Belk-Simpson Co.

Bainbridge, Ga.

M. D. Ashley, Res. Mgr.

ARKANSAS

Belk-Simpson Co.

Paragould, Ark.

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Belk-Simpson Co.

Osceola, Ark.

K. R. Cline, Res. Mgr.

These stores are a small part of the entire Belk or-
ganization and have been in existence approximately
50 years. The Belk stores were launched in 1886-88.

SEE THE MANAGER NEAREST YOU FOR CHURCH CARPET, ROBES, ETC.

the family. Considerable space is
devoted to effective counseling tech-
niques in the hope of preventing
this tragic waste of human life.

The national suicide rate is more
than twice that of homicide. More
single people commit suicide than
married people, and Caucasians are
more likely to commit suicide than
Negroes.

Urban dwellers are more prone
to suicide than those in the coun-
try. Suicide is the tenth highest
cause of death in the U. S. In Los
Angeles County more people die
from suicide than traffic accidents.

Thus we see it would be difficult
to exaggerate the seriousness of this
problem. This is no academic sub-
ject; it deals with real life. Dr. Pret-
zel contributes much to the under-
standing of this problem. IB

FAITH FOR THE TIMES, Part I,
The Promise of Deliverance, by Alan
Redpath. Fleming H. Revell Co., Old
Tappan, N. J. 160 pp. $3.95. Reviewed
by Mrs. E. S. Berry, Fort Lauderdale,
Fla.

This first of a three-part series of
studies in the book of Isaiah, Chap
ters 40-66, covering Chapters 40-48.
In applying Isaiah's message to our
hearts, Dr. Redpath reaches new
heights in his writing. His scholar-
ship brings fresh understanding to
the subject, and his devotional ap-
proach gives a depth of spiritual in-
sight into the sovereignty of God
and His love for His own of every
age. The faith needed in Isaiah's
time is the same faith that is de-
manded of us today.

"The life of faith is like a ladder
up to heaven which twists and turns,
and appears not to be fastened to
anything. It seems to hang in the
air, and you see no further than the
step on which you are standing. The
next step seems to go out into an
abyss, into oblivion, yet when you
take it you find yourself upon
rock. Occasionally the clouds part
before you, and then you catch a
glimpse of the King in His glory, so
eagerly you pick yourself up and
go on.

"When you look back you are
amazed as you realize how God has
led. His voice is always saying, 'For-
ward! Onward! Upward!' Often you
would give up in despair were it not
that He says to you, 'Fear not!' As
you look ahead today everything ap
pears like a vast mountain; but as
you look behind every mountain has
become a plain." II

PAGE 20 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 11, 1973

J

VOL. XXXI, NO. 51

APRIL 18, 1972

$4.00 A YEAR

the

PRESBYTERIAN

JOURNAL

Advocating continuation of a Presbyterian Church loyal

to Scripture and the Reformed faith

We, Son, *IfaU Stat

So also is the resurrection of the dead.
It is sown in corruption j it is raised in incorruption.
It is sown in dishonor ; it is raised in glory.
It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power.
It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body.
(There is a natural body and there is a spiritual body.)
And so it is written,
The first man Adam was made a living soul ;
The last Adam was made a quickening Spirit. . . .
The first man is of the earth, earthy;
The second Man is the Lord from heaven.
As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy;
And as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly.
And as we have borne the image of the earthy,
We shall also bear the image of the heavenly.

— From I Corinthians 15

S. S. LESSON AND YOUTH PROGRAM FOR MAY 6

Y'.SLZ OR TTTH
JH00 uoTq.o9iioo Q M

MAILBAG-

IMITATING THE TRUTH

I made the mistake of attending
the World Day of Prayer program
held locally under the usual ecu-
menical auspices. After all the "hu-
manizing the world," "emphasizing
the brotherhood of man," "feeding
the hungry" and "wiping war off
the face of the earth," as read by
the women in the pulpit from their

literature prepared by the National
Council of Churches, it was all I
could do to keep from exploding!

Then in my wee hours' devotion-
al period I was meditating on the
7th to 10th chapters of Exodus and
reading notes from a saint whose
commentary was written nearly 100
years ago. I quote from those
notes:

the

PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL

Rev. G. Aiken Taylor, Ph.D., Editor
Rev. Henry B. Dendy, D.D., Managing Editor
Timothy Belz, Assistant Editor

Circulation leader among independent publications in the Presbyterian-Reformed world

THIS WEEK-

Vol. XXXI, No. 51, April 18, 1973

He Is Risen! 7

The resurrection is more than just a beautiful story ; it really
happened By Leonard Greenway

The Ultimate Communication 8

Man's communication with God through faith surpasses any
technological communication By Margaret W. McLester

God's Time Table 10

As Jesus moved toward the cross, He set an example which
seems strange to modern eyes By John H. Eastwood

De partments —

Editorials 1 2

The Layman and his Church 13

Sunday School Lesson, May 6 14

Youth Program, May 6 16

Book Reviews 17

THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL, a

Presbyterian weekly magazine, devoted
to the statement, defense, and propa-
gation of the Gospel, the faith which
was once for all delivered to the saints,

is published every Wednesday by the
Southern Presbyterian Journal Co.,
Inc., in Weaverville, N. C.

SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: $4 a year
for individuals, $3 for members of
Every Family Plan churches. All cor-
respondence regarding subscriptions,
advertising or other business matters
should be addressed to the business
office in Weaverville, N. C. 28787.
Second class postage paid at Weaver-
ville, N. C. 28787.

POSTMASTER: Send Form 3579 to
Presbyterian Journal, Box 635, Weav-
erville, N. C. 28787. Subscribers
should allow three weeks for change
of address in continental U. S. Change
of address notices should include both
old and new addresses (with zip
codes).

NEWS AND EDITORIAL correspond-
ence should be addressed to P. 0. Box
3108, Asheville, N. C. 28802. Editorial
offices located at 247 Charlotte St. in
Asheville.

TELEPHONES: (All area 704) edi-
torial office, 254-4015, 254-4016;
business office, 645-3310, 645-3962.

"Consider the opposition to Moses
of Jannes and Jambres, the magi-
cians of Egypt. ... It is important
that the Christian understand the
real nature of the opposition given
to Moses by those magicians, in or-
der that he may know its deep and
awful solemnity. (See II Timothy
3:1-9.)

"The mode in which Jannes and
Jambres withstood Moses was simply
by imitating, as far as they were
able, whatever he did. They did
not attribute his actions to a false
energy, they rather sought to neu
tralize their effect upon the con
science by doing the same things
What Moses did they could do, so
that after all there was no great dif-
ference. A miracle is a miracle.
Moses wrought miracles to get the
people out of Egypt, they could
work miracles to keep them in; so
where was the difference?

"From all this we learn the sol
emn truth that the most Satanic re
sistance to God's testimony in the
world is offered by those who
though they imitate the effects of
the truth, have but 'the form of
godliness' while they 'deny the pow-
er thereof.' Persons of this class
can do the same things, use the same
phraseology, profess the same opin
ions as true Christians. . . .

"The enemy, instead of appear-
ing with the sword of persecution
in his hand, walks about with the
cloak of profession on his shoulders
He professes and imitates that which
he once opposed and persecuted
and, by so doing, gains most appal
ling advantages for the time be-
ing."

The above is from C. H. Mcln
tosh, Notes on Exodus, written in
1880. It seems to me to fit the
modern churchman. Satan hardl)
ever changes his tactics. Why should
his cohorts?

— Willis H. Owens
Sanford, N. C.

SEQUEL TO 'AFRICA TODAY'

Your December 13 issue featurec
a very illuminating article on th(
awful conditions taking place in the
"new" nations, with revolts, dicta
torships and murders rampant.

The article also told about <
phantom state, created, armed anc
largely controlled by the Sovie
Union near West Africa and Portu
guese Guinea, whose leader was om
Amilcar Cabral, a Marxist.

A news release from Washington
D. C, on March 3 told of the assas

sination of this Amilcar Cabral. In-
teresting to see how the mighty do
fall.

— John Singreen
New Orleans, La.

ILLEGAL PRAYER

It was interesting to note that the
group of Mohonasen High School
students of Rotterdam, N. Y. were
obliged to hold prayer groups clan-
destinely (Journal, March 21, p. 6).

In countries like Russia, main-
land China and the United States
of America, it is apparently illegal
to pray in public schools. How far
is this from it being illegal to have
any public prayer meeting at all?
Isn't it time to call a halt to such
idiocy?

— W. A. Hartman
Hazleton, Pa.

SHE'S PRO-ABORTION

I feel that your stand on abortion
is deplorable, ignoring the many hu-
man factors and the welfare of the

• Easter, and the reminder of a
risen Lord, comes at a time when
excitement begins to mount over the
active possibility of a reborn Church
within the Presbyterian family. The
news pages in each issue of the Jour-
nal reflect some of this excitement,
for example, the story of the Cyn-
thiana, Ky., property decision on p.
6 of this issue. Denominational at-
torneys argued in Cynthiana (as
commissioners argued in the Gen-
eral Assembly) that the Church it-
self is the final judge of the consti-
tutionality of its own actions. If
the Assembly wants to say church
union can be effected by a majority
vote when the constitution calls for
three-fourths, that's that. However,
at least one civil court has implied
that fraud can always legitimately
be tracked to its lair — even if that
happens to be a Church.

• Probably the most accurate in-
dex of sentiment at the grass roots
of the Church is the volume of re-
quests for tracts, reprints and infor-
mation received in the offices of
those hard working conservative or-
ganizations, Concerned Presbyte-
; rians, Presbyterian Evangelistic Fel-
lowship, Presbyterian Churchmen

mother.

Your stand is reminiscent of the
12th century and the position of the
Roman Catholic Church against
Galileo. If God is the creator, He
is also the creator of reason, intel-
lect and modern science. Best your
Journal take these facts into consid-
eration.

Fortunately, we do have a Su-
preme Court decision on this mat-
ter.

— Mrs. Robert Monte
New Bern, N. C.

MINISTERS

Raymond W. Riddleberger Jr.,
from Martinsburg, W. Va., to
graduate study, Presbyterian
School of Christian Education,
Richmond.

James H. Shackelford, who has
been in graduate school at Mc-
Murray College, Abilene, Tex.,
is now assistant professor of reli-
gion and psychology at the col-
lege.

United and the Journal. We have
been told (by sources evidently
more reliable than those available
to the Outlook) that the response to
the invitation to the May 18-19 Con-
vocation of Sessions has been literal-
ly overwhelming. As for mailings,
the postage alone for items request-
ed of the PCU office alone, has been
running about $700 per month.

• If you really mean business in
relation to the Continuing Presby-
terian Church, now is the time to do
something about it. The education-
al and informational effort that
must be mounted, the planning and
organizing meetings that must be
held, the legal battles that must be
won (that Cynthiana appeal will
cost money) , the personal support
that must be given to embattled min-
isters and churches struggling to sur-
vive after home missions money is
cut off, the expanding missionary
and evangelistic work at home and

David C. Marx from the military
chaplaincy to the First Church,
Sanderson, Tex.

Paul F. Warren from Montreat,
N. C, to the Batesburg, S. C,
church.

Thomas Hartley Hall IV from
Tyler, Tex., to the Westminster
church, Nashville, Tenn.
}. Cecil Lawrence, General Pres-
byter-Stated Clerk of Mecklen-
burg Presbytery, is retiring effec-
tive April 30. He will continue to
live in Charlotte, N. C.

DEATHS

Ansley C. Moore, first president
of St. Andrews Presbyterian Col-
lege, Laurinburg, N. C., died of a
heart attack March 25. He was 68.
Elizabeth Boyce, 23-year-old daugh-
ter of Dr. and Mrs. James R.
Boyce, died March 27 as a result
of a car accident in Dallas, Tex.
Her parents are former Presbyte-
rian Church US missionaries to
Mexico.

overseas — it all adds up to a time
of "put up or shut up" for you. Sit
down today and write out a check
to the organization of your choice.
Whether it is PEF, PCU, CP or the
Journal, the gift is tax deductible.
If you want it applied specifically
to some particular work, such as that
of the Steering Committee, any of
these will see that it is so directed.

• An omission from the story of
the call issued by 30 sessions to a
Convocation of Sessions (April 1 1
Journal) inadvertently changed the
substance of the action taken. The
story read: "The call declares the
need for a formal ecclesiastical en-
tity to be formed in 1973 . . ." It
should have read, "The call declares
that the Steering Committee has rec-
ognized the need for an ecclesiasti-
cal entity to be formed in 1973 . . ."
Those sessions issuing the call did
so without committing themselves or
anyone else to anything. EE

ACROSS THE EDITOR'S DESK

PAGE 3 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 18, 1973

L

NEWS OF RELIGION

COCU Plans 'Generating Communities'

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Functioning
for the first time without the United
Presbyterians (who voted out in
their last General Assembly) , the
eleventh general meeting (plenary)
of the Consultation on Church
Union (COCU) tried hard to get
the ecumenical train going again. It
had stalled at Denver in 1971. The
strategy developed here envisions
shunting it to another track and
hooking it to a new engine with a
full head of steam.

Future action based on proposals
adopted will focus primarily on
working across denominational lines
in a variety of ecumenical experi-
ments and programs. Formal union
is now seen as following the experi-
ence of living together rather than
preceding united action.

At the heart of the new program,
replacing the Plan of Union in in-
terest, is the concept of "generating
communities." These, where estab-
lished, would consist of groups of
people, or entire congregations,
joined together in "a shared life

based on the 'marks of wholeness' of
the Church of Christ Uniting."

Such communities would be "gen-
erating communities" because they
would be generated out of the
COCU process and also because
they would "hopefully generate mod-
els for the Church of Christ Unit-
ing."

New directions taken at this meet-
ing reflected serious questions among
COCU delegations, in particular its
black member Churches, concerning
authority, function and benefits to
be derived through the proposed
new Church. They also frankly re-
flected an awareness "that the pro-
posals for organization and struc-
tures (of the new Church) have not
met with acceptance by members of
local congregations."

"Feedback from the grassroots"
during the two years since the last
plenary session in Denver strongly
suggested that much more spade
work is needed to be done before
any denomination is likely to for-
mally approve the Plan of Union.

THE CHURCH OVERSEAS

KOREA — A little known hands-
across-the-sea program is now aid-
ing more than 50 evangelists and
pastors in rural and fishing villages
in Korea.

The Korean Ministers' Contin-
u i n g Education program is the
brainchild of the Rev. Chung Y.
Lee, a young Methodist minister. As
a student, he was concerned for his
fellow Christian workers in Korea
who lacked opportunity for contin-
uing theological study and growth.
With the assistance of Union Theo-
logical Seminary, a nonprofit, non-
sectarian religious and educational
board of directors was organized in
1964.

In Korea the benefiting minis-
ters and evangelists are from Presby-
terian, Methodist and Holiness de-
nominations, spread out in rural
areas throughout Korea. Resource
materials for preaching, reference
works and commentaries, too expen-
sive for these men to buy as most

make salaries of about $30 a month,
have been provided. The fund has
also been used to send denomina-
tional and general Christian periodi-
cals to the pastors.

An annual ecumenical study con-
ference has been held since 1970,
and in 1971 several pastors were en-
abled to spend a month in summer
school in their denominational semi-
naries.

The monthly remittance from the
U. S. groups, which includes Korean-
Americans, is about $50. Support
comes from interested individuals,
student and men's groups.

Dr. Hwang Lee-Young, dean of
the graduate school of Soong-Jung
(Presbyterian) University, set up the
program in Korea, now administered
by Deacon Lee Eun-Sool, librarian
at the Taejon campus of the univer-
sity. There is also an interdenomi-
national Korean board. — Martha
Huntley, Presbyterian Mission,
Kwangju. IE

In particular the black member
Churches, of which there are three
in COCU, openly challenged the
others to demonstrate their good
faith through "compensatory ac-
tion" in order to advance the cause
of union.

"Compensatory action" surfaced
early in the meeting here as a ma-
jor strategy to meet the objective
many have considered COCU's top
goal, namely, the elimination of rac
ism in the Churches. It implies pre
ferred treatment for blacks and their
needs.

In a major address, Prof. Yoshio
Fukuyama, a sociologist at Penn
sylvania State University, pointed
out that the history of the consulta-
tion had pointed to racism as the
top priority item on its agenda
Compensatory treatment, or action,
he defined as not a goal but a strat-
egy to achieve the desired goal.

However, in approving a later doc-
ument which listed a number of fu-
ture courses of action, the consulta-
tion rejected a move to have the
elimination of racism clearly de-
fined as its number one objective.

The consultation agreed that the
time to take concrete steps in the
elimination of racism was now. It
set in motion strategies aimed at
meeting the needs of blacks in such
areas as program grants, pension
funds, educational funds, building
loans and other forms of aid.

Specifically mentioned, as an ex-
ample, was the possibility of as-
sistance given to colleges in black
Churches by white denominations, m

Delegates seemed to agree that
there was nothing incongruous
about putting most of their eggs in
the basket of compensatory treat-
ment for blacks when other minori
ties have needs too. As one put it
"The black revolution must succeed
because all others (Chicano, Indian
etc.) depend on its success."

While most actions taken here re
la ted to future joint efforts at thf
local level through "generating com
munities" and "compensatory ac
tion," the overriding preoccupation
of the meeting itself was another
How can unity coexist with diver
sity?

In the first address of the meet
ing, Dr. Cynthia Wedel, immediaU
past president of the Nationa

PAGE 4 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 18, 1973

Council of Churches, contrasted
"pluralism" and "voluntarism" as
the central issue in bringing togeth-
er various traditions without elimi-
nating any.

"We all know that many of (our)
divisions represent not real theologi-
cal differences but the social, eco-
nomic, racial and ethnic elements of
our pluralism," said Mrs. Wedel.

"On the other hand," she con-
tinued, "our Churches are voluntary
organizations in which the ultimate
power and decision making rest in
the members who participate volun-
tarily."

Most significant action taken to
date in bringing the various tradi-
tions together has been approval of
a provisional form of the Lord's
Supper for ecumenical use. The
consultation urged its use in ecu-
menical settings wherever possible.

The Rev. Cirilo Rigos, General
Secretary of the United Church of
Christ of the Philippines, contin-
ued the main theme in an address
entitled, "How Does Church Union
Come About?"

Logic and Love

"To accomplish union, the logic
of man must give way to the love of
God," said Mr. Rigos. "It happens
iwhen the members come to love the
Gospel more than their distinctive
traditions," he continued.

In remarks that could as well have
been made to more conservative
gatherings, Mr. Rigos argued that
union across diverse theological
boundaries "is not created by theo-
logical consensus or volitional com-
promises as much as by people will-
ing to come together now, expecting
some day, in God's providence, to
understand the mystery" of unity in
Him.

In particular, he said, union de-
mands that "leaders be willing to
give up their preferred positions."

"It is inevitably a miracle. If it is
less than that, we may suspect its
validity," he concluded.

Well launched on the new track
Df the practice of ecumenicity in or-
der to discover union, the consulta-
tion adjourned in the confident ex-
pectation that it would be rejoined
)y the United Presbyterians before
mother plenary rolls around in
I1 8 months.

New chairman elected to replace
the Rev. George G. Beazley Jr. of
the Christian Church (Disciples) is
Bishop Frederick D. Jordan of the
African Methodist Episcopal Church.

Under new rules adopted here,
the Executive Committee is empow-
ered to elect additional officers as
needed. SI

Pastor Attacks Rating
Of Big Sunday Schools

FORT WORTH — An independent
Baptist pastor, whose 10,000-mem-
ber California congregation is on the
Christian Life magazine list of
America's "top 10 Sunday schools,"
has charged that some congregations
on the list have inflated their total
Sunday school attendance.

"Six out of the ten largest Sun-
day schools (on the national list)
include attendance at early morning
worship services as the pastor's Sun-
day school class," said the Rev. Har-
old Fickett Jr., pastor of First Bap-
tist Church of Van Nuys, Calif. He
said the entire list should be done
away with, since it "makes liars out
of some pastors."

Mr. Elmer Towns, Christian Life
Sunday school editor, agreed with
Mr. Fickett that America's fastest
growing churches are characterized
by strong leadership and Biblical
discipline. The two were speakers
at a conference on the dynamics of
reaching people, held at Southwest-
ern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Another speaker spoke of a failure
to separate theology from church
strategy. When a denomination
changes its theology, he said, "peo-
ple think that theology is also chang-
ing. Many have a religious com-
mitment to strategy." IB

Court Decides Against
'Religious' Pot Smokers

NASHVILLE (RNS) — The Ten-
nessee Supreme Court here upheld
marijuana convictions of four com-
munal cult members and ruled that
the state's drug laws do not inter-
fere with religious freedom.

Stephen Gaskin, 36, one of those
convicted, said he would appeal to

the U. S. Supreme Court.

Mr. Gaskin, a former San Fran-
cisco College professor who led a
band of 400 followers to a Tennes-
see rural commune in 1970, says
marijuana is essential for attaining
"spiritual consciousness" in his cult.

He says the issue involved is
whether the law can prohibit grow-
ing and using marijuana in viola-
tion of the Constitution's freedom
of religions clause.

The Tennessee Supreme Court,
in a unanimous opinion of the
five judges, cited cases of bigamy,
snake handling and human sacrifice
to support the position that govern-
ment must at times regulate reli-
gious practices for the good of so-
ciety.

Mr. Gaskin and three of his fol-
lowers were arrested and later con-
victed by a lower court for growing
marijuana on their farm near Ho-
henwald, 65 miles south of Nash-
ville. IB

Church Sells Silver
Valued at $162,000

LONDON (RNS) — One of Brit-
ain's best known Anglican churches,
St. Martin-in-the-Fields, which over-
looks Trafalgar Square in central
London, will sell "redundant and
unused" silver worth $162,000.

The sale of the silver, at present
stored in bank and museum vaults,
was required to finance repairs to
the church building where much so-
cial work is done.

The vicar and parochial church
council of St. Martin's, first applied
for ecclesiastical court permission to
sell the silver a year ago, but they
were told they could sell only half
of it, subject to certain conditions.
The court advised them to launch a
public appeal for the rest of the
money needed.

This verdict was appealed to the
Court of Arches which said St. Mar-
tin's is a "special case because of the
special character of the ministry."

In granting the permission, the
court decided that expert evidence
indicated there was no danger of
flooding the market, but that such
a danger might arise if the sale of
church plate is not "sparingly exer-
cised." IB

PAGE 5 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 18, 1973

THE CHURCH AT HOME

Cynthiana Church Is Awarded Property

CYNTHIANA, Ky. — A trial judge
in a property decision rendered here
has in effect awarded the property
to a local congregation. The court
also ruled that the Presbyterian
Church US violated its own constitu-
tion when it adopted the provision
permitting union presbyteries by a
majority vote of the presbyteries
rather than the required three-
fourths.

Judge John P. Lair of the Harri-
son County Circuit Court granted
a permanent injunction to the Cyn-
thiana Presbyterian Church against
the Transylvania (Union) Presby-
tery, enjoining the latter "from ex-
ercising any right, dominion or con-
trol over the real estate or other
property" of the congregation.

Presbytery Enjoined

A temporary injunction asking
for such protection had been chal-
lenged by the presbytery. It is un-
derstood that the presbytery filed
immediate appeal from the present
ruling.

In his "finding of facts," the
judge noted that "the deeds of the
property . . . placed the property in
the hands and under the control of
the trustees."

He also noted that "the property
was further quitclaimed by the
Northern Presbyterian Church in
1873 to the trustees."

Most especially, however, it was
noted that in the union of "the Pres-
byterian Church US" with "the de-
fendant Transylvania (Union) Pres-
bytery by a majority vote of the
General Assembly" the Church "vio-
lated the Book of Church Order
(Constitution) which required 'a
three-fourths vote of the presbyte-
ries.' " The union, therefore, "was
invalid," the judge said.

The congregation had defended it-
self against the charge that it had
acted unconstitutionally by arguing
that the union presbytery claiming
jurisdiction itself had been unconsti-
tutionally formed.

The court recognized that civil
courts may not decide ecclesiastical
questions. However, it stated that
the present matter was properly be-
fore it for a civil decision because the

evidence of the Church's willingness
to violate its own constitution sug-
gests "the possibility, although it
may be remote" of "an illegal taking
of property."

In another PCUS property case,
a trial will be held in early summer
to settle the Tabb Street Presbyte-
rian Church's dispute with Hanover
Presbytery.

The presbytery originally asked
the court to assert the presbytery's
authority over the Petersburg, Va.,
congregation. This the court frank-
ly stated it "had no intention of do-
ing" as the request would have a
civil court meddle in a purely ec-
clesiastical matter.

Candidly telling opposing attor-
neys, "we all realize the presbytery's
petition is technically incorrect," the
court found that sooner or later the
issue would boil down to the proper
question of property ownership.
Consequently it ruled that the trial
would proceed.

In still another case, the Presby-
tery of Norfolk is appealing to the
Virginia Supreme Court a decision
of a lower court which would have
the effect of awarding the property
of the Grace Covenant church of
Hampton to the congregation. SI

'Convocation' Inviters
Set Impressive Records

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — An analy-
sis of membership statistics and fi-
nancial reports for the congregations
signing an invitation to a Convoca-
tion of Sessions in Atlanta, May 18-
19, reveals averages that are more
than double the average of Pres-
byterian US churches taken as a
whole.

Thirty churches have issued a call
for sessions to meet in the interest
of possible further developments
looking towards a Continuing Pres-
byterian Church "faithful to Scrip-
ture and to historic Reformed stan-
dards." (See Journal, April 11,
for list of names.)

The Minutes of the General As-
sembly reveal that the congregations
signing the invitation represent a
broad spectrum as to size, consti-
tuency and location. The smallest

(First Church, Louisville, Ky.) has
109 members. The largest (First
Church, Jackson, Miss.) has 1,869
members.

During 1971 (the last full statis
tics available) the 30 churches
added 1,490 new members to the
PCUS, 523 by profession of faith
They gave $1,408,811 to benev-
olences, for a per capita rate ol
$78.63, compared to an average across
the denomination of $33.51. Total
per capita giving was $244.57, $90.0C
more than it was across the denomi
nation.

Total communicant membership
of the 30 inviting churches is 19,189
for an average of 639. The average
PCUS congregation during 1971 had
fewer than 225. E

King College Offers
Shorter Premed Program

BRISTOL, Tenn. — King College
is initiating a new cooperative pro
gram with the University of Ten
nessee which will require only three
years of premedical training insteac
of the usual four.

Under the new program a studen
will attend King College for thre<
years, taking a premedical major
and will then apply to the Colleg<
of Medicine of the University o
Tennessee. After he successful!
completes his first year of medica
school at U.T., King College wil
grant him a Bachelor of Science de
gree.

In other news, announcement wa
made by the board of trustees of ;
$100,000 grant to the college fron
the Kresge Foundation of Michigan
The grant will help finance cor
struction of the new science build
ing, which is one of the goals of th
present $4 million campaign for caf
ital funds now under way at th
school.

The trustees also approved th
new plan for the governing of Kin
College after the restructuring of th
boundaries of the Presbyterian syr
nods takes effect on July 1.

Following the dissolution then c
the Synod of Appalachia, which he
controlled the college, new trustee
will be named by each of several o
ganizations, including Synod C-
(Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessei
and Kentucky) , the trustees then
selves, the King College Alumni A
sociation, and the Abingdon, Ash i
ville, Holston and Knoxville presh j
teries.

Cm

PAGE 6 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 18, 1973

J

The truth of Easter is not solely the empty tomb, it is the throne! —

He Is Risen!

Some, years ago the villagers in
Domo d'Ossala, in Italian Swit-
zerland, built a mimic Calvary as a
symbol of their religious devotion.
A series of little chapels, with pic-
tures and images depicting the
scenes of our Lord's Passion, was
constructed along the way that led
to Calvary. The first showed Christ
before Herod; the second, Christ
grasping the cross, and the third,
Christ shouldering its weight; the
fourth, Christ carrying it along, and
so on.

The climax of the scenes was in a
larger chapel where there was a great
picture of Christ on the cross, and in
the skies astonished angels gazing
down. The path that led to this
climactic scene soon was well worn
by the feet of the devout pilgrims.
Year after year they came to witness
anew the sufferings of their Saviour
and to weep at the sight of His ag-
onies.

They Stopped Too Soon

Beyond this chapel there was one
more shrine, the Chapel of the Res-
urrection. But strangely, the path
that led to this final scene became
grass-covered. Few pilgrims walked
it. Most of them stopped at Cal-
vary! The witness of this untrod-
den path to the open tomb carries
a message we had better not ignore.

One branch of Christendom makes
so much of the death of Christ that
little space is left for the glorious
truth of His insurrection. Such peo-
ple contemplate Christ on the cross
as if that exhausted the truth of His

The author is pastor of the River-
side Christian Reformed Church,
Grand Rapids, Mich. This message
first appeared in The Christian Re-
formed Outlook and is reprinted
with permission.

relation to sin. They seem to for-
get that He is no longer on the cross.
He is now on the throne! Moreover,
they also forget that the keynote of
the Christian life as it is related to
the ascended Christ is one of victory.

The resurrection of Jesus Christ
is a pivotal truth in the Christian
religion. "If Christ hath not been
raised," said the apostle Paul, "then
is our preaching vain, and your faith
also is vain'' (I Cor. 15:14). The
records of the New Testament and
the doctrines of historical Christian-
ity are unanimous in the affirma-
tion that the divine claim of Jesus
Christ is inseparably connected with
His rising from the dead on the third
day.

His resurrection sets the seal on
His redemptive mission on earth. By
His resurrection and the subsequent
exaltation, with the redeeming vir-
tue of His life and death in Him,
Jesus entered fully on His gracious
career as prince and Saviour, the
life-giver, the life-creating Spirit of
a new humanity.

No, this truth of our Lord's res-
urrection is not circumferential; it
stands at the center of the Christian
religion. If the death on the cross
had been the end of Jesus Christ, the
cross would be for all time the
world's supreme tragedy. It would
signify man's worst meeting God's
best and triumphing over it.

Historical Fact

"But now is Christ risen from the
dead" (I Cor. 15:20). He lives!
That's the Easter message! John on
the Isle of Patmos heard Him say:
"I am the first and the last, and the
living one; I was dead, and behold,
I am alive for evermore" (Rev. 1:
17-18) .

Let it be said again: If no living
Christ emerged from Joseph's tomb,

LEONARD GREENWAY

then the tomb became the grave not
only of a man but of a religion. If
that tomb was not empty, our faith
is very much empty — forever!

There are thinkers, some of them
very learned people, who tell us that
Christianity is not dependent on his-
torical facts. They say that histori-
cal facts are not essential to our faith
and that faith is not imperiled when
we yield conviction of the historicity
of the Gospels with their narratives
of miraculous events culminating
in the literal resurrection of Jesus.

Some years ago a popular novelist
wrote: "Whether Christ had a body
or not, whether he had time to be
born in history and a time to die
as other men have is no matter now;
perhaps it never was any matter.
What lives today is not the ephem-
eral body of flesh and bones. If
once it lived, then well enough; if
not, then well too."

What Difference?

This fits in perfectly with what
the pastor of a fashionable, liberal
church in downtown Grand Rapids
said in an Easter sermon: "When
the disciples saw that Jesus had not
really died as far as what was im-
portant in Him was concerned, their
hopes soared, and that was the res-
urrection morning. Jesus was still
alive as every good person is always
alive."

This compels us to face the ques-
tion: What difference must it make
to Christian faith whether it be con-
sidered necessarily connected with
historical facts or not?

To this we reply that what we call
Christianity would be little more
than an idle tale unless it be true
that God has actually wrought out a
glorious salvation by direct, immedi-
ate action of His own on the plane
of human history; that the Word did

PAGE 7 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 18, 1973

become flesh; that an expiation
which, in its very nature, is not
simply a principle but an event in
time and place, was achieved for sin-
ful man; and finally, that Jesus, hav-
ing borne our sins in His own body
on the cross, arose in that body, as
He had foreannounced, thus break-
ing the dominion which sin had over
us, and enabling us to walk in new-
ness of life.

An Inspiring Hope

The Gospel, after all, means "good
news," that is, good news about
something that has happened. It
means history, and therefore a gos-
pel divorced from history is a con-
tradiction in terms.

Lilies and bright sunshine are not
the things that give us Easter. It is
the fact of the living, risen Saviour
that gives us Easter. He really livesl
He was dead, but behold, He is
alive forevermore!

The resurrection of Christ endows
the Church with a living Saviour.
Is that important? Indeed it isl A
dead Saviour could never sustain
the Church. Suppose that the wom-
en on the morning of that third day
had succeeded in carrying out their
intentions. Suppose that the Ro-
man guards had permitted them to

enter the sepulcher and that they
had completed the embalmment.

Would the disciples with a dead
Master on their hands have been in-
strumental in creating the Christen-
dom of today? Of course not!
Where is the life, the strength, the
power in a gospel that ends with a
Good Friday?

Over Dean Alford's grave in Lon-
don are written the words: "The
inn of a traveler on the way to the
New Jerusalem." The resurrection
of Jesus inscribes those words above
the graves of all who love Him. They
are places of sleeping, houses of low-
ly portal where for a little while
the wearied body rests, to rise one
day in purity and beauty, all stains
of life's journey washed away, all
weariness forever gone. This was the
hope that steadily brightened
through the centuries of Old Testa-
ment history.

'All Hail!'

At the empty tomb of Jesus the
resurrection fact takes this hope by
the hand and exclaims, Verily, it is
so! And thanks be to God, that
"verily" will never be silenced! For
now is Christ risen from the dead
and become the "firstfruits of them
that slept," the first sheaf and pledge

of a worldwide harvest of risen bod-
ies of believers.

The Emperor Theodosius, having
opened all the dungeons in his realm
and set the prisoners free, is reported
to have said: "And now, would to
God I could open all the tombs and
give life to the dead!" He could not
do that, but there is a King who
once in the synagogue of His boy-
hood home at Nazareth proclaimed
deliverance to the captives, who
Himself went into death, but could
not be held by death, and who
stepped out of the rockbound fast-
ness of the garden tomb with a tri-
umphant "All Hail!"

In the light of our Saviour's vic-
tory over death and the grave we
view sorrows and burdens in their
relationships. They are to us not
isolated experiences for which there
is no meaning or compensation, but
experiences which fit together in
God's plan, working together for our
good.

Knowing this, we can well bear
the toil and the trial of the journey,
for even when the path goes down-
ward, the journey actually is up-
ward; and at the summit the Fa-
ther's hand will clasp our own, the
burdens will be laid down, and God
shall wipe away all tears from our
eyes. ffl

Radio, television, even ESP, are insignificant when measured against communication by faith —

The Ultimate Communication

Man-to-man communication is
a long and fascinating story,
all the way from the man in the
Garden to the man on the moon.
From the time of Adam, mankind
has had a built-in compulsion to
communicate; the Bible tells us that
the very first thing man did after
God gave him a wife was to start
talking.

The author is a free-lance writer
and an elect lady of Richmond, Va.

The word communicate is a rich
one, carrying with it the sense of
communion, of sharing, of transmit-
ting, of having fellowship. As a
journalism student in New York
City many years ago I landed a
thriller in this field: I was sent to
cover the first attempted televised
showing of a theatrical production
from one theatre to another. Two
buildings immediately adjoining on
Broadway were the scenes of the ex-
periment, and the darkened theatre
in which reporters sat was vibrant

MARGARET W. McLESTER

with anticipation.

The showing was a flop, however;
television had yet about fifteen more
years of research ahead. Actors'
faces were blurred, speech garbled.
Nothing could have been more ut-
terly hopeless than that first, wide-
ly publicized premiere telecast, and
it was all the more so because we
had expected so much, certain that
this new thing, this brand new meth-
od of communication was to be the
ultimate, the very peak!

Telephone, wireless telegraphy, ra-

PAGE 8 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 18, 1973

dio, intercom, the movies — these
were old hat by then. But television,
ah! this was to be It: the electronic
upstart was to add a totally new
dimension to communication; we
were to see as well as hear. Alas for
the day! We saw and heard very lit-
tle.

Now, 40 years later, commercial
television is observing its 25th an-
niversary, but it remains utterly mys-
terious to me, the electronic marvel
of our day and undisputed front
runner in the field of man-to-man
communication.

'By Satellite From Munich'

Such musings trooped by in quiet
review across the stage of memory
last summer as I settled back com-
fortably at home to watch Olympiad
XX in full color with flawless re-
ception. Now and then there flashed
on the screen, "Via satellite from
Munich," or "Live via satellite,"
and every time those magical words
appeared, although I had seen them
before, I felt a fresh surge of aston-
ishment and wonder at man's prog-
ress during the past four decades.

No ringside seat could have
brought the participants closer to
eye and ear. Voices, color, person-
alities, all the drama of the games
were present in our home, thousands
of miles distant, across the Atlantic,
over towering mountain heights, all
by satellite. Marvelous indeed!
Surely man could go no further in
communication. Surely this must
be the ultimate.

Heard By Faith

Yet even as the thought entered
my head I knew that, wonderful
though it was, TV via satellite was
paltry indeed compared with anoth-
er kind of communication of which
man is capable; namely, between
God and himself. During the 40
years since that dreary experience
in the darkened Broadway theatre,
changes had taken place in me as
well as in television, for I had met

Essential

I am not sure whether ethical ab-
solutes exist, but I am sure that we
have to act as if they existed, or civi-
lization perishes. — Arthur Koest-
ler.

the risen Lord. Communication
between ourselves had been estab-
lished, not by electronic devices but
by faith.

By faith I had heard God speak
through the pages of Scripture, that
great, authoritative instrument of
the Holy Spirit. I had seen Him
at work in human lives, my own in-
cluded; and I had learned to com-
municate directly with Him through
prayer. And this, I knew beyond
the slightest possibility of a doubt,
was the ultimate, this really was It.

Not for a moment do I belittle
the human achievement represented
by television satellite: it is fabulous.
Scientists have developed electronic
equipment of the most sophisticated
kind, yet with their most advanced
electronic and satellite communica-

Always the Same

The supreme need of the Church
is always the same — in the twen-
tieth century as in the first: It is men
on fire for Jesus Christ. — James
S. Stewart.

tion systems man is able only to
communicate with man.

Faith, on the other hand, puts
man in immediate, personal contact
with God, the creator of the whole
vast universe. Thus even the in-
credible marvel of putting man on
the moon in touch with man on the
earth is relatively insignificant. Do
not even the birds of the air and the
beasts of the field communicate one
with another? But man has a high-
er potential: By faith the invisible
God becomes visible, the inaudible
voice audible.

By faith the believer probes eter-
nity past and there catches a glimpse
of Jesus Christ in the preincarnate
glory He shared with the Father, a
period antedating Genesis 1:1 and
its sublime declaration, "In the be-
ginning God created the heaven and
the earth." Such a statement defies
scientific investigation by satellite
or otherwise; it is revealed by faith
alone.

Likewise, by faith, the believer
peers beyond time into eternity fu-
ture and there beholds the new par-
adise, and the Lamb of God, the
Lord Jesus Christ, enthroned in ce-
lestial majesty, no longer making
intercession for His blood-bought
own; for they, too, shall be there,

"heirs of God, and joint heirs with
Christ" (Rom. 8:17) .

But there is more, much more,
right here and now. Scripture tells
us that ". . . truly our fellowship is
with the Father, and with His Son,
Jesus Christ" (I John 1:3). How,
you ask, is this fellowship, this com-
munication, accomplished? By faith!
When God said, "Let us make man
in our image, after our likeness"
(Gen. 1:26) , I am sure God wished
to have fellowship with man, to
communicate with him, and to en-
able man to communicate with Him-
self.

Let us not make the mistake of
assuming we have seen the end of
man's inventive genius in the field
of man-to-man communication. Un-
questionably, something presently
undreamed of will replace today's
electronic marvels. The God-given
brain that has carried mankind all
the way from vocal to verbal to pic-
torial communication and now far,
far beyond — even to outer space
itself — will surely come up with
other communications media. But
notwithstanding what he invents, it
will ever and only be man to man.

Faith is Ultimate

Faith will always be the ultimate
inasmuch as it is by faith and faith
alone that man contacts God and
that God gets through to man. Even
were there no other differences be-
tween him and the lower species,
God-consciousness is a distinguishing
characteristic reserved peculiarly to
homo sapiens.

Man is made in the likeness of
God, and to him alone belongs the
unique privilege of communion
with his Maker. In short, communi-
cation between God and man, and
man and God by faith remains the
absolute ultimate, the ne plus ultra.
In its field, there is nothing more
beyond.

What a powerful transmitter-re-
ceiver is faith! Behold the magni-
tude of its scope! IS

His Reply

We have written over the doors
to our schools, "Exit God!" Is there
any clearer sign of His reply than
the riots in our streets? — Un-
known.

PAGE 9 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 18, 1973

Jesus Christ moved deliberately toward the cross —

God's Time Table

JOHN H. EASTWOOD

In the natural world there are
times and seasons as life goes
through its cycles: seed time and
harvest, cold and heat, summer and
winter, day and night. Christians
believe that God is sovereign and
that just as He has shaped the sea-
sons of the year, His hand is in the
events of history.

The text reminds us that God has
a time table. The Bible says the
crucifixion was foreordained by God
and Jesus was aware of God's time-
table. In reading of the crucifixion,
you will observe that not only the
great event but every event was fore-
ordained. Note the language of the
Bible:

Paul wrote: "When the fullness
of time was come, God sent forth
His Son" (Gal. 4:4) . When His
mother first asked Jesus to provide
wine at the wedding feast in Cana
of Galilee, He said, "Mine hour is
not yet come" (John 2:4) . John
also recorded that when Jesus taught
in the temple, they sought to take
Him, but no man laid hands on
Him because "His hour was not yet
come" (John 7:30) .

Jesus Knew

In His last public discourse be-
fore the crucifixion, Jesus said, "The
hour is come that the Son of man
should be glorified" (John 12:23),
and John introduced his keeping of
the passover with these words: "Now
before the feast of the passover,
when Jesus knew that His hour was
come that He should depart out of
this world unto the Father, having
loved His own which were in the
world, He loved them unto the end"
(John 13:1).

Jesus seemed to know that there
was an appointed time for Him to

The author is pastor of the Cov-
enant United Presbyterian Church
(UPUSA) , Hammond, Ind.

"When the time was come that
He should be received up, He stead-
fastly set His face to go to Jerusa-
lem" (Luke 9:51) .

die. He was born in the fullness of
time and He knew He was to die at
an appointed time. The night be-
fore the crucifixion He opened His
great priestly prayer with the words,
"Father the hour is come" (John 17:

God's sovereignty, with His all
controlling providence, does not
overrule man's freedom and respon-
sibility, but it does ennoble life. To
the Christian it brings great com-
fort to know that God's hands are
on the wheels of time, that nothing
escapes His concern, compassion
and love. Thus Jesus was able to
say, "Are not two sparrows sold for
a penny and yet not one of them
shall fall to the ground without your
Father's leave and notice. Fear ye
not therefore, ye are of much more
value than many sparrows" (Luke
12:6-7) .

Jesus had a most difficult and
painful task to perform. He was on
His way to die for us, to bear the
penalty for all our sin, but He stead-
fastly set His face to go to Jerusa-
lem, saying, "The hour is come that
the Son of man should be glori-
fied . . . Now is my soul troubled;
and what shall I say? Father, save
me from this hour: but for this
cause came I unto this hour" (John
12:23, 27) .

"I came not to do mine own will,"
Jesus said, "but the will of Him
that sent me," and as the hour for
crucifixion approached, He seized
the opportunity to do His Father's
will. It would seem that His flesh
shrank from death, as one would ex-
pect, but His* will never faltered. He
moved steadily toward the cross.

What are you doing about God's
plan for you? Have you accepted
God's purpose in your life? If you

say to me, "I do not know what that
purpose is," I answer, "It is the
duty at hand." Although you may
not see the distant scene, you can
take the next step and this is
enough.

God's purpose and plan for us
will begin to unfold when we begin
to do each duty which comes to us.
Seize the opportunity to do God's
will in the smallest things and the
broader view will open to you. God's
choice for us may mean moving to-
ward a cross, toward suffering, even
death, but if you are Christ's, you
must go that way.

Every Hour

In a very real sense, every hour is
our hour. The opportunities to do
our duty today must be seized now,
or else they forever pass. Happy is
the man who finds his place, who
finds God's purpose in his life and
presses on with all his strength to
fulfill it. Miserable is the woman
who rebels against having to be a
woman; the boy wishing he were a
man; the person given talents who
refuses to develop them; the Chris-
tian living like the heathen; the mar-
ried chafing to be single; the offi-
cial shunning responsibility; the par-
ent refusing to enforce discipline in
the home; the doctor neglecting his
patients or the pastor refusing to
warn his people of sin, judgment
and hell.

God has called us to a point in
time and space and given us a cer-
tain amount of energy. To refuse
to do our duty at that point, even
though it be taking up a cross, is sin;
it leaves us empty and alone. But to
accept the charge He has given us,
to seize the opportunity, this leads
on to victory and fulfillment.

As Jesus moved toward the cross
His journey took Him through Sa-
maria. Now in the days of Jesus,
the Jews had no dealings with the

PAGE 10 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 18, 1973

I

1

Samaritans. There was hostility be-
tween these two peoples; they dif-
fered in both religious faith and
race. The Samaritans had Jewish
blood, but they had become mixed
with other peoples and were sep-
arated from the Jews in worship.
They were the product of intermar-
riage between Jews and the heathen
in the days of the Babylonian cap-
tivity. In going between Galilee and
Judea, the Jews would often go
around this little country rather
than come in contact with Samari-
tans, although Jesus did not go
around but passed through Samaria.

When the people in a certain Sa-
maritan village refused to show Je-
sus and His disciples hospitality,
James and John asked if He would
have them bring down fire from
heaven upon their heads as Elijah
had, referring to an incident in the
Old Testament when Elijah brought
down fire upon people who had dis-
honored God.

This incident has an up-to-date
ring, as some of the Samaritans said,
"We won't let a Jew sleep in our
town." Little did they know they
were saying this of our Lord Jesus,
the Son of God. "Keep those Jews
moving right out of town," they must
have said. How wicked and perverse
are the prejudices of men, whether
they lived 2,000 years ago or in mod-
ern America.

When the disciples wanted to
bring fire down from heaven and
consume them, Jesus said, "Ye know
not what manner of spirit ye are of.
The Son of man is not come to de-
stroy men's lives, but to save them."

Samaritans Were Wrong

As Jesus went on His way to ful-
fill God's purpose and plan for Him,
He refused to ride rough shod over
[other people. He did not favor a
scorched earth policy. He did not
favor burning down the village be-
cause they snubbed Him and re-
fused to show Him hospitality. He
did not meet insult with injury. He
acted rather than reacted. The rec-
ord says they went on to another
village where He practiced His own
teaching, "Turn the other cheek, go
the second mile, overcome evil with
[good."

The Samaritans were wrong, ter-
ribly wrong, but Jesus was not will-
ing to destroy them. This was not
His way. Nor should it be our way.
Racial prejudice is wicked, cruel and
completely out of place in the Chris-

tian's heart, but violence and hatred
will not remove it. Rioting in the
streets and burning cities confirm
the narrow-minded in their preju-
dices rather than heal them.

Jesus did not hold prejudice; He
passed through Samaria and when
He suffered insult He would not use
violence against them. "When He
was reviled, He reviled not again."

As we seek the fulfillment of our
own lives, let us take great care not
to trample on others. Christ did
not come to destroy men's lives but
to save them. As His disciples we
must be careful to remember this.
When we have found the Lord's
will and plan for us, there is a dan-
ger we may have the attitude of, "I
am doing the Lord's work here, don't
get in my way." Thus we may di-
rect our business in such a manner
as to make it a detriment to every
other business. We may promote
our own church as if it were the
enemy of every other church.

When we ride rough shod over
other people to further our own lit-
tle cause, not recognizing that oth-
ers are also doing the will of God,
we do not practice the spirit of Je-
sus. When we fail to get the total
view of the kingdom and refuse to
take into consideration what our
plans may be doing to others work-
ing in the kingdom, there is a great
likelihood that we are really working
for the glory of our own name,
rather than for the honor of Christ.
He says to us, "Ye know not what
manner of spirit you are of."

As Jesus moved toward the cross,
Luke recorded words Jesus spoke to
those who would follow Him. When
one man said, "Lord, I will follow
thee whithersoever thou goest," Je-
sus cautioned him to consider the
cost. He said, "Foxes have holes
and the birds of the air have nests,
but the Son of man hath not where
to lay His head." To follow Jesus
means a life of self-denial.

On another occasion He said,
"Whosoever will come after me, let
him deny himself and take up his
cross and follow me." That cross is
not a pretty ornament, but an instru-
ment of death. The follower of Je-
sus must be ready to die to self and
rise to a new life in Him.

How strange this sounds to mod-
ern ears. The popular thing today
is to seek pleasure in all the forms
the world has to offer. Never have
people spent so much on self and yet
have we ever had more who are
bored, fed up, frustrated and dis-

content?

It will sound strange and untrue
to many but I long to tell you that
the way of the cross is the way of
joy. The Old Testament prophet
said of Jesus, "He shall see the tra-
vail of His soul and be satisfied,"
and the New Testament says of His
sacrifice, "For the joy that was set
before Him, He endured the cross"
(Heb. 12:2).

Although the plan and the pur-
pose of God led to the suffering of
the cross, for our Lord it was the
way of joy and it is for you. No
matter what the plan and purpose
of God may require you to sacrifice
or suffer, it is for you the way of
joy. To selfishly seek your own
pleasure and reject God's will is the
way of death.

When If Not Now?

When Jesus asked another man to
follow Him, the man said, "Suffer
me first to go and bury my father,"
and Jesus answered, "Let the dead
bury their dead, but go thou and
preach the kingdom of God." We
are not to think that the man's fa-
ther had died and the body was
waiting to be buried. He was say-
ing, "Let me continue in my old
way of life until my father dies, and
then I'll follow you."

The time to begin following Je-
sus, the time to begin doing your
duty, is now. How familiar the
man's words are to any pastor. To-
day we hear:

"Pastor, I would like to become a
Christian but not just now. The
time is not right."

"Pastor, I would love to accept
that responsibility, but not now.
Wait until I give up my second job;
wait until I am off shift work; wait
until my children are older, until
I am out of debt, until the summer
is past, or the winter."

Wait until the end of the fish-
ing season, the hunting season or
any other season known to man. My
friends, the time to begin doing
God's will and walking through
those doors He opens is now.

Today is the day of the Lord; to-
day is the day of salvation. When
God opens a door for you, it is your
hour. Remember the example of
Jesus who steadfastly set His face to
go to Jerusalem. There He not only
provided for your atonement, He
gave us an example of doing the per-
fect will of God when the hour has
come. EE

PAGE 11 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 18, 1973

EDITORIALS

Christ Arose! Or Did He?

Soon it will be Easter Sunday
again. Millions of voices will be
lifted up in the triumphant song:
"Jesus Christ Is Risen Today! Al-
lelujah!" In our own land, from
shore to shore and sea to sea, in
country church and city cathedral,
children, parents, grandparents will
stand together to give this expres-
sion to their Christian faith.

It will seem as if the whole world
is acclaiming Him. But the truth
is that things are not as they seem
to be.

In the far eastern land of China,

and in Africa, and in India, lands
where more than two thirds of the
world's population lives, no songs of
Christ's resurrection will be sung by
the millions of the followers of Bud-
dha, Confucius, Muhammad, or
Zoroaster.

An entire race of people, the
Jews, will also be silent on Easter
Sunday, while in Russia only an in-
significant minority will be singing.
For two generations the citizens of
that country have been officially
taught that there is no resurrection
because there is no Christ.

People Over Musicians

In our search for the reasons for
diminishing spiritual vitality in our
congregations and a solution for the
same, too little attention is often
paid to the hymns used in worship
and the hymnbooks from which
they come.

Hymnbooks, as much as any other
literature, have been used by liberal
leaders to deaden Gospel enthusiasm
and elevate preoccupation with so-
cial activism. The liberalizing ef-
fect of The Hymnal, for example,
(so familiar in Presbyterian church-
es) has been enormous.

Sometimes one hymnal is pre-
ferred over another because the
choice is made by a musical profes-
sional who is thinking of musical
professionals and not the vast body
of musical laymen in an average
congregation.

It never ceases to amaze us that
musicians, who would never insist
that every child should receive a
Ph.D. education; or that every per-
son should cultivate an identical
taste in art, nevertheless are quite
positive that anyone who prefers
"How Great Thou Art" to "God Is
Working His Purpose Out" has "re-
fused to grow up" musically.

Even worse are those choir lead-
ers who, because they thrill to the
modulations of intricate choral har-
monics, decide that's the best kind

of music for congregational singing.

We love good music as well as the
next fellow. But we found out years
ago that people are not cut out of
the same bolt of cloth musically
any more than they are cut out of
the same bolt of cloth artistically
or gastronomically. And we decid-
ed that it was not only hopeless, it
wasn't even fair to feed a steady diet
of Beethoven on Sunday to people
who couldn't be dragged by wild
horses to hear Beethoven during the
week. Consequently we became
willing to gather around a piano
with a few friends whenever we
wanted a bit of close Dutch har-
mony . . . and let the people enjoy
"The Old Rugged Cross" at the
Wednesday evening prayer service if
they wanted it.

Let those who are more interested
in counterpoint than they are in
conversions push the esoteric metrics
of The Hymnal, which in our
opinion has done more to deaden
worship than to help it in the few
years it has been out. Public opin-
ion polls will continue to indicate
that simple Christians want none of
it. And publishers of "Gospel
hymnbooks" will continue to reap
increasing profits. And in this mat-
ter we are not altogether certain
that the people don't have it over
the musicians. IB

And in our own land? Two gen-
erations of our university students
have been taught by scientific ma-
terialism that in this world of nat-
ural law there is no possibility of
real miracles. If no miracles, then
no resurrection. It is just as simple
as that.

A long procession of so-called
Christian philosophers and theolo-
gians, especially since the turn of
the century, have repudiated the Bi-
ble as being the very word of God.
Their voices have been heard loud
and clear throughout our land, in-
sisting that whatever the Bible may
have been for our forefathers, it cer-
tainly cannot be that trustworthy or
authoritative for our modern day.

Pressed to give an answer to the
Bible's insistence that Jesus did rise
from the dead, these teachers have
suggested that He did not rise from
the dead because,

1) He did not die. He merely
lost consciousness on the cross and
when placed in the tomb the warmth
of that tomb revived Him and He
came out again; or

2) His disciples were not truthful.
They knew Jesus had died, of course,
but they decided to spread the story
of His resurrection from the dead.
They did exactly this with such
great skill and persistence and per-
sonal cost that people all over the
world now believe that He did rise
from the dead. But actually the res-
urrection story was just a lie manu-
factured by His disciples; or

3) The resurrection is not to be
taken literally as if the actual body
of Jesus came out of the tomb. What
the Bible really means by the resur-
rection is that He lives today and
will live forever through His teach- >
ings and His influence. No grave [0|,
could possibly keep the teachings y

CI

and influence of Jesus sealed in for-
ever!

Just before Easter, in 1971, in a
college town in Oklahoma, I sat ill
a student audience and listened tc
the first performance of an original
opera written by three students ol
the school where we were meeting
The opera was on the Passion ol
Christ. When the opera reached the
point in the Biblical story of thf,
resurrection of Christ, the cast sang

h

'He came walkin' out!
He came walkin' out!
Grave where is your victory?
He came walkin' out!"

Then it happened! One studen
PAGE 12 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 18, 1973

i

after another took up the refrain.
"He came walkin' out. He came
walkin' out!" The words swelled in
hundreds of voices. Hands began
to clap. The room was charged with
an electricity I felt I could touch.
Tears were on the faces of some stu-
dents. Some were laughing out loud
in pure joy. Still others had their
hands lifted high in the two finger
sign of victory and peace.

Did He come walkin' out of that
tomb? Were the students right?
The Bible says He did. Let us,
then, this Easter and every Easter
God gives us, sing our song! — An
editorial by the Rev. Peter Pascoe,
pastor of First Presbyterian Church,
Winona Lake, Ind., first used in the
Winona Lake Times-Union. SI

Is Witnessing Difficult?

Why is witnessing for Christ so
difficult?

Before ignoring the question, con-
sider for a moment what it means to
ask someone to be a Christian.

It means that you are inviting
him to take a step which next will
unite him to those who call them-
selves Christians. Making such an
invitation is not always easy, and
sometimes it is downright embar-
rassing.

He knows it, even though you may
not. And he exploits your weakness
by asking why some of the meanest
people he knows are Christians; why
Christians have so much trouble get-
ting along with each other; why
Christians are cruel and insensitive
just like other people.

You flinch because you have just
told him about Christianity and he
has just told you about Christians.
You are only too grateful he didn't
mention "adultery, fornication, un-
cleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry,
witchcraft, hatred, variance, emula-
tions, wrath, strife, seditions, her-
esies, envyings, murders, drunken-
ness, revelings, and such like . . ."

You realize you have invited him
into a community which isn't what
it was meant to be; you seem to have
promised him something you can't
give him, you seem to have written
him a bad check. You wish you
■could point to a community of Chris-
tians and say, "See how well it
; works!"

But before you retreat in your de-
Jfeat (and his) remind him (and
yourself) that he (and you) are not

THE LAYMAN AND HIS CHURCH

But Hasn't Science Proved ... ? (II)

m

Many of you have undoubtedly
read in the January 1973 issue of
National Geographic the story about
Dr. Louis Leakey's search for "that
early creature who was no longer
ape but early man." Dr. Leakey
(1903-1972) and his family have
long investigated fossils in East Af-
rica and believe that man had his
origins in that geographical location.

Now Dr. Richard Leakey (his son)
and his wife are carrying on their
research and have recently an-
nounced a fossil find that they esti-
mate as "a breath-taking age of 2.6
million years."

The Bible teaches that God cre-
ated man and in His own image;
from a careful reading of creation
accounts one does not infer that man
evolved from a lower form of an-
imal. In fact, there are so many
contradictions in the book of Gen-
esis to the theory of evolution that
a great number of scientists who are
Christian reject the theory in total.

This is another contribution to
the layman's column by atomic sci-
entist Richard T. Bell, who is also
an elder in West Hills Presbyterian
Church, Knoxville, Tenn.

without hope. Tell him that God
succeeds where you and your fellow
Christians fail; indeed, that His
strength is sufficient.

Concede that you and your Chris-
tian community cannot deliver on
your promise, and bow your head
in shame and prayer. Then pro-
claim the fact that Christ delivers
where you cannot: That is cause for
joy unspeakable.

But lest you take careless comfort
in those words, remember that un-
believers as well as believers know
others by their fruits, and by God's
grace, pray that your friend may be
able to recognize you and your fel-
low Christians as people of "love,
joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness,
goodness, faith, meekness, temper-
ance . . ."

Witnessing for Christ would be
so much easier. IB

In addition, many of these men
believe that the earth is very young
and therefore the vast ages necessary
for evolution did not exist. But
hasn't this 2.6 million year old
"early man" proved the Bible to be
in error? The answer is No!

In order to see why, let's have a
question and answer session with a
leading anthropologist.

"This recent fossil find, it was
dated to be 2.6 million years old?"

"Yes, that is correct."

"Well-known radioisotope dating
techniques were used?"

"Yes, that is correct."

"This fossil or pieces of it were
actually subjected to tests that
showed it to be 2.6 million years
old?"

"Well not exactly. The rock in
the stratum from which the bone
was found was dated."

"Do I understand you correctly
when you say that the rock was
dated rather than the fossil?"

"Yes, the rock was dated rather
than the fossil itself."

"Since the rock stratum gave a
date of 2.6 millions years, then the
assumption is made that the fossil
is of the same age?"

"Yes, this is an accepted method
of dating fossils."

Many men of science and laymen
alike find this bit of gymnastics in
dating fossils difficult to understand,
but nevertheless it is a true story of
fossil dating. One of the main rea-
sons for dating the rocks, rather than
the fossil, is that fossil dates are gen-
erally not old enough to fit into ev-
olutionary theory.

As a matter of record, actual bones
taken from the same stratum in
which Dr. Louis Leakey found Zin-
janthropus have been dated at 10,-
100 years as opposed to the 1,750,-
000 years assigned by rock dating.

One last point: Man was created
and placed in Eden on the Tigris
and Euphrates Rivers (Gen. 2:10-
14) . These two rivers rise in the
Caucasus Mountains and empty into
the Persian Gulf. Therefore, it is
futile to look for man's origins in
East Africa. IS

PAGE 13 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 18, 1973

SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON

For May 6, 1973

Christ Makes Men New

Rev. Jack B. Scott

INTRODUCTION: This lesson
begins the third and final unit of
this quarter. The overall subject
is "The Christian Life." We began
this series of lessons by looking at
our human situation — dead in sin.
We then studied Christian redemp-
tion through Christ alone. It is ap
propriate, therefore, that we now
see how the redemption in Christ af-
fects our lives as believers.

I. THE OLD TESTAMENT
WORD 'OF PROMISE (Ezek. 36-
37) . Toward the end of Old Testa-
ment revelation in the time of the
Babylonian captivity, the Lord's
people in bondage thought on their
past sins and why they were there.
Then God spoke by one of His
prophets, Ezekiel.

Ezekiel brought to the Church the
promise that God had not forgot-
ten them, that He would restore
them to their own land (36:4) . But
better, God would restore them to
have clean and new hearts (36:25-
26).

This was the promise of a new
life and a new spirit in them. It
was the promise of hearts that would
desire to do God's will and have the
power to do it. That power would
come by God's Holy Spirit who
would be within them (36:27) .

God was speaking of a new birth,
His supernatural work, which He
must do if any were ever to be holy
and without blemish before Him in
love.

In all the history of God's people
up to the time of Ezekiel, it had
been plainly shown that the people
could not by themselves attain God's
high goal for them. They could
not be God's people by their own
effort. They needed the work of
God in their lives.

In order that the lessons could
not be missed, once more God taught
them through Ezekiel this visual les-
son of the need of His supernatural
work.

Ezekiel was shown a valley full of
dead bones. Nothing is drier than
a bone baked in the sun. Nothing
is more dead. Then God command-

Background Scripture: John 1:9-
13; Ephesians 2:1-10; Colossians
3:1-17

Key Verses: John 1:9-13; Ephesians
2:1-10

Devotional Reading: Ezekiel 11:17-
21

Memory Selection: II Corinthians
5:17

ed Ezekiel to prophesy (preach)
over these dry bones. He was to say
"O ye dry bones, hear the word of
the Lord" (37:1-4).

Nothing could have seemed more
futile than this! Had anyone seen
Ezekiel doing it, he would have
thought Ezekiel was a candidate for
the mental hospital. But God prom-
ised, "I will cause the Spirit to enter
into you, and ye shall live" (37:5) .

Note the order: "I will cover you
with skin, put the Spirit in you, and
you shall live and shall know that
I am the Lord" (37:6) .

Ezekiel did as the Lord instructed
and the bones did live (37:7-10) .
All through here where some trans-
1 a t i o n s use the word "breath"
the proper translation should be
"Spirit." It is the same word found
in Ezekiel 36:27 and it teaches the
same truth. God was speaking of
His Holy Spirit. This is quite clear
from verses 37:13-14 where again
God said, "I will put my Spirit in
you and ye shall live . . . and ye shall
know that I the Lord have spoken it
and performed it."

It is clear that Ezekiel was teach-
ing here the new birth which God
must work in everyone who is to be
God's child. It is no more absurd
that Ezekiel should preach to dry
bones, lying in a valley parched by
the sun, than it is that a Christian
witness today should speak to one
dead in trespasses and sins and call
him to believe. The hearer cannot
respond of himself any more than
the bones by themselves could hear
and respond to Ezekiel.

Yet as we saw in the last lesson, it

The International Sunday School Lesson Outlines
are copyrighted 1972 by the Committee on the
Uniform Series of the National Council of
Churches of Christ.

has pleased God by the foolishness
of preaching to save men. Faith
comes by hearing and hearing by the
word of God (Rom. 10:17).

Just as it was the dry bones of
Ezekiel's vision, so it is with anyone
who comes to know Christ as his
Saviour today. First God sends His
servant to declare His truth to that
one who is dead in trespasses and |
sin. Then as the word is declared,
God put His Spirit into the dead i
one and he lives and he knows that I
Jesus is his Lord and Saviour. He
then professes that faith, "I believe."

It is vital, therefore, as Jesus
taught Nicodemus (John 3) , that
we be born again by God's Spirit i
from above. It is, as we saw in the
last lesson, the power of God through
the resurrection of Christ from the
dead that enables us to be born
again and have eternal life.

By His victory over death, Jesus
has won for us who are dead in sins
eternal victory over death. And just
as those dry bones literally did live
again, we too hope for the bodily
resurrection and eternal life in God's
presence.

II. THE NEW TESTAMENT
WORD MADE FLESH (John 1:9-
13; Ezek. 2:1-10). What the Old
Testament promised, the New Testa-
ment fulfilled in Jesus Christ. In
his Gospel John declared the coming
of Jesus Christ and His work. He
spoke of our being God's children
by belief in Jesus' name, i.e., by our
belief that He is the Lord, the cre-
ator and redeemer (John 1:9-12).

As we pointed out in a former
lesson, this faith itself is by God's
generating power. We are born
again not by our effort, not by our
flesh and blood (strength) , not by
our will which is naturally perverted
and corrupt (compare Romans 3:
10-18), but by God. This is one
and the same truth which God
taught Ezekiel (Ezek. 36-37) .

In the New Testament, however,
the lesson is most vividly taught in
Ephesians 2. Paul also began with
the natural man where he is. He is
dead through sin. He is naturally

PAGE 14 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 18, 1973

i

T

subject to Satan and doing Satan's
will, i.e., a child of Satan (Eph. 2:
1-2) . No one is exempt from this.
Paul, who had been raised as a Jew
and who prided himself in his her-
itage (see Romans 9:1-5), neverthe-
less said, "We also all once lived in
the lust of our flesh and were by na-
ture children of wrath, even as the
rest" (Eph. 2:3). Paul's natural
man is as dead as Ezekiel's valley of
dry bones.

But as God taught Ezekiel, Paul
taught here: While we were dead in
sins, God made us alive together
with Christ. In Christ's resurrec-
tion from the dead, we too are raised
to a new life, just as the dead bones
Ezekiel saw were given God's Holy
Spirit and reborn (Ezek. 2:4-6) .
Paul carefully pointed out several
times that we are saved by grace, not
works but God's free gift (Eph.
2:8-9) .

This means that our faith itself
is the result of our having been born
again by God's Holy Spirit. We do
not believe and then get reborn.
This is impossible! We are born
again of God's Holy Spirit, which
works through the word preached,
and then we believe in Christ.

Paul concluded by showing that
this salvation which God has worked
in us is in order that we may ful-
fill His good purpose for us. God
has created us anew in Jesus Christ
so that we may live lives that please
and glorify Him (Eph. 2:10). The
latter part of this lesson will there-
fore deal with the new man in
Christ.

III. THE NEW MAN IN
CHRIST (Col. 3:1-17). Paul be-
gan here logically from what we just
now have seen in the other two sec-
tions of this lesson: If we have been
raised together with Christ, what are
we to be like? What are we to do?
What is our new nature? What are
the good works for which we have
been created?

Paul proceeded to answer these
questions. As Jesus had done in the
Sermon on the Mount, Paul called
the one who is raised to newness of
life in Christ to seek the things
above (Col. 3:1). Compare Jesus'
words in Matthew 6:33. He ex-
plained that by this he means to set
your mind on heavenly things, things
that please God (Col. 3:2) .

This would mean that we should
think about God's Word, His righ-
teousness and will for our lives at
all times. It is much as the psalm-

ist described the righteous man (Psa.
1) who meditates on God's word
day and night. The book of Prov-
erbs had long before shown that as
a man thinks in his heart, that is the
way he really is (Prov. 23:7) . Jesus,
too, showed that it is out of the heart
that the real man is made known.

When the heart is centered on
God, when the mind seeks the things
that please God, this will begin to
affect the way we live. Paul also
spoke of the putting off or putting
away of the old man in his life and
putting on the new man, born again
by Jesus Christ.

As we take seriously the new call-
ing we have, to be full-time children
of God, we find two things happen-
ing. First, we cease to do many
things which we once did and found
pleasure in because we now know
that these things do not please God
and we wish to please Him.

We cease doing some very obvious
things such as violations of the fam-
ily bond (fornication, uncleanness,
passion, evil desires) . Very obvious-
ly God's child will not desire to do
these. Nor will he love the things
of the world and covet them because
that is like committing idolatry, hav-
ing other gods besides the Lord.
These old ways of life we are to put
away (Col. 3:8) .

There are other things which the
child of God must not do or be.
These things are perhaps harder to
get rid of — anger, dirty speech, lies
and the like. Old habits are diffi-
cult to stop, but such things as these
cause many unbelievers to stumble
when they see us doing these things.

In essence, Paul was calling for a
thorough, minute examination of

ourselves so that as anything unbe-
coming as a child of God appears in
us, we may be rid of it. Everything
we do or practice which identifies us
with the nonbeliever must be put
away. Any inconsistency in our lives
with God's express will in His Word
we must not allow!

This is the negative aspect of our
sanctification or being more Christ-
like in our lives. On the positive
side we are to put on the new man
(Col. 3:10) .

Paul continued to explain exactly
what he meant by "putting on" the
new man (Col. 3:12-17). Since we
are now God's elect, chosen in
Christ Jesus to be holy and without
blemish before God in love (Col.
3:12; compare Ephesians 1:4), we
must have hearts of compassion,
kindness, lowliness, meekness and
long-suffering. Read these attri-
butes again, then compare Exodus
34:6-7. We are being called to be
godly in our lives, to be bearers of
the image of God and of His Son
Jesus Christ. The Lord is to be our
example in patience and forgiveness
(Col. 3:13) .

Paul then capped the whole by
the exhortation to love (Col. 3:14).
Christian love is the highest evidence
of our being the children of God.
Paul called it the greatest of the
fruits of the Spirit (I Cor. 13; Gal.
5:22) . John showed how love is the
essential of the Christian life and
testimony (I John 4:7-21) .

These attributes of the Christian
life are elsewhere called the fruits of
the Spirit (Gal. 5:22f.) , and we un-
derstand that they are the real marks
of the Christian. Every child of
God must have them. They are

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PAGE 15 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 18, 1973

the real measure of one's spiritual
depth and maturity.

One may have ever so many and
ever so great gifts of the Spirit and
yet be spiritually nothing. But the
fruits of the Spirit named here and
frequently elsewhere in Scripture are
what God seeks and desires in His
own. Only by these do we honor
Christ. These are the good works
which He expects in us.

Peace itself (Col. 3:15) is also a
fruit of the Spirit. As that peace
rules in our hearts, no matter how
great or violent the storms of life
may be, we, being at peace with our
Lord and having peace in our hearts,
will be a powerful testimony to the
world of the power of God in us.

We see this vividly when reading
the account of Paul's calm in the
midst of the literal storm in the
Mediterranean Sea (Acts 27:14-44).
By his own peace with God and
peace in his heart, Paul was able to

glorify God and witness to those
frightened pagans all around him.

But from where do these attri-
butes come? They come as we medi-
tate on God's Word, God's Holy
Spirit bringing God's will to bear in
our lives. Therefore, Paul called us
to let Christ's Word dwell richly in
us. Not only does the Word bring us
to life in Christ but it continues to
produce living testimony that we are
God's children. Compare II Tim-
othy 3:16-17.

Verse 17 is a summary of the
whole word given by Paul in Colos-
sians 3. Whatever we do in word
or deed (the two ways we witness) ,
we are to do all things in Jesus'
name (as we bear His name before
the world) . This means that every
Christian is a full-time servant of
Christ. When we get up, begin our
day, eat our meals, choose our
clothes, go to work or study, appear
before others throughout the day, or

do our housework in the house
through the day, spend the evenings
at home or out, go to bed and re-
flect on the day's activities, we are
to be constantly aware that we be-
long to Jesus and that anything we
say or do reflects either for God's
glory or it dishonors Him.

We have a real privilege to be the
ambassadors of Christ, His represen-
tatives in the world. We are privi-
leged above all men and should con-
stantly thank Him for the privilege
of representing Him before men.
Even our suffering for His sake is
something for which to be thankful;
God's children praise Him even for
the privilege of suffering for Him.
Compare Philippians 1:29.

CONCLUSION: The new man in
Christ will show the new birth by
his changed life, a living testimony
to the power of God and the power
of the Gospel. 09

YOUTH PROGRAM

For May 6, 1973

Sharing in Christ's Resurrection

Scripture: Romans 6:4-11; II Tim-
othy 2:1-11
Suggested Hymns:

"Thy Life Was Given for Me"
"I Am Thine, O Lord"
"How Firm a Foundation"

PROGRAM LEADER'S INTRO-
DUCTION: Jesus Christ is alive! If
this is not true "we are of all men
most to be pitied" (I Cor. 15:19).
If Christ has not been raised then
the Gospel is no longer good news,
what Christ claimed about Himself
is false. He said He would suffer
and die and the third day be raised
from death (Matt. 16:21, 17:23).

If Christ is not alive, His death
was futile and we are still in our
sins. If we cannot trust Him in
everything He said then our faith is
in vain (I Cor. 15:12-19) .

But Christ has been raised from
the dead. The angel told the wom-
en seeking the dead Jesus that "He
is not here; for He is risen" (Matt.
28:5) . No greater words have been
spoken. The greatest event the world
has ever known took place that first

Rev. Henry J. Mueller

Sunday morning.

Jesus Christ, the Son of God, rose
victorious over death. "Death is
swallowed up in victory. O death,
where is thy victory? O death,
where is thy sting? The sting of
death is sin . . . But thanks be to
God, who gives us the victory,
through our Lord Jesus Christ" (I
Cor. 15:54-56).

If we were buried with Christ in
His death, then in the same way we
shall be raised with Him so that we
might live a new life. Today we
will discuss what it means to share
in Christ's resurrection. (Read Ro-
mans 6:4-11 to the group.)

FIRST SPEAKER: In other pro-
grams we spoke of the Christian life
as self-denial and cross-bearing.
When we follow Jesus, we follow
Him into His death and participate
in His death in these ways. But this
participation in His death is never
to be separated from sharing in His
resurrection. Our suffering under
the cross is borne because we have
our eyes on the risen Lord Jesus
Christ!

We die with Christ in order that
we may be made new people. Our
salvation is started on the cross and
finished in the resurrection. Christ
died to put away sin and death and
rose to give life. We participate
in His death in order that we may
become more obedient to God's will
and so that sin will be put away
from us. It is through sharing the
resurrection that we experience new
life.

When we share in Christ's resur-
rection we become new people. Our
old nature has been put to death on
the cross. This means that old
principle of life that guided the
way we lived — the ambitions, mo-
tives, selfishness, prejudice, hate,
lust, conceit, jealousy, dissension,
the carousing — die in us.

A new principle of life which is
like that of Christ — patience, kind-
ness, love, gentleness, peace, good-
ness, joy, self-control — are born
into us. Paul said in Ephesians 3:
22-24, "Put off your old nature which
belongs to your former manner of
life and is corrupt through deceit-
ful lusts, and be renewed in the

PAGE 16 / THE PRESBYTERIAN 'JOURNAL / APRIL 18, 1973

i

spirit of your minds, and put on
the new nature, created after the
likeness of God in true righteous-
ness and holiness."

(Have the group list principles
that guide the old nature and then
discuss those which are evident in
a person who has been made new in
Jesus Christ. Colossians 3; Philip-
pians 4:8-9; and I Corinthians 13
are good background passages to
study for this discussion.)

SECOND SPEAKER: When we
share in Christ's resurrection we
also receive power from God. Paul
prayed that the Ephesian Christians
might come to know how very great
is God's power at work in those
who believe in Christ. This power
is the same that raised Christ from
the dead and which seated Him at
the right hand of God in heaven.
(Read Ephesians 1:18-22.)

It is this power that makes us
new people. A new quality is given
to us. It is a supernatural quality,
a new and original element. It
is something that was missing be-
fore it was given to us.

It is not a quality that makes us
less human, but rather it remakes
us into people who are more like
what God originally meant us to be.
We are given a new heart that
makes us sensitive to our broken
relationship with God and causes us
to repent and call upon the name
of Christ so we may be restored in
communion with God.

We are given the power to re-
ject sin. We were not made for
I; hate and lust and envy. We were
pmade to glorify God and enjoy Him
[forever. Only as we are in Christ
pare we given the power to love God
■ and our neighbor and enjoy all the
things He created.

Jesus came that we might have
life and have it more abundantly.
It is the power of His resurrection
which makes this possible. (Read
and discuss Philippians 3:10-11.)

THIRD SPEAKER: Our pre-
dominant experience now is sharing
in Christ's death. The cross comes
before the resurrection and this is
true in our lives. God is at work in
Christians with great power con-
forming them to the image of His
Son.

Just as Jesus died first, so must
we. The old person, that part of
us that loves sin and turns away
from God, must completely die. And

the Holy Spirit is to make us ever
more and more alive to God. We
are to say after John the Baptist
that He must increase and I must
decrease.

But we endure our suffering by
looking in faith to the resurrection
of Christ. Paul was in prison in
Rome, with little hope for living
much longer. He endured much
suffering and persecution during his
lifetime.

He said, "Because I preach the
good news I suffer, and I am even
chained like a criminal. But the
Word of God is not in chains, and
for this reason I endure everything
for the sake of God's chosen people,
in order that they too may obtain
the salvation that is in Christ Jesus,
together with eternal glory" (II
Tim. 2:9-10) . He told Timothy, the

HOW I CHANGED MY THINK-
ING ABOUT THE CHURCH, by Rich-
ard C. Halverson. Zondervan Publ.
House, Grand Rapids, Mich. 120 pp.
$3.95. Reviewed by the Rev. Archie
L. McNair, pastor, Westminster Pres-
byterian Church, Asheville, N. C.

As the title suggests, this book is
personal testimony of how a Pres-
byterian minister changed in his
concept of what the Church is and
why it exists. He has moved from
the traditional concept of the
Church as an institution with a pro-
gram-centered life to what he be-
lieves is more nearly the Scriptural
view of the Church as people-cen-
tered. The Church is a community
of people; it is a fellowship of be-
lievers.

While the author still believes in
the necessity of the organized
Church, he now sees its function dif-
ferently. He believes that the func-
tion of the organized Church is not
so much to be doing God's work in
the world as to prepare the people
of God to do His work in the world.
It is not the function of the or-
ganized Church to be just another
pressure group confronting social
issues of the day; rather it is to pre-
pare the fellowship to be the Church
between Sundays.

". . . It is not what the congrega-
tion does when it is visible as a con-
gregation that is the criterion for
the effectiveness of that congrega-
tion, but it is what the congregation

young preacher, to be strong in the
faith and to endure suffering by
remembering Jesus Christ, who was
raised from death (II Tim. 2:3, 8) .
It is by looking to the risen Christ
that we endure the trials and resist
the temptations of this life.

PROGRAM LEADER: We par-
ticipate in the resurrection of Christ
by faith. We trust in what He has
done for us, and receive this by
faith, because it is ours in Christ.
We await the full enjoyment of
eternal glory which is ours when
Christ comes again.

The joy and peace we have now
is only a foretaste of what will be
ours at Christ's second coming.
(Read I Corinthians 15:42-54.)

Closing Prayer.

BOOKS

is doing when it is invisible as a con-
gregation that is the criterion for
the effectiveness of that congrega-
tion."

There is also a clear distinction
between doing the work of the
Church and doing Church work.
Doing Church work is limited to
working in the functioning pro-
grams of the institution while doing
the work of the Church is serving
Christ in the world wherever God
may have placed the Christian dur-
ing the week.

Doing Church work requires on-
ly very few members of the organi-
zation to carry out programs. But

Westminister Christian
School

Miami, Florida
NEEDS A DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR
TO

Plan and implement fund raising
for capital needs

Plan and implement fund raising
for scholarship needs

Write Or Telephone

MR. NORMAN CORTESE

Arvida Corporation
First National Bank Bldg.
Miami, Florida 33131

(305) 377-3541

PAGE 17 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 18, 1973

doing the work of the Church "re-
quires every member of the Church.
Every member ought to be engaged
in full time service for Jesus Christ!"

Aside from being of general in-
terest, this book would be helpful
and easy to use for discussion classes
or Bible study groups. 51

NEW MAN . . . NEW WORLD, by
Leighton Ford. Word Books, Waco,
Tex. 119 pp. $3.95. Reviewed by the
Rev. Peter De Ruiter, H.R., Hatties-
burg, Miss.

"My purpose is to reaffirm the
age-old truth that in Christ new men

create a new world," states the au-
thor. In fulfilling this purpose in
these sermons which were first
preached over "The Hour of Deci-
sion," Leighton Ford teaches as well
as preaches for a decision.

He deals well with some difficult
questions and moral and spiritual
problems. Sin, repentance and faith
are dealt with again and again. The
author has a unique ability of re-
lating the Gospel to everyday events
and experiences of the average per-
son. He expresses his thoughts
pithily and with originality.

While man's responsibility in de-

'ef/c Simpson

31 stores in 8 states serving you
with this pledge ....

• To give prompt courteous service, treating our customers as you would a guest
in your home. • To give the best selection of merchandise from Top Quality
Fashions to basement bargains, meeting everyone's need. • To give satisfaction
guaranteed with every purchase. # To give credit terms arranged to meet your
budget needs in Stores doing credit business.

Since the opening of the first Belk-Simpson Store, it has been our
endeavor to be more in a community than just another merchant.
We have set forth a united consecrated effort, dedicated to the task
of securing superior quality merchandise, giving our customers a
better value than any other merchant.

SOUTH CAROLINA

Belk-Simpson Co.

Greenville, S. C.

J. A. Ellison, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson-Plaza .Store

Greenville, S. C.

R. Grier Robinson Jr., Res.

The Dollar Store

Greenville, S. C.

R. P. Crumpler, Res. Mgr.

Belk's of Pleasantburg

Greenville, S. C.

A. M. Smith, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store
Lancaster, S. C.

B. L. Plyler, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store

Camden, S. C.

J. A. Hagins, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store

Clinton, S. C.

D. B. Smith, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.
Darlington, S. C.
Paul E. Broome, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store

Laurens, S. C.

David Middleton, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Abbeville, S. C.

J. S. Hagins, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Hagins Co.
Kershaw, S. C.

C. E. Hinson, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.
Easley, S. C.
R. J. Womack, Res
Belk-Simpson Co.
Beaufort, S. C.
Al Wilson, Res. Mgr
M9r. Belk-Simpson Co.
Fountain Inn, S. C.

E. J. Copeland, Res
Belk-Simpson Co.
Woodruff, S. C.

F. B. Hagins, Res.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Honea Path, S. C.
T. R. Martin, Res.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Whitmire, S. C.
Clyde Smith, Res.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Manning, S. C.
W. M. Gettys, Res

OHIO

Belk-Simpson Co.

Athens, Ohio

Joe Kelly, Res. Mgr.

MISSOURI

Belk-Simpson Co.
Carthage, Mo.
Charles Wilson, Res.

Mgr.

Mgr.

Mgr.

Mgr.

Mgr.

Mgr.

Mgr.

OKLAHOMA

Belk Dept. Store
Miami, Oklahoma
J. T. Holmes, Res. Mgr.

NORTH CAROLINA

Belk-Simpson Co.

Hendersonville, N. C.

R. E. McCormack, Res. Mgr.

Belk's Department Store

Brevard, N, C.

J. M. Felty, Res. Mgr.

KENTUCKY

Belk-Simpson Co.
Harlan, Ky.

Delmar Tolliver, Res. Mgr.
Belk-Simpson Co.
Corbin, Ky.

W. C. Ashley, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Winchester, Ky.

T. L. Beckham, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Mt. Sterling, Ky.

Willoughby Smith, Res. Mgr

Belk-Simpson Co.

Frankfort, Ky.

J. D. Prow, Res. Mgr.

GEORGIA

Belk-Simpson Co.

Bainbridge, Ga.

M. D. Ashley, Res. Mgr.

ARKANSAS

Belk-Simpson Co.

Paragould, Ark.

W. H. Wade, Res. Mgr.

Belk-Simpson Co.

Osceola, Ark.

K. R. Cline, Res. Mgr.

These stores are a small part of the entire Belk or-
ganization and have been in existence approximately
50 years. The Belk stores were launched in 1886-88.

SEE THE MANAGER NEAREST YOU FOR CHURCH CARPET, ROBES, ETC.

cision is emphasized, the grace of
God and the work of the Holy Spirit
are not neglected. The reading of
these sermons gives added inspira-
tion and delight. They leave an ef-
fective fruitful impression of con-
cern for salvation and an interest
in the Christian life. SI

THE NINE-TO-FIVE COMPLEX
or The Christian Organization Man,
by James Johnson. Zondervan Publ.
House, Grand Rapids, Mich. 178 pp,
$4.95. Reviewed by the Rev. Wayne
H. Davis, pastor, Reems Creek United
Presbyterian Parish, Weaverville, N. C.

Fascinating, illuminating, shock-
ing, soul-stirring! Any and all of
these emotive adjectives apply. James
Johnson, who also wrote Code Name
Sebastian and other best-selling
books, writes this one from his own
personal experience as a Christian
"organization man."

Many of the word illustrations are
from true life situations in Chris-
tian business firms. Christian busi-
ness organizations are, of course
those commercial firms which de
exclusively in Christian product:
This fictitious one is a factory whi
produces Christian slogan bumper
stickers. You've seen many of them
on cars ahead of you in traffic; per-
haps your late model, a financed ve-
hicle, sports one or more on its rear
bumper and trunk lid.

I began this book thinking the
editor of the Journal should be the
reviewer, but I ended it grateful for
having been asked to read it for re-
view. I'm not a Christian organi-
zation man and cannot imagine my-
self in this type of work. I can think
of myself only in the local church
as pastor. However, as I read
through this book, I began to re
alize that many of the business (of
fice, factory) situations with little
modification exist in the loca
church. Not only that, but they ex
ist in the so-called Christian home

The author says that three thing
are needed to revive a Christian busi
ness when it needs to get back to it
original raison d'etre: an awarenes
that something is wrong (lacking) ■
an analysis (in-depth study) of tht z„
situation to pinpoint what is wrong y,
and then an application of prin
ciples which will correct the situa
tion. These same three things ar<
needed when all is not well in ou:
church family and/or in our owl
immediate family.

I conclude with an actual quot<
from a Christian business executiv

PAGE 18 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 18, 1973

i

who followed the three-pronged reci-
pe suggested by the author. With
but little change in the wording of
this quote, one can think of local
church situations and Christian
home situations (I have; I hope you
will, too) :

"It took months to see anything
different, but one day it suddenly
struck home to me and to my execu-
tive assistants. There was a new
wind blowing. You can't point to
anybody or any one thing. You just
know and sense something has hap-
pened. And you know that it is
good, very good. And at that mo-
ment you just want to thank God
that He waited so long, that He gave
that extra shot of courage to face up
to things as they were and do some-
thing about it.

"It's like you've been waiting for
a rose to blossom and you suddenly
realize that you've put it in the
wrong kind of soil, given it the wrong
kind of food and care. So you
change it, because that rose does
[mean more to you than anything
lelse right then. Then you see it
[start to come out, slowly, and then
[finally open to full beauty. You
[can't explain why or how that sim-
Iple application could make that
[kind of change.

I "Well, this company is not in full
[:bloom yet. But it's coming. I don't
[think I did much to change it, and
lyet what I did was obviously the one
idling needed to make it go, and God
Iwas pleased to help with the rest of
it. It's just a beginning, but at
kleast we are now on track."

Is not your local congregation, is
Inot your teen-age son or daughter
Ithe "rose" you've been waiting to
•see bloom? Do they mean more to
iyou right now than anything else?
■Is not your local church, your own
[immediate family the "company"
Iwhich could stand this three-point
■recipe suggested by Author Johnson?

Get hold of this book, read it, ab-
sorb its message, and God will bless
you, I promise! IB

THE NEW COMPACT TOPICAL
BIBLE, compiled by Gary Wharton.
Zondervan Publ. House, Grand Rap-
lids, Mich. 536 pp. $4.95. Reviewed by
the Rev. Archie L. McNair, pastor,
Westminster Presbyterian Church,
i Asheville, N. C.

I This reference work belonging to
Ithe Zondervan Bible Handbook
iSeries is based on the more extensive
[work entitled, The Zondervan Topi-
mcal Bible. The difference in this

book and the larger parent book is
that rather than giving the fully
printed Scripture verses belonging
to the topics and subtopics, it only
gives the references. For example:

BREATH. Of Life (Ge 2:7; 7:22;
Ac 17:25) . Of God (2Sa 22:16; Job
4:9; 15:30; 33:4; 37:10; Ps 18:15;
33:6; Isa 30:33) .

Figurative: Eze. 37:9.

There are close to 7,000 topics and
over 25,000 subtopics under which
are well over 100,000 Scripture refer-
ences. Many of the topics are either
identified or defined, making the
book also useful as a dictionary.

Because of the small size and
maximum amount of information,
this tool will be easy to carry about
and to use. Any student of the Bi-
ble, lay or professional, will find it
a most useful and handy reference
work. ffl

EXCEPT YE REPENT, by H. A.
Ironside. Zondervan Publ. House,
Grand Rapids, Mich. Paper, 191 pp.
$1.95. Reviewed by Stephen M. Rey-
nolds, professor, Faith Theological
Seminary, Elkins Park, Pa.

The author stresses the belief that
repentance comes before life, that
is, regenerated life. This is based,

GiVE US A CHANCE to give you good
service on your subscription by notifying
the Weaverville office at least three
weeks before a change of address is to
take effect. Send both old and new ad-
dresses. And zip codes, please!

WANTED: Mature counselor-teacher with
experience, Ph.D., Th.D., Ed.D., M.D. Po-
sitions open with expanding dynamic
born-again Christian ministry for psychia-
trist, psychologist, master of social work,
etc. Those with other degrees also in-
vited to apply. Send full resume. Chris-
tian Mental Health Society, 1038 N.E. 4th
Avenue, Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. 33304

THE SCRAMBLE, 116B Montreat Road,
Black Mountain, N. C. Vacations, confer-
ences. Picnic area, creek for wading;
cottages and big house, sleep 2-20. Meals
can be arranged. Phone (305) 443-8896 or
(704) 669-8524. After June 1, (704) 669-
2697. 2145 S. W. 19 Ter., Miami, Fla. Car-
oline Walbek, owner.

Mistaken Identity

by Thomas John Carlisle

The poetry of Thomas John Carlisle
has been welcomed by readers of all
kinds, who have been edified as well
as entertained by the author's unusual
insights into contemporary Chris-
tianity.

In Mistaken Identity Carlisle under-
scores the curious human propensity
for missing the point of Christ and his
work. More than fifty poems portray
the man from Nazareth in his humanity
as well as his divinity; and along the
way they comment perceptively on the
current renewal of interest in Jesus
Christ.

"Mr. Carlisle is a writer deeply imbued
with the knowledge and spirit of the
Gospel, and he has skillfully woven
the narrative of its text into a verse
arrangement that is simple and ap-
pealing."

— Sister Mary Therese,
Poet Laureate, Marquette University

"Carlisle's witty flair for puns and for
putting familiar phrases into new con-
texts will provide valuable nudges to
the reader's thought."

— Elva McAllaster,
Greenville College
64 pages. Paper,$l.25

For more of the Carlisle flair . . .

You! Jonah! "Biblical, hard hitting,
contemporary. This book stabbed at
me — with hilarious sadness."

— Kenneth Pike,
in Christianity Today
Paper, $1.00

Celebration! "Lyrical poetry with a
distinctly contemporary flavor."

— Presbyterian Record
Paper, $1.00

at your bookstore

lIV WM- B- EERDMANS
,20 11^ PUBLISHING CO.
■w II 1\ Grand Rapids. Michigan 49502

PAGE 19 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 18, 1973

for example, on Acts 11:18. He de-
nies that repentance is a meritorious
act and affirms that it is granted
to sinners: "The Gentiles to whom
Peter preached were granted re-
pentance unto life. They did not
receive life that they might repent,
but through the preached Word
they were led to change their atti-
tude and to believe the Gospel."

Dr. Ironside is severe in his criti-
cism of those who cannot believe
that one who is spiritually dead can
receive power to perform the spiri-
tual act of true repentance, but at
least it is good that he makes clear
that repentance is granted and not
spontaneous in the sinner. We
should keep in mind that "repen-
tance unto life" is capable of more
than one interpretation. See Calvin
on Acts 11.

This book has many valuable ac-
counts of ways in which men have
been brought to repentance, and it
should convict those who feel they
have no need of it. Preachers and
all Christians who seek to win men
to Christ would profit by read-
ing it. ffl

HOMILETICS, by Vernon L. Stan-
field and Others. Baker Book House,
Grand Rapids, Mich. Paper, 156 pp.
$1.65. Reviewed by the Rev. Albert
J. Lindsay, pastor, First Presbyterian
Church, Tacoma, Wash.

This paperback is a compact, con-
cise, handy volume for a practical
approach to the science of preach-
ing. The contents originally ap-
peared as Section II of Baker's Dic-
tionary of Practical Theology, ed-
ited by my very good friend, Dr.
Ralph G. Turnbull, in 1967 and
published by the Baker Book House.

The ten chapters contain the his-
tory of homiletics; pulpit speech and
rhetoric; the classification of ser-
mons; sermon illustration and use
of resources; the sermon in worship;
sermon structure and design; ser-
monic style in contemporary terms;
sermon preparation in contemporary
terms; the study of sermons and the
literature of homiletics. The chap-
ters are the work of men who range
from seminary professors to pastors.

At the close of each chapter a
bibliography indicates that each au-
thor used sources which were some-
what widespread. In fact, in the
case of chapter 7, "Sermonic Style
in Contemporary Terms," nearly
three full pages are required for the
bibliography.

The work as a whole is sound, ba-
sic, practical and well presented. IS

Presbyterian Instruction Books

The Savior Promised, A Study Manual of the Old Testament Revelation
From Creation To David, by Arthur E. Pontier $ .90

The Savior Coming, A Study Manual of Old Testament Revelation from
David Through the Exile, by Arthur E. Pontier .90

The Savior and the Church, A Study Manual of New Testament
Revelation, by Arthur E. Pontier .90
(The above at $9.00 per dozen mixed or matched)

The Noble Task, The Elder, by Andrew A. Jumper 1.50

Chosen To Serve, The Deacon, by Andrew A. Jumper 1.25

The Pastoral Ministry of Church Officers, by Charlie W. Shedd 1.25

The Five Points of Calvinism, Defined, Defended, Documented,

by David N. Steele and Curtis C. Thomas 1.50

What Do Presbyterians Believe?, by Gordon H. Clark 3.95
(5 or more @ $3; 10 or more @ $2.50)

The Westminster Confession of Faith For Study Classes,

by G. I. Williamson 3.00
(5 or more @ $2.50; 10 or more @ $2)

An Exposition of the Shorter Catechism

by Principal Salmond 2.00

The Shorter Catechism, Volume I: Questions 1-38,

by G. I. Williamson 3.00

The Shorter Catechism, Volume II: Questions 39-107,

by G. I. Williamson 3.00

Studies in the Shorter Catechism, by Paul G. Settle
($.50 each or $5 dozen)

The Christian Faith According to the Shorter Catechism,

by William Childs Robinson

($.25 each, $2.50 per dozen, $20 per hundred)

The Shorter Catechism, by Alexander Whyte 2.00

Should Westminster Be Retained? Could This Age Really Improve On
The Incredible Devotion of Those Men of God? by Robert Strong
($1.50 per dozen or $10 per 100)

What Is A Presbyterian?, by J. Wayte Fulton Jr.
($1.50 per dozen or $10.00 per hundred)

The Presbyterian Church, A Manual For New Members

Chapter I — The Story of Presbyterianism, by C. Gregg Singer
Chapter II — What Presbyterians Believe, by G. Aiken Taylor
Chapter III — Presbyterian Government, by E. C. Scott
Chapter IV — Joining The Presbyterian Church, by B. Hoyt Evans
($.15 each, 2 for $.25, $12 hundred)

Order from

The Presbyterian Journal, Weaverville, N. C. 28787

PAGE 20 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 18, 1973

VOL. XXXI, NO. 52

APRIL 25, 1973

$4.00 A YEAR

the

Advocating continuation of a Presbyterian Church loyal

to Scripture and the Reformed faith

Honoring the Hour of Truth

The Steering Committee has decided, after prayerful con-
cern, to publish abroad to our denomination a call for the re-
birth of the Presbyterian Church US as originally constituted:
committed to Biblical Presbyterianism and a theological posi-
tion faithful to the Westminster Standards. This amounts to
asking conservative Presbyterians to put their names on the line,
to honor the hour of truth, and say, "This is where I stand, and
this is where I am going."

Although I do not expect the next few weeks or months
to be anywhere near easy, I do feel that this is God's will in the
life of His Church. When things have gone so far that the
greatest court in our denomination will publicly repudiate the
great doctrine of justification by faith, the doctrine by which
you and I are saved, then things have gone too far. I do not
feel the liberty of going further. I trust that you do not,
either.

—John C. Neville Jr.
(See p. 7)

S. S. LESSON AND YOUTH PROGRAM FOR MAY 13

dHOO

1?1§LZ DJSt TTIH
CLTI OR jo XlISjeAipurj.
TiOTioenoQ o M

MAILBAG

OVERLOOKING OTHERS?

An item in a recent editorial no
doubt will have drawn other let-
ters but I want to express my own
concern in the light of the growing
fellowship developing within the Na-
tional Presbyterian and Reformed
Fellowship.

I refer to the bottom paragraph,
third column, of the editorial, "Will
Revival Resolve the Issue?" in the

Journal for March 28, 1973. I rath-
er imagine you were referring to the
major denominations, though even
then the language, "We do not know
of a single notable spiritual develop-
ment flowing from the official chan-
nels of a denominational bureau-
cracy," does seem to exclude the pos-
sibility of good coming from the
ministries of the Southern Baptist
Convention, the Missouri Synod

the

PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL

Rev. G. Aiken Taylor, Ph.D., Editor
Rev. Henry B. Dendy, D.D., Managing Editor
Timothy Belz, Assistant Editor

Circulation leader among independent publications in the Presbyterian-Reformed world

THIS WEEK— Vol. XXXI, No. 52, April 25, 1973

Down to the Wire 7

It is time now for conservative Presbyterians to put their
names on the line By John C. Neville Jr.

Because I Love the Church 10

The solution to the Church's problems is a return to the
Gospel of Jesus Christ By J. William Hyde

The High Calling 10

By John Warwick Montgomery

De partments —

Editorials 1 2

The Layman and his Church 1 3

Sunday School Lesson, May 13 14

Youth Program, May 1 3 1 6

Book Reviews 18

Index, Vol. XXXI 23

THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL, a

Presbyterian weekly magazine, devoted
to the statement, defense, and propa-
gation of the Gospel, the faith which
was once for all delivered to the saints,

is published every Wednesday by the
Southern Presbyterian Journal Co.,
Inc., in Weaverville, N. C.

SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: $4 a year
for individuals, $3 for members of
Every Family Plan churches. All cor-
respondence regarding subscriptions,
advertising or other business matters
should be addressed to the business
office in Weaverville, N. C. 28787.
Second class postage paid at Weaver-
ville, N. C. 28787.

POSTMASTER: Send Form 3579 to
Presbyterian Journal, Box 635, Weav-
erville, N. C. 28787. Subscribers
should allow three weeks for change
of address in continental U. S. Change
of address notices should include both
old and new addresses (with zip
codes) .

NEWS AND EDITORIAL correspond-
ence should be addressed to P. 0. Box
3108, Asheville, N. C. 28802. Editorial
offices located at 247 Charlotte St. in
Asheville.

TELEPHONES: (All area 704) edi-
torial office, 254-4015, 254-4016;
business office, 645-3310, 645-3962.

Lutherans, and the possibly smaller
but still good sized Christian Re-
formed Church.

I would like to think that the edi-
torial excludes the smaller conserva-
tive denominations, Orthodox Pres-
byterian Church, Reformed Presby-
terian Church Evangelical Synod,
Reformed Presbyterian Church of
North America, and such. Unfortu-
nately, the editorial does not
suggest these exceptions. These
brethren are doing notably well in
areas of missions and Christian edu-
cation, theological education, etc.

Some kind of retraction or expla-
nation would seem to be in order,
though printing schedules will make
such too late at best. Poor com-
munication between brethren of like
minds at this critical time in the
life of the Church should be avoid-
ed at all costs.

— (Rev.) Donald C. Graham
Montgomery, Ala.

Mr. Graham has put his finger on an
exceedingly important point. See,
"When Language Confuses," p. 12
this issue. Ed.

TO SEND PRICES DOWN

With inflation continuing to pick
the pockets of the buying public and
prices continuing to escalate, the
food markets have been engaging in
an economic conflict to attract cus-
tomers. Inducements to buy include
special discounts, free lottery tickets
(you guess who pays for the tick-
ets!) , seven days a week operation
and even 24-hour service each da)

But business seven days a week
and 24 hours a day does not mean
more sales. It does mean that al
stores merely redistribute their nor
mal weekly sales over a seven-day
24-hour a day period. Premium pa^
is required for Sunday work, some
times up to triple time. Operating
costs skyrocket. More advertising
dollars must be spent to bring ii
the trade, and all of this is added t<
the consumer's price tag at the check
out counter.

Doesn't it make good economic
sense to restrict your buying to sb
days a week, just as you limit you
banking business to five days a week
especially when it can push th<
prices down and save you money
Interestingly enough, the head o
the retail clerks local in the Philade]
phia area says, "People are totall
against Sunday hours. They are r*
good for family men. Even thoug!
the stores are paying double ti
and a half for Sunday work, they

lib

sent it."

Maybe, too, we can solve the
problem of widespread pilfering and
shoplifting by getting more people
back into the churches and Sunday
schools whose programs have often
been undercut by those businesses
that require their employees to work
on their day of worship. After all,
who else in America is teaching hon-
esty and integrity?

The housewives of New Jersey
and the nation can effect a quick
reduction in prices by seeing that
no Sunday purchases are made! The
stores can all leave the economic
jungle and return to business six
days a week. Try it. Watch the
prices go back proportionately while
a blow is being struck at our crip-
pling inflation!

— (Rev.) Samuel A. Jeanes
Merchantville, N. J.

• With this issue we close out an-
other volume of the Journal. We
were reading page proof on the in-
dex pages at the back and it remind-
ed us what a memorable year this
has been. Perhaps you save your
back copies of the Journal and you
would like to have a bound volume
for more easy reference. If so, the
business office will be glad to take
your order at §8.75 per volume.
They also have a few volumes left
J from last year (Vol. XXX) at the
same price.

• We were intrigued by a story
out of Rockville, Md., which report-
ed that the Montgomery County
public school system has decided to
drop a course of study offered grades
7-12 English classes on "The Bible
as Literature." After the Supreme
Court outlawed prayer and Bible
reading as devotional exercises, a
number of school systems tried to
take up the Bible in an objective
fashion, not as a religious book but
"in the same way that Hamlet or any
novel would be treated," as a Mont-
gomery County board spokesman
put it. They've discovered that it

MINISTERS

Terence R. Anderson from faculty
of Union Seminary, Richmond,
Va., to faculty of University of
British Columbia, Vancouver,
School of Theology, as professor
of Christian ethics.
Milton S. Carothers from Dur-
ham, N. C, to University of North
Carolina, Chapel Hill, as campus
minister.

F. Marion Dick, H.R., from Mc-
Leansville, N. C, to the Shelton
Memorial church, Danville, Va.,
as interim pastor.

Wayne D. Griffin, received from
UPUSA Church, to the First
Church, Perry, Fla.
William H. Jordan Jr. from Pe-
tersburg, Va., to the St. Andrews
church, Richmond, Va.

G. Taft Lyon Jr. from Houston,

won't work. To try to take the Bi-
ble as anything but what it is, holy
Scripture, is to demean it. Pressure
to discontinue the course came from
parents, teachers and clergymen
alike.

• According to the Associated
Press, the state of New Jersey has
embarked on a vigorous campaign
to wipe out organized crime. The
headline over the story said: "New
Jersey Takes on the Mob." And how
does the state intend to "take on its
major competition, organized crime,
in dollar-to-dollar combat," as the
story put it? With a lottery. Said
the AP: "New Jersey has begun sell-
ing lottery tickets, becoming the first
of six Eastern states to take on or-
ganized crime." The scheme's ef-
fectiveness as "a tool in the fight
against illegal gambling" is alleged-

Tex., to the Manhattan church,
El Paso, Tex.

Larry G. Parker from St. Pauls,
N. C, to the Bee Ridge church,
Sarasota, Fla.

Claire S. Albright from Fayette-
ville, N. C, to the Nicholasville,
Ky., church.

John S. Franklin from Dillon, S.
C, to the Chadburn, N. C,
church.

DEATHS

James Thornwell Gillespie, for
many years professor of Bible at
Agnes Scott College, died in Quit-
man, Ga., March 27. He was 82.
The Session of the Mount Calvary
church, Roebuck, S. C, memorial-
ized J. Hugh Harrison, member
and ruling elder who died March
17.

ly due to the fact that there is 1) a
drawing every day instead of every
week; and 2) odds of 26 to 1 which,
according to Gov. William T. Ca-
hill, are better than any other odds
available anywhere. Well. No
doubt somebody should do some-
thing about crime.

• Would you like to have a com-
prehensive summary of the May 18-
19 Convocation of Sessions to dis-
tribute in quantity to your congre-
gation? We are planning to assem-
ble the major speeches given and ac-
tions taken in a single issue of the
Journal — probably the one to be
dated May 30. Order now from the
Weaverville business office for
prompt delivery (at the same time
the subscription copies are sent out) .
Mail your check to cover at the rate
of 31 per dozen. ffl

ACROSS THE EDITOR'S DESK

PAGE 3 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 25, 1973

NEWS OF RELIGION

UPUSA General Assembly Reorganizes

OMAHA — The General Assembly
of the United Presbyterian Church
USA will meet here May 15-23 in the
Omaha Auditorium to deal with
questions ranging from social issues
to the organization of the Church's
own structures.

Issues to receive most attention
will include the matter of whether
the denomination should rejoin the
Consultation on Church Union
(COCU) , and proposed pronounce-
ments (statements by the General
Assembly to the Church and to the
larger society) on "Legal Aid and
the Availability of Legal Services,"
"State and Local Tax Reform,"
"The Right of Privacy and Its Pro-
tection," "National Service and the
Church," and "The Rights and Re-
sponsibilities of Older Persons."

Recommending the pronounce-
ments is the Advisory Council on
Church and Society. Two proposals
from the Advisory Council on Dis-
cipleship and Worship also will be
considered, one of them supporting
full voting membership of young
people at all levels of the Church,
and the other advocating further
study on the work of the Holy Spirit.

Presbytery overtures to General
Assembly focus on the issue of par-
ticipation in COCU. Last year's
Assembly voted to get out of COCU,
and that precipitated a presbytery
response which at this point has 21

overtures supporting reentry and sev-
en opposing it.

Other issues to come before the
Assembly will be the proposed re-
union of the UPUSA and the Pres-
byterian Church US, completion of
the reorganization of the denomina-
tion's national-international agen-
cies, and completion of the realign-
ment of synods.

The Assembly has also reorganized
itself. In the past, commissioners
have been formed into standing com-
mittees based largely on structural
formation of General Assembly agen-
cies. This year, the forming of "As-
sembly committees" will be recom-
mended, including nine such com-
mittees dealing with operational
matters and nine dealing with is-
sues.

The proposed issues committees
include Committed and Equipped
Christians, Communicating Our
Faith, Combatting Racism, Youth,
Justice and Human Development,
World Peace, Women, Family Life,
and Christian Unity and the Unity
of All People.

Another proposed change denies
youth advisory delegates the right
to vote in committee meetings or on
the floor of the Assembly. In the
past, some committees allowed the
youth delegates to vote in commit-
tee sessions and others did not. The
youth delegates are allowed to speak.

THE CHURCH OVERSEAS

INDONESIA — The number of Bi-
bles, New Testaments and Scripture
portions distributed in this country
rose sharply in 1972.

The number of complete Bibles
distributed increased more than 10,-
000 to 71,806; New Testaments in-
creased from 172,707 to 235,351.

The largest increase was in short
texts described by the Indonesian
Bible Society as "selections." This
figure went from 2,306,965 in 1971
to 4,024,940 in 1972.

A decrease reported in the num-
ber of individual New Testament

books was attributed in part to a
new Indonesian translation which
was published last year as a result
of 20 years of work.

The Bible Society said it hoped
that the increased distribution is an
indication that the preaching of the
Gospel to non-Christians is more
Scriptural than denominational.

More than 60,000 of the complete
Bibles were in the Indonesian lan-
guage; 7,450 were in Javanese, 1,-
586'in English, 1,911 in Chinese, 436
in Dutch, 174 in regional Indonesian
dialects, and 118 in others. IB

(In the Presbyterian Church US,
delegates have a vote in committee
meetings and the privilege of the
floor in all sessions.)

Two other types of advisory dele-
gates, with the same voice-but-not-
vote privileges, will be at this year's
Assembly. Theological seminaries
related to the denomination are to
send one or more students each as
seminary advisory delegates. The
Program Agency may appoint from
each overseas country in which the
agency is represented one mission-
ary or fraternal worker who is a
United Presbyterian.

Fraternal delegates from other
Churches will also be able to speak
but not to vote.

Among the first actions of the
General Assembly, of course, will be
the election of a moderator to suc-
ceed the Rev. C. Willard Heckel.
Most observers are choosing the Rev.
Eugene Carson Blake to win handi-
ly over a field of half a dozen candi-
dates. Dr. Blake is former general
secretary of the World Council of
Churches.

In a recent speech in St. Louis,
present Moderator Heckel urged the
election of a young person to that
post in 1974. "Let's make 1974 the
year of the young person to be mod-
erator of the United Presbyterian
Church's General Assembly," he said,
noting that 18-year-olds now are en-
titled to vote in national elections,
and declaring that "the Church can-
not lag behind the country."

About 2,000 persons, including ap-
proximately 740 official commis-
sioners (voting delegates) are ex-
pected to attend the meeting. IB

Atheists Use Theme of
'Reason's the Key in '73'

ST. PAUL, Minn. — While Chris-
tians are promoting evangelism this
year as part of Key '73, atheists are
promoting "reason" as an emphasis
for 1973.

Garry De Young, a St. Paul atheist
leader, said that "Reason's the Key
in 73" had been chosen as the theme
for the 1973 National American
Atheist Convention which was held
in Dallas April 13-15.

The theme was selected be-

PAGE 4 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 25, 1973

cause Key 73, according to Mr. De
Young, "consists of an attempt to
turn the U. S. into a totally Chris-
tian nation by 1976."

The atheist declared that "the
Christian community says that it
will 'Call the Continent to Christ,'
never realizing that where Christ
goes the neo-Middle Ages follow. If
the religionists can take on such a
massive chore as the calling of a con-
tinent, surely the American atheist
community can stand up for the pro-
motion of reason." IB

Covenant Seminary
(RPCES) Accredited

ST. LOUIS — Covenant Theologi-
cal Seminary in St. Louis has received
full accreditation from the Commis-
sion on Institutions of Higher Edu-
cation of the North Central Associa-
tion of Colleges and Secondary
Schools.

The seminary is controlled by the
General Synod of the Reformed
Presbyterian Church (Evangelical
Synod) and offers the Master of Di-
vinity, Master of Religious Educa-
tion, and Master of Theology de-
grees.

Established in 1956, the seminary
currently has approximately 100
students from several denominations.
Until 1964 the campus in St. Louis
County was shared by Covenant Col-
lege. The college moved to Lookout
Mountain, Tenn., and received full
accreditation from the Southern As-
sociation of Colleges and Schools in
December of 1971. ffl

African Evangelicals
Determine Strategies

LIMURU, Kenya — A General As-
sembly of the Association of Evan-
gelicals of Africa and Madagascar
(AEAM) held here recently may
well have determined the direction
of African conservative theology for
years to come, according to some ob-
servers. The assembly was described
as being "by Africans and for Af-
ricans."

The assembly, which was con-
vened to cope with modern liberal
theology now evident in Africa as in

other lands, was marked by "deep
spiritual maturity and unusual abil-
ity," according to the Rev. Raymond
Davis, general director of the Sudan
Interior Mission.

"We missionaries found we had
very little to say as the Africans
themselves could do so much bet-
ter," said Dr. Davis.

The assembly was called for the
purpose of developing a strategy for
meeting the unique educational and
theological needs of the African
evangelical Church. Confronted by a
dearth of Bible knowledge within
the Churches despite a phenomenal
growth rate, many national leaders
recognized a need for pooling ideas
and resources in a crash program of
lay Christian education throughout
the continent.

Byang H. Kato, a Nigerian doc-
toral candidate at Dallas Theologi-
cal Seminary who was recently elect-
ed general secretary of the 27-na-
tion organization which sponsored
the assembly, says "the spiritual bat-
tle for Africa this decade will be
1 a r g e ly fought on theological
grounds. I have been challenged by
the fact that most theological writ-
ing by African authors, at a scholas-
tic level, is by liberals or those sym-
pathetic to liberal theology."

Most significant, perhaps, of the
assembly's actions was its decision
to "establish two thoroughly evan-
gelical graduate schools of theology
qualified to grant at least a Master
of Divinity degree." Target date for
the opening of the schools is Septem-
ber 1975.

Some sources say that 41 per cent,
or 150 million, of Africa's present
population profess Christianity.
That is almost twice the number of
professing Christians 12 years ago;
in 1900 only about 7 per cent of the
total population were Christians.

Opposition to Christianity remains
strong in some countries, however.
In Uganda, for instance, where half
the population is listed as Christian
and the Muslims claim only 6 per
cent, the president of the country
has declared that Islam should be
the "leading" religion in the coun-
try. He is a Muslim.

Reports from the central-Africa
country of Burundi say that Swedish
Pentecostal missionaries are running
the risk of being jailed by the con-

trolling minority (the Tutsi tribe)
for their alleged assistance to 50,000
Hutu refugees who had fled across
the border into Tanzania. The re-
cent civil wars between the Hutus
and the Tutsis have claimed the lives
of more than 100,000. 51

Presbyterians Gather
In Charismatic Meeting

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — The Holy
Spirit "is trying to burst forth for the
whole Church," and the contribu-
tion of the Reformed Church tradi-
tion may lie in the area of theologi-
cal reflection upon His work. So
says Dr. J. Rodman Williams, a lead-
ing Presbyterian theologian who for-
merly taught at Austin (Tex.)
Theological Seminary.

Dr. Williams was one of the lead-
ers of a conference of more than
250 charismatic Presbyterian clergy
from the U. S., Canada and Puerto
Rico who gathered at a Roman
Catholic student center here for a
"Jesus rally," workshops, talks and
prayer on the subject of the Holy
Spirit.

Dr. Williams declared that "one
great Church is beginning to come
together ... a universal Church . . .
a living and vital Church moving in
the power of the Holy Spirit." EE

Ministers' Conference
To Be Held In Wisconsin

ST. LOUIS — Knollwood Presbyte-
rian Lodge, located on Rice Lake,
Birchwood, Wis., will be the place
for a gathering of Presbyterian and
Reformed ministers August 4-11.

The lodge offers a wide variety
of recreational opportunities, but
the main purpose for the conference
is to study the book of Hebrews
from the perspective of the Old and
New Testaments. Leading the stud-
ies will be Dr. J. Barton Payne of
Covenant Theological Seminary in
St. Louis and Dr. Richard Gaffin of
Westminster Theological Seminary
in Philadelphia, Pa.

Inquiries may be addressed to the
Rev. Theodore H. Engstrom, 1007
East Third Street, Merrill, Wis.
54452. 11

PAGE 5 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 25, 1973

THE CHURCH AT HOME

Three Congregations
Dismissed in Florida

CHIPLEY, Fla. — Three congrega-
tions were dismissed to independent
status here during the spring meet-
ing of the Presbytery of Florida.
Three others were judged to have
"substantial minorities" opposing
separation from the Presbyterian
Church US and their request to be
dismissed was refused.

The three who gained their free-
dom included two whose congrega-
tional votes had been unanimous:
Mcllwain Memorial of Pensacola
and New Philadelphia of Quincy.
Presbytery gave its approval by a
vote of 61 to 9.

One of the three had registered a
single dissenting vote in the congre-
gational meeting called to request
dismissal: the Fairfield, Fla., church.
This request was approved by a vote
of 36 to 34.

The ministers of Mcllwain Me-
morial and New Philadelphia, the
Rev. Donald A. Dunkerley and the
Rev. M. Timothy Elder, respectively,
were removed from presbytery's rolls
after they publicly declined to re-
nounce the jurisdiction of the pres-
bytery.

Mr. Dunkerley said, in explain-
ing his stand, "I will not declare that
the Presbyterian Church US is apos-
tate, but I will declare that con-
science leads me to seek another af-
filiation."

The three which were refused dis-
missal are understood to be planning
congregational meetings to decide if
they should separate without permis-
sion.

New Presbytery Formed

Meanwhile, representatives of the
three granted their freedom met im-
mediately and organized a new pres-
bytery which they have named Gulf
Coast Presbytery.

Moderator of the presbytery meet-
ing during the debate on the issue
was the New Philadelphia pastor,
Mr. Elder. A motion to have him
step down from the chair was de-
feated.

After the business had been con-
cluded, Mr. Elder voluntarily
stepped down from the chair. The

presbytery next adopted a resolu-
tion by unanimous vote commend-
ing him for the fair and irenic man-
ner in which he had conducted the
business of the dismissal of the
churches. 51

BWM Increases Budget
Request by $500,000

NASHVILLE — The Presbyterian
US Board of World Missions has
dealt with the problems of dollar
devaluation and overseas inflation
by requesting approval of $6,179,000
for world missions work in 1974.
That is more than a $500,000 in-
crease over the 1973 budget of $5,-
665,000, and it is designed to allow
the board to carry on a work "equal
to but not greater than" that of
1973.

Cost of Living Increases

In other fiscal matters, the board
voted to apply a new cost of living
index to Japan missionary salaries,
beginning March 1. Since January,
the dollar devaluation has advanced
the cost of living figure for the sin-
gle missionary in Japan from $1,080
to $1,632 per year and for the cou-
ple from $2,196 to $3,312 per year.
Japan field budgets were also in-
creased.

Board members approved a $7,400
grant to the World Council of
Churches' Office of Ecumenical
Sharing of Personnel for a project
of the Church and Society Commis-
sion of the National Council of
Churches of New Zealand. The
project is being carried on by a man
who has worked in New Zealand to
combat racial tension.

The board authorized $15,000 per
year for two years to help alleviate
adult illiteracy among Argentina
farmers, as well as $10,800 from 1973
budgeted funds to help establish a
chair of the Director of the Latin
American Studies Center for the
Theological Community in Mexico.

Also authorized was $10,000 per
year for two years to be used for ex-
tension of the Missionary Exchange
Fund sponsored in cooperation with
UNELAM (movement for Evangeli-
cal Unity in Latin America) .

The board plans to hold its last

meeting in the fall. Although trans-
fer of some functions to the new
General Executive Board may pro-
ceed immediately, actual legal trans-
fer is not expected to take effect un-
til the fall meeting but before Jan-
uary 1, 1974. The GEB is sched-
uled to take over all the boards and
agencies of the PCUS before the
year is out.

The board approved 17 new can-
didates for overseas work and reap-
pointed ten others. Commissioning
ceremonies for the missionaries will
be held this summer during the
board's conference at Montreat,
N. C. ffl

James Andrews to be
Stated Clerk of PCUS

ATLANTA — The Rev. James E.
Andrews has been nominated as
stated clerk of the General Assem-
bly of the Presbyterian Church US.
He will succeed the Rev. James A.
Millard Jr., who is resigning in June
after 14 years in the office.

Subject to confirmation by the
General Assembly at its June meet-
ing in Fort Worth, Mr. Andrews
should begin his three-year term in
June of this year.

Mr. Andrews, who has been as-
sistant to the stated clerk since Jan-
uary 1971, was chosen after the spe-
c i a 1 nominating
committee had
screened 15 sug-
gested nominees.
Dr. Harvard An-
derson, chairman
of the committee,
said the Rev. Da-
vid L. Stitt of
Houston had
agreed to allow
his name to be
placed in nomina-
tion but asked to withdraw it when
the Assembly Operation Committee
met.

Mr. Andrews is 44 years old and
a native of Wittenberg, Tex. Or-
dained in Brazos Presbytery (PCUS)
in 1956, he served as assistant pastor
of St. Andrews Presbyterian Church
in Houston from 1956 to 1958. He
was information officer for the
World Alliance of Reformed
Churches in Geneva, Switzerland,
1958-60, and became public rela-
tions director of Princeton Theologi-
cal Seminary in 1960. He served as
assistant to the president of the semi-
nary from 1963 to 1971.

ANDREWS

PAGE 6 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 25, 1973

1

A look at the record shows why conservatives despair to the point of leaving the PCUS —

Down to the Wire

Thou hast given a banner to
them that fear thee, that it
may be displayed because of the
truth. That thy beloved may be
delivered. . . ." (Psa. 60:4-5) . In
this psalm David was saying that
God sent affliction because of the
wickedness of His people. In the
midst of affliction, however, a ban-
ner of God's truth was raised to show
that there is still a place of mercy
and repentance for God's people.
Around it men can rally and find
the comfort and security of God's
love.

This experience of David and Is-
rael is the experience that the Pres-
byterian Church is currently going
through, and this verse is especially
appropriate at this particular time
in history. I believe that God has
put into the hands of His people a
banner to lift before men. This ban-
ner will show to all what He has
revealed and for what His people
stand, in order that men might see
clearly the Gospel of Jesus Christ
and be delivered from the bondage
of sin and the power of death.

ft Used to be Different

When our denomination was be-
gun some 112 years ago, it raised the
Gospel before the Christian Church
at large in a powerfully descriptive
way according to the whole counsel
of God. This is commonly known
as Reformed, and the term comes
from the Reformation. It charac-
terizes that system of doctrine which
encompasses all the doctrines of holy
Scripture. It is unashamed to de-
fine them and describe them accord-

The author is pastor of the First
Presbyterian Church, Henderson-
ville, N. C.

ing to its several confessions, and
the one we claim is the Westminster
Confession of Faith with its Larger
and Shorter Catechisms.

The men who began our Church
were men of vigorous, strong faith,
unashamed of what they believed
and ever ready to represent it be-
fore the world. In defining their
position and presenting the Gospel,
they laid before men a clear body of
theology that has been a course of
thought, a pattern of instruction,
and a means of encouragement to
those of us who have come after
them. Men like James Henry
Thornwell, R. L. Dabney, John L.
Girardeau, and Moses Hoge guided
our Church in its first years, leading
it according to the truth of the Scrip-
tures received from our Lord and
Saviour.

Within the last generation and a
half we have seen this testimony cor-
roded and corrupted by modern
churchmen. The present day result
in our denomination has been that
the Gospel, as it is clearly described
in the Old and New Testaments, is
so poorly understood as to necessi-
tate a "study of salvation" by both
Church leaders and laymen.

As long ago as the mid-1950's, a
PCUS leader published the state-
ment that there was not a professor
of theology at any of our four semi-
naries who heartily accepted and be-
lieved our Westminster Confession
of Faith to which the entire denomi-
nation is committed.

This is indicative of the spirit that
has swept across our Church with re-
markable rapidity and with a truly
surprising degree of permeation.
Last summer commissioners to our
General Assembly heard an hour and
a half of debate on the question of
whether a man has to believe in Je-
sus Christ before he can be saved

JOHN C. NEVILLE JR.

from eternal damnation. One com-
missioner was bold enough to state
on the floor of the General Assem-
bly that he could not believe that a
man had to believe in Jesus Christ
in order to be saved!

In response to the debate, the Gen-
eral Assembly adopted a very gen-
eral definition permitting the inter-
pretation that all will be saved by
Jesus Christ and His grace. This is
a flat repudiation of the corner-
stone doctrine of the Reformation
and one of the primary doctrines of
the Reformed and Presbyterian
Churches, that of justification by
faith alone.

Erroneous and Erratic

For the denomination to have
gone this far in my lifetime is truly
alarming. However, again and again
we find these erroneous and erratic
ideas coming out in various places.

At the 1960 General Assembly in
Jacksonville, Florida, a brand new
commentary on the Westminster
Confession appeared on the book ta-
ble. As I leafed through it, I found
a denial of almost everything Pres-
byterians have always held to be
true: The Bible was not the h>
spired Word of God, the only infal-
lible rule of faith and practice;
Christ did not save men by dying
for their sins; God was not a God of
providence and predestination.

In response to reading this
book, I asked the General Assembly
to accept a resolution insisting that
all the boards and agencies of the
Church, particularly the Board of
Christian Education, conform all
their publications to the confession
and catechisms.

I expected a negative reaction,
but I did not expect to be booed
off the podium.

PAGE 7 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 25, 1973

The General Assembly was on the
spot. If it rejected my resolution, it
was on the record as denying that to
which it was committed. If it ac-
cepted my resolution, it would throw
the beloved baby of the administra-
tion and establishment, the Board of
Christian Education, into a theologi-
cal turmoil. So the resolution was
tabled, with no action taken at all.
Since that time events have grown
wilder and worse.

Wilder and Worse

Just a few years ago our Board of
Christian Education joined with
two other denominations in publish-
ing a magazine that advocated the
use of drugs by our young people
and the practice of premarital sex.
The General Assembly failed to cen-
sure the Board for its action or to
bar publication of the magazine.

Departure from the Confession of
Faith and the Catechisms has con-
tinued in various ways. Just two
years ago the Board of National
Ministries set up a denomination-
wide abortion referral service.
Through it they would refer any
woman who wanted to have an abor-
tion to a doctor who would do it if
she did not have one. If she could
not pay for it, they would.

In that service they quickly used
over $100,000 donated for that single
purpose. An appeal was made to
the General Assembly for more mon-
ey to continue the service, and in
one year alone over $90,000 has been
used. This is the kind of practice
that has grieved the heart of many
who are concerned for the well-being
of the Church and the testimony of
God's Word.

Because of trends and practices
like these, L. Nelson Bell with a few
ministers and elders began the pub-
lication known as the Presbyterian
Journal in 1942. He served as associ-
ate editor until August 1971. In the
late 1950's, because of increasing un-
belief and immorality within the
Church, a group of laymen formed
a group called Concerned Presbyte-
rians. This action set a pattern for
similar lay movements in many oth-
er denominations.

In the United Presbyterian Church
USA, its counterpart is known as
Presbyterian Laymen, Incorporated.
Since the early 1960s, the Con-
cerned Presbyterians have endeav-
ored to alert the laymen of the
Church to what is going on in the
upper echelons of our denomina-

tion.

In the early 1960's, because our
Board of National Ministries was
not maintaining or sustaining any
real evangelism program, a group
of ministers formed the Presbyterian
Evangelistic Fellowship. These min-
isters moved throughout the denomi-
nation holding evangelistic services,
teaching congregations how to win
souls for Jesus Christ and how to lead
them into maturity. To the surprise
of many, this has been a wonderful-
ly successful organization.

In the late 1960's, ministers of the
Church who were concerned origi-
nated the organization known as
Presbyterian Churchmen United. In
the fall of 1970, newspapers in ma-
jor cities of the South carried full
page advertisements with the names
of over 500 ministers. These min-
isters subscribed to a statement that
they stood for the Gospel as de-
scribed in the Scripture, that the
Scriptures are the Word of God, and
that the Confession of Faith and
Catechisms faithfully reflect them.

These men were willing to say that
there might come a time when they
would have to do whatever was nec-
essary to maintain the integrity of
their ordination vows. Since then,
this group of men, Presbyterian
Churchmen United, has had a re-
markable influence in showing what
is going on in the life of the Church
and in directing those who were con-
cerned for the Church's welfare.

Vanguard Established

In the summer of 1971, the leader-
ship of the Presbyterian Journal, the
Concerned Presbyterians, the Pres-
byterian Evangelistic Fellowship,
and Presbyterian Churchmen Unit-
ed formed a steering committee.
Over the past year and a half, this
steering committee has attempted
to assess and evaluate what was hap
pening in our Church and to give
leadership to people who were con-
cerned.

In the past few months we have
seen congregations who have become
so exasperated at the situation that
they have withdrawn from the de-
nomination. Last fall the Vanguard
Presbytery was formed when seven
congregations in Maryland, Vir-
ginia, Georgia, North Carolina and
Alabama — mostly former members
of the Presbyterian Church US,
formed an independent presbytery
to continue their witness.

Then 20 congregations in the west-

ern part of Alabama voted to peti-
tion Tuscaloosa Presbytery to be dis-
missed so that they could form their
own presbytery. Upon dismissal,
they immediately convened to form
Warrior Presbytery, named for one
of the largest rivers in that part of
Alabama. Here are two striking in-
stances of congregations forming
their own presbyteries true to the
Word of God and to the Confession
of Faith to which they are commit-
ted.

'Betrayed the Brethren*

A few weeks ago the committee of
32 on union between the Presbyte-
rian Church US and the United
Presbyterian Church USA met in
Dallas, Texas. This committee is
officially three and a half years old.
For more than 20 years union has
been discussed between these two
Church bodies. In that time it has
been tacitly understood that there
would be an "escape clause" for
those congregations who did not
want to go into a union. The
UPUSA committee members have
respected this request.

The Committee of 32 was sched-
uled to present the plan of union to
our General Assembly meeting in
Fort Worth this summer. At the
Dallas meeting, most of the members
from the PCUS objected to a vote in
1973 and expressed opposition to the
escape clause. In fact, it was suggest-
ed that the present plan should be
scrapped and a new one re-written
to be submitted to the 1974 (not
1973) Assembly — and for study only.

Mr. Williamson, the conservative
layman on the PCUS committee,
said this expression was so unexpect-
ed that the Committee of 16 of the
UPUSA were infuriated. UPUSA
Stated Clerk William Thompson
went so far as to say this:

"Before coming into church work
I was a lawyer. For 25 years I dealt
with individuals and groups both
Christian and non-Christian, but
you (pointing to the Committee of
16 from the PCUS) are the most
undependable group I have ever
met. In my opinion, you have been
dishonest, you have betrayed the
brethren who trusted your integ-
rity."

He added, "Your conduct has re-
lieved me of any obligation or com-
mitment I previously made to sup-
port the escape clause. Henceforth

(Continued on p. 22, col. 1)

PAGE 8 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 25, 1973

Some sharp words of criticism for the Presbyterian Church US —

Because I Love the Church

omeone once said, "To criti-
cize the Church is, in one re-

spect, to do it a service and pay it
a compliment: a service because it
might spur it to do better, a compli-
ment because it implies a belief that
it can indeed do better."

When I criticize my Church, I
criticize for the same reason I criti-
cize one of my children — because
I love it. I believe my criticism evi-
dences more than a passing interest
in what the Church does, but if this
article sounds arbitrary, it is because
I have the habit of being candid
when I should be tactful.

A psychiatrist would probably say
this represents a serious character
defect, but on the other hand, if it
were not for guys like me, he would
be out of business!

During the past few years I have
reached the firm conclusion that the
Presbyterian Church US has com-
pletely lost its sense of direction.
The more I read of the antics and
pronouncements of those in its ranks
in positions of authority, the more I
am convinced it has ceased to be a
great force for Christ in the world.

No longer does one hear the clar-
ion call for repentance and witness
to the Word of God in Church pro-
nouncements, or the urgency of salva-
tion in its preachments. No longer
does it affirm its great doctrines or
denounce sin. Instead of faith,
grace and morality we hear politics,
psychology and social ethics. God,
Christ and the Holy Spirit have been
replaced by civil rights, liberation
and social priorities.

The Church does not believe its
own doctrines or abide by its own
constitution; instead of telling the
world to repent and believe, it tells

The author, a Presbyterian elder,
lives in Elberlon, Ga.

the world to demonstrate and boy-
cott. God is no longer pictured as
a God of judgment, only as a God
of love. By its constant preoccupa-
tion with race, politics and social is-
sues, the Church lias diverted its en-
ergy and its funds to a false mission.

In the name of "relevance," "be-
ing more fully human" and "ful-
fillment," it seems to embrace every
perverted, dreary idea that comes
along.

Boards Alienate

The program boards of the
Church, with the exception of the
Board of Annuities and Relief, are
hardly anything more than moral-
izing agents and apologists these
days. They seem incapable of pro-
gramming a sustained Christ-cen-
tered Biblical emphasis, and they
support and lend sympathy to the
idea that Christ becomes "relevant"
only when He is made out to be a
reformer and a revolutionary in a
world of social and political values.
They are hung up on gimmickry,
novelty and innovation and contrib-
ute more toward alienation than rec-
onciliation in the process.

Some Presbyterians will not allow
any of their money to leave the con-
gregation and I am one of them. The
congregation to which I belong gives
30 per cent right off the top to be-
nevolences. This is undesignated
money which is equalized through
presbytery's central treasurer. The
accounting given to the local church
on the way this money is spent, with
the exception of the presbytery lev-
el, rarely if ever reflects a break-
down beyond the general funding
agencies to which it is given.

If our local congregation really
knew the use to which this money
is put, most of them would probably
be unwilling for it to leave. I called

J. WILLIAM HYDE

this to the attention of the session
three years ago, suggesting that we
withhold our money and work out
our own program, but the answer I
got was, "If we're going to be Pres-
byterian, let's be Presbyterian," and,
"We will penalize more good causes
than bad ones."

My reaction is that it is just as
wrong to give to bad causes as to
withhold from good causes, and to
fail to question these causes because
they happen to be Presbyterian is
not the Protestant way at all. We
are called Protestant for a very good
reason and I will not swear blind
allegiance to the boards and agen-
cies of the Presbyterian Church. I
am concerned about how my money
is spent, and I am not going to pros-
titute this concern in order to be
loyal to the General Assembly.

The primary reason why the
boards of the Church pay no atten-
tion to the protests of the average
church member has been brought
about precisely because of this dis-
torted sense of loyalty. Because there
are enough people who think like
this, they know these protests will
get nowhere through normal church
channels.

'Act of Lunacy*

The institutional Church, includ-
ing the Presbyterian Church US, has
contributed to the social crisis we
now face in our society. It supports
law-breakers, encourages draft-dodg-
ers and deserters, along with a host
of other "imperatives" on the pre-
text of a "higher power" and "con-
science."

It does this because its mission
is no longer spiritual. It is not
aimed at men. It is aimed at society,
but as someone has said, "To think
of changing the world by changing
the people in it is an act of great

PAGE 9 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 25, 1973

faith; to talk of changing it with-
out changing the people in it is an
act of lunacy." The heart of the
Gospel is the clear and certain call
to faith. The Church was not cre-
ated to serve but to call men to
serve.

The Bible indicates that Jesus
chose not to lead any social or po-
litical revolution, nor did He or-
ganize any institution for this pur-
pose. The only organization He cre-
ated was the Church and He com-
missioned it to one primary task:
to confront men with the redeeming
love of God which was made mani-
fest in His own death and resurrec-
tion.

The Church, while seeking to im-
pose its own morality upon the so-
cial issues of the day, has neglected
to preach Christ and individual mo-
rality to those who helped create
the social problems in the first place,
in order to bring them to new life.

It has become so secularized that
it is no longer in the world but of
the world, and ironically it seems
to be in need of the same salvation
it has neglected to dispense. With
its massive orientation toward so-
cial and political problems, it has
become top heavy with theological
bureaucrats who insist on treating
the symptoms, not the disease.

Man's main problem, however, is
not social and political. His social
and political ills stem from his mor-
al and spiritual bankruptcy, and the
Church is treating only the results,
not the cause. Only when the
Church recognizes the obvious, that
man is unregenerate and alienated
from God, will it begin to impose

the real solution, the reconciling
message of Christ. It has no higher
calling and no greater mission than
this.

The Church has also contributed
to the ability of the enemy in Viet-
nam to prolong the war by contin-
ual denunciation of U. S. involve-
ment, with never a word of criticism
about the other side. However,
when history makes its final judg-
ment on this war, I think it will
conclude that it was the most moral
war the U. S. ever fought. When
a mighty nation is willing to com-
mit its resources and power to main-
tain the sovereignty of a small na-
tion, freedom stands tall. The war
could have ended any time the
North was willing to stop invading
the South, but the Church never
mentioned this fact.

Issue of Amnesty

The war is supposedly over now,
but the next related issue will be
that of amnesty for the 70,000 plus
who either left this country to avoid
serving it or deserted later. Watch
for the Church to insist on total am-
nesty on humanitarian grounds and
the conviction that the war was im-
moral.

The concept that a man should
be allowed to decide with impunity
whether he will serve in any partic-
ular war undercuts, of course, the
ability of a nation to defend itself
and its right to require its citizens
to take up arms in that defense. A
nation's capacity, indeed its duty,
to defend itself against its enemies

The High Galling

Preaching is so high a calling and
so difficult that all of us must pray
Luther's great sacristy prayer: "Use
me as Thy instrument in Thy ser-
vice. Only do not Thou forsake
me, for if I am left to myself, I will
certainly bring it all to destruction."

The ease with which the preaching
office can be brought to destruction
— the ease with which the foolish-
ness of preaching can be replaced by
the preaching of foolishness — im-
pels us to consider the criteria for
genuine sermonizing in today's
world. These are: the essentiality
of the Word, the irreducibility of

law and Gospel, and the centrality
of Christ.

The distinguishing mark of the
preacher lies in the content of his
remarks: unlike all other public
speakers, he claims to convey a di-
vine truth, not human opinion — a
given truth that has absolute, apodic-
tic force, not a tentative presenta-
tion of his own opinions or those of
other finite and fallible creatures. All
other speakers say, "Thus hypothe-
sizes man." The preacher cries,
"Thus saith the Lord." — John
Warwick Montgomery in Chris-
tianity Today. 33

is essential to national survival. To-
tal amnesty for Vietnam cop-outs
would not only destroy the founda-
tion upon which national defense
rests but would mock the young
men who served loyally, to say noth-
ing of those who died.

'Right' to Break Laws

It is strange, too, that the Church
never has anything to say about
breaking the law except to reaffirm
the right of the law breakers to do
so. One would think that once the
Church got around to the morality
involved they would have something
to say about punishment.

After all, it is incumbent upon a
society to punish those who have no
regard for its orderly processes. "Be-
cause sentence against an evil deed
is not executed speedily" says the
Bible, "the heart of the sons of men
is fully set in them to do evil" (Eccl.
8:11) .

The Church, however, does not
seem to believe this. Convinced, it
seems, that the purpose of a jail
sentence is only to rehabilitate and
not to prevent or punish crime,
they would have the criminal say
to society, "I demand, in the name
of your principles, a freedom which
I then refuse you in the name of
mine" (The October Crisis) .

The Church is now opposing cap-
ital punishment. This supposedly
humane dogma — humane for the
killer but inhumane for the victim
— asserts that murder is a relatively
minor crime. To say, however, that
murder is no longer a capital of-
fense cheapens human life to a far
greater degree than the refusal to
put to death those who commit the
offense. Making life safe for mur-
derers is a questionable goal for the
Church of Jesus Christ.

Somewhere I read this: "A Church
that can tolerate blasphemy, close
its eyes to sacrilege, and consider
heresy to be of no consequence, is
in danger of becoming apostate."
Would it not then be the supreme
irony if the Church, called upon one
day to decide whether or not it was
Christian, finally rejected the Christ
who established it?

Like many who protest, I some-
times have the tendency to criticize
without being able to offer a posi-
tive solution. In the case of our
Church, however, the solution is so
simple I wonder why our leaders
don't try it: a return to the Gospel
of Jesus Christ.

PAGE 10 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 25, 1973

Berkouwer's
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PAGE 11 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 25, 1973

EDITORIALS

Looking Back

28 years ago in the Journal —

Twenty-eight years ago, in the is-
sue for December 15, 1945, an-
nouncement was made in the Jour-
nal of the formation of a Commit-
tee for a Continuing Church. Under
the heading, "Continuing Church
Committee Holds Meet in Atlanta,"
the announcement read in part as
follows:

"Last August (1945) over 100
friends and supporters of the South-
ern Presbyterian Church met in
Montreat, N. C. At that time a
Continuing Church Committee was
appointed to promote a vigorous and
aggressive educational program to
inform our people upon the major
issues involved in the Plan of Union
with the USA Church.

"The Continuing Committee met
in the Piedmont Hotel in Atlanta,
Ga., on Tuesday, November 6.
Twenty-nine ruling elders and min-
isters, representing ten of our synods,
were present for this meeting. We
also had communications from the
committee's representatives in oth-
er synods.

"A permanent organization was
set up as follows: Rev. C. G. Mc-
Clure, chairman; Rev. Ferguson
Wood, co-chairman; Rev. Henry B.
Dendy, secretary. . . .

"A legal committee on church
property was appointed. . . ."

(Then followed several sections
of a statement in which develop-
ments were specified that would
make the future intolerable for
Southern Presbyterians. Among
these: diminishing the parity of the
eldership; ordination of women; re-
structuring into regional synods;
creation of a General Council;
changes in property laws; intro-
ducing an emphasis on social issues
similar to that existing at the time
within the Northern Church.)

The statement adopted in Atlan-
ta concluded:

"Already the agitation for organic
union has been a fruitful source of
disunity and discord, and has fur-
nished a breeding place for politics
in our Church courts for the past
lifty years. It is Satan's way of divert-
ing us from the true mission of the

Church. We pray for peace.

"The question therefore remains:
Why should not the Southern Pres-
byterian Church continue its sep-
arate existence until the time comes
when union with other groups can
be effected which will promote real
Christian unity rather than contro-
versy and division?' "

It has taken 28 years to answer
that question, but this year the an-
swer will be given. It will be given
clearly, positively and effectively as
the Continuing Church envisioned
in that meeting in Atlanta finally
comes into being. Ill

When Language
Confuses

The letter from the esteemed ex-
ecutive director of the National Pres-
byterian and Reformed Fellowship
on p. 2 of this issue once again il-
lustrates how serious an endeavor it
is to undertake to express an opin-
ion for the consideration of others,
and how fallible we all are in such
an endeavor.

It also illustrates a problem, as
Churches are reborn, that will de-
mand ever more attention as align-
ments in the Churches are altered
and brethren begin to determine the
basis on which they will make com-
mon cause with other brethren.

In the editorial to which Mr. Gra-
ham refers, we were attempting to re-
late a specific phenomenon (the re-
vival of our time which is making
itself felt in unusual and spectacular
ways) to the subject of the renewal
of the old establishment.

This is an important matter be-
cause many people are noting the re-
vival (Bible study and prayer groups
in schools, student "cells" in col-
leges and universities, secular radio
stations featuring Gospel songs, con-
gregations experiencing the power
of the Holy Spirit in unusual ways) .
Some are saying, "Maybe the situa-
tion as to the Presbyterian Church
US isn't hopeless after all."

We were trying to make the point
that the signs of revival may not say
anything about the health of the es-
tablishment because the revival it-

self does not seem to be flowing
from the establishment, any estab-
lishment, in any measurable degree.
And the situation in the PCUS is
hopeless.

In this we were trying to distin-
guish between the very fine testi-
mony borne by conservative denomi-
nations, and a specific phenomenon,
a revival, that seems to have begun.

We've checked out our impression
with some of the most conservative
denominational leaders in America
outside the Reformed tradition —
in the Baptist General Conference,
the Conservative Baptists, the Assem-
blies of God — as well as some of
the groups inside the Reformed tra-
dition mentioned by Mr. Graham.
All have rejoiced in what God seems
to be doing in our time, but all have
agreed: "We had nothing to do
with it. It seems to be springing up
spontaneously by the Holy Spirit in
the most unusual places!"

The point of the editorial (very
fallibly expressed) was that if the
current revival says anything to us,
it is that new forms of the Church
may be in the offing, not that ex-
isting forms, such as the PCUS, will
be rejuvenated.

That opinion still stands.

The question now: Can we, in the
coming realignment of the Church
es, make common cause with breth
ren whose views do not coincide ex-
actly with our own, but who love
the Lord Jesus Christ with equal sin-
cerity? God helping us, we in-
tend to. IB

Of Confirmation
And the Lord's Supper

Early this year it was reported that
the Permanent Theological Com-
mittee of the Presbyterian Church
US had completed its work on two
assignments: 1) the nature of con
firmation as Presbyterians under-
stand it, and 2) whether the PCUS
should join other major denomina-
tions in admitting baptized children
who are not yet church members to
the Lord's Supper.

The confirmation issue was tied,
in the assignment and in the com-
mittee's report, to the problem con-
fronting Hanover presbytery when
it discovered that Prof. J. A. Ross
MacKenzie of Union Seminary in
Richmond had been confirmed in
the Episcopal Church in order to
serve an Episcopal congregation, in
a pastoral role.

Not unexpectedly, the theological

PAGE 12 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 25 1973

THE LAYMAN AND HIS CHURCH

The Cult of Comfort

committee finds in favor of dual con-
firmation, noting that we already
permit ministers to function in two
denominations (as in union presby-
teries) , consequently: ". . . we see
no theological reason why such a
further exception could not be made
as long as provisions are made for
good order."

In the matter of baptized children
at the Lord's Table, the committee
offers the interesting suggestion that
sessions should examine children for
admission to the Lord's Table and
provide a ceremony for such a mile-
stone before the time of examina-
tion for full confirmed membership.

Such a suggestion, if adopted by
the General Assembly, would be sub-
ject to immediate and flagrant mis-
understanding — witness the news
stories reporting the committee's
conclusions when they first appeared.
The stories unanimously implied
that the committee had recommend-
ed simply making the Supper avail-
able to all baptized children. The
committee did no such thing, and
in this regard it has showed an un-
usual and unexpected degree of re-
sponsible theological judgment.

What the committee suggests is
the possibility of an examination as
to faith in Christ before another ex-
amination as to maturity in church-
manship, both examinations, pre-
sumably, to be conducted in much
the same way.

The committee would separate the
age when sin is recognized and faith
is publicly professed from the age
when the child knows what "the
church as a ministering community"
is all about.

In other words, the baptized child
would be allowed by distinct action
of the session to enter one door
when he clearly exhibits "the ability
to discern, to separate, to distin-
guish," in the words of the commit-
tee. He would be allowed to pass
through the second door into fully
confirmed membership when he is
ready to vote and to hold office.

The session would be required to
maintain separate membership rolls,
distinguishing between the two lev-
els of participation in the congrega-
tion's worship and life.

We find ourselves rather enthusi-
astic over the principle suggested. If
a real examination as to faith in
Christ takes place, and if real ma-
turity in churchmanship is required
for the second step (at least the
voting age?) , the effect could be
quite beneficial. IB

A prominent preacher said, "Cults
are of the devil," but he did not
specify a new cult which has become
an impediment to the growth of
Christ's Church. This is the cult
of comfort, and the devil is promot-
ing this one, too. Its followers are ir-
responsive, or perhaps lazy, church
members who want to be known as
religious, provided that it is not too
demanding of their time.

They have an "ease in Zion" at-
titude that has slowed down the
Lord's work, thereby weakening the
witness of the Church. Such non-
productive members have received
God's blessing of salvation and on
Sunday are hearers of the Word. But
somehow they seem to never have
been impressed by the fact that they
are expected to be doers, giver-out-
ers, as well as receivers.

Comfort-cultists place undue em-
phasis upon what religion can do
for them, as if God existed primarily
to keep them happy and comfortably
uninvolved. Christianity is more
than self, however, more than per-
sonal comfort. According to Scrip-
ture, both are expendable, for the
love gift of salvation given by God
through Christ requires dedication
regardless of cost.

With the receiving of that incom
parable gift of salvation goes the re-
sponsibility to share it. This neces-
sitates that effort and time should
be expended to tell others who
Christ is and what He has done for
mankind.

When Christ is Saviour and mas-
ter, Christians regard their time as
His time. They seek to use it as He
wants it used, and not to waste it
on the merry-go-round of ease and
entertainment. For example, they
are not to be glued to one TV pro-
gram after another, most of which
produce a zero result in terms of
service to their Lord.

Almost equally harmful is the
added probability that the deepest

This week the layman's column
and the cartoon were contributed
by A. Wayne Wilhelm, Black Moun-
tain, N. C.

impulses of their lives are being
spellbound, even destroyed, by the
usual meaningless trash that the net-
works offer. Hypnotized by the
dreamworld before them, they be-
come segregated from reality. The
TV god takes over and becomes their
master.

An overwhelming feeling of lais-
sez-faire develops to the degree that
problems and responsibilities become
irritating. Dulled by the constant
watching of television drivel, they
become dehumanized as well as de-
spiritualized, and their Christian
witness dries up.

The Christian has an exalted task
before him that God requires to be
done. As God's servant he is sum-

moned to glorify God in the way he
uses his intelligence and body, a
mind and body uncontaminated by
the empty rot that many TV pro-
grams promote.

Of course, it is true that there are
some worthwhile programs that can
be a blessing. The evil occurs when
the Christian viewer becomes en-
slaved by his television, god and mas-
ter regardless of the program, there-
by neglecting the program of the
Master. Participation in God's pro-
gram is not optional for the Chris-
tian. God demands His all in loving
service, with his time not wasted but
redeemed and used for His glory.
"Make the most of your chances to
tell others the good news" (Col. 4:
5 Living Letters) .

Many who are weak in the faith
will close their ears to such an ap-

(Continued on p. 22, col. 1)

PAGE 13 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 25, 1973

0

SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON

For May 13, 1973

Christ Makes Men Brothers

Rev. Jack B. Scott

INTRODUCTION: Because we
hear so much today about the broth-
erhood of man in a non-Biblical
sense, it is imperative to understand
what the Bible does teach us about
brothers.

In one sense it is true that we are
all brothers. We all come from one
father and mother, Adam and Eve,
so a natural brotherhood of all men
is derived from our common origin
in the flesh. For some, this natural
tie is even closer. Some of us are
of the same race and have a closer
natural tie. Some of us are of the
same immediate parents and have
an even closer natural relationship.

However, none of these natural
ties brings us any closer in the truest
or spiritual sense. Some of the great-
est enmity in Scripture was expressed
between people who had the same
parents, such as Cain and Abel,
Jacob and Esau, Joseph and his
brothers. Such natural brother-
hoods do not make men brothers in
the truest sense.

Brotherhood, being brothers spir-
itually and therefore loving one an-
other, is not of the natural man.
Therefore, to speak of the brother-
hood of man as though it follows
that all men naturally should or can
love one another reciprocally is a
non-Biblical concept. Spiritually we
are not all in the same family. In
the truest sense we do not all have
the same father.

The true father of some is Satan,
the devil. Jesus clearly recognized
and declared this even to some Jews
who could claim to be descended
from Abraham according to the flesh
(John 8:44) . God is the father of
those who love Christ and who have
put their trust in Him (John 8:42) .

Essentially the Scripture recog-
nizes only this basic division of men
into two families: The family of
God's children really are brothers
in the truest sense, though of many
races of men. The family of Satan,
however, is hostile to God's people
and ultimately will seek to destroy
God's family, as Cain, who was of
the evil one, sought to destroy Abel,
who had faith in God and was God's

Background Scripture: Acts 11:4-

18; Galatians 3:23-29; Ephesians

2:11-22; I John 4:7-12
Key Verses: Ephesians 2:11-16; I

John 4:7-12
Devotional Reading: Matthew 12:

46-50

Memory Selection: Galatians 3:28

child. (Compare I John 3:12 and
Hebrews 11:4.)

If we are to understand what it
means to say Christ makes men
brothers, we must begin with the
natural state of man.

I. NATURAL MAN IS AT EN-
MITY WITH GOD AND HIS
CHILDREN (Gen. 3:15). God
Himself established enmity as the
separator between the children of
Satan and His own children.

When Adam and Eve sinned, they
became then God's enemies. All the
children born of them were like
them spiritually in a natural sense.
All were naturally at odds with God.
Paul said just this: "We also all once
lived in the lust of our flesh . . .
and were by nature children of
wrath, even as the rest" (Eph. 2:
1-3). , , u

God determined from the begin-
ning to have a people, holy and sin-
less, to live in His presence in a re-
lationship of love. Except for His
grace, none would have been saved,
none could rightly be called the chil-
dren of God. No one is naturally
God's child. We become God's chil-
dren by His supernatural work of
rebirth to bring us into His family.
This He does out of His grace and
goodness, not because of or by any-
thing we have done (Eph. 2:8-9, Tit.
3:5-7) .

Faith in Jesus Christ makes men
brothers in the real and meaningful
sense (John 1:12). Without that,
we continue at enmity with God
and with our fellow men; indeed,
we must be.

The Old Testament constantly

The International Sunday School Lesson Outlines
are copyrighted 1972 by the Committee on the
Uniform Series of the National Council of
Churches of Christ.

warned God's children not to make
peace with the world or men in the
world. When men do unite, it is
to unite against God, leaving Him
out. (See the account of Babel in
Genesis 11: Iff.) God is concerned
that His children make no alliances
with the pagans around them.

God has ordained enmity between
His children and the children of Sa-
tan because any peace or alliance be-
tween the two will destroy His peo-
ple. This is evidently what hap-
pened in the time before the flood
and is the meaning of Genesis 6:2.
The flood came as judgment on all
men because God's children had so
intermingled with the children of
Satan in the world that they had lost
their identity and distinctiveness.

Later when the Lord separated
Abraham from his pagan back-
ground (Josh. 24:2-3) , He kept
Abraham and his seed from min-
gling with the unbelieving Canaan-
ites. When He called His people
out of Egypt, He separated them
from the Egyptians, and later from
the Canaanites. In all of their deal-
ings He warned them not to be in-
termingled with the unbelieving pa-
gans of Canaan.

To stress this, God established dis-
tinctions between the clean and un-
clean animals and other things so
that the people would develop a
sense of holiness. The book of Le-
viticus deals with this instilling of
a sense of clean and unclean in His
people (Lev. 20:24-25, 22:31-33). j
Make no mistake about it, God's
people must never forget that they
are different. They are distinctly
God's people. To forget this, as Is-
rael did later when she made al-
liances with unbelievers and mar-
ried with them, is fatal to the
Church.

All through the Old Testameni
God never ceased to remind His peo-
ple of this truth and warned them
by the prophets over and over when
they began to live no longer as God's
children but as the children of Sa-
tan.

Even after the return from cap-
tivity, through Ezra and Nehemiah

PAGE 14 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 25, 1973

God again called the people to be
His unique people and to cease mar-
rying with unbelievers. They were
distinct and must remain so.

II. THE GOSPEL MAKES
BROTHERS (Acts 11:4-18; Gal. 3:
23-29; Eph. 2:11-22). We begin
properly with a vision which God
gave to Peter, one of His apostles
(Acts 11). Peter was familiar with
the Old Testament laws on cleanli-
ness and uncleanliness. He knew
that God's people should not inter-
mingle with unbelief. For him and
all Jews of that day, "unbeliever"
meant primarily the Gentile.

Therefore, for Peter and probably
the other apostles of Jesus Christ
the concept of preaching the Gos-
pel to Gentiles was out of the ques-
tion. They saw rightly that one
could not count the Gentiles as
brothers just because of the Gospel
of Jesus Christ. Enmity between
God's children and the children of
Satan still existed. Had not Christ
Himself clearly distinguished be-
tween the two families, that of God
and that of Satan?

What Peter and the early Church
did not comprehend was that God
was ready to break forth by His
grace into the pagan world and
make believers out of multitudes of
the Gentiles, just as He had once
broken through into the paganism
of Abraham's day and called Abra-
ham their father according to the
flesh to be His child.

This was no after thought on
the part of the Lord. When He
called Abraham, He promised to in-
clude the nations of the world in
His blessing of this one man (Gen.
12:3) . Through the prophets time
and again God spoke of ultimate
blessings on the Gentiles as well as
the Jews.

Perhaps this is what Jesus alluded
to when He said, "Other sheep I
have which are not of this fold:
them also I must bring, and they
shall hear my voice; and they shall
become one flock, one shepherd"
(John 10:16). Certainly this is
what Jesus meant on the day of His
ascension to heaven when He com-
manded that the Gospel be preached
to all nations (Matt. 28:19-20) .

When God began to speak to Pe-
ter that day, already information
had been coming to the disciples
that Gentiles were receiving God's
word (Acts 11:1). They needed to
see not that distinctions were no
longer necessary between believers

and unbelievers, but that when God
brought the Gospel to a Gentile he
was no longer outside God's family
but in it, just as were these Jewish
believers. What God had cleansed
by His grace was not to be consid-
ered unclean by the Jewish believ-
ers (11:9).

Peter concluded that this vision
taught the important lesson that
what divides men is not whether
they are Jew or Gentile, but whether
they are believer or unbeliever. Jews
who did not believe were not broth-
ers to Peter, even though according
to the flesh they were of the same
family and even perhaps the same
parents.

On the other hand, Gentiles who
did believe were fully brothers with
Peter and the other Jewish believ-
ers although of entirely different cul-
tures and backgrounds (Acts 10:
34ff.) .

The same is true today and what-
ever man-made distinctions divide
Christians in the world should not
be allowed to cause enmities be-
tween true believers. I have known
Presbyterian ministers who reject
the authority of Scripture and the
Lordship of Christ; it is impossible
for me to have any real fellowship
with that kind of person. We are
not of the same spiritual family.

At the same time, I have known
Baptist and Methodist ministers who
honor God's Word and believe in
Jesus Christ, and with them I have
had a close spiritual bond, though
we do not agree on all theological
points.

The point is this: God recognizes
only two kinds of men, believers
and unbelievers. When we let oth-
er differences, whether regional, na-
tional, denominational, racial, class
or any other such distinctions divide
Christians and establish enmity be-
tween them, then we sin.

This is clearly what Paul meant
in writing to the Galatians. All who
believe in the Lord are one man in
Jesus Christ. Other barriers that
tend to divide men in this world
cannot divide Christians, although
differences still exist. Certainly a
believing slave and a believing free
man continue to be slave and free,
in one sense, after believing. But for
Christians to treat fellow Christians,
who are also slaves, as different or
less, is sin.

Males continue to be males and
females continue to be females in
the Church. God has rightly or-
dained tasks for each in His Church,

and to treat the female Christian
as inferior is sin.

Today some Christians are wealthy
and some are poor. Some own big
businesses and some are day laborers.
Differences exist in the way they
live but to treat the rich with re-
spect and the poor with disdain is
sin. James warned against this
strongly (2:2-9) .

There are white Christians and
black Christians, yellow and brown
ones. In God's sight, the color of the
skin or difference in racial features
is no basis for excluding some from
fellowship in Christ's Church. To
exclude others from Christian fel-
lowship and worship because they
look different is sin.

As Paul said here in Galatians,
"If ye are Christ's then are ye Abra-
ham's seed, heirs according to prom-
ise" (3:29) . The real children of
God have a faith like that of Abra-
ham and are joint heirs of Christ.

Last time we looked at Ephesians
2:1-10 and saw how we all began as
Satan's children, but by God's grace
and work of salvation in us we have
become His children. In verses 11-
22 Paul went on to conclude that
there is no enmity between Chris-
tians. God has brought peace be-
tween us.

There is no excuse for anyone in
God's household to feel like a
stranger (v. 19) . We all are built
together into God's family; we are
called and brought so that each one
supplies spiritual strength and bless-
ing to another in the Lord. Paul
spoke of the true Church of Jesus
Christ which is bound together by
the bonds of Christian love.

III. CHRISTIAN LOVE IS
THE BOND (I John 4:7-12).
When John said, "Let us love one
another," he was speaking to Chris-
tians about Christians, of a bond
of love among fellow Christians (v.
15) . No Christian can rightly be
called a Christian if he hates his
brother (v. 20) . Again, John spoke
to Christians about Christians.

I emphasize this because some
teach that Christians are to love all
men as brothers, regardless of their
faith or lack of faith. This is not
the Gospel and to teach that is to
deny God's Word and all it teaches
about the real enmity and differ-
ence that exist between believer and
unbeliver.

Someone will say that Jesus taught
us to love our enemies (Matt. 5:44) .

PAGE 15 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 25, 1973

This is so, but He does not call them
our brothers. He calls them our
enemies! It is one thing to love
your enemy, the unbeliever, in Jesus
Christ, and to pray for him and to
witness to him, giving of yourself
to bring him to know Jesus even
though he may persecute you.

It is quite another to deal with
him as a brother and to ignore the
fact that he is Satan's child and at
enmity with you. The first is the
Christian's duty, the second is folly
and disastrous to you and to Christ's
Church.

The enemy is still the enemy. By
God's grace and love to you, you are
enabled to love him, though he is
your enemy, in such a way as to de-

sire his salvation and to do him good
even though he fights and despises
you.

Having made that important
point, we return to John's first epis-
tle. Here and elsewhere John
taught that Christian love among
God's children is such that no dif-
ference in them is allowed to sep-
arate them or to cause them in any
way to exclude one another. Chris-
tians' loving one another is the
greatest testimony to the unbeliev-
ing world of the power of God to
change men.

When all barriers that normally
keep men divided in this world fall
among Christian believers, the world
is amazed. Tragically, all too often

such is not the case and Christians
treat other Christians with less than
Christian love. In such cases the
world sneers at the Church and
Christ is dishonored among men.

Of all of the fruits of the Spirit,
Christian love is the greatest (I Cor.
13; Gal. 5:22). Each of us is re-
sponsible to cultivate that fruit in
our lives. As we do, it will often be
a means of bringing an unbeliever
from death to life, from Satan's fam-
ily to that of Christ. When we show
love for the believer, it will draw us
closer together as true brothers and
close to the Lord and redound to the
praise and glory of our Lord, who
loved us first and gave Himself
for us. II

YOUTH PROGRAM

Scripture: "For me to live is Christ"

Philippians 1:21
Suggested Hymns:

"All Hail the Power of Jesus'
Name"

"When I Survey the Wondrous
Cross"

"Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus"

INTRODUCTION BY PRO-
GRAM CHAIRMAN: (Read the
opening with feeling.) "I am cru-
cified with Christ. Nevertheless, I
live. Yet, not I, but it is Christ that
lives in me. And the life that I now
live in the flesh I live by the faith
of the Son of God who loved me and
gave Himself for me."

We are to have but one supreme
passion in our lives and that is Christ.
We are to have but one supreme
calling and that is, in every possible
way to teach men and women and
other young people to know this Je-
sus.

There are times when we drag
our feet and there will be times
when we lead in the wrong direc-
tion. But we should be able to say
truly and fully that as long as we
keep our eyes on Jesus Christ noth-
ing can overwhelm us. Nothing can
drag us down. Even though we
"walk through the valley of the
shadow of death," everything will
be all right as long as we have our
eyes upon Jesus.

For May 13, 1973

Where Is Your Faith?

Rev. Henry J. Mueller

FIRST SPEAKER: Let us ask
ourselves right now, where is our
faith? A young person in high
school suddenly finds himself sur-
rounded with temptations. They
look good and he begins yielding to
them.

As time goes by, he begins consid-
ering what he is going to do with
his life. He remembers some of his
Christian teaching. He prays for
guidance. There is none. Who is he
following? Where is his faith? James
1:17 tells us that faith without works
is dead.

Let all of us ask in our hearts,
where is our faith? The Scriptures
teach us that we are to have but one
consuming passion in our lives. In
Colossians we are told that He is to
predominate, that He is to have first
place. We are also told that with-
out faith it is impossible to please
God. It is not faith in just anything
or faith only some of the time, but
it is faith in Jesus Christ and Him
alone every moment of every day.

If anyone doesn't understand
what it means to love Jesus with all
of his heart and mind and soul and
know what it means to be loved by
Him completely and totally, then
perhaps he is on the outside of
Christianity. Oh, he may have been
coming to church and mouthing
words and all this kind of thing.
However, unless his faith is totally

and completely in Jesus Christ, he
needs to make that turn right now
to Him completely because other-
wise he is not yet a Christian.

Perhaps you are a Christian this
day and you place your faith totally
and completely in Jesus Christ. But
perhaps there have been times in
your life when your feet began
stumbling and you began looking
around instead of keeping your eyes
upon Jesus. Then you needed to be
renewed.

You need to call out like Paul,
"Wretched man that I am, who shall
deliver me from the bondage of this
death?" Then go on with him and
say, "Thanks be to God who gives
us the victory through Jesus Christ
our Lord!" Amen to that. Hallelu-
jah!

SECOND SPEAKER: So right
now let us turn our eyes upon Je-
sus. Don't think about the person
sitting next to you. Don't think
about the person leading this pro-
gram or the person who is speaking.
Don't think of anyone or anything
else. Just turn your eyes upon Je-
sus Christ.

As you think about Him, remem-
ber that He is the one upon whom
all your faith is to rest, your faith
for the future, the forgiveness of all
your sin, the one who is to guide all
your decisions. He is the one you

PAGE 16 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 25, 1973

depend upon to establish personal
relationships and bring them to full
friendship.

, Can you do this? Do you know
Him well enough to trust Him for
all this? It is of primary impor-
tance that you have a personal rela-
tionship with Him. He is not just
some idea or concept. He is real.

CONCLUSION BY PROGRAM
CHAIRMAN: (Take a few minutes
for each person to prayerfully con-
sider these thoughts. Then ask if
any want to invite Jesus into their
lives. Counsel and pray with them.
Then ask all to really consider if
they have placed all their faith in
Jesus Christ. Ask them to do so in
prayer at this time.

(Read I John 1:8-10 and John 15:
1-17. Remind them that Jesus said,
"Come unto Me, all ye that labor
and are heavy laden, and I will give
you rest. Take my yoke upon you,
and learn of Me; for I am meek and
lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest
unto your souls. For my yoke is
easy, and my burden is light" (Matt.
11:28-30). Close the meeting with
singing "Turn Your Eyes Upon Je-
sus." Next week we will take a
closer look at what the Bible says
about Jesus Christ.)

Closing Prayer.

m

THE SCRAMBLE, 11 6B Montreal Road,
Black Mountain, N. C. Vacations, confer-
ences. Picnic area, creek for wading;
cottages and big house, sleep 2-20. Meals
can be arranged. Phone (305) 443-8896 or
(704) 669-8524. After June 1, (704) 669-
2697. 2145 S. W. 19 Ter., Miami, Fta. Car-
oline Walbek, owner.

Westminster Christian
School

Miami, Florida
NEEDS A DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR

TO

Plan and implement fund raising
for capital needs

Plan and implement fund raising
for scholarship needs

Write Or Telephone

MR. NORMAN CORTESE

Arvida Corporation
First National Bank Bldg.
Miami, Florida 33131

(305) 377-3541

Presbyterian Instruction Books

The Savior Promised, A Study Manual of the Old Testament Revelation
From Creation To David, by Arthur E. Pontier $ .90

The Savior Coming, A Study Manual of Old Testament Revelation from
David Through the Exile, by Arthur E. Pontier .90

The Savior and the Church, A Study Manual of New Testament
Revelation, by Arthur E. Pontier .90
(The above at $9.00 per dozen mixed or matched)

The Noble Task, The Elder, by Andrew A. Jumper 1.50

Chosen To Serve, The Deacon, by Andrew A. Jumper 1.25

The Pastoral Ministry of Church Officers, by Charlie W. Shedd 1.25

The Five Points of Calvinism, Defined, Defended, Documented,

by David N. Steele and Curtis C. Thomas 1.50

What Do Presbyterians Believe?, by Gordon H. Clark 3.95
(5 or more @ $3; 10 or more @ $2.50)

The Westminster Confession of Faith For Study Classes,

by G. I. Williamson 3.00
(5 or more @ $2.50; 10 or more @ $2)

An Exposition of the Shorter Catechism

by Principal Salmond 2.00

The Shorter Catechism, Volume I: Questions 1-38,

by G. I. Williamson 3.00

The Shorter Catechism, Volume II: Questions 39-107,

by G. I. Williamson 3.00

Studies in the Shorter Catechism, by Paul G. Settle
($.50 each or $5 dozen)

The Christian Faith According to the Shorter Catechism,

by William Childs Robinson

($.25 each, $2.50 per dozen, $20 per hundred)

The Shorter Catechism, by Alexander Whyte 2.00

Should Westminster Be Retained? Could This Age Really Improve On
The Incredible Devotion of Those Men of God? by Robert Strong
($1.50 per dozen or $10 per 100)

What Is A Presbyterian?, by J. Wayte Fulton Jr.
($1.50 per dozen or $10.00 per hundred)

The Presbyterian Church, A Manual For New Members

Chapter I — The Story of Presbyterianism, by C. Gregg Singer
Chapter II — What Presbyterians Believe, by G. Aiken Taylor
Chapter III — Presbyterian Government, by E. C. Scott
Chapter IV — Joining The Presbyterian Church, by B. Hoyt Evans
($.15 each, 2 for $.25, $12 hundred)

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PAGE 17 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 25, 1973

For Your Library

Fundamentals Of The Faith

Edited by Carl F. H. Henry $5.95

Shock It To Me, Doctor

by A. Dudley Dennison, M.D. 3.95

Black and Free

by Tom Skinner

The Light of the Cross

by S. Barton Babbage

The Vacuum of Unbelief

by S. Barton Babbage

Dearly Beloved

by Anne Morrow Lindberg

My Greatest Challenge

by Bill Glass

Nobody Else Will Listen

by Marjorie Holmes

L'Abri

by Edith Schaeffer

The Hiding Place

by Corrie ten Boom

2.95

4.95

3.95

5.00

4.95

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cloth 3.95
paper 1.95

cloth 5.95
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The Foxfire Book

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Oxford Bible Atlas paper 2.50

Baker's Bible Atlas cloth 8.95

Baker's Dictionary of Theology

Everett F. Harrison Editor 5.95

Cruden's Unabridged Concordance 6.95

Rand McNally Bible Atlas 8.95

The Wycliffe Historical Geography

of Bible Lands 8.95

Davis Dictionary of the Bible

Fourth Revised Edition

8.95

God, Man and His World

Compiled by J. Calvin Reid 8.95

Toward a Theology for the Future

Edited by Clark H. Pinnock &

David F. Wells 4.95

Children of the Reformation

by Marian M. Schooland 2.75

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BOOKS

GALATIANS, by Andrew W. Black-
wood Jr. Baker Book House, Grand
Rapids, Mick. Paper, 86 pp. $1.25. Re-
viewed by tke Rev. Marion G. Brad-
well, The Lord's Day Alliance, Atlan-
ta, Ga.

Each of the six chapters in Gala-
tians is dealt with in the following
way: historical setting, expository
meaning, doctrinal value, practical
aim, and homiletical form. The au-
thor devotes most of each chapter to
this last analysis. It will therefore
be of special interest to preachers.

While not as explicit in its proc-
lamation of the one Gospel Paul an-
nounces and defends in his epistle,
nevertheless this little book speaks
simply and warmly of the need for
Christ alone. "Good intentions are
not enough. Our efforts today seem
aimed at saving by force, by politi-
cal organization, or by the appeal to
enlightened self-interest. These are
among the modern equivalents of
'the law.' One by one, they point to
the need for Christ." El

MEN WHO BUILD CHURCHES, by
Harold A. Bosley. Abingdon Press,
Nashville, Tenn. 149 pp. $2.95. Re-
viewed by the Rev. John R. Richard-
son, minister emeritus, Westminster
Presbyterian Church, Atlanta, Ga.

Using St. Paul as the best exam-
ple of Christian leadership in action,
the author enumerates the qualities
needed by all who must assume
places of responsibility in the con-
temporary Church. In Paul's let-
ters and itineraries, Bosley finds les-
sons in wise, dedicated, human, and
pragmatic churchmanship.

Paul was a master in dealing with
the problems of his people. To this

A JOURNAL Reprint

Dr. Robert Strong's

Critical evaluation of the proposed
new Confession of Faith
$.25 each, $2.50 per doz.
$20 hundred

Order from
THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL
WEAVERVILLE, N. C. 28787

end Paul endeavored to keep their
eyes on the great things, the ulti-
mate goals, and reminded them of
the warm presence of the Holy Spirit
to aid them in the time of need for
assistance.

In a time when preaching is down-
graded, Bosley says Paul's confidence
in the preaching of the Gospel
should encourage us. "Woe is me
if I preach not the Gospel," he says,
"is the key to the heart of his life
and work.

"Paul would preach anytime, any
place, anywhere and to anyone who
would listen. . . . He not only
preached; he preached for a decision
for Jesus Christ." Omitting this
weakens so much of our preaching
today.

Since so many books on the
Church written during the last de-
cade are filled with negatives, it isl
refreshing to read one that accents
the positive. The author's appeal
for simplicity in stating the Chris-
tian faith is also worthy of ap-
plause. 51

THE THESSALONIAN EPISTLES,
by John F. Walvoord. Zondervan Publ.
House, Grand Rapids, Mich. Paper,
158 pp. $1.95. Reviewed by Stephen
M. Reynolds, professor, Faith Theo-
logical Seminary, Elkins Park, Pa.

Readers interested in learning
about the views of an outstanding
premillennial scholar will find
this book helpful. The view is held
that the last trump of I Corinthians
15 is not chronologically last, but
that the seven trumps of Revelation
follow it. Reformed readers who
follow the eschatology of the West-
minster Standards, of Hodge and
of Warfield, will be informed on
the thinking of premillennialism
and pretribulationalism. They prob-
ably will not be convinced. II

THE NAKED I, by Eileen Guder.
Word Books, Waco, Tex. 141 pp.
$4.95. Reviewed by the Rev. George
Dameron, pastor, Wee Kirk Covenant
Presbyterian Church, Atlanta, Ga.

This book provokes thought con-:
cerning the meaning of life — its
development from childhood to
adulthood. Always growing and be-
coming more like what God intend-
ed or meant for us to be is the con-
stant theme. Too often, we are

PAGE 18 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 25, 1973

wrapped up in ourselves with delu-
sions and excuses and self-deceits
and fears, afraid that no one would
like us unless we fake what we think
they want us to be. How ridicu-
lous! Christ came to save us from
the depression and guilt of sin, and
also from our delusions. When we
are free of the burden and load of
sin, the real self shows the naked "I."

Repentance and sanctification have
to do with taking a new direction
in life. Jesus called this being born
again. Paul referred to it as being a
new creation, with the old self be-
ing dead to the law, but alive in
Christ. Thus, the person becomes
more vibrant, more potent, and far
more alive than ever before. Jesus
said we are miserable creatures when
we live apart from God, and that we
must change or die. That altera-
tion won't be easy but will be worth
the price. IS

WHAT CHRIST THINKS OF THE
CHURCH, by John R. W. Stott. Inter-
Varsity Press, Downers Grove, 111. Pa-
per, 128 pp. $1.50. Reviewed by the
Rev. Henry Schum, evangelist, Uncle
Hank Evangelistic Association, Inc.,
Chattanooga, Tenn.

The purpose of the author is to
induce Christians to examine them-
selves and the Church today in the
light of Jesus' letters to the seven
churches of Asia as recorded in Rev-
elation 2 and 3. He calls us to re-
pentance and renewal in a com-
pelling manner. IB

ONE TO ONE, by William E. York
Jr. Inter-Varsity Press, Downers Grove,
111. Paper, 64 pp. $.95. Reviewed by
the Rev. David Parks, pastor, Weaver-
viile Presbyterian Church, Weaver-
ville, N. C.

In the fine style and format that
have made Inter-Varsity books the
great campus favorites they are, we
have a little study book small
enough to fit in a coat pocket or
purse and "large" enough to bring
a college student out of darkness in-
to the light of Jesus Christ.

"These brief studies are designed
to help you acquaint your friends
with the basic facts of the Gospel so
that God can bring them to faith in
Jesus Christ. With only two or
, three hours of preparation, follow-
ing the suggested procedure, you
will be ready to use this tool for
presenting the Gospel to your
friends."

The book contains six studies of
about fifteen minutes each which
?can be used in a dorm rap session, in

'Avery valuable JM^
assessment of r\
contemporary trends'

THE

EVANGELICAL
RENAISSANCE

by Donald Bloesch

Does the recent dynamic
growth of conservative
churches signal a new evan-
gelical renaissance?
Perhaps so. But if the prom-
ised renaissance is to be-
come a reality, Bloesch warns
in this timely new study,
evangelicals must take ad-
vantage of their opportunity
to recover the prophetic as
well as the kerygmatic di-
mensions of the faith.

*"/ warmly welcome Dr. Bloesch's critical
but positive evaluation of the current re-
surgence of evangelicalism. He gives us a
forthright statement of evangelical essen-
tials and at the same time calls for more
mutual evangelical openness, respect and
love. He warns us of the danger of confus-
ing Scripture and culture, and so of accom-
modating the Gospel to the mood of the
day. And he teaches us useful lessons from
history by comparing modern evangelical-
ism with our puritan and pietistic heritage.
One does not have to endorse every jot and
tittle of his exposition in order to appreciate
it as a very valuable assessment of contem-
porary trends." —John R. W. Stott
128 pages. Paper, $2.45

Significant parallel studies by Bloesch

THE GROUND OF CERTAINTY

THE REFORM OF THE CHURCH

". . . a thrilling experience and challenge to
those who rest upon established biblical
principles and yet are free to consider fresh
insights." —Eternity

Paper, $3.25

"/ find myself in full agreement with it. I
regard it as an important contribution to
ecumenical understanding . . . full of clarify-
ing and important insights."

— Reinhold Niebuhr
Cloth, $4.95

WM. B. EERDMANS
PUBLISHING CO.

Grand Rapids, Michigan

PAGE 19 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 25, 1973

the coffee shop or out on the grassy
lawn. Anywhere you can find op-
portunity to talk with a friend or
two or three, these studies may be
used. In the back of the little book
are tear-out sheets to give to your
friend and also tear-out question
sheets for you to use when you meet
with him or her. This is so that you
will not have to carry the book with
you even as small as it is.

One minor suggestion for im-
provement in the use of the book
might be the addition of title pages
between the main sections. For Chris-
tians on the campus who have been
looking for help in witnessing —
here is what you have been waiting
for! ffi

RELIGION AND THE RISE OF
MODERN SCIENCE, by R. Hooykaas.
Wm . B. Eerdmans Publ. Co., Grand
Rapids, Mich. Paper, 162 pp. $2.65.
Reviewed by the Rev. A. Kenneth
Austin, associate professor of history,
Covenant College, Lookout Mountain,
Tenn.

This brief book by a professor of
the history of science at the Univer-
sity of Utrecht in the Netherlands
consists of a series of lectures deliv-
ered at the University of Edinburgh

A CHRISTIAN CAMP

Dedicated to developing
young people into mature/
well-balanced Christian
citizens.

1972 DATES

SENIORS

(ages 15-18; rising
10th- 12th graders)
June 12-23

JUNIOR I

(ages 8-11; rising 3rd-6th graders)
June 26-July 7

PIONEERS

(ages 12-14; rising 7th-9th graders)
July 10-July 21

JUNIOR II

(ages 7-11; rising 2nd-6th graders)
July 23-August 3

in 1969.

Basically, Hooykaas' thesis is that
modern science is largely the prod-
uct of Judaeo-Christian influence on
Western thought. He contends that
the essential revolution in scientific
thought occurred in the 16th and
17th centuries, due in part to the
development of a more fully Bibli-
cal world view. Protestantism and
especially Calvinist Puritanism made
substantial contributions.

The author rejects the idea that
science and religion are bitter, ir-
reconcilable antagonists locked in a
death struggle. Instead, they are
compatible and modern science has
received a beneficial boost from
Christianity. The book should prove
helpful for those interested in a
scholarly handling of the subject. El

ENCOUNTER WITH GOD, by Mor-
ton Kelsey. Bethany Fellowship, Inc.,
Minneapolis, Minn. 281 pp. $5.95. Re-
viewed by the Rev. Henry M. Hope
Jr., pastor, Vineville Presbyterian
Church, Macon, Ga.

An Episcopal priest, currently as-
sociate professor in the department
of graduate studies in education at
the University of Notre Dame, sets
forth his thesis that there is a spir-

itual reality which breaks into man's
consciousness. Lest this conviction
be dismissed as "something that
Christians knew all the time," one
reminds himself of the wide ac-
ceptance of naturalism in our time,
with its rejection of the spiritual
realm.

"Spirituality" for Kelsey is broad-
ly defined. It is not specifically a
knowledge of God through Jesus
Christ, but rather any perception of
reality beyond sense experience.
Hence, ESP, memories, dreams, vi-
sions and Pentecostal phenomena are
examples of the author's proofs of
"spirituality."

Kelsey works out some conse-
quences of an appreciation of this
spiritual reality for the life of the
Church and of the individual Chris-
tian today. In the second half of
the book, he presents twelve ways in
which the individual presumably
can discover "spirituality" for him-
self.

"Experience" is the key word in
the author's priorities. On the oth-
er hand, "authority," the key word
of the Reformation, is of only slight
importance. The Bible is viewed as
a record of spiritual experiences, not
a source of authority. II

Camp

Westminster

Located in a beautifully wooded area of 114 acres.
20 miles southeast oi Atlanta, near Conyers, Georgia.

Presenting young people with the chal-
lenge to accept the Lord Jesus Christ as
their personal Saviour. Developing the
spiritual life of the camper. Seeking to
know his needs through the understand-
ing contact of dedicated counselors who
teach the Bible and lead in the devotional
life of the cabin. Developing a habit of
daily Bible study and prayer. Complete
facilities with a balanced program for
physical, social, intellectual and spiritual
growth. Founded by Dr. John R. Richard-
son. Owned and operated by Camp West-
minster, Inc.

FAMILY BIBLE CONFERENCE

(Families and Adults)
August 5-12

OUTSTANDING SPEAKERS
Dr. Henry Bast
Grand Rapids, Mich.

Preacher on
"Temple Time" Radio Broadcast

Rev. James H. Patterson

Pastor of
Westminster Presbyterian Church
Chattanooga, Tennessee

"More can be accomplished with a child in 2 weeks at camp than in 1 year at Sunday School."

WRITE TO: CAMP WESTMINSTER 1438 Sheridan Rd., N.E.. Atlanta. Ga. 30324

PAGE 20 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 25, 1973

GENERAL EXECUTIVE BOARD
POSITIONS OPEN

PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, U.S.

General qualifications: Recent experience and/or training in, and knowledge about, the specific func-
tion. A personal, active commitment to the Christian Faith and to the Church. Knowledge of PCUS
structure. Send resume for specific position(s) to: GEB Management Team, 341 Ponce de Leon
Avenue, N.E., Atlanta, Ga. 30308. NOTE: If you have already sent resume to GEB, you need not file
another, but you must notify GEB which position(s) interests you. GEB — an equal opportunity
employer — has special employment goals for women and minorities.

DEADLINE for applications, May 8th, 1973.

STAFF PERSON FOR THE ASSISTANT
TREASURY FUNCTION Develop and super-
vise central accounting system for PCUS; inte-
grate many systems into one central automated
system; supervise the work of several tech-
nicians.

STAFF PERSON FOR THE MASS MEDIA
FUNCTION Develop and coordinate use of
mass media by PCUS; evaluate all present uses
of electronic and printed media; develop a
church-wide system to support regional sys-
tems.

STAFF PERSON FOR THE PRINTING,
DUPLICATION, AND ART FUNCTION Devel-
op and direct a centralized system for printing,
duplicating and graphic art for PCUS. Evaluate
and assimilate all present functions into cen-
tralized service agency. Supplement and provide
resources for similar services in regional agen-
cies.

STAFF PERSON FOR AFRICA/EUROPE/
NEAR EAST FUNCTION; STAFF PERSON
FOR ASIA FUNCTION; STAFF PERSON
FOR LATIN AMERICA FUNCTION Coordi-
nate mission activities in which GEB is in-
volved; coordinate relationships with mis-
sionary bodies, national churches and ecumeni-
cal alliances; make periodic visits to the specific
areas; make recommendations on personnel and
budget needs; evaluate existing programs; iden-
tify new opportunities for witness. (Three posi-
tions)

STAFF PERSON FOR WORLD SERVICE
FUNCTION Identify world-wide human needs
and suffering; challenge the Church to respond
with its resources; administer special programs
for alleviation of suffering, disaster relief and
international development; provide assistance
to national churches abroad.

STAFF PERSON FOR INTERPRETATION
OF OVERSEAS MISSION FUNCTION In-
crease the understanding of PCUS through edu-
cation and interpretation; participate in pre-
paration of literature and other materials; main-
tain liaison with Regional Resourcing Centers;
have responsibility for planning conferences, in
coordinating overseas travel/study seminars.

STAFF PERSON FOR STEWARDSHIP FUNC-
TION Assist congregations and presbyteries
through Synod Resourcing Centers in develop-
ing year-round stewardship programs; develop
innovative models for congregations in increas-
ing commitment of PCUS members as stewards
of all life; advise with developers of curriculum
concerning stewardship materials; share insights
and suggestions with congregations on steward-
ship; learn from other denominations; assist
leaders in PCUS judicatories in working with
new challenge of giving.

STAFF PERSON FOR EVANGELISM FUNC-
TION Assist Synod Resourcing Center in pro-
viding leadership training and materials in Evan-
gelism; advise curriculum developers on Biblical
and Theological basis of Evangelism; engage
lOther staff in producing materials; develop new
models and strategies in Evangelism; share in-
sights and ideas gained from other denomina-
tions; serve as staff to Council on Evangelism.

STAFF PERSON FOR CURRICULUM DEV-
ELOPMENT FUNCTION Develop the over-all
curriculum design for educational resources; ad-
vise the team of curriculum designers and
editors; coordinate the preparers of materials
on stewardship education, evangelism emphasis
and lay-ministries and missionary education;
develop educational resources through joint ef-
forts with other denominations.

STAFF PERSON FOR INSTITUTIONAL
RELATIONS AND CONTINUING EDUCA-
TION FUNCTION Develop system of support
for continuing education of church profession-
als in collaboration with other church bodies;
work with institutions of professional educa-
tion to coordinate strategies for discovering and
meeting the educational needs of professional
groups within PCUS; requires ordination in the
ministry in Presbyterian or Reformed Church.

STAFF PERSON FOR SUPPORT SYSTEMS
FOR MISSIONARY PERSONNEL FUNCTION
Administer personnel policy and procedure re-
lated to missionaries and their families; direct
training, continuing education and pastoral care
of missionaries, must have had experience in
and broad knowledge of overseas mission of the
church, including mission administration.

STAFF PERSON FOR RECRUITMENT OF
MISSIONARY PERSONNEL FUNCTION De-
velop recruitment plans, priorities and quotas;
be responsible for enlistment of all missionary
personnel with special emphasis on recruitment
of minorities; requires experience and mission
work abroad and ability to give vocational
counsel at mature theological and psychological
level.

STAFF PERSON FOR PLACEMENT-RELO-
CATION SYSTEMS FUNCTION Have primary
responsibility for the system supporting church
professionals in Job Placement and Relocation;
support presbytery commissions, call commit-
tees and others with information services; have
oversight of data management and communica-
tions with judicatories; keep judicatories and
educational institutions apprised of professional
trends and projected needs of the church for
types and numbers of professionals.

STAFF PERSON FOR CORPORATE SOCIAL
WITNESS AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS FUNC-
TION Provide theological understanding for re-
sponsible corporate witness and action; com-
mend appropriate ecumenical and secular move-
ments/organizations fostering justice and
human fulfillment; supply factual information
and analysis of social/ethical issues; broker out-
side resources and provide technical assistance
on occasion; propose alternative strategies for
individual/institutional involvement in corpo-
rate witness/public affairs action initiatives;
analyze church's involvement in manifestations
of injustice, suggesting means for it to redirect
power and resources to eliminate injustice.

STAFF PERSON FOR HEALTH AND WEL-
FARE FUNCTION Develop strategies for
health and welfare, civil crises and natural disas-
ter involvement, including the international
level of this concern, focusing on such issues as
welfare and prison reform, medical services,
mental health, alcohol-drug problems, popula-
tion planning, pollution control, legal services
for the indigent, equal employment practices,
migrant workers' rights, community organiza-
tion and economic development, refugee and
war victims. Be liaison to ASM. Master of Social
Work required.

STAFF PERSON FOR ECUMENICAL RELA-
TIONS FUNCTION Disseminate appropriate in-
formation concerning inter-church agencies and
councils; discover, create and promote new
means of ecumenical cooperation; review and
evaluate denominational ecumenical relation;
monitor decisions from inter-church councils
and facilitate appropriate denominational re-
sponse; receive and coordinate subsidy requests
from inter-church agencies, e.g., WCC, NCC;
suggest budget recommendations; receive inter-
church relations communications from Stated
Clerk and suggest denominational program re-
sponse in collaboration with all concerned;
serve as liaison between GA and inter-church
bodies and agencies.

SEVEN (7) REGIONAL COMMUNICATION
EXECUTIVES (The GEB will appoint seven re-
gional communication executives, one for each
of the new synods, based in the synod, on
nomination from the synods: Synod A: Abing-
don Presbytery, Virginia, West Virginia. Synod
B: Appalachia and North Carolina. Synod C:
Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, Tennessee.
Synod D: Missouri. Synod E: Red River. Synod
G: Georgia and South Carolina. Synod H: Flori-
da.) Serve as listener, reporter and visible pre-
sence of the denomination and its administra-
tive units, insurer of accountability and respon-
siveness of the central agency to the Church at
large. Interested persons are to submit resumes
to the appropriate synod office.

STAFF PERSON FOR THE WASHINGTON,
D.C. COMMUNICATION FUNCTION Serve as
listener/reporter for the Church in D.C; serve
as channel of communication from the Church
to the national, international and ecumenical
structures in the nation's capital; serve as a fa-
cilitator on the Washington scene for all the
Church's agentry.

STAFF PERSON FOR NURTURE STRATE-
GIES (LAITY FACILITATION) FUNCTION
Guide staff in making specialized study of edu-
cational and religious needs of children, youth,
and adults and in planning strategies in Chris-
tian nurture; lead the staff team to assist the
Resourcing Systems of Synods to share ideas,
models, and resource persons for children,
youth, and adult ministries; coordinate staff
team that will assist Synods by providing plans
and materials to encourage the full participa-
tion of laymen and lay women in the whole
church mission with special emphasis on the
ministry of the laity in the world; helps staff
develop designs and resources for church officer
development, lay leadership development,
church education, administration and family
ministry.

PAGE 21 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 25, 1973

Layman— from p. 13

peal, for the cult of comfort is lik-
able and easygoing. There is no ur-
gency about getting out the Gospel,
and tomorrow is another day, they
say. When it comes right down to
it, part of this lack of dedication in
the comfort-loving Christian is that
he does not care nor does he want to
be bothered.

"Get smart," is his philosophy. "It's
much easier to give a few bucks and
let others get involved." This is
sheer escapism deployed as a way to
shirk responsibility. It is used by
those who love their comfort more
than their Lord.

To profess Christianity but not
perform as a Christian is not doing
the Father's business that needs to
be done. Christ's glory, the salva-
tion of one's fellow man, and their
own rewards, are in jeopardy. Will
they remain comfortably mesmer-
ized before the TV master or will
the demands of the Master be met?
There is no escaping the answer to
this question for those who profess
the name of Christ. IB

Separation— from p. 8

I publicly announce that I will op-
pose any escape clause in any form
in any plan of union."

This has created an atmosphere
of extreme tension. To discard the
plan of union at this stage means
that the leaders of the establishment
wish to move consideration of a pro-
posed confession of faith and of any
plan of union beyond the date of
restructuring which takes effect July
1 of this year.

PCUS to Postpone

When restructuring is fully ef-
fected, the clusters of confessionally
oriented, conservative Presbyterians
in our denomination will be done
away with and they will have no
voting strength left. Consequently
they will not have the ability to frus-
trate any desire for a new confes-
sion of faith or any union, includ-
ing the Church of Christ Uniting
(COCU) .

So it leaves those of us who are
commonly called conservative Pres-
byterians between the rock and a
hard place. Not long ago the Steer-
ing Committee met along with other
ministers from our denomination.
Even though I am not a member of
the committee, I participated in this

meeting and contributed to the dis-
cussion.

The Steering Committee has de-
cided, after prayerful concern, to
publish abroad to our denomination
a call for the rebirth of the Presby-
terian Church US as originally con-
stituted: committed to Biblical Pres-
byterianism and a theological posi-
tion faithful to the Westminster
Standards. This amounts to asking
conservative Presbyterians to put
their names on the line, to honor the
hour of faith, and say, "This is
where I stand, and this is where I
am going."

Time for Decision

In consequence of this call, there
will soon be a general convocation
of all interested sessions to deter-
mine those that will associate to
form a Presbyterian Church true to
the Scriptures and to the Confes-
sion of Faith. This body may call
a constitutional assembly to bring
a new entity of the Presbyterian
Church into being. It is what we
would like to call a rebirth of Pres-
byterianism in our time.

Most of us want it to be the be-
ginning of a realignment of national
Presbyterians so that there will be
across our nation a clear testimony
with integrity to the Gospel of Je-
sus Christ, the Bible as the Word of
God, and the Confession of Faith
and Catechisms as the standards of
the Church.

Support a Realignment

One year ago, our session took a
stand committing itself to this plan
of action when the time should come.
It reaffirmed both personally and
corporately its commitment to the
Scriptures, to the Gospel of Christ,
and to the Confession and Cate-
chisms.

It also expressed itself by saying
that if and when the time were to
come for there to be a reconstitu-
tion of Presbyterians, we would sup-
port it. It is my prayer that you
will follow the leadership of the ses-
sion in this action now that we have
come down to the wire.

There can be many things we may
expect in the future. There will be
those of differing opinion. They
will oppose this action and will
bring pressure to bear upon the
membership of our congregation
and session to oppose this kind of
move.

There will be resentment on the
part of many outside our congrega-
tion. For that I am sorry. It will
be hard; I do not expect it to be
easy. In it all I do hope that I, as
an individual, that the members of
our session as office bearers in God's
Church, and that you, as members
of the congregation, will be able to
exhibit to everyone Christian for-
bearance, patience and love.

No Recriminations

In times past when there has been
a division within the Church, there
has usually been an attending spirit
of resentment, bitterness and malice
that has passed from generation to
generation. We would not have this
so. If God has loved us in our sin,
we can patiently bear with one an-
other in a time of misunderstand-
ing and even resentment. I pray
that there will always be on our part
a filling of Christ's Spirit that will
insure love, patience, gentleness and
a concern for understanding.

Point of No Return

Although I do not expect the next
few weeks or months to be anywhere
near easy, I do feel that this is God's
will in the life of His Church. When
things have gone so far that the
greatest court in our denomination
will publicly repudiate the great doc
trine of justification by faith, the
tloctrine by which you and I are
saved, then things have gone too far,
I do not feel the liberty of going
further. I trust that you do not,
either.

Whatever lies ahead, I take com-
fort in what God says through His
Word: "God is our refuge anc
strength, a very present help in trou
ble. Therefore will not we fear
though the earth be removed and*
though the mountains be cast into
the midst of the sea, though the wa
ters thereof roar and be troubled,
though the mountains shake with
the swelling thereof. The Lord of
Hosts is with us! The God of Jacob
is our refuge!"

And I take heart from the words
of St. Paul, "If God be for us, who
can be against us?"

And from the words of St. John,
"Hallelujah! for the Lord God om
nipotent reigneth!"

• •

Of confession repentance is born
by repentance forgiveness is known
— Tertullian.

PAGE 22 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 25, 1973

INDEX OF VOLUME XXXI

Articles, Features, Sermons

Africa Today, Dorothy A. Faber, Dec. 13, 7
Mi-Seeing One, The, Cecil E. Burridge,

March 28, 8
Vm I Catholic?, Janet M. Baker, June 14,

10

Vmazing Gusto for Amazing Grace, The,
John Oliver, Sept. 27, 7

Vnswers in Scripture, Vernon W. Patter-
son, Jan. 31, 8

Sx£ Our Differences So Great?, G. Aiken
Taylor, May 31, 7

iecause I Love the Church, J. William

Hyde, April 25, 9
ielieve in Him, Enise Kirby, Aug. 2, 11
ielieve in the Devil?, Luder G. Whitlock

Jr., March 21, 9
Messing of Books, The, Bernard R. De-

Remer, Jan. 3, 11

Challenge of Your Calling, The, W. Jack

Williamson, Nov. 29, 7
changes and Differences, Robert T. L. Lis-

ton, Oct. 11, 7

hanging Frequency, Leighton Ford, May
17, 11

hristmas All Year, Helen Kooiman, Dec.
20, 11

hristmas 1972, Gary De Witt, Dec. 20, 10
hurch Membership, George B. Hutchins,
May 31, 10

hurches Are Booming, The, Ralph Toli-
ver, Feb. 14, 11

irele Bible Studies for 1972-73, G. Aiken
Taylor, June 14, 7

linging Christians, Ruby Sailor, Oct. 18,
10

lear Channel to Heaven, Bill Cornelius,
May 17, 9

Common Grace, Linwood G. Wilkes, Aug.

30, 9

Concerned Without Comfort, Richard G.
Watson, May 3, 11

onfession of Confusion, Clydie, Aug. 30, 7
ionfession of Faith (Proposed New,
Chapters MX, Robert Strong, Oct. 25,
7; Nov. 1, 9; 8, 9; 22, 9; 29, 9; Dec. 6,
9; 13, 10; 27, 9

Conflict of Moralities, A, Samuel A.
Jeanes, Nov. 1, 7

ionsider the Cause, R. McFerran Crowe,

May 3, 12
:ontrary Christ, The, R. Norman Herbert,

Nov. 29, 13

lover for Unbelief, A, John Jamison, Jan.

31, 9

Crimes Without Victims, Samuel A. Jeanes,
May 10, 10

Cruelty' of Christ, The, Edward A. John-
son, May 24, 7

!up of Blessing, Margaret McLester, April
11, 10

[)e Facto Union, Ben Wilkinson, April 4, 8
healing With Stress, H. Marcus Collins,
Oct. 4, 9

Sevastating Doctrine, A, John H. Knight,

Dec. 27, 11
Wtrinal Loyalty, R. Thomas Cheely,

March 7, 9
[>oes Today's Church Need a Confession?,

John R. be Witt, Sept. 27, 9
•oing Your Own Thing, Ronald J. Brady,

Aug. 16, 9

Down to the Wire, John C. Neville Jr.,
April 25, 7

Encounter With Holiness, Edwin Wang,
July 12, 7

Epidemic Distemper, An, John Caldwell,

May 24, 11
Everyday Mysteries, Carl C. Riedesel, Feb.

28, 7

first Candlelight Service, Handel H.

Brown, Dec. 20, 8
First Thanksgiving, The, Jerry Buck,

Nov. 22, 11
First Things First, John H. Eastwood,

Sept. 13, 9
For These Reasons, Richard G. Watson,

April 4, 7
Forward in the Spirit, Harold J. Ockenga,

June 7, 7

Fullness of Time, The, D. James Kennedy,
Dec. 27, 7

General Assembly of the PCUS, June 28, 4
General Assembly in Photos and Quotes,
July 5, 7

Gift of Loneliness, The, Linda Prevost,
May 10, 9

God's Marching Orders, John A. Huffman

Jr., Aug. 2, 7
God's Time Table, John H. Eastwood,

April 18, 10
God's Voice to Man, Gordon K, Reed, Feb.

28, 9

He Is Risen!, Leonard Greenway, April 18,
7

Hear Him!, Edmund P. Clowney, Sept. 6, 7

High Calling, The, John Warwick Mont-
gomery, April 25, 10

His Spiritual Image, Charles E. Somervill
Jr., Dec. 6, 7

House of Life, The, Cecil E. Burridge, May
17, 7

In the Footsteps of a Thief, Harold B.

Probes, April 11, 7
Indian Summer, D. E. Parkerson, Oct 4, 8
Inside the Steering Committee, Robert M.

Metcalf Jr., April 4, II
Institutional Church, The, Russell L. Ja-

berg, March 7, 7
Integrity and Doctrine, Rene de Visme

Williamson, Jan. 24, 10
Integrity and Education, Rene de Visme

Williamson, Feb. 7, 9
Integrity and Liturgy, Rene de Visme

Williamson, Jan. 17, 7
Integrity and Polity, Rene de Visme Wil-
liamson, Jan. 31, 10

Keep the Church Press Open, Robert J.
Hastings, Sept. 6, 10

Let the Bible Speak, Jacob J. Vellenga,
Oct. 18, 7

Let's Quit Abusing Romans 8:28, Roger

Turner, Jan. 10, 11
Letter to a College Youth, William F. Mc-

Curdy, Jan. 10, 7
Like the Honey Bees, Claude A. Frazier,

July 26, 10

Louisville Story, The, G. Aiken Taylor,

June 21, 9
Luther and Marx, Eleutherios, Oct. 25, 9

Man God Did Not Use, The, William E.

Hill Jr., Feb. 21, 11
Ministry of the Holy Spirit, The, William

Bright, Oct. 18, 8
Ministry (?) on Campus, Dave Steffenson,

Jan. 10, 9

Miscommunication, Rita Lidstrom, Feb.
7, 11

Misplaced Issue, The, Name Withheld,
Nov. 15, 7

More to It Than Love, Clyde Narramore,
March 21, 11

New Beginning, A, A. H. Bennett, Jan. 3,7
No Substitute, Linwood G. Wilkes, Dec.
6, 11

Of Life and Death, Jack E. Noble, Feb.
14, 7

Opportunity Unlimited, Bill Moseley, April
11, 9

Plan for a Continuing Church, A, W.

Jack Williamson, Aug. 2, 9
Power We Need, The, John S. Jennings,

Jan. 17, 9

Priesthood of Christ, The, Ann F. Martin,
July 26, 8

Principal Commissioners to 1972 Assembly,
May 3, 6

PAGE 23 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 25, 1973

Proposed Confession, The, Chapters I, II,
IV, VI, VIII, IX, Aug. 9, 7; Chapters
III, V, VII, Aug. 23, 7

Published by PCUS, G. Aiken Taylor, Sept.
13, 10

Pueblo Bible, The, Harold Heifer, March
28, 7

Question of Youth, A, Lewis Vander Meer,
March 14, 7

Reaction!, Peter de Ruiter, Jan. 31, 7

Red Riding Hood Today, New Life Fel-
lowship, July 12, 11

Reformed Missions in an Ecumenical
World, Harvie M. Conn, Jan. 24, 7

Religibu is a PPB Among Probus, A,
Clydie, Feb. 21, 7

Religion and Politics, Claude R. Foster,
Jr., Jan. 3, 9

Rightness of Recreation, The, Clyde Nar-
ramore, Oct. 11, 11

Sexual Jungle, The, A. D. Dennison Jr.,

Aug. 16, 10
Signs of a Strong Church, Reuel Lem-

mons, Oct. 18, 11
Silent Majority, The, John S. Jennings,

July 26, 7

Sovereignty Or Synergism, James I. Pack-
er, March 14, 8
Straight Talk, Ben Wilkinson, Oct. 4, 11
Strange Boast, A, Gordon Chilvers, Sept. 20,
10

Straw Man Vs. Scripture, Palmer Robert-
son, Nov. 15, 9

Stripped, Wounded, Left Half Dead, Ben
Wilkinson, March 28, 10

Striving for the Faith, Synesio Lyra Jr.,
June 21, 8

Such People!, John H. Eastwood, May 24,9
Sure Foundation, A, Kenneth A. Ironside,
Jan. 31, 9

Take Another Look, Robert F. Boyd, Feb.
14, 9

Take Good Care of Mama, Eudene Keidel,

Sept. 13, 7
Take Time to Teach Them, Arthur G.

Hunsberger, March 14, 9
Teach Us ... , Anonymous, June 14, 9
Tends to Confuse, J. W. Hyde, Jan. 31, 8
There Must Be Revival, Charles G. Finney,

July 26, 11
They Deal With the Occult, John J. Op-

meer, March 21, 7
Three-Lcgged Stool, A, A. Boyce Spooner,
Oct. 11, 9

Time of Sacred Memory, A, Samuel A.

Jeanes, May 24, 10
Triumph Over Tragedy, Gordon K. Reed,

Dec. 20, 7

True Goal of Missions, The, Warren W.
Webster, Feb. 7, 7

Truth and Tradition, George S. Lauder-
dale, Jan. 3, 8

Twin Witness, George S. Lauderdale, Nov.

15, 11

Ultimate Communication, Margaret W.

McLester, April 18, 8
Unity in Jesus, Firm Foundation, Feb. 28,

11

Unity in Jesus (Which Way Ecumenism) ,

Richard K. MacMaster, March 7, 11
Uppsala Betrayal, Donald McGavran, Aug.

16, 7

Voting as Christians, Handel H. Brown,
Oct. 4, 7

Wanted: Modern Pilgrims, D. James Ken-
nedy, Nov. 22, 7

What Do We Confess, G. Aiken Taylor,
May 10, 7

What Is Democracy, Handel H. Brown,
July 12, 9

Whafs With the NCC?, G. Aiken Taylor,
April 4, 9

When Peace Stands Guard, Bruce Wide-
man, May 3, 9

When the Blind Lead the Blind, John
Jenks, Jan. 17, 11

Where We Go From Here, W. Jack Wil-
liamson, Sept. 20, 7

Wherever and Whenever, Velma McLach-
lan, Nov. 8, 7

Why All the Fuss?, Robert J. Ostenson,
June 7, 10

Word, Words and the Flesh, The, Tunis
Romein, Nov. 29, 11

Words and the Word, Palmer Robertson,
Aug. 2, 11

Woman's Ignition, A, Chub Seawell, Nov.
8, 11

Work Plans Listed for Seminary Students,
July 12, 11

Year of the Evangelist, Reuel Lemmons,
March 14, 11

Zeitgeist Watchers, Bill Melden, Feb. 21, 9

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Authors

Allen, Jonathan H., July 5, 17

Baker, Janet M., June 14, 10
Balluff, Mrs. A. J., Feb. 14, 13
Barnes, Mrs. J. Alton, May 31, 13
Bell, Richard T., June 21, 13; April 18,
Bennett, A. H., Jan. 3, 7
Boyd, Robert F., Feb. 14, 9
Brady, Ronald J., Aug. 16, 9
Braunius, Burt D., Dec. 20, 13; March 2
13

Bright William, Oct. 18, 8
Brown, Handel H., July 12, 9; Oct. 4

Dec. 20, 8
Buck, Jerry, Nov. 22, 11
Burridge, Cecil E., May 17, 7; March 28,

Caldwell, John, May 24, 11
Cheely, R. Thomas, March 7, 9
Chilvers, Gordon, Sept. 20, 10
Clowney, Edmund P., Sept. 6, 7
Clydie, Aug. 3, 7; Feb. 21, 7
Coleman, Mrs. David L., May 17, 13
Coleman, Mrs. James L., Oct. 4, 13
Collins, H. Marcus, Oct. 4, 9
Conn, Harvie M., Jan. 24, 7
Copeland, James B., Jr., Sept. 27, 13
Cornelius, Bill, May 17, 9
Cowles, Robert, Jan. 24, 12
Cropper, R. C, June 7, 13; Feb. 21, 13
Crowe, R. McFerran, May 3, 12
Cunningham, Hugh, July 12, 13

Dennison, A. D., Jr., Aug. 16, 10
DeRemer, Bernard R., Jan. 3, 11
de Ruiter, Peter, Jan. 31, 7
De Witt, Gary, Dec. 20, 10
De Witt, John R., Sept. 27, 9
Dietrick, Daly, July 26, 13

Eastwood, John H., May 24, 9; Sept. 13,

April 18, 10
Edwards, Wilbert, Nov. 1, 13; Feb. 7, 13
Eleutherios, Oct. 25, 9
Elliott, Mrs. Edwin P., Sr., May 24, 13

Faber, Dorothy A., Dec. 13, 7
Finney, Charles G., July 26, 11
Ford, Leighton, May 17, 11
Foster, Claude R., Jr., Jan. 3, 9
Frazier, Claude A., July 26, 10

Oalbraith, Mrs. Charles C, Sept. 13, 13i
Graffam, Mrs. Everett S., Jan. 3, 13
Green way, Leonard, April 18, 7

Hall, Mrs. Thelma, Aug. 16, 13
Harllee, John T., June 28, 13
Hastings, Robert J., Sept. 6, 10
Heifer, Harold, March 28, 7
Herbert, R. Norman, Nov. 29, 13
Hill, William E., Jr., Feb. 21, 11
Hope, Mrs. Henry M., Oct. 18, 13; Mar
14, 13

Huffman, John A., Jr., Aug. 2, 7
Hunsberger, Arthur G., March 14, 9
Hunter, John H., Jr., Sept. 20, 13
Hutchins, George B., May 31, 10
Hyde, J. W., Jan. 31, 8

Ironside, Kenneth A., Jan. 31, 9
Irvin, Hampton H., May 10, 13

Jaberg, Russell L., March 7, 7

Jamison, John, Jan. 31, 9

Jeanes, Samuel A., May 10, 10; 24,

Nov. 1, 7
Jenks, John, Jan. 17, 11
Jennings, John S., July 26, 7; Jan. 17,

1

PAGE 24 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 25, 1973

1

I

fohnson, Edward A., May 24, 7

IKeidel, Eudene, Sept. 13, 7
Kennedy, D. James, Nov. 22, 7; Dec. 27, 7
Kimbrough, Horace O., Jan. 31, 13
Kirby, Enise, Aug. 2, 11; 16, 12; 23, 13;

Oct. 4, 13
Slug, E. F., Feb. 21, 13
Snight, John H., Dec. 27, 11
iCoiman, Helen, Dec. 20, 11

-auderdale, George S., Nov. 15, 11; Jan. 3,

8; March 7, 12
^emmons, Reuel, Oct. 18, 11; March 14,

11

.idstrom, Rita, Feb. 7, 11
_iston, Robert T. L., Oct. II, 7
.yman, Milford H, Nov. 29, 15
^yra, Synesio, Jr., June 21, 8

vlacMaster, Richard K., March 7, 11
Martin, Ann F., July 26, 8
vlatthews, Arthur, Aug. 9, 17
McCurdy, William F., Jan. 10, 7
VlcGavran, Donald, Aug. 16, 7
vIcLachlan, Velma, Nov. 8, 7
McLester, Margaret, April 11, 10; 18, 8
Melden, Bill, Sept. 6, 13; Feb. 21, 9
vfetcalf, Robert M., Jr., May 17, 12; Jan.

24, 13; April 4, 11
Mitchell, Fred, Dec. 27, 13; Feb. 14, 12; 28,

12

Montgomery, John Warwick Montgomery,

April 25, 10
Vloseley, Bill, April 11, 9

Varramore, Clyde H., Oct. 11, 11; March
21, 11

Seville, John C., Jr., April 25, 7
S'ewberrv, Gene W., Aug. 16, 13
*Jiven, M. P., Aug. 2, 13
Nloble, Jack E., Feb. 14, 7

Dckenga, Harold J., June 7, 7
Oliver, John, Sept. 27, 7
)pmeer, John J., March 21, 7
Dstenson, Robert J., June 7, 10

'acker, James L., March 14, 8

Jascoe, Peter, April 18, 12

5arkerson, D. E., Oct. 4, 8

'atterson, Vernon W., Aug. 30, 13; Dec. 6,

13; Jan. 31, 8; April 4, 13
'enney, Miss Nancy May, Jan. 10, 13
'revost, Linda, May 10, 9
'robes, Harold B., April 11, 7

\re You a Worrying Child?, Mrs. James

L. Coleman, Oct. 4, 13
Augustine of Hippo, 354-530 A.D., Horace

O. Kimbrough, Jan. 31, 13

Be Ye Separate, Saith the Lord,' Hugh
Cunningham, July 12, 13

iible Is God's Word, The, Vernon W. Pat-
terson, Aug. 30, 13

Mood Poisoning of Sin, The, John H. Hun-
ter Jr., Sept. 20, 13

Wm Hasn't Science Proved . . . ?, I, II,
Richard T. Bell, Tune 21, 13; April 18,
13 F

"aptains in the Storm, Wilbert Edwards,
Feb. 7, 13

Reed, Gordon K., Dec. 20, 7; Feb. 28, 9

Richmond, Edward, Jr., April 11, 13

Riedesel, Carl C, Feb. 28, 7

Rimmer, Mrs. Harry, Marcli 28, 13

Ripley, Ken, April 11, 12

Robertson, Palmer, Aug. 2, 11; Nov. 15, 9

Robinson, William C, May 24, 12; Aug.

2, 12; Sept. 20, 13
Romein, Tunis, Nov. 29, 11
Rose, Tom, May 3, 15; Oct. 25, 13; Nov.

15, 13

Sagadencky, Trefoil, July 12, 12

Sailor, Ruby, Oct. 18, 10; Nov. 15, 12; Dec.

6, 13; 13, 12; Jan. 3, 13
Seawell, Chub, Nov. 8, 11
Seel, John, July 26, 13
Settle, Paul G., May 3, 14; 31, 13; July 12,

12; Feb. 7, 12
Singer, C. Gregg, Aug. 23, 13
Smith, Conway, Nov. 8, 13
Somervill, Charles E., Jr., Dec. 6, 7
Spooner, A. Boyce, Oct. 11, 9
Steffenson, Dave, Jan. 10, 9
Strong, Robert, Oct. 25, 7; Nov. I, 9; 8, 9;

22, 9; 29, 9; Dec. 6, 9; 13, 10; 27, 9

Taylor, G. Aiken, May 10, 7; 31, 7; June

14, 7; 21, 9; April 4, 9
Toliver, Ralph, Feb. 14, 11
Turner, Roger, Jan. 10, 11

Vander Meer, Lewis, March 14, 7
Vellenga, Jacob J., Oct. 18, 7
Vidal, Lauris G. Jan. 17, 13

Wahl, Mrs. W. D., Oct. 11, 13; Dec. 13, 13
Walker, Laurence C, June 14, 13; Dec. 27,
13

Wang, Edwin, July 12, 7
Watkins, W. Eugene, Jr., March 7, 13
Watson, Loren V., Sept. 6, 12
Watson, Richard G., May 3, 11; April 4, 7
Webster, Warren W., Feb. 7, 7
Whitlock, Luder G., Jr., March 21, 9
Wideman, Bruce, May 3, 9
Wilcox, Mrs. G. M., Feb. 28, 13
Wilhelm, A. Wayne, Nov. 22, 13; April 25,
13

Wilkes, Linwood G., Aug. 30, 9; Dec. 6, 11
Wilkinson, Ben, Oct. 4, 11; March 28, 10;
April 4, 8

Williamson, Rene de Visme, Jan. 17, 7;

24, 10; 31, 10; Feb. 7, 9
Williamson, W. Jack, Aug. 2, 9; Sept. 20,

7; Nov. 29, 7

Challenge from Our Heritage, C. Gregg

Singer, Aug. 23, 13
Christ, the Motivator, Laurence C. Walker,

Dec. 27, 13
Christian Fellowship in the Church, Burt

D. Braunius, Dec. 20, 13
Christian Service, Burt D. Braunius, March

21, 13

Crime and Punishment, John T. Harllee,

June 28, 13
Cult of Comfort. A. Wayne Wilhelm, April

25. 13

Cutting the Gordian Knot, Wilbert Ed-
wards, Nov. 1, 13

Different View, A, M. P. Niven, Aug. 2,
13

Explo '72, John Seel and Daly Dietrick,
July 26, 13

Faith as Big as God's Creation, A, Robert
M. Metcalf Jr., Jan. 24, 13

God, I'm Talking About You Again, Mrs.

Alton Barnes, May 31, 13
Good Gift, A, Mrs. W. D. Wahl, Dec. 13,

13

Good That I Would . . . , The, Laurence
C. Walker, June 14, 13

Helping the Helpless, Mrs. Everett S. Graf-
fam, Jan. 3, 13

How You Can Tell You're Alive, Mrs. Hen-
ry M. Hope, Oct. 18, 13

I Know, Mrs. Harry Rimmer, March 28, 13
It Haunted Me!, Mrs. Edwin P. Elliott Sr.,
May 4, 13

Launch Out into the Deep, Mrs. Thelma

Hall, Aug. 16, 13
Leaving Home But Not Family, Arthur

Matthews, Aug. 9, 17
Liberated from What?, Mrs. A. J. Balluff,

Feb. 14, 13

Man Who Cared, A, Mrs. David L. Cole-
man, May 17, 13

One Woman's Viewpoint, Mrs. G. M. Wil-
cox, Feb. 28, 13

One-Shot Christians, R. C. Cropper, Feb.
21, 13

Organization Or Organism?, Vernon W.
Patterson, April 4, 13

Reflections of an Upstart, Lauris G. Vidal,

Jan. 17, 13
Reverend Bob's Social Gospel, Conway

Smith, Nov. 8, 13

Spirit Works Wonders, The, Tom Rose,
May 3, 15

Thinking Christian, The, Edward Rich-
mond Jr., April 11, 13

Three Commissions, Miss Nancy May Pen-
ney, Jan. 10, 13

Tomorrow's Leaders, Jonathan H. Allen,
July 5, 17

Troubled? Look Outward and Upward,
Vernon W. Patterson, Dec. 6, 13

True Church Will Not Pass, The, R. C.
Cropper, June 7, 13

Two Trials, James B. Copeland Jr., Sept.
27, 13

Undisciplined Church, The, Mrs. Henry
A. Hope, March 14, 13

We Can't Lose, Bill Melden, Sept. 6, 13
What Do You Believe?, Milford H. Ly-
man. Nov. 29, 15
What Time Is It?, Mrs. W. D. Wahl, Oct.
11, 13

What's Wrong with the Sunday School?,
Mrs. Charles C. Galbraith, Sept. 13, 13

When Man Seeks Meaning, W. Eugene
Watkins Jr., March 7, 13

HIGH SCHOOL: Principal; full time music;
German combination. Elem. Teacher/
Principal. Reformed Christian philosophy
in varied church community near Phila.
Write Wm. Viss, Phila. Mont. Chr. Acad;
Jarrettown o.d., Dresher, Pa. 19025

Layman And His Church

PAGE 25 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 25, 1973

Who Will Resurrect You?, Tom Rose, Nov.
15, 13

Whv Thank God? I Did It!, A. Wayne Wil-

helm, Nov. 22, 13
With Reverence, Hampton H. Irvin, Mav

10, 13

Witness? Who, Me?, Tom Rose, Oct. 25, 13

Editorials

About Trusting Those Over 30, May 3, 14
Accent on Youth, Dec. 27, 12
Ambassadors in Chains, Oct. 25, 13
And on Earth, Dec. 20, 12
Another Double Standard, June 14, 12
Another Movement Starts, Aug. 2, 12
Another Sign of the Last Days, May 10, 12

Both Sin Against the Spirit, Jan. 17, 12
'Brother' Is Not a Universal Term, Sept.
27. 13

Christ Arose! Or Did He?, Peter Pascoe,

April 18, 12
'Christian' Character and the Word of God,

Oct. 4, 12
Christian, Look Around!, May 31, 13
Christmas in the Heart, Dec. 20, 13
Church and Abortion, The, Jan. 10, 12
Church Must Reject This One, The, May

10, 12

Commandments No Longer Matter, The,

Nov. 29, 14
Comment from Japan, A, June 7, 12
Commission Goes Too Far, Wakes Church

Up, Nov. 29, 14
Crusade Will Now Shift to Amnesty, The,

Feb. 21, 12

Depends on How You Look at It, Nov. 29,
14

Diligence in Service, Fred Mitchell, Feb.
14, 12

Dividends of Knowledge, Ruby Sailor, Dec.
6, 13

Don't Be Careless, July 26, 12
Don't Be Helpless, Oct. 25, 12

Ecumenism: Its Cause and Its Cure, March
21, 12

Faith: What Is It?, The, Jan. 24, 13
Figures Don't Tell All, But . . . , Dec. 6,
12

GIVE US A CHANCE
to give you good service
on your subscription by
notifying the Weaver-
ville office at least
three weeks before a
change of address is to
take effect. Send both
old and new addresses.
And zip codes, please!

For a Proper Moderation, June 28, 13
For Firmness of Resolve, Jan. 3, 12
For the Record, Aug. 9, 16
For Want of a Word, Oct. 25, 12
From What Do Wc Learn?, March 21,

12

Go On! Grow Up!, Jan. 24, 12
Gospel Is First of All Truth, The, Oct. 11,
13

Having Trouble Getting Started, Oct. 11,
12

He Feared Only God, Paul G. Settle, May
3, 14

His Word Endures Forever, March 7, 12
How God Works in Evangelism, Aug. 16,
12

How to Be Wise, Sept. 13, 13

How to Know Christ, Enise Kirby, Aug.

16, 12

How to Pray, Dec. 13, 13

How to Tell the Difference, March 7, 13

How You Can Witness, May 10, 12

In the Wake of the Cease Fire, Feb. 7, 12
Incongruous Assembly, The, July 5, 16
Is It the End for a Gallant Nation?, May

17, 12

Is Witnessing Difficult?, April 18, 13

Issue to Be Resolved, The, Sept. 6, 12

It's a Crisis of Faith, Oct. 11, 12

It's Always Godless, May 24, 12

It's Important to Be Connectional, Sept.

27, 12

Joy by the Spoonful, Ruby Sailor, Nov. 15,
12

Last Warning, The Family Altar, Sept. 13,
12

Lesson of Key '73, The, April 11, 12
Let's Add a Prayer for Mercy, Nov. 22, 12
'Liberal' ... A One-Way Street?, March

28, 13

Liberal Is Converted, A, Jan. 17, 12
'Liberation' and the GEB, April 11, 12
Living God Is the Blessed Trinity, The,

William C. Robinson, Sept. 20, 13
Looking Back, April 25, 12
Looking Towards the 1972 Assembly, May

31, 12

'Louisville Story, The', Aug. 23, 12

Message Is Power, The, Robert M. Met-

calf Jr., May 17, 12
Mini Editorial, Feb. 7, 12
Mistaken Philosophy, A, Sept. 20, 12
Murmur in Presbytery, A, Dec. 20, 13
Must We Be Seamy?, Nov. 1, 12

Needed: Courses in Ethics, June 7, 12
Needed: Discipline, Nov. 8, 12
Neither Cold Nor Hot, Oct. 18, 12
New Barbarians, The, National Catholic

Register, March 14, 12
New Confession Is Released, The, Aug. 9,

16

Nil Desperandum!, Ruby Sailor, Jan. 3, 13
No Chicken Like a Church Chicken, Feb.

21, 12

No, Dr. Thompson, You're Mistaken, Nov.

22, 12

Not for Any Merit of Ours, Nov. 1, 12
Now He Doesn't Have to Pray, June 21, 12
Now Is the Acceptable Time, Paul G. Set-
tle, July 12, 13

Of Churchmen and Politics, Dec. 13, 12
Of Confirmation and the Lord's Supper,

April 25, 12
Of Crime and Punishment, VII, VIII, IX,

July 26, 12; Dec. 27, 12; Jan. 31, 12
Of Fanatics and Such, Aug. 16, 12

Of Wrath and Judgment, Aug. 30, 12
Off Again on Again in Again out Again
Oct. 18, 12

On Having a Tidy Theology, Gene W
Newberry, Aug. 16, 13

Parable of a Sinking Ship, Aug. 23, 12
Parable of Three Deacons, A, Dec. 13, 12
People Must Know, The, Sept. 13, 12
People Over Musicians, April 18, 12
Politics in Japan, June 14, 12
Pray God for a New Reformation, June
21, 12

Prayin' for a Reporter, Sept. 20, 12
Presbyterian Baptism, William C. Robin

son, Aug. 2, 13
Pro-Communism in NCC Literature, Feb

14, 12

Prognosis Is Not Good, The, June 28, 15
Putting Things in Perspective, Nov. 22, 15

Receiving Sight, Enise Kirby, Aug. 23, 13
Recover Reformation by Return to Rome?

March 14, 13
Reformation vs. Revolt, Oct. 4, 12
Reformed Faith . . . What Is It?, The, Oct

4, 12

Rejoicing and Righteousness, Fred Mitch

ell, Feb. 28, 12
•Relating to Youth', June 28, 12
Restoring Harmony, Ruby Sailor, Dec. 13

12

Revelation Is More Than Event, June 21
12

Revival Calls for Strong Church, July 12
12

Salvation Today: Quest Or Fact?, Roben

Cowles, Jan. 24, 12
Satisfied With His Provision, Fred Mitch

ell, Dec. 27, 13
Seek, and Ye Shall Find, Jan. 10, 12
Signs of Hope, Sept. 13, 12
'Silly Season' Is On, The, June 14, 13
Some Reformation Day Thoughts, Oct. 25

12

Some Thoughts on Women's Lib., Nov. 8
12

Soul Food, Ken Ripley, April 11, 12
Stand Up! Put Up!, E. F. Klug, Feb. 21, f
System Has Changed, The, Jan. 3, 12

lake Care What You Say, Aug. 23, 12
Taking Theology Seriously, Nov. 1, 12
Tale of Intrigue, A, Aug. 2, 12
Their Only Consistency, May 10, 13
There's More to Wisdom Than Knowledge

Feb. 14, 12
They Accomplish Nothing, July 5, 17
They Are Racists?, March 21, 12
They Cannot Be Trusted, Feb. 28, 12
Things Have Changed, Aug. 2, 12
This Has Been Going On a Long Time

May 31, 12
This Layman Comes Across Loud ant

Clear, Dec. 20, 12
This Thing Called Existentialism, Feb. 28

12

Time Has Come for Love, The, March 7
12

To Go Or Not to Go, Jan. 31, 12
To Subscribe Or Not to Subscribe, A
30, 12

Unnecessary Bureaucracy, Nov. 8, 13

We Honestly Don't Understand, Jan. 17, II;
We Pledge Love Towards the Brethren

March 7, 12
We Support Key '73. March 14, 12
Week That Was, The, George S. Lauder

dale, March 7, 12

PAGE 26 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 25, 1973

What Did the UPUSA Mean? June 7, 12
What Distinguishes Presbyterians?, Loren

V. Watson, Sept. 6, 12
What Do They Mean, 'Jesus Is Coming

Soon'?, March 28, 12
What Do You Mean, 'Be Relevant'?, May

3, 14

What Fidelity Requires, April 4, 12
What Hath God Wrought?, Jan. 10, 12
What If Language Becomes Meaningless?,
Dec. 6, 12

What Is Christianity?, Trefon Sagadencky,

July 12, 12
What Price Change?, Nov. 29, 15
What Some Do to Plain Language, Nov.

15, 12

What Sovereignty Means, Feb. 21, 12
What's Happened to Our Youth?, July 12,
13

When Is the Sabbath?, May 24, 12
When Language Confuses, April 25, 12

Abortion: The Personal Dilemma, June 28,
17

Americans Speak Out, Aug. 16, 20
Audio-Visual Media in Christian Educa-
tion, Jan. 10, 20

Before I Forget, May 3, 20

Biblical Revelation, June 21, 17

Birth, Care and Feeding of a Local Church,

The, Jan. 31, 18
Book of Isaiah, Vol. Ill, Sept. 6, 17
Book of Numbers, The, Nov. 1, 19
Book of Witnesses, The, Oct. 11, 20
Break the Glass Wall, Aug. 2, 18

Calvin on the Sciences, Sept. 6, 19
Cambuslang Revival, The, May 17, 18
Campus Aflame, Jan. 24, 18
Christ and the Modern Mind, Jan. 24, 18
Christian Faith and Modern Theology,

June 21, 19
Church Alive, Sept. 13, 21
Church at the End of the 20th Century,

The, Nov. 8, 21
Church in God's Program, The, Nov. 8,

19

City: A Matter of Conscience, The, March
28, 17

City and the Sign, The, April 4, 19
Colossians, Nov. 15, 18
Commentary on I Peter, Dec. 6, 20
Commentary on the Gospel of John, May
10, 24

Commentary on the Revelation of John, A,

May 31, 19
Communion Meditation and Prayers,

March 21, 19
Communist Conquest of Shanghai, The,

Aug. 2, 17
Compelling Indwelling, The, Jan. 3, 18
Counseling, April 4, 17
Covenental Sabbath, The, Dec. 6, 18

Dawn Over Amazonia, Sept. 27, 17
Decide for Yourself: A Theological Work-
book, Oct. 4, 18
Defense of Christianity Sc My Credo, The,

June 21, 17
Deliver Us From Evil, Feb. 14, 21
Designed to Be Like Him, Oct. 4, 17
Dictionary of Satanism, May 24, 18

Earth's Most Challenging. Mysteries, Nov.
8, 20

18-No Time to Waste, Mav 31, 19
Encounter With God, April 25, 20

When the Church Tries to Cut Off Its

Own Nose, Sept. 6, 12
When You Ordain Your Officers, Sept. 27,

12

Where the Difference Lies, July 5, 16
Who Is the Head of the Church?, July
26, 12

Whom Do We Confess?, William C. Robin-
son, May 24, 12
Who's in the 'Family'?, Aug. 30, 12
Why Evangelize?, Paul G. Settle, Feb. 7,
12

Why He Came, Enise Kirby, Oct. 4, 13
Why Insist on One View of Revelation?,

Nov. 15, 12
Why Sheep Are Treated Like Sheep, Oct.

18, 12

Will Revival Resolve the Issue?, March 28,
12

Win People . . . How?, April 4, 12
With the Coming of Spring, April 4, 12

Except Ye Repent, April 18, 19

Every Day Bible Reading for Each Day of

the Year, Feb. 7, 17
Expanded Life, The, March 7, 17
Exposition of Isaiah, Vol. I, Dec. 20, 17
Expository Sermons on the Book of Dan-
iel, Vols. 3-4, April 4, 21

Faith for the Times, April II, 20
Feed My Sheep, March 21, 17
For a World Like Ours, Sept. 13, 20
Free to Be Me, June 21, 19
From Manger to Mansion, Nov. 8, 19

Galatians, Nov. 15, 18
Galatians, April 25, 18

Galatians: A Letter for Today, Nov. 1, 19
General Introduction to the Bible, A, Sept.
13, 22

Get Your Hands Off My Throat, Aug. 16,
18

Give It to Me Straight, Doctor, Nov. 1, 18
Gleanings From Elisha, Dec. 6, 20
God, Aug. 16, 19
God of Science, The, July 5, 22
God's Plan: Past, Present, Future, May 3,
22

Greening of the Church, The, June 21, 18
Guide to Child Rearing, A, Feb. 21, 17
Guiding Light, The, May 24, 19

Habitation of Dragons, July 26, 17

Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, March 7, 19

Healers of the Mind, July 5, 23

Flebrews, July 26, 18

Help! I'm a Parent, Nov. 8, 22

Helping Families Through the Church,

May 10, 22
Historical Backgrounds of Bible History,

May 17, 19
Homiletics, April 18, 20
Hope for Your Church, Oct. 25, 18
How I Changed My Thinking About the

Church, April 18, 17
How to Be a Christian in an Un-Christian

World, Nov. 8, 20
How to Be a Minister's Wife and Love it,

May 3, 22
How to Face Your Fears, Feb. 14, 21
How to Preach to People's Needs, Aug. 23,

18

How to Start Your Own School— And Why

You Need One, Nov. 29, 19
Human Quest, The, Dec. 13, 20
Hungry hiherit, The, Aug. 23, 20

/ Will Build My Church, Aug. 16, 20
In Place of Sacraments, March 28, 17
Independent Bible Study, Dec. 20, 17
Insight, Aug. 23, 19

Interludes in a Woman's Day, May 10, 24
Introduction to Christian Missions, An,

Jan. 24, 17
Introduction to Contemporary Preaching,

An, April 4, 19
Invitation to Joy, May 10, 22
Is the Family to Stay?, July 12, 24
Is This Really the End:, March 21, 17
Issues of Theological Warfare, Feb. 28, 17

James, Sept. 6, 17

James, A Practical Faith, Nov. 29, 21

Jeannette Li, April 4, 20

'Jesus Family' in Communist China, The,

July 26, 17
Jesus' Prophetic Sermon, July 12, 24
lob, Sept. 6, 17

John Calvin vs. the Westminster Confes-
sion, Aug. 16, 17

John: Life Eternal, Nov. 1, 18

josliua, Epistles of John & Jude, I Corin-
thians, March 7, 19

Journey Away from God, Feb. 21, 17

Justification, May 17, 18

Kennedy Exposition, The, Mav 3, 20
Kingdom of God Visualized, The, Feb. 14,
21

Kirsty Affair, The, Nov. 1, 20
Knight in the Congo, A, April 4, 18

Letter to the Hebrews: The Living Word
Commentary, The, July 12, 17

Life and Writings of Francis Makemie,
Nov. 1, 17

Living Doctrines of the New Testament,

June 28, 17
Living That Counts, Nov. 29, 19

Man of the Word, A, Oct. 11, 20

Man Talk, March 7, 21

Man to Man, Aug. 23, 20

Man's Problems: God's Answers, Jan. 3, 19

Mark, Aug. 23, 17

Mark's Sketchbook of Christ, Sept. 13, 22
Martyred!, Oct. 18, 18
Men ' Who Build Churches, April 25, 18
Message to the Charismatic Movement, A,

March 21, 18
Millennial Studies, Feb. 21, 17
Minister's Obstacles, A, March 7, 18
Minute Prayers, Jan. 3, 19
Miracle of Love, The, Jan. 10, 20
Morality, Law and Grace, Nov. 8, 22
Moses and the Gods of Egypt, Feb. 7, 19
Much More!, Dec. 27, 17

Naked I, The, April 25, 18
New Compact Topical Bible, The, April
18, 19

New Genetics and the Future of Man, The,

March 21, 19
New Man . . . New World, April 18, 18
New Testament Introduction, Sept. 6, 18
New Testament Word Studies, Vols. I-II,

Oct. 18, 17
New World Idea Index to the Holy Bible,

The, Dec. 20, 18
Nine-To-Five Complex, The, April 18, 18
Novalis Spiritual Saturnalia, Nov. 8, 19

Old Testament: Its Claims and Its Critics,

The, Aug. 23, 17
Old Testament Prophets, The, July 12, 24
One to One, April 25, 19

Passport to Life City, Sept. 27, 17
Pastoral Epistles, The, Sept. 13, 22
People Called Cumberland Presbyterians,
A, Dec. 6, 17

Book Reviews

PAGE 27 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 25, 1973

Permissive Society, The, Aug. 23, 19
Philistines and the Old Testament, The,

Nov. 15, 17
Place to Belong, A, Feb. 28, 20
Plain Talk on Acts, Nov. 1, 20
Power of Positive Preaching to the Lost,

The, Aug. 16, 19
Preacher's Heritage, Task and Resources,

The, June 21, 19
Preaching and Preachers, Jan. 17, 17
Prophecy in the Making, March 28, 20
Psalms for Modern Man, The, (Today's

English Version) , Nov. 8, 20
Psychology for Successful Evangelism, Oct.

11, 20
Pursued, Nov. 8, 19

Quest for Noah's Ark, The, March 7, 17

Real Christmas, The, April 4, 21

Reality of the Resurrection, Sept. 20, 17

Religion and the Rise of Modern Science,

April 25, 20
Reshaping Evangelical Higher Education,

Feb. 14, 21

Resourceful Scouts in Action, March 7, 19
Revolution in Rome, April 4, 17

Rivers of Life, March 7, 17

Royal Roman Road, The, Aug. 16, 18

Samuel Willard: Preacher of Orthodoxy in

an Era of Change, Sept. 27, 19
Satan Is Alive and Well on Planet Earth,

March 28, 18
Sayings of Mao, of Jesus, Sept. 6, 17
Scientific Enterprise and Christian Faith,

The, June 21, 20
Searchlight on Bible Words, Feb. 28, 19
Sexual Understanding Before Marriage,

March 7, 18
Solomon to the Exile, Nov. 15, 17
Somebody Called. 'Doc', Feb. 7, 17
Stones and the Scriptures, The, Sept. 20,

17

Stop Treating Me Like God!, Dec. 20, 17
Structure of Biblical Authority, Jan. 3, 17
Studies in Isaiah and Jeremiah, March 7,
19

Subverters, The, Nov. 15, 17
Successful Chalk Talking, April 4, 22

Theological Crossings, May 31, 18
Thessalonian Epistles, The, April 25, 18
Things Which Soon Must Come to Pass,

The, July 26, 18
Through the Bible With a Physician, Oct.
18, 17

Today Is All You Have, Nov. 8, 19

Turning to God, Sept. 6, 20

Twelve Striking Sermons, Aug. 23, 18

Understanding and Counseling the Suicidal

Person, April 11, 20
Uttermost Part, An, July 26, 20

V. Raymond Edman, Feb. 28, 19
Visions and Prophecies of Zechariah, Tan.
31, 17

What About Tomorrow?, Sept. 13, 21
What Christ Thinks of the Church, April
25, 19

Who in the World?, Sept. 13, 20
Why Conservative Churches Are Growing,

Oct. 25, 17
Wisdom, the Principal Thing, Nov. 29, 22
Women in Church and Society, June 21

18

You and Yours, March 7, 21

You Can't Steal First Base, Jan. 17, 19

The Lord Is Coming — Evangelize Acts 1:11

EVANGELISM CONFERENCE

sponsored by Presbyterian Evangelistic Fellowship
ADDRESSES

Montreat, North Carolina August 9-14, 1973

THE BIBLE HOUR

DR. EDMUND CLOWNEY
President, Westminster
Theological Seminary
Philadelphia, Pa.

Subsequent ads in the Journal will present the Youth Program and the leaders.
In this ad we wish to list for you the MAIN ADDRESS speakers, THE BIBLE
HOUR leader and THE MUSIC PROGRAM

DR. ROBERT RAYBURN
President, Covenant
Theological Seminary
St. Louis, Mo.

DR. C. DARBY FULTON
Former Exec. Sec,
Board of World
Missions, PCUS
Nashville, Tenn.

DR. VANCE HAVNER

Baptist Pastor,
Author & Evangelist
Greensboro, N. C.

REV.

ONESIMUS J. RUNDUS

Pastor, Olivet
Presbyterian Church

Evansville, Ind.

REV. JACK SCOTT
Reformed Theological
Seminary
Jackson, Miss.

r\

MUSIC PROGRAM

REV. INER BASINGER
International
Gospel Singer and

Song Leader
Parkersburg, W. Va.

REV. FRANK BARKER
Pastor, Briarwood
Presbyterian Church
Birmingham, Ala.

REV. DONALD DUNKERLY
Pastor, Mcllwain
Presbyterian Church
Pensacola, Fla.

For Evangelism Conference brochures clip this coupon and mail to

PRESBYTERIAN EVANGELISTIC FELLOWSHIP
P. O. Box 808
Hopewell, Virginia 23860

Name

Address

City and state

-Zip-

Please send me.

-Evangelism Conference brochures.

MRS. INER BASINGER
Parkersburg, W. Va.

MRS. REUBEN WALLACE
Laurens, S. C.

PAGE 28 / THE PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL / APRIL 25, 1973

ft.